Dune to Death

by Mary Daheim

  “Skip that, too,” ordered Joe. “Unless you mean this year’s festival prize. That ought to be safe enough.”

  A nurse, whom Judith had never see before and who actually weighed under three hundred pounds, pushed a wheelchair into the room. Obviously, it was time for Jake to leave. Getting settled into the chair, Jake gave the cousins a big grin.

  “I’d ask you over for some cards tonight, but I already got company coming,” he said with a wink. Jake lowered his voice. “Mrs. Wampole gets out today, too.” He made a clicking noise with his tongue.

  “That’s wonderful,” said Judith, trying to stir up enthusiasm. “Does she play poker?”

  Jake shook his head. “Naw, she’s another one of them bridge fiends, like you two. That’s one game I want no part of. All that counting points and bidding back and forth and crazy scoring above and below the line. It’s the only kind of cards I know where your nearest and dearest will try to stomp in your skull for making an honest mistake. Seems to me everybody’s got to be a dummy to play that game.” He lifted a bony white arm. “See ya in the funny papers. I’ve had a good time, but this wasn’t one of ’em. Ha-ha!” Jake rolled out of the room, calling down the hall to Mrs. Wampole.

  “I hope he’ll be all right,” said Judith. “I worry about him. He’s really quite frail. And old.”

  “He’s not frail, he’s just sort of stringy,” said Joe. “Sinew, and all that. But he is old.” Joe’s face had softened.

  Renie stepped out of the way as an orderly came in to strip Jake’s bed. “Should we ask him to visit us and introduce him to our mothers?” Her brown eyes danced.

  Joe shook his head and grinned. “Jake doesn’t deserve that. All things considered, he was a pretty good roommate.” His gaze shifted back to Judith. “As a matter of fact, he invited us to come back down here some time and stay with him.”

  Echoing Judith’s feelings about Jake’s home, Renie shuddered. “Oh, good grief, I can imagine what his place is like! Some run-down hovel with a one-holer out back and a woodburning stove. Or maybe just a hot-plate…” She, too, gazed at Judith.

  But Judith wasn’t gazing back. Rather, she was staring beyond them in the direction of the window. Suddenly, she jumped and snapped her fingers. “That’s it! Bridge!”

  Her cousin and her husband stared. “What’s what?” asked Joe.

  Judith was animated now, pacing the small open space of the hospital room. The orderly was finishing up, and Judith waited for him to leave. “The map,” she said at last, sitting down on the edge of the chair next to Joe’s bed and digging the scrap of paper from her purse. “The four aces and kings and all the rest, In bridge, they add up to forty. The hundred—I still can’t see this very well, but it’s probably not a broken m, but a double r. For railroad,” she explained quickly. “A hundred miles of railroad, that’s a card-playing term, too, for tens. So we get one hundred forty, which happens to be the number of stairs leading down from Pirate’s Lair. The part about the bridge referred to the game, not a place. And to its rules.” Judith waited for comments from Renie and Joe, but both were still looking puzzled. “Don’t you see—this map isn’t really that old. Bridge wasn’t popular until after World War I. I’ll bet this is a map from one of the previous Freebooters’ Festivals, maybe the same year as the newspaper that was under the rug.”

  Renie groaned. “All this fuss over some meaningless Chamber of Commerce promotion! What a waste of time!”

  Judith, however, didn’t agree. “I think it’s worth checking out. It’s too bad we don’t have the rest of it—we’re sort of stuck after we get to the bottom of the stairs. Unless…” Her voice trailed off, but her black eyes gleamed, then suddenly snapped. She grabbed Joe’s arm.“You knew this all along, didn’t you? You rat! You purposely misled us!” She gave him a sharp shake, rattling his pulleys.

  “Hey, watch it, Jude-girl!” He wore his most ingenuous expression. “It doesn’t take a homicide detective to figure out they wouldn’t have had a bridge around this coast back in 1706 or whatever. Who do you think was in charge of Public Works around here, Sir Isaac Newton?”

  Chagrined, Judith let go of her husband and gave Renie a vexed look. Renie was muttering to herself, something about coastal tribes and temporary footbridges. It didn’t sound very convincing.

  “Okay, okay,” allowed Judith, still annoyed at Joe’s subterfuge. “So what did you find out about Alice and Leona’s travel arrivals?”

  Joe wore a bland expression. “Nothing. They’ll get back to me after the weekend.” Judith started to look more than just annoyed, but kept her temper in check. She could hardly blame Joe for wanting to protect her. He gave her fingers a tight, almost painful squeeze. “Hey—what did I tell you from the start about backing off this case? Go look for your treasure chest, or whatever. That’s harmless enough. Everybody else in town will be out there searching, too.”

  “Okay, Joe,” Judith murmured, her eyes cast down. She stood up and blew him a kiss.

  “Gee, coz,” said Renie as they made their way down the hospital corridor, “Joe sure has your number.”

  “Right,” said Judith. “He knows me better than anyone. Except you.”

  “I guess,” mused Renie. “So what do we do now?”

  “Figure out the rest of the map,” replied Judith as they got into the elevator.

  “Oh.” Renie sounded disappointed. “But if it’s from seven years ago, there won’t be anything there now.”

  Judith gazed complacently up at the elevator ceiling as the car glided smoothly to the main floor. “I think otherwise. Besides,” she went on as they exited into the hospital lobby, “I intend to find more than two free dinners at a local drive-in. We, dear coz, are about to find a motive—and thus, a murderer.”

  Renie stopped in her tracks. “But, coz—I thought you promised Joe…”

  Judith looked back over her shoulder. “Did I say that? Did you hear me give a promise? Well?”

  Renie grinned and ran to catch up with her cousin. “No, of course not. Jeez, you had me scared there for a minute. I thought Joe really did have your number.”

  “He does,” replied Judith. “He just doesn’t realize which number—in this case it’s three million.”

  It was only 10:00 A.M., but the beach below Pirate’s Lair was already swarming with treasure seekers. Armed with shovels, axes, metal detectors, and even portable computers, the tourists appeared to have been joined by a large number of locals as well. As Terrence O’Toole had predicted, a few were indeed dressed in pirate garb, looking more like overaged Trick-or-Treaters than Independence Day revelers. One man even had a live parrot on his shoulder; another trailed a small kite which was emblazoned with a Jolly Roger; various pirate wenches trod the sands in flowing skirts and skimpy tops of a motley hue. The only empty spot on the sand was the area immediately adjacent to the boathouse, where a deputy sheriff and police patrolman stood duty. Obviously, the death of Titus Teacher had done nothing to daunt the treasure buffs.

  The cousins already had encountered several people trooping through the yard of the beach cottage, headed for the long staircase. Efforts to discourage the intruders had been in vain. Consequently, Judith and Renie found themselves descending the steps with half a dozen others, including a Japanese family of four and a pair of young lovers holding hands.

  “Now what?” asked Renie when they got to the beach and found themselves virtually surrounded by the milling crowd.

  Judith looked above several shorter heads, to the stair-case itself, which was one of the few unpopulated areas in the vicinity. “Let’s see the back of this year’s map. I’ll bet that in the past, the treasure was hidden under the steps.”

  Judith was right. Seven summers ago, the winner had found the stash of free dinners, discount coupons, and dune buggy rentals somewhere behind the staircase. Since the description wasn’t precise, Judith and Renie approached with some uncertainty. At ground level, the open space between the bluff and the stairs was abo
ut eight feet wide. At the foot of the bluff, boulders had been piled some fifteen feet high to prevent slides. Further up, a vast network of heavy-duty chicken wire took over to hold the rest of the bluff in place.

  “Rocks or sand?” Judith posed the question, leaning on the handle of her shovel.

  Renie surveyed both possibilities. “With all the dogs around here, I’d say burying something really valuable wouldn’t be such a good idea. Let’s try the rocks.”

  The cousins did, attempting to dislodge any loose boulders. After a quarter of an hour, they gave up. “It’s been seven years,” said Judith, out of breath and already getting too warm in the morning sun. “These things have settled, or something. Let’s dig in the sand.”

  They concentrated on the area in back of the stairs. This far up on the beach, where the waves reached only during wild winter storms, the sand was soft and dry, but not particularly easy to work. The cousins, who had one shovel between them, took turns, giving half-witted smiles to treasure seekers who called to tell them that they were searching in an out-of-bounds area. At one point, the sheriff’s deputy strolled over to ask why they were digging in a site that had been already used. Judith told them she’d lost her Miraculous Medal.

  “Frankly,” said Renie, huffing and puffing, “it’ll be a miracle if we find anything. Maybe we should borrow one of those metal detectors.” She gave one last desultory lunge; the shovel clanked against something hard. Both cousins got down on their stomachs and began to scoop out the hole with their bare hands.

  “Oh, boy,” breathed Judith, as the outline of a strongbox emerged. She turned her smudged face to Renie and grinned weakly. “We did it, coz.” Angling her arm down in the hole, she grasped the catch. It was locked. “It figures,” said Judith, then tried to move the box. It wouldn’t budge. The cousins stared at each other.

  “You really think there’s three million bucks in there?” asked Renie in a hoarse voice.

  Judith nodded. “Or the equivalent thereof. She scrambled up on her knees, surveying the hordes of treasure hunters roaming the beach. “If any of those folks knew what we had here, they’d stampede us like a herd of water buffalo. I’m not sure we can lift this without help. We should Do the Right Thing and turn it over to the police. And the sheriff. But they’d fight over it, and we’d have to stand here in the hot sun with sand in our teeth and listen to them argue.”

  “You got it.” Renie, who was also sitting up now, brushed sand from her rumpled clothes. “You figure Race Doyle ditched this before he took off?”

  “Somebody did,” said Judith, noticing a long scratch on her right arm. “It’s probably been here for seven years, while Alice and Race bided their time in Liechtenstein. But remember, I’m only guessing.”

  Renie’s brown eyes grew enormous. “Alice and Race! So that’s why she had to disappear!” Clapping a hand to her damp forehead, Renie laughed. “Of course! Titus Teacher was Race Doyle!”

  “Maybe,” replied Judith, finding that it wasn’t easy to get to her feet. “One thing that’s bothered me is how Alice sold that cheese factory five years ago while she was in Liechtenstein. Leona couldn’t have done that for her. But do you remember what Alice said to Brent Doyle’s receptionist the other day?” Renie didn’t, at least not the specifics. Judith refreshed her cousin’s memory: “Alice mentioned that Brent was drawing up a new power of attorney.” She waited for Renie’s comprehension. Renie not only continued to look blank, but hot and tired as well. Judith took pity on her suffering cousin. “A new power of attorney, which means there was an old one. Brent Doyle has only been practicing law for a few weeks. So his father, Bartlett Doyle, must have put together the original. I’ll bet anything he used it, under Alice’s directive, to sell that property to the outlet mall developers. Of course it expired when Bartlett Doyle died.”

  “I’m about to do both those things,” said Renie, struggling to her knees. “Die. Expire. Etc.” She shielded her eyes with her hand and looked up at Judith. “Are you saying that Bart Doyle knew where Alice really was all along?”

  “Not necessarily,” replied Judith. “Alice could have sent instructions through Leona. Leona was gullible, remember. A perfect dupe. The important thing is that the sale would have provided money for Alice and Titus—or Race—or whoever—to live on in Liechtenstein. Tax-free, too, I’ll bet.”

  Renie gave a feeble nod. “In five years they may have used it up.”

  “Could be,” agreed Judith. “But the original three million that never left Oregon gives us a motive.” Her tone, however, carried no note of triumph.

  Renie grabbed the shovel by the handle, stuck it in the ground, and held on to heave herself upright. “Well? That’s half the battle, right?”

  “Right.” Judith squinted into the sun, surveying the back side of the long staircase. “But three million bucks is also too much motive. In a way, it lets out Darren Fleetwood. Leona had been disinherited by her father. But Alice has a legal claim to this money. Her kids would get it if anything happened to her.”

  “But it happened to Leona. And maybe to Race Doyle,” noted Renie.

  “I know,” said Judith, starting toward the boathouse. “That’s what bothers me. That, and the fact that even though we now have a motive, everybody except Darren Fleetwood has an alibi. At least for Leona’s murder.”

  Renie fell into step with Judith. “For Titus—I mean, Race’s death, too. The whole family was up at the Ogilvie-Hoke house, remember? Darren left town. Alice was with us.”

  “That’s right,” said Judith. “That bothers me more than anything.”

  Half an hour later, the cousins had carted the strongbox up to Pirate’s Lair. It was more cumbersome than heavy. They had been careful to avoid being seen by the deputy and the policeman who continued to alleviate their boredom with verbal sniping at one another.

  “Great,” said Renie, coming out of the bedroom in a change of clothes, “here we are with a killer loose and three million dollars in a tin box. What do we do next, get a bunch of drugs and try to peddle them at a stand out in the cul-de-sac?”

  “It is a ticklish situation,” Judith admitted. She was sitting in her new bathrobe, having just taken a quick shower. “Just in case the law enforcement guys saw us, let’s not open the box yet. I don’t want them confiscating it.”

  “It’s too hot to wrestle with the blasted thing anyway,” declared Renie, flopping on the sofa. “Besides, the sight of other people’s CDs or whatever is in there doesn’t thrill me. Not even three million bucks’ worth.” She shot Judith a querying glance. “You are sure that’s what’s there, aren’t you?”

  Judith felt the sand in the carpet under her bare feet. “What else? CDs, passbooks, stock certificates—whatever, totaling the stolen amount in some form or other. Why else bury the damned thing?” She glanced at the strongbox as if it offended her. Battered but sturdy, the steel case now reposed on the hearth, just inches away from where Leona Ogilvie had died. Judith considered hiding it, but there was no real place of concealment in the beach cottage. She decided they might as well let it sit in plain sight for the time being.

  “I wonder,” she mused, “if the police—or the sheriff—are making any effort to determine Titus Teacher’s real identity.”

  “Probably not,” said Renie. “They’ll write him off as a drifter. Especially if Alice can convince Clooney that he really was some itinerant soul she hired to watch over the beach property.”

  Judith nodded absently, then gave a start. “But will she? If Alice and Titus—Race, that is—were in on this from the start, why wouldn’t she be glad he was dead? The money’s all hers now. Look,” Judith went on excitedly, making circles with her finger on the coffee table, “if Alice and Race went off together and left Leona as her stand-in, there’s nobody to tie Alice in with Race. Everybody thinks she’s been in Buccaneer Beach all along. Then Race comes back and gets himself killed, along with Leona. Alice is home free. All she has to do is come up with the money, which
is rightfully hers, and she’s sitting even prettier than she was in the first place.”

  “Why wait seven years?” asked Renie.

  Judith shrugged. “Statute of limitations, maybe. I don’t know how long it is on embezzlement or whatever Race could have been charged with, but the time’s probably up by now.” She gave another little jump as a knock sounded at the back door. Renie went to answer it, while Judith eyed the strongbox anxiously.

  It was Amy and Augie, looking tired and somewhat bedraggled. “We just wanted to ask permission to use your stairs down to the beach,” said Augie. “We’ve been hunting for the treasure prize up by the marina with no luck, so we drove down here. We’ll go back on that road over by the point.”

  “I can walk down okay,” put in Amy, collapsing gratefully on the sofa next to Judith, “but going back up is too much. I still feel a little woozy. This has been a terrible trip.”

  Judith assured them it was fine to use the stairs. She saw Augie glance at the strongbox, but he showed no special interest. “You heard about Mr. Teacher, I take it?” Judith remarked.

  “Oh, yes!” Amy pushed the long dark hair out of her eyes. “Isn’t that awful? Augie’s mother says it’s a good thing this place doesn’t belong in the family any more. It’s hexed.”

  “Just think,” said Augie, sitting down on the strongbox and making Judith wince, “if he hadn’t been so muddled, he’d have remembered to pick up Momma and then he might not have gotten killed. I’ll bet it happened just about the time I drove down here to get her.”

  Something flickered in Judith’s eyes but the others apparently didn’t notice. “That may be so,” she allowed. “What did you think of Mr. Teacher?”

  Augie shook his head. “I can’t say. We never met him.”

  “We saw him at the funeral,” Amy put in, “but we didn’t talk to him. Larissa was going to; she had some silly idea he might have been Aunt Leona’s boy friend. But Mr. Teacher left right after the service.”