Sunken Pyramid (Rogue Angel)

by Alex Archer

  “Mitch’ll take me, won’t you? Mitch has a license and a car and he can drive and take a book and read in the lobby while I go to the seminars and it’ll be great and so very awesome.” The girl’s lower lip trembled. “OhmyGod.” She shut her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. “But if I have your pass and you’re in Madison for the conference, how are you going to go to the conference and—”

  “I think I’m done at the conference,” Annja said. “I think I’m going to spend a day or so here.”

  “Not on the big snake?”

  “No, not on the snake.”

  The girl brightened. “Oh, the mounds in the lake!”

  “There you go,” Annja said.

  “Awesome.”

  “Whatever.” This from the boy. “Keesha, can we just—”

  “Okay, okay, the beach, I get it. And then the carnival. But tomorrow you’re taking me to Madison.”

  “Whatever.”

  “OhmyGod. Thankyousomuch, Annja Creed. Thankyouthankyou.”

  The boy tugged her down the street in the direction of the lake.

  Chapter 18

  Annja finally pushed open the shop door, stepped inside and saw an incredible jumble of...stuff.

  “Help you?” This came from a bearded middle-aged man with a bald head that gleamed in the overhead fluorescent light. He had a slight paunch, rounded shoulders and was wearing a Batman Lives T-shirt that had seen many better days.

  The shop smelled fusty, and Annja forced down a sneeze. She walked across a wooden floor that creaked with each step, stopping in front of the counter. “I hope you can help. I’m trying to find out about—” The word Joe died in her throat. On display in the glass counter in front of her were coins. Most of them were quarters issued to commemorate the various states—and most of those were the Wisconsin variety—with a few silver dollars in the mix. There were a couple of silver certificates in plastic sleeves, and against a piece of velvet was a gold circle a little larger than a silver dollar showing a half-wolf, half-man figure—the same size as the circles Edgar had. She was surprised she spotted it, what with all the other items strewn around it.

  She pointed to the coin.

  “Oh, that’s reeeeeeeeeeeeal valuable,” Sully said. “It’s reeeeeeeeeeal gold. If it was for sale, well, that’d cost you a cool thousand. And it’s not for sale.”

  “Do you have more?”

  “Ones like that? I did. Sold them late last summer. Keeping this one for myself. It looks good in the counter, don’t you think? Sentimental, you understand. My cousin gave them to me.”

  “Your cousin Joe gave them to you?”

  “Yeah, Joe. Rest his soul.”

  “Them. Gave them to you. How many did you have?”

  He gave her a mean look. “What’s it to you? I’m not selling this one. Last real good thing I got of my cousin’s. That and an ugly old pot that I’m using for a spittoon.” He reached under the counter and pulled out a silver flask, unscrewed the top and took a long drink. “To Joe,” he said as a toast, taking a second swallow then putting the cap back on.

  Annja smelled the whiskey.

  She glanced around. To her left was a shelf filled with political memorabilia, including a bobblehead Ronald Reagan, a plush Bill Clinton doll and a case of presidential campaign pins, some of them quite old—Harding, Coolidge, “Let’s Back Ike” and a Landon Knox Kansas, whom she’d never heard of. Amid the junk, Sully had some truly expensive and valuable pieces. She hoped he had good security.

  “Where did Joe get the gold circles?” she asked. “Do you mind telling me that?”

  He shrugged.

  Annja looked around for something to buy. “I’ll take that old postal coupon. How much?”

  “Twenty.” He took it out of the case.

  She paid for it and put it in her purse. “The woman across the street told me Joe was killed last fall.”

  “Sucked,” Sully said. “Sucked a big onion, it did. Not just killed. Murdered. Still haven’t caught the guy. Probably thought Joe was loaded.”

  “Because of the gold circles?” Annja pointed to the glass case.

  “That and some other stuff probably.” Sully folded his arms across his chest and shook his head as if he was disgusted. “But he wasn’t loaded. Joe, he didn’t keep anything for himself, you know. He was gonna be a priest at one point. Didn’t work out, but he hung on to the poverty thing. Kept enough to live on, barely, and gave everything else away. Friggin’ everything. Probably why some bugger thought Joe was loaded. Didn’t even buy paperbacks. Checked stuff out of the library. Worked on the pots across the way ’cause he liked messing with the clay wheel, he told me. They didn’t pay him much, not what he should’ve earned. He only needed enough money for food, rent and a few hobbies, is what he always told me.”

  “Where did Joe...where did Joe get them, the gold?” Annja tried to keep the excitement out of her voice.

  “You want to buy anything else?” Sully raised his eyebrows. “I got some old gold rings and such if you have to have gold.”

  “How about that ten-dollar silver certificate? How much is that?”

  Sully brightened. “I can let you have it for two hundred. And that’s a bargain. Issued out of a LaSalle, Illinois, bank that doesn’t exist anymore. In good shape.”

  She passed over her credit card and he handled the sale. This little trip was going to put a serious dent in her savings when it was all done. The silver certificate was in a hard plastic case and Annja added it to her purse.

  “Do you know where Joe got them, the gold pieces?”

  “Persistent as hell, aren’t you?”

  Annja smiled.

  “You remind me of that big old guy who bought most of Joe’s other stuff, him and his friend. They wanted to know where Joe got it all, too. Even went over to the pottery place and talked to Joe about it. Pestered the heck out of him, from what I understand.”

  Annja rested her fingers on the counter. “Sully—” She ran her thumbs in a circle against the glass. “The big old guy was a friend of mine, dead now, maybe dead because of those gold pieces. In fact, probably because of them. His friend, too, dead. Maybe your cousin died because of them.” All connected, she thought once more. “So, I’d like to know where they came from. And if I were you, I’d put that piece of gold away, not leave it out on display. It might not be healthy.”

  Sully blanched. “He found the gold, young lady! Joe didn’t steal it or nothing. He found it in the lake. That big guy and his friend, they wanted Joe to show them right where the gold came from. I don’t know if Joe was gonna take them out on the lake or not. Joe didn’t say. And then he was dead, Joe.”

  A car honked on the street, and Annja turned to see someone jaywalking.

  “And that ‘big guy?’ Did you ever see him after he and his friend bought the gold? Did he return?”

  Sully looked thoughtful. “I remember him coming back after Joe was killed, once, asking questions I didn’t have answers to, and saying ‘sorry for your loss’ and all that. Looking for more of them gold pieces, they were. But I wasn’t going to sell neither one of them the last one. Hell, between the two of them, they’d already bought seven of the eight pieces Joe’d given me. Even I draw the line somewhere. Kept the one for myself. I sold them the bracelet, though. Real pretty, it was, gold and silver and had jade on it.” He smiled slightly. Annja wondered if he was proud of the fact he wouldn’t cave and sell the last one or happy for the money he’d made off the other pieces.

  “Sully, how much did you charge them for the pieces?”

  “I might be overpriced on my stuff, but I wasn’t gonna rob them blind. Three hundred for each coin, five for the bigger one with the bird on it. The gold in them was only worth, oh, four to five hundred by the weight, but they looked old, you know, and had pictures on them. Not coins, money, I can tell that, but old. Age has a value. The bracelet, now, I’d taken it to the jewelry store, and she offered me a thousand for it. So I brought it ba
ck, marked it at two thousand, and that fellow who was with the big old guy didn’t bat an eye and paid me for it.”

  Annja felt clammy. She remembered word for word what Sully had said when she pointed to the coin he had left: “Oh, that’s reeeeeeeeeeeeal valuable. It’s reeeeeeeeeeal gold. If it was for sale, well, that’d cost you a thousand.”

  She kept herself from saying that thousand would have been a steal. If they were indeed Mayan, and indeed from Wisconsin, she’d guess the piece under the glass—and the three she’d seen in the police evidence bag—were probably each worth at least three to five times that much. Maybe not enough to kill over. But the bracelet? If it was Mayan, too...

  He folded his arms. “The big old guy and his friend, they tried real hard to get me to sell this last one. Said name your price, they did. But Joe was family, and family is worth more than money, you know.”

  “Family is priceless.” Annja had never had one. “Keep the piece close. For all sorts of reasons, Sully, keep that very close.”

  “Oh, I will. Hey, and I remember them asking for Joe’s dive records. I couldn’t help them there, either.”

  “So Joe was an avid diver? That’s how he found the coins, going deep?”

  “Yeah. One of his hobbies. He liked to dive the lake, liked the lake. He’d get pottery designs from the stuff around the shore and such. Me and Joe...we were always interested in the lake, obsessed maybe. Obsessed but for very different reasons.”

  Annja dropped her head, taking a last look at the piece of gold under the counter. “Those dive records would have helped,” she said softly.

  “Well, I couldn’t help the big old fellow, not then. But I can help you now. I didn’t have Joe’s stuff then. But I’ve since got all of it...except for his clothes, I gave that stuff to the Saint Vincent DePaul center over by the church. Joe’s old landlord dumped it all on me, not that there’s all that much. A couple of cardboard boxes...that’s what I kept. Diving logs are there. I hung on to them, thought that big old guy would come back. I was gonna sell them to him.”

  Annja gripped the counter. “Can I see them? Can you sell them to me?”

  Sully got a far-away look in his eyes. “I heard that girl out in front of my shop, making a big deal about you. A TV archaeologist, she said.”

  Annja sighed. “How much are these diving logs going to cost me?” So Sully thought she was rich, that television equated to a lot of money. He was going to bilk her out of as much as he could. And she’d pay it.

  “I heard her say you’re a star on that program Chasing History’s Monsters. Seen it, but I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Yes,” Annja admitted. “I’m with the program. But what about the dive records?”

  “Oh, you can have them, but it’ll cost you. I ain’t looking for money out of this deal, lady. I’m looking for something else entirely.” He unscrewed the top of the flask again and raised it to her in another toast.

  Annja left the shop, a myriad of emotions dancing through her—she was anxious, exhilarated, tentative, hopeful and, overlaying all of that, unable to shake her grief over Edgar. Her old friend had to have known the pieces were worth more than what he paid. But she also knew he wasn’t a wealthy man and probably couldn’t have afforded to cover their true cost. And just what were they worth? What was the demand for Mayan pieces?

  She’d check in with Manny, see what the expert from the Milwaukee museum had to say today. And do a little digging on her own at the hotel tonight, contact a few sources. But first... She pulled her cell phone out and punched in Rembert’s number. Again it went to voice mail.

  “I hope you’re not heading back to New York,” she said. “I hope you’re still in Madison, Rem. I need you. I’ve got a project, and I desperately need your help.” She hated to admit the “desperate” part, but she was. The mystery was burning ever brighter in her soul, just like it had in Edgar’s. “Call me as soon as you get this message. Please.”

  Chapter 19

  In a spacious suite on the fifth floor, Garin stared at a shield that sat on a bureau protected with a starched white linen cloth. The bureau would normally have had a large-screen television on top of it. The room’s occupant said he had asked for the television to be removed. He wanted flat spaces on which to display the wares.

  “This man—” Garin indicated Rembert “—is my partner, and he will help authenticate it for me.”

  “I saw him taking video of the conference yesterday.”

  “At my request,” Garin said. If Rembert had trouble with the ruse, Garin was pleased that he did not show it. “He is also here now at my request.”

  “Certainly, then.” Willamar Aeschelman handed Rembert a pair of white cotton gloves. He was also wearing a pair.

  It was a “heater” shield, so named by European museum curators because they thought the shape looked like an iron used on clothes. The top edge was flat and straight, two feet across, the side edges gracefully convex curving and coming to a point at the bottom, all of it forming a triangle about thirty inches long.

  “It is genuine. I guarantee that.”

  “We shall see,” Garin said. “Mr. Hayes?”

  Rembert moved closer, bringing his face within inches.

  “Not too close,” Aeschelman warned. “I don’t want your breath affecting it. A true museum piece.”

  “How old are you claiming this to be?” Garin did not take his eyes off the shield.

  “It is from the 1400s, obviously French, obviously rare.”

  “Obviously,” Rembert said. “Why do you think it is so obvious?”

  Garin hid his displeasure. He’d told Rembert to say as little as possible, to nod and to pronounce the shield authentic and worth buying if Garin gave the sign.

  The man snorted. “You test me? It is metal. That’s what makes it obviously rare. Steel.”

  “Right you are,” Rembert said.

  Garin knew that to be true, as he had marched with men who carried similar shields, but they had been wood. In fact, most heater shields were—wood braced with iron, covered with leather or heavy linen. The one he had used was, and it hadn’t lasted all that long. But the one who’d carried this shield had been landed and important.

  “This style,” Aeschelman continued. He looked at the screen of his iPad. “This style was used from 1200 until about 1500, but the supplier says this one has been successfully dated to being made between 1400 and 1430.”

  “And you were able to pin it down that closely?” This from Rembert.

  Garin nudged him with a foot. Be quiet, he mouthed.

  “The workmanship, and the pattern on its face. What you can see of the pattern dates it. And definitely French.”

  Garin mourned what the centuries had done to it. The steel shield had a thin piece of leather over the top, riveted in place and cracked, and the designs that had been painted on the leather were so faint he thought it sinful. Yet some care of it had been taken. The leather front was intact, and there was color to it. Still, he’d seen it when it was new; he knew what it once looked like in bright detail. A cross ran through the center of it, large and red like the Knights Templars had come to be known for. In the upper-left and lower-right quadrants were blue backgrounds with fleur-de-lis patterns in a yellow made to look like gold. In the upper right and lower left were each three white crosses on black backgrounds, representing the three crosses that had been placed side by side when Jesus was crucified.

  “Yes, it is French,” Garin said.

  “My broker thought it might have been Scottish, as it is similar to the coat of arms of Sir Hugh Kennedy, a Scottish knight who fought with Joan of Arc. But it is not an exact match to that, the cross down the center making it different than the shield attributed to Kennedy and his men. But it fits with Joan of Arc’s time. Perhaps it was carried by one of her knights. I don’t have that much provenance on it. As I said, rare, especially given what it is made of. So few of the shields from that period are with us, and those that are...well,
they’re in museums.”

  “Is this from a museum collection?” Garin asked. “Liberated somehow?”

  Aeschelman scowled. “How our little circle comes by things is not up for discussion. You know that.” He reached a hand to his shirt, fingers resting on the medallion Garin knew hung there. “We hold close to our secrets.”

  “Secrets.” Rembert visibly brightened at this. “Not legal channels, that’s for certain. Otherwise we wouldn’t be in this hotel room. We’d be at a public auction house or—”

  “I merely asked where it came from because that would help Mr. Hayes and myself validate it.” Garin stared at Rembert. He should not have brought the photographer into this, no matter how much he wanted to rub Annja’s nose in this artifact-smuggling operation.

  “This particular shield has had several owners, the last being old and divesting some choice pieces to pad his bank account for heirs that do not appreciate his collection,” Aeschelman said. “So no, this was never in a museum, from what I understand. But in passing from hand to hand, certain laws were broken, and so its ownership history is...best left to history.” He adjusted his collar. “So, Mr. Knight, are you interested? There are other pieces that we will be offering when our sale opens at eight. Smaller, easier to take away from this conference.”

  “Yes, I am interested in this shield. Mr. Hayes, won’t you turn it over for us? That should help us authenticate it, yes?”

  “Sure.” Rembert carefully grasped the edges and set it facedown on the bureau.

  The back was dark, the rivets shiny from having rubbed against something, perhaps whatever the shield had been stored in. There were two leather straps that had been preserved. The shield Garin had used had only one and so the shield’s weight had not been as evenly distributed. But then Garin was not a landed knight and had not been as important as the shield’s original owner. This one also had a longer strap that had run top to bottom, though the center of that piece of leather was gone. It had let its owner sling the shield across his back.