Chapter 5

The moment Donald Drake left the office he was grabbed by the arm and hustled out of the station by Detective Chenture. Before he knew it, he was in the passenger seat of the detective's police car as it raced through the streets, siren wailing.

"Take a look at those folders at your feet," said Chenture, right before making a dangerously fast right turn. "Start with the top one." The detective rather resembled a pug dog, with a stubby nose and wrinkled brown overcoat and slacks ending in thoroughly scuffed shoes. Add in the hair loss, and he looked like somebody who had been exposed to an aging ray.

Drake did as he was instructed; placing the folders atop the ever-more disheveled coat and hat in his lap. He tried his best to read the detective's scrawl unaided before reluctantly putting on his reading glasses. The top folder was labeled "The Case of the Stolen Antiques", with the subtitle "Splintered Love" hand-written beneath that. The notes within detailed a series of thefts of ancient furniture from homes and businesses, culminating only a few hours ago in a daring museum robbery of a rosewood chair worth $3.5 million. The security systems in most of these robberies were extremely difficult to bypass quickly, yet speed appeared to be the criminal's M.O. The items taken (or almost taken, as it appeared that the thieves had become careless on the two attempted robberies just before the museum heist) varied from clocks to cabinets to canopies. The gang appeared to be very specific in their targets: items that were easier to steal and more valuable on the black market were frequently left untouched while obscure ancient knick-knacks in the same house were taken instead. Chenture had evidently studied up on the subject of old furniture, as the margins were filled with names of French kings, English craftsmen, and date ranges associated with the items, but nothing seemed to match.

Chenture glanced at his passenger as the car raced through an intersection. "Well," he asked, "do you see the pattern?"

Drake shrugged and gestured at the notes. "It looks like you covered all of the possible connections."

"No, I didn't write it down, because I didn't have any proof before this morning. But surely you see it? It's so obvious!"

Drake sighed. "No, I haven't a clue."

The detective gaped at his mentor before turning his head to watch the road while he took the car through another sharp turn. As he brought it back to its accustomed breakneck pace he sighed under his breath. "What's happened to you?"

Drake asked himself the same question. A detective, even more than a beat cop, lived or died on his wits, and a year of retirement seemed to have sapped his supply dry. He felt that he could be little more than an observer on this case.

From the look on his face, Chenture appeared to have come to the same conclusion. "They're all made of wood," he announced in disgust.

"That goes without saying," replied a confused Drake. "They're antiques. So were the items that were passed over."

"The stolen items were all rare woods: teak, mahogany, satinwood, and now rosewood. The pieces left behind may have been well made or from the hands of master craftsmen, but they were all constructed of common woods like walnut or oak."

Drake took another look at the notes, and saw that this was exactly the case.

At that moment the car came to a sudden stop. Drake threw up his arms in panic and tossed the notes into the air. Chenture's eyes bulged out as he saw his sorting system in jeopardy, then sighed in relief as his predecessor managed to catch the file without dropping it. "Now then," said Chenture, "where's the best place to hide a ton of wood?"

Drake looked up to see the building they had stopped at. "A sawmill?"

The two men got out of the car as the detective explained. "Last night a resident complained about the noise of a buzz saw in an abandoned sawmill. What he told me about suspicious activities, timed within hours of each of the thefts, gave me grounds enough for a warrant." He waited while Drake got into his coat and hat.

As the two men rounded a corner of the building, Drake raced ahead and pointed out a pair of tire tracks. "Truck, pretty heavy I'd say." He reached down and rubbed one of the tracks with his hand, then sniffed his fingers. "Eight, maybe nine hours old." He was gratified to see the detective agree with his assessment. Perhaps I haven't lost it after all, thought Drake.

Chenture quickly climbed up a crate and took a look through a window into the warehouse, to verify that the place had indeed been cleaned out of all the boxes he remembered seeing the night before. He then rounded up a teenage boy who was loitering nearby. The kid wasn't in the neighborhood the night before, but a few nights earlier he remembered seeing a truck departing--the logo on the side proclaimed that it had been rented from the airport.

The two men thanked the witness, then got back into the police car and were soon heading down the road even faster than before, although both had a sinking feeling in the pits of their stomachs. While Chenture was driving, Drake used the car's cell phone to call the rental office for the truck. He learned that a truck had been sent with a company driver and assistant to pick up boxes from the warehouse at odd times several nights in succession. Each time the cargo had been sent on flights to Halifax, Nova Scotia. The latest such flight had left seven hours ago. Rather unusually, this last shipment included a single small box (too small to hold any of the stolen furniture) that was loaded on a separate flight bound for Orlando, Florida. Two more calls verified that both flights had long since arrived at their destinations. The police car dropped back down under the speed limit when this information was relayed to Chenture.