by Edie Claire
Leigh assured her that the Pack was spoiling the dog rotten. “Did Lester want me to come to the hospital?” she asked, her heart still thumping.
“He did,” Emma responded. “But I told him no way was I asking you to drive out tonight, and that he needed his rest. Of course he argued with me, but then he fell asleep anyhow. I was thinking he’d be discharged tomorrow morning, but the last doctor that was in here said maybe not—it will depend on whether his fever goes back up. Lester wanted to call you, but they won’t let him talk on the phone, or watch television, or anything like that. Still, he’s determined to see you tomorrow whether he goes home or not. I told him I’d ask you just to settle his mind.”
“I’d be happy to come,” Leigh said quickly, mentally revising her schedule so that she could work from home tomorrow. Being a founding partner in an advertising agency did have its perks. “Just tell me when would be a good time, and I’ll be there.”
Emma said that she would call tomorrow and let Leigh know; only when they were about to hang up did Leigh remember the camera. But how could she ask Emma’s permission without upsetting her? A thought struck.
“Well, of course that’s all right with me!” Emma replied to her request. “I hope the dog shows up and the kids can figure out where she’s got that litter stashed. It’s too bad that Lester scared her away like that. But at least the weather’s warm, and there’s been no rain.”
Leigh agreed. The women exchanged pleasantries and hung up.
The television screen flickered suddenly to life. An image of the tool shed in the distance appeared. In the foreground, something moved, then disappeared again. Leigh leaned forward, eyes wide.
Come back!
The figure moved onto the left side of the screen.
“Oh,” Allison said with disappointment. “It’s just a deer.”
Leigh startled. Her daughter was standing behind her chair, not ten inches from her ear. Clad in a cotton nightshirt with running mustangs gracing its front, Allison hopped around and plopped herself down in front of the TV. “We can actually look for the dog if you want,” she said pleasantly, with just the slightest trace of a smirk.
Leigh bit back a retort. She really hated getting caught in a lie—even a white one—by a child she tried so hard to teach not to tell lies.
Especially white ones.
Explaining to Allison that she had been trying to keep Emma from getting unnecessarily upset on an already trying day would only add fuel to the fire, given that “I thought it might upset you” was Allison’s favorite excuse for her own infuriating omissions of fact.
“We are looking for the dog,” Leigh said firmly.
Allison merely smiled.
They watched together a moment as not one, but four deer stepped out of the woods and began to graze on Archie’s lawn. The sight would have been entrancing if it weren’t something all the neighbors saw in broad daylight on a daily basis. Archie liked to joke about how he’d once driven three and a half hours up to Potter County to go hunting on the Wildcat Trail and didn’t see a single deer all day, then drove back home to find six of them in his driveway.
“Mom?” Allison asked tentatively. “Are you going to talk to Aunt Mo about the map again?”
Leigh’s pulse sped up. Clearly, pretending that the Pack in general and Allison in particular were capable of forgetting everything that had happened at Frog Hill Farm and going on their merry way was fantasy. Allison had always been like a dog with a bone, and finding a decades-old treasure map depicting her own backyard was prime rib.
Perhaps it was best not to fight it.
“Probably,” Leigh answered, trying hard to keep her voice from sounding upset, even as her heart pounded against her ribs. “Is there something you think she should know?”
Allison looked thoughtful a moment. Then she scampered off to her room and returned with a copy of the map.
Leigh decided not to bother asking where she had gotten it, since Leigh had given the map the kids found to Maura and had kept her own copies carefully guarded ever since. No doubt the little minx had made and squirreled away multiple copies of her own before even allowing Lenna to show it to the adults.
“I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Allison said seriously. “But I think it was Thomas Carr who made this map, not Theodore.”
Leigh’s eyebrows rose. “Oh? And why is that?”
Allison held out the map and pointed to an irregularly shaped blob drawn at the edge of the woods, downstream from the farmhouse. “There isn’t anything else on the map drawn exactly like it,” she explained. “And it’s right about where Dora said Theodore Carr was buried. Which makes me think it’s supposed to be a gravestone.”
Leigh studied the tiny squiggle. Despite herself, she was impressed. “That does make sense,” she acknowledged.
Allison beamed. “Dora said he was buried near a little willow tree, and there aren’t any willows out there. But that doesn’t mean anything—the tree could have been cut down, or just died. Mathias didn’t find any metal either, but I told him he probably wouldn’t. Theodore’s casket was most likely made out of wood, so there wouldn’t be anything to find unless he was buried with a belt buckle or a watch or something. Plus, Matt’s detector doesn’t go down very deep. Bodies are supposed to be—” she paused and looked up at Leigh’s green face with alarm. “Are you okay, Mom?”
“I’m fine,” Leigh forced out, trying really, really hard not to dwell on the fact that her ten-year-old daughter’s idea of fun was to speculate on the precise location of a long-dead corpse. She swallowed. “You were saying?”
Allison released a small sigh. “It’s not much to go on, I know. But since we were thinking that Theodore made the map, I thought it might be important for the police to know that it might not be that old, after all.”
“I’m sure you’re right.”
Allison smiled and rose, folding the map carefully as she did so. “Okay, then. Goodnight, Mom.”
She began to skip away, but Leigh stopped her with an outstretched arm. “Allison,” she said gravely. “It’s very important that no more copies of this map start circulating in the wild. You shouldn’t show it to anyone. No one should know that you know anything whatsoever about it. You understand?”
The girl nodded.
“And what your father and I have already told you still stands. Under no circumstances are any of you to leave our yard or your Aunt Cara’s without one of us present. Studying the map is fine. Watching the camera—from the living room—is fine. But your safety is more important to us than anything else involved here. You understand?”
Allison dutifully restrained from rolling her eyes. But Leigh could tell it was a struggle. “Yes, Mom,” she answered.
The girl headed off to bed, and Leigh stared motionlessly at the television until the last deer moved out of range and the screen reverted to static again. She stared several more moments before getting up. You’re right, Aunt Bess, she thought. This thing is addictive.
No sooner had she risen to her feet than her cell phone rang. She looked at the ID and picked up quickly. “Maura? How’s it going?”
“It’s not,” the husky voice replied. “Listen, I can’t talk long. Gerry’s in the shower.”
“He’s… what? Did you tell him?”
There was a pause. Leigh could vaguely hear the sound of water running in the background.
“Not yet,” came the response.
“Maura!”
“I know, I know,” the detective moaned. “But I couldn’t. Not when I don’t know crap about the tests. Tomorrow I’ll know something. Then I’ll tell him. It’ll be better that way. Anyhow, I haven’t heard from you in a while, and that usually means you’re holding out on me. What’s happening out there?”
Leigh released a heavy, pent-up breath. Then, as concisely as possible, she spilled the entire day’s load, from finding an unconscious Lester to Allison’s theories on the true origin of the treasure map. Surprisingly, th
e detective seemed eager to hear it. Or perhaps it wasn’t so surprising—perhaps Maura was looking for a diversion from her own worrisome thoughts.
“From where I sit, it sounds like you’re stacking up some pretty credible evidence, Koslow,” she said at last. “Let me think about this. The guys at GI aren’t going to pursue Lester’s injury as a possible assault when he’s saying himself that he was alone when he passed out. Unless they can see a motive for Lester to lie. You think you can convince him to come clean? At least about what he was doing down there? That alone should make them take another look at the possibility that Archie met foul play. Money is motive, period. Whether this ‘treasure’ is real or not doesn’t mean jack—as long as the perp thinks it is.”
Leigh allowed herself a smile. Good ol’ WonderCop. They hadn’t promoted her friend steadily up through the ranks for nothing. “I’m going to see him tomorrow, so I’ll give it a shot,” she promised. “What I’m really worried about, though, and I know it sounds crazy…”
“Yeah?” Maura prompted.
Leigh steeled herself. Some things she didn’t like saying aloud. She twisted around to see if Allison were within earshot. She saw nothing. But that meant nothing. She moved quickly to the front door and stepped outside onto the porch.
“What if Archie was kidnapped by someone who wanted the treasure, but didn’t know how to find it? Maybe their goal is to force him to find it. Or maybe they’ve already contacted Lester, and he’s trying to find it to save Archie?”
Lester’s feverish, mumbled words seemed imprinted in her brain. I’m trying… I am, I’m trying… hang in there, Arch… I won’t… don’t worry…
“It’s not impossible, Koslow,” Maura answered. “Which means you should all act like it is possible. It’s one thing to keep the Pack out of it, but you’ve got to be careful who you share information with, too. No one besides the police needs to know you have a map, much less that you have any idea what’s going on with Lester, or you could be putting yourself at risk. Capiche?”
“Right,” Leigh said weakly. How many people had she told so far? Only two outside the family that she could think of, and both were in their eighties.
Like that meant anything!
Harvey… Lester had mumbled, practically in the same breath. He knows, Arch… He knows.
What did Harvey know?
“Call me right after your talk with Lester tomorrow,” Maura ordered. “Try to make him understand that he and Archie will both be safer if he cooperates with the police. You may be able to pick up something just from his vibe. Then I’ll take a little walk over to General Investigations and make myself unpopular.”
Leigh smiled once more. “Thanks, Maura. And by the way, you can come over here any time tomorrow to talk, if you want. I’ll be working at home.”
“Thanks,” Maura said shortly, making Leigh wonder if Gerry were within earshot. The water had stopped running a while ago. “And by the way—where the hell are you?”
Leigh looked around in confusion. Then she heard the sound her brain must have been conveniently filtering out for a while now. Baby Cory was screaming again.
The time seemed less than opportune for a discussion of infant colic. “That’s just the television,” she assured.
“Oh,” Maura answered skeptically. “Well, goodnight.”
“Goodnight.” Leigh hung up and pressed the phone to her side.
Another lie.
The parenting experts of the world would just have to forgive her.
Chapter 15
“I understand why you wanted me to go with you the last time you went to Archie’s. Sort of,” Cara said with a yawn, throwing a windbreaker on over her tee shirt and sleep pants. Leigh had come by immediately after the kids boarded the school bus; her cousin had not yet finished her morning coffee. “But I’m not getting why you need me now.”
“Because,” Leigh insisted. “I promised Warren I wouldn’t go alone. And if he finds out otherwise, he’s threatened to tell my mother about the maids.”
Cara’s eyes widened in mock alarm. “Oh, heavens! No!”
Leigh scowled. “You joke. But if my mother knew I spent so much as one penny of her grandchildren’s inheritance paying somebody else to clean my house… even if it is my own earnings… you know perfectly well she’d—”
“Yes, yes,” Cara held up a staying hand. “Spare me the blood and gore, please. I’d like to keep down my breakfast. But why does Warren not want you to go by yourself?”
Leigh took a breath and brought her cousin up to date on the events of the last forty-eight hours. It took a while. She talked while Cara located her shoes and secured Maggie the spaniel inside the house. She kept talking while they crossed her own yard, where the resident corgi politely escorted them from one end of the invisible barrier to the other as Wiley, hooked up to his trolley line, paced its generous length with wails of misery.
“Can’t Wiley come along?” Cara asked, breaking off Leigh’s story just before she got to the part about finding Lester.
“No,” Leigh responded. “He’ll scare off the mother dog. She’s got the litter hidden in the woods somewhere and I want to find them. It’s supposed to storm tonight.”
“Why did she move her litter to the woods?” Cara asked.
Leigh sighed. “Can I tell this in order please?”
“Sorry.”
By the time Leigh got to Lester’s request to see her at the hospital, Cara’s jaunty enthusiasm had been replaced with mother-wolf wariness. She spied the tool shed ahead of them with a frown. “I don’t want the Pack anywhere near here.”
“Neither do I,” Leigh concurred. “They have been warned. And they’ve all promised to stay in our yards.”
Cara’s frown deepened. “They have ways of getting around their promises.”
Leigh sighed once more. “Tell me about it.”
“Did you catch anything on the camera last night?” Cara asked.
Leigh shook her head. “A bunch of deer early on. But around midnight or so, it cut off. I think the battery may be low. That’s another reason I wanted to come out here.” She cast a glance up at the Brown’s deck, but saw no one. Poor Adith. That new medication was seriously messing with her productivity as the neighborhood snoop. Leigh made a mental note to go and visit whenever the older woman happened to be awake today.
“Where did you set up the camera?” Cara asked. “You hid it pretty well if it’s out here; I don’t see it.”
“It’s in this bush,” Leigh explained, stepping to the edge of the woods. Archie’s property wrapped around behind the O’Malley’s place and included the bulk of the steep, wooded hill that stretched down to Cara’s farm. All of the homeowners’ parcels included the creek behind their houses, but from the Brown’s on down, the back line also included a little of the woods on the opposite bank.
Leigh frowned. “I’m sure this is where Warren and Ethan put it,” she said to herself, pushing aside some leafy branches.
Her heart skipped a beat. The tripod was still there, turned over on its side. Her Aunt Bess’s camera lay on the ground nearby, its lens smashed and innards gutted as if it had been bashed against a tree.
She borrowed a few of Maura’s swear words.
“What is it?” Cara exclaimed, coming quickly to her side. “Oh, my. That’s not good.”
“To put it mildly.” The cost of the camera didn’t matter nearly so much to Leigh as the fact that the destroyed equipment had been so generously and trustingly loaned by her Aunt Bess. And neither of those issues was as disturbing as the thought of how—and why—it had happened in the first place.
“Okay, this really irks me,” Cara said sharply, mirroring Leigh’s rising anger. Anger which, Leigh had found over the years, made a convenient substitute for fear. “This is no accident. Somebody deliberately sabotaged that camera so you wouldn’t see what was going on out here.”
Leigh nodded. “Which suggests the question: what is going on out here?”
>
Both their eyes came to rest on the tool shed.
“We’ll just take a quick peek,” Cara suggested. “See if anything has changed since you found Lester. Something clearly must have.”
Cara started to move, but Leigh’s feet remained planted.
Cara’s eyes rolled. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Leigh. You stay at the top of the stairs and keep a look out, and I’ll go down. There’s no reason to assume the worst. But if we can show that someone’s been trespassing at night, don’t you think it would help for the police to know that?”
Leigh gave in and fell into step beside her cousin. When they reached the doors to the cellar, she removed her flashlight from her back pocket and handed it over. “Just stand on the stairs and look around,” she suggested. “I’ll keep watch up here and make sure we stay alone.”
Cara nodded, took the flashlight, and opened the doors. As her head of strawberry-blond hair descended gradually below, Leigh surveyed Archie’s yard. After confirming again that they were alone, she pivoted to look down the stairs. Cara was standing on the bottom step.
“See anything?” Leigh asked.
“Not a thing,” Cara returned flatly. “You want to look?”
Hell, no. “All right. Come back up and I’ll go down.”
The women changed places.
Leigh took a deep breath and shone the flashlight around the cellar. First quickly, to make sure there would be no nasty surprises. Then once again, with a slow sweeping motion. “Hello, dark and dank,” she said aloud, trying to abate her anxiety. “I’ve missed seeing you lo these last twelve hours. Not!”
“Are you talking to me?” Cara called down from above.
“No, just myself,” Leigh answered.
“Well, cut it out! I’m trying to listen for footsteps… or whatever.”
Leigh was about to declare her examination finished—and sprint back up into relatively less creepy territory—when her flashlight came to rest on the stone she and her Aunt Lydie had examined yesterday. Then, the mortar had been chiseled away from along its left side. Now, the mortar was chiseled out all around.