The Granite Key (Arkana Mysteries)

by N. S. Wikarski

  The only thing she did know for certain was that a man in a Stetson hat wanted a key and her sister was dead because of him and she’d dreamed the whole thing while it was happening. But she didn’t think that was the sort of information the detective was looking for. He probably wouldn’t believe her. She didn’t believe it herself. She wasn’t given to weird, paranormal experiences. In all her life she’d never been accused of having so much as a hunch about anything. She was a rational person, more or less.

  Her mind skipped forward to the present. She was sorting through a box of old bills and papers. The easy stuff. She couldn’t bring herself to sort through the clothes yet. She had tried earlier that day but it had been a mistake. She’d realized that the minute she pulled open a drawer of sweaters. There was lavender sachet inside. Her sister had always smelled like lavender. It was a comforting, familiar scent. Someone once told her that people remember the way things smell long after they’ve forgotten how they look or taste or sound. That the sense of smell is primal. Like blood, like family, like death. She shoved the drawer closed and left the bedroom in tears. She doubted she would ever smell lavender again without crying. It was safer to sort through the papers. They didn’t smell like lavender. They didn’t smell like anything at all.

  She blew her nose and tossed the used tissue onto the pile that was accumulating on the floor. How many boxes had she gone through? Like the number of days she’d spent crying, she’d lost count of that too. It had all become a blur. Even the funeral. That mother of all ordeals. The service had been small and quiet because they hadn’t been living in Chicago long and there was no family. Aside from Rhonda, there was nobody who could be called a friend either. Sybil had been Cassie’s only anchor to this place and now the girl felt like a boat drifting with the current. When other people lost a sister, there was always somebody else to fill the void. Cassie doubted if anybody could understand what her particular brand of loneliness felt like. The word “orphan” didn’t begin to cover it. She broke down and started to sob.

  “Enough!” she commanded herself sternly. She looked up at the ceiling to blink back the tears. For a few minutes she focused on nothing but breathing. Just breathe and don’t think. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  Finally she calmed down enough to focus on the matter at hand. She reached for another box of papers. It looked like a bunch of old charge card receipts. Why Sybil had kept this junk was beyond her. She dumped the box upside down on the coffee table. As the pile of papers spewed out, something hard fell on top of them.

  Cassie cocked her head sideways, examining the object. Strange looking thing. It was shaped like a ruler. About a foot long and about two inches wide, only it had five sides. Solid in the middle but five-sided. What would you call a shape like that? A polygon? She looked at the surface of the ruler lengthwise. There were strange markings inscribed in the stone. Some looked like long hash marks and some looked like pictograms. Like Egyptian hieroglyphics only they weren’t Egyptian. She’d seen enough of those in museums to recognize them. Along the sharp edge that divided the ruler into five sides, were more hash marks and loops.

  Cassie made no move to pick up the stone ruler. She dismissed it as something from the shop that Sybil had decided to keep. Her sister did that all the time. She’d come across another “treasure” that she just had to have for her own. The apartment was full of things she couldn’t seem to part with. African masks on the walls. A rare Chinese vase in a niche by the door. Fragments of Greek friezes. It begged the question of where the money came from for Sybil’s expensive private collection. Cassie frowned and regarded the stone ruler again for a few moments. Maybe she’d ask Rhonda about it when she saw her next.

  Her eyes swept the room. The papers and the clothes and the antiques and the artwork. So much more stuff to get through. Suddenly she felt very tired and a bit overwhelmed. Nobody else to do it but her. She sighed.

  Without bothering to clean up the tissues on the carpet, she got up, grabbed her purse and left the apartment. She wanted to head back to her dorm room for a long, long nap. She could come back tomorrow. Everything would still be waiting for her. More memories to pop out of a drawer or jump off a shelf to remind her that she was alone in the world. It would keep. She’d cried enough for this day.

  Chapter 5 – Corvette And Model-T

  A dozen hours after Cassie fell into a restless doze, dawn broke over a suburb on the far outskirts of the metro area. It was a hamlet that had once been rural and still retained a few of its American gothic homesteads. Daylight crept toward the oldest of these original structures—a two-story farmhouse standing on an acre of green land. It was surrounded by one hundred and twenty acres of tract housing but had so far managed to resist being engulfed by the neighborhood. A high wooden fence surrounded the backyard which encompassed both a flower and a vegetable garden. The front lawn was wide and deep enough to accommodate massive shade trees that had been old long before the first cornfield was plowed.

  Light advanced across the lawn to the house itself which was concrete stucco painted a shade of cornflower blue. A cupola in the middle of the roof had attracted a flock of burbling pigeons who hoped to warm themselves in the early sun’s rays. When an elderly woman emerged onto the Victorian gingerbread porch, the pigeons flapped off. Broom in hand, she immediately set about sweeping the front steps. An apple tree growing close to her porch was shedding its blossoms. It appeared as if her stairs were covered in bits of pinkish white confetti. She swept briskly, if absentmindedly. It was clear that she was lost in thought. She didn’t register that someone was coming up her front walk until he stood directly in front of her.

  “Faye?” the young man asked tentatively.

  “Oh, Erik, you gave me a start.” Her hand flew involuntarily to her heart. Then she smiled and motioned him towards the house. “Please do come in.”

  He preceded her through the door.

  “Why don’t we sit in here.” She directed him to the front parlor. In anyone else’s house it would have been called the living room but Faye was different. She radiated a sense of having skipped back in time. She was wearing a cotton housedress—the kind that was spattered with giant flowers in garish colors. It was topped with a green cardigan whose front pocket sagged from the weight of an oversized handkerchief. Her white hair was molded into a smooth bun at the back of her head. She might have been in her eighties or she might have been one hundred and ten. It was hard to tell. Faye had always been ancient. But her eyes were very bright, cornflower blue like her house, and they missed nothing.

  The young man who visited her couldn’t have provided a starker contrast. If people were automobiles, he would have been a Corvette to Faye’s Model-T. He had a lean, muscular frame. Not extremely tall but not short either. His dark blonde hair was shaggy and perpetually in need of a barber. Maybe it was an image that Erik wanted to project. He was so good-looking that he didn’t have to worry about how his hair was cut. In his mid-twenties with elvish green eyes and a cleft in his chin, he was the stuff of which movie idols are made. Whether he was consciously vain was open to question. He liked to pretend he didn’t notice how women reacted to him. He believed he had a mission in life.

  Erik removed his suede jacket and tossed it on the couch. His car keys landed on top of the coat.

  Faye gestured for him to sit down. “Can I get you a cup of tea, dear?”

  She was about to shuffle off to the kitchen but her guest stopped her. “No thanks, Faye, I’m fine.”

  The elderly woman settled herself into a plum armchair opposite him. It had a doily perched on the headrest. The kind that was once known as an antimacassar. The chair itself might have dated from the time when men still used macassar oil to dress their hair and the doily kept them from soiling the furniture. Faye probably expected that patent leather hair would come back into vogue someday and was prepared for it.

  “Well then, what can you tell me?”

  Erik shrugged. “Not
much. She lives in a dorm at school. Keeps to herself a lot. I’ve been following her around ever since…” He trailed off.

  Faye sighed. “Yes, we all miss Sybil, dear. It was a terrible shock. A terrible loss.”

  Erik continued. “Anyway, ever since it happened, I’ve been following her. Went to the funeral but I kept out of sight. I didn’t see anybody odd. She went to Sybil’s apartment yesterday. I guess she was sorting through stuff. I stayed out in the hall for a while listening.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I heard a lot of crying.”

  “Poor child,” Faye said quietly. She smoothed the folds of her housedress. “Poor lost child.”

  Erik hunched forward on the couch. “Do you think she knows anything about Sybil’s recovery? About us?”

  Faye shook her head. “No, Sybil was most emphatic. She told me that she didn’t want her sister involved. She wanted to keep her safe. She believed the less Cassie knew, the better.”

  Erik looked skeptical. “I don’t see how keeping somebody in the dark is going to keep them safe. They’re more likely to do something stupid when they don’t know what they’re up against.”

  The young man stood up and began to pace. “It just seems wrong. Somebody ought to tell her.”

  Faye fixed her gaze on her visitor. Her expression was mild, almost curious. “Exactly how could we explain ourselves in a way that she would understand?”

  Erik ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know. We probably can’t. But this whole thing is making me edgy. I don’t like it. Just hanging around and listening to a girl cry.” He threw himself back down on the couch, exasperated. “Can I quit yet?”

  “I’d like you to keep watching her for a while longer.”

  Erik picked up his car keys and jingled them distractedly between his fingers. “What exactly do you expect will happen?”

  “I expect that sooner or later the person who killed Sybil will reveal himself.”

  “He probably found what he wanted in the shop. He’s probably long gone by now.”

  Faye stood and walked over to the picture window. She watched the morning breeze shake loose another batch of blossoms. “And if he didn’t obtain what he was looking for, how long do you think it will take him to find Cassie?”

  Erik stopped jingling the keys. He looked down at his hands. “I guess I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

  “Nor would I, dear.” Faye turned toward Erik. “Let’s watch her a little while longer just to be sure.”

  Chapter 6 – Compound Interest

  Despite her best intentions, it was after sunset the following evening before Cassie found her way back to Sybil’s apartment. Time to put all this in the past, she told herself decisively as she got out of her car and crossed the street toward the Gold Coast high rise. Yeah right. She was so eager to put things behind her that she’d procrastinated until nightfall to avoid confronting the residue of her sister’s life again. And she didn’t even have the excuse of going to classes anymore. School was on hold indefinitely. There was still the tricky matter of deciding where to live. She would probably move out of the dorm and into Sybil’s place. Right now that thought made her shudder. Not quite ready to deal with that idea yet.

  She got off the elevator on the fourth floor and headed toward Sybil’s flat at the end of the hall. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the bottom of the door. There was light coming from inside. Had she forgotten to switch off the power the day before? Who knew? She shrugged and sorted through the keys on her ring. When she turned the lock, she thought she heard a click coming from inside. Cassie swung the door open wide. She stood on the threshold listening for a moment. The place was dark, completely still.

  She walked across the room toward an end table to turn on the lamp. Something or someone slammed into her, shoving her sideways. She hit the wall, the breath knocked out of her lungs. Scrambling to her feet, she caught a glimpse of a man fleeing through the open door. Cassie gasped. He was wearing a Stetson hat and in his hand was an object she remembered seeing the day before.

  He was down the hall, through the fire exit door and halfway to the ground floor before she could move.

  “Hey, hey you! Stop!” She started to run toward the lighted hallway when she collided with another man. He shoved her back into the apartment. She didn’t think she recognized this one but the place was still dark so she couldn’t be sure.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  “Who are you?” she countered. “Where did you come from? What are you doing here?”

  “No time for that now!” His voice was urgent. “What happened?”

  “A...a man. He must have broken in. He...he was wearing a cowboy hat,” she stammered.

  The stranger grabbed her by the arms and shook her to get her attention. “Now listen! This is important! Did he take anything?”

  Cassie was having a hard time thinking clearly. She could hear the blood pounding in her ears. “Yeah, I think…”

  “What?” the man shook her again. “What was it?”

  “It was a stone ruler. Five-sided. About a foot long with weird markings all over it.” She twisted away from his grasp. “That’s all I could see. Now who—” Before she could get the rest of the question out, the man vanished.

  She heard him shout back at her from down the hallway, “Call the police!” Then she heard the fire exit door slam and heard feet clattering down the emergency stairs.

  Cassie was shaking. Delayed shock. She collapsed on the couch and switched on the table lamp. She looked around at the contents of the room. Trying to get her eyes to focus. To get her brain back to the present. Everything was just as she’d left it the day before. Except for one thing. The stone ruler was gone. Stolen by the man from her nightmare.

  She got up weakly and crossed the room to a bombé chest that held a telephone. When she picked up the receiver to dial 911, she noticed an envelope underneath the base of the phone. It had been hand-addressed. All she could see was the initial letter “C.” Putting the receiver down, she slid the packet out from its hiding place. In Sybil’s script, the letters “C-A-S-S-I-E” were scrawled across the front. Her hands were trembling as she ripped the envelope open.

  ***

  Erik could hear footsteps ahead of him at the bottom of the stairwell. He waited until the man had gotten to the ground floor before he moved forward. He didn’t want Cowboy to know he was being followed.

  Once the exit door slammed shut, he raced forward. Outside he saw Cowboy climbing into a red pickup parked across the street from the high rise. It tore away from the curb, heading north. Erik noted the license plate number. Shouldn’t be too hard to follow. He jumped into his car and tailed the thief, careful to keep several vehicles between them. With all the early evening traffic on the roads he didn’t think he’d been spotted. Cowboy got on the northbound expressway. He drove past the looming shadows of downtown high rises, past the suburban bedroom communities, past the overcrowded shopping malls, past the point where any expressway lights remained to illuminate the road. It was almost an hour before the pickup took a westbound exit that led to nothing but farm land. Erik knew it would be harder to keep from being noticed out in the middle of nowhere. He got behind a semi-trailer that was going in the same direction. Cowboy drove on for another half hour through pitch black countryside then turned right onto a side road marked with a yellow Dead End sign. Erik couldn’t follow him in there. It would be too obvious.

  He pulled his car off to the shoulder and got out, hoping he wouldn’t find one of those “Do Not Park Here” stickers plastered on his windshield when he got back. He started walking. Fortunately, lights appeared in the distance almost immediately. The road turned out to be a very, very long driveway. The building at the end of it couldn’t be more than a quarter mile away. Erik kept to the shoulder, in the shadows.

  The road ended in front of a pair of iron gates about ten feet high. Each of the gates was decorated with a capital letter P with an X throu
gh the middle of it. Erik didn’t know anyone with that monogram. He noticed the guard shack with security cameras mounted on either side of the gates and quickly ducked farther into the shadows. A ten foot chain link fence topped with razor wire surrounded the property. Company was clearly not welcome in this place.

  He couldn’t be sure how long the fence was but he could guess it stretched around several acres. Beyond the gate at the far end of the gravel drive, Erik could see Cowboy’s car. Somebody had been expecting his visit.

  Erik headed for the trees that bordered the fence to the east where more of the layout was visible. He focused his attention on the house, if you could call it that. The building was as big as a castle, or maybe “fortress” would be a better word. It looked as if it could withstand a siege. The design was squat and square with a flat roof, like a massive cinderblock. Towers flanked the building on either end. Erik guessed there might be two on the back end as well. The building was studded with tall narrow windows recessed deep into the walls. Light glowed through drawn curtains making it impossible to tell how many people were inside. Floodlights bleached the limestone façade to a blinding whiteness.

  Aside from the main building, Erik counted at least eight other structures around the perimeter—smaller replicas of the main house. Then he noticed an odd assortment of sheds, garages and trailers that must have been used for storage. A compound. He smiled to himself. It had to be them. Nobody else would live like this. Now he knew for certain who had hired Cowboy to steal Sybil’s find. The only thing he still couldn’t figure out was why.

  Chapter 7 – Key Issues

  Leroy pressed the doorbell several times before the oak double doors swung open to reveal a clean-cut teenager in a suit.

  The young man blinked once. He didn’t ask Leroy’s name. He simply motioned the visitor inside. “Come in, Mr. Hunt. Father has been expecting you for sometime now.”