The Orkney Scroll (4 page)

“I thought you said he asked you to pick it up,” Percy said.

I hate it when I trip over my own lies. “Neither of us is exactly innocent. Come on,” I said. Percy looked chagrined and meekly followed me up the stairs. There we opened every seaman’s chest and blanket box, armoire and credenza, or at least I did. I peered behind the large pieces, under the beds. No Trevor.

While I was doing this, Percy kept opening and closing drawers in a most annoying way, and then rechecking every place I looked. “He’s not hiding in a drawer, Percy,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “I know. I was just checking for clues.”

“Downstairs,” I sighed. We did the same search on the main floor. Still no Trevor.

“I told you,” Percy said. “He’s not here.”

“I expect there’s a basement,” I said.

“Okay,” he sighed. “I’m game if you are.”

The door that led to the basement was locked, but it didn’t take long to find the key in Trevor’s desk. A nasty open staircase with no railing led down to a rather dark and dingy place. I was a woman on a mission, though, so down I went, followed closely by Percy. The place was just generally unpleasant, damp and vaguely sewerlike, and it looked pretty empty except for a worktable with a broken chair on it, several mousetraps in the corners and cobwebs here and there. I was regretting this excursion very much, but wasn’t going to admit it. There was nothing of interest in the first room, nor in the second, even behind the furnace. In the third room, the light switch didn’t work.

“I don’t want to go any farther,” Percy whined. “I don’t think he’d stay down here. Anyway, it smells bad. Let’s go back.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Percy, it’s just a basement. There was a flashlight on the shelf in the first room. Go and get it.” He did what he was told. The flashlight wasn’t much to speak of, but I stepped into the room anyway and swung the beam around.

Trevor was there, not that I got any satisfaction from being right. I may not have known what that self-serving gibberish in Trevor’s letter was all about, but I was reasonably sure that having an axe buried in what was left of his skull was not what he’d meant by head start.

Chapter 2

My family traces its roots in Orkney back almost a thousand years to one Bjarni, son of Harald, also known as Bjarni the Wanderer. Bjarni came from a good family in Norway and journeyed to Orkney during the time of Earl Sigurd the Stout, who gave him land in Tankerness. Bjarni, you see, was Earl Sigurd’s man, a warrior as well as a farmer. In Orkney, in those days, there were three social classes: the wealthy and powerful earls who inherited their estates; free farmers and warriors of which Bjarni was one; and thralls or serfs who worked the land. Bjarni spent the winters in Orkney, but every summer, he joined Sigurd’s raiding parties to Caithness, the Hebrides, and as far away as Ireland. They were looking for booty, of course, but also for land, trying to extend the power of the earls of Orkney throughout the British Isles. There’s a story about Sigurd, that his Irish mother, a sorceress, made him a magical raven banner: whoever carried the banner would die, but victory would go to the man before whom it flew. It was in Ireland that Sigurd died, and it’s said he himself was carrying the banner.

True or not, it was then Bjarni’s fortunes changed. Sigurd had four sons in all, but one of them, who would later be Earl Thorfinn the Mighty, one of the greatest earls of Orkney, was still a lad at the time. The other three, Sumarlidi, Brusi, and Einar took over Orkney when Sigurd died. They were a fractious lot, especially Einar, known as Wry-Mouth, and not disposed to share the land equally. As often happened in those days the competition turned bloody.

Rivalries both within families and without were intense in those days, and power changed hands often, making it rather easy to find oneself on the wrong side of a political struggle. And so it was with Bjarni. Bjarni sided with Earl Brusi in the dispute over the control of Orkney and killed Thorvald the Stubborn, one of Einar’s men, in the struggle. While Bjarni offered to make a settlement over the killing of Thorvald, and to hold a great feast in the earl’s honor, Einar, a hard man, was not disposed to accept it. Men of goodwill interceded on Bjarni’s behalf, but to no avail. Einar’s men came for him and burned down his house, but Bjarni, having been warned of the attack, was able to make his escape with the help of some like-minded men.

A family conference was held and there was much discussion about what was to be done. Finally Oddi, Bjarni’s brother spoke. “I’m not blaming you for what you’ve done, Bjarni. Thorvald the Stubborn deserved what he got. But it seems to me if you stay around here, your head and your shoulders will soon be parted. I’m thinking a voyage of some distance and some duration might be in order here. I say we take two longboats, and some men who are willing, and head for Scotland. It may be that those who care for Sigurd’s young lad Thorfinn can intercede on our behalf with Einar, persuade him to have a change of heart. In the meantime, we will be out of harm’s way. We won’t be the first to leave Orkney because of Einar. Nor will we be the last.”

All agreed that this was the best course of action. And so it was that Bjarni, Oddi, and some of their kin, including the
skald
or “poet,” Svein the Wiry set off in two longboats on a voyage that would take some of them farther than they ever dreamed.

You are thinking I am making this up, which I can certainly understand, but you’ll find the stories of Sigurd the Stout, his sons Brusi and Einar, Sumarlidi and Thorfinn if you look. The lives of all of them are therefor anyone to see in the pages of the Orkney inga Saga. As I’ve said, our story is not inconsistent with the facts. True, you’ll not be finding Bjarni the Wanderer or his brother Oddi in the saga. No, you’ll not be finding them.

You didn’t need a degree in criminology to guess the number one murder suspect in the death of Trevor Wylie. After all, Blair Bazillionaire had been swinging an axe about in front of approximately seventy-five people, one of whom was the chief of police. Not that anything was said about an axe-murderer, mind you, that being evidence the police were keeping to themselves. It was suggested strongly to me that I do the same.

For a while, though, it seemed to me that I was spending as much time at the local police station as Blair was. Like Blair, I had to be fingerprinted. The police said it was to eliminate mine from the many at the scene, which made sense, I suppose, given my prints were all over just about everything, even a half-empty coffee cup I’d moved so that I could get at Trevor’s files. Blair’s prints were all over the same things mine were, with one unfortunate addition: the axe. Neither Blair nor the staff at his residence were able to produce the axe he’d so publicly used to chop up the furniture, so while it couldn’t be proven definitely, it pretty much looked as if the same one had been used to chop up Trevor’s head.

It looked open and shut as they say, and not good at all for Blair, and just about everything I said to Detective Ian Singh only made it worse.

“Take me through this,” Singh said, after I’d explained that I’d gone to Scot Free to discuss Baldwin’s purchase of the writing cabinet. “Baldwin was a good customer, and you went with him to Trevor Wylie’s establishment to check out this desk that Baldwin wanted to buy.”

“I met him there, yes.”

“You thought it was genuine, the desk, I mean.”

“I thought it might be,” I said, reluctantly.

“And Baldwin bought it on your say so.”

“I guess so.” This was going to be really painful. “I did point out I’d like to do more research.”

“And Baldwin later found it to be a fake.”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell him it was?”

“No. I don’t know who told him.”

“But it was a fake.”

“I think so. I did manage to get a piece of it, after it was chopped up, and had a good look. The lock used was not consistent with the supposed age of the cabinet. It was brand-new, in fact.” I really hoped he didn’t ask me how I got that piece of wood. I still had the scratches.

“How much was the desk thing worth?”

“Under the circumstances not much,” I said. “A few thousand, maybe. It was a nice piece regardless of who made it.”

“Let me rephrase the question. How much would it have been worth if it was genuine?”

“A similar one sold for a million and a half not that long ago.” Trevor had been right about that. I’d checked it myself later.

Singh’s eyebrows went up. “So, in your opinion, Baldwin, thinking it was genuine, might have paid well over a million for it.”

“I guess so. I don’t know, though. I left before they discussed price.”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about your relationship with Baldwin.”

“He was a longtime customer, at least ten years.”

“He bought a lot of merchandise from you over those ten years?”

“Yes.”

“How did he normally pay?”

“What?”

“How did he pay for this merchandise?”

“The usual way. Check, credit card, cash.”

“How often did he pay cash?”

“I can’t recall. From time to time, I guess, for the smaller purchases.”

“Can you recall the largest purchase he paid cash for?”

“Not really.”

“Would he have paid, say, a hundred thousand in cash?”

“Hardly. We don’t carry that kind of merchandise often. He might give us a couple of hundred dollars in cash, on occasion, maybe four hundred? Anything over that, and he wrote a check or paid by card. Why are you asking this?”

“Just part of our investigation,” Singh said.

“Surely it’s academic. He couldn’t have paid cash for the writing cabinet,” I said. “Could he?”

Singh didn’t answer. Instead, he went on to ask about the evening at Baldwin’s, which we went over in excruciating detail, and then back to my unfortunate discovery of the body.

“The shop was empty when you got there,” he said.

“It was. No, it wasn’t, but I thought it was. There was a customer upstairs.”

“So you waited.”

“Yes.”

“As did this customer wait with you?”

“Yes.”

“And then you both went looking for him.”

“Yes. The shop was open. I thought Trevor had to be there somewhere. You don’t just go out and leave the merchandise for all takers. For one thing, there have been a number of robberies at antique stores around here. So far there have been no arrests.”

Singh ignored the jibe. “And this customer, what did you say his name was? Percy?”

“Yes. He looked for Trevor, too.”

“Percy who?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t get that far.”

“So, you and this fellow with whom you are on a first-name-only basis decided to look in the basement?”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that a little odd?”

“As I said, Trevor had to be there. I mean, what if he’d had an accident and fallen down there?”

“An accident,” he repeated, and he almost smiled. “And this Percy came downstairs with you.”

“I didn’t want to go by myself,” I said. That was partly true, I suppose.

“And when you found Trevor, then what?”

“I ran upstairs and called nine-one-one.”

“And Percy?”

“He ran outside. I don’t think he was feeling well.” Actually, he’d made little retching sounds and dashed up the stairs.

“I don’t suppose you know where Percy might be found,” Singh said.

“I told you already that I don’t. He said he’d flown in from Scotland recently. That’s all I know.”

“But you saw him in the shop before, the day you went
to
look at the desk I believe you said.”

“Yes. Is he a suspect?”

“We have only your word that he exists,” Singh said. “But on the assumption your story is true, he would of course be of interest to us. You did say he was there when you got there?”

“Yes.” I was certain Percy hadn’t killed Trevor. He was such a timid-looking man. Furthermore, killing Trevor wasn’t going to get his Granny’s writing cabinet back. I hadn’t seen him at the party either, so how would he have known about the axe business, and how would he
get
the axe? I said none of this to Singh.

“Did you see Wylie socially?” Singh asked.

“There’s a bunch of shop owners in the neighborhood who get together for drinks from time to time, maybe once a month. We talk about issues affecting the area and whine about business and stuff. Both Trevor and I are, were, part of it. Trevor liked The Dwarfie Stane. It’s a bar named for some tomb in Scotland. Maybe you know it. It’s the place that has a hundred different single malt scotches, or something like that. We often get together there. Trevor was working his way through all one hundred. Other than that, I’d see him every now and then at parties. We had some clients in common.”

“Did you like Wylie?”

“He was very charming,” I said. “And I liked him well enough up until that cabinet turned out to be a fake.”

“About this friendly little note Trevor left for you,” Singh said. “What did you think the note meant?”

“I have no idea. I thought he was just being a jerk.”

“Wylie could be a jerk, could he?”

“I thought so.”

“But you spent a lot of time with him.”

“No, I didn’t. I told you already that I saw him only occasionally.”

“Your fingerprints are on every piece of furniture in the place.”

“I was looking for him.”

“In the furniture?”

“Yes, in the furniture. I thought he was hiding from me.”

“You didn’t by any chance receive a—what shall we call it?—a commission on the sale of this desk?”

“I did not!” I said.

“Would you not perhaps have felt entitled to a… um… commission? It was on your say so that Baldwin bought the desk.”

“I did not bring Baldwin to Trevor. Trevor called him all by himself. If there were to be a finder’s fee, it would only be paid if I brought Baldwin to Trevor. Even then, I would not have asked for a commission. Baldwin was a good client. He asked for my help from time to time, and I gave it, free.”

“I guess it was worth what he paid for it,” Singh said. I took that to be payback for my remark about the lack of arrests, and I suppose I deserved it. “So no discreet palming of an envelope filled with cash? A little undeclared and therefore tax-free income?” he said. “If so, I’d report it now if I were you.”