A Treasure Deep

by Alton Gansky

  “I won’t give you any trouble. But please hurry.”

  “Good thinking. Now we have only one other concern.”

  Claire felt sick. “What?”

  “Traffic was really bad tonight. You had better pray that we don’t get hung up on the freeway. Congestion can be murder.”

  Claire had already started praying.

  PERRY MADE HIS call to the office and jotted down a few notes in his project diary. He kept the journal on the computer and under three levels of password protection. His laptop came equipped with a biometric security feature that read the fingerprint of his right index finger. Precaution was paramount for many of the projects undertaken by Sachs Engineering. Part of obtaining government contracts around the world was demonstrating a high level of security.

  Shutting his computer down, Perry rubbed his eyes. The little nap earlier that day had been too short to do more than take the edge off his weariness, but it was too early to sleep. Even if he did yield to temptation and climb up on the bed, he doubted sleep would come. His mind still raced with what he’d seen in the bottom of the pit. The skeleton haunted his mind. Perry had come to expect the unusual in this project, but finding the remains of a man hidden beneath a bowed rectangular shield had not occurred to him. Still it proved the point. It was undeniable proof that they were in the right spot.

  He thought of the other five dark objects revealed by the ground surveys. Were they coffins too? It wouldn’t surprise him. A guilty sense of desecration flowed over him. They were digging in a cemetery created long ago, undisturbed for centuries.

  Perry rolled his head from side to side, working out the kinks from the day’s travel and work. He then gazed around the room and noticed a blinking red light on the phone. It flashed in a rhythmic cadence. Someone had left a message. Placing the receiver to his ear, he punched the button marked “0.” The night manager answered.

  “This is Perry Sachs, you have a message for me?”

  “Yes, sir. Just a moment, I’ll connect you.”

  Perry heard a tone then a recorded message. “Mr. Sachs. This is Mayor Anne Fitzgerald. I was hoping we could meet.” Perry sighed. It was the last thing he wanted to do, but that changed a moment later. “I want to . . .” She stopped as if the words were stuck in her throat. “I want to give you a heads-up about something. I’m going to be at O’Tool’s Pub a few blocks from where you’re staying.” She gave directions. “It’s close enough to walk if you want. I hope you’ll come. It would be to your advantage.” The message ended, and Perry hung up.

  His inclination was to ignore the call. The first two encounters with the woman had left a bad taste in his mouth, rendering a third conversation far from appealing. But he was intrigued. “I want to give you a heads-up on something,” she had said. That was sufficiently cryptic to titillate his interest. The project was too important not to have all the information available. “O’Tool’s Pub,” he said, shaking his head. “Okay, Madam Mayor. I’ll bite.”

  Perry took a quick shower and donned clean clothes; his others were soiled with dirt and grass stains. Stepping into the warm night, he walked the two-and-a-half blocks to the pub.

  The place was as Perry had imagined it: a pseudo-Irish bar in a Southern California village. Dark wood paneling covered the walls, and the only light in the room came from several wrought iron fixtures hanging from a high, open-beamed ceiling. Small square tables, each with four matching chairs, dominated the center of the room. Along the backside was a long, wood bar with a shiny brass foot rail. Bottles of alcohol sat on a counter behind the bar and on the racks that framed an oval mirror. A single television set was tucked away in a corner of the ceiling. A baseball game played there in silence. Around the other three walls were tall-backed booths, intimate in size and decor.

  Perry glanced around, feeling out of place and off balance. Bars were foreign territory to him.

  “Mr. Sachs.” Perry recognized the voice and turned to see Anne Fitzgerald waving to him from the corner booth. He nodded and approached.

  “I got your message,” Perry said and offered a small smile.

  “I figured you did . . . since you’re here, I mean. Have a seat.” She motioned to the bench seat opposite her.

  Perry sat down and leaned over the table. Anne wore the same clothing he had seen her in early in the day. In front of her was a short, wide glass filled with a golden liquid.

  A woman appeared next to the table as if by magic. Perry looked up at her. She was rail thin and wore a European barmaid outfit. She looked barely old enough to legally be in a bar. Looking at Perry she smiled, turned to the mayor, and winked. “What can I get ya?”

  Perry hadn’t considered that. “What kind of fruit juice do you have?”

  “Fruit juice?” The cocktail waitress seemed surprised. “This is a bar, sweetheart. We sell beer, wine, and spirits, not fruit juice. How about a scotch like the mayor here?”

  Perry looked at the glass and shook his head. “No thanks. But I’ll tell you what. Don’t they make a drink with vodka and orange juice?”

  “Sure. It’s called a screwdriver.”

  “Good,” Perry said. “I’ll have one of those.”

  “Attaboy,” the waitress said.

  “Hold the vodka,” Perry added.

  The waitress rolled her eyes and walked away.

  “I hope I didn’t offend her,” Perry said.

  “She’s seen it all,” the mayor said. “It would take a lot to offend her.”

  “She doesn’t look old enough to have seen much of anything, Mayor.”

  “Don’t let her youth fool you . . . and please call me Anne.” She raised the glass to her lips.

  “Only if you call me Perry.”

  “That’s easy enough. Thanks for meeting with me.”

  “It’s my pleasure, but I need to say right up front that I’m not answering any questions about the project.”

  Anne made a face. “My life would be a lot easier if you weren’t so stubborn.”

  Perry laughed. “I was thinking the same thing about you.”

  The waitress came back and set a glass of watered down orange juice on a cocktail napkin. “There you go, sir. Go easy on that now.” She zipped away.

  “I think my sarcasm detector just went off,” Perry said.

  Anne raised her glass. “To stubbornness.”

  Perry raised his glass and gave a gentlemanly nod. He took a sip. The orange juice was weak and thin. He set the glass down.

  “So what is it?” Anne asked. “Recovering alcoholic or health nut?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The virgin orange juice. Are you a recovering drunk or a health nut?”

  “Neither. There are people who choose not to drink alcohol. I’m one of them.”

  “I used to be that way,” she replied, then raised her glass and took a sip. “Not anymore.”

  Perry detected a sadness and anger in her words. He wondered whether he was being invited to probe a little deeper, but uncertainty sealed his lips.

  “How long have you been mayor?” Perry asked. It seemed an innocent and safe enough question.

  “Not long. I’ve been on the city council for three years. Each year a mayor is selected from the council, not elected like in bigger cities. That’s a little too general, I suppose. Some small cities elect their mayor in open elections, but in most towns our size, it just rotates through the council members.”

  “Do you like it?” Perry chose to pursue the small talk. Maybe they could find some common ground that would move them beyond an adversarial relationship.

  “I suppose. I mean I returned to it not long after I moved here from Ridgeline.”

  “Ridgeline?”

  “It’s a small town in the San Bernardino Mountains. I served on the council close to ten years there and was mayor for six years.”

  “But then you moved here, exchanging one mountain community for another.”

  “Ridgeline is much higher than Te
jon. We got a fair amount of snow each year, and the trees were pines, not oaks. There’s quite a difference.”

  “And what brought you to Tejon?” Perry asked, sipping his orange juice and pretending to enjoy it.

  “Death.”

  The reply was blunt and delivered with resignation. Perry was uncertain what to say. “It appears I’ve stumbled into a sensitive area.”

  Anne shrugged. “My husband was killed several years ago, and my father died two months after that. Three months later, my mom had a stroke. We lost her too.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, me too. We were close. All of us. Mom, Dad, my sister. They say bad news comes in threes. It sure did for me.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Yes. The jewel in the crown of Ridgeline. A medical doctor. Smart cookie.”

  She paused and blinked several times then added, “You know, my sister knew a Perry Sachs. You don’t know a Gates McClure, do you?”

  Perry shook his head. “I’ve never been to Ridgeline. I imagine there are other men with the same name.”

  “You’re sure? He’s an attorney. You didn’t used to be a lawyer, did you?”

  “No need to be insulting,” Perry quipped. “I’ve never been a lawyer or anything other than an engineer. So your sister is still in Ridgeline?”

  “Yes. She’s a lot tougher than me. She had her practice to keep her going. I needed a change.” Anne took a larger gulp of the Scotch then set the glass down. “How about you? Your family still around?”

  Perry nodded. “I come from a small family. Just me and my parents.”

  “An only child, huh?”

  “I was enough for my parents.” Perry paused then decided to get on with things. “You said you wanted to give me a heads-up about something.”

  She ran a finger along the rim of the glass. “I know I’ve been a pain,” Anne said. “And just to keep the record straight, I plan on remaining a nuisance until I find out exactly what you’re doing and why. But something has come up that’s beyond even me. I thought I’d tell you now, since you’re sure to find out tomorrow.”

  “You called in the national guard?” Perry joked.

  “No, but it’s an idea. Tomorrow’s paper has a front-page article about what you’re doing up in the hills.”

  “What? How?” Perry asked. “No one knows what we’re doing up there.”

  “That doesn’t seem to be a problem for David.”

  “David?”

  “David Branson. He’s the editor of the local paper. As you might guess, there isn’t a lot in our town to fill up more than a few columns of newsprint. Slow news means slow subscriptions and ad sales. David also has a bit of an imagination.”

  “And just what has he imagined we’re doing?” Perry pressed. He was unhappy with what he was hearing.

  “I haven’t read the article, but he hunted me down this evening while I was having dinner. Have you had dinner? They make a decent sandwich here.”

  “No, and I’m losing what little appetite I had.”

  Anne frowned and looked down into her scotch. Perry expected her to hoist it for another belt. She didn’t. “Anyway, apparently David’s headline is going to read ‘Mayor Uncovers Treasure Hunt,’ or some nonsense like that. I don’t remember exactly, but it’s along those lines.”

  Perry leaned back in the booth and sighed. “Sounds like he’s making you look good.”

  “Like I said, I haven’t read it, but I imagine that’s what he has on his mind.”

  “That and increasing circulation.”

  “Yeah, that too.”

  “Do you think anyone will believe it?” Perry inquired.

  Anne shrugged then raised her eyes from the glass. “I had nothing to do with this. That isn’t my way. If I want to know something, I ask the person with the answers.”

  “So I’ve noticed.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ve never been accused of being shy and retiring.”

  “There’s no way to stop the presses?”

  “None that I know of. I only know of one thing that will help: Tell the truth. Let David run a story about what you’re really doing up there.”

  “Is that what all this is about? Some kind of scheme to get me to reveal a secret or two?”

  “No, not at all. I told you I had nothing to do with it.”

  Perry tried to hold back the disgust he was feeling. “I’m sorry, Mayor, but all this seems a little too contrived.”

  Anne leaned over the table and spoke in hard, hushed tones. “You listen to me, Mr. High-and-Mighty-Engineer. I took the initiative to set up this little meeting. I could have just let everything run its course. Tomorrow you could have awakened to this problem, and it would have been no skin off my nose. I suggest telling David what you’re doing to take the mystery out of it. Tell him anything, lie if you want to, but the die has been cast. Everyone in town is going to think you’re up at the Trujillo ranch digging up gold doubloons or something.”

  “Did you tell him about our presence?”

  “What’s to tell? You drove your convoy right through town. Hundreds of people saw your crew roll by.”

  “I’m not buying that. How did he know we were at the Trujillo Ranch?”

  At first Anne didn’t speak. Instead she stared back through angry eyes. “He did his research. He’s resourceful, I’ll say that.” Anne shook her head. “You’ll have visitors. At least some, maybe a lot. I don’t know. I just thought you should know.”

  “This isn’t fair to the Trujillos. They don’t deserve to have people crawling all over their land. I should let them know.”

  “I imagine David has spoken to them,” Anne said, “but he didn’t say so specifically.”

  “They don’t need the stress.”

  “It shouldn’t be that bad.”

  Perry looked at Anne for several moments. “Do you know Hector Trujillo?”

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  “He’s dying, Mayor. I seriously doubt he would appreciate a line of people coming by to ask questions about something they don’t understand.”

  “Then tell the people so they will know.”

  “Do you think they will believe anything I say after that article hits? You and your buddy have just told everyone that there’s gold in the hills. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

  Perry stood, reached for his wallet, and pulled out the first bill he saw . . . a twenty, and dropped it on the table.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Anne protested. “I’ve told you, I’m as much a victim as you.”

  “Really? In one day, you’ve tracked down our location, made two trips to the site, harassed some of my crew, came banging on my motel room door, tried to involve the police, and inadvertently cranked up the media.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do you really think it’s going to end here?” Perry asked sharply. “What happens when some local radio show reads about it? Who knows, maybe television stations will be down with their cameras whirring.”

  Perry turned and marched from the pub and into a night of darkness that matched his mood.

  ANNE WATCHED AS Perry strode toward the door and exited into the night. She felt hollow, devoid of any value. Her intentions had been legitimate. While she wanted to know exactly what Perry was up to, she had no desire to find out through skullduggery. Silently she cursed David Branson.

  “Is your friend coming back?” The waitress stood by the table.

  “No.”

  “He didn’t finish his orange juice,” she said with a smirk. “Ha, big guy like that and all he wants is juice.”

  “Let it go,” Anne snapped.

  “Sure thing, Mayor. How about you? You want another scotch?”

  Anne studied the tumbler; it was as empty as she felt. Yes, she told herself. Yes, she did want another scotch. “No,” her voice said. “Excuse me.” Anne rose, paid her tab, and walked toward the door.

  JOSEPH HENRI SAT in the backseat of a car he
couldn’t describe. He rocked and rocked, stopped, rubbed his arm, then started rocking again. He turned and looked out the window nearest him. Light from buildings and street lamps fluoresced through drops of rain on the window. He turned to look at his mother. Her eyes were raining too. Looking back at the window, he crossed his arms and stared at the glass ornamented with droplets.

  He counted the drops. Then he counted them again. With each new raindrop, Joseph recounted. He also counted the cars that passed, the lampposts on the sidewalks, and the windows in each building they passed.

  The car began to move faster, and the street grew wider. This road was more interesting. It had evenly spaced white lines that zipped past.

  Joseph counted the lines.

  Chapter 10

  DR. KENNETH CURTIS sat in the passenger seat of the Ford Explorer with his head back and his eyes closed in sleep.

  Perry couldn’t blame him. After all, it had been he who had called him in the late evening. It was only dinnertime in California, but Boston was on the other coast and three hours further along in the night. While he had not awakened the archeologist, he had insisted that he pack a few things and make the flight west that evening. Arrangements had been made, and at 6:10 that morning, the weary academic arrived at the small airport in Bakersfield. No sooner was the man’s luggage loaded than he was seated in the passenger seat, fast asleep. He didn’t move during the forty-mile trip back to Tejon.

  Initially, Perry had intended to hire a helicopter to fly Dr. Curtis to the site, but after Anne Fitzgerald’s revelation the night before, he thought the extra time spent in the car would draw much less attention than a helicopter swooping into the mountains.

  There was a small bump as Perry turned from the paved road onto the dirt path he had traveled several times in the last twenty-four hours. Curtis was jarred awake.

  “Enjoy your nap, Professor?” Perry asked.

  “Too little, too short.” His voice was higher than might be expected of a 250-pound man, especially when that weight was compacted into a five-foot-nine frame.

  “I apologize for the rushed trip, but I promise that you’ll be amazed.”