by Carol Miller
The proof was a gift from Brenda, albeit a rather inadvertent one. A scoop of flour originally intended for the shortcake dough had been thrown in an attempt to protect her darling Blot from the vicious cat kicker, aka Jordan Snyder. Brenda had said it best to Deputy Johnson—like flour does, it went everywhere. On the kitchen floor. In Jordan’s eyes, causing him to slip and fall into the chef’s knife. And into the mesh of one of the other men’s sneakers.
The man had probably tried to get it out, but flour could be so stubbornly clingy, as Daisy could well attest. No matter how often and how meticulously she and Brenda scrubbed the kitchen, a layer of flour dust always seemed to remain behind. Washing the shoes would have worked, but either the man didn’t want to bother with that or he didn’t think of it. Instead he chose the garbage bag, and if he had disposed of the garbage bag a bit more carefully—with less access to hungry critters—Daisy never would have spotted the whiter-than-white sneakers in the trash heaps behind Chris’s cabin.
Unfortunately, the sneakers didn’t really do her much good. She already knew that geocachers had been involved. The flour on the shoes and the shoes being at the campground merely confirmed it further. They also added weight to Aunt Emily’s theory of hooligans, along with Deputy Johnson’s theory of dumb pranks and shenanigans. Serious criminals didn’t wear nice new sneakers to steal cream cheese and then carelessly discard those sneakers at the place where they had been vacationing for the past two weeks.
Daisy took the sneakers along regardless. Like the crates at the nip joint, they were evidence, and she figured that it was best not to leave them behind. There was always the chance—slim as it might be—that they would prove useful somehow. When she later delivered both the crates and the shoes to Deputy Johnson after dropping Beulah at the inn, it didn’t take the deputy long to inspect them and tell her what she had already supposed. There weren’t any fingerprints, at least no legible ones. Two of the crates had a couple of smudges, but they could have just as easily come from her as from anybody else.
Although Daisy had expected it, it was still disappointing news. It left her with nothing, nothing but nagging doubts and unresolved questions. She could only hope that Beulah’s guess at the campground had been correct. All of the geocachers—Laurel and Chris aside, of course—were now gone from Pittsylvania County, and they were gone for good. While stealing the cream cheese and breaking the storage room window could be considered mischief, Caesar’s death certainly could not. And Daisy wasn’t eager to stumble over any more bodies at her bakery, even if this time they belonged to Jordan Snyder’s partners in crime.
Also as she had expected, Deputy Johnson informed her that the gun which had been used to shoot Caesar couldn’t be located in the area immediately surrounding Sweetie Pies. He was convinced that it would ultimately turn up, however. Daisy didn’t bother arguing with him. Even if it was found—and not at the bottom of a farm pond, as she strongly suspected—most likely the gun wouldn’t have any fingerprints on it either.
The deputy concluded their meeting with a tedious, self-congratulatory speech about how he had been right all along. It had been strangers—strangers who were criminals, who had come waltzing into the neighborhood. Daisy was tempted to ask him whether he also thought they had waltzed back out again, but she restrained herself. Such sarcasm would only prolong the speech, and she had a banana pudding to deliver.
It was late in the afternoon when she finally arrived at the historical society. Thankfully, the lecture wasn’t scheduled to begin until seven, so her contribution to the cause wasn’t tardy. Weatherwise, it had all the hallmarks of being a pleasant evening: a comfortably warm temperature for the middle of October and just a hint of a breeze, so it wouldn’t be too chilly after the sun went down, ideal for sitting outdoors with a light sweater. Apparently, the fund-raiser organizers had the same idea, because they were busy carrying out folding chairs from the building and setting up refreshment tables at the far end of the small parking lot.
The Pittsylvania Historical Society was an old, venerable organization, but its current home was a sad beige warehouse that looked like it was in the business of selling spare tractor parts instead of serving as the county visitors’ bureau and assisting in important genealogical and historical research. It was immediately adjacent to the aged Chatham Railroad Depot. The depot hadn’t been in use for nearly half a century—when passenger service to the area had ceased—but it was in the process of being lovingly restored, albeit slowly, as funds allowed. The beautiful red brick had been cleaned and grouted. The crumbling roof had been replaced with burgundy French tile. And the surrounding ironwork had been stripped and freshly painted in gleaming black.
The long-term goal was to move the society from the shoddy warehouse to the shiny depot, but the interior of the depot still needed considerable work, hence the fund-raisers. Even without the move, the historical society was in desperate need of a cash infusion. The electricity and gas had gone unpaid for far too many months, and the parking lot had more potholes than asphalt. If that wasn’t enough, now courtesy of a presumed hooligan with a beer bottle, a new window to the back conference room was necessary.
“Hullo, Ducky!”
Daisy glanced around and promptly smiled. “Hey there, Mr. Brent!”
“You need any help with the precious cargo?”
“No, I think I’ve got it.” She lifted the pudding from the passenger side of her car, where she had strapped it in like a toddler in a booster seat.
“Okey-dokey. You just bring it on over when you’re ready. I’ve got a place of honor waiting for it.”
Closing the car door with a shove from her foot, Daisy slowly walked the pudding to the designated spot.
“Set it right here on the wagon, Ducky. Center stage, so to speak.”
The wagon was actually a restored railroad baggage cart—four fire-engine-red wheels with a bright yellow handle and trim. It was spiffy, and the perfect height and size to serve as a refreshment table. As promised, the grand banana pudding had a place of honor in the center. An assortment of cookies, crackers, cheese squares, and cut vegetables with dip took up the rest of the cart.
“Well, now. Doesn’t that look purdy?”
“Aw, thank you, Mr. Brent.” Daisy stepped back to admire her creation. It was a darn fine pudding, even if she said so herself.
“Yes, ma’am. Purdy as a monarch on milkweed.”
Her smile grew. It was impossible not to like Henry Brent. At ninety-four, he was one of the oldest citizens of Pittsylvania County still to be puttering around on his own, with all of his faculties in full function. Aunt Emily called him the dapper clacker. He was, in fact, exceedingly dapper. Today he wore a light green seersucker suit with a green and white polka dot clip-on bow tie. Scuffed white buck wingtips completed the outfit. The clacker portion of the name referred to his dentures. Not only did they clack when he talked, he also seemed to enjoy clacking them now and again for no particular reason.
“Have you seen my momma?” Daisy asked him, as she surveyed the bustling organizers.
“I don’t believe she’s coming until later, Ducky—with Edna and May.”
“They’re the ones doing the lecture tonight, right? It’s on appraising antiques?”
Henry Brent nodded. “And they’re the perfect pair for the job. If anybody in this area knows about antiques, it’s the Fowler sisters. Those two have been running that shop over in Motley for thirty years now. Have you ever been?”
“A few times, though not recently,” Daisy answered. “I know that Aunt Emily loves the place. She goes crazy for all the folk art they’ve got there.”
“They’ve got some pretty good pottery too. And lots of nice furniture, along with a collection of very interesting old maps and documents.”
“Speaking of old maps,” she said, “my momma told me that someone busted a window here this past weekend, and they took a couple of maps from the back conference room.”
The dapper cla
cker responded with an especially loud clack. “I can’t understand why everybody insists on calling it the back conference room. There’s not a front conference room. And as long as I’ve been a member of the society, we’ve never had a conference, not indoors, at least. There’s the spring picnic and banjo festival, but I don’t think you can really consider that a conference, do you?”
Daisy shook her head politely, then steered the conversation back to the more important subject. “My momma also told me that the maps which were taken weren’t valuable.”
“They weren’t,” Henry Brent confirmed. “I’m the one who gave your momma—and the other members—that information.”
“You were?”
He chortled at her evident surprise. “I do know a few things, Ducky. It’s why they let me wander about unattended. And I should know a few things about old things, after all. I’m an old thing myself, or haven’t you noticed?”
“You look as spry as a grasshopper in June to me, Mr. Brent.”
“Aren’t you a sweet-talker!” he exclaimed, chortling harder.
Again Daisy brought the conversation back to the more important subject. “So if the maps weren’t valuable, why do you think somebody stole them—just to cause trouble?”
“Maybe. It all depends on who it was that stole them. Value is always in the eye of the beholder, Ducky.”
She frowned in confusion. “But a minute ago you said they weren’t valuable.”
“They’re not,” he reiterated. “They’re not valuable to me, or to your momma, or to Emily Tosh, or to the Fowler sisters, or—”
“Then who might they be valuable to?” Daisy interrupted him impatiently.
“Somebody who’s searching for treasure.”
“Treasure?” Her frown deepened. “What treasure?”
“The great treasure of the Confederate States of America.”
Daisy burst out laughing. “Oh, Mr. Brent, everybody knows that’s nothing more than a silly old folktale!”
“There are still believers,” he retorted.
“Of course.” She nodded amiably. “All good Southerners know the stories of the cherished Confederate treasury that was carefully hidden away from the thieving hands of the evil Union until the glorious South could one day rise again. Treasure hunters and historians have been going on about it forever. They’ve also looked for it forever and everywhere—from the far-western corner of Virginia to the far-eastern corner of Georgia—and they haven’t found a lick of anything glittery.”
“True.” Henry Brent straightened his bow tie. “All very true. The fabled Confederate gold is nothing more than a gleam in the eye on Lee-Jackson Day.”
“But you still think somebody might have taken the maps to search for the treasure?”
“I do,” he replied. “Only, I don’t believe the treasure that they’re looking for is the gold. I believe it’s the silver.”
“Silver?” Daisy’s laughter stilled. “I’ve never heard of any silver.”
“Most people haven’t, probably because it’s not worth anywhere near as much as the gold.”
“Or because it doesn’t exist either,” she returned dryly.
The dapper clacker answered with an extra clack. “It exists. Only, I don’t see how the maps are going to help anybody get to it. If I did, I wouldn’t have donated them to the society fifty years ago. I would have used them myself.”
Daisy didn’t doubt that. If a person was in possession of honest-to-goodness Confederate treasure maps, he went out and—as promptly as possible—found Confederate treasure. He didn’t hang the maps in the back conference room of the Pittsylvania Historical Society.
“So the maps aren’t real?” she said. “They only appear real?”
“No, no,” Henry Brent corrected her. “The maps are very much genuine—nineteenth-century originals. They’re in excellent condition too,” he added proudly. “No damage or repairs, just a tiny bit of foxing around the margins. I always took good care of them. We don’t actually own antiques, you know. We just preserve them for the next generation.”
She couldn’t help but think that whoever had the maps now most likely didn’t share that generous philosophy.
“Five maps were taken,” he continued. “They range in date from 1865 to 1870, and they show the county—different views, predominantly of the mountains. Two of the maps are large and more detailed. The others are smaller and not as comprehensive. But in one way, all five are identical. None of them show Danville.”
“That makes sense though, doesn’t it?” Daisy responded. “Danville isn’t in Pittsylvania County. It’s adjacent to it.”
“And Danville is where the silver is.”
“Seriously?” She blinked at him. “You’re seriously telling me there’s Confederate treasure in Danville?”
“I am indeed. Thirty-nine kegs of Mexican silver dollars.” As he spoke, Henry Brent’s craggy face was both earnest and excited at the same time. “It was payment to the Confederacy for the sale of cotton to Mexico. The coins were transported to Danville—as the last capital of the Confederacy—by train. It was several thousand pounds of silver, and when further retreat became necessary as a result of the rapidly advancing Yankee forces, that was much too heavy and burdensome to move very far by wagon. The only option was to bury it in the area. So that’s what they did.”
Daisy went on blinking dubiously. “Thirty-nine kegs of Mexican silver dollars are buried under the city?”
“The kegs themselves would have rotted in the ground by now,” he rejoined.
“But kegs or no kegs, nobody’s ever found these coins?”
“You can’t go digging willy-nilly around city property, Ducky. Or private property, neither.”
There was a short pause as Daisy tried to decide how much of the story—if any—she was willing to credit. In her experience, Henry Brent didn’t usually have flights of fancy. But the whole thing seemed awfully far-fetched. Confederate silver hidden under Danville? And no one had ever come across it in all these years, even accidentally during some construction project? Then it occurred to her that it didn’t really matter one way or the other. The maps were the important point, not the treasure—real or fictitious.
“If the maps don’t include Danville,” Daisy said, “then why would somebody who’s searching for the silver want to steal them?”
The dapper clacker gave a double clack. “Because they don’t think the silver is buried under Danville.”
“You just said it was buried there.”
“It is buried there. Except that doesn’t mean every treasure hunter and historian believes it to be so. There are always those who hold out hope. They imagine that they’re smarter and cleverer than all the others who preceded them. They’re convinced that they’ll be the one to finally discover the coins.”
“Okay,” she shrugged, “but how do the maps help with that? I presume there isn’t a giant X to mark the spot of the prize or an arrow pointing out the correct path to it. So do they have some other sort of clues on them? Secret signs and codes?”
Henry Brent and his dentures grinned. “That sure would be fun, wouldn’t it, Ducky? It would make for a real treasure hunt! There could be a special decoder ring too, like the kind kids used to find in cereal boxes back in the good ol’ days. But sadly,” the grin faded, “that isn’t the case here. The maps are just plain, ordinary maps. There’s nothing secret—or unusual—or even particularly interesting about them, not unless you’re fascinated by an in-depth tour of the mountains around Fuzzy Lake.”
That instantly caught Daisy’s attention. “The mountains around Fuzzy Lake?” she echoed in astonishment. “Does that include the mountain between the lake and Fuzzy Lake Campground?”
“I’m not familiar with the campground, but I would assume so,” he told her. “The maps are focused on the mountains surrounding the lake, so if the specific mountain that you’re referring to borders Fuzzy Lake, then it would be on the maps.”
A th
ousand thoughts raced through Daisy’s brain all at once, and her knees quaked slightly beneath her. Henry Brent put his gnarled hand on her arm.
“Are you feeling all right, Ducky?”
“I—I—” Her mind was whirling so fast that she wasn’t capable of a proper reply.
“You look dizzy. If you’re dizzy, you shouldn’t drive.”
She had to drive. She had to go somewhere quiet and think.
The dapper clacker gazed at her with concern. “Maybe you should sit down for a moment.”
Daisy took a deep breath in an effort to gather herself. “I’m fine. Thank you. I just really need to leave. Will you tell my momma that I was here?”
“Sure will, Ducky. But—”
Not waiting for him to finish, she hurried toward her car. After a few steps, Daisy stopped and turned back.
“Mr. Brent,” she asked, “how did the people who stole the maps know they were at the historical society?”
“I’m afraid that’s probably my fault,” he confessed. “As I’ve been working on updating the society’s Web site, I’ve added images from our collection. I started with the book and pamphlet covers, then I moved to the old letters and maps. I haven’t gotten through everything, but I’ve done all the maps on the walls. Or at least,” he amended a tad sheepishly, “the maps that used to be on the walls.”
“So anyone could have seen them,” Daisy said, more to herself than to him. “Anyone could have known they were here.”
“I’m afraid that’s my fault,” he repeated.
“It’s not your fault at all,” she corrected him. “You can’t help it if stupid people get stupid ideas into their heads.”
And as Daisy walked away, that was precisely what worried her—stupid people with stupid ideas. They were dangerously unpredictable. That was how other people wound up dead.