by M Murphy
Chapter 37
My review of the history of the KGC found them to be a highly organized and intricate society. The KGC was furnished with an elaborate military division, extensive ritual, and a system of governance similar to the Masons. Eligibility for membership included all Southerners of good character and worthy Northern men who were determine to stand by the Constitutional rights of the South. The society was divided into three distinct degrees with the first being entirely military and chivalry based. The Second Degree was established to pursue the commercial and financial aspects of the society, which were charged with supply, support, and propaganda. The Third Degree and the highest to achieve, called the American Legion, was the political and governing arm of the KGC. Membership in the Third Degree appeared to be extremely secretive with members not being known to the lesser degrees.
With organizations like the KGC, soldiers, or those of the lowest degree, often did not know who was giving orders or why. It allowed for the society to contain its deepest secrets, its master plan, or its real purpose to be hidden from the view of outsiders. As I read I wondered if it wasn’t possible that Edward Tidwell and his men had been simple soldiers in the KGC and used by a member of the Third Degree, such as George Trenholm. Was it possible that the plan all along for the KGC was to set up Tidwell and his men in order to further throw others off the trail? The
more I read the more I was beginning to realize the story may have a lot more twists than Hannah and I first realized.
On top of the organizational structure of the KGC, their secret codes, used to locate treasures caches, seemed to be surrounded by the most mystery. A combination of Masonic symbols, religious references, and part pirate treasure map it seemed the KGC code could involve a lot of interpretation. It would allow someone like George A. Trenholm to use the system in his own way if he did indeed steal the Confederate gold for himself while, on the other side, it was plausible that Trenholm was a member of the KGC and the codes we came across were authorized through the society. I certainly hoped Hannah was reading up too, and I had to rely that she could interpret all of this better than I could.
Hannah, I knew, would be on top of the research, it was in her nature, but I had to check in on Tommy Makem. Colin’s phone call reminded me that I had another lead that I had forgotten to follow up, and I figured it was time to join the bookie for another chit-chat over happy hour. The Tidwells, KGC, and millions in Confederate gold would have to wait. Makem seemed like the least likely suspect, but a suspect none-the-less, so I needed to dig a little deeper. The man looked like a talker, a usual characteristic for someone as confident as Makem, so maybe a friendly conversation would reveal something I had missed before.
Chapter 38
“Well, Mr. Jack Francis, how’s my favorite Ohioan in Charleston?”
“Not too bad Tommy.” I said to Makem as I came up the stairs of the Cocktail Club.
“Are you here to see me? I have to assume you are since you don’t frequent this establishment all that often.”
“If you don’t, mind I would like to run a few things by you.”
“Why not? Although I’m not sure why you’re still going around asking questions into Jason Trenholm’s murder. Word on the street is that the old man fired you.” Makem said with a smile as he offered the bar stool next to him.
“Call it professional curiosity.”
Makem waved the bartender down our way and ordered a pair of bourbons, Blanton’s this time with two cubes a piece. He waited for the bartender to bring the drinks, thanking her when she placed them in front of the two of us.
“Now,” he began, “what can I do for you today?”
“I got a phone call from an old friend backup in Cleveland. He had an interesting story about a young Tommy Makem. Apparently, it’s rumored that you took a man’s life over a debt owed back in the day.”
“I do miss the old neighborhood. I’m not sure what incident you’re talking about, but I was just an apprentice back in my Cleveland days. I didn’t have the authority to go after someone like that.”
He didn’t deny or admit to anything, just skipped around the truth. “Why did you leave Cleveland then?”
“I had an uncle in Chicago who thought I was going down a bad path. My father was never around and my mother was overwhelmed with such a large family. He took me off her hands, raised me and sent me off to college.”
“So it had nothing to do with the reports of you beating a man to death?”
Makem smiled at me and took a sip of his drink. “Not that I’m aware of. My mother and my uncle had been planning it for months. She knew it would be the only way I would ever get to go to school and get out of Cleveland.”
I took my drink, gave it a swirl, and thought for a moment. Even though, Makem was skimming the boundaries between truth and fiction, I knew that he was still telling me a lot. I had to listen to him and find somewhere between his words what it was that he was really telling me.
“Where did you end up going to school?” I asked him.
“The Citadel. My uncle thought it best that I went somewhere that I wouldn’t have a lot of room to get in trouble.” Makem twisted the large Citadel ring on his hand. “It is how I
came to fall in love with Charleston.”
The Citadel was the military college of South Carolina, nestled on the northern part of the peninsula between the Ashley River and Hampton Park. The school was known for providing
an excellent education, while developing talented young soldiers. The education Makem had received there would have paired well with the education he got growing up in Cleveland’s poor Irish neighborhoods. An excellent balance between a street thug, polished soldier, and genteel scholar. It also made me think that he might be above a simple beat-down for an unpaid debt, maybe.
“Did you stay here after graduation?” I asked Makem.
“Oh no, I moved around, traveled, and saw the world before I decided to come back here and settle down.”
“I’m sure being a former Cadet helped you get intertwined in Charleston society.”
“If you’re asking if it helped me find customers like Jason Trenholm then the answer is yes. In Charleston, it is all about who you know.”
“I’m beginning to learn that.” I said finishing off my drink.
“Can I get you another one?” Makem asked pointing to my glass.
“No thank you, and this rounds on me.” I stood up and threw some cash on the bar. “One’s enough for me, but thanks for the talk.”
“Never a problem. You know where to find me if you want to do it again.” Makem said with a grin.
“You never know I just might.”
Chapter 39
It wasn’t until late the following afternoon that I saw Hannah again. When I heard someone coming up the stairs, I expected her to be weighed down with books and information from researching the KGC further. Instead she held a tablet in a black leather case. I suddenly became aware that the days of poring over old manuscripts in libraries were slowly coming to an end.
“You look tired.” I said to her.
“Thanks a lot. I was up most of the night reading and taking notes. It appears that the KGC was a complicated bunch.”
“I was starting to get that impression through my reading as well.” I thought about updating her on Colin’s phone call and Tommy Makem but decided to wait. She looked like she was about to get on a roll.
“I did a little background study and there wasn’t much proven about the KGC, a whole lot of conspiracy and maybes but no hard evidence. That said, they did exist and there does seem to be a code. I went into the database at Columbia and found some notes and information about their codes and how to translate them. Once again, no hard evidence and no guarantees. The codes
system seems to involve a lot of interpretation. All my notes are on here.” She said holding up the tablet. “I figure we go back to
St. Phillip’s and begin there.”
“Sounds
good to me. Besides, I’ve got a few things to update you on while we walk there.”
We made our way the few blocks north to St. Phillip’s and I filled her in on Makem. She didn’t seem too intrigued by the whole exchange until I mentioned that Makem was a Citadel alum, then her eyes gave way to a brief flicker. It disappeared almost immediately as we entered the cemetery and I forgot about it as quickly as Hannah did.
“Okay,” she said pulling out the tablet, “There are a few basic elements to the KGC code that we need to be aware of. First, the KGC were masters of misdirection who intentionally loaded their carvings with false leads. They were betting that most treasure hunters would get so exasperated after chasing these phony clues, they’d give up before they ever found anything. We need to look for a couple things carved into trees, rocks or even headstones. Animals are travel symbols that when combined with other clues can represent direction and distance. Carvings of ghosts will tell us that the next clue is located on a grave. A heart or the letter H stands for the middle. Any numerals can either tell you how far to go or might send you to a nearby object with that many sides.”
Hannah paused for a moment to make sure I was retaining everything she had said. Scrolling through the tablet, she began again.
“As you can tell, this isn’t a simple process. There are hundreds of such symbols, which can produce a near-infinite number of combinations, and are up for interpretations. When
you are looking at gravestones look for misspellings, another clue. Finally, and above all, the KGC code seems to rely heavily upon biblical chapter and verse. I assume because all of its members
would’ve known it well, as good Southern Christians.” Hannah exclaimed with a slight smile. “A cryptic carving might direct you to a verse in the Bible, or be a verse from the Bible, and then the interpretation of that would further guide you to another symbol.”
I had to admit it was a lot to take on and my brain was already numb.
“I guess we’ll start at Calhoun’s grave then?”
“Not his grave,” Hannah said. “His false grave.”
Chapter 40
It had been foggy the last time we set foot in St. Phillip’s cemetery. Now, the skies were clear, the sun shining, and squirrels jumped between branches on the ancient oak trees. There was one tree in particular that had our eye, and today I could see it more clearly than I did the last time I stood underneath it.
Whether it was because of the fog or because I hadn’t known at the time what to look for, I hadn’t realized that the tree across from the spot where Calhoun was buried during the Civil War was covered with carved objects. Previously, the hooked x and J.A.M. were the only two carvings that caught my eye, but now there were hundreds of symbols, animals, numbers, and faces etched into the trunk.
“How did we miss all this?” I said to Hannah. “And what does it all mean?”
“I have to assume that most of it means nothing, and simply are here to provide cover for the actual clues.”
Hannah began taking pictures with her tablet. She shot the tree trunk from a multitude of angles. Then she took a three-hundred and sixty-degree view of the cemetery from the base of the tree. Finally, she focused in on Calhoun’s memorial stone back
on the wall of the temple building. I watched as she snapped a photo, highlighted the scribed writing at the bottom of the memorial, and began a search. In second she had an assortment of option explain the location of the stone, the history of Calhoun’s resting spots, and finally something new.
“We should have known. Scripture. James 3.” Hannah said of the words at the bottom of Calhoun’s memorial stone.
“James 3.” I said out loud as I thought about the letter, the tree, and the two of us now standing in the cemetery hunting for buried treasure. “James 3…I’ve got it. The letter and the tree are both marked with J.A.M., which call me crazy, but I think stands for James 3. You said the KGC used scripture so this fits. The letter J, A, and M could stand for James and the three dots could represent the third book.”
“I have to admit it makes sense, but what is the clue telling us?”
“I’m not sure we have it all. Either we are missing something on the memorial stone or we are missing something on the tree. Both the letter and the tree have a hooked x, maybe that is something.”
“Possibly, but it may just be used to help mark the trail.” Hannah started going through the pictures she took of the tree trunk, changing the filter so the carvings stood out more. “I’ve counted three-ghost carvings on the tree all exactly alike. There are a dozen animals, but each one is different. Five human faces all different, and numbers ranging from zero to thirty-three with none repeating.”
“The ghosts, are they exactly the same?” As Hannah double checked her pictures, I went to the tree to examine it more closely.
“Yes, exactly alike.”
“I agree.” I said finding them on the tree trunk. “You said ghosts represent a clue pointing towards a gravestone, so we are going to look for a gravestone.”
“But why three ghosts?”
“Maybe we are looking for three headstones. Let’s start with the tree as the center and slowly make circles outward.”
We started slowly on separate sides of the tree tracing over each other’s steps as we worked outward. Graveyards as old as the one at St. Phillip’s Church were hard to negotiate. For every stone that had been meticulously taken care of there was one that had been neglected and crumbled. Others had been worn by the weather of the years and their effigies were no longer visible. Slowly we walked. Slowly, hunched over we read every stone we passed.
“Jack, I’ve got something.”
Chapter 41
Flush with the ground and half buried in leaves was a rectangular stone with the word JAMES carved into it. Behind stood three headstones of different ages, beginning with A. JAMES and ending with A. JAMES III.
“The James Family plot and just our luck there was an A. James the third.” I said to Hannah after I made my way over to her.
“Three generations of Charlestonians, Southerners, and merchants.”
“How do you figure?” I asked.
“Along the top of each gravestone is carved a rope outlining a ship. The thickness of the rope indicates the wealth of the family, and the James’ had thick rope.”
I gave a small giggle.
“What?”
“Nothing, except usually if you feel the need to show the world how thick your rope is…”
“Don’t finish that thought.” Hannah interrupted. “Look each headstone has a name, date, and an inscription.”
Hannah took pictures with her tablet once again and did searches of each headstone.
“Odd.” She said, almost to herself.
“What is it?”
“The inscription on the grandfather and father are both from the Bible, but the son’s inscription doesn’t appear to be.”
“Only through the four points of God’s cross can heaven be found.” I read outloud. “Sounds like scripture to me.”
“But it’s not.” Hannah was quiet for a moment. “It’s a clue, but to what exactly I don’t know.”
“Jason gives you a letter he finds in his father’s study with invisible ink J.A.M. is inscribed on it. We are guided to this cemetery where we find the same carved into a tree, and a memorial to the spot where John C. Calhoun was once buried marked with a passage from the book of James. Now I’m staring at the grave marker of A. James III. There is an obvious common theme here.”
“Yes, but where does it lead? Also, the KGC were cryptic at best and insane at worst when leaving clues. The theme at this clue may be just that and when we move forward, it could change. Also, something as obvious as the James’ name could be a cold trail offered to mislead treasure hunters.” Hannah seemed frustrated.
We stood in silence as she furiously tapped at the screen of her tablet, swiping up and down looking at pages as fast as she could.
“Worthless.�
� She said after about five minutes.
“What’s worthless?”
“The damn internet. There is nothing on the James Family here in Charleston. And from their burial plot the family either died out or moved after A. James III was buried.”
I looked around, and even though there was room, there were no more headstones dedicated to the James’ name.
“I need to do it the old fashioned way and head to the library. Apparently, there is still a need for those houses of knowledge and wisdom.” Hannah began to walk towards the street.