Cat stared at me.
“Exactly,” I said. “There’s no guarantee, right? We could be on a big wild goose chase.”
I shared some apple slices with Cat and began a list of repairs I would be able to make on the house. A new roof was the top priority.
“I love my house,” I said to Cat, “but I can’t really afford it. Even without a mortgage payment, the taxes and maintenance bills are killing me.”
Cat’s ear pricked forward, and he gave a low growl. The back door opened, and Carl bounded in, followed by Diesel. Cat looked them over, decided they were no threat, and hunkered down with his half tail tucked in.
“How’d it go with the monkey-napper sleuthing?” I asked.
“The guy’s name was Bernie Weiner, and he happens to be the detective that Ammon hired to find the coin. After some digging I located his ex-wife. I thought we could go talk to her.”
“Now?”
“Yeah. It won’t take long. She lives in Lynn.”
Lynn is a little southwest of Marblehead and has a lot of hardworking people in it, plus some people who don’t work at all. Weiner’s ex lived in a small house in a modest neighborhood. There was a Big Wheels trike in the minuscule front yard. The woman who answered the door looked exhausted. She had a baby balanced on her hip and a toddler wrapped around her leg.
“What?” she said.
Diesel introduced himself as an insurance investigator and told her he was doing some background work on Bernie.
“I haven’t got a lot of time,” she said. “The baby is teething, and the toddler has the poops. Bernie was an idiot. I don’t know what else to tell you. I wasn’t that surprised to hear he was…you know. He could get talked into anything. He should never have taken that job for Martin Ammon. It became an obsession. He thought he was Indiana Jones off looking for some holy relic. If he spent as much time with me as he did looking for that stupid coin, we’d still be married.”
“Thanks,” Diesel said. “This has been helpful.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any money in this for me?” she asked. “Did he have a policy? Was I listed?”
“I don’t have that information,” Diesel said. “I hope it works out for you.”
We returned to the car, and Diesel drove back to Marblehead.
“That was depressing,” I said. “I feel bad for her.”
“It looks like she’s struggling with the money, but she has two healthy kids, aside from the poops, and I bet she’s a good mom,” Diesel said. “She’ll be okay.”
“According to Nergal, Bernie’s last thought was that he regretted going off on his own. So it sounds to me like he might not have been working for Ammon at the end.”
“I had the same thought.”
—
Diesel parked in front of my house, and we migrated to the kitchen. I gave Cat and Carl a snack, and I watched Diesel place his five coin pieces on the counter and fit them together. Even though pieces were still missing it was clear that an image of a crown was engraved on one side of the coin. Diesel turned the pieces over, and I could see a face engraved on the other side. Charles III of Spain. Each of the pieces had a tiny hole punched into it.
Someone rapped on my back door, and Diesel opened it to Glo and Josh.
“Howdy,” Josh said. “How’s it going?”
“Slow,” Diesel said.
Glo gave me the two versions of “Sea Fever.” “Clara said she picked out three discrepancies. She has them circled. She asked her gramps about the changes, and he said that’s just the way the poem was always said to him.”
Star had been changed to light. Steer had been changed to guide. To the vagrant gypsy life had been changed to the dazzling gypsy life.
“Do you think these changes are relevant?” I asked Diesel.
“The first two changes got my monkey back.”
We all looked over at Carl, and Carl gave us a hideous, teeth-baring monkey smile.
“These coin pieces have holes in them.” Glo said. “Is that normal?”
I shrugged. I didn’t know. Diesel didn’t know. Josh didn’t know.
“We could check in with the professor,” Josh said. “He might still be at work.”
CHAPTER TEN
Diesel parked in front of the Sullivan Building, we climbed the stairs to Devereaux’s floor, and I knocked on his closed door. No answer. Josh opened the door and we peeked inside. No one there.
“Do you have Devereaux’s number?” Diesel asked Josh.
“Sure. We’re practically friends now. He’s called a couple of times asking about the coin.”
Josh punched in the number. Devereaux picked up, and Josh put him on speakerphone.
“We’re in your office,” Josh said. “Where are you?”
“I had to leave. Why did you come to see me?”
“We had a question about the pieces of the coin.”
“Are you still in my office?”
“Yes.”