The Roubaud Connection

by Estelle Ryan

  Caelan droned on about co-ordinates, but I stopped listening. I looked at Pink, who was staring at me with an expression I’d seen every time he’d reached a pivotal conclusion. I gasped and turned to Caelan. “Would Jace have given you GPS co-ordinates as a clue?”

  “Yes. Jace talked a lot about creating his own cache hunt. He wanted his riddles to be epic.”

  Manny grunted. “What are you talking about, Doc?”

  I searched through the photos of Jace’s crime scene and found the right one. The moment I put it on one of the monitors, Caelan uttered a keening sound, dropped the stress balls and started slapping his thighs.

  “Bloody hell, Doc. Give a person some warning.”

  I looked at the photo that I’d taken of the numbers Jace had written in the snow and sighed. I had looked at it enough times to have desensitised myself to the blood smears on the snow. “I apologise.”

  “No need.” Caelan inhaled deeply, picked up his stress balls and squeezed them five times while staring at his hands. Then he lifted his eyes and studied the photos on the screen. I saw the moment his mind registered something important. “I know where this is! The Sahara desert expands at about one kilometre per month! The average iceberg weighs twenty million tonnes!”

  “Take a breath, superman.” Vinnie walked closer and kneeled in front of Caelan. “Tell us what you know.”

  Again Caelan looked at the stress balls as he squeezed them slowly and purposefully. He inhaled deeply. “This was Jace’s all-time favourite cache hunt. He loved the clues and the location made him very happy.”

  “Where is it?” Manny turned to the door.

  “Very close.” Caelan looked at my shoulder. “I don’t want to go there.”

  “You don’t have to go anywhere, dude.” Vinnie got up. “You just tell us where it is and we’ll find whatever it is that Jace left for you.”

  Caelan took a few deep breaths while staring at Vinnie’s torso. “It’s in a luggage locker at the train station.”

  Daniel lifted his smartphone. “Is it one of the lockers where you have to enter a code into a keypad to unlock it?”

  “Yes.” Caelan gave the number of the locker as well as the code. “I don’t think it’s possible someone would’ve changed the code. Jace wouldn’t have given me this clue then.”

  Daniel nodded and left the room, already talking on his phone. Less than a minute later he walked back into the room, his phone still pressed against his ear, but looking at Pink. “Two officers are opening the locker. They’ll send you photos of whatever they find in there.”

  No sooner had he said this than his eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly. “What? Are you serious?”

  “What did they find?” Caelan was rocking in his chair.

  Daniel looked at Colin. “A statue of a demon. They’re sending a photo.”

  “Got it.” Pink tapped on his smartphone screen and a photo filled one of the monitors in front of me. Inside a locker large enough for a big suitcase was a statue filling most of the space. It appeared to be made of stone, but I doubted something that heavy would be stored in the locker. It could be a good facsimile. Its stooped shoulders revealed large wings folded along its back and it was crouching as if ready to jump. Pointed ears, a flat nose, claws and a sneer that revealed sharp teeth were typical of the images frequently portraying evil spirits.

  “Holy hell!” Manny took a step back. “What in the blue blazes is that, Frey?”

  “It’s a gargoyle.” Colin looked at Caelan. “Does it have any meaning to you?”

  Caelan’s rocking increased. “No. The water of Antarctica is so cold that nothing can rot there. I don’t know what this means. I don’t know. Every year, Alaska has about five thousand earthquakes. I don’t know!”

  “It’s okay, superman.” Vinnie looked at me and widened his eyes.

  “What?” I wasn’t clear on his communication.

  “Help the dude.” Vinnie nodded towards Caelan muttering to himself and rocking in the chair.

  “I don’t know how to help him.” I leaned away from them, tightness pressing on my chest.

  “It’s okay, girlfriend.” Francine got up and slapped Vinnie hard on the shoulder. “I got this. Vin, go bake some cookies.”

  “No. No.” Caelan’s rocking slowed and he squeezed the stress balls a few times slowly, his focus completely on his hands. “I want to help.”

  “Why don’t we take a walk to clear your head?” Pink pointed with his thumb over his shoulder to the elevator. “A bit of movement and you’ll be able to understand why Jace left you that gargoyle as a clue.”

  “I’m okay. I will be okay. I will help.” He looked down at his hands, then glanced at me. “It’s a riddle. Jace might’ve created a cache before he died. If I figure out the answer to this riddle and enter it into the app, it should give me the next co-ordinates.”

  “For the next riddle.” Francine tapped a manicured nail against her chin. “Is there a way to check if Jace really created a cache hunt?”

  “No.” Caelan squeezed the stress balls. “I know all the caches on the app and this one isn’t there. That means that Jace hadn’t finished creating it.” He looked at my shoulder. “I won’t stop thinking until I know the answer to this riddle. I will help you, Doctor Lenard.”

  “I know you’ll help.” I understood the need.

  Francine sat down next to me and picked up her tablet and Manny glared at the image on the monitor. “That is just bloody ugly.”

  “It’s art.” Colin smiled when Manny’s frown deepened. “There are examples found in ancient civilizations of gargoyles. That’s how far back their history stretches. Their mouths were used as water spouts on the roofs of Egyptian temples. The same on Greek temples, but those figures were often lions or other vicious beasts. The whole purpose of gargoyles on the roofs of buildings has always been decorative, but also practical as water spouts.”

  “I don’t care.” Manny pushed his hands into his trouser pockets. “It’s ugly.”

  Vinnie crossed his arms and looked at me. “Any ideas what the answer might be?”

  I had none. I had no frame of reference for geocaching or these riddles. I didn’t even know if the gargoyle was a riddle. I had to trust that Caelan knew his friend well enough to be accurate in this supposition. And I hoped Caelan could calm down enough to allow his mind to find the answer.

  Francine shifted next to me and tapped her tablet screen. Her procerus and corrugator supercilii muscles pulled her brow in and down. It felt as if my stomach turned. The only times I’d seen that expression on her face had been when she’d been about to share something disturbing. I cleared my throat. “What?”

  “Hmm?” She looked up from her tablet and blanched at my expression. “Oh, you saw that.”

  “Saw what?” Manny stepped closer, but Francine raised her hand to stop him. He grunted. “Talk.”

  Francine leaned forward to look past me at Caelan. “I downloaded all the footage from Jace’s glasses.”

  Chapter FIVE

  CAELAN’S frontalis muscles pulled his eyebrows high on his forehead. “I don’t want to see him die.”

  “We won’t show that.” Francine looked at me. “We’ll stop before that and warn you.”

  I also didn’t want to see anyone dying, but I knew there might be valuable information that could lead us to the killer. I pushed Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major into my mind. “How much footage is there?”

  “It seems like your last three geocache hunts are there.” She hesitated, then looked at Caelan. “Explain the process you two used to find a cache.”

  Caelan squeezed the stress balls. “Jace turns his glasses on when he’s at a point we arranged beforehand. The glasses connect to his phone’s internet, which then transmits the footage to me. I watch live where he’s going. As he goes along, we see the clues that are at the site. I process those hints and direct Jace to the next point.”

  “Hmm.” Manny rubbed his stubbled j
aw. “Tell me more about these glasses. Can they be hacked?”

  “Essentially, anything that connects to the internet can be hacked.” Pink took a step away from Manny when the latter frowned at him. “Most smart glasses aren’t useful enough to be hacked. Not on their own.”

  “I sense a ‘but’.” Manny looked from Pink to Francine.

  “A defined butt.” Francine glanced at Manny’s backside, then winked at him when his scowl intensified. “If I hack Pink’s glasses and he’s transmitting or connected via Bluetooth or wifi, I can access his system. And wham! I’m all over GIPN’s business.”

  “And because smart glasses are still newish tech, the security is not fantastic.” Daniel looked at Pink. “That’s why I still prefer button cams.”

  Pink raised one eyebrow. “The firewalls and antivirus programmes I have on our stuff make it really hard for anyone to hack.”

  “But not impossible,” Daniel said.

  Francine asked Pink about the firewalls and soon they were discussing the specifications of the latest smart glasses and their software. Caelan was following the conversation. Vinnie and Manny quickly grew bored with Pink and Francine’s explanations of the technical aspects of the glasses, but the more they spoke the more Caelan relaxed. The facts were easier for his non-neurotypical mind to process.

  “But the new button cams you guys got are great though.” Francine smiled at Daniel. “I even got us a few. These models are amazing. I tweaked ours a bit and now they connect via satellite, which means their transmission is much less limited than those relying on wifi.”

  “They’re also much less obvious than the glasses,” Daniel said. “Easier to blend with the person’s outfit, they’re smaller and it would take a lot to slap them off.”

  “For the love of all that is holy.” Manny’s fists tightened in his trouser pockets. “Can we stop talking tech and watch the footage?”

  “Of course.” Francine looked at Caelan and relaxed when she saw him loosely holding the stress balls. “Are you ready, Caelan?”

  “No.”

  “Should I wait a bit longer?”

  “No.” Caelan squeezed the stress balls once. Hard. “Go ahead.”

  Francine gave him an encouraging smile and tapped on her tablet screen. “There’s quite a lot of footage here. Should I play all of it?”

  I thought about this. “No. For now, only play the footage on the day Jace disappeared and died.”

  “Okey-dokey.” Francine tapped the screen and four of the monitors in front of me came to life.

  Since the monitors didn’t have frames and were positioned close to each other, it was convenient to view something on a larger scale by distributing it over four or even more monitors. At the moment, the image filling the four monitors showed the inside of a huge space.

  “It looks like a warehouse,” Daniel said. “Where is this, Caelan?”

  “It’s a self-storage space in the warehouse district.” Caelan pointed at a door to the left of the open space. “Jace will go out this door now.”

  “You’re in the wrong place.” Caelan’s voice came over the sound system.

  “It recorded your communication as well?” Colin asked.

  “Yes.” Caelan stared at the monitor as two hands came into view and gestured in a familiar manner. “Jace used sign language to speak to me like this. But sometimes I had to remind him to lift his hands higher or look at them. He would sometimes sign out of view of the camera. He just said that he knows he’s in the wrong place and will go to the correct building.”

  The image on the monitors changed as Jace opened the door and stepped outside. Three days ago, it had been sunny, but cold. Snow from the night before had been removed from the road between the buildings, but the roofs and footpaths all had a thick white layer.

  Jace walked towards the building next to the one he’d exited, raised his hands and signed.

  “You’re the one who insisted on going out today,” Caelan said on the recording.

  “What did he say?” Vinnie asked.

  “He said it’s very cold.”

  “It might be best if you interpret every time Jace signs,” I said.

  “Okay.”

  Onscreen, Jace opened a red metal door and walked into the building. He was at one end of the building, looking down several aisles. Each aisle had numerous red doors, most of which looked like rolling garage doors. His hands came into view and he signed.

  “Number six-one-eight,” Caelan said on the recording.

  He shifted next to me. “We got that number from a clue in the previous cache.”

  The image on the monitors moved down the aisle to the left as Jace walked past the doors, looking at the locker numbers. He walked past six-one-seven and raised his fist in victory when he stopped in front of six-one-eight. He signed.

  “I don’t know.” Caelan’s recorded voice sounded agitated. “There wasn’t any clue about a code for the lock.”

  “He asked what the code was,” Caelan said.

  “We figured,” Manny said.

  “Try four-eight-three-two-one-nine,” Caelan said online. “We don’t have any other numbers to go by.”

  Jace raised his thumb and entered the six-digit number into the keypad. There was a slight click and again Jace raised his fist. He signed.

  “He’s saying that using the locker’s GPS digits as the code is stupid.” Caelan paused as his voice on the recording said, “Yeah, but it made it easier for us. See what’s inside.”

  Jace rolled up the door and jerked back. He signed something at the same moment as Caelan’s laughter sounded over the recording.

  “I know. Of all the caches, this is the silliest. ‘E’. Hah.” Caelan continued laughing as Jace stepped into the locker to inspect a large lower-case letter ‘e’ hanging from the roof. There was nothing else in the room. Just this plastic letter with a small piece of white paper attached to it. Jace stepped closer and signed.

  “I see the note,” Caelan said on the recording. “‘I start with the letter ‘e’, I end with the letter ‘e’. I contain only one letter, yet I am not the letter ‘e’. What am I?’ You’re right, Jace. This is stupid. Put the answer into the app and you can get out of here.”

  “What did he say?” Manny asked.

  Francine paused the recording and Caelan turned to look at Manny’s shoulder. “He said this was a stupid riddle. A stupid cache. The riddle wasn’t really a challenge, especially the last one. He also said he could create a much better cache.”

  “Well, I don’t know what the answer is.” Vinnie didn’t appear embarrassed. Just puzzled.

  “Let me guess,” Daniel said. “It’s ‘envelope’.”

  “Hah!” Vinnie slapped his thigh. “I get it. Only one letter in an envelope.”

  The corner of Caelan’s mouth twitched.

  “Ready to watch the rest?” Francine waited for me to nod before she continued the recording. It moved as if Jace was shaking his head. He entered the word ‘envelope’ into the app, put his phone away and signed.

  “He said he’s going home to upload everything and have lunch,” Caelan said before his recorded voice replied, “We’re registered as first to get to this cache. We’re on top, man.”

  Jace signed.

  “Me too. I’m going to have milk and white cookies. I’m too hungry to cook anything now. Maybe tonight for dinner.”

  The image on the monitors went black and then paused. I glanced at Francine and saw her finger hovering over the pause icon.

  “That was the last time I spoke to Jace.” Caelan’s fingers tightened around the stress ball until his knuckles turned white. “Is this his last recording?”

  “No.” Francine’s tone was gentle. “There’s more.”

  Caelan released his tight grip on the stress ball and squeezed it a few times. “What? What else did he record?”

  Francine tapped her tablet screen. The monitors stayed black for another two seconds before a shaky image filled the scr
eens. The bare walls, floor and lack of windows in the room led me to the conclusion that Jace was in a basement. A lightbulb hung from the ceiling, no lampshade or any decorative finishing visible anywhere. A thin layer of white paint hadn’t been enough to cover the concrete walls or effectively lighten the space.

  Plastic containers lined the walls all the way to the ceiling, each container neatly marked. A quick glance showed some containers holding magazines, marked by year. Other containers held books. These were marked by year and letters of the alphabet.

  Wooden crates in the centre of the room drew my attention away from the combination of hoarding and obsessive organising. Jace’s hands appeared in view of the camera. He signed.

  “He’s saying that he found these in a storage locker in the same aisle as the envelope cache we found. The door was open and this was all that was in the room. The manager of the warehouse was inside, swearing like crazy. He didn’t know what to do with the crates.” Caelan leaned forward and stared at Jace’s hands on the monitors. “He says the manager said that one of their regular clients booked the locker on the same day they expected a delivery.

  “The client couldn’t be there, so the manager agreed to open the locker for the delivery. Twelve crates were delivered. The client came to pick four up and was going to return the afternoon for the rest and pay for the locker.

  “When this person didn’t come back, the manager opened the locker to remove the crates. Jace is saying the manager was very unprofessional and full of whiny information. That size locker was the most popular to rent out and he wanted to make it available to customers.

  “Jace immediately offered to rent it and the manager was very happy to receive a cash payment for a year in advance. The manager said since that client knew the company policies, he didn’t have a problem renting out the locker and giving the contents to Jace. Jace then moved the remaining eight crates to his basement. He planned to store other things in this locker.”

  Caelan paused. “He says that legally he now owns everything that was in that locker.”