SIXTY-FOUR
Hours later, Terra stood with Jack and Nathan in the barn.
Owen was holding a pitchfork and moving hay around. “I startled Gramps one day. I guess he thought I was still in town. He was out here shoveling hay. I thought it was strange then. Now I think I might know what he was up to.”
Jack scratched his chin. “Why don’t we just ask him?”
“Not to alarm anyone, but he’s in the hospital too,” Nathan said, “getting checked out. The EMTs thought he looked pale and sweaty. With the trauma he experienced, they feared he might be having a heart attack, but it’s just a precaution.”
“What?” Terra asked. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I’m telling you now. There’s been a lot going on, okay?” Nathan lifted his hand, a half apology.
“There. I feel something.” Owen dropped to his knees.
“Wait.” Nathan pulled on gloves. “I’ll take it from here, Owen. This is one convoluted mess, and I wouldn’t want someone to have a reason to point at you.”
Owen nodded. “Right. That makes sense. Already easy to do if this is it and it’s in my barn.”
Nathan slid the box out. Jack and Terra crouched closer and shined their flashlights as Nathan gently opened it.
A thick gold mesh crown filled with colorful jewels reflected the light. Terra gasped. “So, the murders, all of it, was over this.” Terra noticed a stone tablet in the box behind the crown. “Looks like the rest of the corner that I found. An ancient cuneiform-inscribed tablet. It must go with the crown for some reason. Some information about whoever wore it.”
Maybe Jim had taken this to his cabin, but had he dropped it? Broken the piece off? Then he decided he wasn’t the one to keep it? She hoped they could eventually put all the pieces together.
“Gramps did know where it was all this time. He lied to Marcus.” Terra crossed her arms. “Why would he do that? He risked our lives. He could have turned it over to him.”
“Your grandfather probably believed his only bargaining chip was the artifact, and likely feared that Briggs would kill you all once he got his hands on it,” Jack said. “Robert is shrewd, Terra. I have no doubt he made the right call here. He was simply buying time until someone else came to save the day.”
Owen stood and leaned against a post. “That makes sense. I think after Jim was killed, Gramps hired someone to break into the safe so he could say the item was stolen if ever asked about it. He could claim he didn’t know what it was. He’d just taken it for a friend. And then it was stolen. No harm, no foul—at least in his mind.”
“And what was he planning to do with it then?” Terra shook her head.
“You know, we could just ask Gramps,” Owen said, “but if he’s in danger of having a heart attack, I agree that all this can wait. We know the main player now.”
“Briggs mentioned to me that with Neva taken out, he would have to deliver the artifact himself.” Terra sighed. All this murder. Leif had definitely been tightening the screws around Briggs’s operation.
“We learned that Neva and Jocelyn Porcella, daughter of the Bar Wars owners, had been close friends in high school,” Nathan said. “We are looking into that relationship, and the private auction house activities. Neva might have traveled back from Algiers with items or to Algiers with items. Back and forth to the auction house, or to secure items for collectors.”
“So that could be why Leif wanted to plant the murder weapon—another part of Briggs’s network he wanted to take down. But who was this crown heading to?” Terra asked. “Who had Marcus sold it to—some wealthy rancher collector here in Montana?”
“That part of the investigation is still ongoing.”
“The artifact isn’t worth the cost of so many lives,” Jack said.
“Which brings me to this,” Terra said. “I’d like to know exactly what it is worth. Can I borrow your cell?”
Nathan handed it over, and Terra used it to call Jeremy.
“You know his number?” Jack asked.
She shrugged. “Come on, I’ve called him plenty of times.”
Jeremy answered, despite the late hour.
“Hey, it’s Terra,” she said. “You texted that you had more information. What can you tell me?”
“I can tell you the FBI Art Crime Division is closing in on buyers and sellers in a big trafficking ring. They were already here today because I’d been asking questions. I happened to overhear something about an auction house operating out of a bar there in Big Rapids.”