“Sorry, I’m not following. If it belongs to a museum, how did you come to have it in your possession?”
“Well, that’s, um, kind of a long story. And a funny one. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe? Depends on your sense of humor, I suppose. I know mine tends toward arny—irony, I mean—so I think it’s—”
“My fiancée is an avid birder, Mr. Leitner.”
“That’s…nice. Great hobby. Good way to spend more time outdoors.”
“She’s also a paralegal for an environmental law firm. And one of the things we chatted about on our first date was this thing called the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of…nineteen…something or other. Do you know about that?” he asks.
“Ah. I do, yes.”
“So you’re aware that possessing a taxidermy migratory bird is illegal?”
“Yes. I’m an antique dealer, so I know that it’s illegal undermostcircumstances. But you see, this particular goose was stolen from—”
“I’m sorry, did you just say it wasstolen?”
“Not by me!” Oh god. I am bungling this so badly. I wish Annie were here. She would be so much better at explaining this bizarre situation, probably charming the hell out of Trooper Vincenti in the process. Or maybe she’d just be smart enough to have kept her mouth shut from the beginning. Meanwhile, I am actively digging my own grave. “It’s been missing from the museum for sixty-something years, so I might have it in my possession, but I am clearly not the one who took it originally.”
“So you’re admitting to trafficking in stolen goods?”
“No! That’s not—”
“Sir, I’m going to need you to step out of the car.”
“But I—”
“Sir.”
I hold up my hands in anxious capitulation. “Okay, okay. I’m getting out. But this is all a misunderstanding,” I say desperately. “I promise you, I can explain everything.”
Vincenti opens my door and steps back to allow me to exit the Suburban. “And I’m sure everyone will be excited to hear all about it back at the station.”
As Vincenti—as gently as one can, at least—turns me around, handcuffs me, and recites my rights, I think back to that first day I walked into Virtu and attempted to commit larceny. How ironic that Graham spared me from arrest only for it to happen anyway a couple decades later, and over something so absolutely ridiculous that probably would never have occurred had he not originally taken me in.
Artful Dodger, indeed.
THIRTY-FOUR
Callahan
It’s almost noonthe next day when I make it back to Baltimore.
I’m exhausted from spending the evening in a cheap motel—the closest place with a vacancy I found after the police released me at 2:30 a.m. We waited hours for someone from U.S. Fish and Wildlife to arrive, and then it took ages for them to verify that I was indeed delivering the goose to the museum, that Jeffrey Carney was a representative of said museum and was aware and expecting said delivery, and that everything was technically aboveboard despite the highly unusual circumstances and what they referred to as my “suspicious behavior.”
Meanwhile, I was able to win over the county police officer Vincenti handed me off to by giving him some information on the origins and value of his great-grandfather’s pocket watch while we waited for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife people to get there. He was kind enough to give me back my phone after it becameapparent I likely wasn’t going to be charged with anything. That initially helped me feel a bit calmer about my predicament, until I couldn’t get ahold of Annie despite multiple, increasingly frantic calls and texts over the next several hours. So then I sat there, in the middle of a police station in New Castle, Delaware, worried about her, about the store, and about what would happen if Jeff at the American Museum of Natural History for some inexplicable reason decided to pretend he’d never heard of me or the goose in his life.
The only good thing to come out of it all was that the authorities decided to take custody of the goose and arrange its return to the museum themselves, freeing me at last from the mental—and physical—weight of being responsible for it.
As I pass by Virtu on my way to the alley to park, I’m slightly heartened by theOpensign on the door until I realize it could still be that way from yesterday, if something happened to Annie that prevented her from closing up. Despite my exhaustion and an incessant twinge in my lower back from the combination of long-distance driving and the night spent on a too-firm motel mattress, I move with a haste that comes from deep inside me, where my heart calls out for her:Annie. Annie. Annie.
I need her.
I need to hold her, and kiss her, and tell her that I love her. That I think I asked her to stay hoping it would restore my life to what it used to be, but that I understand now that what I truly need—and want—is to build something new and beautiful out of all our broken parts. Even if it means change. Even if it means continuing to run headfirst into the unknown, as long as she’s holding my hand.
But standing behind the counter when I enter through theback hallway isn’t Annie, but Francis. My stomach drops like one of those amusement park rides called something like A Thousand Feet of Panic. “Fran?”
He looks up from the book of sudoku puzzles he always keeps in his jacket pocket. “Oh, Dodger. Welcome back. How was the trip?”
