The Amber Room Page 0,36
in half, others jutting at odd angles. The oak steps bore no evidence of an impact, but the police said the old man slammed into one and then tumbled to his death, his eighty-one-year-old neck breaking in the process. An autopsy confirmed the injuries and their apparent cause.
A tragic accident.
Standing in the stillness, an odd combination of regret and sadness shuddered through him. Always before he'd enjoyed coming over, talking art and the Braves. Now the old man was gone. Another link to Rachel severed. But a friend was gone, too. Borya was like a father to him. They'd become especially close after his parents were killed. Borya and his father had been good friends, linked by art. He now remembered both men with a pang in his heart.
Good men gone forever.
He decided to take Rachel's advice and first look upstairs in the study. He knew there was a will. He'd drafted it a few years back and doubted that Borya would have gone to anyone else to modify the language. A copy was certainly back at the firm in the retired files and, if necessary, he could use that. But the original could be worked through probate faster.
He climbed the stairs and searched the study. Magazine articles lay strewn on the club chair, a few scattered on the carpet. He shuffled through the pages. All concerned the Amber Room. Borya had spoken of the object many times through the years, his conviction the words of a White Russian who longed to see the treasure restored to the Catherine Palace. Beyond that, though, he hadn't realized the man's rather intense interest, apparently enough to collect articles and clippings dating back thirty years. He rifled through the desk drawers and filing cabinets and found no will. He scanned the bookshelves. Borya loved to read. Homer, Hugo, Poe, and Tolstoy lined the shelves, along with a volume of Russian fairy tales, a set of Churchill's Histories, and a leather-bound copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses. He seemed to also like southern writers, works by Flannery O'Connor and Katherine Anne Porter formed part of the collection.
His eyes were drawn to the banner on the wall. The old man had bought it at a kiosk in Centennial Park during the Olympics. A silver knight on a rearing horse, sword drawn, a six-ended golden cross adorning the shield. The background was blood red, the symbol of valor and courage, Borya had said, trimmed in white to embody freedom and purity. It was the national emblem of Belarus, a defiant symbol of self-determination.
A lot like Borya himself.
Borya had loved the Olympics. They'd gone to several events, and were there when Belarus won the gold in women's rowing. Fourteen other medals came to the nation-six silver and eight bronze, in discus, heptathlon, gymnastics, and wrestling-Borya proud of every one. Though American by osmosis, his former father-in-law was without a doubt a White Russian at heart.
He retreated downstairs and carefully searched the drawers and cabinets, but found no will. The map of Germany was still unfolded on the coffee table. TheUSA Todayhe'd given Borya was there, too.
He wandered into the kitchen and searched on the off chance that important papers were stashed there. He once handled a case where a woman stored her will in the freezer, so on a lark, he yanked open the refrigerator's double doors. The sight of a file angled beside the ice maker surprised him.
He removed and opened the cold manila folder.
More articles on the Amber Room, dating back to the 1940s and 1950s, but some as recent as two years ago. He wondered what they were doing in the freezer. Deciding that finding the will was, at the moment, more important, he decided to keep the folder and head for the bank.
The street sign for the Georgia Citizens Bank on Carr Boulevard read 3:23P.M. when Paul rolled into the busy parking lot. He'd banked at Georgia Citizens for years, ever since working for them prior to law school.
The manager, a mousy man with fading hair, initially refused access to Borya's safe deposit box. After a quick phone call to the office, Paul's secretary faxed a letter of representation, which he signed, attesting he was attorney for the estate of Karol Borya, deceased. The letter seemed to satisfy the manager. At least there was something now in the file to show an heir who complained that the safe deposit box was empty.
Georgia law contained a specific provision that allowed estate representatives access to safe deposit