A Treasure to Die For

by Radine Trees Nehring

  really, really nice for Eleanor and Jason. Maybe it was because she’d raised three children, but her friend was so “take charge capable.” Right now that was very comforting. Carrie, in spite of everything, was beginning to feel better.

  Then she wondered if she’d have felt as comforted if the person taking over had been male. Had been Henry.

  Oh, dear.

  The hotel staff must have known something unusual was going on because they made no objection when, with very little explanation, Carrie asked them to give Eleanor an extra key. So far, so good, and at least she had something positive to tell Henry while they waited for Gwen and her fellow officer to bring the cars to the emergency room door.

  Jason and Eleanor met them in the hotel lobby, gave their uniformed companions only a brief glance, and said the room changes were all taken care of. Without delay Jason and the male police officer began helping Henry toward the elevator.

  Carrie had known they were going to have to account for Henry’s injury somehow, so she said he had fallen in the creek when both of them were at Transportation Plaza. She knew that sounded incredible to Eleanor and Jason, who had never heard of the place, but there would be time for a more complete explanation later.

  While they were walking to the elevators, Eleanor asked Henry if he’d like anything to drink or eat, and he agreed to hot chicken broth, which Jason said he could make without Eleanor’s help, thank you. Then the three men were in an elevator, not waiting for the women to join them. The doors slid shut and Henry was gone. Carrie’s shoulders slumped. She obviously wasn’t needed.

  As they waited for a second elevator, it was also obvious that Gwen was making no move to leave, so Carrie introduced her to Eleanor, who began at once to ask questions about women in police work.

  Carrie turned away to look around the quiet lobby. She studied the casually dressed man seated in a chair near the brochure racks. Could he be some kind of law officer? He seemed to be paying no attention to them as he read a paper, but why would anyone be sitting in a hotel lobby reading a newspaper in the middle of the night? Gwen and her companion had ignored the man. Would they have done that if they didn’t already know who he was?

  Oh, what did it matter? He wasn’t bothering her, not yet at least.

  As the elevator rose, she wondered if Gwen planned to spend the night with them in their room or, perhaps, outside it?

  Outside, it seemed. After looking around, Gwen said, “Don’t worry about being disturbed tonight. Someone will be guarding the hall at all times. There are no hotel guests on this floor other than Elderhostel people and no reason for them—or you—to be out and about until breakfast. Anyone coming from the elevators or stairway will be stopped.”

  “So,” Carrie said aloud, “does that mean Henry and I are being protected from some unknown evil or that I’m under guard?” Eleanor looked startled by the question but said nothing.

  Gwen was silent for a moment, looking from Carrie to Eleanor and back.

  “A little of both. We still have a lot of unexplained stuff to account for. Maybe now you’ll remember more about what happened before you went through that trap door, since there’s less stress and all.”

  “I’ve already arranged for room service breakfasts for the four of us,” Eleanor said, still bright and cheery though it was after two a.m. “They’ll be delivered about ten, so should I add one for you, Gwen...uh, Ms...Officer Talbot?”

  “No, I’ll be gone by then, but I’ll probably see you ladies again tomorrow evening.”

  She said a quick goodnight and left the room.

  Carrie looked at Eleanor. “I’d better explain all this.”

  Her friend held up a hand and sighed. “Not now. We’ll have time in the morning. For now, just get out of those awful clothes and into the tub. Be sure and wash your hair. It’s a mess.

  “I’ll see about laundry in the morning and dry cleaning for whatever needs it, including that jacket you’re wearing. Whoever loaned it to you will hardly want it back like it is.

  “Oh, my goodness, your shirt and bra are all torn, and look at those scratches. How...well, never mind, just get in the tub. I’ll take care of your clothes in the morning, though it looks like some of them are fit for nothing but the trash.”

  “Oh, Eleanor, the morning session is more from that herb lady. You can’t miss that. I hate this, hate it. You’re doing so much.”

  “Hush, we’ll catch up later if we think we missed anything important. A trip to the herb farm is planned for later in the week, and the presenter said she sells growing instructions and recipe books there.”

  “I’ll buy you all the books she has,” said Carrie as she slipped into the tub and Eleanor put a cup of soup in her hands.

  In spite of the fact she’d been in more than enough hot water only a few hours earlier, Carrie enjoyed the bath, the clean feeling, and, at last, snuggling under the covers.

  Eleanor went to sleep quickly, but Carrie stayed awake for another hour, trying to recall all of her last minutes with Everett and praying very, very hard. What had happened in that basement room? And, even more important to her now, why did she push people away when they tried to help her?

  She cried out as loudly as she could, “Help me, oh, no, no, no.” She screamed at Everett to stop. Someone had to hear her, Henry...someone...had to come and pull Everett away.

  No one came, and he shoved and shoved and she tried to grab at him, at anything, to keep from falling into that awful blackness, but all she touched was the knife blade! Not ever the handle, the blade!

  Then she heard herself repeating Henry’s name until Eleanor was there, holding her and rocking her back and forth, murmuring, “There-there, there-there, you’re safe now, it was a nightmare, wake up now, you’re safe, the bad things are gone, wake up, Carrie, open your eyes and look at me.”

  With a last gasped cry Carrie opened her eyes and stared at Eleanor, feeling dazed and hoarse. She swallowed, pushed back. “Oh, my.”

  “It was a nightmare. You can wake up from nightmares, they aren’t real. But I think it’s time you got everything that happened yesterday out in the open—put the light on it and got it out and over with.

  “Here, take a drink of water, then tell me all about it.”

  “Eleanor, fingerprints! They should check for fingerprints if they haven’t already. My fingerprints cannot be on that knife handle, only on the blade. This is how it happened...”

  Carrie was trying not to cry again as she finished, tired of it all, tired of the emotional roller coaster. After a space of silence she went back and repeated something she’d said just a few moments earlier. “I jerked away from Henry. I jerked away, and that was why he fell. It was my fault he got hurt.”

  Eleanor sat quietly on the edge of the bed looking down at her hands, and Carrie copied her pose, too disturbed and embarrassed by her own confession to lift her eyes.

  “I don’t want to be that way, to shove everyone away, but if I’m to remain independent and strong, I can’t always depend on others, not even Henry.”

  Eleanor didn’t speak for a long time. Then she moved, and Carrie could tell she had looked up—was probably studying Carrie’s bowed head. Finally she said, “You know, one of the reasons we women are strong is because we’re willing to ask for help when we need it! You’ve heard the old joke about men refusing to ask for highway directions when they’re unable to find where they’re going, so they end up wasting minutes and sometimes hours being incredibly lost? Well, a women would ask. We use all the resources we have at hand and it adds to our strength.

  “No, Carrie, hear me out. I understand your need to feel you can depend on yourself, but you know the Bible even better than I do. Where in the Bible does it say ‘Trust in Carrie McCrite’ or even ‘Trust in human strength?’ What it says is—here, I brought your Bible with your other things; look at Proverbs 3, verse 5—‘Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.’” She laid the open bo
ok on the bed and her finger pointed at the page. “You must put trust for strength where it belongs.”

  Now she used her finger to lift Carrie’s chin until their eyes were on a level. Eleanor’s eyes were bright and glaring, her own chin set at a high angle. That look of defiance was something Carrie had never seen on her friend’s face before, and it silenced any response she might have made.

  Carrie bowed her head again. Eleanor was right, of course. Carrie yearned to make the words real, have them motivate her rather than knee-jerk reactions to any offered help from outside. Could she do it? She wasn’t sure. But, simply put, she had to if she wanted to save her friendship with Henry.

  Now she heard his voice repeating what he’d said to her last fall at a time of sadness: People need people, sometimes. He’d meant they both needed other people, sometimes. Why couldn’t she fully accept that?

  Eleanor broke into her reverie. “Okay, shall we go back to bed? Scoot under the covers; I’ll tuck you in.”

  And Carrie let her do it. She went to sleep repeating the words Trust in the Lord to herself, over and over.

  Chapter XVIII

  Henry

  The best Henry had been able to manage for a clean up was a wet washcloth wipe-around. Wet was the operative word. He couldn’t do a good job wringing out a washcloth one-handed and wasn’t in the mood to ask Jason for help.

  At least he didn’t have to deal with mud like he’d seen on Carrie. He started to smile, remembering her stained and splattered appearance, then sobered as he thought of what she’d endured. And he could have prevented all of it. If only he’d stayed with her in the Fordyce. If only he hadn’t wanted her to lie about being hurt. If only, if only.

  Right now she’d be confused, even angry at him for reversing his usual staunch position against lying. Well, that made two angry people. He was angry at himself, though, blast it, he couldn’t think how else he might have handled the situation. She had no idea how important it was that she be protected from invasive questioning—he’d only been thinking of her, he...he...no. That, too, was a lie. There was something about Carrie that...

  Huh, what was he going to say to himself next? She made me do it? Come off it, King. Whose fault is this?

  Well, he couldn’t change what had happened. Time to forget it. Carrie had probably just gotten on with what she had to do, scrubbed the mud away, was in bed asleep by now.

  Time for him to be asleep too. All he had to do after he finished his tea was swallow the pills Jason had set out on the night table and pull up the covers.

  He’d noticed that Jason was being surprisingly restrained. He hadn’t asked about Carrie and Henry’s mis-adventures, just made a joke about rolling in the creek instead of the hay as he hung Henry’s clothes to finish drying.

  Now Jason was sitting up in his bed, his voice droning on and on as he described the Elderhostel tour of the Fordyce. Henry figured Jason was trying to be helpful, trying to take his mind off his troubles, help him relax, but he had tuned out the actual words a long time ago.

  Then he realized the room was quiet. He looked over and saw Jason staring at him. “Don’t you want to turn in now, big boy? Take those pills and...”

  This time Henry was not in a tolerant mood, and his feelings exploded, cutting Jason off. “I swear, if you call me big boy one more time, I’ll put a second arm out of joint socking you. I...”

  He choked off the remainder of his sentence when he saw the look on Jason’s face, a mixture of surprise, and what? Sadness? Of all the reactions he had expected—belligerence, jokes—this wasn’t one of them. Henry started to shrug, forgetting present circumstances, and was stopped by his painfully immobilized shoulder. So he just sat, stewing in confusion, wondering what to say next.

  After a long silence Jason solved the problem. “Well, then, I won’t.” There was another long silence before Jason spoke again. “It’s a compliment, you know. You are taller than I am—bigger. In school I was usually the shortest, especially in the early years. No good at sports. Got beat up a few times because of it. Couldn’t defend myself.”

  His eyes looked beyond the walls of the room into some unknown distance and the usually booming tones were soft, almost dreamy. “Guess that’s one reason I made good grades; I learned to keep to myself and spend my time studying. Nose in school books all the time. It was a form of protection. Hated being called ‘runt’ by the other guys, figured I might as well be called ‘teacher’s pet’ or some equally dumb thing. You know how kids are. Don’t tell me you never called a smaller kid ‘runt.’”

  Now he looked over at Henry, squinting. Was it because he didn’t have his glasses on?

  “Well...”

  “See there. I feel sorry for the kid you called...that, and you should too.”

  Jason looked away again and ducked his head.

  Maybe it was the hour, the drugs, whatever, but Henry felt tears behind his eyes. How many people had he hurt in his lifetime? And how about today? No, yesterday. Especially yesterday. How about Carrie?

  Kids could be cruel and so could adults. What next, King? He guessed he could always say something nasty and sarcastic to Eleanor about her simpering attentions to her husband and friends. That would complete the circle.

  Blast, oh, blast!

  Still, Jason came out on top. He had a good brain, a good education. Ended up as head of his own manufacturing company. Retired rich. Very rich.

  Henry knew it was a dumb reaction, but he envied Jason’s wealth. And now Carrie had money too, while he... A cop’s retirement was adequate, but that was all. Oh, what the heck. Life was just what came.

  He heard a sputter from the other bed. It seemed Jason was back to normal and now found this funny. He looked over at Henry again and said, “Well, big boy, let’s turn in.”

  Henry picked up his extra pillow and threw it at Jason. Even put off balance by the bound arm, his aim was accurate. Jason toppled sideways in an exaggerated fall, then he pitched the pillow back, aiming, not for Henry’s torso, but his knees.

  “Okay, big boy two,” Henry said as Jason reached for the light switch.

  He didn’t take the pills. He needed to think, not sleep.

  The knife. Carrie could not have been the one to use it on Bogardus. How would she get behind him, reach around, slit his throat? It was logistically impossible. For one thing, she didn’t have the upper body strength. The man would have had to sit still and wait for her attack. What he’d seen and absorbed during the one quick look the FBI agents allowed him in that basement room said Everett Bogardus’s throat had been cut by someone reaching around him from behind.

  Besides, Carrie was forced through the trap door by a man strong enough to shove her as she resisted, fought for her life. Conclusion? Bogardus was still uninjured when she went over the edge and the trap door was shut behind her.

  That meant someone else had to be involved.

  But why? Was someone else after a Fordyce treasure? Could it simply be coincidence that two people knew about possible hidden money and, after all these years, had come to claim it at the same time? Why now? Why during this Elderhostel? For whatever reason, Henry was beginning to believe that Carrie had been right: there really was money involved. That meant a killer was still out there somewhere, and logically it would be a member of the Elderhostel group, someone sleeping on this floor of the hotel right now.

  He was suddenly very glad the police were guarding Carrie through the night.

  There had been a few bad dreams, and twinges when he tried to turn the wrong way, but Henry was sound asleep when someone knocked on the door at ten o’clock.

  Jason had obviously been awake. As he opened his eyes, Henry saw his roommate put aside a magazine and pop out of bed to let Eleanor in.

  As usual she radiated cheer. She said a bouncy “good morning” as she carried one large tray into the room. A uniformed police officer—male, someone Henry hadn’t seen before—followed her, carrying another tray. Where was Carrie? Wasn’t som
eone guarding the door to her room?

  “Well, look at you two lazy lords of the realm. And here we are, your humble servants, laying your breakfast before you.” She put a tray in front of Henry and directed her helper to do the same for Jason. Then she thanked the man and told him he could go back to doing boring things like guarding their door.

  “Oh, do sit still, Jason! We don’t want you dumping coffee on the bed. Henry, I had no idea what you might want for breakfast, so I ordered some of everything, sort of a personal buffet. Let’s put your tray on top of this folded blanket and you can use your good hand to eat. So, what will it be? Eggs, bacon, muffins, toast, biscuits and gravy, cereal?”

  “All of it,” said Henry.

  He didn’t finish quite all of it, but he came close enough.

  While the men ate, Eleanor told them Carrie seemed fine this morning and had been studying her Bible lesson when Eleanor left. They’d breakfasted earlier so Eleanor could see that the men were fed. “The police are still standing guard in the hall,” she said, “and an FBI agent—Bell, I think the officer said his name was—will be here in about thirty minutes to talk with you. Henry, did you tell Jason what happened last night?”

  “We haven’t gotten around to that yet.”

  “Well, never mind now. You eat, and I’ll bring Jason up to speed while the FBI man is with you and Carrie. I think he expects to see you right here, so Jason and I will head back to our room as soon as he’s dressed, and I’ll send Carrie along to you. Then maybe I’ll go down to the meeting room and catch the last part of the morning session.

  “Oh, guys, I’ve sent out a suit jacket someone loaned to Carrie for dry cleaning and some laundry too, so if you happen to be here when it’s returned, take care of it, please.

  “I went down to that boutique in the lobby as soon as it opened this morning and picked out a button-front shirt for you, Henry. Sorry to take the liberty, but didn’t think you’d want to go shopping, and I knew none of your other shirts would fit around that bound arm. Anything’s better than a hospital shirt, I say. So, here it is, and I admit they had a somewhat limited selection.” She went to the door, and the police officer on duty outside handed her a sack.