****
There was a restless horde in the Hatchery when I got there after study hall. Every band member had a theory of why Harley had gone into the monastery dressed as a monk, and everybody was voicing their ideas at the same time. Brookie held up both hands for silence.
“Hey, guys, Mac’s got something here. He thinks there is no client. Harley’s just been snooping so he can steal it himself. And as far as I can see, that is the only thing that explains an idiot stunt like that.” Brookie should talk!
“Harley must be desperate to see that art object. I know I’d be desperate before I wore a monk’s robe,” kidded Mort. Nobody paid much attention to him. Nobody paid much attention to anybody else. Everyone was just throwing ideas in the pond to see if they would float.
As I stood with my head swirling with confusion from the conversation, one timid voice stood out among all the others.
“Well, Harley musta heard about it, the art object, from somebody besides Ms. Kent. She didn’t tell him about it. Where did he hear about it? Who? Maybe he has an accomplice that he’s going in with?”
I swiveled toward Eric and exclaimed, “You hit the nail on the head, Eric.” He blushed.
Everyone else was silent, staring at one another.
Ian looked kind of sad as he flexed his arms and leaned against the wall, shaking his head.
“There are only a few people that familiar with the monastery, guys, and that’s the brothers and monks,” Brookie pointed out. Could a brother be the accomplice? I didn’t even want to think about the monks.
The speculations flew even faster now: “Wouldn’t somebody in the monastery just be able to walk out with it?”
“Not if they needed an art dealer to fence it.”
“Wait a minute, don’t jump the gun. There is another possibility,” said Ian, frowning in concentration. You could tell he didn’t want somebody in the Order of St. Rupert to be an accomplice to Harley. “Somebody who knew the original art collector well, back in 1929, might know where this mystery object landed and how valuable it was.”
Of course Prakash had to make it more complicated. “Good deduction, Ian, from what little information we have. But there is still too much guessing, not enough fact.” The two tall boys were staring at each other across the room, their minds working as fast as an overclocked supercomputer.
“Try this one on, then, Prakash. Maybe an accomplice wasn’t somebody from 1929 but somebody who just heard about it—say, a young kid or family member or an old servant who worked in the house of the donor. They decided to act on it, even if they didn’t know where it was stashed. That would explain how clueless Harley is.”
“Or maybe some business type associated with the family found an old document, a receipt, a proof of purchase. Somebody like an accountant,” said Jerrod.
“Good one, Jerrod. Follow the paper trail.”
I grabbed my head and held it. Trying to unknot the tangle of guesses, lies and facts made my skull feel like it was imploding. Brainstorming was well and good, but it was time to stop this before I did myself serious damage.
All I could think to say was “Look, wouldn’t you guys rather just drop this whole thing? Because I don’t think we’re the ones to handle this.” I couldn’t believe I said it out loud. Everybody stared at me hard. Prakash cleared his throat in a pointed manner as he ignored me, and then walked to the center of the room with his laptop in hand, taking control.
“I think I’ll just have a look at the names of all the monks and brothers to see if a potential accomplice could be living in the monastery. That’s the place to start. Names. We need names: names of anybody who could be involved, accomplices’ names, and yes, names on a receipt or tax document, Jerrod,” said Prakash quietly.
“Time to get down to business and cut the talk about quitting, Mac.” He glared at me over the top of his screen and propped up his laptop on the old oak table. We crowded around. Scrolling through information about the order, he clicked on the St. Rupert’s Monastery Directory. It required a special password to enter. Ian didn’t pause. As head boy, he had the password. He leaned over and tapped it in.
“Forwarding this to you, okay, guys? Ms. Kent might know if Harley knew any of these guys, but we’ll wait until we can narrow the names down a little based on the donation date of 1929,” muttered Prakash, intent on his work. I looked over his shoulder. Out of some 120 names in the order, eighty-five of them were listed as in residence here at St. Rupert’s.
“Finding an accomplice is going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack,” I said as I looked at the unfamiliar names.
Ian looked discouraged. “I guess we will just have to dig a little deeper on this.”
“Sure, Ian. We can tell from their age if they had any blood relations alive back in the ‘30’s. Or if anybody is related to Harley. Maybe we can find a business connection. We can dig up the dirt on these guys,” said Pete eagerly.
“Hacking the personal lives of monks seems kind of sleazy. I mean, supposedly they left their worldly lives behind when they joined up,” I countered.
“Yeah, but what alternative do we have?”
Ian’s face said it was time to listen. “Caution. See what basic info you can find about where they went to school, grew up, and dates and stuff. Maybe somebody didn’t leave enough of their life entirely behind when they came through these walls. If you stumble on any seedy personal details that don’t seem to have anything to do with Harley, well, save those for later, in case we need them.”
I swallowed and spoke. “Excuse me. One item: The year 1929 is not enough to go on.” Everyone looked around at me. “Before any of this makes sense, accomplices or anything, we’ll have to get one name straight, as soon as possible.
“We need to get the name of the donor.”
Everyone groaned.