Pigeon Blood

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Your Treasures

  Blair tiptoed out of the closet and then slid across the bed. He stood next to the bedroom door to have a better look at what Cal was doing. Calvin came from the kitchen and paused beside the fish tank as if surprised to find food still floating on top of the water. Looking up quickly, he glanced over his shoulder and then down the hall toward the bedroom. As he passed the bathroom, Blair slipped behind the bedroom door just as Calvin came through it.

  Calvin turned on the lights and glanced around. He seemed suspicious at first, but his composure softened as he looked at some of Kevin’s things. Everything seemed to charge him emotionally; obviously Cal’s attachment to Kevin’s mother made him care that much more for her son. Having lost a daughter himself, it wasn’t hard for him to imagine how she must’ve been feeling.

  Going over to the jewelry box and opening it, he regarded what was inside fondly, and then stuck one of the earrings in his pocket. “You’re never coming home again, are you, boy?” he said, obviously referring to Kevin. He picked up one of the neck chains and smiled. “Your favorite,” he surmised, and then dropped it into his pocket as well.

  As Calvin turned to leave, he paused to open a dresser drawer. Pushing aside some of the clothes on top, he pulled out a strongbox. Rubbing his hand over the top of it, he tried to open the box but it was locked. “Your treasures,” he said, putting the box back in the drawer.

  Turning off the lights as he left the room, he walked back out into the living room where the fish were. After giving them more to eat, he stuck his finger into the water. The angel fish darted away from him when he touched it. Calvin then switched on the table lamp next to the fish so that they, at least, wouldn’t be left in the dark. He flicked off the living room light just before closing the door and then making sure it was locked.

  Blair turned on the flashlight and went to the dresser. Taking Kevin’s box out of the drawer again, he tried the key he’d casted up in the lock. It worked. As he opened the box, his heart started beating in strong anticipation of the “treasures” he would find inside.

  The box wasn’t empty, but it didn’t have much in it, either. To a boy, the things inside would have been special. Every item was wrapped in newspaper, so Blair had to unwrap each one before becoming thoroughly disappointed. There were cloudy, uncut emeralds, an imperfect chrysoberyl cat’s eye, a pink coral specimen, brownish-yellow citrine, some opal, serpentine, mother-of-pearl, and a nice hunk of pyrite. Those things had been pushed to the side, and it looked as if something else had been in the box.

  Blair refused to believe that Cynthia died because of a bunch of poor quality stones and fool’s gold. Obviously someone else had discovered the box and had removed the valuable stuff. There was dirt and grit on the bottom of the box, and newspaper had been stuffed inside with no samples wrapped up in it. This suggested that some rock and mineral samples had indeed been removed. “Damn!” Blair said, shoving the box back into the drawer. It hurt to think that Cynthia had died for nothing.

  Rock collectors usually kept a record of what they found and where and when they found it; Kevin’s records had probably been in the box, too. Except…. If the find had been a big one, and if any fool could have found the strongbox, it would’ve behooved Kevin to hide his maps and things elsewhere. Latrice could have known about the key; it could have been what he was demanding from Cynthia the night he killed her. Blair looked around the bedroom for ideas; where would he hide things if he were running scared?

  A boy Kevin’s age with relatively no experience with world-class thugs would probably stick something down in a heating vent or up in the attic. Or perhaps he would put it in the garbage disposal or under a throw rug. Maybe Kevin put something important in the freezer or in the back of a radio, or tucked it under a television set or between his mattress and box spring. Perhaps there was something floating in the tank behind the toilet. The possibilities were endless, so Blair figured he’d better start looking. Afraid of being discovered by turning on any of the lights, he used only Cal’s flashlight to guide him.

  Blair looked everywhere but found nothing. Getting discouraged, he paused a moment to look at a photograph on the wall of Kevin standing next to the opening of a cave. He was wearing a pair of hiking boots, Bermuda shorts, and a light jacket. Sunblock was on his nose. There was a leather belt around his waist with a rock pick, a geological hammer, a pick shovel, and a length of rope hanging from it. His hands were on his hips with a pair of safety goggles dangling from two of his fingers. A big smile was on his face. He looked like a boy who’d stumbled across a fantasy come true.

  The picture must have been hanging there for some time, because the part of the wall poking out from around one side of it was a bright orange, while the rest of the wall had been paled by the sun. Old Kevin was no duster, either; his last set of fingerprints around the frame stood out almost as much as the picture itself. Blair brushed the rest of the dust away with his hand and then turned to look in the bathroom and then the kitchen.

  Three cans of beer were in the refrigerator but there was nothing else of significance. If Blair had to come away from this gem hunt empty-handed, he was glad to report that his right hand was now holding several fluid ounces of booze. Once he found the beer he never put it down again, guzzling one can after the other.

  Trudging back out into the living room, Blair watched the fish as he passed. Because of the lamp Cal had turned on earlier, he no longer needed the flashlight for the living room. He sat down on the sofa and propped his feet up on the coffee table, growing quite weary of looking all over for nothing. Latrice had probably been there already and cleaned the place out: He’d obviously taken the gemstones and the geological records. Coming to the conclusion that he was always a day late and at least two steps behind, Blair put the last can of beer to his lips and let the brew coast home. Three cans only left his body aching for that much more.

  Something was sticking out from the edge of a Field and Stream magazine on the table in front of him, so Blair opened it up. There were four birthday cards in it; Kevin must’ve celebrated a birthday recently. One card was from his mother, two were apparently from friends, and one was from Cynthia. The card Cynthia had given him was a funny one, with in-your-face kind of humor, but she signed it “Just kidding,” and “With lots of love.” Blair celebrated the discovery with another dose of beer, all the while dreaming of its tasting like gin.

  After putting the cards back inside the magazine, he stared at the fish as if mesmerized. They were beautiful, and so was the forty-gallon aquarium. The fish were tropical freshwater species and goldfish, and they seemed healthy and well cared for. There was the black and white angel Calvin had touched, several variously colored goldfish, a tiger barb, and some guppies.

  The fish Blair found particularly fascinating were the two with bodies resembling hammered metal, and whose eyes were red like rubies. If only those eyes had been rubies, Blair would have felt as if this trip to Kevin’s place wouldn’t have been such a waste of time.

  The aquarium had a wheel that turned with every gust of air pumped into the tank; it also had a maze that the fish seemed to enjoy swimming into and out of; and there was a lone scuba diver next to a rock on the bottom. It was an elaborate piece of equipment, generously decorated, and it was hard to imagine a boy who worked at Best Burger being able to afford something like that.

  Blair sat on the edge of the sofa and leaned toward the fish tank. The marbles in the bottom were a nice touch, but some of them seemed to glow a bit more brightly than the others. Getting up and sticking his hand into the tank to brush aside some of the darker marbles, he found a nest of gemstones of all colors resting underneath. Blair picked up one of the more intensely red-colored stones and held it up to the light. He wasn’t sure if it was a garnet, a spinel, or a ruby, but it was definitely a gem. The striations across its flat surface suggested that it was a piece of corundum. Even the variously colored stones had striations, and so they were most likely sapphir
es.

  Those baubles were nice, but certainly not nice enough to die for. If Blair had gotten Cynthia’s message sooner, he could’ve beaten Latrice to Kevin’s treasure box and be backstroking in millions of dollars worth of gems at that very moment. Even so, Blair collected the gemstones, twenty-two in all, and put them in his pocket. Kevin and Cynthia were both dead now and certainly wouldn’t need them anymore. Looking up, Blair still found it strange that dust had settled everywhere and yet had been left undisturbed on everything except one photograph hanging in the hall. Going back and giving all of the photographs a closer look, Blair noticed ten pictures hanging there with about an eighth of an inch of dust on every one of them except the one he’d looked at earlier.

  Taking the picture from the wall, he opened up the back. Right behind the photograph were four pages from a log book. Kevin had been wise beyond his years after all! Latrice had taken the book, but the kid had been smart enough to tear out a few pages and leave them in an inconspicuous place. When Blair unfolded the pages, he was disconcerted to discover that they weren’t pages from Kevin’s log book at all, but rather the name in the top, left-hand corner on each of them was V. Moorland.

  “Vinnie Moorland,” Blair said. “My roommate who died back in school. How in hell did Kevin ever get to know Vinnie?”

  A vision came to Blair again. Cynthia’s annoyed face came at him and made him take a step back. “Didn’t kill him!” she said with such authority that it made the hair on his chest stand on end.

  Had she been referring to the Vinnie Moorland thing? She had to be talking about Vinnie, but why now? Vinnie died over five years ago. If she’d known the truth about his death, why didn’t she tell him a long time ago? Why didn’t she tell the authorities?

  Blair stuck the pages in his pocket and then went back out into the living room. He pushed the drapes aside and left through the glass double doors. Outside, he could hear a man pounding on the door downstairs where the rock music was playing. The guy banging on the door was using every disgusting word he could think of to express his dissatisfaction with his neighbor. All of the commotion worried Blair; someone was bound to call the cops pretty soon, and he wanted to be long gone before then.

  All Blair could think about was how fast he could throw a leg over the railing and then try to catch hold of the tree limb. But before he tried it, he stopped to pick up the begonia he’d knocked over when he’d come through the first time. Stuffing some of the dirt back in the pot and then putting it in its proper place was the least he could do. After all, the other two plants looked perfectly fine, but the one he’d abused could use all the help it could get.

  It amazed Blair to find the flowerpot so heavy. He stared at the chip in the side of it as if it were a friend telling old secrets, and he ran his fingers over it thoughtfully. Most people would’ve figured the pot had been broken when it got knocked over. But old cracks in clay pots look different from fresh ones, and this crack looked as if it had been there awhile.

  Without hesitating, he pulled the plant out of the flowerpot and then dumped the dirt onto the cement floor. A terrific thud came against the balcony, startling him. Anxious to see what it was, he turned on the flashlight. In front of him was a hunk of limestone with three patches of the loveliest, bluish-red crystals embedded in it that he’d ever seen.

  “My God!” he said, picking up the matrix and examining the stone closely. Rolling it around in the light, he picked at the crystals with his thumbnail. They didn’t scratch, so he took a penny out of his pocket and then raked it against one of the crystals. Nothing happened. Growing excited, he next used a penknife to mar the surface, and the result was the same.

  Palming the crystals, Blair pressed one against the glass door and watched as it scratched the surface with no problem at all. Scratching glass told him that the minerals were quite hard and were most likely gemstones. “Harder than glass,” he said, brushing the glass shavings away with his finger.

  Not yet convinced that they were anything of real importance, Blair went back inside the apartment and took the rose quartz from the box under Kevin’s bed. Holding the quartz firmly in his hand, Blair pushed the rock against one of the gemstones and tried to scratch it. Afterward, he was happy to see that the red gemstone he’d tested had been left unblemished.

  “Wow!” he said, examining the beautiful samples with what little light he had.

  Now those could be worth dying for.