Джеффри Дивер - Nothing Good Happens After Midnight - A Suspense Magazine Anthology

I skimmed a history of the Crowell decoys and read that his workshop was still standing. It had been moved from the original site to the property of the Harwich Historical Society at Brooks Academy, which was a short drive from where I was sitting.

Seemed like a logical place to start. I tucked the papers back into the envelope, slid off the bar stool and headed for my pickup truck with the cardboard box tucked under my arm.

If you looked at a map of Cape Cod you’d see that the town of Harwich is near where the elbow would be on the peninsula, which curls out into the Atlantic like a bent arm. Harwich is an old seafaring town with Nantucket Sound at its doorstep, so it’s no surprise that it once had a school of navigation.

The school was housed in a graceful, 19th century Greek-revival building named Brooks Academy that had been turned into a museum run by the Harwich Historical Society. I parked behind the academy and walked across the parking lot to a low shingled building.

Hanging over a sliding barn door was a black quarter board with the words “A. E. Crowell, Bird Carvings” in white letters. On a shelf above the door to the shop was a carving of a Canada goose. The workshop was closed, but a pleasant, middle-aged woman working in the museum opened it up for me. She accidentally set off an alarm and had to shut it off. I stepped through the entrance to the workshop and into a room with wall displays that told about Crowell and his work.

I tossed a couple of bills into the donation box and said I carved birds for a hobby. I jokingly asked if the Canada goose was a Crowell. She laughed. “It wouldn’t be out there if it were.”

The museum had a few Crowell decoys in its collection, she said, but nothing like the carvings that were bringing a million dollars.

The shop contained a workbench, wood-working tools, a pot-bellied stove, and what looked like an antique sander and band saw. A half-dozen miniature bird models with minimalist details sat on a shelf.

A carving on a work bench caught my eye. It looked identical to the fake bird sitting in the box on the front seat of my truck. I asked where it came from.

“A bird carver named Mike Murphy donated the reproduction. We had it in the museum where it would be more secure, but since it’s only a reproduction someone suggested we put it out here. As you may have noticed, we have a burglar alarm in the barn, but there’s nothing in the workshop that’s really valuable. Even the tools are borrowed.”

I thanked her, put another couple of bills in the donation box and walked back to my truck. I leafed through the folder Bridget had given me and re-read the investigation report where they interviewed someone named Mike Murphy.

A guy with the same name had been the caretaker of the Orloff mansion. He told the investigators he had seen the merganser in Orloff’s study. The bird was there when the marshals sealed the place. He assumed it had been burned in the fire. He couldn’t say for sure because he got to the fire after the house had burned down. Someone at the fire department had called him.

The investigators left it at that. I might have done the same thing, except for Murphy’s donation to the historical society. It suggested that he had more than a casual interest in the preening merganser, fake or not. And I wanted to know why.

Murphy lived in a one-story ranch house in a working-class neighborhood that was probably never fashionable, nor ever would be. I parked in the driveway behind a beige Toyota Camry and knocked on the front door. The stocky man who answered the door stared at me with inquisitive blue eyes.

“Can I help you?” he said.

“My name is Socarides.” I pointed to the Thalassa logo on my blue polo shirt. “I run a charter boat out of Hyannis. I’m also an ex-Boston cop and I pick up a few bucks on the side as a private investigator for insurance companies. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about Viktor Orloff.”

He gave a weary shake of his head. “Orloff is the gift that keeps on giving. Wish I never heard of the guy.”

“From what I know of Orloff, you have a lot of company.”

Murphy grinned. He had a wide jaw cradling a mouth filled with white even teeth.

“Come on in,” he said with a sigh.

Before I accepted his invitation I went to the truck and got the cardboard box. He gave the carton a curious glance, then ushered me into a living room paneled in knotty pine. He shooed away a long gray-haired cat from a wood-framed chair and told me to take a seat.

He sat on a sofa, picked the cat up and stroked its head.

“This is Gus,” he said. “Gotta keep him inside because coyotes come through the yard once in a while, but he doesn’t seem to mind being a house cat.”

Gus looked as if he didn’t mind anything. I glanced around the living room. There was art on every wall, most of it prints of waterfowl. Wooden decoys were scattered on shelves and tables around the room.

“Quite the collection,” I said.

“Thanks,” Murphy said. Then he crossed his arms and gazed at me. “How can I help you?”

“My client is a rich guy named Ruskin. He bought a Crowell decoy called the preening merganser from Orloff, and paid a lot of money for it, but the law took your former boss off to the clink before he could make good. Then Orloff died in prison and his house burned down, along with the decoy.”

Murphy nodded. “I already talked to the cops. What does your client want to know that isn’t in the record?”

“He thinks maybe the merganser didn’t burn up.”

Murphy scoffed. “That’s because he didn’t see the fire.”

“You did?” I remembered from the file that Murphy told the interviewer he lost his job when Orloff was arrested and hadn’t been back to the house since it was sealed.

“I didn’t see the actual fire,” he said, catching himself. “I saw the TV stuff and came by the house later. It went up quick, like it had been set.”

“The investigation didn’t say anything about arson.”

“A guy like Orloff would know people who could do a smart job. Everything had been reduced to cinders. Everything . I don’t know where Ruskin would get the idea that the bird wasn’t burned up.”

“From this.” I opened the carton, extracted the plastic case, and set it on the coffee table. “Made in China. Ruskin saw an ad in a magazine and ordered this Crowell reproduction.”

“Chinese are pretty clever at copying stuff,” he said.

“Ruskin says a copy this good could only have been made from the original. Which means the authentic Crowell didn’t burn up.”

“Orloff could have had the fake made before the real bird got burned.”

“That’s not what the record shows. The repro was made after the house fire.”

He shrugged. “Can I take a look?”

I handed him the encased bird model. He ran his fingers over the plastic surface of the box.

“Where did you get this?”

“Probably the same place you got the one you gave to the museum.”

“You stopped by the museum?”

I pointed to a photo of the Crowell workshop that hung over the fireplace mantle.

“They moved the decoy to the woodworking barn,” I said.

His hand stopped stroking the box. “No kidding. Why did they do that?” He sounded almost startled.

“Thought it would add to the workshop’s authenticity. The lady at the museum said you were a bird carver.”

“I carved most of the birds in the house, but I’m no Elmer Crowell. I’ve taken a few courses and have the tools.”

“That makes you an expert compared to me. How does the mail order repro stack up against the original?”

“Technically, it’s very good, but it doesn’t have the soul you’d see in a Crowell. I figured I’d never own a real one, so I bought the reproduction. I must have seen the same ad as Ruskin. I ordered one just to see what they’d done.”