Sibley's Secret

“Whit, I’ll have to call you back.”

  “That’s okay, Kiki, I understand. Let me know if I can do more for you.” The call ended, without any expectation that he would get paid. He would send her a bill, but he didn’t expect anything from it.

  She sat in her office at the police station. Oh, great, I’m the police chief and might end up in court with a bunch of bills I can’t pay. Great press!

  She didn’t know what else to do. She needed to talk to someone, anyone, somebody sympathetic that would at least try to come up with some ideas. Chad would be sympathetic, but wouldn’t have a clue what to do, and, anyway, he needed to go back to school and not worry about his mother’s finances. She hit number two on speed dial.

  “Hello, this is Detective Olander.”

  “Hi, Jim.”

  He hadn’t checked the display, but recognized her voice immediately. “Hey, Kiki, what’s going on?” They normally talked at night at home.

  “Oh, I just wanted to talk to you, maybe to vent a little.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone unknown says they own Dad’s farm.”

  “What do you mean? Everyone around here knows it belongs to Marlin Deboe.”

  She looked at her door again to be sure it was closed, even though the vent system at the station carried sound throughout the building. “I just got off the phone with the lawyer. He said someone petitioned the court to remove me as administrator for the property. I can’t sell it, so I can’t pay the bills I’ve gotten since he died.”

  “Who says they own it?”

  “That’s just it. Fiske said the affidavit was sealed, but the judge ruled for it. I don’t know what all that means except that the court agreed that someone other than dad owns the farm. The county records don’t have anything, but someone must have a title.”

  “What’s Fiske gonna do?”

  She sat rubbing her forehead. “I turned him off. I can’t afford to pay him, and I don’t think he can do anything to change this anyway.”

  “Look, Kiki. I’m a criminal detective, but I do have some connections. Maybe I can find out something. I’m gonna try. I’m not sure I can do much, but I can try.”

  She felt some relief. Even if Jim didn’t find anything out, at least he was a friend and he wouldn’t send her another bill. “Thanks, I owe you.”

  “Not yet.”

  The Past

  Sibley Albrecht wanted to forget the past. The men most influential in her life were all dead, one whom she’d never even met. They’d burdened her with family secrets that haunted her; she never wanted to think about it, ever, but now she had no choice. The sins of her forefathers were now hers to bear. The men were gone, leaving her behind. Her grandfather was executed for murder. Her father feared going to prison all of his life, and barely reached his sixtieth birthday. He died of a stroke, probably caused by the stress from the secret he’d been forced to hide since he was a teenager. The secret she now kept. He survived the South Pacific in WWII, but started a chain smoking habit that he carried back into civilian life. That wasn’t all that killed him, she was sure of it, but it didn’t help either. When he was young, the hazards of smoking weren’t publicized. She didn’t think he ever had his blood pressure, the “silent killer,” measured. Her numbers were through the roof if not treated with medication. It was hereditary according to the doctor, so her father probably had it. She didn’t know or care at this point.

  Her mother died when Sibley was very young. She remembered seeing her mother crying but she hadn’t been told why she had died until much later. She’d died of cancer. Her grandmother filled the void and told her most of the family history, including the secrets she now carried, passed down from two generations. It was a pattern that she did not want to repeat again.

  The Albrecht men were all gone. Sibley’s grandfather died in the electric chair in the 20’s, which she was careful to hide from friends. Her father was harassed by the police throughout his life, but was never charged or accused of a crime. He wouldn’t discuss it with her when she was young. He raised her, but had never shown any affection. It wasn’t until she was getting married that she got the whole story. She was told as a little girl only that her grandfather died young. Her father and grandmother never told her how he died. They probably hoped she would never need to know. She’d learned it on her own, visiting the library after she was married. Her grandmother had divorced her husband when he was convicted and sentenced to death, at his request.

  Sibley’s married name didn’t give any clues about her upbringing to the people she knew, and she never disclosed her maiden name to them. With her grandfather dead before she was born and her father dead shortly after she was married, she never disclosed her family history to anyone. She often forgot that she had been married once, with two children. She had many regrets.

  Routine

  The hollow patio rock was perfect. Its fiberglass interior was just large enough to hold the long-range surveillance camera, lithium battery and small recorder. The outside surface was actually impregnated with natural stone dust from the area. No one could tell it was artificial.

  Rack was able to purchase the fake rock at a large garden center and modify it to hide the camera. The outside of the rock looked like other natural boulders surrounding the wooded hillside outside of Littleton.

  It took several moves to place the rock and adjust the image for a complete view of the house. It looked natural and couldn’t be detected by anyone hiking, even from a few feet away. It was nestled under wild brush, which no one would find. The hardest part was working in the dark. When it was set, he hiked across the hill, staying concealed in the trees in case anyone happened to be awake at midnight using night vision equipment. He was always cautious.

  He slept for a few hours in the driver’s seat before returning the car to the rental location at the airport, just in time for his morning flight back to Chicago. He would return in a week to recover the equipment and the video stored on DVD, then discard the rock somewhere along the trail.

  He knew most people have routines they follow.

  Spider Web

  Evan and Karina had started their own routines. Her client meetings happened one day per week. It didn’t take the full day, but they usually did something separate from each other on those days. The background information on Anna Vasilyevna Timiryova was now complete, unless Karina received information from America through her client. She told Evan that her client would try to get copies of the American author’s letters, but she had not said she would share them with him. He’d discovered their existence, but her client might not approve if he received copies from her. Karina didn’t think much about it since there was nothing to protect at the moment.

  They had also reached a new accord about their private relationship. Evan wasn’t overtly pursuing her, but at the same time, she had invited him to meet her mother at their apartment. He didn’t believe any man had ever been invited to her home before, which encouraged him, but he wasn’t sure it was the signal he wanted. She introduced him as her professor associate from the States, and nothing more. Her mother’s reaction didn’t imply anything more subtle in this explanation. Although honored, he left feeling deflated that there would never be anything more than a purely professional relationship. After their investigation of the Kolchak era, the chances of both of them working on the same project again were virtually nonexistent. He hated that thought, but was getting resigned to it.

  She brought coffee in a thermos one morning, “I remember that it is customary in the United States to have coffee in the morning.” He knew she drank tea.

  He graciously accepted a warm cup, “Thank, you. This is special.”

  She smiled at him and he could only reflect on how cold she had seemed weeks ago, before she knew him well. “So, I think we should begin looking for other possibilities until more about Anna is learned.”

  He turned serious,
“Yeah, I think we need to explore the possibility that Kolchak’s gold stayed on the train when he was removed, after all the Russians were removed.”

  “Why do you not think the Czechs may have taken it?”

  “I don’t think it would have gone unreported. Think about it. If the Czech Army commander knew the gold was on the train, it would have been monumental. The Americans would probably have fought to protect it. Their job was to protect cargo, not Russian soldiers, but there was no conflict other than the removal of the Russians.”

  “Maybe the Russians took it with them.”

  “I did the math. The gold bullion alone would have weighed tons and would have been in huge crates, either metal or wood, probably wood back then.”

  “Well, someone must have known about it.”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think the Russian Supreme Ruler would have loaded boxcars with crates marked as bullion. That would have been insane in the middle of the revolution. I also don’t think Kolchak would leave it to the Reds when he fled from Omsk. He would have taken it with him. I’m positive it went on the train. So, where did it go?”

  Littleton

  She checked her pulse rate half-way up the last hill before reaching home. It was easy going down the hill, but the return could be brutal. Jackie’s morning jog had gotten more vigorous since her newest best seller. She had enjoyed writing seven