The Pandora Box

by Lilly Maytree

  Dee felt a chilling fear wash over her, but still couldn’t see clear enough to focus on it. “Anything short of a hurricane…” she murmured the words out loud, remembering. “She can take anything short of a—”

  “Acknowledge Pandora, this is White Fox,” the radio suddenly crackled loud and clear into their chaos. “Reverse your heading. Repeat. Reverse your heading. You are running up on the tail of Typhoon Hikari. Stand by for—” The message was cut off by a familiar voice. “Dee, is that you? This is Eddington—what’s your situation there? Over.”

  “We have Dr. Von Hayden and the head nurse from Wyngate in custody!” she shouted back into the receiver. “But Marion and I are alone. Hawkins and Starr were—’ She let go of the button because she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

  “Hold on, Dee,” Eddington’s voice was reassuring. “Major Hawkins and Henry Starr are alive and en route for the Japanese coast in a disabled vessel. Now, if you girls can reverse your heading and hold on, White Fox can intercept at… oh, one hundred. Over.”

  A relief close to delirium swept over Dee, and she slumped down onto the floor.

  “They’re alive!” Marion cried. “Did you hear that, Dee? They’re—” She grabbed the mike, herself, pressed down the button and hollered, “What time exactly is that, Mr. Eddington! So we know how long we have to hold out! Over!”

  “One o’clock in the morning, Ms. Bates, and it sure is good to hear from you, ma’am. I don’t know how you two managed, but we can talk when you get here. And keep the radio on this time, girls. One more loss of contact could cause a nervous breakdown around here. White Fox out.”

  Buoyed by each other and the news that Hawk and Starr were alive, Dee quickly dressed in warm clothes and foul weather gear. Since Marion couldn’t get hers out of the forward cabin, she borrowed from Dee and they climbed onto Pandora’s wet, windblown decks. After weeks at sea, they knew what had to be done and how to do it.

  There was no room for mistakes. Not if they were going to get the boat turned around fast enough to outrun a typhoon. Which would be a tricky undertaking in such heavy weather, all by itself. Their prospects looked more than daunting, and without a shadow of doubt, there was only one possible way they could succeed…There would have to be angels helping.

  39

  Inheritance

  “We were afraid that you were dead…” ~ Nellie Bly

  It was pitch dark, in considerably calmer waters, when Pandora was finally boarded by duty officers. This time Eddington and Reynolds were among them, to arrest the notorious suspects, who looked anything but dangerous after their unusual confinements. Their eyes were swollen shut, and Anna Keller―with hair tumbled down and clothes askew—looked all of her sixty-two years.

  Dee and Marion were so exhausted, they gathered a few of their things and gladly exchanged places with four able-bodied seamen who would finish taking the yacht to the nearest Japanese harbor. It was nearly two in the morning by the time the women finally traded the cold rolling decks of Pandora for the longer, slower, more gradual roll of the USS White Fox.

  While Reynolds settled the prisoners in the ship’s brig, Eddington led Marion and Dee to the officers’ dining room, where sandwiches and hot coffee were waiting. Since neither of them had eaten for twenty-four hours, they were starved. With faces flushed and eyes bright from coming into the warm room after so many hours in the cold, they piled their few bags in a corner and removed heavy jackets before sitting.

  “That was a fine piece of work, ladies,” Eddington said with a genuine show of relief at having finally recovered his entire flock of decoys without casualty. “Shoot, with a little push and some training, I could probably get you gals jobs at the agency.”

  “No thanks,” Marion demurred. “I’m relegating myself back to the rank of grandmother.”

  “Have you heard from Hawk?” Dee asked him. “And how did Starr manage—”

  “I don’t know any details. We’re not in radio contact.” Eddington took half a ham sandwich from a plate that was piled high. “But we’ll hear from them as soon as they reach the coast. About two or three days.”

  “Two or three days on that broken boat? In all this bad weather?”

  “Can’t they be rescued?” Dee pressed.

  “They refused assistance so we could come after you,” Eddington replied. “But if anyone could make it, they could. That Hawkins is a world class sailor. Pretty resourceful,” he added on a more positive note.

  “He told us he was just a cruising bum, Mr. Eddington,” Marion clarified. “They’re going to need help.”

  “Excuse me, ma’am, but anyone who can sail a forty-foot yacht singlehanded around the world is no bum. Especially a retired medical examiner. They don’t just give those kinds of credentials away. What sort of a story was he feeding you girls?”

  “Nothing compared to the one all this seems to have brought on,” Dee accused. “Were you responsible for having him reinstated, Mr. Eddington?”

  “I did that because I knew it was the only way he’d cooperate. When I realized what you all were headed into, I had to do something fast. Shoot, I’d end up with my head on a block if I lost four civilians. I knew I could count on him, though.”

  “How did you know?” Dee asked.

  “Because of his past record. He’s one of those beyond-the-call-of-duty types. If they can’t carry out orders the way they’re told, they’ll find some other way to get it done. Earned himself a medal about eleven years ago.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Details are classified.” Then seeing the look of disappointment on Dee’s face, he added, “but since you’re his wife, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to give you a general idea. He participated in a rescue of a downed American aircraft in a…questionable area. Commanding officer was wounded, and he performed emergency surgery in the field. Saved his life. Then got everybody out, alive.” He smiled at the look of admiration in her eyes. “You got yourself a hero, Miss Dee.”

  “Well I’m just…flabbergasted!” Marion marveled.

  “How long will he have to stay reinstated?” Dee asked. “Will it delay our search for the diamonds?”

  Eddington set his half-eaten sandwich aside with an uncomfortable sigh. “I have a lot of explaining to do, here. Might take a little time. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather get some rest and talk in the morning?”

  “I’d rather talk now.” Dee felt a slow apprehension at the thought that he had painted a glowing picture of Hawk as a prelude to announcing he had been lost at sea.

  “You ever been turkey hunting, Dee?”

  “Turkey hunting?”

  “First, you walk out in the woods where you think the turkeys are, and―”

  “Mr. Eddington, I fail to see what this has to do with—”

  “Give me a minute now, I’m getting to it.” He was wearing a dark, Navy issue sweater, and he pushed up the sleeves before leaning his forearms on the table. “You go out where the turkeys are, hide behind a log, and make a sound like another turkey. Pretty soon, a real one comes by to check things out, and…” He made a gesture like he was sighting down the barrel of a rifle. “Bam! You got yourself a turkey. Now there’s no easy way to say this, so I’m gonna come right out and admit I used you to get the turkeys. But no one was as surprised as me when I looked down my sights and saw a couple of vultures sitting there, instead.”

  “But I thought you were after Keller all along,” Dee said.

  “Keller. But Keller turned out to be a sophisticated network of extortionists that were two steps ahead of me and right on your tail. You were playing into their hands, and I had no way to call you back in―or even warn you—because Hawkins didn’t have his radio on! My backup plan didn’t work out.”

  “You mean reinstating him?”

  “That reinstatement isn’t official. I just haven’t had a chance to tell him, yet.”

  “But he was reinstated before we even connected with that other boat!”

  �
��Shoot, that was just a message I had relayed a couple days before. Ren and I were stuck out on an aircraft carrier, because of the weather, when everything started coming down.” He picked up his sandwich again. “You wouldn’t believe the strings I had to pull even to get out here. By the time I did, White Fox had already let Pandora slip through their hands.”

  “Well, it wasn’t as if you didn’t try to talk us out of it in San Francisco.” Dee took a contemplative sip of the strong black coffee she was holding onto just to take the chill off her nearly frozen hands. “I don’t think you could have said anything to change our minds about it anyway. We were sort of… spellbound.”

  “There is one thing I could have said.” Eddington took a deep breath and looked her right in the eye. “There are no diamonds out there, Dee. Not in Siberia anyway.”

  “What?”

  Marion’s mouth dropped open. “You mean you let us walk right into that trap for…for nothing?”

  “I did try to talk you out of it.”

  “No diamonds!” Dee was shocked. “If you’d have told us there were no diamonds, we’d have been talked out of it! How could you do something like that? Especially if you already knew Heinrich Keller was dead.”

  “I didn’t know he was dead until after San Francisco. I just knew you were the vital link. And if he still thought the diamonds were there, I figured he’d stay in touch with you. It wasn’t until we looked into Wyngate that we realized they were so far ahead of us. Been following right behind you the whole time.”

  “We were nearly killed!” Marion pushed her colorful drooping scarf out of her eye and gave him a piercing glance.

  “I’m sorry about that, ladies, I really am. If I’d have known what you were really up against out here, I’d never done it. That’s a fact. I still don’t know how you two managed to overpower them before they got rid of you. They didn’t leave any witnesses, anywhere else, not even Keller’s own son.”

  “We have the help of angels, Mr. Eddington,” Marion informed him. “On account of Dee’s father is a pastor.”

  “Marion, that isn’t why we have angels,” Dee objected, “everybody has at least—”

  “Angels or no angels.” He grinned. “The thing is, it looks like Keller even did away with Anna’s son, at some point, because he hasn’t been on the radar for years.”

  “You mean Peterson’s grandson?” Dee took a deep breath before she could steady herself enough to explain. “I know where he is, and Peterson didn’t kill him, Mr. Eddington. He fell overboard because I was trying to throw the journal in the water.”

  “Dee!” Marion gasped at the thought.

  “Well, I knew I couldn’t stand up under any kind of torture, and—”

  “Dee Parker!”

  “Marion, you know what a baby I am when it comes to pain. That awful thing had a curse on it! I thought sure he would climb back up on the lifeline, but when we got out on deck, I found half of the line in the cockpit. Von Hayden must have cut it off before he even—”

  “Hold it!” Eddington dropped the drooping sandwich he was still hanging onto back on the plate, got to his feet, and started pacing back and forth, as if he was about to come undone. “Are you telling me they were both using that name? Like some code word to communicate with?”

  “For the last five years, it was only Scott”

  “He was on that boat with you, too.”

  “He’s been working at the desk across from mine for the last five years,” Dee went on. “Under the name of Scott Evans. Anna was his mother, and Peterson—my Peterson—was his grandfather.”

  “That whole family was rotten!” Marion declared.

  Eddington stopped in his tracks. “There’s the last piece of the puzzle, right there. Anna Keller was married to some Dutch fisherman after the war. She was only fifteen. Public records say his name was Nelson Peterson. Heinrich Keller killed him and assumed his identity. This is the first I heard about Anna’s son working with them, but it makes all kinds of sense. He was just the type they needed to make international connections for the organ donor ring. Spoke several languages, too.”

  “I don’t think he was doing it willingly, though,” Dee reasoned. “He and Von Hayden were too much at odds with each other. It was the diamonds that had the hold on him, though, and he could never get the location out of his grandfather. But that does explain why Anna hated her father so much.”

  “That’s no excuse to go around killing and stealing other people’s body parts!” Marion huffed.

  “Of course not, but it makes sense.” Dee pulled her black knit cap off, realized her clip was missing, and began shoving the damp, unruly curls back up into it again.

  “I’m just surprised she let Ms. Bates go. That isn’t her style.”

  “They didn’t know I was there, I was hiding out in the bilge.”

  He looked from one to the other, as if he hadn’t heard right. “Between you hiding out in bilges and Dee tossing over the only thing that could buy her more time, I know I could get you both on at the agency. Well…you’ve got a friend anyway, ladies, I’ll say that much. And if there’s ever anything I can do for either one of you—anything—you just let me know.”

  “Hopefully, we won’t ever get into a fix like this again,” Dee replied.

  “Probably not, but…” Eddington sank back into his seat, picked up his drooping sandwich, and then tossed it aside. “There is one last thing I have to discuss with you.”

  “For heaven’s sakes, now what?” Marion took another half sandwich, opened it long enough to remove a wilted piece of lettuce, and then closed it up again before taking a bite.

  “What else could there possibly be? As it is, I’ll never forgive myself for everything that’s happened.” Dee lamented.

  “Well, don’t take it too hard,” Eddington replied. “You were up against professional criminals. They were plotting against you for over a year before they even made their move. And, as often happens with these types, they were at odds with each other. Seems that colleague of yours really was trying to make a change. He was going to pull out after he got hold of the diamonds. Left an account of the whole story in his personal effects on the other boat. Hawk sent it in with the helicopter, thinking it might help locate you if we couldn’t catch up.”

  “But I thought you said you didn’t know Scott was with them,” Dee reminded him.

  “I didn’t. He signed his name as Scott Evans, so I didn’t know the connection. Said he and his fiancée, Jennifer Young, had just signed on as crew. But when Jennifer started complaining about some of the activities they were involved in… like following you around back in San Francisco, dressed as a couple of old people…”

  “Oh, gosh—that was her I saw in the restaurant.”

  “What restaurant?” Marion asked. “The only person you pointed out to me, that day, was Mr. Eddington, here.”

  “The day after that, when I was in the Fish Grotto with Hawk.”

  “She caused more trouble than they wanted to deal with, so they poisoned her. I figured they did the same to Scott, until Hawk said he was aboard Pandora with all of you. Jennifer, was a decoy, dead or alive, for slipping out from under White Fox.”

  “Which they used me for instead. Oh, it’s all so awful.” Dee put her head in her hands and suddenly felt exhausted. “I’m ashamed we ever got caught up in something so―so sordid! I really don’t know what came over us. It’s like we were all…”

  “Possessed,” Marion finished for her.

  “Maybe it’s a good thing the diamonds are gone,” Dee reasoned. “Who knows what depths we would have sunk to if we still thought they were out there.”

  “All this for something I’ll never see,” Marion sighed.

  “Actually,” Eddington said in a lighter tone, “I think that could be arranged. Now that we’ve got the bad news over with, let’s get to the good part. The wealthy Japanese collector who bought the Strassgaard Jewels, when they were recovered back in seventy-three, is inter
ested in finishing out the collection. In case you’d like to sell that ring.”

  “You mean I get to keep it?” Dee raised her head to look over at him. “I don’t have to turn it over for evidence or anything?”

  “I could confiscate it for evidence,” he admitted. “But it isn’t an integral part of the case. You came by it honestly, and there’s no one else left to claim it. So after months or even years in litigation, it would probably come back to you anyway. And since you’ve both been so instrumental in all this, and…”

  “Saved your hide,” Marion finished for him.

  He laughed. “You’ve done that, all right. I think it’s only fair you hang onto it. Unless you’re ready to sell, that is.”

  “Oh, I am ready to sell,” Dee insisted. “I can’t wait to sell it. That ring has brought us nothing but bad luck from the moment I first took it out of the box!”

  “All right, then. The man’s name is Kim Yakawa. He’s a businessman in Tokyo. Made his money in high tech electronics, and he’s willing to pay a million point five for it.”

  “A million point five.” Dee whispered.

  “It’s worth more because it once belonged to a cousin of the Russian royal family. Historical value and all that. Not such a bad profit for your efforts. Right? He owns the Blue Moon. A fancy, upper class resort over on the coast there. I talked to him last week, and he said if I could get my hands on it, he’d be willing to talk.”

  “I’m so happy we’re all alive, I’d split five ways if you wanted to.”

  “Dee Parker.” Marion objected. “We have to have a round table with the other partners before you go agreeing to anything like that.”

  “I couldn’t take the money, Miss Dee,” Eddington smiled warmly. “It’s illegal for me to accept any monetary reward in connection with a case. But I do appreciate the vote of confidence.”

  “What did you have in mind, then?” she asked.

  “Just a little favor. That’s how we do things like this. But I do feel responsible to let you know”—he warned with a teasing twinkle coming into his eyes—”that it could be a little dangerous.”