The Search For the Icon Bandit

By D.B. Dakota

His tortured face signals fear and anguish for his upcoming exploit … does not want to do it: Creep into the museum and heist the million-dollar icon. "Set a thief, old Beelzebub advises, to catch a thief. So I be thief two." To trap number one. "And go to Leavenworth." When caught. Midnight, with crowbar in hand the contractor creeps up, pries open the side door and makes off with the famous silver cross to gift the developer. Reckoning comes. He's invited into moneybags' home. There on a pedestal, unrecognized, converted to a sculpture, is the great cross. The museum property takeover scheme unfolds: "Me, sabotage the Old Stone Church?" the contractor asks. Answer, "You bribed me, I'm bribing you."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613091203

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Dedication

To Jerry

One

Dear Mr. Prima: Our museum has an emergency likened to a flimsy henhouse full of trophy chickens—we can’t keep the fox out. He’s bold and he’s nimble and on the prowl for our trophies. Tragically, he’s pretty much having his way with our prize heirlooms. They’re silver sculptures, to be precise, and vulnerable. The fox is carrying them off to fence, or to melt down into bullion, or to his lair to spit on and curse. I’ve no idea which. To sniff around and waste this beast, we need a foxhunter—a nervy vixen, I’m thinking. I’ve been told you have such a trapper for hire. Might she load up her snares and come help us? She or somebody has got to catch the thief and recover our art.

For about a year, one by one various icons and artifacts have been disappearing. They’re treasures impossible to replace. Their historical merit is something else. As you’d expect, they’re worth a lot of money. After each loss, police were called in. An art detective was put on one incident. The crimes remain unsolved. Last week a million-dollar icon vanished.

It’s time to employ unconventional techniques, no question. Since your cunning investigator comes recommended by trusted sources..."

Glow from the hallway nightlight fell on the stout, sunburnt man in a black jumpsuit, prompting him to glance at the bedroom mirror. Who dat, a crow? he growled, scowling, poking fun at himself to offset the fidgets, wondering if he were going to plow into the ordeal ahead a basket case or buck up, not shrink his duty and be cavalier about it.

Decision two: who was he going to be? He needed an alias. How about I be Crow? He let out a string of caws, covered his ears and shook his head. Huh-uh—bird of death.

Setting his long-billed cap at a menacing angle, he turned sideways, and presto! The silhouette image in the mirror changed into a stealthy falcon. A winged bird of prey. The finicky impersonator flapped his elbows and bared his teeth. Hawk! He snorted at the eerie reflection. Yeah.

Grabbing a sheet of paper, he ripped off a piece the size of a business card, penciled Hawk on it and thrust it in his pocket. Facing the mirror, he flashed a sickly grin. Hi. My name is Hawk, and I be your burglar this evening. He had a job to pull and, since it was not legal, he needed a pardon. Now, not afterward. Simple enough. He eliminated his real self from the picture and hid behind the alias. Hey, blame Hawk.

Still, being exempt from guilt didn’t ease his agitation. He was ticked off at having to go through with the gig because, rock bottom, it was grand larceny, that was all—hard time.

Hawk, he got no choice, do he? The sober, reflected image shook its head. Aw, shut up.

Behind Hawk’s mask, a tortured face exposed hatred for the upcoming exploit. Aping a cold-hearted vulture, though, gave him license to break and enter. Good fairy tale, huh? And he’d leave no tracks. Right. Well, Hawk... He glanced at his watch. Let’s pick up that ticket.

Psyched up, he was all set to swoop down on an ancient California Spanish mission and relieve it of riches—a silver crucifix, say, or a ceremonial cross. Not exactly street goods. So why get stuck with stuff hard to fence? Worse, why knock off a mission? Within the hour he would join the ranks of that most crafty of light-fingered masters: the museum thieves. Analysts of art heist cases marveled at their knack—how’d they do it?

But in Hawk’s case, they might search for and be intrigued by an underlying motive. It was not money. He intended to leave that impression, however, and mislead investigators. His motive was founded in anger because the mission’s museum was being exploited, stolen blind in stages. And the mission itself was under siege, he knew for certain. As to who was staging the rip-off, Hawk had tentatively identified the culprit and was going to trap him—give him enough rope to hang himself. Hawk had a convoluted scheme to trump and paralyze the fanatic responsible for the grab and shut him down.

The lizard wants it all, do he? Hawk snarled with steeled determination to stymie the spoiler. We’ll see. Banking on never being identified or suspected, Hawk was taking up a life of crime. Odds were it would be short. That was, by dint of a backhanded wrinkle—and he had one—his surprise strike would rescue the mission. If not, Hawk’s maneuver would be construed not as gallantry, but treachery. He expected, at the least, a black eye. At the most, prison.

Hawk trotted downstairs into the garage and picked up a flashlight and a small crowbar. Turning his black cap around, he got in his car and set off into the dark.

HE ARRIVED AT THE SIDE gate of a sizable, walled compound a few miles from his house, and the key he always carried let him inside. Way, way back, standing alone, was the museum. Hacking from nerves, he kept his light off as he crept toward the old adobe structure. A sanctuary for uncommon valuables, all locked up for the night, it was thirty yards away.

Okay, it’s just across the quad, he thought. The courtyard was grassy and decorated with statuary faint in dim moonlight. He was edgy. Scuffing along, he held the crowbar out in front as an obstacle detector. It struck something, made a racket, and glanced off, and he stumbled. Scraping his shoulder against the lofty wall of a crumbling stone edifice, he flicked his torch on to get his bearings and case the darkness. Hearing flutters overhead, he swung the light beam up and caught startled birds vacating their roost, a niche in the rickety wall.

Sorry ’bout that, he whispered. Tucked into the nook’s corners were several double-fist– sized hollow balls of clay with holes in them, their nests, the homes of the Capistrano swallows. He switched the flashlight off, moved on, rounded a corner and cussed.

What is this, Motel Five-and-a-half? he thought. On the museum’s portico was a weak overhead light. Wasn’t there last week. Scanning the area, he spotted another obstacle—a camera. Some joker tacked up a dummy, right? To check if it was working, he’d mix in with the tourists tomorrow and look around for cables. Well, so much for the museum.

Next.

Changing focus and directions, he ducked under an archway and eased along a walk that led to the mission’s cemetery of early settlers and natives. Just ahead in the shadows loomed his primary target: the timeless mission chapel. Stuffed with silver icons, masterpiece art and artifacts, it had a side door that faced the graveyard.

Mr. Lizard, your ticket is right inside. Inching, creeping up to the primitive door, Hawk slipped the crowbar into the jamb crack, took a deep breath... and pried.

THE FOREGOING (DEAR Mr. Prima) dispatch from Mission San Juan Capistrano in Southern California was sent to Jorge Prima at Foxhole Intercept, private investigators in Colorado. The operatives, an offbeat team of four, plied the Southwest US, collaring felons in art/media/movie orbits. The October, 1998 letter, signed by Miguel Acjache (ah-HASH-ah), a young official of the Mission, went on to cite the recommendations as:

1) the governor of the Pueblo de Taos reservation

2) a Hollywood screenwriter

Both references were Indian men who had employed Intercept on criminal cases in New Mexico. An outsider, a major benefactor to the Mission and retired moviemaker named Dean Rooney, had been lined up to fund the investigation. In fact, he’d lined himself up. Rooney was out of patience with what he perceived as lax attention to security at the Mission and half-hearted attempts to get those crimes solved. A docent, volunteer tour guide and lecturer, Rooney worked with the Mission’s curator, and both had contacts with the Native American community, inasmuch as many artifacts from early Indian cultures were on display. Rooney knew the screenwriter, the curator had learned about the Taos incident involving a murdered artist and their sources led to Intercept.

At the Mission, one official in particular, Acjache, was in charge of security, so he was obliged to consider the unorthodox distant operatives. After long-distance telephone conversations—one with Rooney on the line—and a faxed contract, arrangements were made to put Intercept’s tracer specialist, Macklyn Thornburgh, on the case.

Her destination, the Mission, was about midway between Los Angeles and San Diego and five miles from the Pacific coast, the main attraction in a diversified city of twenty-six thousand in South Orange County.

Wearing a steely smile, Thornburgh, twenty-nine, was a tall, chisel-faced Ute descendant—a slight Oriental look—with long black hair and a brassy sheen to her greenish eyes. Dressed in a blue denim shirt, jeans and cowboy boots, she wore a Broncos cap. Not sensuous, her manner did suggest she could party. Rooney picked her up at John Wayne Airport and drove her to a hotel close to the Mission, where she checked in. She would pick up a rental vehicle later, seeing that getting on with the investigation was more important. After hooking up her notebook and small printer in her room, she returned to his car with a businesslike Hasselblad camera strapped around her neck and a large backpack stuffed with gadgets useful to sleuths.

I’d put you up at my guest cottage, Rooney told Thornburgh as they headed toward the Mission, but I fear you’d find it a distraction, which I expect you don’t need. But you might consider the shanty when it becomes vacant and stay as long as you need.

Thank you, she said with a lilt and a big smile. I’m pretty much a loner and, harrumph, not very sociable—but don’t tell it around. She spoke in the low register, crisply and authoritative, anything but humble, the opposite of those mushy radio appeals for alms. Now, about this case...

The thing is, Mack, I’m disturbed about the pussyfooting going on. That crowd at the Mission means well, and they’re dedicated and cautious, but I question if certain people are taking this predicament seriously.

Larceny is something they’ve never had to deal with, I take it, Thornburgh responded, looking around at the roadside mix of light industry and retail centers, with up-scale housing on the hills.

To them and until now, theft was plain vanilla hassle. Rooney shrugged as they eased through a clogged intersection. Now it’s beyond that. They just haven’t understood or wanted to concede how underhanded it is.

To you it’s obvious, but others try to ignore it? Thornburgh could see the Mission straight ahead on the corner.

He nodded. It’s like a movie without a plot, and the bad guy isn’t listed in the credits.

Maybe it’s an inside job.

Rooney looked hard at Thornburgh, and neither said anything until they parked in a lot near the Mission entrance, the town’s focal point. We’re on the same page, Mack. He sighed, getting out of the car. I believe a conspiracy is in play.

Insidious. At a mission? That’d be a first.

No. You’ll find contempt for the Mission out there. Hatred reared its head with the advent of the protest industry and roving activists searching for a cause.

What might the conspiracy be? she probed as they crossed the street with several sightseers.

To undermine the Mission’s mission and character by depleting its very valuable icons and archaeological specimens. Historical stuff.

In other words, wipe the place off the map?

Exactly. Then convert the site into a theme park.

A white adobe wall, thick and tall, surrounded the ten-acre Mission. Once through the gate, Thornburgh and Rooney stepped out into the front garden, stopping at the flagpole. The trim, graying, bushy-headed Irishman slapped his hands against his hips and, looking angry, stared up at the flags, two of them, the US banner topmost and the California flag underneath.

Rooney pointed high. The Mission flag is missing, another one stolen.

She walked over to the pole and examined the rope. Looks like a fresh rope. Somebody cut the old one down.

Isn’t that malicious? Miguel can tell you why they pick on our flag. Rooney excused himself, wheeled around and rushed to get Miguel Acjache, the official who would serve as guide and to whom Thornburgh would report, as he ran the place.

In the garden she was surrounded by red, purple and pink bougainvillea vines, growing up two-hundred-year-old stone arches that framed the common. The plaza centerpiece was an immense fountain with floating edible lily pads, underwater plants and fish. Hearing bells, she glanced across to an adobe wall, high and sturdy with four arches side by side: the campanario. Within each niche was a large iron bell, and a boy was yanking on ropes, comparing the tones. Miguel breezed up and introduced himself to Thornburgh. Two hundred years ago, those bells hung in a tower a hundred and twenty feet high. Skeptics say seventy. Miguel shrugged and sighed. But the tower fell down a long time ago.

Age thirty-two, bareheaded with short black hair, he wore black casual slacks, a long-sleeved, open-collar white shirt and black leather shoes and carried a clipboard. He was soft-spoken, and his swarthy, clean-shaven face was on the winsome side, indeed pleasant.

Nearby was a granite statue of two figures together, an Indian boy and a man posed in a gesture toward the campanario. The figure in the robe is Father Serra. Miguel pointed. He founded Mission San Juan. Just a small guy, but, man, was he a dynamo!

Miguel the escort went on to explain that the Mission was one of twenty-one built as self-contained compounds during the late 1700s by Spanish pilgrims. Missionaries, historians call them, because they carried Bibles in their saddlebags. Up from Mexico on mule back, the pioneers spread European civilization along five hundred miles of the California coast where an estimated one hundred thousand nomadic Indians camped out in grass huts. The Franciscan padres, upon their arrival, housed, educated and trained the hunter-gatherers to be independent and productive.

The noble savage, as romantics portray the Indian, living hand-to mouth, turned into a producer, so to speak, Miguel continued. And families no longer had to abandon their sick and aged and go looking for new digs. The padres’ intent was to turn all the missions over to the locals, but wouldn’t you know? The politicians stepped in. Mexicans chased the Spaniards out. In eighteen twenty-one, Mexico took over the Indians’ land, just threw them off. Chased them out. The missions fell apart. The natives were left to shift for themselves. They died by the thousands.

Thornburgh looked past the bells, over the statue and farther beyond, and gasped. All she saw was a portion of a large, ragged stone structure, white with exposed edges. The Great Stone Church, Miguel expounded, what’s left of it.

It’s not finished, in ruins—what? she queried, sidestepping for a better look.

Earthquake. Eighteen twelve. Six years after it was built. I’ll show it to you later. First, let’s check out our fox problem.

Winding along courtyard walkways, they passed two large stone wheels standing upright. Remains of a grain crusher. Miguel the guide pointed. A grist mill. The Acjachemen Indians cranked the thing, a great big press that ground up olives. Orchards, irrigated gardens, all kinds of crops. Even had a cattle ranch, he added. They turned out tanned leather goods and grain, soap and clothing, pottery and candles, you name it. They swapped the surplus and all kinds of stuff to sea traders for hardware and the like."

They picked up skills, then, all kinds, Thornburgh allowed, trying to read a placard. Fine, fine, said she to herself, let’s take a look at the crime scene.

Ate well, too. Beat scrounging for berries and bashing critters just to stay alive. Turning left, Miguel led the way to a roofed outside corridor alongside a long adobe-sided building. This was the barracks, he said, motioning. Gotta have soldiers, right? Not many, five or six. Nothing in there now but a lumpy bed and military trappings, like thick leather-jacket armor and the weapons they carried. Also in there—he indicated—is an art gallery with rotating exhibits.

Hearing a blast, Thornburgh twisted her head around. What’s that? She scanned the rooftops. Sounded like gunfire.

Pirates. Let’s go watch. They hurried along the walk, reached a row of covered rooms and turned right. These were kitchens and cells where the leader types lived, Miguel the escort declared. Let’s go through the padres’ quarters—they wouldn’t mind.

Out into an open arena, they faced a central courtyard with a large Moorish fountain in the middle. Arches on the perimeter supported reddish roofs on all sides of the quadrangle. Can you picture those roofs as straw? He chuckled, waving his hand. Then they built a furnace, whipped up some clay and made tiles like you see there.

Stepping out into the yard, Thornburgh winced as a feather-hatted man fired a musket point-blank into a defender who ignored the lead ball in his belly and spanked the shooter with his rubber sword. She grinned. Pirates, you say?

They attack the Mission every year at this time. Pirates Festival. See all the costumes? Goes back to eighteen eighteen when two ships full of raiders sailed up to the shore, parked and lit out up the river to sack and burn this place. Brutal so-and-so’s. Come on,—he motioned—let’s get to work.

They strolled around the edge of the crowd of onlookers onto a corridor and into a long, narrow building made of sun-dried, unburned clay bricks and straw. This is the henhouse, Miguel announced, the museum, two actually, with Indian stuff on the left, and to your right is the Spanish Period—junk from King Carlos the Third’s New Spain.

You don’t mean that.

Junk? Hardly. That flag up there on the wall was his flag. And it’s our flag, the Mission banner. Because Charlie’s guys got this place started. Now, some vandal keeps ripping the flag down. Can’t keep them in stock. Miguel pointed to a sunken hole in the floor. "Wine vat. Has nothing to do with anything. It’s just a sinkhole we have to keep cleaned out. It’s where boys stomped grapes. Isn’t that a hoot? It drains—or did, the grape juice did—into a fermentation vat in the ground on the other side of the wall.

That’s where, ha, ha, Brutal Bouchard’s crew of buccaneers sat around and got soused. With tin cups they dipped wine and guzzled the stuff till they passed out and couldn’t stand up. They had to be dragged back to their tall ships. Ironic, huh? I mean, if it hadn’t been for the Mission’s cesspool...?

If not for the burgundy,—she nodded, grinning, and checked her watch—who knows how much damage those pirates would have done.

So true. To get an idea of what the Mission was, the best comparison is to liken it to a medieval city, when you take into account the daily population. With their works, they had a center of industry and learning.

And out of that came their culture.

Yep, but enough history. Miguel sensed her restlessness and strolled down an aisle. See these glass cases along here? All locked up, right? Two locks on each case, two different keys. I’ve got one. The curator carries the other. Takes the two of us to open a case. In this showcase right here was a crucifix. Next morning, gone. That was, oh, about a year ago. Then, from this case, an ornate candelabra was lifted. Following that, a chalice. Next to go was a processional cross, a small one. All of them stolen at night, of course, spaced out one at a time. And of course, the Mission flags.

You don’t happen to remember the dates, do you? the investigator asked. I mean when things were taken?

I have them listed in my office. Why?

Did the burglaries happen on holy days?

One was on St. Joseph’s Day, as I recollect, he replied. Yep, yes, it was—Swallows Day, we call it. Again, why do you ask?

Maybe larceny was a way to profane a religious observance. Just steal an icon and give it to the devil.

That’s twisted thinking—not you, them. But... hmm. Possible—oh! One theft took place on the feast day of the Immaculate Conception. Those may be clues, huh?

The PI nodded. Signals, maybe, a schedule of hits. We’d better check your calendar and wait up with shotguns.

"Anyway, then came the big hit last month. Around All Souls Day, I believe. I’ll have to check.

To see that, we’ll have to go the chapel. Exiting onto an outside corridor, they backtracked along the festival setups, the food carts, performers and a band, and came to another building, long and narrow, a sculpted adobe with two levels. Serra Chapel. Built in seventeen seventy-seven. Would you believe this is the oldest church in California? Miguel asked, pecking on the door. This is the entrance. But let’s go in through the side door by way of the graveyard, just around the corner.

Thornburgh glanced at him and frowned.

No ghosts. He chuckled, sweeping his hand around. As far as I know. But I don’t come here nights, I want you to know. Over four thousand graves in this cemetery and its annex. Acjachemen natives, some Spaniards and Mexicans are buried here, plus the priest they call The Great Restorer of the Mission. That’s his monument and tomb. Miguel pointed out into the cemetery. Father O’Sullivan. Amazing handyman.

Miguel grasped the side door handle and thumped the lock. See this door jamb? Jimmied open, right? I wanted you to see it and something else.

Inside the dimly lighted chapel, Miguel asserted, Some church, huh? For its day, it sure is. It’s a hundred and sixty feet from one end to the other. Why so long, you ask. Big congregation. Why so narrow? Ah-ha! No tall trees around to make cross-beams.

Thornburgh was gazing at the end wall with its colonnades, niches, wood carvings, tabernacle and statues of saints, all in intricate, glittering detail. She just stared at it with her mouth open. That is the most incredible work of art I have ever seen or hope to see.

The Golden Altar. World renowned, Miguel declared. A twenty-two-foot-high ornamental partition. Cherrywood and gold leaf. Put together around sixteen fifty in Barcelona. Then they dismantled the thing into three hundred ninety-six pieces and shipped it over to California in nineteen oh-six.

To see this is alone worth a trip here.

It’s something to stare at, that’s for sure. Now. Look way up at the top. Miguel pointed. That’s Saint Capistran, patron of the Mission. And don’t overlook the ceiling art and Indian paintings along the walls. But now—let’s move up close to the altar. Right up to the sacrament fence. Do not go behind it. The ceiling might fall, but stand right here and look around. See all the crucifixes and processional crosses and torches on top of rods? During a service, guys reach across the fence, just reach over, and grab those to carry up the aisles, on both sides of the nave. Then one guy, a deacon, somebody strong, pushes this gate open, bends over and grabs the final staff. Lifts it up and lifts hard because it is heavy. Weighs a ton.

Grabs the final staff? she asked.

The super-dooper processional cross, economy size and all silver. Worth a million bucks, we’re told, or ten, maybe. It’ll make you drool. Stands in that holder, right there on the floor.

But it is not there, is it? She grinned.

Let me show you a picture of it. Miguel slipped a photo out of his clipboard. Here. It is as tall as you are, the stick is, and then some. Huge dude. Is that cool or what?

Fascinating. Magnetic and—bewitching, I guess you’d say.

Crucifix. Sculpted in Spain hundreds of years ago. Where is it, you might want to know? Mack, that’s why you’re here. You’ve got to find the Great Silver Cross.

The thief, too, right?

Right. And kill him while you’re at it.

Two

W hat was the something -else you wanted me to see? Thornburgh asked, watching Miguel remove a paper from his clipboard.

Piece of paper, he offered. The cops took the original, but here’s a photocopy.

Looks like a calling card.

"Isn’t that