Artifact (5 page)

“Who goes first?” I asked as we walked down the street.

“That would be you,” Lane said. “I’m the one who’s been misled.”

“I didn’t mislead you.”

“No?” Lane stopped at the street corner and looked at me. His hazel eyes grew dark as his lids narrowed.

“Not on purpose.” I looked away and kept walking. Lane caught up with me easily.

“You failed to correct my natural assumptions,” he said.

“Would you have in my position? It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t even know what
it is
that’s supposed to sound crazy,” Lane reminded me. “Except I’m guessing the bracelet wasn’t left to you in a will. Or if it was, then a very contested one.”

I didn’t answer right away.

“Maybe this was a bad idea,” Lane said, stopping again. “You’re not going to tell me what’s going on.”

I stopped and faced him. “You said you found something. I need to know what.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“Here,” I said, rummaging through my bag. I pressed Rupert’s note and the newspaper article into his hands. “This is how I got the bracelet. The note was in the package. He and I were...He’s my ex-boyfriend. He is—
was
—an archaeologist.” I explained about the dig in Scotland where Rupert had been when he sent the package.

Lane read the note and the article in silence. He handed them back to me without a word, then started walking again.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “I’m thinking.” He pulled out one of his cigarettes and walked on in silence.

“You call that a
little
walk?” Lane said more than a short time later when we arrived at Zeitgeist, a biker bar à la San Francisco. Motorcycles out front, bicycles along the fence in the beer garden. He hadn’t said another word for the rest of the walk.

“Too much for you? You should get out of that stuffy little office more.”

“I don’t know how you do it in those heels.”

We ordered drinks at the bar, then took them through to the back beer garden’s wooden tables and benches.

Lane quickly scanned the garden. It was only half-full. He led the way to a table in the back corner and sat down, facing outward. I sat on the other side of the table and tucked my legs underneath me.

I took a gulp of my Bloody Mary. I felt like I needed some vegetables.

“This car crash,” Lane said. “You don’t think it was accidental. Why?”

“Are you hungry?” I asked, avoiding the question. “We could order some burgers.” Even though I’d told him what was going on, I wasn’t quite ready to share everything. When I thought about what I would say next, that I thought Rupert had been murdered, it sounded too crazy to say out loud to someone I’d met only that day.

“What I
am
is not hungry,” Lane said.

“Right.”

“Jaya?”

“Mm?” I took another sip of my drink. He couldn’t expect me to talk with a mouthful of tomato juice.

The hum of voices around us was starting to pick up. Pieces of conversations about bad bosses, new restaurants, and trips to Lake Tahoe blended together. I looked around at the tables. A stocky man drinking a beer by himself caught my eye, then looked quickly away.

“The car crash,” Lane said again.

“I know it sounds crazy,” I blurted out. “But with the package he sent to me the very same day—”

“The note isn’t dated.”

“There was a postmark,” I said. “Between the timing of when he was killed, what you told me about the bracelet, and now the breakin....”

“You think he was murdered.”

“I knew you’d think it was insane.”

“I didn’t say that,” Lane said. “Quite the contrary. I was wondering why you were so calm at your apartment and walking down here in the wide open. You believe someone is after the ruby treasure, has broken into your apartment, and that a murderer is on the loose. What I think is that you should be taking this more seriously.”

I believe I gasped. Hearing him state the implications so clearly and calmly made the situation all too real. I untucked my legs so my feet were firmly on the ground.

“But why go after me?” I asked. “Rupert was involved in something that got him murdered. But even if someone is after the bracelet—and I’m still not totally convinced the breakin was more than a coincidence—”

“You’re too intelligent to believe in this degree of coincidence.”

“You really believe there’s a murderer on the loose?
Here
?”

I said it a bit too loudly. Two people at a nearby table stopped their conversation mid-sentence and tried to look at us without turning their heads completely around. I ignored their terrible attempt at subtle eavesdropping.

“Not just one,” Lane said.

If I didn’t gasp again, I’m fairly certain that at the very least my mouth was gaping open more than was attractive.

Lane had spoken at a more appropriate volume for the discussion of murder. The eavesdroppers returned to their own conversation. I, on the other hand, returned to my drink and polished off the last of it.

“You can’t think the same guy who killed your ex was sneaking around your apartment,” he said. “We’re in another country. On the other side of the world.”

“
Now
who’s the one being contradictory? You’re the one who went on and on about an apocryphal treasure existing. That sounds like a big enough deal for someone to hop on a flight. You can’t have it both ways any more than I can.”

“I’m not,” he said, calmly taking a sip of his drink. “I figured it was a conspiracy.”

As he said it, it dawned on me that he had purposefully selected a seat in the farthest corner of the garden. He had sat down first, facing outward. Although he’d been paying attention to me, I had the sense that whenever his hair fell over his eyes he was watching what was going on beyond me. He suspected something like this since he arrived at my apartment.

“But this can’t be a conspiracy,” I said.

“Why not?”

“This is
my life
.”

Lane did not look as if he accepted my impeccable logic.

“You know something else,” I said breathlessly.

He blinked at me, startled.

“You said you found out something this afternoon. That’s why you believe me.”

“I have one last question for you first,” he said. “So we can make sense of this.”

“Fine.”

“Why did your ex send this to you?” Lane asked.

“You read the note.”

“I didn’t think the East India Company exported jewelry.”

“They didn’t. But he sent me the priceless—is it priceless?”

“I’m sure it’s worth a hell of a lot.”

I swallowed hard. “He sent me the bracelet to get it safely out of the way. That much is clear. He was right that he could trust me. He was rushing to mail the package to me, and he thought he could fill me in when I called him. He must have equated my research on one aspect of Indian history to another. Sometimes I’d tell him some of my more romantic discoveries that weren’t exactly relevant to my work. Like how before organized British rule began in 1858, British men in India were free to marry Indian woman, which many of them did.”

“That doesn’t sound especially relevant to Mughal jewelry.”

“It’s not. But since I know more about Indian history than Rupert did, maybe he thought I could help him identify the ruby piece. He was wrong.”

“If he wanted your help with the bracelet itself,” Lane said, “it wouldn’t have been only to identify it. He needed help finding the rest of the treasure.”

“What makes you think he didn’t already have it?”

“It was dangerous for him to have one piece, so it would have been dangerous for him to have all of them. All the evidence you have points to the fact that he didn’t have any other pieces.”

“So the treasure is out there somewhere?”

“Hidden for centuries.”

“My brain hurts,” I said inelegantly.

“Then you prefer the simpler explanation of why he sent the ruby bracelet to you?”

“Which is?”

“You really didn’t think of it?”

“
What
?” I scowled at him.

“He wanted you back in his life.”

“There are a lot easier ways to get back together with someone than sending them a priceless—I know, I know—valuable artifact.”

“Think about it,” Lane said. “I’ve never heard of anyone sending an expensive piece of jewelry to an ex-girlfriend without an ulterior motive. Even under the circumstances, there’s some symbolism there.”

I swore. The couple from the nearby table looked over at us again. Evidently they were not suited to city life.

I curled my arms together on the table and rested my head. “I need a hamburger,” I said, my voice muffled by my sleeve.

“Don’t you want to know what I found?” Lane asked.

“No.”

I only play tabla at the Tandoori Palace a couple nights a week, so I didn’t have to be anywhere else that evening. I had time. It was my turn to call the shots.

“I want you to order me a cheeseburger,” I said. “Well done. Extra cheese. With fries.” I fished some cash out of my bag and handed the crinkled bills to him.

The sun was starting its initial descent into the horizon, and the garden was filling up. Soon it would be loud enough that we could scream about murder without being overheard. Long shadows stretched across the tables. People rolled their bikes into the enclosed space, and friends raised their voices in greeting. The solitary stocky man who had caught my eye earlier was no longer at his table.

My heart skipped a beat. I looked around, trying to remember what he looked like. Surely if he was a burglar/assassin, he would stick around to finish the job. Unless he thought he’d been made. In a conspiracy, he’d have a back-up he could call.

Lane set a fresh Bloody Mary on the table. I jumped in my seat.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I didn’t think you were the jumpy type.”

“You were the one telling me conspirators are on the loose against me. You’ve got me seeing bad guys everywhere.”

“It’s one theory.”

“What did you find today?”

His face lit up as he smiled. “I was right, Jaya,” he said. “I found it.”

“The treasure is there,” Lane said. “In a Mughal painting. I wasn’t just convincing myself that your piece fit with the story. The whole set is really there.”

“That’s all? Your big news of the day is that
you weren’t wrong
about what you told me this morning?”

He frowned. “I thought you’d see what a big deal it is. It’s true that your piece is from the collection that disappeared.”

“I already believed you.”

“Oh.”

I was saved by the barbeque chef calling out my order. I sprang up to get it. I stopped to apply generous portions of condiments, and by the time I sat back down Lane had his burger as well.

“What exactly did you find?” I asked.

“I found where it existed before disappearing.”

“Where? Can I see the painting?”

“I didn’t find the painting itself,” he said. “Is that honey on your fries?”

“Here I was thinking you cared about this great discovery.”

“A reference,” he said. “An article referencing some exquisite ruby jewelry that has to be your set. The description fits. Even the timing fits. It was used as an example of Selective Realism to show how something was included in paintings that never really existed. The author was assuming the jewelry was fake, but it describes your bracelet perfectly.”

“That’s the problem with scholars,” I said. “Everyone thinks they have everything figured out without any real proof. Both our fields are filled with some of the most speculative nonsense without facts to back up a hypothesis. If people had done their research properly, there wouldn’t be this
mythical
treasure that got Rupert killed. It would already have been in a museum.” I consoled myself with my burger.

“I’m sure your tenure committee loves you,” Lane said.

“Now that I have this ruby bracelet, who says I need tenure?”

Lane looked across the table at me with an enigmatic expression. I rather thought it resembled respect.

“I’m joking,” I said through a mouthful. “I know it’s not mine for the keeping.”

“You’ll figure it out,” he said. His gaze lingered on my face. I thought I detected the briefest glance past me, but it was only the slightest flicker of his eyes.

I felt a chill run through me as a breeze swept by. I readjusted the scarf around my neck.

“You aren’t smoking,” I said.

“You’re terribly observant.”

“Why am I freezing out here if you didn’t even want to smoke?”

“Oh,” Lane said, starting to pull off his jacket. “Do you want my coat?”

I waved off the offer.

“I only smoke when I need to think,” he said.

“What else was in the shoddy article you found?”

“How much do you know about the Mughals’ cultural pursuits?”

“They were Muslims from central Asia,” I said, “They arrived in India before the British, and many of them were important in granting concessions to the British for trade. Not just Jahangir, although he was the first, right at the height of the Mughal Empire before their decline.”

“And their art?”

“You know I don’t know anything about their jewelry,” I said. “I do know a little about Mughal architecture. Like Shah Jahan’s romantic story of the Taj Mahal. The supposedly great love story of how the Taj Mahal was built for his wife. How this ambitious and war-hungry leader, who bankrupted the masses to build extravagant palaces, loved his wife so much that he built her a lavish tomb after she died giving birth to their fourteenth child—or was it the fifteenth? Something like that. Just because his jail of choice was to be imprisoned in a tower overlooking the Taj Mahal tomb after his pious son overthrew him, it’s supposed to be a romantic story. It never sounded very romantic to me.”

“Interesting take. But that’s not the point I was getting at. He also had treasures like his Peacock Throne of gold. So did lots of other Mughal rulers. His son was Jahangir.”

“And lineage is important because—?”

“Not the lineage, but the huge significance of art in various Mughal courts over time. They left us a wealth of paintings. Several Mughal rulers were great patrons of the arts. They commissioned huge numbers of paintings involving large numbers of people. And those people were often wearing important jewels.

“You have to understand there are far too many of these paintings to be covered in the texts at one library, no matter how good, that doesn’t specialize in Indian art. There are well over a thousand paintings in the multiple volumes that make up an epic story painted during Akbar’s rule. And that’s just one of many. Even specialty books can only include so many examples. That’s why I couldn’t find the painting itself, only the article. But the article did also give me a very good idea of where to start looking for some of the paintings that featured this set.”

“In the early 1600s?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s when—”

“When it still existed in paintings,” I said sadly. “Not where it went when it really disappeared. Or where it reappeared.”

“Not at first, of course—”

“No,” I said. “I should have realized it couldn’t be pieced together so quickly. It’s been gone for centuries. I don’t know what I was thinking. I appreciate your help.”

“You’re not trying to put me off again.”

“I do appreciate what you’ve done,” I said. “Truly. But you’ve spent most of the day researching, and you’ve gotten up to the seventeenth century. You can keep the photo of the bracelet and keep moving forward on your research. I’m sure you’ll write a great article proving all those scholars wrong and make your career. I don’t have time to keep up this slow pace. I need to figure out what happened
this week
, before it’s too late. I know it sounds strange coming from a historian. But there’s a murderer out there. I don’t have time for slow and steady research.”

Night had fallen without me noticing. The outdoor lights clicked on around us. I glanced around. I didn’t see anyone suspicious.

“Since you don’t have your ex to fill in the blanks,” Lane said, “what did you have in mind?”

The streaks of outdoor lighting accentuated his features. His cheekbones formed shadows down his face, and his eyes seemed especially large behind his glasses.

“I’ve got some frequent flyer miles,” I said. “I’m going to use them. I’m going where Rupert was when he was killed. A Pictish dig in the Highlands of Scotland.”

With a slight pang of some emotion I wasn’t used to feeling, I stood up to leave. Lane didn’t try to stop me as I departed.