Sand City Murders (29 page)

I have to say, he had a fiendish side to him, an almost cruel genius, designed to manipulate people, well puzzle-people. He had a lot of great ideas about embedding clues in codes, in verse, and on old maps. I have to admit he was good at this, though I began to wonder if anyone was actually going to find the buried treasure. One night he impressed me with a really complicated flow chart; the decision making process, how one clue led to another, and more: all the blind alleys and the real trail. This clue leads to the next and so on… lots of dead ends...

Joey demonstrated how complicated
complicated
could be: “What would you make of this clue: Buccaneers and Beaches, Booty and Blunderbuss?” he asked.

“Um, the answer would be two.”

“Two?”

“The second letter of the alphabet: B.”

“Not two, one, two, two, one, two?”

“That’s too complicated,” I said.

“How about eight?”

“Eight?”

“Adding all the B’s as twos.”

“Maybe we’re making this too hard?” I asked.

“It’s got to be a challenge for people. That’s what makes it fun,” he said.

“What if nobody finds the treasure?”

“I don’t know… escrow account for next season?”

“I’m not sure that’s going to fly… but we should think of a contingency plan just in case.”

“Maybe some kind of meta-clue that we could release in the last week, if nobody finds the treasure by then.”

“That might work…” I paused to think. “Joey, I just want to remind you that as a
Chronicle
employee, you are ineligible for this prize.”

“I know that.”

“Okay, you do know we’re not actually burying real doubloons.”

“Of course.”

“And it would not look very good if say, your girlfriend won, or your mom, or—”

“Yeah, I know, I know… no friends and family.”

“Okay, sorry, just double-checking….”

My
Map Quest
with Inspector Fynn became the backbone of our project. “We start with a map… like the placemat map, only really old fashioned, drawn on a torn piece of parchment, burned along the edges. Like it was made up in pirate days, in the eighteenth century. We can get Amy to do it. Then, we have like twenty locations where we hide clues, pieces of the puzzle, maybe like in a poem, or a story, or in verse.”

“How many locations?” Joey asked, looking for a specific number.

We both compiled lists of places that seemed most appropriate: various cemeteries, the quarry, the lighthouse, the swamp trail, the scuttled Liberty ships up on Bayview Beach were all obvious choices, and we were in full agreement: definitely not at Saint Alban’s. That would be too creepy, too anachronistic and besides it was behind a giant chain link fence. We also got a list of sponsored places from Melissa and Lucinda. Even Donald Pagor had a few. Places they thought they could sell…

We were both horrified. “Pirates don’t eat ice cream, they don’t rent bikes and they don’t eat at buffets,” Joey said. The last point was debatable, but I was totally down with it. Still, the commercial links were key to a successful hunt this year. If you were a Chamber of Commerce member, you’d have to get a mention. That ended up being the hardest part of the deal. I tried to think of a way around it. “Okay, in real life they’re tacky tourist traps, but on the map, they are spooky, mysterious places.”

“That might work,” Joey said hopefully.

“Mel and Jo have to sell these locations…” I reminded him.

“What?”

“Our locations, they have to be sponsored.”

“Mel and who?”

“Jo— I mean Lucinda.”

Admittedly, we got a little bogged down over anachronisms. Should we use only landmarks that were present in pirate days? Joey said no to any anachronisms. He was a purist. I said yes. I was pragmatic. There just weren’t enough historic landmarks to go around. Besides, it was a fictional pirate anyway. We had to use some modern things, though I agreed we should keep them thematic and not entirely dependent on sponsorship.

As for placing the actual clues, we had a lot of grunt work to do.

“You know, stuff you can read around town: plaques, memorials, those metal historical signs that are all over the place… We can embed our code in those,” Joey started.

“How?”

“Oh, like choose every other word… or choose the words we want, to spell out a message, and make the clue a number.”

“Like?” I asked.

“Like the clue is six, four, seven, nine. On the sign the words say: go north twenty yards.”

“Okay, okay, I’m getting this. We’ll have to research a bunch of signs then.”

“We could also put the clues in the journals and on the map, and in real life…” Joey offered.

“A journal… how about a ship’s log?”

“Cool, that’s it, the captain’s log. They got like shipwrecked, and then Captain Barnaby leaves clues all over town from the log book.” Joey grinned.

“Perfect. And we can add characters.”

“Characters?” he asked.

“Other people from the ship, the cook, the boatswain, the first mate… they can leave clues too.”

“Like?”

“Um… like…
the
cook made fleet to Baxter’s farm but a musket laid him bare beneath the elms.
”

“Oh, you are good…” Joey said with some enthusiasm.

We had a lot of fun with the language, stuff like:
Dig ye not, use only thine eyes…

This was critical. We didn’t want people running around just randomly digging up half of Sand City.

“Everybody’s gonna guess that we buried the treasure in the sand,” Joey pointed out.

“Why’s that?”

“It’s logical. We have to bury it first. Other people have to dig it up: sand. And the beach makes the most sense.”

“How about if we bury it metaphorically?” I suggested.

“Isn’t that cheating?”

“Okay, how about burying it in the sand, but not on any beach?”

“Like where?”

“Like this is Sand City. Anywhere.”

“Specifically?” Joey persisted.

“The quarry?” I suggested.

“I don’t know…” Joey seemed dubious.

“Yeah, probably kind of dangerous for little kids.”

“How about a cemetery?” he asked.

“Perfect… hmm... wait, maybe a little sacrilegious… hallowed ground and all that?”

“How about
near
a cemetery? We could make our own fake gravestone.”

“I’m liking that… what, maybe Spooky Park?”

“Too much out in the open… maybe that other place, up near the bluffs?”

One night Joey asked, “Hey, you know those little fences all over the dunes?”

“For erosion control, yeah.”

“How ’bout we count the slats on them? Paint one of them black, and that number leads to another clue. Or we paint it with…”

“A skull and crossbones,” we both said in unison and laughed.

“We could make a really small Jolly Roger stencil and spray paint it anywhere, anyplace we want to put another clue.”

“I like it.”

“Do we need permission?”

“Nah… we’ll just do it…”

Towards the end of the project Joey had a flash of brilliance: “Maybe we could package this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like a kit, like a bag filled with stuff… the parchment map, a compass, a toy spyglass, some foil-wrapped chocolate doubloons, maybe the journal?”

“I like it. We could probably sell that to the Chamber. You buy the kit, find the treasure… all proceeds go to charity.”

“I bet Mel’s husband could make this happen.”

“Why?”

“He’s like in marketing or something.”

“I’ll ask Mel. This is an awesome idea.”

In the end we decided not to make it interactive on the website, much to Jason’s relief. Even Eleanor didn’t seem to care that much. All the info would be posted online of course, but you’d have to physically travel to the various locations if you had a hope of finding the treasure. Melissa talked to her husband Julian. She absolutely loved the idea and it would be an easy sell. Joey volunteered to make the treasure chest itself. He claimed to be good with tools, but I think his mom helped with that. I also sent him on a mission to find pirate clip art. Not just low resolution stuff for the website, but art we could use to print from. That took a little explaining… and we’d probably have to enlist Amy’s help.

***

Meanwhile, the two murder cases had gone cold. Well, maybe. Not much had turned up on the veterinarian, Samuels. The medical examiner couldn’t say for certain whether he had been pushed or not, but homicide could not be ruled out. Time of death was put at around seven a.m. Five new suspects emerged as well: two paramedics, myself, Fynn and Durbin. Shoe prints from all of us were found and identified. Forensics also managed to lift a sixth set of prints from the dusty basement floor. Dress shoes, size eleven. Fynn mentioned this to me in confidence and seemed convinced they were Italian. The doctor’s mysterious friend had not been traced, though Alyson’s description could fit Doctor Hackney, according to Durbin. Not that he was a suspect, apparently they were old friends, Samuels and Hackney. They had gone to school together back in the day. Phone records confirmed many a conversation between them. I wondered briefly whether there was a conflict of interest thing here. Durbin said no.

 On Jane Doe number three, or one, depending on your perspective, forensics had turned up a couple of things. Her earrings proved to be old, maybe forty, fifty years old. The lab could tell by the amount of silver in them, and by the fact that they were not made in China. Her clothes also seemed to be of a similar vintage, at least not of recent manufacture. Cause of death? Still undetermined. Shock, heart failure? It was anybody’s guess, but she had not been sexually violated, nor were there any signs of extreme violence. And there was one other important discovery. This Jane Doe had fought back. Trace bits of tissue and blood were found under her fingernails. It was Inspector Fynn who had first noticed. The DNA was run through every known database without success. There was no match, but the police were now theorizing her assailant was male.

Another clue came to light about a week later: fibers were found, probably from a white handkerchief. It’s likely that the victim had been gagged. And she had a bruised shoulder, an injury which must have occurred shortly before time of death, according to the medical examiner; maybe from a fall or a struggle.

I was driving down Long Neck Road when I saw flashing blues in my rearview. I pulled to the side as soon as I could. A dark gray Charger pulled up along side. The tinted window went down. It was Durbin.

“Jardel, I’m glad I caught you. I got something, but you can’t print it.”

“Great, thanks. So why are you telling me?”

Durbin grinned. “Better you than Leaning.”

“Okay.”

“Something strange came back from the medical examiner… the Jane Doe at Sunset.”

“Yeah, and?”

“Freezer burn.”

“What the hell?”

“Coroner said she was frozen after death, then thawed out.”

“Holy crap. Did you tell Inspector Fynn about this?”

“No… You think I should?” Durbin gave me his squinty grin. Police humor.

“Absolutely not.” I laughed.

“Well I’m on my way down to Willard and Sons… see what they say.”

“The funeral parlor?”

“Yeah, Don Pagor’s friend, right?”

I nodded.

“Oh yeah, who’s your buddy over at Fish City?”

“Eddie?”

“Plays bass, right?”

“Yup.”

“Don’t they have a big freezer down there?”

I’m pretty sure that was a rhetorical question.

Durbin was under some pressure to clear up the Sunset Park homicide before the season hit with full force. Some of the blame fell on Inspector Fynn as well, but there was nothing either man could do. There was no formal ID, no suspects, nothing… at least there were no more bodies. Most people believed that old Doc Samuels had just tripped down his stairs. The crazy notion that the Jane Doe was indeed the inspector’s wife from another dimension was never mentioned again. Not by me, certainly not by Durbin; and even Fynn himself hardly uttered another word more about it. This was now a cold case, a non-story. At least until Friday night, late, when I ran into our stringer in the office.

“Evan, I haven’t seen you in ages… What are you working on this week?”

“Eleanor put me on the stable story.” He glanced back with one eye.

“What’s that?”

“They’re talking about getting the old stable up and running again. Ready for the season. They’re petitioning the Chamber of Commerce. Pony rides, sunset tours, even a bridle path along the bluffs, or North Hollow.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, they’ve already done a lot of renovation up there. But there’s a lot more to do. The place shut down like forty years ago or something.”

“Never knew that.” A thought struck me. “Bridle path, you were saying?”

“Yeah well, that’ll never fly with the COC. All that horse crap, all over the bike path.”

“What do you mean?”

“They run parallel up there. You know, the old horse trail became the new bike path.”

“Really?” Somehow this reminded me of something. It dragged up a memory I’d rather not have had: bridle path... Lorraine Luis…”

“Hey, where you going?” Evan asked, astonished.

I was out the door without a word. I saved them for my cell phone. “Durbin? Hey, it’s me. Where’s Inspector Fynn?”

“I don’t know, at the station, I guess. Why? What’s up?” He had the correct instinct, but I thought it best not to confirm it. “Not much, just need to chat with him… Where are you?”

“Oldham… visiting my mom.”

“Sorry to interrupt. Hope she’s good... Um, anything new?”

“On the murders? Nada… Catch you later, Jardel.”

I hopped in my Saab and made for Chambers Street, the police station. Sergeant Manuel acknowledged my entrance with a nod.

“Inspector in?”

Another nod.

I found Fynn behind Arantez’s desk with his feet up. He was reading something with his back turned to me.

“Inspector, sorry to barge in… Did your wife like to ride horses?” I blurted.

“Lorraine?”

“Yes.”

“No, she was not particularly fond of horses.”