A Treasure Deep

by Alton Gansky

  “Remarkable.”

  “Eerie is more like it,” Alex said. “That’s the place to a tee.”

  “And that is the man you hired?” Rutherford asked.

  “That’s how I left him, face down in the pit.”

  “Why the . . . ,” Rutherford began. “Is that a trowel?”

  “Yes, sir,” Alex said. “My goal was to disrupt the dig until we could formulate a plan to gain the prize.”

  “And the trowel was used to implicate Sachs?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How is it a retarded man can know what you’ve done hundreds of miles away?” Julia asked.

  Alex shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “Move the drawing and let me see the survey images,” Rutherford demanded. Alex stepped to the table and rearranged the documents so his boss could see them. “I see six objects laid in two lines of three.”

  “This one,” Alex said, pointing at the most southwesterly object, “is the grave they opened; the one with the Roman soldier in it.”

  “And you saw that with your own eyes?”

  “I did. The remains are not fully visible. Only one plank has been removed. They probably stopped at that point to protect the find.”

  “The larger object to the north,” Rutherford asked, “that’s what we’re looking for?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s ill-defined,” he blurted.

  “They may have reached the limits of the ground penetrating radar,” Alex said.

  “Perhaps, but we can still determine that it’s man-made and not a natural formation. I see no reason to doubt the find. What remains is getting the contents out and back here.”

  “That may be difficult,” Alex said. “It’s become a media circus there. Newspapers are picking up the story, as is the electronic media.”

  “It’s too bad word got out,” Rutherford said. “Had Sachs been able to work unmolested and in secrecy, our job would be easier. We could’ve let him do all the work.”

  “The newspapers changed the situation,” Alex admitted. “That’s why I felt the need to slow things down. Beside, Dawes knew too much. I doubt he could’ve traced things back since I was meticulous about concealing my connection with you, but I wanted to be certain. He won’t be talking now.”

  “We still have a big problem,” Julia added. “Whenever they pull the contents out, the media is going to be there.”

  “We have to play our ace in the hole,” Alex suggested.

  “Yes,” Rutherford agreed. “I want our two guests brought here. I want to see this prodigy for myself.”

  “Is that wise?” Julia asked.

  “Of course it is,” Rutherford snapped. “I wouldn’t have suggested it if it weren’t. They can’t know where they are, so keep them confused. Julia, your job is to bring them here. Alex, I want you to set up a room where they can be comfortable. I want full video access. Understood?”

  “Yes,” Alex and Julia said simultaneously.

  “And, Alex, make sure there are plenty of art supplies for young Mr. Henri. I want to see what else is going on in his mind. He bears some research.”

  ANNE MARCHED INTO O’Tool’s Pub and took a seat in her usual booth. She’d been driving around for fifteen minutes pushing back tears and venting anger into the empty car like a geyser. No matter how many times she drove up and down the streets of Tejon, she couldn’t quiet her wounded spirit.

  She stopped at her office, retrieved a few business messages, and chose to return none of them. Five minutes after she entered her office, she left again. With little forethought she drove to the pub, parked, and strode into the dark lounge, longing to be alone with her overheated thoughts.

  Fury crashed in her like storm waves on an empty beach. Conflicting thoughts ricocheted in her mind. One moment she wanted to drive back to the site and pin Mr. Perry Sachs’s ears to one of the oak trees. She was angry enough to toss his body into the same pit in which Dawes had been found. Yet another part of her hungered to go home, collapse on the bed, and cry herself to sleep. That isn’t going to happen, she determined. That would mean he won, that he had succeeded in hurting her, and she couldn’t tolerate that. Instead, she decided it was time for a drink.

  As she plopped down, the cocktail waitress walked over with a scotch in her hand. “You’re early, Mayor.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  The waitress set the glass in front of Anne. “That friend of yours is causing quite a stir. Everyone who walks in is talking about it. He’s become something of a celebrity.”

  “He’s something, all right; I just hesitate to say what.” Anne pulled the glass closer.

  “So what’s he digging for up there? Besides bodies, I mean.”

  “I don’t know. I’m not in his confidence.”

  “You must know something. I mean, you are the mayor, aren’t you?”

  “I don’t come in here to be quizzed by a cocktail waitress. Don’t you have drinks to serve and flirtations to make?”

  There was a weighty, enduring pause. “You don’t have to take my head off, Mayor. Drink up. Enjoy. Have fun by yourself.” The waitress disappeared as quickly as she had arrived.

  The last comment burned Anne like a brand. She was alone. She’d been alone for years. She liked it that way. Less trouble. Less conflict. Less everything. Loneliness was the preferred choice.

  She lifted the glass and stared at the amber fluid. Light from a candle flickered through the drink, glitter fairies dancing to un-heard music. The pungent fragrance of oak-aged alcohol rose in her nostrils. Normally the smell enticed her, comforted her, made her eager to consume it in search of the salve for the still oozing wound in her soul. Bringing the glass to her lips, she cursed Perry for his mean words. Pity party, she thought. Pity party indeed. What does he know of it?

  Anne paused. For a moment she could see herself sitting in the booth of the dark pub, glass of liquor held to her lips, as if

  she were having an out of body experience. She felt pity for the woman she saw in her mind’s eye, felt remorse that she’d come to the point of sitting in a dark place drinking scotch in hope of lessening a deeper, more abiding darkness in her heart.

  Slowly Anne set the drink down and stared at it. The heat of anger flickered like the candle then slowly went out. Fury was replaced with melancholy. The man that killed her husband had killed her too; she just hadn’t realized it. He’d killed her hope, her confidence, her self-esteem, and her ability to trust anyone, including herself.

  That was a sharp, piercing realization. The pain remained. She’d chosen to flee her home, where she felt miserable, to move to a town where she now felt even more wretched. No matter the amount of success, no matter the number of lies she told herself, she was still in agony and was self-medicating her pain nightly with a substance that only made things worse.

  Anne pushed the glass away, opened her purse, and removed a twenty-dollar bill from her billfold. She laid it on the table. Then, taking a pen from her open purse, she wrote a note on the cocktail napkin: “Having a bad day. Sorry for what I said. Anne F.”

  Slipping from the booth, Anne walked from the bar wondering if she really did owe God an apology.

  Chapter 14

  THE EVER-PRESENT BREEZE had evolved into a stiff wind that ran invisible fingers through Perry’s dark hair. He stood in the middle of the site as unmovable as the oaks that surrounded him. The sun had tucked itself away behind the hills, and darkness flooded the perimeter of the work area, kept at bay by the powerful work lamps. Around the site was abysmal blackness, but the work was awash in gold-tinted light.

  Perry took in the activities around him. Thirty minutes earlier, just an hour after sunset, the crime scene was released and once again became a work site. Montulli had given the word, and Perry wasted precious few minutes in mustering his crew. The downtime had not been wasted. Perry had thought about his next set of actions, weighing each decision carefully, like a jeweler measuring a diamond.

>   Things had changed, and Perry had to adapt his plan. It had been his intention to move quickly, but still one step at a time. “B” would follow “A.” Then, and only then, would “C” come into play. That was before—before the media reports, before the gathering crowds, before the murder, before the theft of the documents he had hoped to keep secret for a while longer at least.

  Just yesterday he’d arrived on scene as the captain of his ship, a vessel that was plowing forward under full sail and across even seas. Now his ship was stuck in the midst of a storm, a squall that threatened to break the keel and send everything sinking to the bottom.

  What had to be done now had to be done fast. It galled him to have to change his timing, but too much was at stake, too much of the unknown. Someone was working against him. He didn’t know who, but he did know that whoever it was, that person was capable of bringing death.

  The serene hillside was a churning mass of activity. Over a score of men worked carefully but with urgency they had drawn from their boss. Chatter and banter were nearly nonexistent. The only real sounds were those of shovels hitting dirt and the slow process of a backhoe moving up the site.

  Perry was committed to finishing the task before anything else could go wrong. Despite having had only a few hours of sleep spread over the last few days, he wouldn’t return to his motel room. He was on-site and on-site he’d stay until the work was done. Despite the faster pace, it was not done in a frenzy. Every man had a job to do, and he did it quickly, but not carelessly.

  “I must admit, I’m impressed,” Sergeant Montulli said.

  After releasing Perry to do his work, he’d asked to stay and observe. Perry felt he owed the man that much. It had been Montulli that had ordered additional men for crowd control. Perry knew that he could send them home at any minute. Instead, he agreed to keep them on-site until the private security guards could arrive. A fence would be set up in the morning. It would take several days to complete the chain-link perimeter, and with luck, Perry’s major work would be done by then, but he was unwilling to take chances. If things took longer, he wanted to be ready. The price of the fence was small compared to the peace of mind it brought.

  “Impressed with what?” Perry asked.

  “Your crew. You spoke, and they went to work. No grumbling, no questions.”

  “They’re the best, and we treat them well. A good employee is more valuable than gold.”

  “Can you fill me in?” Montulli asked. “I mean, what are they doing?”

  “I’ll tell you what I can,” Perry said. “You already know about the coffin and skeleton, right?”

  “Right. I saw it when the coroner removed the murder victim’s body. Gave me the creeps.”

  “You should have been face-to-face with it,” Perry replied. “We found it because our surveys showed something beneath the surface.” Perry turned to face the pit. Men were digging away the edges of the grave. “They’re widening the opening. If all goes well, they’ll dig back the side walls of the pit to form a slope on two sides. Then we’ll push canvas straps beneath the coffin. When Dr. Curtis gives the okay, the coffin will be lifted out of the hole by those straps and set to the side. This one was fairly close to the surface, so the team should be able to lift it by hand.”

  “That one? There are more?”

  “Yes, five more.” Perry turned again and pointed with his finger, indicating five other groups of men. “Each team is responsible for a coffin. At least we assume they’re coffins. They gave the same readings as the first one, except each one is deeper than its counterpart farther up the slope. The deeper ones will take longer to extract.”

  “Kinda like pulling a bad tooth, eh?” Montulli said.

  “Something like that. Dr. Curtis will oversee each extraction and make sure that the contents are prepped for travel. Everything needs to be preserved. Even the dirt that is being removed is being bagged, marked, and shipped off for study.”

  “Where are you sending all this?”

  “Dr. Curtis has connections with several universities. He’s well respected in his field. He has arranged to have the coffins and their . . . inhabitants studied in the best environments and by the best people. I imagine the studies will go on for years.”

  “So that’s it? You pull up a few old bodies, and then you’re done. There’s no treasure?”

  “That’s just the beginning, Deputy. Once the burial material is removed . . . and by that I mean the corpses, coffins, and surrounding soil . . . then we plan to dig a ditch—a long ditch.”

  “Why?”

  “To get what we came for,” Perry said. “And don’t ask. That’s as far as I can go.”

  “Perry!”

  Perry turned to see Curtis motioning for Perry to join him. After several strides up the grade, Perry and Montulli stood next to Curtis, who was giving orders to six workers, each of whom held a flat canvas strap in his hand. The straps descended into the now widened pit, ran under the coffin and out the other side, up that slope, and into the hands of another worker. The three straps formed a cradle for the coffin.

  “I thought you might like to see this,” Curtis said. “After all, you’re going to be the one blamed for ruining all the history books.”

  “I’m honored . . . I think,” Perry said.

  “There’s a fine line between being famous and being infamous,” Montulli said. “It’s all a matter of interpretation.”

  “Why don’t I feel comforted?” Perry asked.

  “I’m just a cop,” Montulli said. “I leave those questions for your shrink.”

  “Ready?” Curtis asked the men. Several grunted their affirmation. “Okay, then, let’s do this. Pull evenly. We want the coffin to stay level. I don’t think it can take very much jiggling. Perry?”

  Taking his cue, Perry said, “Haul away, boys. Slow and steady.”

  Instead of pulling the straps hand-over-hand as a man might pull a bucket up from a well, the men each took a step back, then another one, like a drill team marching backward. Each step followed a cadence called out by Perry. “Step . . . step . . . easy now . . . step . . . step.” One tediously long minute later, the top of the coffin rose above the surrounding grade. Two backward steps more and the bottom of the ancient casket cleared the hole.

  “To my right,” Perry ordered. “Step . . . step . . . step.” Each small stride moved the dark, fragile box away from the open maw that had been its home for so many centuries. Once over solid ground, Perry gave the order to ease the straps. Inch by inch the workers lowered it to the ground until it rested in the tall grass.

  Perry approached, as did the others, staring at the unbelievable sight. A wood box, close to seven feet long and three feet wide, rested on the ground. The coffin was made of flat boards now bent, warped, and moldering. A single plank was missing; the one Perry had removed when he first found it.

  Staring back at them was the grinning skull of a man long dead. The space where the board had been allowed a limited view of the coffin’s occupant, but it was enough to see a helmet on his head and the shield that covered his body.

  Stooping, Perry took hold of one of the remaining boards and gave a tug. It came loose easily, leaving behind square iron nails. One of the other workers did the same with the last board that formed the lid. They stood and took a step back to allow the light to fall upon their macabre find.

  “If it weren’t for that bony face,” Montulli said, “I’d think I was looking at a robot.”

  “You cops have a weird sense of humor,” Perry said.

  “Can we join the party?” Jack, Gleason, and Brent joined the group. Brent carried his video camera.

  Too many bodies, Perry thought and dismissed the other workers, thanking them and then assigning them to the other groups. “Sure,” Perry said. “I think Dr. Curtis was about to give us a history lesson.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Curtis replied. “What we are seeing is impossible. Flat impossible. No one is going to believe it. I’m looki
ng at it, and I don’t believe it.”

  “Facts are facts, Doc,” Jack said. “No matter how you spin this, we’re looking at a dead soldier. I took my share of history classes in college, and even I know that’s a Roman helmet.”

  “That period of history is not my bailiwick, but I know enough to believe you’re right.”

  “Could it be some kind of prank?” Montulli asked.

  Curtis answered first. “No. If it were, it would be the most elaborate and best executed prank in history. Look at the cassis—the helmet. The rust indicates that it’s made of iron, typical for a Roman soldier. Some helmets from the period were made of copper or even bronze, but iron was more common. It has everything you’d expect on a Roman military helmet: cheek-shields to protect the face, a brow-guard, and judging by the awkward position of the head, I bet we’ll find a protruding neck guard on the back of the helmet.”

  “Look,” Brent said, “even his sandals are intact. A little worse for wear, but still in one piece.”

  “Boots,” Curtis corrected. “I know they look like sandals, but they were called boots. In grad school, I had a professor say that the design of Roman boots showed some of the same design factors of the modern sports shoe.” He bent down and pushed the foot of the dead man forward. “Iron hobnails. The boots were cut from a single piece of leather. It’s pretty fancy work.”

  “The shield is badly warped,” Gleason noted.

  Curtis agreed. “That’s to be expected. Shields were made of layered wood with a copper alloy binding.”

  “Should we remove the shield and see what else our friend has on?” Gleason asked.

  “No,” Curtis replied instantly. “We’ve gone far enough. It’s possible that whoever buried this man put his arm through the shield straps. Moving the shield might do some damage to the remains. That kind of work should be done in the lab.”

  Perry looked at Curtis for a moment but said nothing. He knew the archeologist was being careful, at least as careful as the circumstances allowed. Still, Perry’s curiosity was in high gear. “This is your decision, Doc, but I have to admit that I want a little peek at the rest of our friend.”