A lethal legacy, p.17
A Lethal Legacy, page 17
“The Holy Grail?” Mike suggested.
“Not even, just something...a relic...anything. That would start the rumor, legend or myth about the island.”
“Man has been battling man since time began,” Egan said.
“True,” Mike murmured.
“And does any of it matter—if the bank robbers were killed before their stash could be found?” Craig murmured. “This is what I’m seeing—someone is messing around out on that island. Whether they believe that the Ark of the Covenant—or a ten-million-dollar bank haul—is out there, it’s important to know who we’re searching for.” He went on to show Egan what they had discovered.
“So, they were at the same time as Cantorelli,” Egan murmured.
“Who is dead,” Craig said.
“Yes, he is.”
“But?” Craig asked. Egan was half smiling.
“I know his daughter. She goes by a different name. She loved her father, but she’s a good kid—well, if you call thirty a kid. At my age, I do.”
“Was she in contact with her father?”
“She was. She has a husband and three children now, and keeps her distance from everything related to her father’s activities.”
“How well do you know her?” Mike asked.
Egan smiled. “I worked with some US Marshals. She didn’t go into the program, but we managed to erase her history. She likes me. I think.”
Mike looked at Craig and laughed. “What’s not to like?”
“I’ll give her a call,” Egan said.
“Getting hold of her could take some time,” Craig said. “I want to be in the Village within the next hour or so. Kieran and Danny are going to attend a meeting of the Believers.”
“Well, you’re in luck.”
“How so?” Mike asked.
“Jenny Stratton is in an old brownstone, right off Christopher Street. I’ll call her, and if she’s willing, you can kill a couple of birds with one stone.”
* * *
They wound up getting into the city later than Kieran had wanted. By the time Danny had changed and they were set to go, the boat had come to bring the day help back to Brooklyn.
They hitched a ride that way.
From the dock, they made their way to the subway. The streets at that time would have taken forever.
Danny was starving; Kieran was anxious. But they stopped for a quick bite of pizza.
“We’re going to a coffee shop, you know,” Kieran reminded her brother.
“And coffee and a pastry will be great after pizza,” he said. “Come on! You’re eating your pizza, too!”
She ate quickly as they moved through the crowds.
She put her call through to Craig as they exited the subway.
“I’m here—in the Village,” he told her.
“Are you at the apartment? It’s about a block and a half away.”
“Closer than that,” Craig said.
“Invite Harding to dinner tomorrow night.”
“Will do. What about John Smith and Annie Green?”
“We’ll call them.”
“What if they have plans?”
“I have a feeling they won’t.”
They rang off. Kieran looked at Danny. “Let’s meet the Believers!”
They entered the coffee shop. Danny walked up to the counter, getting in line behind a young couple.
Kieran looked for their group.
She saw Jay Harding. He was in the back of the shop where several tables had been pushed together; he must have had an arrangement with the owner. There were a few people already seated with coffee and pastries before them, and they seemed to be speaking casually before the rest of their group arrived.
Harding saw her and stood. “Hey, you came!”
“Danny and I just had to hear what you have to say,” Kieran told him.
“Here, take these seats.” He indicated the chairs on either side of him. She thanked him and sat. Harding began introductions. “Grace and Nick Tanaka, Ben Garcia, Rudy Stein and his wife, Judy. The ‘young-uns’ there—heading to the table with your brother and your coffee, are Dallas Berne and his girl, Valentina Tischenko. And down there at the end, are Priscilla and Ells Chapman.”
Hellos and welcomes went around the table.
The “young-uns”—Dallas and Valentina—were in their early to midthirties. They were, however, the youngest in the group.
Jay began telling his gathered crew about Kieran and Danny.
“They’re with the Finnegan family—of Finnegan’s on Broadway,” Jay said.
“Wow, cool place!” Dallas said. He looked similar to Jay, with long shaggy hair, bright eyes, a scruffy jaw, a Grateful Dead T-shirt.
“We’ve been there several times,” his girlfriend, Valentina said. “Love the bands!”
“I’ll tell my brother, Declan—he hires the performers,” Kieran said.
“We used to go so often!” Priscilla Chapman said. “Ells and I love the place.” She and her husband couldn’t have been more different from Jay or Dallas and Sydney. He was in a suit; his white hair was close cropped, and his demeanor was refined. Priscilla was also in a suit, with a pencil skirt. She was slim and sleek and looked as if she spent her days in the business world as well.
“Thanks, so glad you all like it!”
“We’re on the Upper East Side now,” Ells said, as if explaining why they weren’t good customers anymore. “We were only downtown for a bit when we first moved to the city. You know city traffic. Getting down sometimes...” He let his words trail. “One day,” he added, “we can hold a special meeting at Finnegan’s!”
“Great,” Danny said.
“Ah, yeah. Super,” Kieran agreed.
“Let’s see what we’ve all been working on!” Jay said cheerfully.
“Ah, well, we’ve been having a great time,” Priscilla said. “Looking at the Moai of Easter Island—we’ve compared pictures with dozens of accounts of alien abduction.” She rose, handing out pages with sketched images shown alongside copies of pictures of giant statues on Easter Island.
“We did phone interviews with several of the people,” Ells said proudly. “Not a fake among them—we talked to three store clerks, an auto mechanic, a teacher and an attorney!”
“Goes to show,” Jay said. “An attorney,” he said, looking at Kieran, “who has experienced an abduction.”
Danny looked at Kieran. “Not a fake among them!” he said.
She managed a smile.
“I’ve been going back through documents that have made it through the ages—written by Viking explorers!” Sydney said.
“We’ve been going through them,” Dallas corrected, clearing his throat.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Sydney said, blushing. “Dallas had to work some overtime this week. I just meant that I was doing more of the reading.” She also produced a number of copy sheets, passing them around. Kieran studied the pages before her.
The two had done some interesting research. The pages showed the old Norse, and they also showed the translations.
“Wow, these are great,” Jay said. “Especially,” he added, “since Kieran and Danny are staying out on Douglas Island.”
“Man, really?” Dallas asked. “Lucky!”
Kieran smiled weakly.
Jay provided the facts.
“Kieran is with an FBI agent, who also happens to be a cousin of the owner of the island. And they’re looking into the death of the man who died Friday night. His cousin’s friend.”
“I heard the man fell,” Grace Tanaka said. “He was on a cliff, and he fell. Tragic, but...”
Grace and Nick were in their later forties or early fifties, an attractive and fit couple who were still in their jogging clothes.
“Grace,” her husband said, “we can’t make that judgment. If the Ark is out there, and if it is a communication device...”
“Then the Ark is protecting the island,” Sydney said sagely.
“Protecting the island?” Kieran said.
Ben Garcia, a man of about forty with dark hair and a handsome face, leaned forward to explain.
“If you look at the ancient-alien theory, it’s more than possible. Many think that the aliens visited Egypt long before Ramses II, before Seti, back to the time when the Great Pyramids were built, or even before. When historians see the unification of Egypt in dynasties...say, 3100 BC. They became the gods of Egypt. They were so technologically advanced over us—still way over what we have today—that they could set that technology into arks—trunks, if you will. If that’s the case, there might have been many arks in Egypt. One very similar to what we think the Ark of the Covenant was, found in Tut’s tomb—remarkable.”
“And, you know about all the curses, right?” Judy Stein asked excitedly. “Any person disturbing a mummy—be they a tomb robber or an archeologist—is cursed.”
“Howard Carter’s canary was found in the mouth of a cobra!” her husband, Rudy said. “A cobra—an animal used by the pharaohs in their headdresses. You must realize, events like that do show that there is more at work than meets the eye—so much more than most people accept.”
“And we all know what happened to Lord Carnarvon. He died! Soon after the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb,” Judy said, nodding almost triumphantly—as if her words absolutely proved a curse.
“He died of a disease,” Kieran said. She smiled. They’d spent a lot of time at one of the city’s new museums on antiquities when another of Craig’s cousins, Harley Frasier, had become involved in a case of murder—one that supposedly had to do with curses, too.
“Mysterious disease!” Ben said.
“Bitten by a mosquito—right where the pharaoh Tut had an injury,” Valentina told her.
“Do you really believe in curses?” Danny asked. He wasn’t mocking anyone; he was serious.
“That’s the whole point,” Nick Tanaka put in. “No—curses aren’t scientific.”
“But aliens are,” Judy said.
Jay explained, “The aliens would have left protection for the pharaohs—and those with whom they dealt. They knew to breed bacteria—to infect those who would interfere with the dead. And they might have, we believe, left devices that created sounds. Sounds that humans couldn’t hear, but that might make a cobra hungry.”
“Okay,” Dallas said, “the cobra might have just been hungry. Cobras were common. That wasn’t much of a surprise, I would think. A cobra eating a bird.”
Jay smiled at Kieran. “Don’t you see, that’s the point! Douglas Island isn’t cursed. Douglas Island might well hold the Ark of the Covenant. And if the Ark of the Covenant did come out of Ancient Egypt with Moses, and it was rescued at some point by the Templars and brought to Scotland—it might have made its way to the New World. And the bad things that happen on Douglas Island aren’t because of a ridiculous curse at all—they are the workings of the alien-crafted Ark!”
He sat back, entirely triumphant, as if his words were so logical that no one could possibly argue them.
“Interesting,” Danny said.
“Fascinating,” Kieran agreed. She smiled, looking at Valentina. “And these Norse texts you’ve found and translated...do they mention Douglas Island?”
“Well,” Valentina said patiently, “it wouldn’t have been Douglas Island back then, so we can’t be certain. Page two of the papers I gave you...it’s from the journal of Sven Longbeard—a trader out of Iceland. He talks about trading with the Native people on the ‘island of many bones.’ The Natives traded on the island, because that’s where they could meet the seafarers. But the island was bad—cursed! And so, none would live on it. Sounds like Douglas Island,” she said, nodding.
“All—um, fascinating,” Kieran murmured. She wished she could think of something else to say—other than they really had no scientific proof whatsoever for what they seemed to think had to be logical and scholarly.
She made a mental note to remember everyone at the table. They needed to have Craig’s office look into all these people.
Even the youngest—Valentina and Dallas—would have been in their early twenties when the bank robbers died out on the island.
“I was at the university this week,” Rudy Stein piped up. “I found a fantastic article written back in the 1920s by a Harvard professor. He interpreted letters by a Knight Templar, Jon du Beauville, who wrote to his uncle—his mother’s brother in England—while he was fleeing north.”
He stood up to hand his sheets around.
“As you can see in the translation from the French, he wrote that he hoped to live to see him, and he prayed to escape the persecution of the Knights. He says here, and I quote, ‘Dearest sir and mentor, I have faithfully followed my vows, and while I pray for escape and life, it is not so much for myself, for my faith is pure. But I pass this to the pilgrims returning north, hoping it will find its way to you. But I pray not so much for my life, but for the preservation of the precious relics I and my companions have sworn to give our lives to protect. If we can travel far enough north, we have willing friends to see that they are brought far from the grasping fists of His Most Greedy Highness, Philip of France.’”
“The letter is real?” Kieran asked.
“Kept in archives in London. The book I found at the university was written by a professor—Stanfield Adams. I trust in the veracity of a Harvard man,” Rudy said.
“These are wonderful,” Kieran said, and she spoke truthfully. “Thank you so much for including Danny and me in this meeting—and thank you for these.”
“Maybe we can have a meeting at Finnegan’s—and one on Douglas Island,” Ben Garcia said.
Kieran smiled. “I don’t own the island,” she said simply.
“But you could tell us about it, right?” Valentina asked. “Danny?”
He looked at Kieran and grinned. “Oh, of course! There’s a beautiful but very tiny beach, and a creaky old Victorian house. Rocks, of course—they surround the place. You’d have to have been a Viking or a Norse seaman to have made your way around the rocks before dredging and sonar and all that. The moon at night over the cliffs is spectacular!”
Danny went on.
Kieran was proud of him.
He talked and talked.
And didn’t really say a damned thing at all.
* * *
Jenny Stratton was an attractive woman with light green eyes and soft brown hair. Her little boy was about five, with coloring as light as his mother’s.
She was happy to meet with Craig and Mike, as long as they were willing to come to the park near Christopher Street.
She had a quick smile and a warm handshake. “I guess I should have hated my father,” she said, watching as her little boy chased pigeons across the grass. “But he was my father. I guess I was a lucky kid—he kept me out of it all.” She was quiet for a minute. “He killed—or had killed—a lot of people. Usually, however, just people in the same game. He had a lot of rivals. It’s a miracle he lived to die of a heart attack.”
“You were able to visit him—and maintain anonymity?” Craig asked her.
“I saw him in solitude,” she said. “He started off in Chicago. My mother and I were in Chicago when most things were going down—and when he was arrested. When I visited him once...I told him I couldn’t come back. I knew about the things he had done. And that’s when he told me—and convinced me it was true!—that he only had people killed when they were killers themselves. I know for a fact he never went after anyone else’s kids or family. And I guess...well, my name has been legally changed—my maiden name—and my history erased from any public records, new info put in, but...well, you know people. I think my father was telling the truth. I spend my days out with my kids and no one has ever come after me. I don’t think they will. My husband knows the truth, naturally. He’s an amazing man.”
“Of course,” Mike murmured.
“I don’t see how I can help you.”
“I’m just curious. Your dad was...well, he had a hell of a reputation,” Craig said. “We know that he was in with a couple of guys who were amateur badasses. Templeton and Barton. They—”
“The bank robbers!” she said.
“Yes. You know about them?”
“Sure. Dad talked about them. He said they were two of the biggest idiots he’d ever met—and he wasn’t surprised when they died on the island.”
“Why was that?”
“They were always trying to make big plans. Oh, and, of course, they wanted to hear about him all the time, and they believed some crap about him never having left witnesses anywhere. My dad said that it definitely was crap—he never carried out any of the...executions he ordered. Others did. And his family had a code of honor. Sounds funny, but it’s true. No women or children. Ever. Under any circumstances. So...but he called them idiots. He used to say, ‘Mark my words. Those idiots will get themselves killed. If they don’t kill themselves.’”
“So he wasn’t surprised when they wound up dead.”
“Not at all. I remember, because it was the talk going around. When I visited Dad back then—even the prison guards were talking about it.”
“This is a long shot, but...did you happen to know who visited them, if they were friends with anyone other than your father?”
“I don’t think my father considered them to be friends,” Jenny said. She shrugged. “Tons of convicts find God, right? Well, my father didn’t find him—he returned to him. He was a very good Catholic at the end, trying to help others. Believe it or not.”
Craig smiled. “We have no problem believing you.”
“And you don’t think maybe I have criminal tendencies?”
“None of us is our parents. We have traits, and we learn from them. But we all take our lives and make of them what we will ourselves,” Craig said.
