Moonheart (12 page)

Sara's heartbeat had picked up.

"What happened?" she asked. "What did you tell them? Did you tell them about the other stuff I found?"

She stared at her ring and closed her fist protectively around it.

"Let me start at the beginning," Jamie said. "I went up to Ted's office and told him what I needed done. He just smiled and said, 'No problem,' until I took the button out of my pocket. I knew something was wrong right away, because he got this strained look on his face as though I'd— I don't know. Pulled down my pants. He went all white and asked me where I'd gotten it. I started to tell him, but then he said never mind and asked me to wait in his office for a moment. I guess that's when he called the police— or this Inspector Tucker at any rate.

"When he came back he seemed more normal. Offered me a tea and what not. He was quite casual, asked to have a look at the button, how you were, how was my writing going. He managed to kill a half hour or so with all that— not that I was suspicious at the time. I realized all this after. Anyway, a knock came at the door and then the Inspector was there— filling the bloody doorway, Sairey! He's a big man— the sort that has 'authority' stamped all over his face."

Sara had a sudden vision of a policeman with the word "authority" stamped on his forehead in red ink. It didn't make her smile.

"He laid right into me," Jamie said. "Wanted to know where I'd gotten it, why had I brought it in to Ted— I think I'll ask Blue to stomp on him for me. Do you think Blue would do that?"

"Don't ask him," Sara said. Because Blue would. If Jamie or she asked him to.

"But imagine," Jamie said. "Calling the police on me. It just goes to show you. You can't trust anyone anymore."

"Why did he want to know all about the bone disc?" Sara asked.

"Well, that's what I asked him, but he wouldn't tell me. 'Confidential,' he said pompously, then gave me a look as though I was some sort of common criminal. After that he wanted to know who I was, what I did for a living, and kept asking Ted to confirm whether I was telling the truth or not. I got mad then. I refused to talk to either of them anymore and demanded a call to my lawyer. The Inspector just looked at me strangely, then said: 'Go ahead. I'm not booking you yet, so it might be a wasted trip for him.' "

"Oh, God! Jamie, are you in jail now?"

"No. I'm at a pay phone. I wanted to call you right away in case this Inspector Tucker decides to go see you at the store. In fact, I'm sure he'll be down there."

"What for?"

"For more information. You know he wouldn't give the button back? 'I can't do that, I'm afraid,' he says, all official-like. Then he writes me a receipt for it. A receipt!"

"Jamie? What am I going to say if he shows up here?"

"Nothing! Don't tell him anything. Call MacNabb. You have the right to have a lawyer present. In fact, you should probably call Phillip right now. We'll sue them for... for... I don't know. Harassment."

Sara kept glancing at the door, expecting to see a police car pull up outside, siren wailing, light flashing. They'd rush in with their guns out and take her away. They'd ask her about the ring and the painting and everything. But they were her treasures, and they didn't have any right to them. Jamie's friend had left them to him, and Jamie'd told her she could keep them.

"Sairey? Are you still there?"

"I was just thinking. They can't really do anything, can they, Jamie? I mean, we know that stuffs been sitting in the back room for years."

"But we can't prove it."

"Why should we have to?"

"The last thing the Inspector told me was that your button was part of an art exhibit that had been stolen en route from Toronto to the museum here in Ottawa. Apparently they recovered all of it except for that one artifact. Your button."

"But that's impossible!"

"That's what I told him. I don't think he cared what I said. You know, Sairey, I'm not sure what's going on, but I do know this: It's something very strange. I have a bad feeling about it— a very bad feeling."

Sara felt the same way. As though in answer to that foreboding, the bell above the shop's door tinkled and she looked up to see a large man entering. There was no red ink on his forehead, but she knew immediately who he was.

"I... I think he's... here," she mumbled into the phone.

"Who is? Inspector Tucker?"

Sara nodded, then realized that Jamie couldn't see her. "If not him, then his brother."

"Don't say anything to him! Nothing. I'll call MacNabb and we'll be down as soon as we can. Okay?"

"Okay."

Sara cradled the phone. The man was looking idly about the store and she wondered for a moment if she hadn't been mistaken. But then the man approached the counter.

"Are you Ms. Sara Kendell?" he asked.

There was no mistaking that tone of voice. Although she'd never had any personal experience with it, she knew it from a hundred cop shows on TV. She nodded and tried to figure out why she felt guilty. She hadn't done anything wrong, but her hands wouldn't stop trembling. Maybe policemen just made you feel that way, she thought. Maybe it was a special ingredient in their cologne.

"I'd like to ask you a few questions, if I may. My name's John Tucker. I'm an Inspector with the RCMP."

As though they were playing out a scene in a movie, he put his hand in the inner breast pocket of his jacket and showed her his ID. The badge gleamed like a mirror.

"About what? I mean, no. I'm not supposed to talk to you until my... uh... lawyer gets here."

She felt stupid saying that. What if he arrested her for being uncooperative?

"Your lawyer?" Tucker glanced at the phone, then back at Sara and sighed. "Was that your uncle on the phone just now?"

Sara nodded.

"He's a little excitable, isn't he?" Tucker nodded to Sara's visitor's chair. "Mind if I sit down?"

"I can't stop you, can I?"

"Jesus H. Christ! What is it with you people?" Tucker glared at her. "What do you think I am? The neighborhood ogre?"

Sara shook her head numbly. She was frightened by the vehement tone of his voice and nervously started to twist her ring on her finger until she remembered that she didn't want to call attention to it. Then she clasped her hands together on her lap and stared wide-eyed at the policeman to see what he'd say next.

Tucker sat down.

"Look," he said. "I'm sorry. I've just come from an interview with your uncle who is a most exasperating man. I'm not here to arrest anyone. I'm not here to powertrip. I just want to ask a couple of simple questions and then be on my way, okay?"

Sara swallowed, then gathered her courage.

"Why did you lie to him?" she asked.

"To who?"

"To Jamie. About the bone disc. You know it was never stolen from some exhibit. It couldn't have been. I only found it yesterday in a box of junk."

"I don't know if the bone disc was stolen or not. I..."

He paused, reviewing his earlier interview with Jamie Tams. Then he thought of Jean-Paul Gagnon. Maybe he should just stop playing games.

"Look," he said. "I'm going to level with you as best I can. I can't tell you everything, but... well, we'll see how it goes.

"We're looking for a couple of men— I can't tell you why, but it's important that we find them. One of them left behind a bag of these bone things in the room he was renting before he disappeared. There were sixty of the discs in it. Each one has a design on it— a different image on either side and all the designs are different. The one your uncle brought into the museum seems to be a part of the same set of... whatever they are.

"Ted Benson's been working for us— trying to figure out what they are, where they're from. To try and get a clue on the old fellow who owned them. One of the two men we're looking for. Do you follow me so far?"

Sara nodded, a little mollified. She found herself listening to the Inspector's explanation with interest and she wasn't frightened of him any more. But she still had that sense of foreboding— the little warning light in the back of her head was still flashing. She remembered—

— A spill of bones, clicking and clacking against each other as they tumbled and fell... and she was falling too... through a mist of grey and brown... one more bone... until the face reared up with its ursine features and fierce eyes, jaws gaping—

— her dream. She shivered, but the Inspector didn't appear to notice it, nor the sense of evil that seemed to fill the shop for a moment. She thought she saw something move in the shadows that lay between two kitchen hutches that stood against a wall behind the Inspector. She looked quickly away and tried to concentrate on what Tucker was saying.

"When your uncle brought that bone disc in to Benson, he didn't know what to think. This is a very... volatile investigation that we're involved in. Highly secure. No one's supposed to know anything about it, but here comes your uncle waltzing in with another piece to the same puzzle we've been working on without any luck. Benson called me and I came down to see what was up."

Sara glanced at the shadows, but there was nothing there if there ever had been.

"I mean, put yourself in our position," Tucker was saying. "Here's something we've been working on for a couple of weeks— without much success, I might as well add— and here comes what might be a vital clue. Okay. So I blew it talking to your uncle. He got me a little hot with his accusations and I had to think to myself: What's he trying to hide?"

"He just gets a little excited," Sara said.

Tucker shrugged. "And it was the same thing with you when I first walked in. Even now you're looking like I'm going to bite you or something."

"I... I had a bad dream last night," Sara said, "and something made me remember it just now. You're right about Jamie, but he's not a criminal. He gets worked up pretty quickly and you as much as called him a liar. And with all you read in the papers about... you know..."

"Royal Commissions and the like?"

"Well..."

"You've been reading too many thrillers."

"Who are these men you're looking for?" Sara asked. "What did they do?"

"They haven't done anything yet. We just want to talk to them."

He reached into his pocket and took out a couple of pictures. Laying them on the counter in front of Sara, he asked:

"Ever seen either of them before?"

Sara had a look.

"Him," she said, putting her finger on a picture of Thomas Hengwr.

"Do you know him then?"

"Not really. He's been in the shop a few times and I think I even saw him at the House once or twice. But not recently."

"Could he have secreted the disc in here, without your knowing it?"

Sara thought about how she'd found it— wrapped in a brown paper parcel, inside the medicine pouch.

"I don't see how he could've," she said. "I found it at the bottom of a box that I got out of the storeroom. It was covered with dust and I never let anyone back there anyway"

Tucker nodded. He indicated the picture of Kieran.

"How about him?"

"He looks sort of familiar— not someone I know, but like I've seen him around." She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. "I think he might've played in a band— a folk band. That was a long time ago— three or four years at least. They were called the Humors of something or other. It was a long name. I think he sang, maybe played guitar too." She looked up. "I'm not being much of a help, am I?"

"At least you're trying. You haven't seen either of them around, have you? I mean lately?"

Sara shook her head. "I'm not sure about him—" she pointed to Kieran's picture—"but I'd remember if I'd seen the other fellow. I used to have long talks with him every few weeks or so. He was a funny sort. He seemed younger than he looked, but older at the same time. Did you show these pictures to Jamie?"

"I didn't think there'd be much point."

Tucker put the pictures away and took out a pen and notepad. He wrote down his name and both home and business phone numbers on a piece of paper, tore it from the pad, and handed it to Sara.

"If you remember anything else— anything at all— give me a call, would you?"

"Okay. You can't tell me why you're looking for them?"

" 'Fraid not. Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters. He seemed like such a nice old man. I liked him a lot. I'd hate to think of him being in trouble."

"If he's in trouble, it's not because of us. We're just trying to find him"

"Oh," Sara said.

"I'm sure he'll turn up all right." Tucker stood up. "Look. Thanks for your help. It's appreciated. And I'm sorry for coming on so heavy before."

"That's okay.! guess I was a little on edge." She looked down at the paper he'd given her. "I just call up and ask for you?"

"Night or day."

Sara stuffed the note into the pocket of her jeans and stood up with him. At that moment the front door burst open and Jamie thundered in, dragging Phillip MacNabb, their family lawyer, behind him. MacNabb, a man in his fifties, seemed a little out of breath. He had a broad open face, the honest lines of which had stood him in good stead before many a jury.

"That's him! That's him!" Jamie cried.

"Easy, Jamie." MacNabb turned his attention to the Inspector and they exchanged smiles.

"Hey, Phil. How's it going?"

"Well enough, Tucker. How's Maggie?"

"Okay, I guess. Haven't seen her for awhile."

At the pained look in the Inspector's eyes, MacNabb quickly changed the subject. "So what seems to be the problem here?" he asked.

"It's okay," Sara said. "We got it all straightened out."

"I've got to get back to the office," Tucker said. He tipped his hand against his forehead in a casual salute. "Thanks again for your help, Ms. Kendell. Keep in touch."

He stepped past a flustered Jamie and was through the door before Jamie could think to stop him. Jamie grabbed MacNabb's sleeve.

"Can't you serve him a writ or whatever it is you lawyers do?" he asked.

"Jamie!" Sara said. "It's all right."

"What happened?" MacNabb asked.

"Sit down and I'll tell you all about it."