He laughed. “That’s been gone awhile, Mister.”
“I know. But it was a famous place. I’d love to be able to tell my family I was inside the building that’s on the grounds now.”
“Why don’t you come back in the morning?”
“We could do that if it would work. We just want to look around a bit. We wouldn’t damage anything.”
“I doubt you could damage anything.” He looked at the church and then at me and then back at Alex. “Who are you, Mister?”
“My name’s Alex Benedict. This is Chase Kolpath. Is there anyone here—?”
“I’m the curator. My name’s Edmunds.”
“Oh. Good. We’re doing research work. If you could provide access to the building, I’d be happy to pay you whatever it might entail.”
“Give me a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll be back.”
He returned with a lamp. “There’s not really much to see, Mr. Benedict.” He unlocked the gate, and we walked up to the church door, which he also opened. He held the lamp inside. We were looking at gray stone walls and a pulpit. The pews had been removed. “Careful where you walk,” he said. “The floor’s uneven.”
An electronic wall plate began to glow. And a voice spoke: “Welcome to the Golden Age Sanctuary, where the artifacts from the scientific era were protected during the dark times. These priceless treasures are believed to—”
Edmunds waved a hand, and it stopped. “We’d planned for a while to turn this into a kind of museum. But the board of commissioners decided it would just be a waste of money. That”—he pointed at the plate—“is as far as we got.”
“Mr. Edmunds,” said Alex, “what do you think actually happened to the artifacts? Were they really here at all?”
“Oh, I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. But it’s thousands of years ago, Mr. Benedict.” He raised both hands. “Who knows?”
“Are there any legends about what happened to them? Any theories?”
“Sure. They took them to Winnipeg. There’s another notion that they got taken to the Moon.” I knew Alex didn’t expect Edmunds to be able to give us anything helpful. But at a moment like this, his natural inclination was to keep people talking. You just never knew what you might pick up. “I’ve heard every kind of crazy story you could imagine,” the curator continued. “They’re lost, and nobody has any idea what happened to them.”
“Somebody thought they might have been taken to the Moon?”
“Yeah. That’s been a pretty popular notion here. That the government’s got them hidden up there.”
“Why would the government hide the artifacts?” I asked.
Edmunds shrugged. “Who knows? Some people will tell you that’s just the way governments are.”
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“About whether they were actually able to get the artifacts safely away.”
He laughed. “I doubt it.”
“Why’s that?”
“It would have been a hellish situation. Those people would have been too busy saving their lives to worry about a lot of museum pieces. It’s a nice legend. But I can’t imagine that it really happened. And I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear. I think the truth is that people at that time were going crazy everywhere. They didn’t have anything, and they probably stole everything they could carry off and burned the rest. Now, do you still want to look around?”
We followed him up the center aisle, turned left past the pulpit, and exited through a side door into a passageway. “The storage area, what’s left of it, is below.”
“Most of it is filled in?” asked Alex.
“That’s correct. Nobody knows who did it, or when. It might even have caved in at some point. We don’t even know for certain that the basement was part of the original Prairie House. It was probably added later. But that doesn’t fit well with the official story, so I won’t push the point.”
He opened a door, and we looked down a stairway. He put one foot on the top stair and waited. “You want to go down?”
“Yes,” said Alex. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to look around a bit.”
We followed him down into what seemed nothing more than a very large cellar. Boxes and crates lined the walls and were stacked in piles across the area. “Can we look in one?” Alex asked.
“Sure.”
Alex pointed at a crate, and Edmunds lifted the lid. It seemed to be filled with moldering blankets. Another crate had more. And a third was filled with pipe and metal bars. A plastic box revealed two Bibles and several hymnbooks. “Has anyone ever gone through all this stuff?”
“I’m sure Rev. MacCauley had his staff look at everything before they left. In any case, Union City ordered a general inventory when they picked up the property back around oh nine. If they found anything, they kept it to themselves.”
We went back upstairs and talked about how some people had thought the artifacts had been distributed among a few private homes during the Dark Age. That they’d been hidden in attics and basements. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “the town commission would love to come across some of them. But that’s crazy.
“The entire area,” he continued, “gets scanned about every few years by somebody who wants to make sure they didn’t miss anything.”
“How much total space was there?” asked Alex.
“Who knows? The church never had that much.”
Alex used his link to produce an image of Baylee. “Mr. Edmunds, do you by any chance recognize this man?”
He looked and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t think so. Who is he?”
“Garnett Baylee. He’d have been one of your—”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, I did meet him once. Sorry, it’s been a long time, and I don’t remember faces real well. But I did meet him.”
“Do you remember any of the conversation?”
“I think it was pretty much like the one we just had. But it’s been a long time. Probably twenty years.”
“Did you know who he was when you met him?”
“Yes. That’s why I remember him. He was a professor up at Bantwell University. Wrote a couple of books. I heard him speak a few times.”
“Was that at the university?”
“No. The Historical Society gave him some kind of award. And he came down here to receive it. And he made a few other appearances. He was a funny guy. I do remember that about him.”
“Do you remember what he spoke about?”
“No, not really. The award was given at a dinner, and he only talked for a few minutes. Mostly, I guess, he just said thanks. The other occasions, as best I can remember, he talked about artifacts. But I don’t remember any details.”
We came out of the church and walked into the arms of a reporter. She had just come through the gate. “Mr. Benedict?” she said. “My name’s Madeleine O’Rourke. From The Plains Drifter.” She was tall, as tall as Alex, with amber hair swept back, and green eyes. “I wonder,” she said, “if I could ask a few questions?”
Alex was not a guy who normally fumbled his composure in front of beautiful women, but he was taken aback by this one. “Hi, Madeleine,” he said. “I, um, this is Chase Kolpath. And sure. About what?”
“You’re a famous guy. I was wondering what brings you to Union City?” She had a distinct accent. Tended to draw out words, sometimes adding an extra syllable.
“I assume you already know the answer to that, Madeleine.” That was a stall while he thought about how he wanted to reply. “We’re interested in the Prairie House. And the story about the Golden Age artifacts.”