“I’d never do that. Well, maybe with you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Are you serious? I’ve fallen in love with a surfer dude who has a penchant for cat burglary. How often does that happen? My cop background is shrieking. Plus, at some point, you still have to meet my dad. That’ll be a red-letter day I’m sure.”
He draped an arm over her shoulder as they walked out of the stuffy office and toward the SUV. “Relax. Look at this as an adventure, daring escapades on the horizon. It’s bound to provide us with countless stories, something exceptional to tell our grandchildren.”
“Bedtime stories about your criminal activities hardly seem appropriate to share with little kids.”
“Ah, but I’ve a pirate’s blood in me. And so will they. Better get used to it, darlin’. Having me in your life, you’re in for a wild ride.”
Their journey took them north into a serene setting with towering mangrove trees that grew alongside bald cypress. Vines of Spanish moss dangled from the branches of southern oak like a wooly necklace reaching for the ground.
The dense woodland came alive with egrets and blue heron, ducklings, and colorful peacocks. The wildlife nestled among the roots living happily beside fat-bodied sea bass and stone crab. The scene was a sight to behold.
Anniston took out her camera. “It’s beautiful out here if you discount the gators and water moccasins.”
Garret heard the plop of a slithering cottonmouth rolling off the bank and into the murky pond that held a slick coating of green on top. “Just watch where you step. I can deal with the snakes and gators, it’s the two-legged variety we came out here to find that worries me.”
“Then for God’s sakes why are we out here? I don’t think I’m dressed for a trek through pond scum. I can’t even tell what’s lurking on the bottom.”
“It’s okay by me if you want to go back to the car.”
“And leave you out here with no backup? Uh-uh. No way.”
He smiled and took out the GPS he’d brought, jabbed in a few coordinates. “From here, we want to go due east.”
Anniston studied what that meant and saw nothing but tangled vines and underbrush ahead of them. “That’s what I was afraid of. Where’d you get the readings for a coordinate anyway?”
“Off the tax card with the description of Eisenbart’s property. I improvised some, so we’ll see where it takes us. We’ll try to avoid as much of the water as possible and stick to the soppy shoreline.”
“That makes me feel a lot better. Not.”
But she followed him along the bank as he charted a path into what she determined as daunting territory. She snapped a photo of two muskrats fighting over a scrawny cattail. She came across a nest of eggs from an unknown species of waterfowl and captured the moment to send to her mother.
They spent another hour going back further into the woods. To Anniston’s surprise they came to a clearing, a glade-like field with a structure built next to a crop of paper birch, nothing more than a lean-to really.
“I thought the shack would be long gone by now.”
“Oh, come on, that can’t be the same one.”
Before Garret could dispute that, a man appeared carrying a twelve-gauge shotgun. He had long, straggly gray hair and a beard, and wore a pair of dirty overalls over a yellowish T-shirt.
“Whaddya doin’ out here? Whaddya want? This is my place.”
Garret held up his hands. He quickly introduced himself, hoping that would make a difference, and started talking fast. “We’re looking for a man who used to live around here a long time ago, a man by the name of Chester Eisenbart.”
“He in trouble?”
“No, sir. He’s probably been dead for quite some time. We just want to talk to anyone who might have lived in the area and might have known his people.”
“Name’s Payne Wilkes.”
Garret was glad to see Payne lower the shotgun, glad to see a woman emerge from the hut behind him.
“Payne, what you doin’ out here? Who you talkin’ to? Who are these folks?”
“This is my wife Seely. We’ve been in these parts some forty years now. Seely’s great uncle used to talk about the man named Eisenbart, lived over yonder ’cross the bog, buried there now.”
“When did he die?”
Payne deliberated several long seconds before deciding to answer. “We’ll tell you what we know for a price.”
Garret wasn’t sure what he had to offer in trade except the cash he had on him. “What were you thinking?”
“Got twenty bucks on you?”
“I think I can manage that.”
“Then come on in. We ain’t got much but you’re welcome to sit down for a chat.”
Three hours later, near dark, they were grateful when Payne led them out of the swamp and back to their car. They’d learned from Seely that Chester Eisenbart had been a rugged pioneer kind of guy, who’d carved out a life in the severe living conditions that made up the everglades.
Battling gators and poisonous snakes, he’d settled here with a heavy German accent for a reason known only to him. For years, he managed to live off whatever the land provided. He ate what he could wrestle from a trap, shot the small game that came and went, or netted shrimp and crayfish for his supper.
The sandy soil gave him a place to grow vegetables that he could trade for commodities like kerosene, sugar cane, tobacco, flour, tools, local moonshine—if he didn’t make his own—and clothing or boots.
Seely swore Chester mainly kept to himself with one exception. Late in his life, he’d met up with a woman and brought her back to his land. Seely had no idea where the woman came from. But sometime later, she gave birth to Chester’s son before succumbing to the complications she’d suffered from childbirth.
Chester had named the boy Jessup.
Chapter Nineteen - Justice
“You should’ve seen this place, Lenore,” Anniston said, standing in the kitchen watching Garret’s mother remove a batch of sugar cookies from the oven in various shapes of ghosts and goblins. “It was rugged, rustic, a whole lot unnerving, a bit scary, right in line with a set designed for Halloween, but beautiful. And Payne and Seely were so…helpful, even welcoming. I couldn’t believe Garret got them to talk.”
Garret rolled his eyes. “Yeah, after I handed over twenty bucks they were a lot friendlier.”
She swatted his shoulder. “You got information out of them, didn’t you?”
“We got a story, I’m not sure what it means yet.”
Mitch eyed the cookies with open interest. He finally walked over and tried to pick up a couple from the hot pan.
Lenore slapped his hands away. “Those are for tomorrow night’s trick-or-treaters. The girls said they’d decorate them for me to hand out.” Her eyes formed tears. “I’ll miss my grandbabies coming over in their costumes this year.”
Raine patted her arm. “I know it won’t be the same but I think it’s time we threw together a party, just for that reason. Livvy would want us to.”
“A cookie decorating party,” Tessa volunteered.
“I haven’t decorated cookies since high school but I’m willing to give it a shot,” Anniston echoed.
“I think we can do better than a cookie party,” Raine pointed out.
“So let me get this straight. I have to wait until tomorrow night to get a cookie?” Mitch bemoaned. “Why? They’re right here now.”
“If you’re hungry, go for the peach cobbler cooling right there on the counter,” Lenore pointed out, wiping her eyes.
Mitch changed direction with a purpose, cut a chunk out of one of the corners, and scooped it into a bowl. He waited for the crust to cool down enough to nibble a bite. “You think it’s a coincidence Eisenbart’s son was named Jessup?”
“No, I don’t,” Garret fired back. “I’ve been trying to come up with a connection to the area. Born out there in Lost Gator Swamp might be it, and one reason he’d come back, looking to settle h
ere, with the purpose of running the town like Wyatt Earp.”
Jackson came in, headed straight for the pie. “While you were out combing the swamp, Sinclair beat it out of town. That’s the rumor I got straight from Harley Dunlap.”
“Not for long,” Mitch assured him. “Sinclair won’t stray too far from that gold. Trust me. He’s put in too much time stewing over it to leave it in the dust. And if Garret’s right about the connection to Eisenbart, then he has to believe he’s entitled to the treasure through a legacy of some kind. He’ll be back as soon as someone else finds it. But it won’t be Duarte.”
Raine rested her chin on her fist. “They’re all such greedy bastards, the lure of the gold is all we need.”
“Exactly.”
“Has the professor made any headway with his algorithms?” Raine asked.
“Been locked in Jackson’s old room all day long,” Lenore offered. “Hasn’t come out for food or to restock his Diet Coke stash.”
Tanner hurried through the back door like he had news. “Saw Boone Dandridge eating his lunch at the sandwich shop. Looked drunker than Cooter Brown. For a guy who always swore up and down he was a teetotaler, he looked more like a lush today to me. I think he’s losing it, right along with Carson Frawley. Rumor has it the doughnut shop didn’t even bother opening up this morning.”
Anniston held up her phone. “Sebastian says the state police will be here tomorrow.”
Mitch made a derisive noise in his throat. “A little late, don’t you think? Who’s left to arrest? Oakerson’s body hasn’t turned up yet and probably won’t. We have Wendy on ice. Sinclair’s flown the coop. And for all we know, doughboy went with him. If you think Dandridge and Baskin plan to hang around until Briggs swings through town, you’re crazy.”
Garret took his turn at the pie. “I’m not upset about that. I always liked the idea of taking down their house of cards on our own, without the benefit of having cops around to mess things up. If Briggs is late to the game, then I guess that means it’s still up to us.”
Making herself to home, Anniston got a fork out of the drawer, used it to nibble on the cobbler right from the pan. “You’ll be glad to know Briggs is bringing a forensic team with him.”
That had Mitch’s eyebrows arching up with interest. “I wouldn’t mind being there for that.”
Off to the side of the kitchen the bedroom door swung open. Hollings emerged with a wide smile on his face and excitement in his voice. “Get everyone in the dining room. I’ve cracked the code. The printer’s humming away now. Give me half an hour and I’ll be handing out the outline for you to follow.”
True to his word, forty-five minutes went by before Hollings appeared at the head of the table, papers stapled together, packets ready to be passed around.
Hollings cleared his throat. “I translated this word for word. If you start with the first page, some of you may find Captain Mühlhauser’s very detailed descriptions rambling and boring. But I find them fascinating and can picture it all in my head like a movie. Even if you’re tempted to skip that part, I don’t recommend it because it makes for an excellent reference point. I think you’ll find some surprising information in here about what was going on at the end of the war. Not just greed and self-preservation but a top secret mission that’s, so far, been lost to history all these years. This log brings it all out into the light and let’s us get a glimpse firsthand into the mindset of those who undertook this assignment.”
Mitch read the first few paragraphs of the handout. It read like an annoyed first person narrative from an old sea captain. “So the diary begins with Mühlhauser standing on the dock waiting impatiently for his orders to come down from on high. He writes that it’s overcast and bitter cold.”
“A typical wintry day with the wind blowing out of the north and snow beginning to fall,” Raine provided. “For a U-boat captain he uses a lot of flowery words. Sounds like he might fancy himself a writer.”
Hollings bobbed his head. “While deciphering all this, I got the sense, and hopefully you will too, that Klaus leaned toward the dramatic, had a flair for setting the scene, which in a way is good for us. So with that in mind, shall we travel back in time to Flensburg to try and get a better understanding of how this all started.”
“And what went wrong,” Mitch reminded.
“Maybe discover the identity of those Nazi sympathizers,” Raine added. “Did we have Eisenbart spies living in Lost Gator Swamp?”
“And did they have ties to Jessup Sinclair?”
Chapter Twenty - Justice
Flensburg, Germany
Second week of December, 1944
Klaus Mühlhauser stood on the deck of U-492, taking in the other boats in the fleet awaiting their orders just as he was. He’d spent the last eight months convinced the war was lost. In his mind any man with common sense who couldn’t see the end coming was either in denial or delusional. His beloved Germany was on the brink of crumbling.
Even as he looked out over the harbor, the Red Army was poised to move through a side door operation in Hungary and Yugoslavia, outflanking and crushing the German infantry. It was only a matter of time before the Eastern and Western Fronts buckled. Klaus would rather surrender to the Americans any day than see the Soviets rolling into Berlin. That scene would no doubt become a blood bath.
He was glad he wouldn’t be here to see it.
From the beginning U-492 had been his sub. He’d taken command after a handful of top officials decided to list the boat as scrubbed, removing it from the rolls of all active-duty navy ships. It had been a lie. The subterfuge existed for the sole propose of using 492 to run long-range covert missions, earmarked to make secret trips to Penang, Malaysia, or to Mexico’s Pacific coast.
Only a handful of the inner circle knew its real purpose—to drop off high-ranking officials escaping the end of the war and the crimes they’d committed. That part had come down straight from the top. The Führer needed backup plans in place and 492 was just one of many.
But for others who wanted out of the country and had the cash reserves to get it done, Klaus had seen an opportunity. So he decided he’d fatten his bank account on the side and began his own smuggling operation. His superiors didn’t need to know everything. He’d build up his wealth, add to his retirement for those days when he’d settle down in that small village in Argentina known as Bariloche.
But first he had to get there.
He knew this would be his last mission. He’d devised a plan to get away for good.
Each time Klaus left port, he carried enough gold to pay off governments or anyone else along the way who needed incentive to turn a blind eye.
But on this particular day, he paced back and forth the length of the deck, chain-smoking, waiting nervously for his orders to arrive, wondering what was taking so long.
Even though the temperature hovered around twenty degrees and he wore ample layers under his coat, his forehead beaded with sweat. His hands were clammy. A couple of times he felt like he’d soiled himself. Half-scared the Gestapo had somehow gotten wind of his side business, he was terrified they’d show up before he could make his way out of port. If they did, he’d never see a firing squad. They’d take out their Luger pistols, then and there, and that would be it. Having a brother in the SS wouldn’t protect him from the fanatics of Hitler’s inner circle. Walter had warned him to be careful. But then Walter and his boys were already tucked away in a little village out of harm’s way.
Which is why Klaus remained worried. Until he was away from Germany’s coastline, he didn’t feel safe.
His eyes darted from one end of the docks to the other, eager to leave. All he wanted now was to get his orders in hand, play out the act for a little while longer, and then get underway, hoping like hell he could disappear. If he could just make it to the middle of the Atlantic he would call in an SOS and then go silent, hopeful the brass would consider it just another U-boat lost at sea to enemy fire, just another unlucky crew going down
for the Führer’s cause.
He spotted a pair of German soldiers getting out of a black Mercedes Pullman. They carried their gear, a couple of suitcases. One had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder.
On approach, both men stuck out their right arms in a salute.
“Sieg heil.”
“Sieg heil,” Klaus returned.
The younger soldier dug in the satchel he hefted and pulled out a package, handed it off. “Vom Führer, streng geheim. Öffnen Sie nicht , bis Sie auf das offene Meer zu bekommen.”
Klaus frowned. He hadn’t counted on any top secret instructions, let alone coming from the Führer himself. If he couldn’t open the package until he’d been at sea for several days this could potentially be a disaster. How was he supposed to adjust his plan accordingly with these two outsiders joining his crew at the last minute? He had business to conduct that didn’t include having a couple of strangers on board.
“Prepare to get underway,” Klaus shouted an order to his second in command, Lieutenant Piers Zander. “All engines ahead.”
Plotting his course out of the Flensburg Fjord was usually a piece of cake. He’d made this run enough times he could do so in his sleep. So when his wachoffizier or watch officer told him they had an escort, it got his attention.
Klaus looked over and saw two patrol boats ushering them through the straits between Sweden and Denmark. At the sound of aircraft overhead, he took out his field glasses and spotted two Luftwaffe night fighters. Their presence indicated this mission was a high priority for someone.
As the boat moved through the channel, his mind fretted over the situation he found himself in. He’d arranged a meeting with a Swedish fishing boat fifty miles off the coast of Denmark to take on eight Nazi officers, including several of their wives, or mistresses, and four children under the age of twelve. He’d already collected a portion of his fee. Since it amounted to a pouch of stolen gems and several thousand gold coins, Klaus wasn’t about to renege on the deal now.
The Indigo Brothers Trilogy Boxed Set Page 84