Who Killed Darius Drake?

by Rodman Philbrick

  “My grandfather says that you used your influence to make sure he got the maximum sentence.”

  Jones shakes his head sorrowfully. “That never happened. Not at all. Of course I had to look out for my own investors, but I’m not a vindictive man.”

  “Why should I believe you instead of him?”

  “Well, for starters, because I’m not a criminal. I don’t have a history of defrauding people. And upset as I was to be swindled out of so much money, I’d never do anything so cruel. It’s just not me.” He pauses to carefully clean his sunglasses, as if taking the time to gather his thoughts. “I’ve no idea what Winston Brooks truly believes or doesn’t believe. Maybe he has convinced himself that I’m the cause of all his problems. Maybe he’s so overcome by guilt that he can no longer see reality.”

  “Reality?”

  Jones nods solemnly. “Guilt not just for his crime, but for all that flowed from it. If he hadn’t defrauded his investors, your parents wouldn’t have driven out on a rainy night to plead his case.”

  “So it was his fault my parents were killed?”

  “Sadly, it was. I’m sorry, Darius, but your grandfather’s obsession with the Dunbar diamonds led him to break the law. Maybe he didn’t intend that others would be hurt as a consequence of his lies and deceptions, but they were. It must prey heavily on his mind. That would explain him being so … disturbed. He can’t face the truth, so he blames me.”

  “But why would he believe that you could be a danger to me?”

  Jones looks baffled. “I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s ridiculous, of course. As I say, I remember you as a toddler. Cute little guy. Your hair was red even then, as I recall. Why would I wish you harm?”

  “What if I found the Dunbar diamonds? Would you wish me harm then?”

  Mr. Jones is obviously starting to lose his patience, and his smile fades. “No, of course not. Why should I? Why, have you located the diamonds?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Not yet. I see. You think you can succeed where a hundred grown men and women have failed? Well, who knows? You’re supposed to be a very clever boy, maybe you can. But if you do, the real danger may lie with your grandfather. Not him personally—I mean some of the criminals he befriended in prison.”

  “Who do you mean?” Darius says, stirring uneasily.

  “The big man from the Stompanado projects.” Jones touches the right side of his face. “The one they call Scar Man?”

  “What about him?”

  “Darius, please listen to me. Stay away from him. He’s a violent felon. The kind of man who’d wait his chance to swoop in and steal the Dunbar diamonds for himself, if they even still exist.”

  Darius has the look he gets when he’s thinking hard. Calculating. “That’s a real possibility,” he finally concludes. “But how do you know who my grandfather befriended in prison?”

  Jasper Jones smiles. “I wish it were otherwise, but I’m afraid people will always associate me with that failed treasure hunt. The house that was destroyed, the holes dug, the money lost. My disastrous partnership with your grandfather was well-known. People tell me things. And a man as big and scary as Scar Man is hard to miss.”

  “So you haven’t been keeping an eye on him yourself?”

  “Why would I?” says Jones, looking puzzled.

  “Because you believe my grandfather is holding out on you. That he found the diamonds but refused to give you your share.”

  Jones snorts. “Of all the things your grandfather did, all the lies he told, that’s the biggest whopper of all.”

  Darius stares at Jasper Jones, his expression unreadable. “True or false,” he says, his voice flat. “The day after the accident that killed my parents, you went to see my grandfather in the hospital and said, quote, ‘This is just the beginning.’ ”

  Jones shrugs. “It’s true that I went to the hospital to visit him. Of course I did, it was a terrible tragedy. But I never said anything remotely like that. No decent person would threaten a man at a time of such grief.”

  “Then why did he say you did?”

  Jones looks helpless. “How could I possibly know what motivates him? But it’s obvious your grandfather has convinced himself that I’m to blame for all his problems. Maybe he can’t face up to the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?”

  Jones clears his throat and says, “As I told you a moment ago, if your grandfather Winston Brooks hadn’t broken the law, his daughter wouldn’t have been out on a rainy night, pleading for mercy. Your parents would still be alive, Darius. That’s the truth.”

  GOOD THING WE have access to the Uber car, courtesy of Deirdre. No way can I walk three miles with my knees shaky like I haven’t eaten. But the whole confrontation makes me so nervous I’m not even slightly hungry. Two kids demanding answers from a wealthy and powerful adult? Not my kind of thing at all.

  We don’t talk much during the ride back, me and Darius, but after the car drops us off at Stonehill he turns to me and asks, “What do you think? Is he right about Scar Man?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It fits into my working theory, and it would explain why Scar Man always seems to be lurking around.”

  “So would friendship,” I say.

  “What?”

  “Him and your grandfather being friends. That would explain it.”

  Darius looks puzzled, as if the concept of friendship eludes him. “Let’s put that aside for the moment, and concentrate on the immediate situation. Scar Man, a violent felon, may pose a threat.”

  “Great,” I say. “Wonderful.”

  “No, no. It could be useful. We know that under the right circumstances, Scar Man has an explosive temper. If Jasper Jones is right about him, maybe we can use that to our advantage.”

  “Really? Are you serious? You want to get him to go postal on us? What, so he can be arrested after we’re dead?”

  “Nothing so dramatic,” Darius says. “Not quite.”

  Next morning we’re heading back to the Registry of Deeds, in search of more information about the house at Rutgers Road. All part of the plan, Darius assures me, but he won’t go further than that.

  “One step at a time,” he says.

  “Yeah, but what if that one step is on a land mine?”

  “Chill, okay? We’re going to be fine.”

  “And how do you know that?” I ask, really wanting to know.

  Darius sighs. “That should be obvious. Because I’m significantly more intelligent than our quarry, whoever he may be. Scar Man, Jasper Jones. Or my own grandfather.”

  “You can’t mean that,” I say, shocked.

  “Facts are facts,” he says stubbornly. “And the fact is, my grandfather can be untrustworthy. He might be telling the truth; he might not.”

  “Dude, I know you’re smart. Wicked smart. You’re so smart your brain has a brain. But your grandfather is pretty smart, too, and he said we shouldn’t look for the diamonds. What if he’s right?”

  Darius’s eyes look even bigger than usual behind his thick lenses. Like a couple of blue planets staring at me from outer space. “Really? You have so little faith in my powers of deduction? Suck it up, Bash Man. You’re braver than you think.”

  “Yeah? What makes you think so?”

  “I just do. When the time comes—if the times comes—there’s a ninety-seven percent probability that you’ll do the brave thing. Now, let’s get down to business, shall we? The facts convince me that the key to recovering the Dunbar diamonds is somehow connected to the house on Rutgers Road. That will be our line of inquiry, and our task is to gather all available intelligence. Starting with who owned the property before my grandfather purchased the place and put it in my name.”

  The search for information is easier the second time, which makes sense. We already know our way around the lower level of the Registry of Deeds, and what to expect as we search the index books, looking for a match.

  “How very strange,” Darius
says, closing one of the giant, leather-bound books. “The earliest property tax entry for 123 Rutgers Road seems to be in 1934, but the house was built much earlier than that, near the turn of the twentieth century.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He shrugs. “Lots of little indicators. The electrical wiring in the basement is of a type not used after about 1930. Much the same for the original plumbing connections. They date to much earlier.”

  “Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “It’s amazing you’d know junk like that. Did you get it from an online source?”

  He chuckles. “From This Old House on TV.”

  With the index ledgers a dead end, we go back to the original land maps, and that’s where I make my contribution. “Huh,” I say. “Looks like Rutgers Road wasn’t always Rutgers Road. See? In 1918 it was called Dunbar Mills Road.”

  Darius steadies his glasses and peers at the map. “Well done, Bash Man! And there it is, see? That little square must be the old house. Look how close it was to the original factory complex.”

  The old factory buildings are gone, of course, taken down to make way for the Stompanado housing projects. But once upon a time the high brick walls of one of the biggest factories in the world would have put that house in shadow for most of the day.

  A shadow that still seems to be there, despite the factory being gone.

  Darius rushes back to the deed ledgers, armed with the new—or rather the original—address, and soon he announces he’s got it. “The original property owner is listed as James G. Rutgers, on a house lot deeded to him in 1905 by—get this—Dunbar Mills, Incorporated.”

  The air is pretty warm in the stacks, but a shiver goes down the back of my neck. “So they’re all connected,” I say. “James Rutgers, Donald Dunbar, Lucy Dare, and the missing diamonds.”

  “Agreed. But how?”

  “I don’t know. But whoever James Rutgers was, they renamed the road for him.”

  WE FIND MR. ROBERTSON buried under a stack of paper. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. He isn’t completely buried. His white-bearded face pokes up from his desk, blinking blurry-eyed at us from between tall stacks of books and papers.

  “Busy,” he mutters, fingers flying over a keyboard. “Whoever you are, come back when I’m not on deadline.”

  “When will that be?”

  “After I’m dead. Until then, write I must, as Yoda would say.”

  “It’s a matter of life and death!”

  He pauses and squints, bringing us into focus. “Isn’t it always? Oh. I know you. Sherlock and Watson. No, wait, the Drake boy and his, what did you call him, associate? Good a word as any, I suppose. Hmmm, life and death, you said. Are you in immediate danger?”

  “Quite plausibly,” Darius says, approaching the fully loaded desk. “Although it’s not clear who might be dangerous. But we did promise Jasper Jones that we’d find the Dunbar diamonds.”

  Mr. Robertson sighs and leans back, lacing his long fingers together as he thinks it over. “There it is,” he says. “History repeats itself. Winston has passed you the torch.”

  “I did this on my own. My grandfather disapproves.”

  “Oh? Good for him. The diamonds have been missing for almost a hundred years. Scores of treasure hunters and tomb raiders have failed, including Winston Brooks. What makes you think you can find them?”

  “By utilizing the process of inductive reasoning.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We’ll look where they haven’t,” Darius explains. “And develop likely theories based on observation. What can you tell us about James Rutgers?”

  Mr. Robertson smiles at the name. “Ah! I see where you may be going with this. Did you check my index? Yes, of course you did. That’s why you’re here.”

  The old historian is referring to the index in his biography of Donald Dunbar. Rutgers, James, Millwright had twenty-six entries. Whereas Dare, Lucy was mentioned only nineteen times.

  “If you checked the index and read the entries, then you already know how important Mr. Rutgers is to the story of Dunbar Mills. He and Donald Dunbar were lifelong friends. They were from the same neighborhood, attended the same elementary school, the same vocational school. Dunbar was the genius, thinking up new ways to manufacture shoes and boots and clothing, but it was James Rutgers who implemented his ideas. Rutgers built the actual machines. Which, as you know—assuming you’ve read my book—is what a millwright does. Nowadays the term is little known outside the trades, but in the world of factories and manufacturing, millwrights remain essential. Without them, nothing of importance gets built or made. A millwright is part engineer, part builder, part craftsman. James Rutgers was all those things, and a very clever man to boot. Pun intended! Shoe factory, boot, get it?”

  Darius ignores the lame-o joke. “What can you tell us about his house?”

  “Ah, the witch house,” Mr. Robertson says. “That’s what we called it when I was a boy. Because the peaked roof looks like a witch’s hat. What do I know? Not much, I’m afraid. I know it was built on land that once belonged to the factory. James Rutgers ran the factory, so it made sense that he lived nearby. I haven’t checked the land deeds, but I assume Dunbar gave it to him, or sold it to him.”

  “A gift,” Darius says.

  Mr. Robertson nods. “What we know is this: James Rutgers lived in that house until his death. Passed away only a year after Dunbar. End of an era, and a sad end at that. By then the factory was abandoned, all the great machinery sold for salvage and carted away. Rutgers was a bachelor, married to his job, with no heirs, and I believe the property was eventually forfeited to the city, for failure to pay taxes. And there it stood for decades. Nobody wanted the place, until Winston came along, and he got it for almost nothing. He was convinced the house contained some clue to the location of the diamonds, and that he would find it. As far as I know, he never did. But he was clever enough to deed it to you the day before he was arrested, otherwise it would have been seized to pay his debts.”

  Darius nods to himself, as if the story confirms his own conclusions. “My grandfather was pretty smart,” Darius says. “If my theory is correct, he was heading in the right direction, but he failed to see the big picture.”

  “Did he now? How so?” Mr. Robertson says, looking over the tips of his steepled fingers.

  “The clue is the house itself,” Darius says.

  SOME FAMOUS DUDE once said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I’m pretty sure he never saw Scar Man flexing his big tattoos.

  “See this fist? You go against what Winston say, and risk your life, this fist gone pound you into the ground headfirst.”

  Darius lifts his freckled chin, as if welcoming a blow. “Wouldn’t dream of it. Stand aside, please.”

  I’m not sure if Tyrannosaurus rex growled, but if so it must have sounded a lot like Scar Man as he shows us his fangs. Excuse me, his grillz. Or maybe he really has titanium teeth, I wouldn’t put it past him. Whatever, he’s not exactly happy to see us.

  “I’m the lawful owner of this property,” Darius says, showing him the key.

  “Winston say you’re after them diamonds and it gonna get you killed.”

  “Has my grandfather searched this house? Many times? From top to bottom?”

  “You know he has.”

  “Ergo the treasure can’t be here, ergo we won’t be risking our lives.”

  “Ergo my butt! Don’t you get it? Them diamonds is cursed. Got a power to ruin lives. Can’t you see that, you snarky little punk?”

  “Shall I summon an officer of the law? No? Then stand aside, please.”

  Incredibly enough, the big man does just that. Although not without a lot of grumbling. But what surprises me even more is what happens when we get inside the house and lock the door behind us.

  Darius starts to tremble like a leaf.

  “Dude, what’s wrong?”

  It takes him a while to form a reply. “Truth? That man really scares me.”

&n
bsp; “Are you serious? So that was an act, you standing up to him? Amazing! I never guessed.”

  Makes me wonder about in school, when bullies taunt him and it seems like he couldn’t care less—is that an act, too?

  It feels sort of good, knowing I’m not the only one pretending to be brave. But part of me wonders if Scar Man has the right idea. Maybe the diamonds really are cursed. Right from the beginning. The owner of Dunbar Mills buys the love of his life the fanciest, most expensive necklace in the world, and she dies within a few days. Curse? His famous factory ultimately failed. Curse? Winston Brooks searches for the lost diamonds and goes to prison. Curse? His daughter and her husband are killed in a crash. Curse? Darius grows up an orphan. Curse?

  Darius must be reading my mind, because he says, “Don’t even think about it. We’ll solve this mystery if it kills us.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “Well, don’t be.” Darius has recovered himself and looks grimly satisfied as he settles into one of the overstuffed chairs. “For decades treasure hunters have gone after these diamonds with picks and shovels and backhoes and dynamite. We’re going to locate them with brainpower, and without leaving this house.”

  “Right.”

  “Have a little faith, Bash Man,” he says, tapping the side of his head. “We have the technology.”

  “Brainpower?”

  He nods. “Sir Isaac Newton discovered the law of universal gravitation by a process of thought he called inductive reasoning. Unlike the more common deductive reasoning, the inductive process begins with observation and then proceeds toward theory. Newton observes an apple falling from a tree, thinks about what that might mean—why does it fall, what causes it to fall, how does this apply to the world, to the universe?—and uses that simple observation to calculate the law of gravity. Surely we can discover some missing jewels by using the same process.”