A Treasure to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

  She cut off her speculation and jumped up from the bed where she’d been sitting. “Let’s go to the Garland County Historical Society after lunch tomorrow. There’s a continuation of the herb class in the morning, but the afternoon session doesn’t begin until 3:00. Won’t we have time to check up on the history stuff after lunch? Right now, though, I’d sure like to go to the Fordyce. We have at least an hour and a half before our scheduled tour begins, and I can’t wait to see that basement.

  “Let’s wear dark colors, just in case. Maybe we’ll have a chance to get into the mechanical area like Everett did.

  “Hand me the geologist’s pick. I think I can fit it in my purse.”

  “What? Carrie, I do hope you’re joking!”

  Chapter VII

  Henry

  The trouble was, she hadn’t been joking. Henry knew that quite well.

  But reason prevailed. When she’d hefted the weight of the pick inside her purse, Carrie agreed it was best to leave the thing behind. He saw her put it on the night table shelf.

  She did insist that he take his small flashlight, and he went to get it from the car before they left.

  Now they were standing at the glass viewing wall in the public area of the Fordyce basement staring at rough concrete, black tanks, mysterious spaces, dark shadows.

  “It’s a perfect place to hide something,” Carrie said. “Look at all those irregular walls and dark corners.” She pointed. “I can see at least one hole broken into that wall over there. Some of the walls must be made of hollow clay blocks. See where those terra-cotta colored chunks have fallen in a heap on the floor? The entire area looks like a hidey-hole paradise.

  “I wonder if some special marking says where the money is hidden, or if you have to measure, or count tiles, or something? Maybe there’s a map or drawing—I sure wish we knew. If I thought it would get the truth out of him, I’d almost cozy up to Everett, or,” she looked up at Henry and grinned, “I mean act like I am, of course, though, truth be told, I’ll bet an approach like that would scare the man to death!”

  It was too much. She was going beyond reason on this hidden treasure thing, though he had to admit her theory was at least possible. But offering to... Well, now she was joking, of course, but it was still too much.

  “Carrie, this isn’t like you at all. You’re more reasonable and intelligent than to even think such thoughts. Come on, let’s get out of this basement. I’ve had enough of it and enough of Everett Bogardus. We’re on vacation, remember?”

  She looked up at him quizzically, then turned toward the glass again. “But the idea of a treasure hunt is such fun. Why can’t we sneak a peek back there? We could stay away from this viewing area—look at all those concealing walls and hiding places where we could duck out of sight.

  “I haven’t seen or heard any rangers go through the exit door recently, and the woman who came out when we first got here didn’t push any buttons or even slow down. I’ll bet you they never turned that alarm on. If it’s been off for years, why would workers be willing now to fool with disabling it every time they want a cup of coffee?”

  “Still doesn’t matter, my dear girl. Alarm or not, that area is off-limits to the public. The rangers know I know that! I wouldn’t dare get caught back there, and we would be caught. Count on it!”

  “Oh, pooh, Henry. Standing here looking into that basement is just like looking at your grandchild through the hospital nursery window and not getting to hold him!”

  He didn’t comment on that. He knew how badly Carrie wanted her son Rob to marry and present her with a grandchild.

  “Never mind. Why don’t we go look at the rest of the building? Who knows, there may be lots of possible hiding places on the other floors too.”

  “But...”

  “Carrie, please think more clearly. You must understand that we absolutely cannot go back there. It would be trespassing, and it would be stupid.”

  Her silence lasted at least thirty seconds before he heard a reluctant “okay.”

  She looked at the building guide the receptionist had given her. “It seems the only public restrooms are on this floor. They call them ‘Comfort Stations.’ How quaint. I should visit the comfort station before we go upstairs, so why don’t you go on up and wait for me in the gift shop? We need to pick out post cards. I promised the Booths I’d send them one, and I also want to send cards to Rob and Susan.”

  “Later. I’ll go in the men’s comfort station while we’re here.”

  The hall was empty when he returned. He sat on the bench outside the restrooms and waited. Several minutes passed. Finally, when no female had appeared to check inside “Women’s” for him, he went to the room’s entry alcove and listened. Total silence. He said, “Carrie?” More silence. “Carrie, you okay?” Still quiet.

  Moving quickly, he headed around the corner, looked long enough to see that the room was empty, and hurried back out into the hallway. Thank goodness there were still no people around to see where he had come from.

  Confound the woman! He hadn’t believed she’d do it, but it seemed she would.

  He went to the exit door at the end of the hall and pushed it open. He knew the alarm wouldn’t ring. It hadn’t rung, after all, when Carrie opened it.

  No one was in the break room or locker room, and no voice or hand stopped him when he passed through the open doorway into the mechanical area. Enough bare light bulbs were glowing to make walking fairly easy, and he went forward as quickly as he could, stopping several times to listen and look around.

  Nothing but silence. Where was she? Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she had gone on to the gift shop.

  Then he heard what sounded like the scrape of a shoe on rough flooring.

  “Carrie?” He didn’t dare say it too loudly.

  “Henry? Thank God you’ve come. I’m in the little room. Go through the broken wall we saw from the other side. There’s a man in here...he’s hurt. He’s...”

  Her voice faded away, but Henry had located the sound. Heedless of the fact that he would be visible from the glass viewing area for a few moments, he rushed ahead, finding a small doorway that had been cut into the concrete and clay block wall. Stooping, he went through.

  Carrie was on her knees next to a rough concrete platform in the back corner of the room. Her hand, showing up lighter than the surrounding darkness, seemed to be against the forehead of a man lying crumpled on the platform. Henry snatched the miniature flashlight from his pants pocket, switched it on. The man wore a park ranger’s uniform.

  Her face looked unnaturally pale as she squinted into the blueish light, and tears on her cheeks sparkled and danced when the flashlight moved.

  The words stumbled out. “I wanted to see...just look around a bit, and...after I got to the basement door, I...I...heard funny sounds, scraping, some sort of a clunk. Then I heard him moan. How could I not come here, Henry? How could I not?” She bowed her head, was silent.

  Henry knelt and put his left arm around her as the flashlight in his right hand swept over the man on the floor. Rusty Hobbs!

  There was blood. It had come from a wound on the side of the ranger’s head. A geologist’s pick, probably the same one he’d seen here this morning, and all too exactly like the one he’d bought later in the shop across the street, lay in the concrete crumbs and dust beside Hobbs. Small pieces of floor litter were stuck in blood on the head of the pick.

  Carrie lifted her hand from the man’s forehead, glanced at the blood on it, looked up at Henry. “He’s breathing,” she said, “and I felt a pulse.”

  She bowed her head again, and Henry heard, “The Lord bless you and keep you safe.” The rest of her words disappeared into a silent prayer.

  Well, it was too darn late to worry about who should be back here and who shouldn’t. The important thing now was to get help.

  But, as much as he hated to leave Rusty Hobbs alone, he knew he couldn’t leave Carrie with him. What if the person...what if Everett Bogardus was still h
iding somewhere in the basement and came back to hurt her? It was a terrible decision, but he couldn’t leave her here.

  He pulled at her shirt, tugging her into a crouch and then back through the rough doorway. At first she resisted, but then she was moving with him, up and down over half walls and broken concrete, around black tanks, and, at last, into the light, bright employee break room.

  A startled park volunteer gaped at them, took one look at the blood on Carrie’s hand, and asked, “How did she get hurt? I’ll call for help.”

  “Yes, please,” Henry said. “Call 911 and park security. Rusty Hobbs has been attacked. He’s back in the mechanical area of the basement, in that little room near the viewing wall. We’re going back now to stay with him until help comes.”

  The woman began talking into the phone, no longer paying attention to them. Henry wondered how long it would be before she realized they were strangers in the wrong place, might even be the ones who’d attacked Hobbs.

  He said to Carrie, very quietly, “Wash your hands thoroughly. You don’t have any cuts or scrapes on them, do you? You haven’t touched your face, bare skin, or clothing? No? Good. Then when you’re through washing, dampen one of those towels and we’ll take it back with us, maybe use it to help stop the bleeding if it hasn’t stopped already. I’ll take this dry towel to slip under his head.”

  Her hands were already under the water and she nodded briskly. Thank goodness she’d returned to her sensible, quick-thinking self. They were about to face a whirlwind of questions and would need to give clear, well-reasoned answers.

  As they hurried back to Hobbs he was hoping they’d have a minute alone to talk about those answers before the ambulance or anyone from law enforcement came.

  But they didn’t get that minute. Carrie was just handing him her damp towel when the voice of Law Enforcement Ranger Jake Kandler echoed through the basement, asking where they were.

  Chapter VIII

  Carrie

  “Henry, please be quiet. Let me talk first.”

  She had no idea what this law enforcement ranger thought of her bossiness, but it didn’t matter. She had to get her story out before Henry could open his mouth and mess things up. It would be so like him to be chivalrous and try to protect her. Ever since they became friends, she’d been trying to make it clear she didn’t want or need protecting, but, too often, he couldn’t get around his image of the strong male who took care of everything. Especially her. Well, phooey!

  Thank goodness this bear of a park ranger hadn’t tried to separate them, not yet at least. He was keeping them with him, seated on the irregular, dirty basement floor, waiting for the EMT’s and, evidently, for both the FBI and the Hot Springs Police. She didn’t dare think about that now, as intimidating as it might be. She must tell her story where Henry could hear it since this man had shown up before they could coordinate what they were going to say.

  She rushed words out, not looking at either Henry or the big ranger. Instead, she watched the barely perceptible rise and fall of Ranger Hobbs’ chest. It was easier to keep an eye on him now since the new ranger—what had he said his name was?—since he had brought a battery lantern.

  “After Henry, uh, Mr. King, told me about what happened when he was here this morning, about the man hiding in the basement, I wanted to see the place.”

  Would a nervous laugh sound right at this point? Even if it would, she couldn’t manage it.

  “So, since we had time, we decided to come here before our guided tour started.” She looked at her watch. “That begins in forty-five minutes with Ranger Hawkins. And when I said I wanted to look around back here in the rough basement, Mr. King made it very clear this area was off-limits to tourists. He said we couldn’t look around, couldn’t leave the public area.”

  Now she glanced at the ranger’s face. Hadn’t he said his name was Jake something? Jake Candle, that was it!

  “So, Ranger Candle, I...”

  “It’s Kandler.”

  “Oh. Excuse me, Ranger Kandler, of course. Well, anyway, I didn’t see what harm just a little look around could do. It was as if I were compelled to come back here. Do you understand? So when Henry went in the men’s room, I came through that door in the hall he’d told me about. And,” she said, trying now to show the piety she honestly felt, “it’s a very good thing I did. I think God led me here so this man would get the help he needed. We all should be grateful to God for His guidance.”

  Surely the ranger wouldn’t quarrel with that statement. No matter what his religious beliefs, he wouldn’t dare quarrel with God. And, for that matter, neither would Henry Jensen King.

  “Of course, Henr...Mr. King, came to find me, to get me out. But, instead...” She gestured toward Rusty Hobbs and fell silent, as if awareness of the injured man said it all. She looked past the ranger at Henry’s face. It was impassive, but after a moment he pursed his lips, almost as if blowing her a kiss. Well, at least he’d heard her story and would have no choice now but to agree with it. There would be no hiding of what had been, after all, her decision. What she spoke was the truth.

  “It was a good thing I came here,” she repeated.

  Kandler looked at her briefly, then back at Hobbs. Keeping his eyes on his friend, he asked, “Anything to add to that, sir?”

  “No, except that we did leave him long enough to get help.”

  “Both of you?”

  “Yes. Because of the circumstances I didn’t want to leave Ms. McCrite or send her through the basement alone. I thought the person who attacked Hobbs could still be back here and that her presence had cut off his only avenue of anonymous escape. She said when she first came through the door, she heard a scraping sound and some sort of clunk, then a moan. It’s possible she heard the actual attack. I also thought it possible that the perpetrator supposed Hobbs was dead, and because of that he would be doubly frantic to get away—whether Ms. McCrite was in the way or not.

  “So we went to get help together and returned here as soon as we’d asked the park volunteer to call 911. We were gone less than five minutes, and during that time I didn’t see or hear anyone opening the exterior door.”

  Kandler nodded. “We’ll search the basement more thoroughly as soon as extra help comes. In the meantime Shirley is keeping an eye on the exit doors.”

  For a moment he was silent, then he shook his head and came back to Carrie and Henry. “Did either of you touch anything here? That pick, maybe?”

  “Just Ranger Hobbs,” they said in unison.

  And that was the end of the conversation. Loud voices and scraping feet were headed their way. Henry and Law Enforcement Ranger Kandler went to the cubby hole opening to direct the emergency team. Carrie, still seated on the floor next to Rusty Hobbs, noticed Henry had left his little flashlight in the dirt beside her. She picked it up and stuck it in her pocket.

  Real FBI agents, it seemed, looked and acted just like those who mimicked them in movies and on television.

  Or at least this one does, Carrie thought, as she stared at Agent Colin Bell’s perfectly aligned burgundy tie. She was also getting a definitely non-TV impression, and she sniffed to be sure. Yes, the man smelled like soap. He smelled just-out-of-the-shower clean.

  Agent Bell had been writing, but at the sniff he looked up. She reached in her pocket for a tissue and wiped it across her nose. Satisfied, he went back to writing.

  They were seated at a table in the Fordyce employee break room. As she understood it, Jake Kandler and Henry had gone to offices on the third floor of the building to await the arrival of a second FBI agent. Meanwhile park employees and one Hot Springs police officer were searching the basement. Their voices, accented by occasional clunks, scrapes, and pings, carried down the hall. But, here in the break room, she and Agent Bell were alone.

  A second Hot Springs police officer, who’d appeared with the ambulance, hadn’t stayed. Agent Bell explained that the two officers were responding only to see if they could be of any assistance and to acc
ompany the ambulance. City police, it seemed, had no jurisdiction in a national park.

  Her eyes went back to the burgundy tie. It lay against a perfectly ironed white shirt and was framed by the jacket of a dark grey suit. Agent Bell looked downright crisp. Carrie wondered if he had just come on duty. She also wondered if he or his wife had pressed the smooth white shirt minutes before he put it on.

  Was there a wife? Children? She was beginning to imagine two children, a boy about ten, and a girl who was fourteen, maybe, and the apple of her father’s eye, when Bell stopped writing and looked at her.

  “So that’s it? Mr. King told you about seeing a person, probably male, in the mechanical area of the basement earlier today. He said this person was dressed all in black and was trying to stay hidden. When rangers searched the area after Mr. King reported the presence of this person, the only unusual thing they found was a geologist’s pick, unknown source. And when you heard this, you decided that money left from the ’60s raids might be hidden here and the person King saw was looking for it?”

  He paused, as if for emphasis, before he asked the next question. “You wanted to search for the money yourself?”

  “I said nothing to you about wanting to find the money myself. I was just curious about the incident and, as you say, reasoned that a search for hidden money would be one good explanation for what happened. I believe that might be a natural conclusion for most people who know anything about Hot Springs’ history.”

  She was seated facing the room’s refrigerator and wondered what the agent would do if she got up, went to look inside, maybe found cans of pop and snacks. She could offer him a drink and something to eat. She could have something herself. What might he do about that? Would anything that folksy and casual unnerve him?

  Whatever. Agent Colin Bell had begun talking again.