To the Rescue

by Jean Barrett

  “Nothing,” he said, withdrawing his arm and getting to his feet.

  Jennifer’s hope sank again. “We should have known. He wouldn’t have left anything here, not if Sybil caught him in the act. Not when he locked us in the cell where we could have found whatever it is. If it even is.”

  “It wasn’t a waste, Jenny. We’ve learned that a hiding place does exist. Gotta mean he intended to use it until Sybil interrupted him. Like you said yourself, why else would he have been up here?”

  “If that’s true, then he had to have carried this thing away with him. We’re no closer now to getting our hands on it than we were when we started.”

  “Not necessarily. I’m thinking that after Sybil arrived on the scene, then you and I showed up, he would have been nervous about trying to take it back into the castle. Maybe decided to stash it until it was safe for him to come back for it. Somewhere close by. Huh?”

  “The cars.”

  “Right. They’re just outside the tower, and if we thought they were a good bet before…”

  He spread his hands in a gesture meaning they were a strong possibility again.

  “SO, WHERE DO WE BEGIN?” Jennifer asked him as they stood at the edge of the bailey, gazing down the bank of open-ended stalls.

  “Might as well take them in order.”

  The first vehicle in the row, the one closest to them, was a van that had seen better days. Jennifer knew that vans weren’t common in England, not as family cars anyway. Where they did occur, they often served as minibuses for establishments like churches and senior centers. That knowledge, along with a cross hanging from the rearview mirror, indicated the van was probably the monastery’s transport.

  Leo tried the driver’s door. It opened without resistance. “Let’s hope the good brothers who garaged this fleet were trusting enough to leave all the rest of them unlocked as well. You want to start in the back, and I’ll take the front?”

  They covered the van from nose to tail. Leo even checked under the hood, but they found nothing that didn’t belong there.

  The next vehicle in the range was a late-model Volvo, also unlocked. The owner’s registration in the glove compartment revealed that it was the property of Sybil and Roger Harding.

  “Anything?” Leo asked after he finished looking under the hood and in the trunk.

  “Nothing,” Jennifer reported, emerging from the interior.

  They moved on to an old, battered Jeep. A collection of sporting gear dumped in the back seat, along with a boy’s school jersey, suggested the Jeep belonged to Patrick. It, too, disclosed nothing of interest.

  The fourth vehicle was another van. Only this one had paneled sides.

  “Could use a car wash,” Leo observed. “Looks like it might actually be white under all that road grime. What do you bet it belongs to Harry Ireland and that the inside is as messy as his room?”

  Leo was right. The interior, when they examined it, was littered with odds and ends. Among them in the back end was an assortment of packages waiting for delivery along the salesman’s route. All of the packages were sealed and their contents clearly marked, with no sign of having been opened since they’d been collected from their source. But their presence, along with the rest of the junk, made the van more difficult to search. If there was anything suspicious, however, they were unable to locate it.

  In contrast to the van was the conservative, gray compact parked beside it. Judging by the neatness of its interior, it could only belong to Fiona and Alfred Brasher. It was easily and quickly searched. And again it concealed nothing.

  “That’s it then,” Jennifer said, discouraged as they came away from the compact.

  “We’re not finished,” Leo said. He jerked a thumb in the direction of the last stall.

  “My car? But it couldn’t—”

  “Why not, if it was left unlocked like all the others? Think about it, Jenny. If you wanted to stow something, why not use the most unlikely place to hide it? Maybe the last place we’d be expected to look.”

  “I guess that makes sense.” She wasn’t convinced, but she was willing to make the effort.

  Avoiding a snowdrift, they made their way to the rental sedan. Leo searched the back, Jennifer the front. There was nothing in the interior that hadn’t been there when she’d left the car that first night, including under the seats and in the glove compartment.

  Leo backed out of the car. “You’d know better than I would what’s supposed to be in the trunk. Why don’t you take that while I have a look under the hood?”

  Jennifer popped the latches for both the lid of the trunk and the hood before sliding out of the car. She went around to the rear of the little Ford at the back of the stall. The light was poor here but sufficient enough for her to investigate the trunk.

  Not, she decided after raising the lid, that there was anything for her to see. The trunk was empty except for the spare tire. She checked under its cover to be sure there was nothing there but the spare. There wasn’t.

  Another dead end, she thought.

  Her hand was on the lid, ready to slam it shut, when something stopped her. Tucked over in the farthest corner of the trunk were the tools needed for changing a flat. She’d been aware of them but had thought nothing about them. Until this moment.

  What were they doing out in the open like this? Shouldn’t they be packed away in— Where?

  Yes, down inside the well that had been provided for them. Its cover, equipped with fasteners on either end and flush with the floor of the trunk, was over on one side.

  Jennifer’s hands trembled in anticipation as she turned the fasteners, lifted the cover and stared down into the well. The tools, she realized, had been removed for a reason.

  “Yo,” Leo called to her from the front of the car. “You get anything back there?”

  She didn’t answer him. She was too excited about her discovery, too intent on retrieving what had been squeezed down into the well.

  “Hey, Jennifer!”

  Her silence must have worried him. She was dimly conscious of the hood banging down, of the tread of his booted feet as he hurried toward her.

  By the time he joined her at the open trunk, she had it in her hands. An oblong bundle tightly wrapped in layers of brown paper, bound with string and placed inside a clear, protective plastic sleeve.

  Leo whistled at the sight of it. “You got something all right.”

  Jennifer looked up from the bundle, meeting his gaze. “You know what it is, don’t you?” she asked him softly.

  From the beginning, when they’d first decided that their culprit had something vital he would go to any lengths to safeguard, she had sensed its identity. She hadn’t named it, couldn’t bring herself even now to name it, because it seemed too fantastic a possibility. But on some level she had known. Felt that Leo, too, must have known. Or at least guessed.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, “but, yeah, I think I know.”

  They were silent then for a moment, their eyes focused on the bundle.

  “You want to unwrap it here?” Leo asked.

  She shook her head. “I think Father Stephen deserves to be present for the unveiling.”

  FATHER STEPHEN, frowning, handed Jennifer a pair of scissors from his desk drawer. “Hidden in the boot of your car, you say? This is all very baffling, but if somehow…”

  He didn’t finish what he started to say. Maybe, Jennifer thought, because he, too, guessed what the bundle contained but, like her, was afraid to put it into words.

  She and Leo had agreed on the way to the abbot’s office not to express their conviction about the bundle’s content. They didn’t want Father Stephen to be disappointed if they were wrong, and they very well could be.

  It was time to find out.

  Scissors in hand and with the door locked behind them, Jennifer leaned over the desktop where the bundle, freed of its plastic sleeve, rested.

  The two men crowded close to the desk, watching as Jennifer sli
ced through the string in several places.

  Her anticipation had climbed to an almost unbearable level by the time she had the string removed. She could sense Leo’s silent command for her to hurry as she began to part the thick layers of brown paper, could swear she heard the whisper of a prayer on Father Stephen’s lips.

  When the last wrappings fell away, the three of them looked down in wonder at what lay there in the nest of shredded paper. It wasn’t necessary for the abbot to verify their discovery. Jennifer knew she was looking at the Warley Madonna.

  Perhaps eighteen inches in length and less than six inches in width, allegedly crafted from a section of the cross on which Christ had been crucified, the carving depicted both the Madonna and Child.

  Religious art was not Jennifer’s specialty, but she knew enough to realize that the stiff, almost crude quality of the work marked it as a product of the early years of the Christian era. That was evident in the figure of the Child, more like a small adult than an infant, that the Madonna clutched to her breast. Considering its vast age, the relic was in a remarkable state of preservation, its paint chipped and faded but the colors remained vibrant.

  It was Father Stephen who ended their long silence with a soft, reverent “You will be in my eternal prayers for its recovery.”

  “Father,” Jennifer asked the abbot, “may I examine it for a moment? I’ll be very careful.”

  “Of course.”

  She gently lifted the relic from its bed of paper, turning it over in her hands. It was only about three or four inches in depth, which it would be if it had been fashioned from some part of the cross, but surprisingly heavy for its size. She had noticed that when she’d carried it into the castle.

  But there was something….

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” the abbot said.

  “Very,” she said, placing it back on the desk.

  “Why the thief would bring it back to Warley, of all places, I cannot begin to imagine. It’s altogether mystifying. If there is an answer, I trust you both to learn it.”

  “In the meantime, padre,” Leo advised him, “I think the Madonna needs to be put under lock and key, someplace where our culprit can’t get his hands on it again.”

  “It will go immediately back into the muniment room.”

  “And that would be?”

  “There,” the abbot said, indicating an iron banded door in a corner of the office much like the heavy door to the cell in the tower. “In the medieval days, valuable documents and weapons were stored in such strong rooms. We still keep our important documents there, but it was also where the Madonna was locked away except for display in the chapel on feast days. The room is as safe as a vault.”

  Satisfied, Leo turned to another subject. “Any change with Sybil?”

  “None. Her husband is keeping a prayer vigil in the chapel. He looks unwell. I’m concerned about him.”

  “Let’s hope his wife recovers.” Leo went to the office door and unlocked it. “Coming?” he asked Jennifer. He seemed eager to get her away from the office.

  She looked one last time at the Madonna. Then, before joining Leo, she turned to the abbot. “Father, is there a library in the monastery?”

  “There is. Nearly all of the volumes are faith-connected, of course, but we do shelve some secular works.”

  “Would it be available to me?”

  “It would, and you’re welcome to use it. We have no formal checkout, but if you wish to take any of the books to your room, there is a clipboard on the counter for you to sign them out. You’ll find the library just beyond the chapel.”

  He seemed not to be curious about her request, but Leo was when he got her alone out in the gallery.

  “What was that all about?”

  “Research.”

  “Yeah, I got that much. I’m asking about the other.”

  “Other?”

  “I didn’t miss it, Jenny. Something bothered you when you handled the Madonna. I could see it in your face.”

  He was much too observant where she was concerned. Uncanny. And a little alarming. Or maybe it meant— But it was safer not to go there.

  “It’s true,” she admitted.

  “I haven’t forgotten what you told me. That you have this talent for sensing when an antique isn’t all it should be. That this was why Guy wanted you to come by his shop the night he was killed. So what are you thinking? That there’s something wrong about the Madonna?”

  “I’m not sure. I just have this feeling that it isn’t…well, right somehow.”

  “You saying it’s a fake?”

  She shook her head. “Not that exactly. I’m fairly certain it’s very early. All the evidence is there.”

  “But?”

  “I don’t know. And until I find out what’s gnawing at me, if I can, I don’t want to say anything to Father Stephen. It would be an awful blow to him if the Madonna turns out not to be all it’s supposed to be. But if this is connected somehow with two murders…”

  “Then it just might tell us who the killer is. Okay, so you need to do some digging.”

  “On the subject of early Christian relics, yes.”

  “Worth a shot.”

  Jennifer had another thought on their way to the library. “Do you remember what Sybil tried to tell us in the tower?”

  “I do. Something about his not being entitled to it and that by rights it belonged to her. I guess we have to assume now that she was talking about the Madonna.”

  “But why she would claim such a thing, and how she knew who had it…”

  “Yeah, just adds to the puzzle.”

  It took some time in the library for Jennifer to locate several books that might provide useful information. By the time she and Leo came away, armed with the volumes she’d selected, the daylight was gone. They could see through one of the gallery windows looking out on the courtyard that it was dark outside. The snow was still falling.

  Was it her imagination, she wondered, or was it falling less furiously? Hard to tell without the daylight, but if the storm was easing, then the time to get the answers they needed was already slipping away from them.

  DUMPING THE BOOKS in Leo’s room, they went on to the bathroom to clean up. After showering and changing, they found their way to the dining parlor where dinner was waiting for them. Harry Ireland and the Brashers were already seated at the table with their plates of food.

  “Where are the others?” Leo asked as he and Jennifer joined them with their own selections from the buffet.

  “This is all of us tonight,” Fiona informed him. “Geoffrey is in the refectory with the brothers, and Patrick was invited to dine with them. One assumes,” she sniffed, “it’s an indication of his acceptance in the order.”

  And she seems to resent that, Jennifer thought, remembering the argument Fiona and her husband were having with Patrick just before lunch yesterday. It was another mystery among too many mysteries in this place.

  “As for Roger,” Alfred said, “he refuses to leave the chapel. Plans to spend the night there, I understand. I imagine the poor devil has no appetite.”

  Yes, they would have all heard about Sybil, Jennifer thought. Nothing seems to remain a secret here for very long.

  Except for the secrets that mattered. The ones she and Leo were striving to solve. They would get no closer to unlocking them in this company. The Brashers ate in silence after that, and the habitually talkative Harry Ireland was quiet himself tonight, looking worried.

  With good reason, Jennifer decided. Weren’t all of them worried? Understandable, when Sybil had been attacked so savagely on the heels of Brother Anthony’s murder.

  Who would be next? They must all be asking themselves that question. All of them except the culprit himself.

  And since no one here was in a mood to talk—talk that might help Leo and her find the key to the murderer’s identity—Jennifer could only hope that the books waiting in Leo’s room would speak to her.

  They settled down
with those books minutes after they were back in the room, Jennifer on the bed with her back against the headboard, Leo on the chair with his feet propped on a stool.

  “What am I looking for?” he asked her, one of the volumes open in his lap.

  “Anything that refers to the materials and craftsmanship of early relics.”

  They read in silence while the fire hissed softly on the hearth.

  “What about this?” Leo asked. He read her a passage about a catacomb painting in Rome celebrating the Virgin.

  Jennifer shook her head. “That’s wall art. I’m hoping for a reference to something freestanding.”

  They went back to their books.

  “Here’s something promising,” he said, reading her a description of a Byzantine statue. “Sounds as frozen as the Warley Madonna.”

  “Sorry. I’m not getting anything from it.”

  Or from anything else, she realized as they continued with the search. It wasn’t the tedious material either. Clues could have leaped out at her in bold print and she wouldn’t have grasped them.

  She simply wasn’t able to concentrate on the pages. All she could seem to be aware of was the man who sat there only a few feet away from the bed. She kept sneaking glances at him, noticing the way the glow from the fire lit his strong features, of how long and muscular his legs were stretched out to that stool. Kept remembering what they had shared throughout the day, the closeness that had resulted from the episode in the great hall, then an even more powerful closeness on the roof of the gatehouse.

  All of it had been emotional, sensual, strengthening the bond that had been slowly developing from the moment of their first contact. And now there was this throbbing awareness that demanded—

  “It’s no good, is it?” he said.

  He had looked up from his book, caught her gazing at him.

  “We just have to be patient,” she said.

  “I’m not talking about this stuff.” He thumped his knuckles against the book, closed it and dropped it on the floor beside the chair. His whiskey-colored eyes seemed to darken as he leaned toward her, his husky voice deepening to a slow rasp that sent shivers through her. “I’m talking about us. About this thing that’s been sizzling between us all day. What are we going to do about it?”