“Damn right, they’re a gift,” Alistair muttered, barely audible next to Perigrine who nudged him to be quiet.
“Those two aren’t going anywhere. Call Chief Johns, and if you will wait for him to get here, Sam, I’m going on to the dock to find Emerson.”
Piers headed to the boat. Sam took out his cell phone and dialed the Chief’s number while Perigrine and Alistair were wishing they hadn’t climbed the tree after all.
HELEN AND MARTHA HAVING SEEN the shadowy figure of a small child coming through the pasture, jumped up and dashed out of the narrowboat’s cabin. Johns called to the boy barely visible in the tall grass.
Emerson waved and called to Johns just as a gunshot rang out and shattered the night’s beauty into breathless horror.
The child fell forward into the long grass and Johns shot off in a run toward the spot yelling at Martha and Helen to get back inside the boat. Helen saw Piers on horseback riding fast in their direction. Another shot whizzed past where Helen and Martha stood. They hurried into the boat and scrambled under the galley table. Clinging together they resembled a yin yang symbol.
“Oh, please let Emmy be safe,” Helen prayed, her voice raspy.
Martha, too, repeatedly murmured her entreaty for the child’s protection. Soon another plink and thud sound indicated another gunshot striking the boat’s outer wall.
“Someone’s not after Emerson, Helen. They’re trying to kill us or maybe just you. Either way, it’s not good. I’m about to start shooting back,” Martha said angrily. “Why are they after you?”
Able to see with the one eye not squeezed shut and free to open because it wasn’t mashed against Martha’s cranium, Helen said, “They want the egg. Albright must have known all along Sharon contacted me. Maybe he thought she told me where the eggs were hidden. He didn’t want me to get to them first. Did you bring the gun?”
Martha unclamped one hand from their huddled position and reached for her bag on the banquet. She grabbed it and pulled out the neat Ballester-Molina handgun Polly had given her at the farm earlier that day.
“I thought you said this was in your trunk?” Helen squeaked.
“I lied. Do you really want to discuss my veracity issues at this very moment?”
“Do you know how to use it?”
“I do. My daddy taught me. If anyone comes on this boat that isn’t friend, he’s foe, and I’m shooting his kneecaps out,” Martha said, checking the gun to make sure it was ready to fire.
“Good! If someone hurt that child, I might shoot something else off. That is if you’ll show me how to fire the gun,” Helen offered.
“Tell you what, you focus on dialing your cell phone and getting the rest of the police force over here and I’ll watch the door. No one messes with two Southern women and their kids.”
A loud thump on the upper deck made the girls reestablish their grips on each other.
Martha whispered, “I need to keep my arm free in case I need to aim, okay?”
Helen nodded in the affirmative and they both became still and small under the table.
The door opened and since no once announced themselves like Johns or Piers would have done, Martha knew it wasn’t friend, but foe she was dealing with. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly and quietly, she waited. The gun was cocked and ready. Nothing to do, but wait for the lower half of a body to round the corner of the booth.
“Ladies, I think you’ve got something I want,” a man’s voice said threateningly. “I’ve got a gun so let’s not play any games, shall we?”
Martha didn’t recognize the voice at all, but Helen tugged firmly on her arm.
“Albright,” Helen mouthed silently.
As the first knee rounded the corner, Martha set her jaw and steadied her gun hand on her lap. The best advice she’d ever received regarding what to do when forced into a deadly corner with a man twice your size and twice as lethal, was to fire first and ask questions later. That’s what Martha did. Aiming at Albright’s leg, she pumped a bullet into his thigh.
The noise was deafening. The force of the shot pushed Albright back against the wall and he screamed.
“You crazy bi*#$!,” he yelled.
“I’d shut my trap, if I were you,” Martha said coolly. “That is unless you want me to shoot a little in the middle next.”
Albright tried to move to get hold of the girls, but the wound in his leg was too much for him. He collapsed back against the wall and passed out.
The girls extracted themselves from their hole by squirming up unto the booth seats and maneuvering around the banquet until they were in the clear and near the cabin door.
“Hurry! Let’s get Merriam. I’m feeling kind of shaky. I don’t want him to die or anything,” Martha said, experiencing a small amount of shooter’s remorse.
Once on deck and in the crisp autumn night air, they yelled at the top of their lungs for help. There on the horizon, Martha scanned the landscape near the tree line and there was Piers with Emerson wrapped in a blanket.
“I think he’s okay, Helen. See?” She pointed out the figures.
“I do. Thank God! But where is Johns?”
“I don’t see him…anywhere. Oh, Helen,” she said frightened, “do you think he was shot?”
They disembarked and ran over the creaking dock to the pasture. Searching in the wet grass, they called, “Merriam!”
“I’m over here!” came a voice down the side of the river’s embankment.
The girls ran over to peer down one of the steep sides where the river had cut a high wall into the ground. Down in the mud and silt struggled the Chief, bloody and tangled in the roots and grasses growing on the precarious edge.
“Merriam!” Martha cried. “I’m getting someone. Hold on!”
“Thanks, I’ll do that!” he called back. “Sounds like a good idea! Where’s the man who pushed me?”
“He’s been shot, but I’m hoping he’s not dead…yet.”
“Shot! By who?”
Johns went limp and groaned. “Please, please tell me it wasn’t you, Martha.”
She turned to Helen and shrugged. “Please go get help. Tell them to bring a rope and a stretcher.”
“Be right back.”
Helen ran up to the slope and soon Sam, Piers and the incredibly strong Kaiser were working to bring Johns back up to terra firma.
Perigrine and Alistair worked their way, under the cover of darkness, to where their jet skis were stowed. Once sirens could be heard coming loudly across the bridge and down the pasture to the docks, two humming engines made their way unnoticed back up the lazy River Calder.
Chapter 37
A LARGE GROUP OF PEOPLE congregated near the narrowboat. Johns and the girls, along with a host of police officers, waited for Albright to be brought out of the boat. Helen explained to Johns that the man inside was the Albright she’d known in Nottingham and Martha remembered him from the day at Polly’s farm as one of the police officers who helped to chase away the thugs in the barn. The medical emergency team was inside the boat preparing to bring him out on a stretcher.
“So it was Albright all this time,” Helen said to Johns. “Chief, I’d like to show you something.”
She pulled the lovely nephrite and diamond Fabergé egg from Martha’s bag. “It’s about this. If my guess is right, there should be two more. Individually they're worth twenty to thirty million dollars. Together, I can’t even fathom their value.”
Johns stood up and came over to the delicate treasure she cradled in her two hands wrapped in a Martha’s sweater and stared down at it. Piers, Michael and the other officers gathered around Helen to see, too.
“Where did you find it?” he asked.
“The lamp over the galley table. It’s been there for years, ninety or more, I would estimate.”
At that moment, the emergency technicians brought Albright out of the boat and loaded him onto a stretcher. Johns walked over to the dock. He motioned for Helen to follow him. The wounded
man was coherent and once they carried him across the rattling boards of the dock, Johns signaled for them to stop.
He stood next to the reclined figure. “Richards, or should I call you Albright?”
With a slight groan, Albright replied, “It’s neither.”
“Well, whoever you are, you’ve killed two people and tried for two more all in an attempt to get this.”
Johns waved Helen forward. “Show him, Mrs. Ryes.”
A bit uncertain and keeping her distance, Helen took the egg and unwrapped the sweater. Holding it up for him to see, the moonlight hit the diamonds giving a luminescence to the green nephrite stone making the egg glow and sparkle to the awe of everyone who saw it.
Albright, or whoever he was, sunk with a miserable groan deeper into the stretcher. He covered his eyes with his arm and turned his head away.
“I want his hands checked for residue and get him to the hospital. He needs to be alive when we convict him of double homicide and intent to kill Mrs. Ryes and Mrs. Littleword,” Johns said to the EMTs.
Turning to everyone still standing around, he said, “We’re all tired, but safe. I need statements. Afterwards, you can go home and get some sleep.”
Piers came up, leading his horse with Emerson on the back. Helen went over to them.
“Have you been having a big adventure, Emerson?” she asked, smiling up at the boy.
“Oh, yes! But it was fun and only a little scary.”
The child turned to Piers and realizing a truth, he said excitedly, “You were there, like you said you would be.”
Flinging himself off the horse’s back and into Piers’ arms, he gave Piers a joyful hug.
Johns walked up. “Is Emerson doing okay?”
Piers was aglow with paternal happiness. With a huge smile, he answered, “He’s perfectly fine. The first gunshot startled him and made him fall.”
Sam had briefed Johns about the two bound men found in the woods. They, too, had been dealt with neatly, like the men on the boats back in town. It was as if someone was working very efficiently on the side of the police but not coming forward for the credit.
“You’re a brave boy, Emerson. How did you manage to get away from those two roughnecks we found in the woods? Did you see anyone else in the woods?” Johns asked.
Emerson fiddled with one of Piers’ pockets on his coat and with the simple style of a child responded, “I didn’t do anything. It was the Fox who helped me escape.”
Johns and Piers exchanged slightly perplexed expressions.
“What did the Fox do? Did it scare the men?” Johns asked, somewhat confused by the response.
“He told me to come to him. I got on his back and we escaped. He showed me where you were and said I should run to you.”
The two adults stayed quiet for a few seconds. Johns motioned for Piers to come away for a moment. Piers put Emerson back on top of his horse with Sam holding the bridle. Once at a decent distance, Johns said, “Children often times align their frightening experiences with something comforting or known to them. It helps them put the situation into a context they understand. He’s probably been reading something about a fox or a superhero. Don’t worry, he’ll be fine.”
Piers nodded and said in a low tone, “He’s been fascinated with the fox trap and wanting to set the fox loose. I’m sure that has something to do with it.”
“Oh, one more thing,” Emerson yelled toward the Chief and Piers.
“What?” Piers called back.
“The Fox promised me ice cream.”
Johns and Piers turned back around to each other and smiled knowingly. With a shared chuckle, they walked back to the spot where Emerson chatted with Helen and Martha.
“I’ll buy you some ice cream, Emerson. You can count on it,” Helen said.
After the statements were finished, everyone departed to their respected homes for a much-needed sleep. Johns sent every available officer to guard the last two Rossar-mescro boats still tethered down below The Traveller’s Inn. If there were eggs to be found aboard the Blue Hen and the Cherub, he didn’t want any sneaky foxes to get to them first.
Chapter 38
LATER THAT DAY, MARTHA WOKE from a delicious sleep in her own fluffy bed at Flower Pot Cottage surrounded by Amos, Vera and Gus. For a long time she lay there soaking up the quiet and the warmth of having three furry, curled up rocks positioned on both sides of her.
“Guys, I’ve missed you so much. It’s good to be home.”
Her cell phone rang and Martha stretched with difficulty to reach it on the nightstand next to her bed. It was Kate, her daughter, calling.
“Baby!” she trilled with a huge smile across her face. “How are you?”
“I’m fine, Mamma. Have you been taking good care of yourself?” Kate asked.
Kate still called her mother Mamma partly because Martha was stubborn and wouldn’t answer to anything else.
Martha crossed her fingers and her legs to ward off any bad mojo from telling a lie and answered, “Nothing exciting happening here. Same old stuff. We’ve been working on The Grange’s collection and we’re almost done. When are you coming home for a weekend? I’d love to hear all the gossip from school.”
Kate filled Martha in on the happenings at Oxford and told her she would be home at Christmas break, good news for Martha because that meant only another two months or so to wait.
“I’d like to bring a friend for a few days. Would that be okay with you?” Kate asked.
Martha detected something new in her daughter’s voice. The way Kate said friend had a different ring to it and although she was dying to know, Martha didn’t snoop, but said instead, “You bring home anyone you want, sweetie. I’d love to meet them.”
They talked a while longer then said goodbye. She got up and walked out to the stairwell and checked in the guest room only to find an empty bed. Leaning over the banister, she yelled, “Hey, Helen! You awake?”
“Out here!” Helen yelled back. “I’m on the internet.”
Helen was deep in the history of the Faberge Easter eggs given to The Empress Maria Feodorovna by both her son, Czar Nicholas II and her husband, Czar Alexander III. They’d been lost to time after the Red Army took over Russia. Most of the eggs were in private museums, private collections or at the Kremlin Armory Museum in Moscow, but a handful of Maria’s favorites were unaccounted for.
Martha toddled downstairs followed by her menagerie and after the furry dependents were fed, watered and let outside for some fresh air, she sat down by Helen and read over her shoulder about how a handful of the Romanov Faberge eggs were still considered lost.
“Do any of the ones that are listed as lost resemble the one you found?” Martha asked.
Helen replied with an awed excitement in her voice, “Yes. The name of the boat was the key. We were on the Empire and one of the eggs belonging to Maria Feodorovna given to her by her husband was designed in the Empire style.”
“Do you think it’s the same?” Martha asked.
Turning to Martha, Helen took a deep breath and let it out. “I think the egg we found has been inside that lamp for an extremely long time. The Rossar-mescros will hopefully be able to give us more of the story. It’s so exciting, Martha, I can hardly stand it.”
“Well, one thing’s for sure, The Rossar-mescros are going to be rich beyond their wildest dreams.”
TWO DAYS LATER, IN A PETIT bistro neatly placed on a corner of rue Saint-Séverin in Paris, sat two dapper Englishmen, drinking XO Cognac and reading an english version of the French evening paper, Le Monde. They’d been comfortably tucked into one of the discrete corner booths for over an hour. Only the occasional attendance of the waiter, who’d been paid to stay aloof but keep a watchful eye on their tulip glasses’ levels, compelled them to speak, if only to say merci.
“I wouldn’t mind visiting Frank while we’re here,” Perigrine said, swirling the amber spirit hypnotically inside the curvy shaped glass.
“He won’t be here t
his time of year. It’s the rodeo season in Oregon and he never misses the women’s barrel racing competitions.” Alistair raised his eyebrows. “Frank likes powerful women manipulating large animals.”
“Too bad. I always enjoy his Blanquette de Veau. For an Italian from Queens, he’s an amazing French cook.”
Perigrine, finished with his paper, tossed it over to the other table and let out a sigh. “That was a ghost on that boat, Alistair. You don’t want to believe what your eyes saw but she wanted to tell us something.”
“Well, I’m not one for ignoring a good tip, P. I’ve been checking out the word Mavia, we heard the Romani boy call that night.”
“Not the boy,” Perigrine said shaking his head back and forth.
“Boy. Definitely, the boy,” Alistair said firmly. “Anyway, Mavia sounds a lot like Mauve, don’t you think?”
Perigrine mused a little bit. “Yes, indeed it does. A name and a missing boat, what do you make of it?”
“It so happens that before you got here, I made a call to Stephan Rossar-mescro to check on names in his family. Seems Mavia is written in the family bible as the mother of Sophia Rossar-mescro, the ancestor who purchased the two narrowboats.”
“Where’s the Mavia boat then? Or for that matter, where’s the fourth egg mentioned in the letter? Did she sell it to buy the two boats?”
“Perhaps but that’s the interesting part. There is an inner piece referred to as ‘the surprise’ fitting that description which turned up over eighty years ago and was sold at a London auction but the egg it's known to belong to never surfaced.”
“Where could it be?” Perigrine asked while sipping from his glass.
“We might consider she had it buried with her, but when I asked Stephan where Sophia was interred, he said she’d purchased an expensive burial plot in one of London’s most famous cemeteries.”
“Brompton?”
“You got it. She bought three plots at Brompton in fact. One for herself, one for her husband and, get ready for it. One for her mother, Malvia.”
A Debt Is Finally Paid (A Marsden-Lacey Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 19