Secrets of the Last Castle

by A. Rose Mathieu

  “There were two people that stood between Powers and the nomination.”

  “Margaret and Olivia.” Margaret, she was easy to find, even Olivia did that. “He raped Margaret.” Danny nodded in confirmation. “But she couldn’t identify him.”

  “No, but Olivia could. It was only a matter of time after the nomination was announced that she would come back looking for her. And she had the tape.”

  She knew that tape would be damning and figured Mrs. Francis was only spared because they believed Olivia had possession of it. “So you were staking out, waiting for her to come back?”

  “They’ve advanced since the sixties and are a bit more high-tech.”

  “You tapped her phone. Is that how you knew Mrs. Francis was coming to my office that morning?”

  “Leave nothing to chance. Now, I’ve given you enough. Let’s go.” He stood, pulling her up, and she didn’t resist. She had momentarily forgotten the threat he posed, as her mind still filtered through the pieces of the story.

  “Danny…that’s not even your name is it?”

  “Guess what? I’m not eighteen either.”

  “Who’s behind this?” What she had learned about the KGC from Beadle and what she had gathered from Webb’s experience with the group was that there was a hierarchy, and she knew Danny wasn’t the pinnacle of that. The fact that he killed Olivia in daylight just off a major street, killed Reverend Rick with a gun that was easily traced back to the plantation, and better yet, handcuffed himself to her using a grenade as his weapon of choice, which would kill them both, proved that he wasn’t the brains of the operation. He was the rank-and-file military, much like the role Webb filled, and like Webb, he was going to get himself killed. The question was whether he was going to take Elizabeth with him.

  “Is this the part where I’m supposed to confess everything and give you all the names?” he asked.

  As far as the confessing part, Danny pretty much did that already. He filled in all the missing pieces, except for the names. How many more of them were there? Who was the person pulling the strings? What was he called? The captain, that was the title. Who was he?

  He shoved the phone back at her, forcing her to take it. “All right, do your thing. Figure this out.”

  “Have you considered using a metal detector? There is likely to be gold or silver as part of this stash.”

  “You think I’m that stupid?”

  Elizabeth decided to take the Fifth on that question out of deference for her own well-being.

  “They’ve scanned every inch of this property by the best metal detectors at least twice,” he said.

  They. Always the pronoun, never the name. “I hate to state the obvious, but…if it hasn’t been found by now, then it isn’t here.”

  “Oh no, it’s here.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “After the robbery, Webb brought the money here, and when he refused to turn it over, he was surveilled. He never left the property with the money. You can’t just walk out with ten million dollars without being noticed.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to think. If Danny’s version was to be believed, then the money was still on the property, but after fifty years of searching, it was nowhere to be found. “What makes you think that this map has anything to do with the missing money?”

  “Because that is a KGC map of the Confederate gold. Webb found the gold.” In answer to her questioning look, he continued, “Webb wasn’t so bright. He sold several coins when he needed money.”

  So it wasn’t the payments from the KGC that got his property out of hock, but the Confederate gold that she swore didn’t exist.

  “Wherever the rest of that gold is, that’s where we’ll find the money,” Danny said emphatically.

  She was going to have to take his word for it because she didn’t know what to think, as well as the fact that he held the grenade. Continuing to dispute it seemed futile and dangerous, but she did have one question. “If you are so sure this map leads to the money, then why don’t you have the money?”

  Danny kicked at some leaves. “Because I can’t read it, and I can’t go back without the money.”

  That was another tidbit of information that she filed away. Danny wasn’t in their good graces. She assumed it had a lot to do with the work she and Grace did in campaigning against Judge Powers’s nomination. If she learned anything from the fates of Booth and Webb, the rank and file of the KGC could become expendable quickly. She returned her eyes to the phone and began assessing the map. She didn’t give a damn about helping Danny or finding the money, but it seemed that this was the only way she was getting out of the situation alive.

  The map didn’t appear to be anything more than a series of lines, figures, and shapes of squares, triangles, and circles of various sizes. They looked haphazardly drawn and didn’t resemble any structure or landmark on the property that she could see. Solid lines were going in various directions across the page and some in the shape of an arc, and there appeared to be no logical order. There were small triangles, circles, and parallel lines clustered together throughout, while several medium sized circles had v-shaped carets on their circumference. As she stared at it, she did note a pattern—the circles with the carets appeared only at one end of each of the solid lines. On the left side of the page were the three crudely drawn suns with dotted lines connecting them, depicting the path of a setting sun, the same path her fingers followed to find the Booth papers.

  Danny leaned in for a view of the screen. “Well?”

  She shuddered as his breath tickled her ear. “You…they,” she fumbled out, “have been studying this map for how long? And you expect me to crack it in five minutes?”

  “You’re the one who pieced together the damn map in the purse.”

  “That was a map, this is a bunch of nonsense.” Just as the words came out of her mouth it hit her. “Wait, it isn’t supposed to make sense. Just like the book we found at Samuel’s grave. You need the key to decipher the code. Like the book, the map is useless without its key.”

  “So, the next obvious question is where’s the key?”

  Elizabeth closed her eyes in an attempt to clear the clutter in her head and momentarily erase Danny from her view. Webb had already deciphered the map, so the key was on the property. The question was whether Webb kept it because he no longer needed it once he found the gold. She opened her eyes and stared at the map. He did keep the key. Just remember to follow the setting sun. Those were Samuel’s words. The Booth papers were with the map for a reason.

  “I think the key is in the Booth papers, but I don’t have the copy of the papers with me. If you had only warned me that you were going to kidnap me using handcuffs and a grenade, I would have come better prepared.”

  “You have a picture of it on your phone.”

  “Yes, but, hating to state the obvious…”

  Danny stuck his free hand in his pocket and pulled out her phone.

  She snatched it. Messing with her phone was going too far. “Really? What else did you steal?”

  He stuck his hand in his pocket again and pulled out a crumpled paper. “This.” It was the note that she left on Amy’s desk when they left the clinic. As he crunched it into a ball in his fist, so went her last hope that anyone would learn where she was.

  * * *

  Grace walked through the front door of the clinic, endorphins still pumping through her veins. The last several days had been exhausting and endless, but today was a good day, better than that, a great day. Powers’s nomination was defeated by twelve votes, a larger margin than either she or Senator McDermott had hoped for, even in their most optimistic scenario, a likely backlash effect from the assassination attempt. Those on the fence voted in solidarity with their colleague, and a ripple effect formed once the “no” votes started. She hoped that some of those votes were not just for self-preservation of their careers if the Powers scandal broke open, but that some of the senators actually cared. There was no
better way to end this day than to spend it with the woman who made it possible. Using Jack’s phone, she had called Elizabeth before she left the state capitol to break the news, but it went directly to voice mail. Now she wanted nothing more than to hold her and whisper in her ear luscious words that she would make true later that night. It made her tingle at the thought.

  She stopped at Amy’s desk to acknowledge her and ask for permission to pass through, not that she expected Amy to deny her access, but the look on Amy’s face set off an alarm. “What’s wrong?”

  “I…I’m not sure. This came in the mail.” She handed over a paper, and Grace nearly snatched it. It was a letter from the Social Security Office advising SILC that there was an error in their payroll records because there was no match between the name Daniel Johnson and the provided Social Security number.

  She felt relief. She thought there was a problem with Elizabeth and not an employee issue. “Does Danny know? He’s a kid and probably gave you the wrong number.”

  “Danny’s the one who opened it. I found it sticking out in his trash. And now he’s not here and neither is Elizabeth. I don’t know where they went. They’ve been gone for more than two hours with no word.”

  The hair on the back of her neck stood up. She knew in that moment it was Danny, and she chastised herself for not seeing it earlier—his sudden arrival at the outset of the case and his involvement in every aspect. She failed Elizabeth. Oh dear God, I should have been here protecting her. “We have to find them. Call her.” Her voice shook, and she didn’t even attempt to hide her fear.

  “I’ve called her and Danny, many times. It just keeps going to voice mail.”

  “Call her again.”

  Amy complied and after a few moments shook her head. “It’s her voice mail again.”

  “Fuck!”

  “I tried calling you, but I couldn’t reach you either.”

  Grace pounded her fist on the doorjamb as she passed it, heading for Elizabeth’s office. She paid no attention to the pain that radiated through her hand at the impact.

  “Oh, Grace, is Elizabeth with you?” Elizabeth’s mother asked as she approached her and clutched her arm.

  “No.” Grace wanted to cry. Any semblance of hope that she was clinging to that this was all a misunderstanding unraveled the minute she saw Beatrice Campbell’s face.

  She walked into Elizabeth’s office and sat in BD. Elizabeth’s mother and Amy sat in the chairs opposite her, looking at her for a plan of action. Elizabeth was missing and she had to find her.

  “Did she say anything about what she was doing today?” Grace asked.

  “No. She was just pacing around, waiting for the results of the judicial nomination, and then she was just gone. No one saw her or Danny leave,” Amy said, her hands tightly gripped in the prayer position at her chest.

  Grace noticed Elizabeth’s computer light and moved the mouse, and the screen lit up. “She left her computer on.” She zoomed out the map on the screen and realized that she was looking at the White Horse Plantation. “They went to the plantation.”

  * * *

  Elizabeth enlarged the picture of a Booth page on her phone, which depicted a drawing of the White Horse Plantation. She could see the white horse statue in the center of the drive, the antebellum home in its prime, and the surrounding plantation in full bloom. Below the picture, Elizabeth studied the caption still in code, but she was now in a better position to decipher its meaning. She had already discovered that K was the letter to be matched with A from her earlier review of the document. Drawing in the dirt with a stick, she reorganized the alphabet putting K as the new A. “Danny, type these letters in your phone.” After reading off the decoded letters, she took his phone to read the message. “Where the sun meets the steed, then follow KGC.” She repeated it aloud a few times, before returning to the map and pointing to the corner of it. “See the setting sun, here. It stops next to this picture.” The small drawing next to the last sun consisted of two congruent circles side by side with two triangles on top of each circle. “We start here.”

  Danny huffed and threw up his arms, taking Elizabeth’s arm with him, and she eyed the grenade in his hand, concerned by his movement. “Where the hell is that supposed to be? I don’t see any circles or triangles around here.”

  “Relax will you. Put your phone on top of mine, so I can see the two together.” She squinted, as she studied them. “See here, the bottom left corner on the map, the circle and triangles are next to the setting sun, which would be the west, and on the Booth drawing in that same corner, there is the white horse statue that is in the driveway, which is also in the west.” She pointed in the direction as she spoke. “There’s the steed.”

  Danny stared at her with a blank look.

  “A steed is a horse, Danny, or whatever the hell your name is.”

  “All right then, let’s go.”

  “Hold up. First things first. Put that grenade back in your pocket. The last thing we need is for you to drop it.”

  “Nice try.”

  “We are handcuffed together. Where do you think I’m going to go?” He shook his head. “Not a negotiation. You want my help, that goes back in your pocket.”

  He finally conceded and redeposited the explosive into his jacket and pulled out his hand in a show that it was empty.

  “Oh and, Danny.” She waited until he turned to her, cocked her arm back, and delivered a blow across his face with her closed fist, causing him to stumble, and she teetered with him. “That was for shooting Grace.” Blood began streaming down his nose, and he made no effort to proclaim his innocence. She figured it had to be him, given the stolen gun from an off-duty officer, another idiotic move, which seemed to be his signature.

  She wanted to raise the topic earlier, when they addressed Reverend Rick and Olivia, but she feared her own temper in combination with the grenade in his hand. She knew it was still a risk with the grenade only slightly more secure, but she couldn’t resist. It felt good.

  She glared at him, daring him to fight back, and he wiped his nose on his sleeve and began walking in the direction of the home. They remained silent, until they stood at the front of the white horse statue.

  “Now what?” he asked in a subdued tone.

  “Look for any writings, drawings, or anomalies. It won’t be obvious.”

  They each searched the statue starting from its head and slowly worked their way around, feeling with their hands as they went.

  “There’s nothing. I think you’re wrong. It’s not the statue.”

  She looked at the map again and looked below the horse. “Look under the horse,” she chuckled. She pointed to the two circles on the map and then to the prominent testicles.

  He ducked his head. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Use your hand.”

  “I’m not touching it.”

  “Oh Jesus, it’s not real.” She nudged him to the side and knelt down. “Take this.” She handed him her phone and used her free hand to caress the horse’s private parts. This is a new low. I’m feeling a horse’s scrotum. “I feel something.” She scrunched herself below the horse for a better view. Somebody clearly had a sense of humor. “It’s one of the markings from the map.” She pulled herself out and gestured for Danny’s phone. “It’s this marking,” she said, pointing to a circle with the v caret surrounding the circumference.

  “But there are a couple of those. How do we know which one?”

  “There was an arrow pointing straight ahead, so it’s this one on top of the map.” She tapped it. “See? It’s in a direct line with the circles and triangles symbol.”

  They carried on searching trees, rocks, and structures, looking for any extraneous marks or drawing.

  “This could be anywhere,” Danny finally said in exasperation, after they walked a straight path for several minutes.

  “Give me back my phone.” After Danny complied, she compared the two maps. “These maps depict the same area, so it would be he
re on the Booth drawing.” She pointed to the drawing near the edge of an open field, where it met the tree line. “It should be up ahead.” The fields were now overgrown and looked nothing like the Booth rendition, but she could still tell where the field’s edge used to be in comparison to the forest.

  Danny didn’t argue with her and allowed her to lead. Once at the tree line, they meticulously scanned the tree trunks.

  “It’s here,” Danny said with excitement.

  Below the circle symbol carved in the tree, there was a single triangle with several lines sticking out from the three sides of the shape. She consulted the map, and there was one triangle that resembled it, which was back in the direction that they just traveled.

  “So now we go back?” Danny said incredulously, taking out his irritation on her.

  “This is your idea. I’m happy to call it a day.”

  In response, Danny took several long strides in the direction from which they came, pulling her along.

  “Hold up.” Over the door of a wooden shed, she spotted an artistically carved triangle with a sun in its middle and its rays extending beyond the boundaries of the triangle. “There’s the triangle with the lines extending out.” Etched into the bottom of one of the doors, they found the next symbol, a square with a triangle on top, resembling a crude drawing of a house. Following their same method, they located the symbol carved on a small rock wall that separated the driveway from an overgrown grass area that was approximately twenty-five yards from where they started at the horse statue, and they were again instructed to turn back and return in the direction they just came from.