Artifact (15 page)

Knox sat with his head bowed over his drink at the bar as I joined the others.

Douglas Black emerged from behind the bar carrying hot plates of food. He served Fergus and Angus first, showing the proper respect for the old regulars, then came back with plates for the rest of us. When a steaming plate of meat pie with a side of carrots and buttery baked potatoes was set down in front of me, I found I was even hungrier than I thought.

Malcolm called over to Knox, “There’s room here at the other end of the table.”

“Ta,” Knox replied. “I’m all right.”

“Cheers, everyone,” Malcolm said, raising his glass.

I poured more than a generous serving of both brown sauce and vinegar onto my potato. Malcolm was too polite to comment. Fiona wrinkled her nose.

“I was explaining,” Malcolm said between bites of food, “that we’re short-staffed this summer. I wasn’t able to acquire as much of a grant as this work deserves. My theories aren’t what you’d call mainstream. Locating this site through the discovery of a first stone wasn’t enough. I have some detractors in high places.”

“He thinks the Picts weren’t Celts,” Lane said, as if this was supposed to mean something to me.

“But the debate is far from settled!” Malcolm’s eyes grew wide as he spoke.

Derwin nodded along with him, his Adam’s apple bulging alarmingly. No wonder the locals were creeped out by this group.

“You two are acquainted with the mysterious Picts?” Malcolm asked.

“The professor is being sarcastic,” Derwin said. “The Picts—or ‘picti,’ the painted people, as the Romans described them—aren’t mysterious at all. Not in the most commonly used form of the word. Not like the
Druids
.”

He laughed at his own joke. At least I think it was a joke.

“The mystery,” he said, ignoring his food, “is because we haven’t yet come to understand their system of communication.”

“Much of the history of the region hasn’t yet been pieced together,” Malcolm said. “In the ninth century, Kenneth MacAlpine united the Picts and the Scots to form Scotland, but before that the details of the Picts have been harder to piece together based on lack of written records. All we have is the stones. But so far, they’ve defied deciphering.”

“Conventional wisdom,” said Derwin, “has the Picts as Celtic peoples, but there isn’t any conclusive evidence to support that claim. It’s purely backwards reasoning: ‘The Picts put Celtic crosses on their stones once they were converted to Christianity in the fifth century, ergo they were originally Celts’.”

I smiled at Derwin. Maybe he was my kind of scholar after all.

“Malcolm already has some evidence to support his theory,” Fiona said, startling Derwin. Her translucent eyes were ghostly in the firelight, commanding the attention of the group.

“The Picts had a matrilineal society,” she said. “The familial line was passed down from the mother instead of the father. But there’s still not nearly enough known to be able to say much.”

Malcolm looked at her fondly. “That’s why discovering more stones is so important,” he said. “Fiona joined my team even after I was slandered by my enemies.”

“The professor,” Derwin said, “has discovered this site of heretofore undiscovered symbol stones. He’s working on a paper on the subject at St. Andrews, which I will be coauthoring after our discoveries this summer.”

The fire flickered as a gust of wind circled the inn and crept into the fireplace. Conversation broke off as we all turned to watch the amber flames dance up into the stone chimney. Everyone except for Fiona. Her gaze was fixed on Lane.

Derwin stood up and stretched his long legs. He walked over to the fire, leaving his nearly untouched dinner behind. He stooped to warm his hands in front of the flames.

“It’s a class-one symbol stone,” he said. “It might even contain some new pictographic classifications—”

“Not likely,” said Fiona.

“These class-one symbol stones,” Derwin continued as if Fiona hadn’t spoken, “are most important to identifying the origins of the Picts. They’re the earliest carvings, and they don’t yet have any Celtic additions to them to confuse things.”

“I’m lucky Derwin turned to Scottish archaeology after studying geology as an undergraduate,” Malcolm said. “He’s been doing some fascinating research for his doctorate on P-Celtic versus Q-Celtic languages.”

My eyes glazed over. I doubted it was from the strong Scotch whisky. I watched Knox’s chubby fingers raise the pint glass to his lips yet again, drowning his sorrows at the bar. It was difficult to imagine him trying to kill his friend.

Unless it wasn’t sorrow that was eating him up. Could it be guilt?

The quiet Angus looked out over his glass and caught my eye. The talkative group didn’t seem to miss my company as I left to sit with the regulars. Angus pulled up a chair for me while Fergus scowled at the crew.

“What is it you don’t approve of?” I asked.

“Who’d give a toss about the Picts,” Fergus said, “when there’s real history to be found.”

“Fairy history?” I asked.

“The Tuatha De Danann,” he whispered.

Angus nodded silently.

“From the clouds they came,” Fergus said, “driven underground by the mortals to the sidh.” He pronounced the word ‘shee.’

“Fayrie mounds,” Angus translated. “Hills where fayries dwell.”

“The lass must know what a sidh is, Angus,” Fergus said, shaking his head in exasperation.

For the time it took them to finish their drinks, they recounted several more fairy stories for me. Then Fergus removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, and Angus extracted a pipe. It was time for their walk home, they said.

Lane was no longer in the room. Neither was Fiona. I figured Lane might have been outside smoking, but I didn’t remember Fiona to have been a smoker.

Knox had joined the rest of the crew. He, Malcolm, and Derwin sat around the table with their heads together, debating about how to remove the stone from the earth.

Malcolm got up from the table, pausing by the hearth. He rested his arm against the mantle, near the stone gargoyle.

“Brilliant day,” he said. He tilted his head to me before heading up the stairs.

“Night, Jaya,” Knox mumbled, and followed Malcolm.

“It’s quite late,” Derwin said after Malcolm and Knox were out of sight. “I’m surprised the professor indulged in this late-night merriment.”

Derwin’s vocabulary was from another era. Not to mention his name. I felt a twinge of pity. I imagined he was someone who would have felt more at home had he been born at another time. In the dim light of the fire, his pinched features were full of sorrow. Perhaps he wished he had lived before the grand halls of the nearby Dunnottar Castle had turned to rubble.

“From what you’ve told us about the discovery,” I said, “it sounds like you deserve to celebrate.”

“But the professor takes his digs very seriously,” Derwin said quietly, staring into the fire. Was that fear on his face?

An uneasy feeling entered my mind. Before the thought could fully form, Fiona walked through the door of the pub. She walked up the stairs without pausing to acknowledge me or Derwin.

I was about to ask Derwin if he was all right, when Douglas Black emerged from behind the bar to clean up. He whistled as he began to stack up the chairs.

“Coming up?” I asked Derwin.

He shook his head, still looking at the fire.

“When the fire goes out,” he said.

At the top of the stairs, I opened the door to my room as quietly as I could. I needn’t have bothered. It was empty.

Lane had fixed the rattling window. A towel was snugly fitted along the bottom, and I didn’t hear any rattling. I didn’t hear anything at all.

I put my ear to the door. Something creaked softly. I couldn’t tell if it was a door, let alone which one.

I sat down on the bed and pulled out my phone. Sanjay had left me two voicemail messages and three texts.

“Bad timing,” Sanjay said as soon as he picked up the phone. “I was expecting you to call ages ago. I’m practicing the snake charmer basket now. You know that one requires a lot of concentration.”

“You want me to call you later?” I asked.

“Of course not. Just give me two seconds.”

I heard a hissing that I hoped wasn’t coming from a real snake.

“Okay,” Sanjay said. “I’m all yours.”

“We’re safely in Scotland.”

“
We
? Who’s
we
?”

I really needed to start writing down what I was going to say to everyone so I could keep things straight. How would I explain Lane to Sanjay?

“I mean we the crew of the dig,” I said. “What else would I mean?”

“Why didn’t you tell me Nadia didn’t know what was going on?”

“You told
Nadia
about the ruby? Why were you even at the house?”

“I wasn’t,” Sanjay said. “She called me.”

“But she hates you.”

“She hates me? You told me she hated magicians in general because we deceive people.”

“That’s what I meant.” I hoped I sounded convincing. “Why did she call you?”

“She was worried you were traumatized by the burglary. You didn’t tell me the burglar was violent and knocked her down.”

I managed to convince Sanjay I wasn’t in imminent danger, and he agreed to go back to practicing his new act.

For once in my life, I couldn’t get to sleep right away. Between the mess I’d left back home, the tension seeping through the walls of the inn, and the wind whistling outside, I didn’t know what to do.

My last waking thought that night was that Lane had still not returned.

I awoke in the morning to a faint light streaming in through the window. Lane was asleep on the floor next to the bed. His glasses were on the windowsill. I had a completely unobstructed view of his face. His dark blond hair was brushed back, revealing his prominent cheekbones and the deep-set cheeks beneath. He breathed silently through his nose. His long eyelashes were a shade darker than the sandy hair on his head. They fluttered slightly as if he was dreaming. He looked so peaceful that I closed my eyes again.

I woke up for a second time to find Lane standing next to the bed. He was fully dressed, and back to wearing his glasses with his hair tumbling over his face. It took me a moment to remember he had disappeared the night before.

“Where did you go last night?” I asked. “And I’m a photographer now?”

“I was trying to solve this mystery,” he said.

I sat up and ran my fingers through my hair to pull the tangles from my face.

“
That’s
your excuse for spending the evening off somewhere with Fiona?” I said. “And you didn’t answer my second question.”

“I thought it was obvious. You heard that they need a photographer. I overheard them say as much. Malcolm is serious about his work. He might not have been so keen on letting you tag along on this dig without some function. The rest of them are archaeologists, and I’ve at least had some archaeological training.”

“My camera’s broken.”

“I have one you can use.”

“You—” I stopped myself. It’s too bad I hadn’t stuck with yoga. I really could have used the breathing techniques to keep me calm in the midst of Lane’s vexing ideas.

“I have many talents,” I said calmly. “All modesty aside, I’m aware of that fact.”

The hint of a crooked smile crossed Lane’s lips.

“One talent I do not happen to possess,” I continued less calmly, “is photography. I’m not exaggerating when I say I might be one of the world’s worst photographers. Why do you think I stuck the bracelet in my friend’s hand before I took a picture of it? Otherwise you’d have probably thought it was a grapefruit.”

“A grapefruit?”

“You know what I mean,” I said, tossing the bed sheet aside and standing up. I was glad to see I had remembered to sleep in something sensible.

“The point is,” I said, “what are we doing? I know, I know. I’m the one who led you here in the first place. But now I’m pretending to be a photographer on top of everything else? Coercing information from suspects isn’t nearly as easy as it looks.”

“Is anything?”

“Some things are.”

We stood close in the small quarters. A hint of a smile popped onto Lane’s face again. He cleared his throat, erasing all signs of it.

“And some things,” I added, “aren’t.”

“Hurry up,” Lane said. “We’re going to be late. Breakfast is from seven to seven thirty, before everyone heads off for the dig.”

“Tell them I have a hangover.”

“You drink too much.”

“And you smoke too much, but that’s not what I meant. I want to fake a hangover so I can meet up with you all later. When everyone’s gone, I’m going to try to search their rooms. Have you looked at these ancient locks?”

“Ah,” Lane said, sitting down on the bed. “A girl after my own heart. You’re not as bad at this as you think. I was wondering if you’d think of that, too.”

“Then you could have made better use of your time last night and done it yourself,” I snapped.

“I couldn’t very well do it with everyone here,” he said seriously. “People could have come up to their rooms at any time.”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking or if he would really have done it.

“I like your plan,” he said. “These locks don’t look like they’d stand up to much. It shouldn’t be too difficult.”

The idea hadn’t seemed real until Lane began talking about it as if we were having a casual conversation about the weather.

“Be careful,” he added. “You’re not going to have much time.”

“Why? I’m small, they’ll believe I was feeling poorly for a while.”

Lane looked at me thoughtfully for a moment before speaking.

“At least now I know that breaking and entering isn’t how you provide for that enormous appetite of yours,” he said. “You don’t have much time because as soon as Mrs. Black finishes washing up after breakfast, she’ll come upstairs to clean the two shared bathrooms. And by the time she’s done, members of the dig will start returning intermittently to use the facilities. I thought it would be a good idea to have a talk with Mrs. Black to find out the schedule of the place.”

“That’s what you were doing last night?”

He stood up, bumping his head on the sloped ceiling. “We’ll leave within twenty minutes,” he said, “so you should wait a few more minutes and then go for it. Mr. or Mrs. Black can give you directions to the dig when you come down. You’ll probably have over half an hour, but move quickly.”

He took two steps and was at the door. He reached for the handle and then hesitated and turned back. He pulled a small object out of his pocket.

“This seems to work in the movies,” he said, tossing me a Swiss army knife.

After Lane left, I threw on some clothes and my thick-soled platform boots. They’d be better than pointy heels for snooping without clacking on the floor, and afterward for walking through what I presumed might be a muddy dig. After donning the boots, I noticed something I hadn’t spotted earlier. A tripod and camera had appeared on the small bureau.

The old-fashioned lock I stood in front of twenty minutes later didn’t appear to need a Swiss army knife. At first glance I was sure my own key would fit into the lock. For a second I thought I almost had it. The key turned. But the door didn’t open. It couldn’t hurt to try the Swiss army knife. One of the gadgets was such a perfect size that seemed to be made for this. Well, what do you know…. That did it.

I stepped into the room closest to the stairway and closed the door gently. I could immediately tell this was Dr. Alpin’s room. A fedora similar to the one he had been wearing the previous day hung over the bedpost.

As the organizer of the legitimate dig, he was my least likely suspect. But thinking back on the classic mysteries of my youth, the fact that he was the least likely suspect actually made him the most likely suspect.

I decided to stop thinking so much.

Malcolm Alpin was an average fellow. Socks on the floor. Old-fashioned shaving kit on the dresser. He had several academic books with him, which I leafed through in case he had hidden anything suspicious between the pages. He hadn’t. I flipped over the pictures on the wall, felt along the floor boards, and looked inside the lighting fixture. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but whatever it was wasn’t in this room.

In spite of my newfound ability to pick antiquated locks, I did not appear to be vastly improving my skills as a detective. I let myself out and moved on to the next room.

I found my groove on the second lock, twisting and pulling the key in a upward motion until the ruts fit firmly into the lock, then pushing on the pick until I heard a click.

Pull… twist… click….

The next room was much smaller, though not quite as small as the room Lane and I shared. It was immaculate. A journal sat upon the small bureau next to the bed, which confirmed my suspicion that this was Derwin’s room. The journal was a scholarly record rather than a personal one, duplicating whatever he found most important from the dig log. A bureau drawer contained two blank notebooks and a volume of the
Journal of Scottish Antiquaries
. Neatly placed next to the notebooks and journal were two pencils, a case for binoculars, and a Swiss army knife. The knife wasn’t as fully endowed of tools as the one Lane had given me. One of the tools was bent and didn’t fit properly back into its slot. I picked it up suspiciously, seeing if I could spot traces of brake fluid on it. No luck. There were only traces of dirt and wood, as you’d expect on an archaeologist’s Swiss army knife. The search of his room revealed nothing of interest either, except that Derwin kept his socks and underwear in separate little plastic baggies. I shuddered and left the room.

Pull… twist… click….

Knox’s room. Men’s clothing was strewn over most of the furniture. The only neat part of the room was the stack of photos of the dig placed on the windowsill. I flipped through the photos and got a sense of what I’d be headed toward later that morning. The photos were mostly close-ups of rocky land along the coast. He also had at least a dozen books in his room, more than the professor. The subjects included missing artifacts from Egyptian tombs, fraudulent illuminated manuscripts, and sunken ships rumored to contain treasures. A pamphlet stuck out of the edge of one of the books. The Gregor Estate.

In my excitement at finding the first concrete piece of evidence, I dropped the book. The pamphlet fell out and the book landed with a thud at an awkward angle. I scooped them both up, but the damage was done. I didn’t know where the pamphlet had been placed, and several pages of the book were now crumpled.

I left the books and articles as close as I could to how I’d found them and departed.

Pull… twist… click….

A peculiar sensation came over me as I entered Fiona’s room. The faded scent of perfume lingered in the air, mixed with the scent of cigarettes. A worn photo of her with Knox was wedged into a crack in the wood of the small dresser. A dried, flattened rose had been affixed to the side of the wall-hung mirror, and a light silk scarf was draped over the other top edge.

A loud creak echoed through the room. I froze. Someone was right outside the door.