Garden of Thorns

by Lillian Stewart Carl

  “Eh?” Jenny asked. She leaned against the cabinet, hands braced on the edge of the counter.

  “Basketball analogy. It means all-out effort.”

  “Ah. You’re saying Detective Zapata needs our help.”

  “The longer a case goes unsolved, the more chance it will never be solved. I sure don’t want this one to go unsolved.”

  “Right.”

  Hilary swirled her remaining drops of whisky up the sides of her glass, pretending not to see the glance, part challenge, part regret, that passed between Mark and Jenny. The murder was only one of several problems, but it had become the focus of them all. “Means, opportunity, motive,” she said quietly.

  “The means are obvious,” Jenny said. “Someone killed Nathan with a knife. Whether the—er—embellishments indicate the same killer at work, or an imitator, or a berk with a sadistic streak, we can’t say.”

  “Even if we assume that the killer and the person who substituted the artifacts are one and the same,” Mark pointed out, “that doesn’t explain Felicia’s death.”

  “I talked to Leslie this afternoon,” Hilary said. “Zapata was in the museum security office late Saturday, checking the logs for Friday night. Out of the likely people, only Vasarian was there. He signed out at nine-thirty and went off to the ball—I doubt in a pumpkin coach, unless it was a jack-o-lantern.” She was rewarded by smiles from Mark and Jenny. “I checked the logs back to Wednesday. All three of the Coburgs and Travis were in the lab at least once. Not to mention Bradshaw—he was in and out several times. He might only be acting dumb, you know.”

  Mark nodded. “The artifacts might have been switched earlier than Friday. One at a time, maybe, hidden beneath a jacket.”

  “Or in Dolores’s handbag,” said Hilary.

  Jenny grinned, then quickly sobered. “As for a motive, the classics are love and money. In this case, it’s money—the artifacts, obviously.”

  “You can’t discount the bitter side of love,” Mark pointed out. “Jealousy. Travis jealous over Sharon and Nathan. Dolores jealous over Felicia and Arthur. Or vice versa, for that matter—what if Felicia attacked Dolores way back when, and she had to defend herself?”

  “Then why didn’t she say so?” Jenny asked. No one answered.

  Thunder grumbled in the distance, retreating from the city. Water dripped outside. The tea kettle clicked on the stove as it cooled. If any ghosts glided through the front of the house, they did so in utter silence.

  Hilary ran her tongue over her lips; the tea and the whisky had left an unpleasant acid taste in her mouth. “It might help to research Coburg family dynamics—Arthur, his parents, and so forth. There has to be reference material somewhere.”

  “Preston can track a reference like a bloodhound,” Mark said. “I’ll ask him to help. And I’ll talk to Lucia, too—she worked for Felicia long enough to have uncovered a family skeleton or two. Maybe that’s the real reason Dolores fired her.”

  “I’d like to see those photographs of the charity ball,” said Jenny.

  “Zapata sent Yeager to the newspaper office,” Hilary told her. “I don’t see why we can’t do that, too—it’s public information.”

  “We need to find the real artifacts.” Mark took the last cracker from the platter and chewed thoughtfully. “Now that’s a tall order.”

  In the stillness the splash of water running off the eaves seemed as loud as Niagara. Jenny paced back to the table and collected the dishes. “Detective Zapata won’t be best pleased to have three amateur criminalists mucking about in her procedures.”

  Mark rubbed his forehead but couldn’t erase the line engraved between his brows. “Tough. We have to do something, if only to save our sanity.”

  Hilary found a dishcloth and stood ready to dry the cups and glasses as Jenny washed them. Talk about an uneasy alliance, she thought. Maybe she, Mark, and Jenny were sweeping important confrontations beneath the carpet and stepping carefully around a mound the size of the Hoosier Dome. Maybe they were being mature and letting bygones be bygones. She hoped it was the latter.

  “If you don’t mind, Jenny,” Mark said from the table, “I’ll take Hilary downtown during my lunch hour tomorrow to tell Zapata about the artifacts. She needs to have all the evidence.”

  Jenny nodded. “I’ll hold the fort. No problem.”

  “I can go by myself,” Hilary told Mark.

  “I don’t mind coming with you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I’d like to…”

  The door to the cabinet against which Jenny had been leaning opened with a slow, tooth-grating squeal. A cup fell from Jenny’s hand into the soapy water and splashed Hilary’s blouse. Mark leaped to his feet.

  Graymalkin stepped smugly out of the cabinet, dragging behind her a rodent half as big as she was.

  Hilary resumed breathing and mopped at her blouse. Mark’s laugh sounded more like a groan.

  Jenny offered the cat a mock scowl. “That’s twice, Mighty Hunter. So you have more than one secret passage, do you?” She picked up the flashlight and directed its beam into the cabinet. “Ah yes, an old drain. Opens beneath the veranda, I reckon. A proper moggie postern. I’ll suss out the other end tomorrow.”

  “That figures,” said Mark. “As soon as Dolores turned her back the workmen hid holes in the wall instead of closing them off.”

  Graymalkin dragged her prey to Jenny’s feet, looked up and meowed. “Ambitious, aren’t we? That’s not a mouse, but a field rat….” Jenny’s expression went from satirical to horrified. She threw down the flashlight, seized her reading glasses, and fell to her knees. Shoving Graymalkin’s inquisitive nose aside, she retrieved two small white chips from the rat’s fur. She peered at both so closely that her eyes crossed. “Hilary,” she said, “is this ivory, or am I a whacking great idiot?

  Ivory? Hilary dropped down beside Jenny, took a tiny chip, and held it to the light. “Looks like it. Feels like it. Could be old bone, I guess.”

  Paper fluttered as Mark laid a sheet of plastic on the table. With thumb and forefinger he picked up the rat by the tail and set it on the sheet. Jenny rooted in the box of supplies next to the computer and produced a pair of tweezers. Graymalkin jumped up in a chair ready to defend her prize.

  Hilary tried to forget everything she’d ever learned about rats, fleas, and the black plague. With the tweezers she rescued three more chips. “I see what I’ll be doing tomorrow morning after I weigh the artifacts—testing these. Jenny, they might not be walrus ivory.” She didn’t have to add that they might not be from the Eleanor Cross.

  Jenny folded away her glasses. She found a small jeweler’s box in the supply box. Hilary placed each chip carefully inside and taped down the lid. Jenny’s face reminded her of pictures taken in London during the Blitz, the dome of St. Paul’s cathedral rising in desperate aloofness from flames and smoke.

  Mark took the dead rat to the trash can outside the door. Graymalkin sat down with a thump, the angle of her ears and whiskers denoting bemused indignation: People! A nice fresh rat and they throw it away!

  Jenny turned on the hot water in the sink and doled out squirts of disinfectant. Pine-flavored steam billowed upward into the cool air. The water spot on Hilary’s blouse was icy. “I’ll let you know as soon as I learn anything,” she told Jenny. “Thanks for the tea.”

  Mark offered Jenny a thin, not entirely humorless smile.

  Outside it was twilight. The clouds still hung heavy in the east, but the west was clear, shaded gold, red, and orange, and the air was scoured as damp and clean as Hilary’s hands.

  “I’ll meet you here at noon,” Mark told her. “I’ll drive.”

  Hilary swallowed her protest; they didn’t need to compete. She gave Mark a quick, astringent kiss. His van turned one way on York Boulevard, her car the other.

  *

  When Hilary arrived at the condo, she checked every door and window. She tried not to think about the rat’s death-scummed eyes and the bl
oody wound in its neck. She tried not to imagine Nathan lying in the parlor, gnawed by shadows. She tried not to worry about the Cross—the ivory chips were from something else. It was the figure of Christ that was in danger.

  That night Hilary dozed fitfully, and by the time dawn began leaking into the room she couldn’t sleep at all. She climbed out of bed and dressed, then forced herself to read every section of the newspaper so she wouldn’t get to the Lloyd suspiciously early. Then she found herself in a traffic jam on York and arrived ten minutes late. The museum’s granite facade blushed pink in the clear cool morning light, as though the rising sun had caught it in mischief. A meadowlark sang an aria from a nearby pecan tree.

  Hilary sped down the hallway to the lab, nodding to Leslie as she passed. If Mark was asking Preston to help dig out the family skeletons, then she should ask Leslie to help, too. Not now, though. Not when she was carrying her largest handbag and debating larcenous intentions.

  Within moments she had the box of artifacts on her worktable—six fakes and one genuine antique. She lifted out the ivory figurine and touched it with a gloved fingertip. This was just a piece of old bone. It was the emotion, the love and the faith, that had gone into its shaping that made it valuable. It was the inspired artistic skill. How could she let it go to someone who saw only its dollar value?

  She set the figure on some tissue paper and one by one unwrapped the forgeries. Again, for just a moment, she doubted her own senses. But the objects weren’t real antiquities.

  She retrieved her file on the computer and compared it to the printout she’d made yesterday. The weights were the same. So far so good. She set a scale on the table and laid the bishop chess piece on it. All right! This one was three tenths of an ounce lighter. Not very much but, dammit, if Olympic records were decided in thousandths of a second, then surely a few tenths of an ounce could decide an art forgery.

  “Good morning, sugar!”

  Hilary spun around, her heart plugging her throat and forcing her eyes to bulge.

  Travis Ward stood behind her. He looked like the proverbial bull in a china shop. “Aw hell,” he said, “I really throwed you, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

  Hilary managed to mutter something ambiguous.

  Travis looked over his shoulder. Nicholas Vasarian stood chatting affably with June, nodding now and again toward the painting under restoration. “He wanted to check on the thingamabobs you have there. Dolores had a board meeting, so I’m playing gopher. Nick’s okay, for a foreigner.”

  Hilary shrank toward the artifacts. If Vasarian pointed out they were fakes, the egg was really going to hit the fan—without Mark, Jenny, and Hilary doing the egg-pitching. If he didn’t, he’d condemn himself.

  “You okay, sugar? You look like you swallowed a horny toad. All this murder stuff kind of sticks in the old craw, doesn’t it?” Travis didn’t pat her shoulder so much as caress it with a meaty hand. She flinched.

  Here came Vasarian. Travis found himself removed several paces away, blinking in bafflement, while the art expert greeted Hilary. “I’d like to see the Christ figurine for a moment, if it’s no trouble.”

  “No trouble,” said Hilary. With her foot she shoved her handbag further under the table. Damn. She couldn’t take the Christ, Vasarian—or someone—would miss it.

  With his Armani suit and silver hair, Vasarian played the part of the European aristocrat perfectly. Although he probably had just about as much noble blood as she did, Hilary thought. Despite Olivia’s frequent protestions that Everett’s family had come over on the Mayflower, they could only have done so if the Mayflower had docked at Ellis Island.

  “Lovely,” Vasarian pronounced. “A shame the Cross is still missing.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  His elegant hands tugged on the paper beneath the reliquary, scooting it closer without touching it. Hilary watched, not daring to blink. Perhaps that was satisfaction in his scorched eyes, perhaps not. But he certainly didn’t look in the least bewildered.

  He inspected the bishop, the brooch, and the Bible cover. He asked Hilary to hold up the Giotto painting and the boxwood misericord. Forcing her hands to remain steady, she did. He only looked at her once, sending another sword-flash query in her direction. Every muscle in her body spasmed in dread and anticipation, but he said nothing.

  At last he thanked her and turned away. Travis waited, his hat pushed back on his head, his thumbs hooked in his belt so that his hands framed the obscene buckle.

  “I’m going to browse through the galleries,” Vasarian told him. “The morning light has such a crystalline quality, doesn’t it?”

  “Sure thing,” said Travis brightly. “I’ll go get some java. Want to join me, sugar?

  “No, thank you,” Hilary said, her voice almost squeaking.

  “Your loss.” Saluting her with a forefinger to the brim of his hat, Travis loped away at Vasarian’s heels.

  Hilary set the painting down and leaned against the table, trying to keep herself from sliding bonelessly off the stool. Vasarian hadn’t recognized the artifacts as fakes. Those quick sideways thrusts of perception had been evaluations of her own knowledge—or lack of it.

  She toyed for a moment with the idea that Vasarian wasn’t really an art expert at all, but some penniless Transylvanian parasite…. But no, she’d too frequently seen his name and picture. He had to be cheating the Coburgs. Not that she was eager to defend them. The artifacts, and Nathan, and Jenny—that was where she drew her defensive line.

  Chewing her lipstick, Hilary forced herself to focus on her task. She weighed each artifact, noting small but significant discrepancies on her printout, and folded the paper into her purse. Then, with a wary glance behind her, she pulled out the jeweler’s box.

  She applied microscope, ultraviolet light, and a discreet comparison peck at the authentic ivory of the Christ figure. The five chips were walrus ivory. Old walrus ivory. God, Hilary moaned to herself. The Cross is on Osborne property, and rats are chewing at it.

  One more hour until noon. Hilary busied herself collecting packing materials for the artifacts. She couldn’t improve on the polyurethane nest Jenny had made for the figurine, but it was a miracle the other objects had arrived in Fort Worth in such pristine condition, mailed from Germany by Arthur in the 1940’s. She felt like a hypocrite for packing forgeries so carefully when the real artifacts were gone.

  At ten minutes to twelve Hilary stowed everything, including the figurine, in the strongroom and headed upstairs. As she passed the security room, she called cheerfully to Leslie, “Keep an eye on things!”

  “That’s what they’re paying me for,” the guard returned, nonplussed.

  Hilary breezed down the hall. The door to the director’s office opened, and Wes Bradshaw peered out. “Hilary, come in here just a moment, please.”

  Hilary detoured into Bradshaw’s den and shifted from foot to foot while he sat down at his desk and arranged antacid tablets like checkers before him. “How are you getting along with the artifacts?” he asked.

  “Fine. I’m starting to pack them.”

  “They’re all right then. The little Jesus and everything.”

  “They’re fine,” Hilary lied. Now’s your chance, she said to herself. If I can get him to look at them…. “Dr. Bradshaw, there might be more fakes in the museum than just the Van Meegeren.”

  “My predecessor went overboard in weeding out the copies. But everything’s under control now.” Bradshaw’s tiny features creased even smaller. He took two tablets, put them in his mouth, and crunched.

  Hilary set her chin. “Do you suppose we could get the Regensfeld artifacts copied before Mr. Vasarian takes them away?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Not a good idea.”

  “Perhaps Mrs. Coburg would like souvenirs.”

  “The artifacts are much too important to entrust to a copier. I think you can just stick to your job, Hilary, and not get sidetracked about that kind of thing.”

  “Yes, sir,”
Hilary said, feeling as though she’d been lashed with a wet noodle. She slipped out of the room and asked the bronze goddess in the outer office, “Was there any significance in that?”

  The goddess didn’t answer. Shaking her head and reassuring herself that she was much too young to have a heart attack, Hilary walked out into the parking lot and climbed into her car.

  Someone had bumped into her side mirror. She rolled down her window, reached out to adjust it, and saw reflected a maroon BMW which was parked in a handicapped spot. As Hilary looked, the tinted window on the BMW’s passenger side glided down. Inside were Sharon and her red corona of hair, her lips moving in some obviously spiteful statement. Beside her Travis’s hat glimmered faintly behind the windshield, like a manta ray in deep water.

  Quarreling again? Hilary asked herself. Not that she could feel particularly smug about lovers’ quarrels.

  Sharon’s hand flashed out. Travis’s hat vanished from the windshield, knocked into the back seat. Two huge hands appeared from the shadows and closed on Sharon’s throat.

  Hilary sat openmouthed. That was more than a quarrel.

  Sharon’s fingers curved into talons, her lacquered nails glinting red. She struck. A muffled yowl emanated from the car. The big hands vanished. Sharon threw the door open and catapulted out, her own screamed obscenities mixing with and matching her husband’s.

  Good Lord! Hilary started her own car, backed out with a screech of tires, and fled the scene. In her rearview mirror Sharon and the BMW dwindled and vanished.

  In her mind’s eye Hilary saw hands, large meaty ones, or thin sharp-nailed ones, or even long, elegantly tapered ones, carrying a knife through the darkness of Osborne House.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mark left the dig early enough to rush over to his apartment and clean off several layers of dirt, charcoal, and sweat. He returned to find Hilary already there, sitting with Preston beside the widening garage excavation. He touched up something on his drawing board, she made a pencil mark of her own, and they nodded in mutual satisfaction.

  Jenny had reluctantly abandoned her idea of keeping the amateur fingers out of the pie. Now she and a couple of the more reliable students were expanding the peg and string grid across the garage ruins. As Mark approached she called, “Lunch break!”