Paper Treasure

by Anne Stephenson

  “Mrs. Lovell, is that your cat?”

  “What, dear? Oh yes, that’s Benjamin Bunny.”

  Joey stopped fiddling with the carved elephant he’d found on the curio chest in the corner.

  “He sounds upset,” said Charlie.

  “He’s in the bathroom,” said Essie matter-of-factly.

  Lisa caught Charlie’s eye. He shrugged. Maybe the cat was toilet-trained.

  “I’ll let him out,’ said Joey, and he scooted from the room before anyone could stop him.

  Charlie was asking Essie Lovell if she could describe her visitor when Joey let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  Charlie jumped out of his chair and bounded across the room.

  Joey tore down the hallway towards him, Benjamin Bunny in hot pursuit. Foam was coming from the cat’s mouth and his grey fur was spiked with fear. Charlie lunged for the cat.

  “Don’t touch it, Charlie!” screamed Lisa. “It’s rabid!”

  Charlie stopped in his tracks and stared as the cat began to chase its tail in circles, working up a head of steam like a tiny twister.

  Lisa and Joey edged beside Charlie as they watched Benjamin Bunny wrestle his tail to the ground and lick it ferociously. The more he licked, the more he foamed. When he looked up at his audience, gobs of white frothed from the sides of his mouth and hung on his whiskers.

  “I’m getting out of here,” said Lisa.

  “Me, too,” said Joey.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Essie, coming up behind them. “Old Benjie just got a little toothpaste on his tail, didn’t you, you silly boy.” She bent down and rubbed the grey tabby behind his ear.

  “Toothpaste?” Lisa and Charlie stared at the woman and her cat. “Benjamin has toothpaste on his tail?”

  Essie got to her feet. “Mint fresh. It fell off my toothbrush and landed on his tail.”

  Charlie started to laugh. “You should be in a television commercial.”

  “Benjamin Bunny for mint fresh toothpaste,” sang Joey.

  “Twice a day keeps the cavities away,” giggled Essie.

  Lisa sighed and followed Charlie and Essie back into the parlour. Joey stayed in the hall watching Benjamin work his fur into a high sheen.

  “Can you remember anything else about this guy who came to see you?” asked Charlie.

  Essie thought for a moment. “He was about the same age as my Jamie. Jamie’s my son. He lives in Vancouver.”

  “How old is he?” asked Charlie.

  “Forty-eight this November.”

  “Do you remember how tall your visitor was?” asked Lisa.

  “About five foot, ten inches, maybe,” said Essie, “I’m not really too sure, but he did have dark hair and dark glasses.”

  “Sunglasses?”

  Essie shook her head. “The kind that change color when you go out in the sun.”

  The novelty of Benjamin and the toothpaste had worn off. Joey stood in the doorway. “Are we going soon?” he asked. “I’m hungry.”

  “In a minute,” said Charlie. He asked Essie Lovell to call them on his phone if the guy showed up at her house again.

  “You know,” she said, as she walked with them to the front door. “I can’t help feeling I’ve seen him somewhere before, but I can’t remember where.” Then she shook her head as if to clear the cobwebs from her memory. “But don’t worry,” she said brightly, “one of these days it’ll pop into my head.”

  As long as nothing dire happened in the meantime, thought Charlie. The screen door closed behind them as they stepped back into the head of high summer.

  “So what do you think?” asked Lisa.

  “I think whoever is after those shares is getting more and more aggressive.”

  They were halfway down the block when Mrs. Lovell hailed them. “Yoohoo, kids!”

  Joey scampered ahead, but Charlie and Lisa turned back. Essie Lovell was walking down her front walk. “I just remembered something. He said his name was Reid.”

  Using Weirdo’s room at the Colville Nursing Home as command central, they set out to reach all the remaining shareholders by the end of the afternoon.

  Charlie called Louis Gagnon first.

  His daughter answered. Her father was home, she said, but there was no point in talking to him. He had Alzheimer’s disease. “He doesn’t even remember me from one minute to the next,” she added.

  As far as she knew no one had come to the house.

  “Ask her if she knows where his papers are,” prompted Weirdo.

  Charlie relayed the question and listened to the answer. He turned to Weirdo. “He has boxes of old bills and things but every time anyone goes near them he gets upset.”

  “So do I,” barked Weirdo.

  Charlie asked Louis’s daughter to call if anyone named Reid appeared, then said goodbye.

  “Well now,” said Weirdo, counting off on his fingers, “Malcolm’s dead and his certificates can’t be found. Essie has hers locked up in the bank. It sounds like Louis has his. That leaves Archie and Fraser.”

  After half a dozen phone calls, they tracked down Archie Spencer. In a cemetery in Timmins. He’d been dead for six years. As for his belongings, nobody could tell them anything.

  “I think he got married after the war,” said Weirdo, “but I’m not sure. Maybe Essie knows. Give me the number for Fraser.” He picked up the phone.

  Lisa read out the number. It seemed to take forever for someone to pick up at the other end.

  The old man didn’t waste any time on small talk. “Remember that gold mine we all invested in? Yeah, that’s the one. Someone’s trying to buy up all the shares. Yeah. Uh huh. You what!” Weirdo shrieked into the phone. “You old fool! That mine’s probably worth a fortune!”

  Charlie and Lisa could hear Fraser Hamilton angrily shouting back at Weirdo from where they sat across the room.

  The old soldier’s face was mottled with rage.

  “The same to you!” he shouted and slammed down the receiver.

  He fixed a steely gaze on the two youngsters. “This means war.

  Chapter Eight

  Paper Chase

  Charlie and Lisa were rounding the corner of Rosewood on their way back from the nursing home when the police cruiser pulled up beside them.

  Sergeant Punkari leaned across the seat and rolled down the passenger window. “Get in the back,” he said to Charlie. “I want to talk to you.”

  “Who me?” Charlie’s voice cracked.

  “Yes, you. And bring your friend.”

  Charlie opened the back door of the cruiser for Lisa and then slid in beside her. He had a sinking feeling that the officer’s presence had something to do with last night.

  He reached across the seat and took Lisa’s hand. She smiled at him reassuringly.

  Sergeant Punkari put on his blinker and eased into the street “Been keeping busy?” he asked.

  “Uh huh.”

  Charlie felt his face heat up as they motored down the street towards his grandfather’s house. Coming home in a police cruiser was not going to improve his standing in the neighbourhood.

  “I see you’ve got the house up for sale,” said the policeman as he turned into the laneway.

  “The sign went up yesterday,” mumbled Charlie.

  He groaned as he caught sight of the reception committee on the front porch. His mother, Mrs. Kowalski and Lisa’s mom.

  “Don’t worry,” whispered Lisa, “we haven’t done anything wrong.”

  That depends, on what the Colville Police consider a crime, thought Charlie.

  Sergeant Punkari cut the engine and twisted sideways so he could see both Charlie and Lisa. “Someone was seen sneaking around the neighbourhood last night. I don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

  A trickle of cold sweat rolled down Charlie’s side and lodged in the waistband of his shorts.

  Sergeant Punkari continued. “The neighbours reported seeing l
ights on in this house at roughly the same time.”

  Charlie opened his mouth to reply, but he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t be an out-and-out lie. But relief was in sight. Joey was coming down the driveway on Sergeant Punkari’s blind side.

  The kid stuck his head in the window. “Hi. Did you catch the bad guy yet?”

  The police officer sighed. “We’d better get out,” he said heavily “before they all die of suspense.”

  The three women had come down the steps and were making their way towards the car.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Laura Bradford and Kathie Kirby in chorus.

  “Nothing,” Seargeant Punkari reassured them. “I was on my way over to see you folks when I saw Charlie and his friend. I gave them a lift.”

  “Can I see your handcuffs?” asked Joey.

  “Not right now, son. I want to talk to your mother.”

  While Sergeant Punkari filled her in on the latest news, he kept his eyes on Charlie Bradford, who met his gaze steadily. He knows we’re up to something, Charlie thought, but he’s not sure what.

  No one had heard anything during the night.

  Charlie waited for him to mention the lights.

  He did.

  Laura Bradford stared intently at her son. “Charlie,” she said, “is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Charlie cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “I did get up around that time. Joey came into my room. I thought he was going to be sick.”

  Laura shifted her attention to her other son. “Joey?”

  “I wasn’t sick!”

  “Then what were you doing up at that hour?”

  Joey smirked triumphantly in Charlie’s direction. Seven years old and the kid knows he has my future in his hands, thought Charlie.

  “I had a bad dream,” said Joey, his lower lip trembling. “It was all about Grampa.”

  “Oh, my poor baby, why didn’t you tell me,” cried his mother. She bent down and gave him a hug.

  “Charlie told me not to wake you up.”

  Joey looked pointedly at his older brother and uncrossed his fingers. There was nothing either Sergeant Punkari or Charlie could do. The kid was a natural.

  Sergeant Punkari swung the subject back to the original crime. “Did you ever discover anything missing from the break-in, ma’am?”

  Laura Bradford straightened up. “As a matter of fact, I did check with my lawyer and there are some papers unaccounted for, but I don’t know if they were even in the house to being with.”

  “What papers are those?”

  “Well, I’m a little embarrassed to even report it,” she said. “My father had shares in an old gold mine. They weren’t worth anything.”

  “But…” Charlie sputtered. Lisa put her hand on his arm.

  “He could have thrown them out, for all I know,” continued Laura.

  “But he didn’t!” exclaimed Mrs. Kowalski.

  Everyone turned to her in surprise.

  Red patches spread across Mrs. Kowalski’s cheeks. “A week or so before he died, Mr. Rossitor asked me to witness some documents. They were fancy-looking papers, like savings bonds or something.”

  “Did they say Treasure Creek Gold Mine on then?” demanded Charlie.

  Mrs. Kowalski dabbed at her face with a hankie. “I think so.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” said Charlie’s mother.

  “I thought you knew about them, being your father’s private papers and all,” said Mrs. Kowalski stiffly.

  Laura Bradford reached out to the older woman and apologized. “My father was in his late forties when I was born,” she smiled ruefully, “talking about money didn’t come easy.”

  Charlie willed himself to be patient. “Mrs. Kowalski,” he asked, “do you know what my grandfather did with those papers?”

  She shook her head. “He said he was going to put them in a safe place. Just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?” asked Joey excitedly.

  “He didn’t say.”

  “These certificates could be the key this whole investigation,” said Sergeant Punkari as he surveyed the people gathered around him. “Very key indeed.”

  You can say that again, thought Charlie as the sergeant’s gaze swept over him.

  “Charlie, have you seen your grandfather’s address book? I can’t find it anywhere.”

  Charlie closed the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. He’d been searching for anything even remotely connected with Treasure Creek. “He used to keep it on his desk.”

  “It’s not there,” said his mother. She frowned. “Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing it since the funeral, and that was months ago.”

  She stood with her hands on her hips while Charlie checked the cubbyholes lining the top of the desk. Nothing. He crouched down and felt around the edge of the rug to see if it had fallen underneath the desk. Nothing there either.

  “Someone must have taken it,” fumed Laura.

  Charlie popped up and slammed his head on the underside of the desk. Of course, someone must have taken it! Someone by the name of Reid!

  “Are you okay?” asked his mother.

  Charlie rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah.”

  “Why don’t we take a break, Charlie, it’s almost dinner time.” She dusted off her hands on the seat of her jeans. “Besides, even if we do find those shares, they’re probably not worth anything now.”

  “You never know,” said Charlie.

  “You’re beginning to sound like Weirdo,” griped his mother as she headed for the door. “He was always convinced that mine would make his fortune.”

  As soon as he heard his mother’s footsteps in the lower hall, Charlie picked up the desk phone and called Lisa.

  “Reid’s got Grampa’s address book,” he said when she got on the line. “It’s only a matter of time before he gets in touch with Louis Gagnon.”

  “We’d better let Mr. Weir know.”

  “Right,” answered Charlie. “I’ll come over as soon as I’ve had dinner.” He checked his watch. “About half an hour?”

  They said goodbye and hung up.

  Two seconds later the phone rang. It was his father.

  “Hey, Dad, how’re you doing?” Charlie asked. He could picture his father in the kitchen of their Toronto home, loosening his tie as he talked. It was the first thing his father did when he came in the door at night.

  “It’s stinking hot. The subway’s jammed. And the grass needs cutting.”

  “I thought Jeff was going to do it.”

  “He broke his leg Monday.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Charlie. Jeff was a couple of years ahead of him in school. He was doing lawns to save money for college. “How’d he do it?”

  “Playing soccer.”

  “Jeez. What’s he going to do all summer?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “Tell him I say hi, okay, Dad?”

  “Will do. Listen, Charlie, how are you guys getting along up there? Are you helping your mother around the house?”

  Charlie told his father he’d been helping sort out his grandfather’s things, but he skipped over most of the details from the last few days, except for Lisa. He figured if he didn’t tell him about her before somebody else did, his father would tease him.

  “Too late,” said his father, “your brother already blabbed…”

  “Figures,” muttered Charlie. “He’s driving me insane.”

  “He’s little.”

  “He’s a little pain in the….”

  “Enough,” his father cut in. “You’ll just have to deal with it. It’s not easy for your mother. She has a lot to do, and she wants to stay in Colville until the house is sold,” his father was saying.

  There was a pause on the line as they waited for one another to speak.

  “Dad,” began Charlie, “can I ask you a question?”


  “Sure, what’s on your mind?”

  “If someone had shares in a company that wasn’t making anything anymore, would they still be worth something?”

  “Depends…if the company wasn’t bankrupt, and there were still some assets, technically they should be worth something. Especially if a bigger company decided to buy them out. Why, what’s your interest in all this?”

  “Just curious,” said Charlie.

  “Right.”

  “Do you want to talk to Mom?” asked Charlie.

  “Yeah, put her on,” said his father. “You can tell me what this all about on the weekend.”

  Charlie cupped the receiver and hollered for his mother to get on the line. Then he washed up for dinner and went downstairs.

  Joey waited until he’d finished his lasagne before cashing in.

  “Charlie’s taking me out for ice cream,” he announced.

  “He is?” His mother looked at her older son suspiciously.

  “I am? I mean, of course, I am,” said Charlie firmly. “A double scoop at Zimmer’s, right, Joey?” Charlie hoofed his brother under the table.

  “Actually,” Joey replied, “I was thinking more like a double fudge sundae,” he said, “with whipped cream and peanuts.”

  Someday he’s going to go too far, fumed Charlie as he carried his dishes to the sink.

  The girl working behind the counter at Zimmer’s Ice Cream Parlour had more flavours on her uniform than they had listed on the sign. She handed Joey his fourth taster of ice cream, peanut butter brickle.

  “That’s the last one,” said Charlie. “You’ve got to make up your mind.”

  Joey turned the pink plastic spoon upside down on his tongue and sucked it clean. “Oh, I know what I’m having,” he said. “A chocolate fudge sundae. With whipped cream and peanuts,” he added.

  The girl exchanged a glance with Charlie and Lisa as she grabbed a sundae cup. “Will that be for here or to take out?”

  “Let’s take it out,” suggested Lisa. “We can walk down to the beach.”

  “Good idea.”

  He and Lisa each got a cone and sauntered contentedly down the block towards the park and public beach. It had cooled down considerably since they’d been there earlier in the afternoon.