Chapter 6

Upon arriving at the airport, the two men headed for the rental office to interview one of the drivers of the trucks (the last driver was currently in transit, so this was probably the driver the witness had seen). She told them that she hadn't seen anyone at the warehouse--a single large box was found waiting on the loading platform with the Canadian shipping label already attached. She remembered that something inside the box had clunked while the assistant was transferring it to the truck, and guessed that the item may have been wooden. She had asked the other drivers about their experiences, and none of them remembered seeing anyone during any of the warehouse pickups. The labels had all been addressed to a warehouse in Halifax. On hearing this, Drake speculated that the Canadian warehouse was probably also abandoned. The driver for the last shipment turned up at this point and confirmed that no one was seen that time, either, which meant that the thieves had probably left town immediately after the museum theft and hours before the box had been picked up.

"So now what?" asked Drake. "There's no reason to go to the terminal. Do we head back to the warehouse?"

Chenture rolled his eyes. "I have an excellent reason to visit the terminal: if this case is like the others, it's about to bust right open. And besides, I haven't had breakfast yet."

Drake shrugged. He could do with another coffee. The security office was on the way, so...

"How could I not know about Flight 212 to Nova Scotia?" the harried chief of security replied to Chenture's question. "I have been getting faxes every hour since six a.m. from some high Canadian muckety-muck demanding we hand over a box of family heirlooms."

"A box, did you say?" asked the detective, trying to maintain a straight face as he was taking notes. Drake couldn't believe the luck, but Chenture acted like this was exactly what he was expecting.

"Yes, a box. Look, did this guy call the cops? It's hardly a criminal matter. The shipping label must have fallen off of the box, so our boys didn't know what plane to load it on. He should be lucky we didn't send it to Timbuktu. All I need is some kind of identification from the guy and an inventory of contents so we can prove it belongs to him."

"Actually, I can tell you for a fact that the contents of the box do not belong to the gentleman in question. In addition, I am confident that the contents of that box are property of the Museum of Art."

Upon hearing this, the security chief picked up the newspaper on his desk and showed the two men the front-page story. "You don't mean the rosewood chair?"

"That's exactly what I mean, sir. Would you mind taking us to examine this box ourselves?"

The man rose without a word and escorted his guests through the back door of his office into the "lost luggage" department of the airport. Taking up most of the small room was a large wooden box. Chenture walked around the box slowly, looking it up and down, before stopping at a crack where the box had not been adequately nailed shut. Taking out his flashlight, he peered into the crack for a few moments.

"Yes," he concluded. "That's it. Anyone want to take a peak at a $3.5 million chair?"

Once the examination was complete, the three men returned to the office and the complaint faxes were passed around.

"Well," said the detective afterwards, trying to sound nonchalant, "while we were here, I was wondering if you've got anything you need our help with. For example, were there any unusual activities reported last night?"

The security chief laughed. "This is an airport. There's no such thing as normal here." He picked up a clipboard stuffed with papers and started flipping through it. "Last night a dog busted out of its carrier and it took two of my men twenty minutes to catch it, causing the owner to miss his flight. Of course, he blames us instead of the dog. A kid's remote-controlled skateboard crashed into the luggage carousel, completely jamming it. There was an overstuffed suitcase that exploded, nearly disabling a luggage cart. And somebody supplied Flight 47 with macaroni and cheese dinners, and forgot to include the cheese!"

To Drake's growing confusion, Chenture was taking careful notes of all of this.

"This remote-controlled skateboard--did anyone claim it?"

The officer scratched his head. "Uh, no. That never did turn up. I suppose the kid must have grabbed it when no one was looking."

Chenture suddenly closed his notebook. "OK, I guess that's all, then. Thank you for your cooperation. I'll send a man around this afternoon to pick up the box. Until then, I'd appreciate it if you didn't let word of it out."

"Sure thing. What about the faxes?"

"Make up some more excuses. We'll get in contact with the local authorities to follow things up on that end."

After a stop at the terminal's coffee house, Drake and Chenture got back in the car and headed back to the warehouse. As they were leaving, Chenture pointed at a corner of the terminal and asked, "Isn't that your dog?"

Drake looked in the direction indicated. "I don't see anything."

"Must have ducked around a corner. I think he didn't want you to see him."

Drake decided to change the subject. "So what do you think happened at the terminal?"

"Let me put it to you this way: suppose you were at that airport last night and you see the boxes coming through. You know what's in those boxes and you want to help the police recover them, but you don't want anyone to learn of your involvement. What's the simplest way to accomplish this?"

"You remove the shipping label, perhaps with the help of a remote-controlled skateboard?" Drake thought this over. "So who did it? Perhaps one of the thieves double-crossed the others?"

"You haven't read the rest of those files yet, have you? They form a pattern, every one of them. Baffling crime sprees that all just appear to fall apart. But they don't just fall apart; they are taken down, every one of them. Just think about that for awhile."

Drake said nothing, instead picking up the other files and paging through them.