by Edie Claire
She might find out for herself soon enough. The police had made clear when she left that they would be coming over to the Brown’s house later and would question her there.
Fabulous.
Leigh stepped away from the window and plopped down on one of the high-seated chairs. Not even Pauline’s canary was fully awake yet. It startled when she sat, but then blinked at her with disinterest and stuffed its head back under its wing.
“It’s okay,” Leigh said wryly. “I get that a lot.”
Her gaze wandered to the battle scene covering the far wall, and her stomach flip-flopped. Harvey’s musings had been interesting, but she hadn’t really believed them. That is, she hadn’t really believed that a Civil War relic could bestir enough interest to cause actual… well… mayhem. The idea was too farfetched. Digging for gold, jewels, or cold hard cash was one thing; risking one’s life and liberty for a historical conversation piece was another.
Still. The facts were beginning to fit together far too neatly to be ignored. She held out a reluctant hand and counted them off. One: Archie was a certified Civil War enthusiast who knew all about Theodore Carr’s history when he bought Frog Hill Farm eight years ago. Two: Somebody had been digging for something in the neighborhood for at least the five years she had lived in it. Three: Somebody had been searching for something on or around Archie’s house as far back as the 1950s. Four: The children had found a treasure map of the area that appeared to be from the 1930s, at the latest. Five: Archie and Lester were almost certainly working together to find this mysterious something when Archie disappeared.
Were they getting close?
She replayed in her mind Lester’s feverish ravings, and the memory made her feel no better. I’m trying… I am, I’m trying… hang in there, Arch… I won’t… don’t worry…
What exactly had Lester been trying to do? Was he attempting to find the treasure himself last night, and if so, how would that help Archie? Did Lester think that his friend had been kidnapped for ransom?
Did he know that he had?
The thought induced another spurt of stomach acid. Surely not! Lester had recruited his entire reenacting company to scour the area for clues… would he do that if he was trying to keep things quiet and cover up the fact that he was hiding a ransom note?
Maybe. If he thought his buds could help him either track down the culprits or find the desired object… without involving the police.
Leigh sprang up from her chair. “Lester, Lester,” she muttered miserably. “Please tell me you’re not that dense.”
Don’t trust… His words came back to her. Anyone!
Leigh buried her face in her hands.
The doorbell rang. She hurried toward the sound, grateful for the interruption. She swung open the door to admit Nora, who had apparently managed to find clean clothes after all.
Makeup and a hairbrush, not so much.
“I got here as quick as I could,” Nora said breathlessly. “Cory’s still asleep, thank God. He should be out for a while, after last night.” She walked straight back to the sitting room and glanced around. “Commotion didn’t wake them, huh? I’m not surprised about Pauline and Harvey, but Adith always seems to know when something’s up—even when she’s sound asleep!”
Leigh grinned. Nora did know her patients, at least.
“Did Emma leave instructions about the meds?” Nora continued. “I know a couple things have changed recently, but I don’t know exactly how. Adith’s schedule is off from the others now and I’m not sure about Pauline’s new compression stockings—”
Leigh was rescued by the ring of the landline. Nora stepped over to check the ID and swiftly picked up. “Emma!” she gushed. “How is Lester? How are you? Are you okay? What’s happening?”
Leigh listened as the one-way conversation unfolded.
“Well at least he’s awake, that’s good… well, does he have a concussion then? Oh… I see. How long do they think… an MRI? Oh, because of the fever… oh, I’m sure it’s not that serious. Has he said why he… The TOOL SHED?! Why on earth… That’s crazy! Oh, well, maybe he’s still just confused… that’ll make him groggy, I bet… well, he’ll just have to take it easy! Don’t you worry about a thing here, it’s about time Derrick had Cory alone to himself anyway, and I could use the change of pace. But you need to tell me” —she hunted around for a pen and pad— “What is Adith’s new schedule? And what do I do about Pauline’s—”
Leigh gave her mind permission to wander. Unfortunately, the place it wandered to was no more pleasant. She could not remove her eyes from the image of one particular soldier in Harvey’s gruesome painting. He was in Union garb, lying on the ground with a bloodied leg. His face was screwed into a grimace. His hands clutched his rifle, which he appeared to be aiming squarely at the man lofting a sword with a hat on its tip—General Armistead.
Theodore Carr was there.
Could a moth-eaten, 150-year-old hat really be that important? Could it possibly be worth enough to someone to—she cringed at the thought—commit violence?
Nora hung up the phone and faced her. “Lester’s gone in for an MRI,” she reported. “His head wounds don’t look serious, and they think his concussion is mild. But his having a fever at the same time means they have to rule out some kind of bleeding… I’m not sure what that’s about. But Emma thinks he’ll probably be there all day, and maybe even overnight for observation. Did you know he was out at Archie’s place?!”
Leigh nodded. “I did, actually. I was checking on the stray dog.”
Nora shook her head. “He must have been delirious. Either that, or he was taking one of those new sleeping pills. I hate those things. Why, we had one woman at St. Mary’s, she—”
Leigh’s patience wavered. She had nothing against the nurse’s aide, but Nora had the kind of mouselike metabolism that rendered her incapable of functioning without either her body or her mouth—or both—in motion at all times. “Did Emma say if Lester was able to explain what happened?” Leigh interrupted.
Nora shook her head. “She said she asked him, but either he didn’t answer the question or what he said didn’t make sense, I’m not sure. He’s definitely awake and talking, though. That’s a good sign.”
Leigh nodded in agreement. Lester’s return to consciousness was a very good sign.
His unwillingness to talk about what happened last night was not.
The front doorbell rang again. “Who could that be at this hour?” Nora asked.
“Most likely it’s the police,” Leigh answered without enthusiasm. “They talked to Emma already but they said they had a few questions for me, too.”
“I didn’t know the police came out!” Nora responded, seeming concerned. “Why would they?”
Leigh considered a moment. The officers had come, no doubt, because of what she’d told the dispatcher—that she’d found Lester on a neighbor’s property unconscious with a head wound of unknown origin. Put that way, the more sinister possibilities were obvious. But she did not want to unduly alarm Nora, or anyone else in the home. And she was pretty sure she’d just heard the floorboards creak in Harvey’s room. “I think it’s routine with an accident,” she said blandly.
“Well, I’ll get out of your way then,” Nora offered. “I need to go down and start breakfast, anyhow. Just yell if anybody needs anything.”
Nora headed down the stairs to the kitchen, and Leigh moved to open the front door.
“MRS. HARMON?” A friendly looking younger officer with frizzy blond hair inquired.
Leigh winced slightly. Of the various policemen on the scene, why did she have to get the loud talker? His tone was perfectly pleasant, he just spoke as though the entire rest of the world was deaf.
“That’s me,” she said more quietly than necessary as she ushered him in. “The residents are still sleeping.”
“GOOD FOR THEM!” he said merrily. “I WOULD BE TOO, IF I COULD!”
Leigh directed him to the farthest possible corner of t
he sitting room, then closed all the doors she could close.
“What is it you’d like to ask?” she said in a near-whisper.
The officer crossed his legs and flipped through a notebook. “COULD YOU JUST RUN THROUGH FOR ME HOW IT WAS YOU HAPPENED TO COME UPON MR. BROWN THIS MORNING?”
Leigh considered a more direct rebuke, but decided it was pointless. The floorboards in either direction were already creaking. She took a deep breath and gave as succinct and unremarkable an accounting of her discovery as she possibly could, knowing that almost certainly every pair of ears in the house was now listening.
Even Pauline’s canary had awakened.
She finished her prepared tale and looked over at the young officer with dread. She could not be nearly so vague once he started asking pointed questions.
The officer flipped his notebook closed and stood up. “OKAY, THAT’LL DO! THANK YOU VERY MUCH, MRS. HARMON.”
Leigh’s eyes widened. He couldn’t possibly be serious. Didn’t he want to know whatever she knew about a possible relationship between this incident and Archie’s disappearance? Had the county officials told him it was her children who had found the treasure map? Didn’t he care what her first impressions were when she found Lester unconscious? Exactly what Lester had muttered when he was still delirious?
Evidently not.
“THE COUNTY BOYS MIGHT HAVE SOME QUESTIONS LATER,” he shouted as he headed toward the door. “BUT I DOUBT IT. THEY’VE GOT YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION IF THEY DO. YOU HAVE A NICE DAY NOW, MS. HARMON!”
Leigh uttered a bland farewell, then watched as the policeman walked out the door and around the corner toward his cruiser, which was parked in Archie’s driveway. She didn’t know whether to be relieved… or worried. It certainly did not sound as though the county detectives had pushed the idea of a connection between Archie’s disappearance and Lester’s concussion, much less discussed the possibility of hidden treasure. Perhaps they were still focused on the fraud idea. Perhaps they considered a sick neighbor’s passing out on Archie’s land to be irrelevant.
Leigh wished she could believe that, too.
But there was little else she could do about her theories except wait to talk to Lester. Maybe if he were honest with her—and the police—they would all have a better idea of what had happened to Archie and how dangerous the situation might be. In the meantime, it was just as well that not every warm body in the neighborhood knew that something valuable might indeed be buried on Frog Hill Farm.
She closed the door and turned around. Pauline, Adith, Harvey, Nora, and an apricot poodle stood clustered in the hallway six feet away, staring at her with widened eyes.
Pansy sneezed.
Chapter 11
“Wiley, settle down!” Leigh chastised. She felt sorry for the dog, who was not used to leash walking, but she preferred not to dislocate an elbow. She had barely managed to extricate herself from the human mob in the Brown house in one piece. “Momma dog!” she called without conviction, cupping her hand to cast her voice out into the woods. “Where are you?”
No response was forthcoming, which was entirely expected. She wasn’t worried about the mother dog and litter having being “stolen,” much less “spirited away,” as Pauline and Adith, respectively, had hypothesized. Leigh found it infinitely more likely that the protective female had put up with one too many intrusions and had voluntarily decided to move her family elsewhere. She was probably holed up nearby, hoping the gravy train of free food would continue.
Whatever slim chance Leigh might have had to lure the stray out of hiding was no doubt ruined by the presence of the wildly hyper “poppa dog” currently slobbering on her shoes. But she could not leave Wiley at the Browns all day with only Nora there to care for him. The nurse aide would be busy enough just preventing Adith from sneaking out to examine the tool shed for “remnants of evil.”
Leigh’s phone buzzed in her pocket, and she pulled it out with a sudden feeling of remorse. Warren would be awake by now, no doubt wondering where the hell she was.
“Hello?” his crisp, professional voice greeted. “Is this Ms. Leigh Koslow Harmon?”
She smiled. She always did melt at the sound of his voice. “It is.”
“This is Warren J. Harmon the Third,” he continued formally. “I was looking over my mortgage documentation, and I noticed your name listed as co-signer. So I was wondering, might you be planning to actually occupy said residence at some time?”
Leigh’s smiled widened. “I’m sorry, Warren. I slipped out to feed the dog—I didn’t think I’d be gone so long. I’m walking Wiley home from the Brown’s right now… It’s kind of a long story.”
“That would be the usual scenario.”
“Are the kids up yet?”
“Ethan’s still zonked, but Allison is reading a book in her room.”
“Is it that new one about the history of—”
“Uh huh.”
Leigh muttered a curse. Why couldn’t her daughter be reading a nice, safe adventure novel? Or some reference book about ponies? At this point, she’d settle for a boy-band magazine. Anything that got Allison’s too-sharp mind off the problems at Archie’s place.
“Have you heard from Mo since your talk yesterday?” Warren asked with concern. Leigh had filled him in on Maura’s situation, at Maura’s request. Now all three of them were anxiously awaiting the results of her tests—and the still-clueless Gerry’s imminent return to town.
Leigh responded in the negative, pushed Wiley’s paws off her waistline, and hung up with a solemn vow to be home in a matter of seconds. She lifted her chin and took one long, last look around. She had not gone back into the tool shed’s cellar, but she was determined to return later—with Warren or somebody else—to put more food outside for the mother dog.
Leigh tried to envision the scrappy canine carrying each of the six puppies, one by one, up the cellar steps and out into the woods. Improbable as it seemed, she knew that wild animals made such moves on a regular basis. But the process would take some time. Had the mother dog moved the pups after Lester became unconscious, or before he arrived? Had someone else been in the cellar before him?
If so, and Lester surprised them there…
Leigh exhaled a nervous breath. If only the dog could talk, she would make the perfect witness. Who exactly had been down in that cellar lately, and why? Who had left the yellow flashlight? Who had taken it away again?
Was the tool shed even depicted on the children’s map?
Leigh couldn’t remember. She could only picture the one scrawled square depicting Archie’s farmhouse, the one that was labeled “The Guide.”
“Come on, Wiley,” she urged, giving the dog a tug in the direction of her own house. “It’s breakfast time. Then you can wreak havoc with your buddy Chewie for a while.”
Leigh’s empty stomach rumbled at the thought. She could use a little breakfast herself.
After that, she had a date with a map.
***
Leigh stuffed the last bite of crumbling, still-warm blueberry muffin into her mouth and practically moaned with delight. “Aunt Lydie,” she said a moment later, licking her lips. “You should babysit for Cara more often.”
Lydie grinned. “It’s not hard to make Matt and Lenna happy, considering what their mother feeds them.” She finished drying off the skillet she had used to fry the mountain of bacon which the Pack (with a little help from Leigh and Warren) had just wolfed down and put it away in the cabinet.
Leigh chuckled. The statement was as close to a criticism of her only daughter as Lydie ever made—yet another distinction between her and her twin sister Frances. “I’m sure,” Leigh said wryly, “that Matt and Lenna actually prefer tofu bacon and wheat bran. They just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Lydie lifted one eyebrow and smirked. “Undoubtedly.”
Leigh studied the view out Cara’s kitchen window. The Pack were hanging out on the adult-sized swing set next to the barn. Ethan and Matt w
ere playing fetch with a still-hyper Wiley. Lenna and Allison had their heads together, talking and trying to distract the resident springer spaniel, Maggie, from interfering with Wiley’s game. Leigh intended to keep an eye on all of them this time before saying anything even halfway “interesting.”
“I brought the map,” she announced. She joined her aunt in sitting at the table and handed over a folded copy. “I was hoping you’d be willing to take another look at it and brainstorm with me. Maybe help me figure out how Archie’s tool shed could fit into the picture?”
Lydie’s expression turned serious. She was a singularly unflappable woman, as a rule, but hearing that yet another person in the neighborhood might have experienced foul play had disturbed her. She took off her glasses and squinted at the map. Then she put them back on again. “I don’t know, honey,” she said finally, her voice laced with frustration. “The whole thing is just… well, odd. If I had to guess, I’d say this map is only part of a puzzle. There isn’t one ‘X marks the spot,’ if you know what I mean. It’s as if there’s another piece to it that we don’t have. Something that would explain what all the little marks on the spokes are supposed to mean.”
Leigh drew in a breath. “Do you think that’s what it means by ‘The Guide?’”
“Quite possibly,” Lydie agreed. “But the location of the guide isn’t made clear, either. The arrow just points to the whole house.”
“Tell me about it,” Leigh replied. And tell Archie, she thought miserably. From the look of his farmhouse, she wondered if he had spent the last eight years tearing holes in the structure at random.
“What bothers me more,” Lydie said with a frown, “is the inaccuracy of it. I don’t know what the other farm looks like, but the squares for Cara’s place are all wrong. See the shape of the rectangles? It’s clear this is supposed to be the barn, but it’s not in the right place. Snow Creek Farm never had a barn up there—the hill’s too steep, never mind that it’s covered with trees that have stood for at least a century.”