Collecting Shadows

by Gary Williams

She continued, “What you can’t see above is a solarium which used to lead to roof-top gardens and panoramic views of the city.”

  Liam saw the large intricate circle of mosaic tiles on the floor where they stood. The pattern appeared to be about a dozen feet in diameter. “I saw ‘Ponce de León’s sword splitting the water’ outside, but where’s ‘Ponce de León’s flaw’ in this tile work?”

  Bailey walked to the edge of the circle pattern closest to the entryway. “See how each of the black triangular patterns that run along the outer edge of this design all have a single white tile? This is the one exception,” she pointed down. “Where the tile should be white, it’s black. On the tour they explain that Flagler, being a pious man, felt that only God was perfect, thus he created this one imperfection in his hotel. Truth is, I think it’s an honest mistake. Flagler had over 50 men at one time affixing the thousands of small tiles to create the floor design during construction. Somebody just goofed.” Bailey turned her head, distracted. “Quick, follow me.”

  Before Liam could react, Bailey pulled him by the hand in the direction of the Grand Parlor. A group of people had arrived, coming from a hallway, and assembled at the double doors. They each wore the same tour sticker on their chest.

  A tour guide could be heard approaching. “Our final stop on the tour is the Grand Parlor.”

  Liam understood what Bailey was doing. She was trying to squeeze them into the earlier tour group undetected.

  The female tour guide, a petite student with dark hair and glasses, used a key to unlock the doors. “This room is not accessible to students; it’s only open for tours and occasionally for special functions. Please note that most of the furniture in here is original, so please take care as you move about the room. You are allowed to take photographs. We will begin with a short presentation, so I ask that you take a seat in the center part of the room where you’ll see the chairs on the left.” She swung the door open, and held it with her back as she motioned the tour group in one at a time.

  When Bailey reached the door, the guide eyed her suspiciously. “Ma’am, you weren’t on this tour. You’ll need to wait for the next one to start. You, too, sir,” she said to Liam.

  Liam was about to back out when Bailey spoke, “I’m sorry, we took an earlier tour, and I think I left my camera inside. I was photographing the fireplace and must have laid it down. I’ve already checked with the gift shop, and they said no one had returned a camera to them. They suggested we come in with this tour and take a quick look around. I promise, it’ll only take a minute and then we’ll be gone. I probably laid it on one of the chairs.”

  Bailey was brilliant. She had purposely referenced items in the room to back up her story. The tour guide waved them through.

  “Wow, you’re quite the liar,” Liam whispered as they entered the room.

  “That was a good lie. It’s only a bad lie if someone gets hurt.”

  “I didn’t realize there were degrees of lies.”

  “While I pretend to look for a camera, you check out the time on the clock. It’s above the fireplace in the center of the room on that side,” she said, pointing with her eyes.

  They moved deeper into the room following the crowd. Liam noticed that the French Renaissance style was obvious but not overdone, as he had read. The walls were less decorated than those of the rotunda. The parlor was done primarily in pastel colors, and the carpet pattern was a simple floral design. A multitude of framed paintings hung on the walls, large crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and sashed windows provided ample light.

  He recalled that the 104-foot room was split into three sections by two arched partitions. Thick drapes hung to the side of the outer two arches of each partition. Given its relatively low ceiling, no more than a dozen feet tall, Liam had read that the architects had sectioned the room to give it the feel of three cozy salons.

  They passed by two sets of Corinthian columns and reached the central salon. Bailey veered off to the left, and Liam directed his attention toward the fireplace. He had seen pictures of it, but it was far more majestic in person. The white onyx surrounding the fireplace was awash in colors, bordered by two vertical panels with elegant images of candelabrums. Above the mantle, the circular “day” clock was centered among raised designs. At either end of the mantle, lavish urns were carved in niches, stacked on shelves two feet high, forming columns which reached the ceiling.

  Liam eyed the clock. The gold starburst pattern in the middle partially obscured the gold hour and minute hands. He had to focus intently to identify the permanently displayed time: 3:27. He also happened to notice the Roman Number IIII, instead of IV, like on his aunt’s clock. He still found the practice odd.

  Liam turned, nearly running over the tour guide standing behind him. “We’re leaving now,” he said, and silently motioned for Bailey. She was pretending to scan the chairs when he caught her attention. They left just as the others were settling into their seats, waiting for the tour guide to speak.

  Outside, standing in the courtyard, Liam pulled the syllabus from his pocket and again read the back.

  Beyond where the sword splits the water, and Ponce de León’s flaw, find where Paris should be New York. There, sadly, follow the last of the daytime. Final destination is buried behind the fourth and surrounded by death.

  “Okay, we’ve got the ‘last of the daytime.’ The time was 3:27, so the ‘last’ is the number 7. I don’t understand the rest of the clue, though, or why he used the word ‘sadly.’ ”

  Bailey paced next to the fountain. She appeared deep in thought. “I’ve got it,” she beamed. She settled beside Liam, pointing to the paper. “ ‘…buried behind the fourth and surrounded by death.’ Where do you find a lot of death?”

  “On TV.”

  “In a cemetery, of course.”

  “There, too. Is there more than one cemetery in town?”

  “Lots, but I believe I know which one it is by Mr. Mast’s clue of the number 7. He said, ‘buried behind the fourth.’ Notice he didn’t say four, he said the fourth. The fourth of seven. He’s referring to the Seven Sorrows of Mary. That’s why he used the word ‘sadly.’ There are seven stone altars for each of the Seven Sorrows of Mary in the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche Cemetery north of the Castillo de San Marcos on the bay. He’s leading us to the fourth shrine there.”

  On the drive over, Bailey explained the significance of the cemetery. “In 1513, Ponce de León landed in St. Augustine. But that’s not the explorer who settled St. Augustine. On September 8, 1565, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés landed where the cemetery is and claimed the land for Spain. It was there that the first mass was held. It’s considered one of the most sacred spots in the New World.”

  “Wait, you mean there’s history in this town that doesn’t involve Flagler?”

  Bailey punched him in the arm. “Don’t be a smartass.”

  Bailey pulled into a lot off San Marco Avenue and parked in one of the many available spaces. They took the sidewalk over a wide footbridge that spanned the saltwater pond fed by the bay. A wooden rail fence bordered the grounds on the left where tombstones and markers riddled the terrain. Ahead, a prominent statue rose up of a robed man spreading his arms wide. Beyond, on a point of land that reached into the bay like a finger, was a tall stainless steel cross.

  “Jeez, that cross is gigantic. I remember seeing it a few years ago when I came with my parents.” He paused, looking around as they walked, “Where are the Seven Sorrows?”

  “In the cemetery.” Bailey steered Liam up the walk. The grounds rolled gently up and down. A few people were strolling about the area. When they reached the large statue of the robed man, Bailey broke left. The centerpiece of the cemetery, an ivy-covered, small stone mission, was visible through the oak trees. A combination of dirt, old stone, and salt blowing in from the bay blended with each breath Liam took.

  When they reached a black tar path, Bailey guided them into the heart of the cemetery. Almost immediately, she pointed t
o a gray stone altar roughly six feet high that formed a point with a stationary stone bench before it. A large, inset relief in white depicted a hooded woman holding an injured, barely-dressed man in her arms as she knelt.

  “That’s the Seventh Sorrow of Mary. She’s holding her son, Jesus, in her arms after the crucifixion. Each sorrow represents Jesus’s life, from birth to death, from Mary’s point of view. The first sorrow is on the other side of the grounds. We need to backtrack to get to number four.”

  They continued up the meandering black walkway passing the sixth and fifth altars. Each with a unique scene sculpted high on the stone. When they reached number four, the image showed Jesus hanging from the cross with Mary and another figure on either side. “This one.”

  Liam stared at the altar. He saw nothing unusual about it. “Why would Mr. Mast lead us here?”

  “Maybe there’s another clue here?” Bailey shrugged with a grimace. “We deciphered his message correctly. I’m sure of it. Mr. Mast loved this cemetery. We came here for a history club meeting last year.”

  Liam thought for a moment. “Do you recall what you discussed that day?”

  “Um…history.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  She pursed her lips. “The history of Menendez’s landing, and the first mass.”

  “Anything else?”

  Bailey put her hands on her hips and slowly turned, scanning the grounds, looking out to the bay then up at the monolithic cross. “I remember now. We were talking about the recent discovery of the foundation of a 17th-century church and friary. See over there?” She pointed across the way to a large cordoned off area. “Archaeologists believe it’s the oldest church remains in the United States, dating to the 1600s.”

  “He led us here for a reason, and he probably did so with the club’s last visit in mind.”

  “You think it has something to do with the church?” Bailey asked.

  “Or something being underground.” He left the sidewalk, searching the ground. He stepped on the grass, angling behind the altar. “Bailey.”

  Bailey joined Liam.

  He pointed down at the oval patch of dirt surrounded by grass. Liam dropped to his knees and began digging with his bare hands. Buried a few inches down in the freshly turned earth, he touched something plastic. It was a sealed bag. He lifted it from the ground, and dirt spilled off.

  Inside the plastic bag was a composition notebook with loose papers stuffed inside.

  47

  Back in the car, Liam and Bailey read from the pages of the notebook. He pulled out the photograph of Henry Flagler that Mr. Mast had shown them. Liam then scrutinized the four individual blown-up sections of the photograph.

  “Can I see those?” Bailey asked.

  Liam handed them over and turned to the next page in the notebook. He read silently. “Remember when Mr. Mast wouldn’t tell us where he got the photo from? It was included in the contents of a 1906 time capsule that was opened in 2001, yet it wasn’t in the original listing of contents. Look,” he pointed to the top of the page, “the picture he showed us didn’t have the writing in the border. He must have cropped it out.”

  Bailey read aloud, “ ‘To the fine citizens of St. Augustine, I hope you’ve enjoyed my gift.’ ”

  “What gift?”

  Bailey only shook her head.

  “Holy crap, check this out,” Liam said. “Mr. Mast believed the painting behind Flagler in the photograph is Leda and the Swan.” He read aloud, “Painted in 1508, it was last recorded in the French royal Château de Fontainebleau in 1625. It’s by,” he looked up at Bailey incredulously, “Leónardo Da Vinci.”

  “No way.”

  “And get this: according to Mr. Mast’s notes, the oval object on the bureau is a Russian Fabergé egg created in 1886 called The Hen Egg with Sapphire Pendant. Czar Alexander III had it made for his wife, the Empress Maria Feodorovna. Wow, how cool is that?”

  “Alexander III is the same czar who Ida Alice Flagler believed she would one day marry as part of her delusions.”

  “Interesting coincidence.”

  Bailey whipped out her smartphone and searched both the Da Vinci painting and the Fabergé egg. “They’re both said to be lost to history. Is it possible that Henry Flagler had them in his possession?”

  “A better question is, where are they now?” Liam returned to Mr. Mast’s notes while Bailey eyed the loose pages. “There’s a list of six items here said to be from the original Kirkside mansion. This is incredible. Mr. Mast said that his great-grandfather, Lucius Mast, wrote the list in a Bible before he was killed by police in 1950. The list was said to include items that Ida Alice Flagler branded on the estate when Henry was away on a business trip in 1894.”

  “Is one of the items the columns?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what he was doing at my apartment. On the first day of school, Mr. Mast gave me a ride home and stayed to examine the columns. He said he was searching for a code, but had no idea as to the purpose of the code. He didn’t find a thing.”

  “Mr. Mast wrote that Lucius heard Ida Alice rambling to herself about ‘the prize she would leave’ for some man,” Liam said. “Also that she ‘knew he would come to take back the treasure and get her.’ ”

  “But in 1895, Flagler had her committed,” Bailey added. “She was never at Kirkside or in St. Augustine again.”

  Liam continued, “Mr. Mast wrote that he believed the man Ida Alice thought would ‘come to take back the treasure and get her’ was the Russian Czar, Alexander III, and the ‘treasure’ was the Fabergé egg. He suspected Ida Alice left the czar clues on the Kirkside estate as to how he could find the priceless egg.”

  “So she had to have known Flagler had the egg and where he kept it, but why did she make the czar hunt for it? Why not simply tell him the location?”

  “Since there was no phone, Internet, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, text messaging—”

  “I get it.”

  “—the only way she could get a message to him was through snail mail. Remember, she was mentally ill at the time. In her state, maybe she thought the czar needed to solve the clues to win her love.”

  “How romantic,” she paused. “This is all so, so bizarre. If Mr. Mast was right, there’s a Da Vinci painting and a Russian Fabergé egg which have never been found.”

  “Read the caption on the photograph again,” Liam urged.

  “ ‘To the fine citizens of St. Augustine, I hope you’ve enjoyed my gift.’ ”

  “It all makes sense. Flagler left those priceless artworks for the citizens of St. Augustine. That is his ‘gift.’ Mr. Mast figured it out.”

  “Someone else did, too.”

  “Yes, and Mr. Mast must have realized he wasn’t the only one hunting for the treasure. That’s why he hid his notes.”

  Bailey’s voice saddened, “And why he was killed. His death was no burglary. Someone knew he was searching for Ida Alice’s clues.”

  “But why would Flagler leave a message in a 1906 time capsule and write the message in that particular tense? ‘I hope you have enjoyed my gift.’ ”

  Bailey’s eyes lit up. “Because he made an assumption that the treasure would be found prior to the opening of the time capsule.”

  “What made him so sure?”

  Bailey shook her head, “No clue.”

  “Here’s the list of six items, with notes beside each one.” He held it up so they could both see.

  1. Column:Searched. Nothing found.

  2. Pergola:19 21 16 112 22 25 19 14 11

  3. Fanlight Window:Have address. Haven’t examined.

  4. Timepiece:No progress. Not sure what this refers to.

  5. Staircase banister:Any clue lost with house fire?

  6. Front door:No status

  “He hadn’t gotten very far,” Bailey said, “but he must have located the pergola from Kirkside. See the numbers? According to these notes, he was unable to decipher it.”

  “What may be
worse,” Liam said, “is this says the staircase banister, which was located at Granville Turnfield’s house, was lost when the old man died in the fire.”

  “Maybe we can still piece together the puzzle without one of the clues.”

  “True, but where do we begin?” Liam thumbed to the last page of notes Mr. Mast had written. “He wrote something about a Scottish guy. Mast thinks he killed the Gazette editor, Gabriel Young, and two people who were thought to have died by natural causes: Ms. Crewson and Mr. Turnfield.”

  48

  It had been several days since Farlan had killed Ron Mast. He only hoped the man was working alone and hadn’t shared information with anyone. Mast had put up a fight, and Farlan had blundered by strangling him with the wire instead of a method more in line with a robbery, such as blunt force trauma. So far, police had not released the details and were reporting the homicide as a theft gone wrong, but Farlan knew they were covering up. Surely, they had connected Mast’s murder to the newspaper editor, Gabriel Young, because of the manner of death. Not admitting that Mast’s murder had been premeditated, and not reporting the similarities between the two murders, must be the town’s way of keeping the tourism industry intact. Admitting a serial killer might be on the loose wouldn’t be good for business.

  Farlan sustained sore ribs when Mast had continually elbowed him as he was being choked to death. For the last two days, Farlan had laid low, keeping to his apartment and allowing his ribs to heal.

  Now, on Saturday morning, he was ready to resume his search for the Kirkside items. He drove over to Anastasia Island to find the pergola on Arpieka Avenue. He discovered it in the front yard of a lawn desperately in need of maintenance.

  A short time later, he drove away with the third set of numbers. He returned to his apartment and deciphered the code.

  By far, this had been the easiest clue to find. Maybe his luck was changing.

  49

  At 4:00 p.m., Rita decided to close the shop early. It had been another slow Saturday. Liam went upstairs to shower.