Part 1 (1/2)
Woman Chased by Crows.
Marc Strange.
for Karen.
Acknowledgements.
For friends.h.i.+p, a.s.sistance and favours too numerous to list here, I offer my deepest appreciation to the following accomplices: Fred Petersen, Bob Seguin, Lisa Murray and Ian Sutherland He had almost nothing left.
Only the sapphire and a couple of diamonds, maybe three, he didn't know how many, he hadn't opened the bag in a while. If Louie was still talking to him, maybe he could sell him one. The troll wasn't answering his phone. Probably monitoring his calls. Still p.i.s.sed off. Couldn't make it over to the Danforth, anyway. No cash. What a ridiculous situation.
He had three stones worth a fortune, maybe five stones - it was time he looked - a nice diamond, not too big, easy to move. One carat, maybe. Louie would give him five for it, surely. No he wouldn't. Louie would know he was desperate. He would take advantage. He was a thief after all, what do you expect? But three hundred at least. Something. He needed to eat, he needed to pay for this s.h.i.+tty motel room, he needed to get away. Get away - what a great plan. Look where he was: back where he started, a cab ride from the very place he had jumped the fence. Except that he couldn't afford a cab ride. A fortune in stones, and he was broker than the panhandler on the corner.
It was time he checked the package to see what was left. Please Jesus, there was one small diamond that he could sell in a hurry, without attracting too much attention. He opened the closet and took down the shelf above the clothes rack, dragged over a chair and stood on it, reached up and pushed the cheap cardboard ceiling tile out of the way, felt around in the dust and mouse droppings until he found the cloth bag, climbed off the chair and spilled the contents onto the stained chenille bedspread. Good! Two diamonds. Two of them. One of them was small enough, one-and-a-half carats probably, maybe a bit less. Such a waste, selling it for a fraction of what it was worth, but a man has to survive. The sapphire was too big to just give away. He needed to get somewhere. Montreal. If he was careful, he could survive in Montreal. There was someone there who could afford it.
”Been waiting all night for you to come home,” said the visitor who came out of the bathroom.
”Oh Christ!” he said. ”You scared the s.h.i.+t . . .”
”Is that all of them?”
”That's all that's left.”
”You're sure?”
”I swear.”
”Put them back in the bag.”
”Just leave me one, please, the small diamond. I need some cash so I can pay for this s.h.i.+tty room. I need some cash so I can eat something.”
”No, you don't,” said his guest, and shot him in the head.
It is always the ruby that takes centre stage in an ornament. The rest - pearls, sapphires, even diamonds - dance attendance upon a great ruby like a corps de ballet.
It is safe to say that Newry County doesn't harbour many rubies, and that whatever red stones are held in the jewellery cases and safety deposit boxes of Dockerty's upper crust, they are neither large, nor legendary, nor, in some cases, genuine. Certain of the dowagers residing on The Knoll are known to have good pieces: Mrs. Avery Douglas is the current custodian of a five-strand natural pearl necklace, a Douglas family heirloom worthy of at least five burglary attempts over the years, including the recent, unprosecuted break-in by their crack-smoking second cousin; Doris Whiffen has a tiara once worn to a reception at Windsor Castle, but not by her; and Edward Urquehart has thirty-odd carats in loose diamonds along with his Krugerrands in a safety deposit box at the Bank of Commerce. None of these are paltry, and some are truly precious, but if all the gems held in all the private safes in Dockerty were heaped upon a table, they would not begin to approach the value of a certain chunk of pigeon's blood corundum. Not in dollars, not in legend, not in human life.
In an early year of the nineteenth century, a man whose name is now lost in the dust of history picked up a loose stone bigger than his fist from a scattering of detritus near a limestone cliff north of Mandalay. Even in the rough, it glowed like a hot coal. It is estimated that it weighed at that time over four hundred carats. A master cutter produced three notable gems from it: an elegant twenty-three-carat cus.h.i.+on cut that is still part of the Iranian National Treasure, a round stone of eighteen carats once stolen by Clive of India, and a masterpiece of ninety-seven carats, one of the largest rubies ever known. Not a garnet, not a spinel like the Black Prince's legendary stone, but a true ruby, a gem of perfect colour. But size was not its most significant characteristic. In its heart there was a star. Star rubies are among the rarest gems on the planet, and most are small. The Sacred Ember, as it came to be known, was peerless, unique, priceless.
One.
Monday, March 14.
Orwell Brennan's parking s.p.a.ce under the chestnut tree offered a generous mix of March's bounty - icy puddles, crunchy slush, broken twigs from last night's blow. He dunked his left foot ankle-deep in sc.u.mmy water getting out of his vehicle. This made him dance awkwardly onto the dry pavement, at which point he looked heavenward. Mondays always start out bad. Laura used to say that, usually with a laugh. His first wife was killed by a drunk driver late on a Sunday night. That long ago Monday morning had started out very bad. On a scale of one to ten, a soaker didn't register.
Spring was Orwell's second-favourite time of year; a season full of the things he looked forward to all the long Ontario winter - an unselfish angle to the sunrise, spring training in Dunedin, the ospreys circling the big nest near RiverView Lodge. As with most men his age, the arrival of spring signalled a victory of sorts and he routinely breathed more deeply as the vernal equinox drew near. The sodden pant cuff slapping his ankle as he climbed the stairs to his office reminded him that he was a tad previous in his antic.i.p.ation. It wasn't spring yet. Hitters might be looking for their swings and pitchers working on their stuff in the Florida suns.h.i.+ne, but Newry County was still salted sidewalks and distressed footwear.
”In early, Chief.” Sergeant George was a tall, cadaverous man with a face like a ba.s.set hound; baggy eyes and dewlaps.
”I am a bit, aren't I?” Orwell said without elaboration. He headed for his office. ”Did you leave me any shortbreads, Jidge?”
”Not following, Chief.”
The office door clicked shut. Sergeant George saw the Chief's extension light up briefly and then blink out. The Chief was back again almost immediately scanning the outer office.
”Something I can help you with, Chief?”
”Paper towels? Rag? I've got a wet shoe.”
”Got Kleenex.”
”That'll do.” Orwell accepted a wad of tissues, put his left foot on a chair and did what he could to dry his leather. ”Beats me how the bag always gets so nicely folded when you work the night desk.” He tossed the wet paper into a wastebasket.
”Seen the Register this morning, Chief?”
”Why no, Jidge, I haven't.”
Sergeant George held up a fresh copy of the paper. ”Didn't think you and Donna Lee were that chummy,” he said.
The front page featured a shot of Mayor Bricknell and the Chief, both smiling, each holding one handle of a trophy. Dockerty High had won its first basketball tournament in ten years. The award ceremony had taken place Sat.u.r.day night and evidently nothing sufficiently newsworthy had happened in the intervening thirty-six hours to knock it off page one.
”Didn't think she was going to be there,” Orwell said.
”Wouldn't miss a chance like that. Not in an election year.”
The flag out front snapped in the brisk and chilly wind, the trailing end of a March gale that had the house moaning all night long. He stood for a moment next to the bronze plaque bearing the likeness of his predecessor, Chief Alastair Argyle, noting that a pigeon had recently saluted the great man. To Orwell's eye, the white stripe across the former chief's cheek wasn't unattractive, rather it gave the dour face a gallant aspect, like a duelling scar, a Bismarck schmiss.
As was his custom, Roy Rawluck arrived marching, no other word for it, striding out of the parking lot, heels clicking, arms swinging, sharp left wheel to the entrance. ”Bright and early, Chief,” Roy said with a nod of approval. It was rare that Orwell arrived before his staff sergeant.
”Sharp breeze this morning, Staff,” he said. ”Fresh, as the farmers put it.”
”Coming or going, Chief?” Roy was frowning, just now noticing the desecration of his late boss's memorial.
”Going, Staff. Soon to return.”
From the other side of Stella Street, Georgie Rhem was waving his walking stick. Orwell could tell it was Georgie by the feathers on his Tyrolean hat and the distinctive kink in his hawthorn stick. The jockey-tall lawyer was otherwise hidden by the sooty drift lining the curb. ”Soon to return,” Orwell repeated, heading across the street. Roy marched inside to get his can of Bra.s.so. Argyle's face would be s.h.i.+ning again in no time.
”Where to, Stonewall?” Georgie wanted to know. ”Timmies? Country Style? The Gypsy Tea Room isn't open yet.”
Banked piles of snow followed the concrete walkways on the shaded side of the Armoury, dirty, spotted, stained and slushy, revealing as they melted a winter's worth of litter and unclaimed dog scat. Orwell detected, or thought he did, a tinge of yellow in the willow near the fountain.
”First to leaf, last to leave,” he said.