A Treacherous Treasure

by Leighann Dobbs

  Claire stepped up to the threshold. “Oh, that’s good. Is he willing to receive visitors?”

  Allen glanced over his shoulder into the house. “Well … I don’t—”

  “Who’s that, Allen?” Benjamin’s voice boomed down the hall.

  “It’s Claire Watson and Dominic Benedetti,” Allen replied.

  “Oh? Well, show them in. I could use some company.”

  Allen hesitated then swung the door wide, allowing Claire and Dom entrance to the marble-and-mahogany foyer. Dom took his time looking around, his trained eye cataloging everything from the ornately carved round table in the center of the foyer to the arrangements of white flowers on the consoles against the walls. He was used to studying every crime scene for clues and, though this wasn’t a crime scene, it was a habit he could not turn off.

  “This way.” Allen turned down a hallway, and they followed. A row of old gilt-framed paintings lined the walls. Hill ancestors, no doubt. One of the paintings was tilted slightly to the right, and Dom paused in front of it, tapping the bottom gently with his index finger, adjusting the angle so it lined up perfectly with the rest of the paintings.

  Claire and Allen were just entering a room at the end of the hall. Dom hurried to join them and found himself in a handsomely decorated room lined with bookcases on three walls. Golden sunlight spilled in from the nine-foot-tall windows, highlighting rectangles of color on the jewel-toned Oriental rug.

  An enormous stone fireplace took up the entire wall across from them, and two tufted leather sofas were arranged in the middle of the room facing each other. On one of the sofas sat Benjamin Hill, a plaid blanket over his lap despite the warm spring air. Dom noticed how small and frail he looked today. Apparently all the huffing and puffing at the pharmacy site the previous day had worn him out.

  “Come in, come in.” Benjamin gestured toward the sofa across from him, and Dom did as instructed, sinking into the soft, buttery leather. He wondered how often Benjamin got visitors. Not very often, judging by how excited he was to see them. Allen probably drove most of them away.

  “Grandfather, you know you’re supposed to be resting, so your guests can’t stay long.” Allen shot a pointed look at Dom and Claire as he fussed with the blanket on Benjamin’s lap.

  “Oh, posh. A little visit ain’t gonna kill me.” Benjamin pushed Allen away, and Allen sighed then resorted to hovering behind the sofa.

  “We won’t stay too long,” Claire said then added, “Boy, that was some spectacle yesterday morning with the treasure chest.”

  “Yeah, I bet you weren’t expecting anything like that when you were protesting,” Dom added.

  Benjamin narrowed his eyes. “No. Certainly not. Though I’d heard the rumors of buried pirate treasure since I was a boy.”

  “We all have. Didn’t there used to be a treasure-hunting club on the island?” Claire asked.

  “There was. But we’ve been disbanded a long time.”

  “I think I vaguely remember about it,” Claire lied. “It broke up right around the time Elbert Daniels fell overboard all those years ago, didn’t it?”

  Benjamin’s eyes narrowed at the mention of Elbert Daniels. His gaze drifted to the window as if he were trying to conjure up old, buried memories from sixty years ago. “Now that you mention it, it was about that time.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Allen cut in. “Do we have to dredge up my grandpa’s old memories? I don’t want him getting upset.”

  “I’m not made of sugar, boy! It does me good to remember. Though my memory is a little fuzzy now.” Benjamin lapsed into reflective silence then started and whipped his head around to look at Allen still hovering behind him. “Where are your manners, boy? Aren’t you going to offer our guests some coffee?”

  Allen raised a brow at Dom and Claire, who both nodded.

  “I take mine with cream,” Dom added as Allen hesitantly left the room. Dom was happy to have some time to talk to Benjamin alone. It seemed that Allen wanted to stifle his grandfather’s memories, and Dom felt that Benjamin would be more inclined to talk without Allen in the room.

  “Tell us more about this treasure-hunting club,” Dom said. “It must’ve been exciting. Did you ever find any good treasure?”

  Benjamin snorted. “Not hardly. We dug up a few old rings, brooches, worthless coins. But it never did amount to much.”

  “Really? I thought maybe you amassed all your fortune from treasure,” Dom teased, spreading his hand to indicate the lavishly decorated room.

  Benjamin bristled. “I should say not. I made the Hill family fortune trading commodities.”

  “None of the other members of the treasure-hunting club became rich,” Claire pointed out. “Certainly not Elbert Daniels.”

  Benjamin’s gaze snapped to Claire. “No, no one became rich from the treasure hunting. It was just a lark.”

  “A fun hobby, right?” Dom asked.

  His light tone seemed to appease Benjamin. “That’s right.”

  “So, it was you and Elbert Daniels in the club. I can’t remember who else …” Claire let her voice drift off, and Dom knew she was leading Benjamin to fill in the other members.

  “Gosh, that was a long time ago. There were a few of us. Quentin Crane and Billy Wilkinson and …”

  Benjamin paused, and Dom couldn’t tell if it was because of fading memories or that there was another member he didn’t want to mention.

  “And?” Dom prompted.

  “It doesn’t matter now.” Benjamin’s voice turned gruff. “The only two left of us are Quentin and me. And we didn’t find any treasure, for all our digging.”

  “Then you didn’t try to dig up the pharmacy lot?” Claire asked.

  “Sure we did. We dug holes all over the darn island. I guess we just weren’t lucky enough. Never found anything valuable, that’s for sure.”

  “Then why protest so hard against the pharmacy if you didn’t think there was treasure there?”

  Benjamin’s face hardened. “I didn’t say if I thought there was or wasn’t treasure there. The club obviously never dug in the right spot. But my protest was about more than just some treasure. It’s about these newfangled changes that are turning the island into a city. I can’t abide that. Pretty soon my beautiful island will be ruined.”

  “Now Grandpa, don’t go getting upset.” Allen shoved the coffee tray he’d been holding onto a table and rushed over to Benjamin, shooting daggers at Claire and Dom on the way. “You know the doctor said you should be resting.”

  Dom stood. He didn’t really want coffee, and he figured they’d learned everything they could from Benjamin. “We don’t want to overstay our welcome. If you are supposed to be resting, then we’ll take our leave.”

  “But Allen just brought coffee,” Benjamin said.

  Claire patted him on the knee. “That’s okay, Ben, we’ll come back and have coffee another time.”

  “We can show ourselves out,” Dom said, already halfway across the room.

  In the car, Claire said, “I don’t know if that went well or not. I couldn’t translate Benjamin’s reaction to the mention of Elbert, and I have no idea if he knew that the pharmacy groundbreaking might have dug up that chest.”

  Dom’s brow ticked up. “Really? And here I thought you could tell everything from a person’s body language.”

  Claire huffed. “Well, either Benjamin has actually forgotten, or he’s a very good actor, or he knew nothing about Elbert being buried there in that chest.”

  Dom glanced back at the house as Claire pulled out of the driveway. “I would have liked to have asked him more questions, but I felt like the interrogation—I mean interview—had run its course.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think we were going to get much more out of him. And Allen didn’t help matters much.”

  “He seemed reluctant to let Benjamin say too much.”

  “Well, at least he verified that there was a treasure club and Benjamin, Elbert, Bill, and Quentin were in it, even
if they didn’t dig up any valuable treasure.”

  Dom pressed his lips together. “That’s the part that I would have liked to question him more about. It doesn’t ring true. I don’t know if that chest they dug up yesterday once had valuable treasure in it, but I do know that someone dug that chest up sixty years ago and stuffed Elbert into it. And if that person wasn’t Benjamin Hill—who was protesting the dig so vehemently—then who was it?”

  7

  Claire and Dom arranged to meet the next morning at Chowders before the rest of the breakfast gang arrived. They wanted to discuss the clues in private before everyone else started pumping them for information. Even though they weren’t working for the police anymore, they both still believed that some clues should be held back, as general knowledge of them could adversely affect the investigation.

  Though anxious to move forward with the investigation, Claire had needed the time to mull over what they had discovered. Besides, she always did her best work after a good night’s sleep, with her morning elixir of apple cider vinegar and lemon juice powering her brain.

  Dom was already waiting in the diner, a half-eaten slice of ricotta pie on the plate in front of him. Claire sat across the table and ordered a red rooibos tea for starters. She'd wait and order her food when the others joined them so she could eat with everyone else.

  “That stuff will kill you, you know.” Claire pointed to the creamy piece of pie.

  “Oh, but what a way to go,” Dom mumbled, his mouth full.

  Claire’s eyes drifted over to the pharmacy lot, which now had yellow crime scene tape around the dark, gaping hole. The bulldozer sat silently beside it, its large shovel resting empty on the ground. Quite a difference from the activity of two mornings ago.

  “So, did you have any revelations last night?” Claire ripped open the small teabag packet, pulled the bag out, and dunked it in the steaming water Sarah had already poured into her mug.

  Dom shook his head. “Nothing that you probably already didn’t think of. We don’t have many clues to go on.”

  Claire leaned across the table, lowering her voice to just above a whisper. “But we do have the names of a few suspects. The other members of the treasure-hunting club. Bill Wilkinson passed a few years ago, but Quentin is still alive and living at Greenbriar Manor.”

  “Yes, we must speak to Quentin … and find out who the other person was. I got the distinct impression that Benjamin was about to name someone else yesterday.”

  “I noticed that too, but I doubt Allen will let us talk to him again so soon. I ran into Allen at Carter’s Market last night, and he gave me the hairy eyeball. Mentioned how his grandfather had taken to his bed after we left. I got the distinct impression we would not be welcome at the Hill mansion anytime soon.”

  “Do you think Allen might suspect that Benjamin was involved in Elbert’s death? Maybe that’s why he wants to keep us away from him.”

  “Maybe.” Claire took a sip of tea as she thought about it. ”I don’t know how Allen would know anything about it, though. That happened so long ago, and he wasn’t even born yet.”

  “If only we could find out more about the investigation into Elbert’s disappearance, that might give us some clues,” Dom suggested.

  “I doubt Zambuco will share any of that with us. Robby might let us look at some of the old records, though I doubt it now that the case has been reopened.”

  Dom sighed and pushed his empty plate aside. Reaching into his pocket, he took out the red pebble and held it in the palm of his hand. “All we really have for physical clues is this pebble.”

  “Where do you think the pebble came from? Do you think it’s from a location where they dug for treasure? Like it got stuck on the bottom of their equipment or something?”

  “I don’t know. These rocks are ornamental. I did some research last night, and they are not indigenous to the area, so they must have been brought in for some particular use.”

  “You mean like in a garden or a fish tank or something?”

  “Yes, but not the Zen garden. These are not the same types of rocks they use for that.”

  Claire sat back in her seat, the warm mug cupped in her hand. She couldn’t recall any garden, pond, or other area on the island with red rocks. Then again, she hadn’t been looking for them. “Ornamental, you say? I noticed Benjamin Hill’s house had nicely landscaped gardens. Maybe they use stones like that in one of them.”

  Dom got that faraway look on his face that Claire knew meant he was remembering what he’d seen at Benjamin’s house. “I didn’t see any decorative rocks there, but we only saw the front entry and sides. There could be something out back.”

  “We’ll have to keep our eyes open. In the meantime, can we agree that our next course of action is to question Quentin Crane? Maybe he remembers something that Benjamin didn’t mention.”

  “At the very least, we can see if their stories line up.”

  Dom’s eyes flicked to the door, and he snapped his fist closed and shoved it into his pocket. “Here comes Jane. The others will be here soon. We won’t mention the pebbles to anyone, agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Claire looked at her watch. “Let’s table the discussion and agree to take the two p.m. ferry out to Greenbriar Manor.”

  Jane pulled out the seat next to Claire, her gaze falling to the crumbs on Dom’s plate. “Looks like you two were here bright and early. Did someone change the breakfast time?”

  “No, we just met to talk about the investigation,” Claire said.

  Jane’s back stiffened. “Oh, that's the discussion you just said you wanted to table. What have you discovered?”

  “Not very much. I gather that Zambuco is investigating, and by now everyone likely knows that the victim was Elbert and that this is not a three-hundred-year-old murder we’re dealing with.” Claire had heard the snatches of conversation from the other diners. It was clear the Mooseamuck Island grapevine was working overtime.

  “And do you have a clue as to who did it?” Jane asked.

  “Not really. We don’t have any motive yet,” Dom said.

  Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Well, he must have been killed because of the treasure. Don’t you think?”

  Claire shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.” She slid her eyes over to Jane. Was Jane unusually interested in the murder, or was it her imagination? Maybe she was scouting out clues for Zambuco.

  “So tell us, how did you know Elbert?” Dom asked.

  “I told you, I didn’t really know him. My dad knew him. He used to come to the house with Bill Wilkinson and drink beer with my dad.”

  “And what did they talk about? Treasure hunting?”

  “No, it was always boring grown-up stuff. I eavesdropped once, and it was all about collectables. My dad had a big baseball card collection, and I guess maybe the other guys collected stuff, too. It was boring, so I didn’t pay much attention to them.”

  Sarah came to the table, and Jane put in her order just as the other Mooseamuck Island breakfast regulars filed in the door. Claire settled back in her chair, giving Sarah her own order for oatmeal with cranberries.

  Across from her, Dom was looking at Jane and smoothing his eyebrow. Had he noticed that Jane seemed overly interested, too? Jane’s interest probably meant nothing. Heck, if the snippets of conversation she’d been overhearing in the diner behind her were any indication, most of the island seemed overly interested in who killed Elbert.

  But Jane had brought up one good point about motive. If Elbert had been killed because someone didn’t want to share the treasure that had been in the chest, then where, exactly, was the treasure now?

  8

  Dom’s first thought when he saw the lavish brick-and-concrete building of Greenbriar Manor was that it must cost an arm and a leg to live there. He knew little about the exclusive assisted-living facility except that it was fairly new and offered residents highly skilled medical care, gourmet meals, and the option to roam in and out of the facility as they pleased.
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br />   Dom and Claire had taken the ferry over using Claire’s Fiat because it was small and easy to maneuver on the boat. As she pulled into the parking spot, Dom took note of the fine details of the building. Fancy brickwork over the doors and windows, carved moldings along the edge of the roof, and meticulously groomed gardens told him that this was no run-of-the-mill operation. A large covered portico offered a safe place to offload passengers, and the lobby looked to be finely outfitted with upscale furnishings.

  “Isn’t this where Jane has her mother? Must be quite expensive,” Dom said.

  “Yes, Lila is here. I’d like to stop in and say hi while we are here, if you don’t mind.” Claire pocketed her key and glanced at the large building. “I know Jane wanted her mom to have the best care, and this is the best around, but honestly I don’t know how Jane can afford it. Maybe her mother had money stashed away.”

  Dom couldn’t remember a time when Jane wasn’t worried about money … at least until about a year ago. That was when she started showing up with new outfits and the new car. He didn’t think her mother had any either. Had she come into money? If she had, wouldn’t she have told Claire?

  Thoughts of the empty treasure chest and the unusual way Jane had been acting drifted through his mind, but he quickly dismissed his suspicions. How could Jane’s sudden increase in wealth possibly have anything to do with a treasure that was unearthed sixty years ago?

  “I wonder what was actually in the treasure chest. I mean before Elbert,” Claire said as if echoing his thoughts.

  “It could have been filled with gold or pirate plunder, or it could have been empty. We don’t know if the treasure was the motive for Elbert’s death, but I do think we should research any newfound wealth that might’ve come to someone on the island during that time.” Dom opened the car door and got out, stretching his back as he did.

  “Do you think there could have been enough in there to make the killer wealthy?” Claire asked over the top of the Fiat.

  “We can’t say for sure, but it’s definitely a stone we should not leave unturned.”