The Investigator Signed For The Films Before He Asked For Coffee

I left the chain on the door while I checked his name with the agency office.

Hector waited under the narrow awning. Rain ran off his dark coat. He did not act hurt by the delay.

"I'd be worried if you let me straight in," he said when I opened the door.

He was thirty-four, Mexican American, with dark curls pressed flat by the rain and a face that looked tired before it looked friendly. He was an FBI investigator assigned to the museum theft, with experience in art crime.

"Did you move it?" he asked.

"The mount, yes. The object inside, no."

"Did anyone else see the films?"

"The radiographer. I haven't asked him what he thought."

"Good. Tell me what happened in order. Include anything you think makes you look foolish. Those details usually help."

I told him about the weight, the bird, and Vaughn's warning about fire.

He took notes. When I stopped, he asked me to repeat the exact words.

"He called it advice," I said.

"That doesn't make it harmless."

He called the local police about the threat. Then he asked permission to photograph my cabinet before I opened it.

We stood beside the spare glass while he recorded where the films had been kept.

"I hid them," I said.

"You protected them. Now we'll document that."

He laid clean paper over my bench and examined the sleeves without touching the film faces. He asked for the radiographer's invoice and contact details.

The invoice was $460. I had worried about earning that money back.

Now I worried about living long enough to pay it.

Hector looked at the shipping inventory next.

"Did you write this line?"

"He did. Bronze interior remains mine."

"And you watched him sign?"

"Every page. He thought I was wasting his time."

"You weren't."

For the first time since Vaughn left, I could breathe all the way in.

I offered coffee. Hector shook his head.

"Paperwork first."

That answer made me like him. I wished it had not.

He gave me receipts for the original inventory, the films, and the inspection sheet. Each receipt listed the item and its condition. He sealed the evidence, marked the packages, and had me check the list.

I kept certified copies after the originals were processed. The originals would not spend another night behind my window glass.

"Will those prove he stole it?" I asked.

"They'll help prove what he delivered and what you saw. We still need to prove who knew what, and when."

He did not promise me a clean ending. I trusted him more for that.

A patrol officer arrived and took a separate report about the threat. She checked my locks and gave me an incident number. Hector asked whether I had somewhere safe to stay.

My aunt lived in Post Falls. I called her from the bench.

"Bring your toothbrush," she said. "And the good tea. You look after objects better than yourself."

By morning, the museum's registrar had supplied photographs and repair records. Hector told me the three crescents matched work recorded decades earlier.

A judge approved a search warrant for the goat and the concealed object. Agents collected the whole mount while I watched from the sidewalk.

Blue tag seven traveled with it.

They did not rip open the hide in my shop. A museum conservator would help them reach the bronze under controlled conditions.

Vaughn called before lunch.

"Where's my goat?"

"Federal agents took it. I have a receipt."

There was a long breath on the line.

"You let strangers steal my property?"

"They served a warrant."

"I'm coming for the others. Every one. In person. Have all the papers ready. Originals."

"The case agent has the relevant originals."

His voice dropped.

"You should have stuck to sewing."

I wrote the time and his words in my daybook as soon as he hung up. Then I called Hector.

"Don't bargain with him," Hector said. "Don't agree to meet alone. We're working on his route and his storage records."

"Can you stop him coming?"

"We can address the threat. We can't pretend a warrant for one object gives us everything he owns."

That afternoon I worked on a local family's deer. Its eye had gone loose in a moving truck. I secured it first, as always.

My hands steadied while I worked.

At four, a stranger in a suit knocked on the glass. He asked my name and handed me a thick envelope.

Vaughn had filed a civil case demanding immediate possession of the six remaining mounts, plus $48,000 for damage he claimed I had caused.

The hearing notice gave me two days.