“Somebody intercepted him and his dough . . .” I thumbed through the pages. “You weren’t kidding. The ‘Vanishing of Fafnir’s Hammer’ made a splash.”

“The search went on for weeks. Only so many places an engine and two cars can go. Yet, nada. Not a trace to this day. A Great Unsolved American Mystery.”

“What makes you think our stash might be part of the Wagner hoard?”

“This caught my eye.” She handed me a news photo, circa 1971, of a beaming Wagner, cocktail raised high. One of the other suits laughing along with him was the founder of Zircon Corporation, Matthias Labrador. “There’s more. Wagner invested heavily in Zircon. Sat on the board.”

“Oh, boy,” I said.

“Heck of a coincidence. You working with Delia and that fuss.”

Like my daddy before me, I’m not fond of coincidence. Coincidence is the universe’s favorite loophole right after destiny. Loophole is another word for snare. Snares have a tendency to tighten around one’s neck.

I’d known the Croatoan had either stolen the money or received it as a payment for villainous services rendered. That it might be connected to the high-profile disappearance of a rich pal of the Labradors thickened the plot considerably.

“Nibelungen,” I said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The day after Christmas, Lionel and I were thrown out of the house.

Meg had gone into the library for a partial shift dedicated to repairing the damage done by the staff “winter solstice” party that she hadn’t even attended. She returned while Lionel, Devlin, and I were lounging in our underwear, eating cold cereal and watching cartoons.

“Oh, God. Another patron died.” Meg hurled her bag toward a chair. She poured a glass of wine and had a go. “Jenny Selznick. Her obituary is in the paper.”

“What happened?” I said.

“Breast cancer.”

“Was she elderly?”

“Jenny wasn’t even sixty!”

I expressed sympathy and surreptitiously put on my pants, as one does.

Lionel sighed morosely.

“Check your tits. Always check your tits.”

Fortunately, he didn’t meet Meg’s death gaze or he would’ve keeled over, the fat bubbling in his smoking skull. Ninety seconds later, he and I were in the yard, putting the rest of our clothes on. It was bitterly amusing to observe Lionel dressing one-handed.

■■■

We grabbed Minerva and ventured to the Rail Trail for a hike between snowstorms. The Wallkill Valley section ran from Kingston down into Rosendale. Minerva always went bonkers for a post-storm jaunt—the “pristine” canvas of snow was decorated with an impressionist fresco of rabbit and squirrel piss. Locals, decked in festive seasonal wear, shouted gaily as they skied and snowshoed. An afternoon of good weather dispels wintertime blues more assuredly than drugs. We settled for schlepping along in their tracks. Icicles dripped from branches and songbirds chirped, basking in the burst of sunlight.

A guy in a canary yellow bodysuit whizzed past, nearly smacking me with a ski pole and causing Minerva to dive for her doggy life. I’d dreamed of Aotearoa, although I couldn’t recall the specifics except a sense of green tranquility in a time before the onslaught of humanity. I muttered a dig at the evils of colonization, the pain and suffering that consequently echoed down through the ages.