Golden Legacy

by Robert James Glider

  Michelen “Mick” Rutherford was Chauncey’s paternal aunt. Chauncey told her new friends that Mick had lived in the house with her husband, George, for more than forty years. But she had been alone for the past year, since George had passed on.

  Happy to see Chauncey exit the car, Auntie Mick rushed down the porch steps and hugged her. Then Auntie Mick—which is what she later insisted everyone call her—grabbed hold of Peri and gave him a pleasant grunting hug and kiss on the cheek. She then proceeded to give hugs to everyone. But when she looked at Jac, she smiled and raised her eyebrow to wink at Chauncey. She gave him an extra cuddle that made him blush. Everyone laughed when she hesitated in letting him go.

  Peri’s eyes lit up when Auntie Mick cried out, “I don’t believe my eyes!” She said she recognized Peri from his guest appearance as a celebrity chef on Erica Macciado’s show. It did not take much persuasion from Auntie Mick for Peri to relent and assist her in preparing a typical English breakfast of bangers (English pork sausages) and poached eggs along with marmalade, tea, and strong coffee.

  They took their seats in the front room at a long, reddish wood table that showed the scars from its past through the many coats of varnish it had worn over the years. Jac saw rope burn gouges along the edges. He realized the table had once been part of the main mast of a large sailing ship. The wood had been cut vertically to a length of about ten feet, and the legs had been crudely attached with iron pins. As he scanned the room’s display of nautical hardware, Jac focused above the table on a massive round wood and wrought iron chandelier hung from braided ropes. It also had come from a sailing ship, probably from a captain’s cabin, since there were tall ships etched around its metal rim, and the wood was charred. It once had held oil lamps rather than candles.

  “This house has a wicked history,” Chauncey said. She told of how the building was used over the years not only as an inn, but as a brothel. And that it also had served as headquarters for a band of smugglers.

  Jac saw a distant look on Abigail’s face. He knew she was probably thinking about what they had discussed earlier that morning. She had told Jac she believed her ancestor, Anne Bonney, must have crossed paths with Chauncey’s ancestors. And they realized now that it was probably true.

  Chauncey told them again about how she had found the ships logs, Mary Read’s diary, and a leather map hidden inside the wall of an upstairs room.

  Jac thought that maybe Mary Read and Anne Bonney had stayed in this house.

  Jac’s cell phone hummed. He excused himself from the table and, after a brief exchange of pleasantries, he listened for several minutes before saying, “We’ll talk later.”

  “Jac, from the look on your face, the news can’t be good,” Peri said when Jac returned.

  Tired and worn thin from the excitement, desperately needing sleep, Jac felt his intuition surface from his subconscious. “No, it’s not good news. Inspector Townsend said …” Jac rubbed his eyes. “Sometime last night James disappeared from the hospital and walked into his office.” He paused to look at Peri. “And at about the same time, the guy who sent the woman to shoot James at the hotel turned up on the beach with a bullet hole in his head. Townsend said the sharks around Montego Bay had torn him apart.”

  “Oh, my god!” Roni shrieked.

  “Does Townsend think my son was involved?” Chauncey asked.

  Jac shook his head. “He said he couldn’t hold James. James was in his office when the body was discovered, but after James left his office, one of his men picked up one of James’s men and was bringing him in. He had just murdered another man who also worked for Mulee and James.”

  Chauncey’s eyes fixed on Auntie Mick.

  Jac felt the tension in the room. “Townsend said he would call me back later, Chauncey. I’ll keep you informed.”

  Chauncey covered her face with her hands. When she took her hands away, she looked at Jac. “Thank you, Jac. I won’t make excuses for my son. I love him, but if he’s involved, he should pay. I just don’t want him to die.” She took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.

  The room went silent. Everyone felt the tension.

  “Tell us about your ancestors.” Abigail changed the subject to relieve the pressure. “Does your family history go back to when the house was built?”

  Chauncey sipped her tea. “Not all the way back, but almost.” She looked up and turned her gaze toward Jac. “I guess it’s time for the truth. Jac, may I see you for a moment? In the other room? I need to show you something before I tell all of you my story.”

  “Sure,” Jac said while watching Chauncey’s eyes move toward Auntie Mick, who nodded her approval.

  “Jac and I will be right back, and I’ll explain,” Chauncey said. “Everything. I promise.”

  During the several days it had taken to sail from Jamaica to Tortola, Chauncey had carefully avoided talking about anything to do with her past. Whenever Jac or anyone brought it up, she had skillfully changed the subject by asking a question. When asked a probing question she could not avoid, her answer was always the same. She would express her concern about her son. She would say, “I will tell you more when we get to Tortola. I know my son is involved in criminal enterprises, but I fear for his life. I don’t want him killed.” She would excuse herself, with tears streaming down her face. Jac would look in her eyes as she spoke. He knew there was something else, something she was hiding, something they had to know. Her secret could give them information to solve the puzzle.

  Now they were on Tortola, and Chauncey was finally ready. So was he.

  The same two Asian men who had blocked the road that morning exited their black Mercedes and waited alongside the private dock that James owned and where his boat was tied up.

  James hung up his cell phone, waved to the men, and beckoned them to come aboard. Mulee’s men put down a ramp to the dock.

  The larger of the two men led the way up the ramp. “We took care of the customs agent. We paid him the usual.”

  “Good,” James said as Remy and Kincaid joined the men. “How did your reception for my mother and her friends go?”

  “I believe they were impressed when they saw the gun I stuck outside the car window.”

  “Be careful. Remember, if my mother or my aunt get hurt, someone will pay.”

  “I’ve arranged for rooms at the hotel across the highway from your aunt’s house,” the big man said. “Do you have anything else you want us to do?”

  “Just take the three of us to the hotel and have the crate taken to the warehouse.”

  The large man nodded. Both men picked up the large wooden crate, threw it up on their shoulders, and started down the ramp.

  Mulee heaved a large duffle bag over his shoulder and followed Remy and Kincaid toward the waiting car.

  Mulee’s men brought the rest of the luggage and loaded it into the car. Mulee told them to stay with the boat until they heard from him.

  On the ride to the hotel, James told the story of how his uncle, now deceased, had found a tunnel under the house where his mother had grown up. He was the only person other than James who knew of that secret tunnel that gave entry to the house through a passageway behind the walls. “Only two rooms have hidden doors,” James explained. He told them that the house had started out as a cabin. It was burned down by the Spanish and rebuilt in the mid sixteen hundreds. The second story was added, and the house was further expanded over the years. “When I was a young boy, my mother would take me every year for at least two weeks to stay with my aunt and uncle, and I learned most of the house’s secrets. My aunt told me that smugglers used the house as a hideout in the early years. They planned their routes and stored stolen goods in the secret rooms built into false wall spaces.” James paused to take out a cigarette. He lit it, deeply breathed in the smoke, and held it. He hit the automatic window button to crack open the front seat passenger window an inch, exhaled,
and watched the smoke as it went through the opening to dissipate in the wind. “The smugglers did one more important thing for their preservation.” James sucked in another drag and this time blew the smoke into the back seat. “They were smart and covered their asses by building escape routes from the house in case they were attacked. My uncle and aunt found several tunnels. But the one I found is the only passage that can get us into the house behind the walls unseen.”

  “We can take what’s rightfully yours and ours!” Remy said. He coughed and waved the exhaled smoke away from his face.

  “Exactly. We’ll be able to get in late at night when everyone is asleep, take the contents of the strongbox, and all the evidence my mother provided.”

  “I don’t understand why Kidd would come to your mother if he knows where the treasure is,” Mulee said with a sneer.

  “Don’t be stupid! Kidd hasn’t got all the pieces to the puzzle. If he did, we wouldn’t be here now. My mother is filling in the blanks.”

  Remy smirked. He had witnessed a heated argument develop between James and Mulee on the voyage to Tortola. Mulee’s loyalty to James may be the way to eliminate James, Remy thought. On two occasions, Mulee had stormed out of the main salon of the boat when James had given him orders he didn’t like. Both times, he disappeared to brood somewhere on the boat.

  Remy was now ready to sow the seeds of doubt. He felt certain he could raise the pressure level in Mulee’s relationship with James. Additional strain through the raised doubt would enhance his opportunities to take control.

  He would find Mulee, play the sympathy card, and strike a deal. Divide and conquer. Mulee would be easy to convince, since James’ father had worked for Mulee years ago. Mulee was the kingpin. James had been only ten years old when his father was killed. Mulee had told the story when he was drunk and brooding after James berated him in front of everyone. He told Remy that James had taken his business away from him. And after he felt sorry about James losing his father, he had given James a job stealing cell phones from tourists on the beaches. As James grew older, Mulee had given James more power as he became more involved in the criminal enterprise. James led his own band of thieves who stole not only cell phones, but identities from the credit cards he found in the wallets he stole. It wasn’t long before James’s enterprise commanded loyalty from all the thieves. It must have been like déjà vu for Mulee when James took control of the enterprise. Mulee wanted it back but didn’t know how to get it. Remy smiled. He would show him how.

  “Look, think about it,” James said to Mulee. “My mother is an expert on the Caribbean and the pirates who sailed here. I believe Kidd has something that tells them there is a treasure, but my mother must know something they need in order to find the treasure, or she must have something that would give them the clues they need.” James yawned.

  “I don’t like being called stupid,” Mulee mumbled.

  James sneered. He looked Mulee in the eyes until he turned away.

  “I still don’t understand how you get into the house without being seen,” Kincaid said.

  “You and Mulee will find out tomorrow.”

  Me! Sweat broke out on Kincaid’s brow.

  CHAPTER 30

  The secret room

  On the other side of the kitchen, Chauncey opened a door and led Jac into a room painted bright orange with green baseboards and crown molding. Two windows with splatters of blue paint on the panes at the far side of the garishly colored room were partially covered by yellowing curtains with frayed bottoms that hung to the floor. Strategically placed between the windows to take advantage of the natural light sat a black sewing machine with the worn out word Singer stamped in gold capital letters across its spine. Jac smiled at the memory of his grandmother mending his pants more than once on one just like it. Bare walls, a small mahogany chair with frayed fabric on the seat, and a matching table with a woman’s yellow blouse and a pair of blue jeans strewn across the top finished the room’s meager furnishings.

  Chauncey picked up and lit one of the several kerosene lanterns sitting on the floor next to a door painted green with orange trim that matched the wall except for the seams.

  Jac thought the door odd. It was narrower than a regular door, and it was located in the center of the room’s inner perimeter wall. It must have been added later, he thought.

  “We never put lights up there,” Chauncey said. She looked up and pointed toward the ceiling. “It’s as it was when the house was built.” She opened the door and stepped through holding the lantern out in front of her.

  Jac followed behind her watching the yellow glow of the kerosene light as it cavorted its way through the darkness. Chauncey told Jac to stay close to the wall on the left side as they climbed up a rickety staircase. She stopped at the top of the stairs and pushed open a door that had no handle. They entered a room about the size of a large walk-in closet. Green slivers of old paint had separated from the wood and now littered the floor. On the far side of the room a steep stairway led upward through a square opening in the ceiling. Jac looked up and saw that it came out in the center of the floor above. Besides the odor of burning kerosene, Jac thought he smelled brine and musk in the air.

  When Jac had climbed the stairway and stepped away from the opening in the floor, Chauncey handed him the lamp and told him to raise it above his head to light the room. The glow radiated off long horizontal wooden planks that covered the walls and ceiling. The planks had been nailed and sealed with pitch over three centuries ago. The room was curved and bulged at the center. It looked like the insides of an old sailing ship. Jac was in awe and stood mesmerized with the sight of the untold number of sailing ships that had been immortalized in the house.

  “This room was used as an open sleeping quarters for over a hundred years when it was a sailor’s inn,” Chauncey said. “I know what you’re thinking. And you’re right—every time I come up here, I think of the ships, the men who sailed them, and the stories these boards would tell if they were able to talk.”

  “In a way,” Jac whispered, “you got them to talk with your discovery of the ship’s logs and the diary.”

  “I guess I did,” she said, and smiled. The flickering light from the kerosene lamp made her eyes glow orange.

  Massive, weatherworn wood timbers that had once been the keels of proud sailing ships served as the floor and for the ceilings of the rooms below. Jac held the light up where Chauncey pointed. He watched her press hard on the bottom of a wall plank until it yielded enough for her to get her hand behind it. She pulled hard on the board, and it came loose. Chauncey set the board on the floor. “This board was built to snap in place to hide a secret compartment,” she said.

  On the only shelf, several books and papers were piled together neatly. This is it, Jac thought. This is where Chauncey found Mary Read’s diary, and the ship’s log of Captain Jonathan Barnett that graphically document the capture of Calico Jack Rackam, his drunken crew, the two infamous lady pirates, and the other half of the map.

  “Is this where you hid them?” Jac said.

  “No, it’s the same place I found them.”

  “Has anyone beside you read them?”

  “I caught James reading from one of the books almost twenty years ago,” she said as she picked up the books from the shelf and handed them to Jac. “Auntie Mick and I have read them several times looking for clues. I’m sure you’ll want to spend some time later going through them. James looked at them, but I don’t know how much he knows. We never talked about them.”

  Jac detected a break in Chauncey’s voice at her mention of James. He handed the lantern to Chauncey and tucked the books and diary under his arm.

  “Let’s go downstairs,” Chauncey said as she started down the stairs. “There’s something else I must show all of you.”

  Jac took one more look around the room. He wondered if other planks concealed treasures hidden in th
e spaces. “Chauncey, I hope you will allow everyone to see this room.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. I just wanted you to see it first.”

  Jac felt apprehensive. The thought of finding more facts to help solve the mystery surrounding the two pirate women and their “salt-away” just got a little closer.

  CHAPTER 31

  Townsend’s office, Montego Bay Police Station

  The window air conditioner strained to send a meager stream of cool air into the small office. Two uniformed policemen wearing tan shorts and pressed military short-sleeve shirts with black metal letters MB pinned to green epaulets on their shoulders stood on each side of Bubby Brewster. Bubby’s tie-dyed orange-and-dark-green shirt was stained with blood. Streaks of sweat ran down his face from under his long dreadlocks.

  Brewster, a known enforcer for Murdoch’s gang, had been found by Townsend’s men standing over the body of another gang member, Ephraim Pell.

  The overhead lights in the office had been turned off, and the flexible arm of a brass lamp on the desk was turned to focus its bright light directly in Brewster’s face.

  “Deal?” Inspector Townsend’s voice boomed from across the table. “What could you possibly offer me to persuade the prosecutor not to hang you for murder?” Townsend mocked. He would now play the game with Brewster and dangle the possibility of avoiding the hangman’s rope. By the time Townsend was finished, he would have Brewster begging to save his life, and eager to testify to the criminal activities of James Murdoch and his partner, Renaldo Mulee.

  Brewster squinted while trying to focus his eyes as he looked through the glare of the bright bulb. “I be a dead man who wants to live. Even if it be in the old General.”

  Pleased with himself, Townsend tapped his index finger in a timed beat like a clock ticking away the final hours before an execution. He knew that being sentenced to “the General” meant serving life in the old General Penitentiary in Kingston, a deplorable facility where overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, inadequate food, and limited medical care for inmates caused many deaths every year. Townsend advocated penal reform and strongly believed in maintaining human dignity as an integral part of the criminal rehabilitation process. In his station’s jail, unlike in other police facilities where conditions were generally worse, he demanded that his prisoners were treated humanely. The criminals incarcerated in the small cells of Townsend’s station respected the tough but fair police inspector for the bit of dignity he allowed them.