The Iron Ring

by Matty Dalrymple

  A small, somewhat insane smile played on Edmund Rinnert’s lips.

  Louise put her own cup aside. “Oh, yes, Theo, we did. Dr. Rinnert has been such a help.”

  Theo fumbled in his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone.

  Louise stepped to his side. “Let’s not call for Lucas just yet,” she said, and pulled the phone from his shaking hand.

  Theo swayed, and she took his elbow and guided him toward one of the lab stools. He tried to push her away but stumbled. He grabbed for the stool as he fell and brought it down on top of him. Edmund pulled the stool off Viklund and set it aside.

  Viklund’s face was brick red, and his breath was coming fast.

  Louise knelt next to Theo. “You missed the target, Theo. No iron ring for you. Just the quintain.”

  Theo’s mouth gaped open as if to suck in lungfuls of air, but only a tiny whistle of breath passed through his throat.

  Louise watched him, her face impassive. Edmund stood behind her, almost dancing in a frenzy of nerves.

  The whistle became fainter and fainter, and in a minute, silence descended on the lab.

  “Is he dead?” whispered Edmund with desperate glee.

  Louise reached her fingers to Theo’s neck and pressed them to his carotid artery for a full minute. “Quite dead.”

  “Do you think this will work?” asked Edmund. “Do you really think they won’t suspect us?”

  She stood. “Of course they’ll suspect us. But what are they going to do—shoot us because we had the misfortune to be in the same room as their employer when he suffered an unexplained attack? I don’t sense that Theo Viklund was someone who engendered tremendous love among his staff. And with Rey Viklund dead, there doesn’t appear to be anyone else who is obviously second-in-command—or even someone who is jockeying for that position.”

  “Confusion about Viklund’s death might protect us for a couple of days, but what then?”

  “I feel confident that Maja will be happy to switch her allegiance to me, and I believe she will bring the rest of the household staff with her. We only need a few days to cement our position.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?”

  “Theo himself provided all the tools we need—the lab, access to data. The threat to modify individuals’ prescription medications—their own or their loved ones—could be effective. There are many options. I may test one of those options out on Lucas.” She got out her phone and pressed zero. “Maja, Theo has had an attack of some sort. Can you and Lucas please come down to the lab?” She ended the call.

  “What about people outside the compound? The people Viklund was working with … or working for?”

  “With the reclusive life Theo led, it will take weeks—even months—for anyone to suspect that he’s dead. Perhaps by that time, we can demonstrate to them that we are as formidable an ally as Theo was. And as formidable an adversary.” She looked down at the body at their feet. “Theo may have been right that I wouldn’t have sought out a position such as he has evidently built for himself, but he underestimated my willingness to step into that position if he made the alternative unpleasant enough.”

  She bent over Theo and returned his phone to his pocket.

  “What about me?” asked Edmund.

  “If I am successful in earning the loyalty of Theo’s staff, I’ll protect you. And if I am not successful, then I’ll do my best to ensure I’m the one who pays the price, not you.”

  “You wouldn’t need me anymore,” he said tentatively.

  “Edmund, you gave me your assurance that you would stay here, in exchange for me taking care of Theo. I expect you to adhere to that plan. And considering what you and I have been able to achieve in the short time we’ve worked together,” she continued briskly, “just imagine what we will be able to accomplish over more time, and in an environment more conducive to careful study.” She stepped to the door and pushed it open. Maja and Lucas were already making their hurried way down the path to the lab.

  “You will be staying here, Edmund,” said Louise. “I have great plans for you.”

  65

  Owen sat at his dining room table in Lansdowne staring out the window, his laptop and a fan of papers spread before him. Andy and their parents had left several hours ago after a mid-day meal of lasagna and salad that his mother had prepared in Owen’s kitchen. She seemed happiest and most like her old self when she was cooking.

  He heard the front door open and the beep as the alarm was disarmed.

  “Ruby?” he called.

  “Yes, Dr. McNally,” came her response. In a moment she appeared in the door. He began to push himself up with the cane that he was using while his leg healed, but she gestured him back into his chair. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

  “How was the service?” he asked.

  She sighed. “It went as well as can be expected, I suppose. Opal held up pretty well.”

  “What now?”

  Ruby took a deep breath. “Our cousin in Florida has asked Opal if she wants to go down there to get away for a while, have a little vacation. I think it would be good for her.”

  “And how about you? You probably need a little vacation of your own—helping your sister on top of taking care of me must have been exhausting.” He had seen the dark circles ringing her eyes, the droop of her usually resolute mouth.

  “Florida really isn’t for me,” she said, some of her old briskness returning. “I can stay up here and get Opal and Tony’s house straightened up. I wouldn’t be surprised if she decides to stay down there, and she’ll want the house looking nice if she decides to sell it.”

  “It sounds—” began Owen, then stopped himself. Any word he might use to complete that thought—sad? lonely?—would no doubt sound like pity to Ruby DiMano.

  Ruby regarded him with an eyebrow raised in warning.

  He sighed. “It’s very thoughtful of you to do that for your sister.”

  “Well, I certainly won’t start in on their house until you’re up and about.”

  Ruby had been staying with Owen since his return from Arizona, since the combination of the heart attack and the stab wound to his thigh still made it difficult for him to get around.

  “I would have been up and about days ago if I hadn’t been taking advantage of your helpfulness,” said Owen, more jovially than he felt. “I’m fine, really. You need to do what’s right for you and your family.”

  She examined him with narrowed eyes, then said, “Well. All right.”

  “We can have a celebratory dinner—we have leftover lasagna—and then you can head back to Overbrook tomorrow,” he continued, trying to maintain his cheerful tone.

  “Oh. Yes. Well. All right.” She glanced around the room. “Would you like some tea?”

  “I just had some, thank you.”

  “I think I’ll just have a cup myself.” She turned and walked quickly down the hall toward the kitchen. In a few minutes, Owen heard the whistle of the kettle.

  He pushed himself up from the table, retrieved the cane, and made his hitching way down the hall to the kitchen.

  She was standing at the counter, her back to him, vigorously dunking a tea bag in a steaming cup of water.

  “Ruby?”

  “Yes, Dr. McNally?” she said, not turning around.

  “Ruby, would you consider staying here with me for a little while longer? I miss Lizzy so much, and having company here makes it easier to take. You would be doing me a great favor if you would consider staying.”

  The dunking stopped. Ruby pulled a tissue from the pocket of her dress, dabbed her eyes, and turned around.

  “Yes, Dr. McNally I would be happy to stay here a while longer.”

  66

  Two men stood in a conference room whose windows gave a view across downtown Phoenix to Camelback Mountain. The room was decorated in an odd mix of Western rustic and corporate sleek—longhorn steer horns mounted against raw silk wallpaper, a Remington sculpture of a bronco buster on an
Italian mid-century credenza. Next to the sculpture sat a cowboy hat, brim up.

  “They think it’s for another solar farm?” asked a tall, barrel-chested man in a deep voice marked by a Texas drawl.

  “Yes,” said the shorter man. “They have no reason to think that we’re … diversifying.”

  “But the contract gives us an out?”

  “Yes. They’d have to re-read the contract pretty closely to find the language that gives us the flexibility we need—it was a matter of changing just a few words.”

  “And the woman has the authority to sign for the allottees?”

  “Yes. Once she signs, we’re golden.”

  The taller man guffawed and adjusted his bolo tie. “We might have been ‘golden’ back in the day, but we’ll be ‘uranium’ now.”

  The shorter man smiled humorlessly. “Clever.”

  The taller man swung open one of the credenza doors and removed a can of Red Bull from the refrigerated compartment that had been retrofit into its interior. He popped the tab and took a gulp. “They’ll take the deal?”

  The shorter man smoothed the lapels of his perfectly cut navy suit. “Cliff, that’s what you pay me for—to make sure they take the deal.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Yes,” Cliff called.

  The door opened and a handsome, rail-thin young man dressed all in black stepped into the room. “Are you ready for them?” he asked.

  “Yes, Travis, send them in.”

  Travis nodded and withdrew back into the hallway.

  “Let me do the talking,” said the shorter man.

  Cliff slapped him on the shoulder, eliciting a scowl. “I guess that’s the other thing I pay you for, Jed,” said Cliff jovially.

  The party that entered the conference room looked out of place in the corporate setting. The first to enter was a Native American woman in her early thirties wearing a denim dress, a squash blossom necklace at her throat. Olivia Riva.

  The second was a man of about the same age, also Native American. He wore neat jeans, polished boots, and a dark red shirt. At his waist was a belt buckle with a ladder design wrought in turquoise and silver, behind which the head of a snake, its eye rendered in red coral, protruded. Philip Riva. Their research hadn’t uncovered any background on Mr. Riva.

  The third was even more incongruous. A young white woman, deeply tanned, with short hair bleached gold by the sun but tipped with bright red. A turquoise, lapis, and onyx pendant in the shape of a Zuni bear hung at her throat. Elizabeth Owen. Like Mr. Riva, their searches on Ms. Owen had come up empty.

  “Good morning,” said Jed. He crossed from the windows to where the visitors stood near the door. “My name is Jed Grimwood, Cliff Ellerbach’s attorney.” He shook hands with Philip Riva and the Owen girl, then turned to Olivia Riva. “Miss Riva, such a pleasure to see you again,” he said as he shook her hand.

  The woman raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Grimwood.”

  Jed Grimwood waved the visitors toward the conference room table, into three chairs facing the window. “Please, have a seat.”

  The three sat down, Olivia Riva in the middle.

  Grimwood and Ellerbach sat opposite them, the sun at their backs.

  “Ms. Riva,” said Grimwood, “I’d like to thank you and your colleagues for coming to Phoenix to finalize this deal. Mr. Ellerbach is very excited about the opportunity to expand his company’s installations on your clients’ land, and, as I’m sure you will agree, this is truly a win-win situation for all concerned. An opportunity for his company to continue to expand their presence in this vital industry, and an opportunity for your clients to reap significant financial benefits. We’re pleased that you were able to review the contract with your clients, and that they have accepted our offer.” He removed a Mont Blanc pen from his pocket, uncapped it, and laid it on top of the manila folder in front of his chair. “We’ve tabbed the pages where a signature is required.” He slid the folder across the table to Olivia Riva and sat back.

  Riva looked toward the girl, who shook her head.

  Riva turned back to the men. “I won’t sign.”

  Grimwood showed no response other than a slight tightening of his mouth. “What do you mean, you won’t sign?”

  “The agreement is unacceptable as it stands.” She stood, and her two companions followed suit.

  The two men stood as well.

  “Wait a minute,” said Ellerbach, looking between Olivia Riva and Grimwood, his face beginning to flush. “I thought we had worked out all the details. What could possibly make you tell us that our offer is unacceptable at this point?”

  The man and the woman looked toward the girl, and the man gave her an almost imperceptible nod.

  “You say you’re going to build a solar farm,” said Elizabeth Owen, “but you really want the land for uranium mining. This contract is different from what you sent to Olivia to review. This one is written in such a way that you can use the land however you want. The section that changed is …” She looked at the lawyer for a moment, her eyes slightly squinted. “… Section H.”

  “What the hell—” said Ellerbach.

  “Cliff, let me handle this,” said Grimwood. He turned toward the girl. “What in the world makes you think that?”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

  Olivia Riva sat down, pulled the manila folder to her, flipped to the referenced section, and began reading.

  Philip Riva and Elizabeth Owen sat as well.

  After a moment, Grimwood and Ellerbach followed suit.

  A minute ticked by. Grimwood sat with his hands resting on the table, fingers laced, watching Olivia Riva with narrowed eyes. Ellerbach snatched up the can of Red Bull from the table, and began squeezing and releasing it like a tin clicker toy. Grimwood looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Ellerbach banged the can down on the table and spun his chair to look out the window.

  Finally, Olivia Riva flipped the folder closed. “That’s not the same as the version you sent me as final.”

  “Perhaps there was some administrative mix-up,” said Grimwood.

  “There wasn’t any mix-up,” said Elizabeth Owen. “The guy who showed us in here, Travis, just changed the version number of the one you sent to Olivia, but now he’s worried that there might be other copies he forgot about. He’s also wondering if what Mr. Grimwood told him is true: that only the three of you know about the change. It is true. Mr. Grimwood made all the changes to the contract himself, so not even anyone else at his law firm knows about it, but Travis is mad that you guys involved him.”

  Ellerbach looked toward his lawyer. “Grimwood, you told me—”

  “Shut up, Cliff,” said Grimwood. He turned toward the three visitors. “If there was a change, I am certainly not aware of it.” He turned back to Ellerbach. “Maybe Travis—”

  “Don’t blame this on Travis,” Ellerbach shot back.

  “Yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea to try to blame Travis,” said Lizzy, “because he and Mr. Ellerbach are—“

  Ellerbach shot to his feet. “I said to leave Travis out of this!”

  “Travis has been thinking about quitting.”

  “He has not!”

  “Mr. Ellerbach thinks he would know if Travis was thinking about quitting because he and Travis spend a lot of time together.”

  “We do not!”

  “Mr. Ellerbach is late home from work a lot, and he’s worried that his wife is getting suspicious,” continued the girl.

  “What the hell—”

  “There are some pictures that Mr. Ellerbach took of himself and sent to Travis, and now he’s sorry he did that.”

  Ellerbach brought his fist down on the table.

  “Shut up!”

  The girl jumped, then continued, implacable. “If Mrs. Ellerbach gets the photos, Mr. Ellerbach is going to have to give her a lot of money in the divorce.”

  “She’s never going to see those pictures!” Ellerbach yelled.


  The room went quiet. Elizabeth Owen’s face was flushed and she looked nervous but also satisfied. Olivia Riva raised an eyebrow. Philip Riva dropped his head, but not before Grimwood caught the grin breaking over his face.

  Ellerbach stood and pointed toward the door with a shaking finger. “I want you out.”

  Olivia Riva sat back in her chair. “Mr. Ellerbach, for years your company installed very successful solar farms on Indian land—installations that have provided legitimate benefits to the allottees.” She closed the manila folder and dropped it into a leather bag at her side. “I’m sure your attorney and your assistant can resurrect the version of the agreement that I reviewed with my clients. That’s the agreement I came here to sign.”

  “I’ve changed my mind,” said Ellerbach. “I have no interest in entering into any kind of agreement with you or your clients.”

  “Don’t be hasty, Mr. Ellerbach,” said Philip Riva. “I’m thinking that if Travis is starting to have second thoughts about his part in this deal, he might be willing to share whatever photos you sent to him. He’d have a legitimate claim of sexual harassment if his boss was sending him unsolicited photos of …” He raised his eyebrows and looked toward Elizabeth Owen.

  Ellerbach’s face went from red to white.

  “They were photos of—” said the girl.

  “That’s enough,” said Grimwood. “Sit down, Cliff.”

  Ellerbach sat.

  Grimwood turned to the three visitors. “So. A solar farm.”

  “Yes,” said Olivia Riva. “Just as stated in the original agreement.”

  Grimwood turned to Ellerbach. “Another solar farm sounds like a capital idea, Cliff, don’t you think?”

  Ellerbach crossed his arms and glared at the three.

  “I can just picture it,” continued Grimwood.

  The corner of Ellerbach’s eye twitched. “Fine.”

  “It may take us a little while to identify the correct version,” said Grimwood.