Dead Set

by Vannetta Chapman

  “Meaning?”

  “That somehow we have to find a way to confront these people head-on. Subtlety like a news article isn’t working. What we need is a new plan.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Tony knew Agatha was right, but he didn’t like the idea of confronting the people in pursuit of the treasure. They’d already proven themselves to be a killer...at least one of them had.

  He sat with Agatha and Gina at the kitchen table, drinking freshly brewed coffee and nibbling at granola bars.

  “I think I found our problem.” Gina had been staring at her phone and periodically swiping the screen up, down, and side to side. “Hunt Breaking News strikes again.”

  Tony leaned over to get a look at screen. “Great. The locals are chiming in.”

  Agatha shook her head, but she didn’t reach for the phone. “I’m not sure that social media is a step forward for mankind.”

  “Understatement of the year,” Tony agreed. “But Gina might be on to something. Someone is stirring things up, and they’re doing so on social media.”

  “Listen to this.” Gina cleared her throat. “Everyone knows barns don’t have walls that can be x-rayed. They’re solid structures.”

  “Kind of true.” Agatha reached for her kapp strings, realized they weren’t there, and settled for brushing her hair behind her shoulders. “The Rangers told us they x-rayed the office in the barn, but they couldn’t x-ray the outside walls because they’re solid. Nothing could be hidden in a solid wall.”

  “Okay, but who knew that?”

  “There was a big group across the road earlier today.” Agatha stood and refilled their cups. “I guess they didn’t believe Bannister’s statement.”

  “There’s more. A lot more.” Gina held the phone away as if she couldn’t quite read it.

  “Want to borrow my glasses?”

  “I do not.” She pulled the phone closer and squinted. “Did anyone look in the hayloft? That was Ginger457, which I’m pretty sure is one of the McKnight kids home from college. I should go and talk to her parents.”

  “What else?”

  “Lots. Agatha, people are interested in this.”

  “They’re bored.” Tony had scooted his chair next to Gina’s, and now they tag-teamed the reading. “It’s probably hidden in the hayloft.”

  “Or in a root cellar.”

  “I saw an Amish buggy at the bank. Maybe Agatha hid it in her safety deposit box.”

  “I don’t even have a safe deposit box.” Agatha sighed. “Any mention of my horse on there?”

  “Nope.” Gina continued squinting at the screen. “Listen to this one. Give me an hour, and I bet I can find it.”

  “Time for a hayloft party.”

  “Maybe it’s in the river. I saw a movie where they hid the goods in a watertight container in a river.”

  “Wait.” Tony stopped her with a touch on her arm. “Scroll back up.”

  “It’s just a string of folks saying they could do a better job than the Rangers.”

  “They certainly seem to think so.” Tony sat back, crossed his arms, and stared up at the ceiling.

  “You have an idea. What is it?”

  “If they think they can do a better job, maybe we should let them try.”

  “How would we do that?”

  “We’ll invite them over for a treasure hunt. Think of it as a cross between a flash mob and crowd sourcing.”

  Agatha sat up straighter. “I don’t know what either of those things are, but if you think it will help, let’s do it.”

  He loved that about her. Agatha wasn’t afraid to make a decision, to try something rather than do nothing. She wasn’t impulsive, but neither was she one to waver back and forth.

  “We need to create a post that will attract their attention. Want to help us?”

  “Nein. You two work on that, and I think I’ll start on breakfast.” Agatha pulled off her reading glasses, dropped them on the table, and crossed the room to wash her hands at the sink.

  “Deal.” Tony and Gina worked on the wording of the post. They edited the post several times, trying to make it sound like an adventure rather than the plea of desperation that it was.

  “Change a few words to all caps,” Tony suggested. “Maybe it will attract attention.”

  Gina frowned at the screen, then reached over, picked up Agatha’s glasses, and perched them on the end of her nose.

  “Does that help?” Agatha was plainly enjoying herself. “They look gut on you. Very studious.”

  “They do help, but I do not need glasses. It’s probably just...” Gina waved a hand toward the window. “The time of day or something.”

  “It’s best to embrace necessity over vanity.” Agatha had brewed a fresh pot of coffee and was now cracking eggs into a bowl.

  “Add some cheese to that, Agatha. Tony is going to need a lot of protein for today.”

  “I have a feeling we all are. I’ll whisk some of that fresh Colby in that we bought from Stephen Hochstettler.”

  Tony looked up to see her add garlic, salt, and pepper into the concoction. She felt him watching her, looked up, and smiled. “Just about done there?”

  “Nearly.” He couldn’t remember ever eating this well on the job—or off. Not since Camilla died. More than that, he’d become used to sharing meals with Agatha.

  He was aware of her on the other side of the kitchen, cutting up fruit and reheating the leftover cinnamon rolls. As the room was filled with the smells of cinnamon and yeast and coffee, Agatha dropped a little butter into her frying pan and cooked the eggs. Tony forced his attention back to Gina’s phone screen and read the post again one more time.

  Gina peered over the top of Agatha’s glasses. “Anything else?”

  “No.” Tony sat back, satisfied. “I think this is good. Nice touch adding the picture of the B&B.”

  “Posts with pictures get more attention.”

  “I’ll take your word for that. Social media isn’t my area of expertise.”

  “Are you ready for me to post it?”

  “Sure. Let’s see if anyone bites.”

  “Agatha, want to read it first?”

  “Nein. I trust you two. Let’s eat breakfast.”

  Gina tapped the Publish button and set the phone aside. They both stood, stretched, then helped Agatha fill the plates with breakfast.

  “Gracias, mi amor.” Tony thought he said it softly, but when Agatha answered with “Gem gschehne,” Gina started laughing.

  “That may be the first time I’ve ever heard a Hispanic-Pennsylvania Dutch conversation.”

  By the time they’d eaten breakfast, the sun was peeking over the horizon. Tony insisted on carrying the plates to the sink and rinsing them off. Glancing at the clock on the wall, he said, “It’s been thirty minutes. Check and see if we’ve got any takers.”

  Gina picked up her phone and nodded in satisfaction. “We already have one hundred and forty-seven comments. Most of them are people planning to show up this afternoon.”

  “So we’re inviting people over to look for treasure, versus having them break in to look for treasure.” Agatha grinned broadly. “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

  “Something like that.” Tony offered to refill their coffee cups, but both women declined. “I hope you feel okay about this, Agatha, because there’s no pulling back from it now.”

  “If you both think this will work, that’s gut enough for me.”

  “What do we have to lose?” Gina rubbed at her right eyebrow. “I can’t sleep on the porch with my shotgun indefinitely.”

  Tony had another reason for trying. Maybe they could draw out the people who had been breaking into Agatha’s. Maybe they could even draw out Kolbe’s killer. Instead of sharing that, he focused on assuring Agatha it was a solid plan. “Crowd sourcing has been used in everything from graphic design to company naming to software vulnerability detection. Basically you’re opening the problem up to the public.”

  “I’ve
never even heard that term—crowd sourcing.”

  “It’s where you appeal to a crowd to solve a problem. For our purposes, that’s the good folks of Hunt.”

  “And that other thing you said? A flash mob?”

  “It’s where a group of people assemble in a public place—”

  “Your home,” Gina grumbled.

  “Usually flash mobs perform, then disperse. They might dance or sing. Your flash mob will be treasure hunting. The public might just be the answer to this dilemma.”

  “The public happens to be a bunch of nosy neighbors with too much time on their hands,” Gina chimed in.

  “I think it’s more than that.” Tony looked past the kitchen table into the living room. It looked almost comical—holes in every wall—except it wasn’t. This was Agatha’s home and her business. This had to work, because he couldn’t think of another way to stop the break-ins. “Treasure has a way of capturing people’s imaginations. I think that once people have been here and seen that no treasure exists, their fascination will disappear.”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Agatha admitted.

  “You might as well read what we’ve posted since folks will be showing up this afternoon.” Gina passed her the phone, then took off the glasses and passed those over as well. Agatha donned the glasses and peered down at Gina’s screen, at her original post.

  Help Agatha Search for Lost Texas Treasures

  The public is invited to help Agatha Lapp search her property and barn for any additional treasures that might have been hidden there. While the Texas Rangers were able to rule out anything hidden in the walls of the house, their equipment was useless in most of the barn and on the grounds.

  Agatha’s property will be open today, August 7th, from noon until six. Reward monies pledged toward the return of lost property will be given—in whole—to the finder. In addition, Agatha is offering a year’s worth of freshly baked goods (delivered weekly) for anyone who finds treasure.

  Come on out, this afternoon, to help Agatha.

  And bring a friend!

  “Sounds like we’re inviting them here for a barbecue.”

  Tony reached over and squeezed her hand. “People are bored in August. Plus, this might drum up some sympathy for you.”

  “Whose idea was it to offer a year’s worth of baked goods?”

  “Mine.” Gina raised a hand. “You always overbake.”

  “True.” Agatha tapped her fingertips against the table and peered again at the screen. “Looks like we have one hundred and seventy-one comments. What are people doing up so early, let alone on social media?”

  “It’s the opiate of insomniacs,” Gina assured her.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Folks can’t sleep, so they log on to see who else isn’t sleeping.”

  “Maybe they should try herbal tea.”

  “Yeah, but in this case it works in our favor. More comments means the post will be pushed to the top of everyone’s feed.”

  “Their feed?”

  Gina ignored that question. Tony almost laughed out loud, but this wasn’t an amusing situation. He had the sense that things were escalating quickly, and this might be their only chance to get in front of it. “We want people to see first-hand that there is no treasure here. We want them to leave you alone.”

  Agatha nodded and tightened the belt on the robe she was still wearing. “What will Bannister say?”

  “He won’t like it, but this is your property, Agatha. You can invite whomever you want.” He hated to see the worry in her eyes. He’d rather send her off to Indiana and hope that this settled down while she was gone, but he was fairly certain she would never agree to leave.

  Both Agatha and Gina were independent women. They didn’t run away from a problem. Their style was more to confront it head on. This treasure hunt was the next best thing to convincing her to leave. “Gina’s right. We can’t sit on the front porch every night, waiting for the next idiot’s plan to find the treasure.”

  A deep sigh escaped Agatha’s lips. She covered her mouth with her fingertips and attempted a bright smile. “Oops. That sounded more frustrated than I intended. It’s a gut plan, or at least, it’s the only one we have.”

  “While we were in the barn with Doc, you said that we needed to approach this from a different angle. That’s exactly what we’re doing here. This is your new plan. Besides, I prefer offense to defense.”

  When she looked at him blankly, Tony stifled another laugh. She was going to have to start watching football if she was going to understand his analogies. “Instead of waiting for something to happen, let’s cause something to happen.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Agatha and Gina spent the rest of the morning cooking for their guests while Tony drew up a rough map of the property. “We’ll assign spots,” he explained. He added a few rules to the bottom of the sheet.

  Do not dig up any plants.

  Do not take anything.

  Report any findings to Agatha.

  Feel free to post pics on social media.

  “Why did you add that last one?”

  “We want this thing to go viral,” Gina explained.

  When Agatha only stared at her, feeling quite clueless as to what her friend was talking about, Tony laughed. “She means we want a lot of people to see it. We want them to know there’s no hidden treasure here.”

  He reached for her hand, squeezed it, then headed into town to make copies and meet with Bannister.

  “He really cares about you.” Gina was cutting a tray of baked blueberry granola into bars, then wrapping them in saran wrap and dropping them into a basket.

  “Tony? Of course he does. We’re gut friends. He cares about you too.”

  “Not what I mean and you know it.”

  Agatha felt that fluttery thing in her stomach, but she didn’t stop transferring oatmeal cookies from the baking sheet to a cooling rack. Treasure hunts stopped for neither man nor sleet nor snow. They probably didn’t even stop for love.

  “It’s a bit odd, honestly, to have these sorts of feelings at my age.”

  Gina snorted. “You act as if you’re ancient.”

  “I’m no young chick.”

  “Do you remember last spring when Ben Johnson married Ginger Wright?”

  “They were that lovely older couple. I do remember. Their photo was on the front of the paper.”

  “Ben turned ninety the week before. Rumors flew that his children weren’t going to speak to him again if he went through with marrying Ginger. She was a spry eighty-five, and Ben’s kids were sure she was a gold digger.”

  “How do people get these ideas in their head? An eighty-five-year-old gold digger?”

  “Ben’s kids also told him that he was too old for love, but Ben...” Gina finished with the granola and began wrapping cookies—two per wrapped package. “Ben wasn’t having it. He said there was no such thing as being too old for love and that he would do what he pleased. If they didn’t like it, he would respect their decision not to attend the wedding.”

  Agatha felt herself caught up in the story. She stopped transferring cookies and turned to watch Gina. “So...don’t leave me hanging here.”

  “So what? Ben went right ahead and married Ginger. You saw the picture.”

  “I did.” She wanted to clap her hands. She wanted to find Ben Johnson and congratulate him for seizing life and believing in love.

  Gina stopped messing with cookies and sank into a chair. “The bride didn’t wear white.”

  “The dress was lavender, if I remember correctly.”

  “It was, and the smile on those two...well, it pretty much told it all. I heard they’ve been on a cruise for the last three weeks.” Gina’s voice sounded almost wistful.

  “And the kids?”

  Gina shook her head, stood, and reached for a tray of cranberry muffins. “Oh, they all showed up for the wedding. You can bet they did. Ben Johnson is one of the richest men in the county, ev
en if he does drive an old ’72 truck and wear overalls.”

  “So it ended happily.”

  “Yeah.” Gina pulled in her bottom lip. “This will end happily too, Agatha. We’ll re-open in the fall to our best year yet.”

  “I love that you use the word our.”

  Gina shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to assume.”

  “Huh-uh. Don’t apologize. You’re right.” She’d decided the previous spring, while they were still discussing whether to do the renovation, that she would share annual profits with Gina. She also wanted to have her friend’s name legally added to the business forms. If anything ever happened to her, she liked the idea of the B&B continuing under Gina’s watchful eye.

  She should change the subject. She was becoming melancholy...not the best mood to be in when hosting a crowd sourced flash mob of treasure hunters. But there was one other thing that needed to be said. Something she had been thinking for some time now. “You know, if I’m not too old for love, then you’re certainly not.”

  “Ha. There aren’t that many eligible bachelors in Hunt, Texas. At least not many good ones that aren’t already taken.”

  “Ginger believed. You should too.”

  “Uh-huh. Let me know if Tony tells you about a brother he’s kept secret from us.”

  “Gotte knows what you need, my friend. Never doubt that.”

  And if Gotte knew what Gina needed, which He most certainly did, then He also knew what Agatha needed. She wasn’t sure how today would end, but she hoped that it would end with some answers.

  THEY SET UP A TABLE in between the barn and the house. Tony had picked up a roll of tape the same design and color as crime scene tape. It didn’t escape her notice that she was aware of what crime scene tape looked like. What did that say about her?

  “But this tape says CAUTION. We want people to sign up with you and Gina first, and enter and exit at the table.” Tony frowned as he affixed it to the far side of the barn, then unspooled it toward the table. From there, he wrapped it around the legs of the table. Leaving a two-foot gap, he wrapped the next section to a wheelbarrow he’d positioned on the right of the table, then ran it to the front porch.