A Treasure to Die For

by Richard Houston

  I’ll bet it was all the waitress could do to not laugh in his face. Even I knew the suspenders were probably because there wasn’t a belt made that could fit his waist.

  “So tell me, Paul, what’s in the backpack anyway?” I asked after the waitress left.

  He looked around at the other tables before answering. “I like the way you come right to the point, Jake. As a writer, I do have a tendency to beat around the bush.”

  “And?” I wanted to say something about how good writers didn’t use clichés, but let it go.

  Wilson removed his glasses and looked directly at me. “First you have to promise that whatever I tell you stays in this room.”

  “Seems I’ve heard that one before. Have you been to Vegas lately?”

  He didn’t get my joke, and continued staring at me without blinking.

  “Mum’s the word, scout’s honor, and all that. Now, you want to tell me what’s in that backpack that has you so riled up?”

  He smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile, but one I’d expect Freddie Krueger to flash at me just before he slashed my throat. “Okay, I wasn’t completely honest when I told you I made up the story of lost treasure. And if my guess is right those kids beat me to it.”

  “Are you telling me there’s gold in that backpack?”

  “Worth at least a hundred grand, maybe more depending on the condition and rarity of the coins,” he answered quickly. His voice was so low, I could barely hear him over the background noise of the restaurant.

  I whistled, causing several people to look up from their meal. “But if they did find the treasure, I fail to see how their parents can sue you.”

  Wilson leaned in closer, I assumed to keep anyone else from hearing, “I also didn’t tell you someone broke into my place just before the kids went missing, and stole all my notes.”

  His breath smelled of cigarettes, so I scooted back from the table before speaking. “You didn’t have copies or a backup?”

  He seemed to forget our audience and raised his voice. “They got that, too. They took my flash drive with all my notes, but that’s not the point. With my notes and the right copy of Tom Sawyer, they had everything they needed to find the treasure.”

  “So you didn’t decode the riddle then.”

  He looked annoyed. “Of course not. Why else would I be searching for copies of the book?”

  I thought about asking him if his notes were printed on a dot-matrix printer, but let it go. There was no sense letting him know I had found his notes at Appleton’s. “So those kids had the key-copy of Tom Sawyer after all, and once they stole your notes, all they had to do was go up to Mosquito Pass and retrieve the gold.”

  “You catch on quick, Jake, but I couldn’t care less about the coins. It’s my notes that will hang me. If the parents discover it was because of me that those two fell to their deaths, I could lose everything. If you get my notes back, you can keep the coins.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that? The only suspect I can think of claims he traded off his car last week. I have no idea where to look, even if I wanted to.”

  Wilson gave me his Freddie Kruger smile again. “Oh, I think you will want to find it. The book the kids used to crack the code was yours.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He held his index finger to his lips. “Hold it down, please.”

  I took a deep breath, and subconsciously began counting to ten, but only got to eight before he interrupted. “I’m not at liberty to say, but my source told me the kids got the book from Appleton.”

  “It would help me believe you if I knew who your source is,” I said, while staring him in the eyes, knowing if he was lying he would turn away. He didn’t.

  “A little birdie told me, Jake.” The smile was back. “And finding it won’t be hard at all. That same birdie tells me your buddy, Craig Renfield, has it. He didn’t trade off the Toyota until after he took the backpack.”

  He stopped talking when the waitress returned with our drinks. It was all the time I needed to end the meeting before I lost it.

  “Could you put my meal in a doggy bag, miss?” I asked the waitress. I knew Wilson had lied about talking to Craig at the book signing, because Craig had left before Wilson could speak to him. He also lied about the coins, for he said it was gold ore at the signing. But something told me he wasn’t lying about Julie’s book, which made me want to grab him by the throat and make him tell the truth.

  Wilson waited once again for the waitress to leave before continuing. “Is that a no, Jake? Are you really going to pass on the chance of making a hundred grand for a few minutes work?”

  “No, Paul, I’ll get the backpack, and it’s not because of the coins, if they exist.”

  Fred would have to eat dog food tonight; I didn’t wait for my calzone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I spent the next two days trying to finish my latest eBook. I was stuck after finishing the chapter on proper attic ventilation. Long before computers and word processors, writers in my situation would succumb to almost anything to avoid writing. Pencil sharpening was probably the most common, so I performed the modern ritual of that task by convincing myself I was researching when in fact I was only wasting time on social media, and taking long walks with Fred. The problem of how to find the backpack never left my subconscious. By Saturday, Bonnie was ready to come home.

  “If she wasn’t my twin sister, I’d swear I had been adopted,” Bonnie said as I turned onto Sixth Avenue heading for the hills. She had been complaining, ever since Fred and I picked her up, about how Margot had treated her. At least I didn’t have to stop to pick up the treadmill, because they had called her earlier to say it was on back order.

  She just finished telling me she hadn’t had a cigarette in a week when she noticed me rubbing my upper arm. “Something wrong, Jake? I’ve noticed you have a terrible look on your face every time you touch that arm.”

  “Just a little bruise. I’m sure it’s nothing compared to the way Fred must be feeling.”

  “Fred? What’s wrong with Fred?” she asked, turning to look at him.

  “Someone sprayed him with pepper spray.”

  Her mouth opened wider than any dentist could hope for. “Pepper spray! Why would someone do that?”

  I proceeded to tell her about our little trip back to Mosquito Pass from the time Wilson gave me the five hundred dollar retainer up to when I woke up with Fred licking my face, and the orange stain on his neck.

  “Oh you poor boy, Freddie,” she said, petting him on the head. Then, turning to me, she asked. “Is he okay?”

  “Yeah, he’s fine now. I gave him a good scrubbing when we got home. I think the bath hurt him more than the spray. You would think a water-dog would love it, but I swear he thought I was punishing him.”

  She cut in when I stopped talking long enough to concentrate on merging onto I-70. “Who could have done such a thing?”

  “The only one I can think of is Craig Renfield, but then, it’s not his style. He’s more of the ‘shoot them with a real gun’ person.”

  Bonnie turned around to face Fred. “I wish you could talk, Freddie, and tell Aunt Bonnie who did that to you. I’d beat them up for you.”

  “He’s not telling, Bon, and you’re in no shape to be beating up anyone. Didn’t your doctor’s say to get some rest?”

  “Can you believe those jerks? Lay off the booze, no smoking and walk on the stupid treadmill twice a day. I might as well be dead.”

  ***

  We drove another five or ten minutes in silence. Fred had lain back down on the rear seat, and Bonnie was now staring out her window at the traffic on US 40, which ran adjacent to the freeway. My mind was still trying to answer her first question of who could have sprayed Fred. “It was either a woman or someone afraid of dogs, or maybe both.”

  It was enough to break her trance, and she turned from her window. “Why would you make a remark like that? I’ve never known you to be sexist.”

&nbs
p; “I’m not bashing women, Bonnie. In fact, I had ruled out a woman because of how the backpack was torn from my arm, but then that would be sexist, wouldn’t it? I’m trying to think of who would be the most likely to carry pepper spray.”

  She didn’t look angry, just curious, with her right brow raised half an inch higher than the left. “And a guy is too macho to carry pepper spray? You men, you’re all the same.”

  “Sorry, Bon. I guess it could have been a man, maybe a mailman. I mean, who else would have one of those things?”

  “Joggers, hikers, and even cops carry them.”

  It was my turn to stare in awe. “Cops?”

  “You should watch the show sometime. You might learn something.”

  It took a second to realize she was referring to the TV show called Cops. “I better get you home, muy pronto. The lack of booze is making you meaner than a pit bull.”

  Her smirk disappeared into a frown. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Jake, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’m so used to fighting with Margot. Please forgive me.”

  “I’m the one who should be sorry, Bon. It was foolish of me to think only a woman would carry pepper spray.”

  She smiled, and turned back to her window. “I wonder what’s in the backpack.”

  “Wilson claims there’s over a hundred thousand in gold coins and Julie’s book. Says he doesn’t care about the money and I can have it. He just wants his notes back so the kids’ parents don’t sue him.”

  “What?” she asked, no longer looking out at the distant mountains

  “That’s what he said. He didn’t mention the book until he saw that the coins were the wrong bait to make me bite.”

  I could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “A hundred thousand? You could pay off your mortgage with that much, Jake.”

  “More like buy a cup of coffee with a dollar and what’s in that backpack. Just how dumb does this guy think I am? At the book signing, he said it was gold ore. Remember the discourse with Cory?”

  The wheels stopped turning, and she simply stared at me.

  “He’s lying, Bon. He also lied to me about talking to Craig, and I’m not buying his excuse for being at Appleton’s. Besides, I don’t have the foggiest idea who took the backpack or where to find it.”

  “Why do you say that, Jake?”

  “Say which, that he’s lying, or where to find the backpack?”

  “The part about him talking to Craig Renfield, silly.”

  “He claims to have told Craig he would pay dearly for his copy of Tom Sawyer if he got it back, he supposedly said this at the signing.”

  Bonnie stared at me blankly.

  “Two things wrong with that, Bon. First Craig left the signing before Wilson could talk to him, and secondly, Shelia’s copy hadn’t been stolen yet.”

  She thought about it for a moment then shook her head in agreement. “He must be lying about the book, too. I mean how would he know it was in the backpack?”

  “A little birdie told him.”

  Bonnie nearly snorted, the kind of snort that would spray someone if she had been drinking anything. “You’re kidding. He said that?”

  “The little birdie told him Craig Renfield has the backpack, and he wanted me to go after it.”

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  We drove in silence for another fifteen minutes before she spoke again. She was staring out her window again, looking up at Mother Cabrini’s statue as I passed it. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, you know.”

  “And after that is Monday, then Tuesday.”

  She ignored my smart-aleck response. “You promised you would go to church with me. So will you?”

  “I’d love to, Bon, but I can’t leave Fred alone so soon after being pepper sprayed.”

  Wilson might have lied to me, but he was in good company. I hadn’t told Bonnie the whole truth. I had led her to believe I wasn’t going after the backpack, for fear she would insist on going with me. Then, maybe I should have told her because now I didn’t have a good excuse to skip out on the church service I had promised to attend.

  “Not a problem, Jake. Bring him with you. Our pastor loves dogs as long as they are behaved and I will vouch for Freddie any day.”

  ***

  The service was interesting to say the least. I had been raised Catholic, so I wasn’t prepared for a sermon where every other sentence started or ended in a Bible quote. I felt like a student who needed to write down all the biblical references so I’d be prepared for a pop quiz. I did, however, love the songs they sang and tried in vain to follow along.

  They had a little potluck afterwards. I didn’t want to stay because I hadn’t brought a dish, but Bonnie insisted she’d brought enough for us both. We were in the food line when the gray-haired lady from the book store approached.

  “Patty, you remember Jake, don’t you?” Bonnie asked her friend.

  I was holding Fred by the collar with one hand and a plate in the other. “Stay,” I said, letting Fred go so I could shake Patty’s outstretched hand.

  “And this must be Fred,” she said, reaching out to shake his paw.

  The show off smiled and raised his paw.

  “He sure is well behaved. Is he a Golden?”

  “I think so.” I wondered if now would be a good time to ask her if she’d planted the nail file. “He was a present for my daughter on her tenth birthday. I got him from a shelter when he was just a puppy, so we don’t have papers to know for sure.”

  Patty was barely five feet tall and didn’t have to bend down to pat Fred on the head. “Well, he could be the poster boy for Golden magazine, if you ask me. Couldn’t you, boy?”

  Fred didn’t take his eyes off the sandwich Patty was holding in her other hand. The beggar probably thought she would give it to him if he pretended to be good.

  “He’s quite the watch dog, too,” Bonnie said while we made our way to a nearby table. “You should have seen him chase away the burglar who broke into Jake’s house.” She sounded like a proud grandmother talking about her grandchild.

  “And the day that woman broke into your place, Bon.” As badly as I wanted to, I didn’t mention it was a gray-haired woman.

  “Someone broke into your house? What did they take?” Patty’s surprise looked genuine enough to make me realize I might be wrong about her.

  “That’s the weird thing. They didn’t take anything,” I answered without adding the part of the burglar planting evidence to harm Bonnie.

  Patty raised her left eyebrow. “A burglar who doesn’t steal? That is strange. It reminds me of a story by Lawrence Block where his burglar planted evidence after finding a corpse in the bathroom. You didn’t have any dead bodies lying around, did you, Bonnie?”

  She had just taken a bite of potato salad, so I answered for her. “The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams.”

  Bonnie looked annoyed. “No, and I’m not a Block fan either. He’s a little too graphic for my tastes.”

  It was my turn to eat and listen, but not before sharing my sandwich with Fred.

  Patty smiled. “My all-time favorite has to be Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.”She had that far-away look in her eyes, like Julie used to have when I knew her mind was somewhere else. “I think she was the first to use a fake murder. At least, the first I’ve ever read.”

  “A fake murder?” Bonnie asked.

  “Oh, yes. It was so clever. The murderer pretended to be the first to go. Then he proceeded to kill everyone, one by one, until there were none.”

  Patty’s phone went off just as I started to say something. “Yes, I’ll be right out,” she said to whoever was on the other end.

  “I do have to get going, Bonnie,” she said after disconnecting. “My ride is outside waiting.” Then, turning to me she said, “It’s been a pleasure meeting you again, Jake. I hope to see you and Fred next week.”

  ***

  “What was that all about?” Bonnie asked after Patty left. “You practically accused her o
f breaking into my home. I hope she doesn’t think I put you up to it.”

  “Sorry, Bon, It’s just that she looks so much like the woman I saw. If only we had the camcorder.”

  “Forget the camcorder, I know who did it.” Bonnie had a grin on her face that stretched from ear to ear.

  “Oh? And who could that be?”

  The twinkle in her eyes made her look ten years old. “Shelia, of course. You know, and then there were none.”

  I didn’t act surprised at her answer, for the same thought had crossed my mind. “I suppose Shelia could have faked her own murder—it wouldn’t be the first time that old trick’s been tried. But what is the motive? And more importantly, if the corpse isn’t Shelia, who is it?”

  “I haven’t a clue. Maybe some tart she caught him with,” she answered, staring into space. “Or maybe some homeless soul they picked up on Colfax. Yes, that makes more sense.”

  Bonnie was getting too excited. I had to think of a way to calm her down quickly before she had another heart attack. “Let’s go over to the Little Bear, Bon. I’ll buy you a drink and we can think this through.”

  Fred decided to add his two-cents before Bonnie could answer, and barked. Bonnie reached down to pet him. “Of course you don’t want to sit out in a hot car, Freddie. What is your master thinking?”

  “Okay, Bon, that was a bad idea,” I said before looking at Fred and adding, “Traitor.”

  ***

  “That would explain the person I saw sneaking around in Renfield’s kitchen,” I said once we were back at Bonnie’s house, and sitting out on her deck. “It could very well have been Shelia trying to hear what I had to say.”

  Bonnie had mellowed out after her second glass of bourbon and was no longer acting like a schoolgirl. “And I’ll bet she was the one who broke into my house and planted the evidence to frame me.”

  I picked off a piece of meat from the chicken wing I was eating and threw it to Fred who wasn’t going to leave me alone until he got his share. Bonnie had insisted on fixing us something to eat even though I was still stuffed from the church potluck. “I suppose she could have been wearing a wig, but I really don’t think so. The person I saw was much shorter.”