Dead Past (35 page)

Diane called the waitress over and ordered Mrs. Torkel another piece of cake.

“Anyway, the train never made it to the Keys. It got washed off the tracks, and the money, or gold, or whatever it was, supposedly got washed away in the ocean, or the river, or covered up by mud. Like I say, the story changes.”

“I never heard this story,” said Juliet.

“Oh, sure, you did. You must have. Everybody in Glendale-Marsh knows the story,” said Mrs. Torkel.

“What about Leo Parrish?” asked Juliet.

“I’m getting to that,” said her grandmother. “You never were a patient girl. Leo Parrish lived in Glendale-Marsh in the late 1930s. I don’t know much about him or where his folks were from, but he was—I guess—in his twenties about then. He was one of these boys always looking for the quick buck. The story is, he got interested in the tale of the missing fortune and, as he was a fellow with a head for numbers, he somehow figured out where the loot had to have ended up.”

The cake came and the waitress brought one for each of them. Diane realized she had missed lunch. Well, what the hell, she thought, if cake was good enough for the peasants of France, it was good enough for her. She took a bite.

“I usually don’t eat so much,” said Mrs. Torkel after a big bite of cake. “But, I’m on vacation.” She took a sip of coffee. “Now, where was I?”

“Leo Parrish figured out where the treasure was,” said Juliet.

“Oh, yes,” said her grandmother. “He found it—the legend says. And he brought it to Glendale-Marsh in secret and hid it. Not long after, he went off to war—that’s World War II. He was worried about the treasure, so he wrote down where it was in some kind of fancy code that nobody could decipher—and sent the code home in a book. I don’t know anything about what kind of code it was, but since the thirties, we’ve had tourists coming to Glendale-Marsh looking for the book with the code and for the treasure. It was a real popular thing to do back in the fifties and sixties. I reckon poor Leo Parrish’s family land has been dug up from one end t’other looking for that treasure.”

“What happened to Leo Parrish?” asked Juliet.

“He went missing in action. Nobody ever heard from him again. If there ever was a treasure, it got lost with him,” said her grandmother. She stopped talking and ate several bites of her cake.

“The treasure hunters have slacked off for several years. Occasionally, we get a few now and again, but not like we did in the fifties.”

“That’s an interesting story,” said Diane. “You think this might be the code?” She tapped the paper in front of them.

“Who knows?” said Mrs. Torkel. “I don’t know of any other code, but I can’t say how it got in that doll. The doll’s not that old.”

“Maybe some treasure hunter found the code and hid it in the doll,” said Juliet.

“Do the Parrishes still live in Glendale-Marsh?” asked Diane.

“No, they been gone from there for about thirty or forty years. Died out, mainly.”

“Wow,” said Juliet. “Treasure right there and I didn’t know about it?”

“We found lots of treasure in our shells,” said her grandmother. “They seem to have served you well. I imagine you’ve made more money from your interest in shells than you ever would from looking for treasure.”

Diane finished the last bite of her cake. “Juliet . . . ,” began Diane.

“I really don’t want to stay in a hotel,” said Juliet. “I will if I have to, but . . .”

“I’ll have museum Security watch your apartment,” said Diane.

“You think the guy who held you up for the doll is my kidnapper, don’t you?” said Juliet.

“Yes,” said Diane, “I do. I don’t know how it all fits together, but I’m working on it. I really don’t want to alarm you, but I think he may be afraid you remember him.”

“Why?” asked Juliet.

Why? A good question,
thought Diane. It was something else that had been nagging at the corner of her mind. Then, like the slow movement of molasses, it simply flowed into her brain.

“I think it has something to do with what you said before you were kidnapped. In the newspaper articles, neighbors were quoted as having heard you say, ‘I don’t know you’ to someone near your backyard. Just before Joana Cipriano was murdered, she was heard to say to a man at her door, ‘Do I know you?’ The phrases are so close, I think her murderer was convinced he was recognized. Joana turned out to be the wrong person, but the conviction that you would be able to identify him carried over.”

“You think it is about the treasure?” asked Juliet.

“He wanted the doll. A code was in the doll. That’s the only story we’ve heard so far that contains a code. So, yes. It may be just a treasure story, but he may believe it to be true.”

“So he was trying to get the doll when he kidnapped me twenty years ago?” said Juliet.

“Maybe. We won’t know that until we find him. But the police are on it. We are taking precautions, so don’t you or your grandmother worry.”

“Maybe we should stay in a hotel,” said her grandmother. “A nice one.”

“Why don’t you do that?” said Diane. “I’ll have someone from museum Security stay next door.”

“That sounds just fine,” said Mrs. Torkel. “They can follow us over to your apartment to get some things, Juliet. I’ll get a chance to see where you live, then we’ll stay in a nice hotel.”

Juliet smiled at her grandmother. Diane got the idea that Mrs. Torkel had mellowed considerably since Juliet was a little girl.

When they finished eating their cake, Diane took them to the Security office and arranged for an escort and guard. From there she went to her office and removed the evidence bag with the original code from her safe, put it in her pocket, and walked up to the top floor of the east wing to the museum library and archives.

Beth, the museum’s librarian, was a slender middle-aged woman with snow white hair whom Diane had hired when she was eased out of the university library in favor of younger employees. Age discrimination was against university regulations, but being passed over for promotions, and other passive-aggressive measures, were hard to prove and to defend against. She was clearly Bartram’s loss and the museum’s gain.

The door issued a gentle jingle as Diane opened it. Beth, holding a book, was standing on a tall library ladder. She looked down to see who had entered, placed the book on the shelf, and climbed down.

She looked warm in her navy pantsuit. Diane shivered. Beth kept the library slightly cooler than Diane liked, but she apparently found it very comfortable.

“Dr. Fallon,” she said, “what can I do for you?”

Among Beth’s abilities as a librarian and archivist, she was an outstanding genealogist and taught several community classes at the museum. Genealogy wasn’t in the domain of natural history, but it was history and it was in the domain of classes people would pay to take, and that made it good for the museum.

“Beth, I have a task for you,” said Diane.

She smiled. “I hope it’s not as difficult as the task you gave Kendel.”

Diane smiled, too. “I don’t think so. I have someone I want you to trace for me. I would like to know his ancestry at least one or two generations back, but mainly his descendants—and not just his direct descendants.”

Beth went to get a pen and paper. She held the pen poised over the pad. “What’s his name?”

“Leo Parrish. I don’t know the exact spelling. He was in his twenties in the late 1930s and lived in Glendale-Marsh, Florida, at that time. He enlisted in the Second World War, but I don’t know which branch of service. He was listed as missing in action. He wrote to relatives while he was in the service, but I don’t know who they are. I know that’s not much to go on.”

“Actually, that’s quite a bit. When do you want the information?”

“Yesterday, if you can manage it,” said Diane.

“Time travel’s my speciality. I’ll see what I can do.”

Beth smiled, and Diane thanked her and walked downstairs to the conservation lab and into the head conservator’s office.

“Korey,” said Diane, “do you have a minute?”

“Dr. F.,” said Korey, “I’d be a bad employee indeed, if I didn’t have time for my boss. I’ve got that analysis Kendel asked for. It’s not newsprint, but paper used in books circa thirties and forties.”

“Book paper. Interesting.” Diane took the evidence bag from her pocket and removed the original paper containing the code.

“What you got here, Dr. F.? Looks like some kind of cryptogram.”

“This is the paper the sample came from. What I want you to do is duplicate it—it doesn’t have to be exact, just look old. And I want the printing changed to simple random letters, but basically the same format and near the same handwriting as you can get it.”

Korey put a hand on the back of his dreadlocks, raised his eyebrows, and grinned. His brown eyes sparkled.

“When you get finished with whatever it is you’re doing,” he said, “I’ll buy you a steak if you’ll tell me what this is about.”

“You’ve got a deal. Can you do it?”

“Sure. When do you need it?” he asked.

“As soon as you can get to it,” said Diane.

“You got it,” said Korey.

“Put the original in your vault for me,” said Diane. “And don’t talk about it to anyone.”

“Sounds like a serious scrap of paper,” he said as he held it up to the light.

“Deadly serious,” she said.

As she left his office, her cell phone vibrated. The display said it was Garnett.

“Diane,” he said, “just called to tell you we have a line on the Impala.”

 

“You’ve found the Impala? That’s a relief,” said Diane. She climbed the steps to the third floor.

“We don’t have it yet. It’s been sighted and we have a lead on it. I just thought I’d let you know, so when we find it, your people can process it,” said Garnett.

“I’ll give them a heads-up,” said Diane. “I’m really eager to find this guy. He told me that if I didn’t give him the package, he would open fire on the busload of children visiting the museum.”

“This is somebody we need to catch soon,” said Garnett.

“You won’t get an argument from me.”

“So, it’s your thinking that the Cipriano murder was a case of mistaken identity?” said Garnett.

“I believe so. The perp was after the doll all along. The woman I think was the intended target is named Juliet Price, one of my employees. The doll belongs to her. She lives just around the block from Cipriano in the same apartment complex and has a very similar address, 131 H. They are both blue-eyed blondes of similar age—their descriptors are close enough that they could be mistaken for each other. Plus, there’s the Impala present at both crime scenes. The one used today was dark blue, so it’s likely to have a blue interior. If we can match carpet fibers found at the Cipriano murder, we’ll have him connected to both crimes.”

“Napier said there was a doll involved. What’s that about?” asked Garnett.

“I’m not sure. I think it’s a hunt for lost treasure,” said Diane.

“Lost treasure? You’ve got to be kidding,” said Garnett.

“I’m not kidding, but I may be wrong,” she said. “It’s kind of a long story. I’ll give you the complete rundown later.”

“In your 911 call, you said there may have been two perps?” said Garnett.

“Two or more. He told me not to move for five minutes while ‘
we
get out of here.’ ”

“You may have found us the break we needed,” said Garnett.

“I wish I could take credit, but he came to me,” said Diane as she walked across the museum in the direction of the crime lab.

“That was a dangerous experience for you. Are you all right?” asked Garnett.

“I’m fine. He got what he was after,” she said. “I was more mad than scared.”

Diane walked past the lounge and across the dinosaur overlook and came face-to-face with Darth Vader. She stopped in her tracks.

“I have to go,” she said. “Something’s come up. Let me know if you find him.” Diane flipped the phone closed.

A life-sized cardboard cutout of Darth Vader stood holding a sign that read:

He stood just behind one of the museum’s velvet covered chains used for roping off nonpublic areas. Kids sometimes break away from their group and decide to make their own tour of the museum. Some get lost in the huge building and require rescuing. So, the docents post Authorized Personnel signs in various places. Today was an especially busy day for tours of schoolchildren. One of the docents must have wanted to keep the kids out of the west wing and thought this particular sign was a funny inside joke. Diane stepped over the rope past Darth Vader and went to the dark side.

Jin and Neva, counting cigarette butts, were in one of the glassed-in rooms with their booty spread out on a long table.

“Hey, Boss,” said Jin. “You all in one piece? We saw the video image of the guy with the gun on you.”

“I’m fine. How are you doing here?” she asked.

Jin gestured to a table full of evidence bags. “We got a lot of butts.”

Also lying on the table was a large piece of white butcher paper with a map drawn on it showing the relative locations of the morgue tent, the coffee tent, the media tent, and where the onlookers stood. Jin and Neva wore gloves and were sorting through the butts looking for Dorals. Apparently they hadn’t found any yet, for there was nothing on their map.

David entered the room just as Diane donned a pair of gloves to help with the sorting. It looked like hundreds of them.

“I got the photos from museum Security,” said David. “That was a big gun he had trained on you. Must have been scary.”

“Made me more mad than scared. All he wanted was the doll. Were you able to clarify the photographs?”

“I got a partial plate. AXE and it looks like a Georgia plate.”

“AXE,” said Jin. “You think that was on purpose?”