out there.”
It was the first storm of the season, and the earliest we'd seen anything like it as far back as I could remember. He sat down to wriggle out of his boots. “Anything happening here?”
“Mack Darby thinks we should try harder to get the stiletto.” That was the weapon that Nicholas Wescott had used to kill his young bride, thereby igniting the revolution that ultimately wrecked the Fremont Republic.
Alex dropped one boot on the floor. “Keating wouldn't let go of it unless somebody went over there with a gun.”
“I told him that. Not in those words, of course. I don't entirely trust Darby.”
“He's okay. He's a bit intense, but he wouldn't hurt anybody.”
“Anyhow, Alex, he says he wants to try. Says if anybody could persuade him-”
“What's he offering?”
“You'll need to talk to him.”
“Okay. Anything else?”
“You ever hear of Chris Robin?”
“The Chris Robin?”
“A physicist who wrote songs.”
“That's him. He wrote 'Starlight and You.'“ Alex laughed. “Chase, the guy's famous.”
“If you say so.”
“I think you spend too much time in this office.”
“That's more or less what she said.”
“Who's she?”
“His sister-in-law.”
“You were talking to Chris Robin's sister-in-law?”
“Yes. She was here. Has some stuff for sale that belonged to him.”
“That's interesting.”
“Really?”
“Chase, the reason he's well-known doesn't have anything to do with 'Starlight and You.' Or the physics. It's because he disappeared. Nobody knows what happened to him.”
Light finally dawned. The physicist who'd come home from somewhere, had gotten out of a skimmer at his front door, and never made it into his house.
Alex shook his head. Sad story. “But it gives some value to anything connected with him.”
“Yes. I remember now.”
“So tell me about the sister-in-law.”
“Her name's Karen Howard. She's inherited the estate, and she wants to market some of his personal items.”
Alex gave me a broad smile. “Sounds promising. What's she have?”
I showed him the inventory. He looked at it and made some notes. “Okay. The ring will probably bring a decent price. What about the house AI?”
“It got erased.”
He groaned. “How'd that happen?”
“I've no idea.”
He shook off the other boot. “Well, the books might be worth something.”
“She says Robin was in the habit of writing notes in them.”
“Okay. That'll help. You saw some of these, right? The books?”
“Some.”
“Okay. I'll want to go over and take a look.”
“I'll set it up.”
“Good. I'm surprised you haven't taken care of it already. Was there a problem?”
“Alex, I didn't think we were going to do anything with this unless maybe because he was a songwriter.”
That brought a smile. “All right. Let's lock it down.”
“So what's he done? Other than drop out of sight?”
“Chase, what else does he need to do? You make up a list of people who've vanished over the years, they've almost all become famous, but hardly anyone's done anything other than that. It's all you need. And Chris Robin is among the top ten.”
I called Howard, told her we were interested in representing her, and set up an appointment for the following evening. Then I looked up Christopher Robin.
A pilot who often worked with him had dropped him off at his home on Virginia Island at around 11:00 P.M. on the first day of spring, 1393. And if that rings a bell, it's because that's the date of the Great Kolandra Earthquake. The pilot's name was Cermak.
Robin's home was located in an isolated area at the southern tip of the island. A young couple who were strolling along the edge of the ocean saw the skimmer arrive. Elizabeth, apparently, slept through it all.
Robin seems never to have entered the house, and no one ever saw him again.
In an odd coincidence, it was also Cermak's last night. He'd been bringing Robin in from Skydeck. They'd flown a lander into the Vasilyev Terminal in Kolandra and parked. From there, Cermak had delivered Robin to Virginia Island, then gone home to his own place at Caton Ferry, a small coastal town five hundred kilometers north. He apparently arrived just in time to get caught in the quake.
Cermak became one of the heroes of that unhappy event. There are pictures of him, scorched and bleeding, carrying kids out of burning buildings, administering first aid, pulling people from wrecked cars. In one particularly dramatic shot, he's charging across a rooftop several floors above the street, surrounded by flames.
Two hours and seven minutes after the first quake hit, a tidal wave rolled ashore and demolished most of Caton Ferry. It also destroyed the Vasilyev Terminal.
Fortunately, Virginia Island felt only a few temblors.
Like Robin, Cermak simply vanished that night. He disappeared during the general chaos. He was either carried out to sea by the tsunami or buried in the wreckage. According to the accounts, it's unlikely he ever learned that his passenger had gone missing.
“What do you think happened to Robin?” Alex asked. His voice surprised me; I hadn't seen him come into the office.
“I have no idea,” I said. “It sounds as if he jumped, or fell, into the ocean. But if so, why didn't they find the piece of luggage he'd been carrying? Or the notebook?”
“It's a good question.”
“Maybe he just ran off. Maybe there was another woman.”
“It's possible.”
“He could have been murdered.”
Alex nodded. “Maybe he wasn't there at all.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The people who saw the lander on the pad did not actually see him get out.”
“That doesn't mean anything. But maybe that's what happened. It's unlikely that both men would disappear on the same night. Maybe he went on to Kolandra with Cermak.”
Alex shrugged. “If so, why stop at his home first?”
“He might have changed his mind. Maybe he just needed something at the house.”
“It's possible, Chase. It would explain the bag.”
“Well,” I said, “it's a long time ago.” Alex was silent. “We aren't going to look into it, are we?”
“No,” he said.
“That's good. But you're surprising me. Why not?”
“Because if we were able to find an answer, the value of the artifacts would go down.”
“Oh.”
“Maybe what we'll do is pretend to look into it. If we do that, and can't solve the riddle-”
“The value goes up.”
