Doubled Up (Imogene Museum Mystery #2) (6 page)

Oh, judges were elected, weren
’t they? Which meant he only had to fool the voting public. Unfortunately, he could probably do so with his hands tied behind his back. He had a top-notch glib-o-tron. I wondered if he’d dyed the gray streaks in order to appear more trustworthy.

“
I can tell you’re distracted,” he rushed on. The man never drew breath. “I probably interrupted your work. You know what — I’ll come back later, when you’re feeling better. We can talk over the details. Arlene will be thrilled.”

I hated that he called his mother by her first name. Wait, what was Arlene going to be thrilled about?

“Catch you tomorrow, sweetie.” Ham winked, spun on his heel and left.

“
No!” I shouted, but it came out like a death groan.

I hadn
’t nodded my head, had I? Given him any kind of encouragement? I was certain I hadn’t agreed to anything.

“
Aaargh!” I slammed the statue on the desk, then froze, realizing what I’d done.

CHAPTER 5

The thing was indestructible, or was it? No chunks broke off. I gingerly tipped the statue to standing and felt its weight shift. Something rattled
inside.

I lifted the statue, and a circular wood plug fell out of the bottom. A dull gold-colored rod, six or seven inches long and the thickness of two fingers, thudded on the desk. The statue was suddenly as light as balsa wood, an empty shell. I sat down hard.

Then I jumped up, shut the door quickly and locked it. My mind raced. This was a whole new ballgame.

In a way, it explained a lot. If the statues were just a foil, a transportation mechanism, then they wouldn
’t have documentation or historical record. Maybe they’d been carved in the past few months, which would account for their poor workmanship. But importing gold wasn’t illegal, was it?

I flew to the computer and checked the U.S. Customs list of banned items. No, gold was okay. Of course, the government would appreciate anyone importing gold to declare that fact. But there were no limits. Unless.

Unless the gold was from a short list of countries or a much longer list of ‘specially designated nationals’ — in other words, terrorists, war lords and their power brokers and financiers.

I blew out a big breath. What had we stumbled into? Did Terry know? Was he really good at faking bumblingness? Because a scheme like this seemed way over his head.

Maybe it wasn’t gold.

I rummaged through the file cabinet
’s bottom drawer and found a digital scale. I switched it to metric and balanced the metal rod in the scale’s plastic bowl. One kilogram exactly. The weight of a standard gold bar. And the density seemed right for gold — the heaviness for its relatively small size.

The rod didn
’t have any markings. I had never seen a gold bar in person, but online pictures showed they usually had their source, weight, purity and sometimes a company name stamped on the surface. The rod appeared to have been molded to fit in the statue’s hollow core. The sender probably wanted to remove any chance to track the gold based on its markings. The gold was ready to melt into a new bar even if it hadn’t been in that form before.

It might not be pure.

But if it was . . . I found the price of gold. While it fluctuated, $1500 per ounce was a reasonable average. I scribbled on a notepad, converting metric to American weights, then multiplying. If the missing thirteen crates had a similar number of statues each, and there was a kilo of gold in each statue, the shipment came close to $6 million. No wonder someone laid in wait for it.

My stomach burbled, reminding me that I
’d missed lunch. But I felt more nauseated than hungry and was as shaky as Terry without his nicotine.

Steady on. I examined each statue, pried out the plugs and lined up seven more gold rods beside the first one.

My eyes flitted over the bookshelves lining the walls, the file cabinet, the stacks of research papers. There was no place to hide the gold rods, no place to secrete something so valuable, not even in the rest of the museum. The original safe in the basement was a joke to a professional safecracker, probably even to a thug with a sledgehammer.

I wrinkled my nose. Why was my first instinct to hide them? They should be exposed. The criminals
— I had no doubt of that now — needed to be found, their motives uncovered.

I dialed Sheriff Marge and burst into explanation when she answered.

“Slow down,” Sheriff Marge said in a low tone. Someone shouted obscenities in the background.

“
Where are you?” I asked.

“
At the Randalls’ place. You probably don’t know them. He takes her hostage every once in a while, usually around the holidays. Family tradition.”

“
Oh.” Suddenly my problem didn’t seem so urgent.

“
I’m going to have to think about this one,” Sheriff Marge said. “And figure out which federal agency to contact. They’re all closed for Thanksgiving anyway. The bank in Lupine’s probably closed too. Find a good place to hide them and don’t tell anyone else for now.”

Rapid popping
— tat tat tatatatat — sounded, then a thud and Sheriff Marge breathing hard — whooshing like she was running.

“
Are you okay?” I yelled.

“
Yeah. I gotta go. He’s actually firing this time.” The line went dead.

I slumped, pressed my hands over my face and offered up a prayer for Sheriff Marge
’s safety, and for Dale and the other two deputies. With such a small department, they were probably all on the scene or would be soon.

I thought about calling Sandy, Dale
’s wife, but maybe she didn’t know yet. And knowing might be worse. I shook my head. I’d wait. The sheriff and her deputies dealt with this kind of stuff all the time.

I stretched my fingers and watched them shake. My insides were a zinging bundle of nerves, all because of eight gold rods and gunfire on the phone. Oh, and Ham. His proximity was the nagging dread I
’d been feeling. My stomach clenched and considered vomiting. Nope — empty. I needed food, but first I had to hide the gold.

Where?

Where, where, where?

Certainly not in plain sight. The museum
’s security system was lousy. The rods had to go someplace unexpected. But where?

The freezer in the staff kitchen? A toilet tank? An air vent? A linen closet?

I went back to the toilet tank idea. The chamber pot exhibit was in one of the family bedrooms and had an attached private bath. To prevent leaks, the water had been turned off, so the tank should be dry. The mansion had fourteen private baths in addition to the public restrooms on the main floor. Even if potential thieves hit on the idea of a toilet tank, they’d have a lot of places to check.

I stuffed the rods in a messenger bag I kept on hand, cracked the door open and peeked into the hallway. The museum closed an hour ago, so all visitors and Lindsay should be gone. With the bag slung over my good shoulder, I tiptoed down one flight of stairs to the chamber pot room. The wood floor creaked with each step, the noise echoing off the walls and high ceiling. So much for stealth.

The bathroom door squealed like a disgruntled baby pig as I pushed it open. It only locks from the inside, so we never lock it — but we keep the door closed to discourage unsanctioned exploration by visitors.

Rust powder lined the bone dry toilet tank and stuck to my skin as I set the rods one by one in the bottom. I replaced the lid then used my sleeve to wipe my dirty handprints off the white ceramic. Anyone who saw me now would know I had done more than research today, but the museum was dirty enough that I could probably brush off their questions by saying I
’d been working on a display. Which might be true, depending on how you looked at it.

While washing my hands in the main restroom, I thought about the statues. If I left them out, anyone would be able to see they
’d been tampered with and know the contents had been removed. They had to be hidden too. Somewhere else. But where?

Ahhh. The place every kid would know and every adult would forget. I hurried upstairs.

Wedging the plugs back into the bottom of each statue wasn’t as easy as I expected. More of a mind puzzle to match up jagged edges and smooth bumps. I kept one plug for research purposes and packed the statues into the messenger bag.

In a hallway in the servants
’ quarters, I opened a hinged wall panel and suspended the bag from a knob inside a dark cavity.

The knobs were there for just that reason. Rupert
’s great-great-uncle had planned on having a large family when he built the mansion. He thought of everything, including an escape route should a child happen to tumble into the laundry chute. Two sides of the chute are like an early version of a rock climbing wall, studded with knobs and toeholds. The housekeeping records are peppered with staff complaints about clothing and linens hanging up on the way down. I felt a rush of gratitude for the ancestral Hagg’s foresight.

Food. My stomach could no longer be ignored. And I needed ingredients for tomorrow
’s feast.

I dashed off a short note and stuffed it along with the wood plug into a padded envelope. No harm in a little inquiry
— Sheriff Marge had other things to worry about. I collected my purse and walked through the empty museum. The place was becoming quite a keeper of secrets.

The phone rang as I pulled the seatbelt across my lap
— and reveled in how much easier it was to do without the sling.

“
Hey Meredith,” Greg said. “The forestry department — well, pretty much the whole school — has cleared out for Thanksgiving. I found one graduate teaching assistant who thought they could do microscopic wood analysis, but she told me to check back after break. Sorry.”

“
No problem. Sorry to make you run around. I’m sending you a wood sample anyway. Maybe next week they’ll be able to look at it. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”

“
Getting together with a couple friends from Thailand. We’ve never cooked a turkey before, so we’re going to give it a shot.”

“
Remember to remove the neck and gizzard from inside.”

“
The what?”

“
You don’t have to eat them. Just take them out. They’re usually wedged pretty far into the cavity. And keep an eye out for a gravy packet too. You’ll see what I mean.”

Greg laughed.
“You’re making me nervous. Is your date with Pete still on?”

“
It’s not a date. There’ll be a boatload of people, literally.”

“
Tell yourself that if you want — but the rest of us, we know what’s really going on.” Greg hung up before I could argue further.

Huh. It was
not
a date. It was one of those nice things people did to make sure singles weren’t alone for the holidays. That’s all. Really. Pete had invited me, but Sally Levine must have suggested it to him. He had to ask because we were gathering on his boat. No big deal.

My stomach rumbled like a freight train, reminding me of more pressing matters.

o0o

I parked next to a flashy red Corvette in Junction General
’s lot. The sports car was so new it still had a temporary license taped in the rear window. It definitely did not belong to a local resident since the trunk wasn’t big enough for hauling firewood, fertilizer or even an economy pack of toilet paper. I opened my truck door carefully, not wanting to give the shiny paint its first ding.

Junction General carries about a million products two deep. Gloria Munoz, the proprietress, does an amazing job of keeping the small town of
Platts Landing supplied with essentials. Thanksgiving — when everyone wants to buy a lot of the same few items — is a little trickier. I hoped Gloria had stocked up on cranberry jelly and stuffing mix.

I grabbed a plastic shopping basket and wandered down the canned goods aisle. Gloria knelt on the worn black and white checkerboard floor, refilling the cream of mushroom soup spot on the bottom shelf.

She looked up and smiled. “Selling like hotcakes. Can’t stand the stuff myself.”

“
Me neither. I was assigned a vegetable dish, but I think I’ll make some kind of salad and skip the green bean casserole altogether.”