“Sweet,” Vito murmured. “My nephews would love this.” It would certainly keep their minds off Molly. He decided to bring them here as soon as he could.
“Look.” Nick surreptitiously pointed to a fourth suit of armor, standing toward the right side of the hall. A sour-faced boy about Dante’s age stood a foot from the armor, loudly complaining about the wait. He stomped his foot and sneered.
“This is so boring. Crummy suit of armor. I’ve seen better in a junkyard.” He started to kick at the armor when it abruptly bent at the waist in a clatter of metal. Visibly frightened, the boy scrambled back, his eyes wide and his face pale. The crowd went silent and Nick chuckled softly. “I saw it move a second ago. Served the brat right.”
Vito was about to agree when a booming voice thundered from inside the armor. It took him a second to realize the knight was speaking French, but it didn’t take a linguist to understand the meaning. The knight was royally pissed.
The boy shook his head in fear and took two steps back. The knight drew his sword with dramatic flair and matched the kid step for step. He repeated the question more loudly and Vito realized it was the voice of a woman, not a man. A smile tugged at his mouth. “That’s Sophie in there. She said they made her dress up.”
Nick was grinning. “My high school French is rusty, but I think she basically said ‘What is your name, you bad little boy?’”
The boy opened his mouth but no sound emerged.
From a side door a man appeared. The size of a linebacker, he wore a dark blue suit and tie. He was shaking his head. “Whoa, whoa. What seems to be the problem?”
The figure in the armor regally pointed to the boy and uttered something scathing.
The man looked down at the kid. “She says you’re rude and you’re trespassing.”
The kid’s face heated in embarrassment as the other children laughed.
The man shook his head. “Joan, Joan. How many times have I asked you not to scare the children? She’s sorry,” he said to the kid.
The knight shook her head emphatically. “Non.”
The children’s laughter grew louder and all the adults were smiling. The man sighed dramatically. “Yes, you are. Let’s just get on with the tour. S’il vous plaît.”
The knight handed the man her sword and lifted the helm from her head, revealing Sophie with her long hair braided in a golden crown around her head. She stuck the helm under one arm and lifted the other to gesture to the walls.
“Bienvenue au musée d’Albright de l’histoire. Je m’appelle Jeanne d’Arc.”
“Joan,” the man interrupted. “They don’t speak French.”
She blinked and stared down at the children who now stared up, mesmerized. Even the rude boy was listening. “Non?” she asked, disbelieving.
“No,” the man said and she rattled off another question.
“She wants to know what language you speak,” he told them. “Who can tell her?”
A little girl of about five with golden curls raised her hand and Vito saw Sophie’s jaw tighten, so very slightly that he might have missed it had he not been watching. But she quickly smoothed her expression as the child spoke. “English. We speak English.”
Sophie grew comically horrified. This was part of her act, but he was certain her expression a moment ago was not and found his curiosity aroused once again. Along with the rest of him. He hadn’t realized a woman with a sword would be such a turn on.
“Anglais?” Sophie demanded and grabbed her sword in a pretend rage. The little girl’s eyes went even wider and the man sighed again.
“Joan, we’ve been over this before. Don’t frighten the guests. When American children come in, you speak English. And no insults this time, please. Just behave.”
Sophie sighed. “The things I must do,” she said, her words heavily accented. “But… it is a living. Even I, Joan of Arc, must pay my bills.” She looked at the parents. “You understand bills, do you not? There is the rent and the food.” She shrugged. “And the cable TV. Essentials of life, non?”
The parents were nodding and smiling, and once again Vito found himself intrigued.
She looked down at the children. “It’s just that, well, you see, we are at war with the English. You understand this word war, do you not, petits enfants?”
The children nodded. “Why are you at war, Miss Of Arc?” one of the fathers asked.
She shot the father a charming smile. “S’il vous plaît, call me Joan,” she said. “Well, it is like this-” It was at that moment she saw Vito and Nick standing off to the side. The smile stayed pasted to her mouth but disappeared from her eyes and Vito felt the frost from half a room away. She looked to the man in the suit and tie. “Monsieur Albright, we have visitors. Can you help them?”
“What the hell did you do to her, Chick?” Nick muttered.
“I have no idea.” He followed her with his eyes as she rounded the children up and led them to the wall with the banners, starting her tour. “But I plan to find out.”
The man in the suit approached, smiling. “I’m Ted Albright. How can I help you?”
“I’m Detective Lawrence and this is Detective Ciccotelli. We’d like to talk to Dr. Johannsen as soon as it’s possible. When will her tour be completed?”
Albright looked worried. “Is there some kind of trouble?”
“No,” Nick assured him. “Nothing like that at all. We’re working a case and have some questions for her. History-type questions,” he added.
“Oh.” Albright perked up. “I can answer them.”
Vito remembered Sophie saying that Albright just played at historian. “We appreciate it,” he said, “but we’d really prefer to speak with Dr. Johannsen. If the tour will be more than fifteen minutes, we can go have our lunch and come back.”
Albright glanced over to where Sophie was now telling the children about the swords mounted on the wall. “A tour runs an hour. She should be free after that.”
Nick slipped his shield back in his pocket. “Then we’ll be back. Thank you.”
Chapter Seven
Dutton, Georgia, Monday, January 15, 1:15
P.M.
Daniel sat on his parents’ bed. For an hour he’d stared at the floor, telling himself to pull back the floorboard he knew concealed his father’s safe. He hadn’t checked it yesterday. He didn’t want Frank to know about the safe, much less its contents.
He wasn’t sure what he’d find inside today. He knew he didn’t want to know. But he’d put it off long enough. This was the safe his father thought no one else in the family knew about. Not his wife, and certainly not any of his children.
But Daniel knew. In a family like his, it had paid to be the one to know where the secrets were hidden. And where the guns were kept. His father had many gun cabinets and many safes, but this was his only gun safe. This is where he kept the weapons Daniel suspected had their serial numbers filed off. Certainly they were unregistered.
Arthur’s unregistered guns had nothing to do with why they might have gone to Philadelphia or where they went when they got there, but Daniel hadn’t been able to find any clues anywhere else he’d looked. So here he sat. Just do it.
He pulled away the wood and looked at the safe. He’d found the combination oh-so-cleverly concealed in his father’s Rolodex as a birthday of a long-dead aunt. Daniel remembered the aunt and her actual birthday, as it had been close to his own.
He dialed the combination and was rewarded with a click. He was in.