by Karen Rose
“For God’s sake, Dad,” Vito interrupted. “You know the kids can stay with me as long as they need to.”
“Well, I told him that, but Molly was worried they were causing you trouble.”
“Tell her they’re fine. Last night they made cake and played war in my living room.“
“Tess is coming to help you and Tino take care of them,” his father said and Vito felt a spurt of joy, despite his worry. He hadn’t seen his sister in months. “That way your mother and I can be here for Dino. Tess’s flight gets in at seven. She’s renting a car so she can get around while she’s here, so you don’t need to get her at the airport.”
“Is there anything else we can do?”
“No.” Michael Ciccotelli drew a deep breath. “Except pray, son.”
It had been a long time since he’d done so, but it would hurt his dad to know it. So Vito lied. “You know I will.” He slipped his phone back in his pocket.
“Will Molly be okay?” Nick asked quietly.
“Don’t know. My dad says to pray. In my experience that’s never good.”
“Well, if you need to go… just go, okay?”
“I will. Look.” Grateful for the diversion of work, Vito pointed to the back wall, where a tall door was opening. A woman appeared and walked toward them. She was petite, in her mid-thirties, and wore a sensible blue suit with a skirt that stopped at her knees. Her dark hair was pulled back in a neat twist, making her look professional and… boring, Vito realized. She could use some big hoop earrings and a red bandana. She moved behind the desk, obviously sizing them up.
“Can I help you two gentlemen?” she asked, her accent crisp and British.
Vito showed his badge. “I’m Detective Ciccotelli and this is my partner, Detective Lawrence. We’re here to see Dr. Johannsen.”
The woman’s eyes took on a speculative light. “Has she done something wrong?”
Nick shook his head. “No. May we see her?”
“Now?”
Vito bit his tongue. “Now would be good.” He looked at her nametag. “Miss Albright.” Up close Vito realized she was much younger than he’d thought, probably in her early twenties. Apparently his age-guesser needed a tune-up.
The woman pursed her lips. “She’s giving a tour right now. If you’ll come this way.”
She led them through the tall door into a large room where a small crowd of five or six families had gathered. The walls themselves were dark wood, one covered with a faded tapestry. From the other wall hung large banners. The far wall was the most impressive, however, covered with crisscrossing swords. Below the swords stood three suits of armor, completing a grand effect.
“Sweet,” Vito murmured. “My nephews would love this.” It would certainly keep their minds off Molly. He decided to bring them here as soon as he could.
“Look.” Nick surreptitiously pointed to a fourth suit of armor, standing toward the right side of the hall. A sour-faced boy about Dante’s age stood a foot from the armor, loudly complaining about the wait. He stomped his foot and sneered.
“This is so boring. Crummy suit of armor. I’ve seen better in a junkyard.” He started to kick at the armor when it abruptly bent at the waist in a clatter of metal. Visibly frightened, the boy scrambled back, his eyes wide and his face pale. The crowd went silent and Nick chuckled softly. “I saw it move a second ago. Served the brat right.”
Vito was about to agree when a booming voice thundered from inside the armor. It took him a second to realize the knight was speaking French, but it didn’t take a linguist to understand the meaning. The knight was royally pissed.
The boy shook his head in fear and took two steps back. The knight drew his sword with dramatic flair and matched the kid step for step. He repeated the question more loudly and Vito realized it was the voice of a woman, not a man. A smile tugged at his mouth. “That’s Sophie in there. She said they made her dress up.”
Nick was grinning. “My high school French is rusty, but I think she basically said ‘What is your name, you bad little boy?’”
The boy opened his mouth but no sound emerged.
From a side door a man appeared. The size of a linebacker, he wore a dark blue suit and tie. He was shaking his head. “Whoa, whoa. What seems to be the problem?”
The figure in the armor regally pointed to the boy and uttered something scathing.
The man looked down at the kid. “She says you’re rude and you’re trespassing.”
The kid’s face heated in embarrassment as the other children laughed.
The man shook his head. “Joan, Joan. How many times have I asked you not to scare the children? She’s sorry,” he said to the kid.
The knight shook her head emphatically. “Non.”
The children’s laughter grew louder and all the adults were smiling. The man sighed dramatically. “Yes, you are. Let’s just get on with the tour. S’il vous plaît.”
The knight handed the man her sword and lifted the helm from her head, revealing Sophie with her long hair braided in a golden crown around her head. She stuck the helm under one arm and lifted the other to gesture to the walls.
“Bienvenue au musée d’Albright de l’histoire. Je m’appelle Jeanne d’Arc.”
“Joan,” the man interrupted. “They don’t speak French.”
She blinked and stared down at the children who now stared up, mesmerized. Even the rude boy was listening. “Non?” she asked, disbelieving.
“No,” the man said and she rattled off another question.
“She wants to know what language you speak,” he told them. “Who can tell her?”
A little girl of about five with golden curls raised her hand and Vito saw Sophie’s jaw tighten, so very slightly that he might have missed it had he not been watching. But she quickly smoothed her expression as the child spoke. “English. We speak English.”
Sophie grew comically horrified. This was part of her act, but he was certain her expression a moment ago was not and found his curiosity aroused once again. Along with the rest of him. He hadn’t realized a woman with a sword would be such a turn on.
“Anglais?” Sophie demanded and grabbed her sword in a pretend rage. The little girl’s eyes went even wider and the man sighed again.
“Joan, we’ve been over this before. Don’t frighten the guests. When American children come in, you speak English. And no insults this time, please. Just behave.”
Sophie sighed. “The things I must do,” she said, her words heavily accented. “But… it is a living. Even I, Joan of Arc, must pay my bills.” She looked at the parents. “You understand bills, do you not? There is the rent and the food.” She shrugged. “And the cable TV. Essentials of life, non?”
The parents were nodding and smiling, and once again Vito found himself intrigued.
She looked down at the children. “It’s just that, well, you see, we are at war with the English. You understand this word war, do you not, petits enfants?”
The children nodded. “Why are you at war, Miss Of Arc?” one of the fathers asked.
She shot the father a charming smile. “S’il vous plaît, call me Joan,” she said. “Well, it is like this-” It was at that moment she saw Vito and Nick standing off to the side. The smile stayed pasted to her mouth but disappeared from her eyes and Vito felt the frost from half a room away. She looked to the man in the suit and tie. “Monsieur Albright, we have visitors. Can you help them?”
“What the hell did you do to her, Chick?” Nick muttered.
“I have no idea.” He followed her with his eyes as she rounded the children up and led them to the wall with the banners, starting her tour. “But I plan to find out.”
The man in the suit approached, smiling. “I’m Ted Albright. How can I help you?”
“I’m Detective Lawrence and this is Detective Ciccotelli. We’d like to talk to Dr. Johannsen as soon as it’s possible. When will her tour be completed?”
Albright looked worried. “Is there some kind of t
rouble?”
“No,” Nick assured him. “Nothing like that at all. We’re working a case and have some questions for her. History-type questions,” he added.
“Oh.” Albright perked up. “I can answer them.”
Vito remembered Sophie saying that Albright just played at historian. “We appreciate it,” he said, “but we’d really prefer to speak with Dr. Johannsen. If the tour will be more than fifteen minutes, we can go have our lunch and come back.”
Albright glanced over to where Sophie was now telling the children about the swords mounted on the wall. “A tour runs an hour. She should be free after that.”
Nick slipped his shield back in his pocket. “Then we’ll be back. Thank you.”
Chapter Seven
Dutton, Georgia, Monday, January 15, 1:15
P.M.
Daniel sat on his parents’ bed. For an hour he’d stared at the floor, telling himself to pull back the floorboard he knew concealed his father’s safe. He hadn’t checked it yesterday. He didn’t want Frank to know about the safe, much less its contents.
He wasn’t sure what he’d find inside today. He knew he didn’t want to know. But he’d put it off long enough. This was the safe his father thought no one else in the family knew about. Not his wife, and certainly not any of his children.
But Daniel knew. In a family like his, it had paid to be the one to know where the secrets were hidden. And where the guns were kept. His father had many gun cabinets and many safes, but this was his only gun safe. This is where he kept the weapons Daniel suspected had their serial numbers filed off. Certainly they were unregistered.
Arthur’s unregistered guns had nothing to do with why they might have gone to Philadelphia or where they went when they got there, but Daniel hadn’t been able to find any clues anywhere else he’d looked. So here he sat. Just do it.
He pulled away the wood and looked at the safe. He’d found the combination oh-so-cleverly concealed in his father’s Rolodex as a birthday of a long-dead aunt. Daniel remembered the aunt and her actual birthday, as it had been close to his own.
He dialed the combination and was rewarded with a click. He was in.
But the guns weren’t. The only contents of the safe were a check register and a memory stick for a computer. The check register wasn’t from the bank the Vartanians had used for generations. Even before he opened it, Daniel knew what he’d find.
There were a steady progression of withdrawals, all written in his father’s hand. Every transaction was written “to cash” in the amount of five thousand dollars.
It was most certainly blackmail. But Daniel was un-surprised.
He wondered which part of Arthur’s past had come back to haunt them all. He wondered what was on the memory stick that his father hadn’t wanted anyone else to see. He wondered when the next flight left for Philadelphia.
Monday, January 15, 1:40
P.M.
Sophie ripped at the Velcro that held the armor together. “Ted, for the third time, I don’t know why they want to talk with me,” she snapped. Ted Albright’s grandfather was an archeological legend, but somehow not one of those brilliant genes had been passed down to Ted. “This is a history museum. Perhaps they have a history question. Can you stop with the third degree and get this off me? It weighs a freaking ton.”
Ted lifted the heavy breastplate over her head. “They could have asked me.”
Like you’d know Napoleon from Lincoln. Outwardly she gathered her composure and calmly replied. “Ted, I’ll talk to them and see what they want, okay?”
“Okay.” He helped her remove the greaves from her shins and she sat down to yank off the boots that covered her own shoes. Vito “The Rat” Ciccotelli was waiting outside. That she wanted to see him less than Ted Albright said it all. That they’d seen her in period garb made it even worse. It was humiliating.
“Next time you schedule a knight tour, make sure Theo is here. That armor really does weigh a ton.” She stood up and stretched. “And it’s hot under there.”
“For someone who claims to love authenticity, you complain a helluva lot,” Ted grumbled. “Some historian you are.”
Sophie bit back what would have been a nasty retort. “I’ll be back after lunch, Ted.”
“Don’t take too long,” he called after her. “You’re a Viking at three.”
“You can take your Viking and…” she muttered, then rolled her eyes when she saw Patty Ann leaning across the front desk, flirting shamelessly with the two detectives.
She had to admit they were two fine-looking men. Both tall and broad shouldered, handsome by anyone’s standards. With his sandy red hair and earnest face, Nick Lawrence had a country-boy kind of appeal, but Vito Ciccotelli was… Admit it, Sophie. You know you’re thinking it. She let out a weary sigh. Fine. He’s hot, okay? He’s hot and he’s a rat, just like all the others.
She stopped next to the desk. “Gentlemen. How can I help you today?”
Nick flashed her a look of relief. “Dr. Johannsen.”
Patty Ann’s look was decidedly more threatening as she arched an overplucked eyebrow. “They’re detectives, Sophie,” she said and Sophie swallowed her sigh. Patty Ann had apparently decided to be British today. The proper blue suit now made more sense. “Homicide detectives,” she added menacingly. “They want to question you.”
Nick shook his head. “We’d just like to talk with you, Dr. Johannsen.”
Because he wasn’t a rat, she gave him a smile. “I was about to get lunch. I can give you thirty minutes.”
Vito held the door open for her. He hadn’t said a word, but that probing gaze of his hadn’t left her face either. She gave him a glance that she hoped was as menacing as Patty Ann’s had been to her. He frowned, so she considered herself successful.
The air outside felt wonderful against her skin. “If we could make this quick, I’d appreciate it. Ted has another tour scheduled and I have to get dressed.” She stopped at the end of the sidewalk. “So shoot.”
Vito looked up and down the street. It was midday, and both car and foot traffic was heavy. “Can we go someplace a bit more private?” The frown on his face had made it into his voice. “We don’t want to be overheard.”
“How about my car?” Nick asked smoothly and led the way, then held open the front passenger door. “Wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea by making you sit in the back,” he said with an easy smile, then quickly slid in the back seat. She watched Vito aim a dirty glare Nick’s way before taking the driver’s seat next to her. Nick simply raised a brow in response and Sophie knew she was being manipulated.
Annoyed, she grabbed the door handle. “Gentlemen, I don’t have time for games.”
Vito clasped her shoulder, his hand gentle but firm as he held her in place. “This is no game,” he said grimly. “Please, Sophie.”
Reluctantly she let go of the handle and Vito let go of her. “What’s this about?”
“First of all, we wanted to thank you for your help yesterday,” Nick said. “But studying the bodies we’ve recovered so far has raised more questions.” He leaned one shoulder against the back of the driver’s seat and dropped his voice. “We found a strange pattern of punctures on one of our victims. Katherine believes they were caused by nails or some kind of sharp spikes. The punctures start at the neck and stretch down the back of her body to the middle of her calf. There are similar punctures down the back of her arms. We think the victim was forced to sit on a chair of nails.”
She shook her head in reflexive denial. “You’re joking, right? Please say you’re joking.” But the memory of the dead man’s face, posed hands, and disemboweled body pushed the denial from her mind. “You’re serious.”
Vito nodded once. “Very.”
A shiver shook her. “The inquisitional chair,” she said quietly.
“Nick found a photo on a museum website,” Vito said. “So the chairs did exist.”
She nodded, her imagination painting horrific picture
s. “Oh yes, they existed.”
“Tell us about them,” Vito said. “Please.”
She drew a deep breath, hoping her stomach would calm. “Let’s see… Well, first, the chair was one of many tools used by inquisitors.”
“Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Nick murmured grimly.
“The Spanish Inquisition is the one that most people are familiar with, but there were several inquisitions.” It was easier to lecture than to think about the victims. “The first was the Medieval Inquisition. The chair existed during the later Spanish period and may have existed in the Medieval, but its use is a topic of debate among historians. If it was used, it wasn’t used as often as most of the other torture methods or devices.”
Nick looked up from the notes he’d been scratching in his notebook. “Why not?”
“According to original accounts, the inquisitors got a lot of benefit just by showing the chair to the accused. It’s a terrifying sight, more terrifying in person than the picture.”
“You’ve seen one?” Nick asked.
“Where?” Vito added when she nodded.
“In museums. There are several in Europe with good examples.”
“So, where would someone get an inquisitional chair today?” Vito pressed.
“It wouldn’t be that hard to make a simple one, if someone really wanted to. Of course there were more sophisticated models, even in the Middle Ages. Most of the chairs had simple restraints, but some had cranks that could tighten the restraints, forcing the nails deeper. And…” She sighed. “Some had metal sheeting that could be heated, burning the accused’s skin as well as puncturing it.” Vito and Nick exchanged a look and she lifted her hand to her mouth, horrified. “No.”
“Where would someone get such a chair?” Vito repeated. “Please, Sophie.”
The reality of their request began to sink in and a sense of panic began to crowd the horror. They were depending on her knowledge to find a killer and suddenly she felt totally inadequate. “Look, guys, my specialty is medieval fortifications and strategic warfare. My knowledge of inquisitional hardware is very basic at best. Why don’t I call an expert? Dr. Fournier at the Sorbonne is world renowned.”