Zimmerman Academy_New Beginnings

by Kathi Daley

  “What are you girls working on?” I asked when I found them huddled over a table.

  “A treasure map,” Eve answered.

  “A treasure map?”

  “Before we went on break Professor Carlton gave us an extra-credit assignment. We thought it would be fun to try to solve the mystery,” Eve explained.

  “What mystery?”

  “A year or so ago Zoe helped a man named Burton Ozwald find the treasure his grandpa left hidden for his father back in 1940,” Eve answered. “All she had to go on was a letter with a riddle, so she enlisted the assistance of Professor Carlton and a few others to help her find the gold.”

  I did seem to remember something about that.

  “Anyway, Professor Carlton thought it would be fun for those of us who had time to try to find the treasure using the same clues that were in the original letter. He hid something in the location where Zoe ended up finding the treasure and the first one to find it will receive a bunch of extra credit points.”

  “It does sound like fun,” I admitted, “but don’t you both already have straight As?”

  “We do,” Alex confirmed, “but the assignment sounded like fun, and a good way to learn more about local history. The thing is, we might have hit a roadblock.”

  “Do you want some help?” I asked. The assignment really did sound fascinating.

  “We can use all the help we can get,” Eve answered.

  I sat down at the table with the girls.

  “Here’s what we know so far,” Eve continued. “The original letter Burton Ozwald had was really just a riddle that led to an old masthead that was brought to Devil’s Den by a man named Warren Goldberg in 1908. It seems he owned a sailing vessel at one time, which he sold to fund his journey west. This article,” Eve held up an old newspaper clipping, “says that while he sold the boat to an exporter, he kept the masthead, which held special meaning for him. At some point the masthead ended up in the local bar. That building no longer exists, but during the original treasure hunt Zoe tracked it down to the storage room of the Ashton Falls Museum. Alex and I were able to follow the clues to the museum and, as Zoe had, we discovered a secret drawer. Professor Carlton hid the clue in the drawer in order to replicate the series of events that took place during the original treasure hunt.”

  I had to hand it to Ethan. He’d certainly gone to a lot of effort to make studying the history of Ashton Falls interesting.

  “The clue in the drawer instructed us to look for the medic’s seal,” Alex continued. “There were a few extra clues I don’t believe Zoe had access to at the time of the real treasure hunt, but we were able to track down the information we needed at the library, where a photo of the old clinic was being held for our project. On the exterior of the building was a seal with the words legatum sit amet, which is Latin for ‘Life Is Love’s Legacy.’ We can’t figure out where to go from there. Professor Carlton did say that Zoe found the treasure, so it seems the riddle is solvable. We just haven’t been able to figure it out.”

  I looked down at the books and materials the girls had spread out on the table. A treasure hunt was just the thing I needed to occupy my mind.

  “All right, why don’t we start at the beginning?” I suggested. “What was the original clue Professor Carlton gave you?”

  Eve pushed a piece of paper in front of me. It read:

  To begin the quest

  I give to you

  A maiden’s breast

  As the initial clue.

  “This is the clue that led to the masthead of a mermaid that had once graced a ship but at some point had been removed and attached to a bar,” Eve restated. “As I indicated earlier, at some point it was removed from the bar and given to the museum. When it began to decay it was moved to the storage room, where it still is to this day. This is the clue we found in the secret drawer.”

  Eve pushed a second piece of paper in front of me. It read:

  To find what’s next

  You must reveal

  The hidden text

  In the medic’s seal.

  “I understand that in the original treasure hunt this clue led to the hospital, but I guess Professor Carlton didn’t want us digging around in the hospital, so he provided additional clues that led us to the library,” Alex added. “A replica of the original photo that was used in the first treasure hunt was waiting for us.”

  “As we said, when translated the seal says ‘Life Is Love’s Legacy,’” Eve continued. “We don’t know where to go from there.”

  I looked at the information the girls had gathered. It appeared as if they had followed the clues correctly, yet I wasn’t able to figure out what should come next either. “I was planning to go into town to donate the clothes I have boxed up. If you want to come with me, we can stop off at the library to see if Hazel has anything else up her sleeve.”

  Hazel Hampton is the local librarian.

  “I’m in,” Alex answered.

  “Me too,” Eve seconded.

  The alpine town of Ashton Falls was busy with shoppers taking advantage of the clear, sunny day as well as the post-holiday sales. I’d planned to do the majority of my shopping at the mall in Bryton Lake, but perhaps I’d check out the local retail outlets as well.

  I dropped the boxes of clothes off at the second-hand store that served as a fund-raiser for the local Food for Families program before heading to the library. Ethan’s assignment had me intrigued. Although I’d heard about the outcome of the treasure hunt when it happened, I hadn’t been involved and so wasn’t privy to the details leading up to the end result.

  “Did you girls figure out the clue already?” Hazel asked.

  “Actually, the opposite.” Eve shook her head.

  “We figured out that the seal says ‘Life Is Love’s Legacy,’ but we can’t figure out how this will lead us to the next clue.”

  Hazel held out her hand, indicating that Eve should pass the photo of the old clinic to her. She pointed to the seal. “Do you notice anything else?”

  The girls and I all frowned as we tried to figure out what Hazel was referring to.

  “Here.” Hazel handed Eve a small magnifying glass. “Look at it through this.”

  “‘LIV,’” Eve stated. “It says ‘LIV’ all in caps on the bottom of the seal.”

  “So what does that mean?” Alex asked.

  Hazel just smiled. I could see she was going to let the girls work on the answer themselves. They took the photo and a pad of paper and headed over to a nearby table. Hazel handed them a box of old clippings, telling them that the answer to the riddle could be found within that box.

  “Ethan certainly has gone to a lot of trouble to teach the kids a bit of Ashton Falls’ history,” I commented to Hazel.

  “He seems to be having fun with it, although I think Eve and Alex are the only students still working on it. Most of the Zimmerman Academy kids went home for break, and those who stayed seemed to have other plans. By the way, I was sorry to hear that we lost Will. He was a good man and an excellent teacher.”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “He was. I’m really going to miss him.”

  Hazel squeezed my hand. We had similar backgrounds in that neither of us had ever married or had children of our own, despite the fact that we adored children. Hazel had been dating Zoe’s grandfather, Luke Donovan, for a while now, and it seemed they were getting serious. I hoped that I’d find another man to love. Now that I’d had a taste of what it was like to feel the flutter of awakening desire, I found I rather craved it.

  “I think we found it,” Eve said. “‘LIV’ stands for the roman numeral 54.” Eve held up an old newspaper clipping. “This article is entitled ‘a tribute to the 54.’ The article is from the Chronicle, and it’s dated October 12, 1910. There’s a photo of a bunch of men and a couple of women standing in front of the clinic. The article states:

  “‘A year ago today fifty-four men from the small mining camp of Devil’s Den pooled their meager resources to bring a
doctor from our local hospital to their small village to save the life of a prostitute who had developed complications from a late-term pregnancy. Dr. Owen Ozwald, a recently hired resident at the hospital, was chosen for the task. Upon his arrival at the camp, the doctor found admiration and affection for a community that had come together to save the life of one of their own. Dr. Ozwald was so moved by the commitment of the community to save a single life that he handed in his resignation and announced plans to move his family to Devil’s Den in order to open a clinic for those who live in the area. The highly anticipated Devil’s Den Medical Clinic opened today and the entire town came out for the celebration. Lilly England, the local madame, who acts as a mother of sorts to the girls, attributes the close-knit community and the willingness of its members to make sacrifices for one another with its isolation from the outside world.’”

  “So Mr. Ozwald’s grandfather was the local doctor,” I realized.

  “The thing is, I still don’t know how this relates to the next clue,” Alex said.

  Hazel frowned. “When we got to this point in the original treasure hunt Zoe looked at the photo and made a huge leap as to where she thought the treasure might be hidden, but now that I think about it, we never did actually find the next clue. It seems there must have been one.”

  I was confused and I could tell by the look on the girls’ faces they were as well.

  “If you notice in the photo,” Hazel elaborated, “the doctor has his arm around the woman on his right. Based on the way she’s dressed, Zoe speculated that she was the Lilly England mentioned in the article. She also speculated that the woman on the left with the baby was the prostitute the doctor must have saved. Somehow she made a giant leap from that assumption to deciding that Dr. Ozwald must have given the treasure to Lilly for safekeeping. The next thing I knew, we were heading to the abandoned house Lilly used to live in to look for the treasure.”

  “Did you find it?” Eve asked.

  “We did. The thing is, it never occurred to me at the time that if Owen Ozwald set up a treasure hunt for his son, he would have provided another riddle or clue relating to the seal. I doubt he would assume someone like Zoe would be the one to embark on the hunt for the treasure he left. Very few people could make the leap Zoe did and solve the riddles.”

  “So we might actually be able to find a clue that has never been found before if we can figure this out,” Alex asserted.

  “Did you bring the riddles with you?” I asked Eve.

  “Yeah.” She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket.

  “The first riddle led to a second one, so it makes sense that the second riddle would lead to a third.”

  I looked at the second riddle again.

  To find what’s next

  You must reveal

  The hidden text

  In the medic’s seal.

  “What hidden text?” I asked. “The words legatum sit amet, as well as the numeral LIV, are clearly shown on the seal. They were difficult to see from the grainy photo, but at the time Dr. Ozwald planned the treasure hunt, the seal was on the building and clearly visible. There must be a hidden message somewhere on the seal that Ethan and Zoe didn’t take into consideration the first time around.”

  “You make a good point,” Hazel agreed. “Let’s scan the photo of the seal into the computer; then we can enlarge it on the screen. Maybe there are words hidden somewhere else in the design.”

  Hazel, the girls, and I looked until we were cross-eyed, but we couldn’t find any hidden letters.

  “What if the hidden message is within the letters we have?” Alex suggested.

  “Like a word scramble?” Hazel asked.

  Alex shrugged. “It’s just a thought.”

  “I guess it couldn’t hurt to put the clue through the unscramble program I have on the computer,” Hazel offered. She pulled the program up on her computer. “If you take the letters from legatum sit amet in their entirety, we have quite a few choices, although we don’t come up with a single fourteen-letter word. There are several ten-letter words, including stalagmite, which fits because Devil’s Den was a mining town, and a clue could very well have been left in one of the mines.”

  “Yeah, but which one?” Alex asked.

  “What letters are left?” I wondered.

  “U-M-E-T,” Hazel answered.

  “Mute?” Eve guessed.

  “That doesn’t ring a bell,” I admitted. “Besides, there was no such thing as a computer or an unscramble program back then. It had to be something simpler. Maybe something to do with the translated text.”

  “Life is love’s legacy,” Eve repeated.

  “Dr. Ozwald wanted to leave his son a legacy or inheritance,” Hazel pointed out.

  “Maybe Zoe was right all along. Maybe Dr. Ozwald simply arranged for Lilly to hide the gold and then give it to his son when he arrived. Maybe there really isn’t another clue,” Alex suggested.

  “I don’t know,” Eve said. “The clue leading to the seal clearly states that we’re looking for hidden text. Is there another seal?”

  “Zoe got the photo we have from Dr. Westlake,” Hazel informed us. “She did say he had a whole box of old documents.”

  “I guess it couldn’t hurt to ask him if we can take a look,” I suggested.

  “Yes, let’s.” Alex jumped up.

  “Maybe we should call Dr. Carlton to fill him in on our plan,” I said. “If there is another clue I’m sure he would want to be in on the finding.”

  Both girls agreed immediately.

  I called Ethan, who was, as I suspected, intrigued by our line of thinking. He agreed to meet us at the hospital. Once I’d arranged a place for us to meet, the girls and I thanked Hazel and then headed to the hospital. Luckily, Dr. Westlake was in and agreed to our looking through the boxes of old records and photographs from the clinic at the mining camp.

  It turned out there was quite a lot of material to go through, so it was a good two hours before anyone found anything of relevance.

  “Look at this.” Alex held up an unopened letter that had been closed with a wax seal.

  “Who’s it made out to?” I asked.

  “No one. The envelope is blank. What I found interesting is the seal on the back.”

  I took the envelope from Alex. The wax seal had the letter O in the middle, but what was really interesting was the small words that were so tiny as to be unnoticeable around the outside edge.

  “I’m afraid my old eyes can’t make out such small type.” I handed the envelope back to Alex.

  “It says, ‘Seek to know for whom the bell tolls,’” Alex informed me.

  “The O on the seal could stand for Ozwald,” Eve said, excitement in her voice. “Maybe this is the seal that was referred to in the letter. Maybe Dr. Ozwald wanted his son to go to a place in town with a bell. Do we have any idea where that might be?”

  “The schoolhouse,” I suggested.

  “Is the schoolhouse still here?” Alex asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” I answered.

  “Phyllis is correct; the old school building has been gone for years,” Ethan confirmed. “But the bell that hung in the tower is still around. It’s hanging in the bell tower of the church.”

  “Do you think that bell somehow holds the missing clue?” Eve asked.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Ethan answered.

  We packed everything up and returned it to Dr. Westlake, then headed to the Ashton Falls Community Church. Pastor Dan was fine with our climbing up into the tower to look at the old bell. Engraved on the side of the bell was one word: Lilly. It appeared we’d found the missing clue at last.

  Part Two

  The Birthday Mystery

  The Birthday Mystery

  It’s my birthday. Although my driver’s license insists that I am sixty-three, after all the changes I’ve made as of late, the three teenage girls living with me tell me I look like I could be forty-three. In the seven months since Brooklyn Bank
s, Pepper Pepperton, and Eve Lambert have come into my life, I’ve had my hair cut and highlighted, learned to apply makeup to bring out my best features, and purchased a whole new wardrobe emphasizing the young and hip side I didn’t even know I had. At first I was skeptical about making the changes, but I have to admit that when I look in the mirror each day, I really do like what I see.

  “So what do you think?” I asked Charlotte, my cat and staunchest critic. “Casual yet trendy or old woman trying desperately to hang on to her youth?”

  I was dressed in a pair of straight-legged jeans that were tucked into knee-high leather boots. I wore a knit sweater in a fun pastel shade that accentuated my eyes perfectly. I really hadn’t had any grand plans for my birthday, but I also never imagined I’d be spending it attending an orientation for a fitness group. I hoped that my friend Hazel Hampton might want to get together for breakfast, then maybe I’d do some shopping, and perhaps the girls and I could go out for a nice dinner. When I called Hazel she informed me that she had a meeting that morning, but we could try to hook up later. I had my heart set on breakfast in town, so I called my friend Ethan Carlton, who is usually up for anything involving food, but he informed me that he planned to go to the orientation for the new senior fitness group he’d been trying to get me to attend. I have to admit I’ve been letting my fitness routine slide, and while I may look forty-three, I’m afraid I feel more like I’m eighty-three, so maybe Ethan was on to something.

  Joining the local fitness group isn’t a decision that comes easily. For one thing it is a senior fitness group for men and women sixty years of age and beyond, and I’ve been doing everything I can as of late to try to look and feel less senior and more middle-aged. Maybe I’m just being silly, but joining a group dedicated to the specific needs of the senior population seems like a step back.