Bottled Up

by K. J. Emrick

  I put the car in reverse, and back away from Gimble’s pickup.

  Now Jasmine comes running, and throws herself into the passenger seat beside me, just as I put the car in drive and head right back toward the street. I figured she wouldn’t want to miss her ride. Especially since this is her car.

  In the rearview mirror, I can see Gimble picking up his shovel.

  Maybe he was just getting back to work. Maybe I need to drive faster.

  “Are you insane?” Jasmine asks me once she’s got her seatbelt in place. “What are we doing?”

  “Leaving,” I tell her. “We can’t show that note to anyone else. Not here in Blue Laguna, and maybe not anywhere. This is just for you and me.”

  “Hold on a minute. What’s the harm in showing it to Gimble? Please, Dell. There’s still time to go back.”

  “No,” I say, hoping that will be the end of the argument, even though I know it won’t be.

  “He might know something,” she pleads with me. “And if he doesn’t, what’s it going to hurt to let him see it? The guy’s a gardener, Dell. He’s harmless. It’s not like he’s a member of some ‘Ndrangheta mob family!”

  “Well, sure…” Although now that she’s said that, I really wish she hadn’t brought up the ‘Ndrangheta. I’ve had run ins with them before, and I think I might still be under a death threat from one of the top guys. Our last conversation was a little iffy on the details.

  She was right, though. Was Gimble a gangster? Probably not. Was he a bad man? Probably not.

  Did that change what the ghost had said to me?

  No. It did not.

  “Look, Jasmine, I admit that Gimble might be harmless. He’s weird and he’s creepy but that doesn’t make him a bad man, I admit. It still doesn’t matter. We can’t show the note to anyone.”

  “Why not? Come on, Dell. We can’t read all of the writing even now that it’s dried out for a few hours. We should be talking to everyone we can. Didn’t Halloway say there was a museum here in town with some of the McGowan’s things?”

  “It’s in Hobart, actually.”

  “Aces! That’s just a hop and a skip from here. We should go talk to the people who run the museum.”

  “No,” I say to her.

  “We should be talking to the press! Oh, yes. That’s a beaut of an idea, to be sure!”

  “No, Jasmine.”

  She isn’t listening to me. “We could get the note in the papers and on television and see if anyone comes forward with information about the missing words, or where the treasure might be, or… or… or who knows what would happen!”

  “No, Jasmine,” I say more firmly, hoping this will be the end of it. I know she doesn’t understand, but it’s not like I can explain it better. I can’t tell her I saw a ghost. I don’t let on about that part of my life. She wouldn’t believe me, anyway. “Just no, all right? Look, I’m the one who found the note. I get to decide who to show it to. Not that guy. Not anyone in this town. Okay?”

  “But…why?” she almost wails.

  We’re back on the main road now, and I don’t even bother pretending we’re staying another minute here in Blue Laguna. I drive straight down the highway without slowing a tick. We’re going back home, is what we’re doing. Back to Lakeshore. I’ve got people there who I trust enough to talk to. If anyone’s going to know what to do about this whole thing with the bottle and the note and the people trying to kill me, it will be my son. Kevin and I will figure this out. Us, and James. Maybe Jasmine’s idea of going to the press wasn’t that far off, after all. James won’t publish the thing unless I give him the say so, but he’s got contacts all over Tasmania and across Australia, too. He’ll know who we can talk to.

  My boyfriend’s more than just a reporter. He’s one of the sharpest men I’ve ever met.

  Not that I need a man to fix my troubles, but it sure does help to have friends and family I can rely on.

  Beside me in her seat, Jasmine almost looks ready to cry.

  I take a deep breath. She’s my friend, too, and she deserves more than just a brush off. I take a moment to breathe, and think, and then tell her as much of the truth as I can. “Listen, Jasmine. That note’s trouble. This whole thing’s trouble. That couple in Perth a bit ago, the ones who found that really old note in a bottle. Remember them? The note that was thrown over the side of a German boat back in the late 1800s?”

  “Course I remember them,” she grumbles. “They made all the papers, same as we should.”

  “They were famous for a week or so because it was just an interesting piece of history. That’s not what this is. This is something else. This is trouble, with a capital T, and we need to keep this to ourselves. At least until the police can arrest Zacron and we know he won’t be—”

  My mobile started to ring in my purse, and although I would usually ignore it when I was this deep into a conversation with a friend, I had the feeling that now wasn’t the time to let a call go through to voicemail. With a sigh, and keeping my eyes on the road, I dragged the purse into my lap and fished the phone out. My home screen has the hands-free icon right where I can get at it. With a tap of my thumb I can put the phone up on the dash and talk to whoever it is without violating any rules of the road.

  “Hello?”

  In response, an unexpected but familiar voice says, “Is this Dell Powers?”

  It’s Officer Halloway. “Yes, this is me. Are you calling about Zacron?”

  “Yes, I am. Zacron Haskell, is his full name.” There was a pause that I mistook for static, until I realized it was Halloway snacking on a bag of crisps.

  Well, isn’t that just perfect.

  “Officer Halloway, I’m driving,” I tell him. “We’re about to leave Blue Laguna, so if you could get to the point?”

  “No worries. So. Zacron. He’s not the guy who attacked you.”

  “What?” I barked, nearly swerving the car off the road in my frustration. “Officer Halloway, I have just about had it up to here with this whole town! I told you why it had to be Zacron. Now, why don’t you explain to me why you aren’t arresting him?”

  It’s not like me to lose my temper like that, but everything that’s happened in the last day has me on edge, including Halloway’s apparent lack of concern for my and Jasmine’s wellbeing. I just wanted him to help me by arresting the man who wanted to kill me. Why was he giving me such a hard time over this?

  I can hear him rolling up the crinkly snack bag to set it aside. “I’m not arresting him because he isn’t the one who attacked you, Miss Powers. He was at his parent’s home all night.”

  Okay. That takes some of the wind out of my sails. Just a little, though. One of the reasons I try not to fly off the handle like this is because I hate to be wrong. Especially in front of someone like Halloway. At least the man had done a little bit of police work.

  “At his parent’s?” I ask, repeating what he’d just said. “But… how do you know?”

  “Know what?”

  My hands grip hold of the wheel really, really hard. My knuckles are white with the effort of restraining myself this time. “How do you know,” I say very slowly, and very distinctly, “that Zacron is not the person who attacked me, threatened to molest me, and then tried to kill me, over a note I found in a bottle?”

  “Well, like I said, he was at his parent’s home all night. They were having an argument about his, er, life choices.”

  Jasmine whistles in a short, low note. “A guy his age, still living with his parents? No wonder they were arguing about the way he lived his life.”

  “Or so his parents told the police.” It sounded like a solid alibi, but I know how these things work. “It wouldn’t be the first time that parents have covered for their son, rather than see him go to jail. They don’t exactly make credible witnesses.”

  Halloway clears his throat. “That’s true, Miss Powers, but the neighbors who heard the argument going until after two in the morning certainly are. Three of them called the police. Al
l of their stories match up. After that, our officers were at the house of Zacron Haskell and his parents until nearly four in the morning trying to sort things out. That’s the entire morning, Miss Powers, and that means Zacron couldn’t have been at the hotel trying to kill you. I’m sorry, but he’s not your guy.”

  “My guy,” I grumble, wanting to reach through the phone and slap Halloway repeatedly for putting it that way. “He isn’t my guy.”

  But apparently, he wasn’t my attacker, either.

  “Miss Powers? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, Officer Halloway, I’m still here.” Well. Much as I hate to admit it, looks like it was time for me to swallow my pride. “I guess I owe you an apology. Thank you, I suppose. Can you tell me who did break into the room? Or… how?”

  “You mean, how did someone get into a hotel room that you had locked? No, Miss Powers, I can’t tell you that one. Maybe one of the other employees with a pass card and a key. We’re checking on all of them but that’s gonna take some time. Listen, I just have to ask again. Don’t you think there’s any chance that you left the door unlocked after all?”

  “No, I did not,” I insist. “Officer Halloway, I won’t feel safe until you find who did this to us.”

  “Well, don’t have a whole lot to go on. We’ll do what we can, I can promise you that much. Just gonna take some time, is all.”

  My frustration is rising to a fever pitch again. “Really? Because you didn’t waste any time proving that Zacron wasn’t the attacker. Seems to me you could put that same effort into finding who did do it.”

  “Like I told you, Miss Powers. That’s why we like to ask questions before we make an arrest. Leave the police work to us, okay? If we find anything out, then I’ll be sure to—”

  I reach over and slap the End Call button on my phone. I don’t need to hear any more of his empty promises. Just when I thought he might be a standup guy after all, we’re right back to him being a ratbag. Glad to see I’m as good at reading people as I always thought I was. There’s some small comfort in that.

  Jasmine reaches over and puts her hand gently on my shoulder. Her attitude about things has changed, just like that. “The man’s a real bonehead, Dell. Don’t pay any attention to him. You were right. That note’s dangerous. I see that now. If it wasn’t Zacron who attacked you then it must’ve been someone else. Someone we don’t know. So, what’s the plan?”

  “We’re going back to Lakeshore,” I say without a second thought. “We’re going to talk to my son. He’s ten times the police officer than the boneheads here. He’ll be able to help us solve this mystery.”

  “About the treasure too?” she asks.

  “If there even is a treasure.”

  We had no way of knowing what the whole note said. Some of it had apparently been lost to the ravages of time, and whatever Orville had meant to say to Mabel was lost with it.

  Then again, Mabel’s ghost was certainly insistent that I not share the message with anyone. Did she know what was on that note? All of it? Maybe. After all, Orville was her husband, and they had both been deceased for a very long time. They must have met on the other side by now. They must have talked about their last moments on Earth, and what they meant to each other.

  Except, if her ghost was trapped here, in her old mansion, then maybe she hadn’t crossed over yet. Maybe she’s been without the company of her husband all this time.

  I can’t imagine dying, and then never seeing anyone I had ever known. That might not be hell, but I gotta believe it’s pretty close.

  It would be worth asking her, I suppose, if I was willing to go back to the McGowan mansion and find a mirror where her spirit could talk to me. I wasn’t going to do that, because I wanted to get home. I wanted to be as far away from Blue Laguna as I could get.

  Destroying the note crossed my mind briefly. That was certainly a possibility. Burn it, and all of this would be over. I could do that, but I’m not the kind of girl to shy away from a mystery. Even ones that put me in this much mortal danger. That’s because I know that getting rid of one piece of a puzzle doesn’t destroy the whole picture. It just leaves you lost and confused when you try to see what it all means.

  It wouldn’t protect Jasmine and I. In fact, it might put us in more danger.

  For now, I would keep the note. I might even help Jasmine figure out if it really is a clue to a treasure, or if it’s just a love note from a man who didn’t know he was about to die.

  One thing was for certain. My life was never dull.

  As we drove away, snow began falling on the coastline of Tasmania.

  Chapter 5

  We arrived in Lakeshore just after noon. We only stopped once, to get some petrol. I paid for it since it was Jasmine’s car we were driving. Then we were off again, but we still didn’t get back soon enough for my liking.

  I was starving. I knew Jasmine was hungry, too, because the noises from her stomach were giving her away. Rosie wouldn’t be expecting me back at the Inn until Sunday night, but I knew we could get the staff to make us a nice lunch. I’m part owner in the place, after all. Rosie would still be at home with her sick kids, but I set the schedule for the whole place before I left. The cooks on today know their stuff.

  Looking at the weather here in Lakeshore you would never know that it had been snowing just a few kilometers back. Not hard, mind you, but even so the difference is pretty remarkable. We’re on the shore of three lakes, and with the Hartz Mountains blocking some of the wind, the weather here tends to stay milder longer. Oh, winter’s going to come, sure enough. When it hits us, it’ll hit hard. This year was forecast to be one of the worst winters in Tasmanian history. Temperatures lower than the winter of ’83, when it dipped below negative ten Celsius, and more snow than last winter when there were days we actually closed the schools.

  For now, the cold is holding off, and we’re home. All’s right with the world.

  “Should we go to the police station first?” Jasmine asks me.

  “You’re anxious to get to the bottom of that note, aren’t you?” I guess I am too, just for different reasons. “It’s not going anywhere. Let’s get back to the Inn and have a bit of lunch. I can call my Kevin to have him meet us there.”

  “Oh, now that sounds like a plan. I’d like to meet your kids. Didn’t you say you have a daughter, too?”

  I find I’m biting my lip, rather than answering. It’s not a comfortable subject of conversation for me. Not that Jasmine has any way of knowing that. With a sigh, I make myself relax. “Yes, I have a daughter. Her name’s Carly, but she’s away from Lakeshore at the moment.”

  “Really? Must be nice to have your kids finding their own feet like that. What’s she doing? Starting a business? Working on her education?”

  This wasn’t something I wanted to talk about. In fact, there’s exactly five people in all of Lakeshore that know the whole story. Just them. To everyone else, Carly is just ‘away.’ It’s been easier on me that way. I haven’t had to think about it. I hadn’t planned on getting into it with Jasmine, even though she’s a friend. Then again, nothing this weekend’s gone the way we planned. What was supposed to be a frivolous few days of fun turned into a mystery with notes in old bottles and treasures that may or may not exist.

  Oh. And someone trying to kill me. Let’s not forget about that.

  So I suppose there’s no reason to keep this other secret buried any longer. It doesn’t look so bad in the light of everything else. Turning onto the little side street where the Inn waited for us on the shore of Pine Lake, I let the words spill out. “My daughter’s off in New South Wales, in a little town just outside of Coffs Harbour. She’s dropped her boyfriend. Pretty much devastated him. She gave up working here at the Inn. Any ties she had to Tassie have been cut, actually.” It all happened so suddenly and even now I’m not really sure why.

  “Oh.” Jasmine fumbles for something more to say. “Is she up there for a different job?”

  I laugh, a little more
bitterly than I’d meant to. “Oh, no. A job would be a good thing, even though she had her job here with me for as long as she wanted. No. She’s not up there for a job. She’s up there in an alternative living community. That’s what they’re calling it, anyway. It’s a bunch of people living together and pooling all their money and belongings and underwear, for all I know. They’re completely cut off from the rest of the world up there. No visitors. No phone calls. I’ve had a few e-mails from her saying she’s fine, and that’s that. She doesn’t even answer the ones I send her. So. Now you know where my daughter is. If I’m lucky, I figure I’ll see her again sometime this year.”

  We were silent together for a long time. I parked out front of the Inn next to some of the guest’s cars. I shut the engine off. Then I sat there, looking out through the windshield and was trying not to cry. I’ve been trying not to cry ever since Carly got mixed up with that lot. She’s left behind everyone and everything that she knows. Including me.

  More than once I’ve thought about travelling up to Coffs Harbour and grabbing hold of Carly by the scruff of her neck, pulling her all the way back here, and then forcing some sense into that head of hers. I know she’s had a rough life, full of hard knocks and bad luck, but I really thought we were reconnecting as adults. As it turned out, my daughter still had a lot of growing up to do. That couldn’t come from me, more’s the pity. She was going to have to come to her senses on her own if it was going to be worth anything.

  That didn’t mean I hadn’t mapped the route out with Google more than once, or looked into how much an airplane ticket up there would cost, or even packed my bags once. A mother cares for her kids, no matter what they’ve chosen to do with themselves. I would always love Carly. I just missed her. A lot.

  “Come on,” I say to Jasmine, before the moment can get any more awkward than it already has. “Let’s go have my kitchen staff make us something awesome to take our minds off everything. How’s that sound?”

  “Can we talk more about this?” she asks me.