“Sure, but begin by telling me how I got here. I haven’t been told the complete story yet. I gather, the medical staff ’s been busy trying to get me to wake up.”
“Max returned from his errand and found you bleeding on the floor.”
“We’ve questioned everyone but you, Liv.” Erlandsen pulled out his pad, and Mergens took out a small recording device. “May we?”
“Sure. Go ahead.” I waited while they got ready to record. “From the top?” When they nodded, I began relaying all that I remembered. My heartbeat increased as I neared the part where I was looking underneath the desk and heard the floor creak and the door closing. “I also remember one thing in particular that’s rather perplexing, actually.”
“And, what’s that?”
“Shoes. The attacker’s shoes were weird looking…like sandals or flip-flops, but they looked like they were made of wood.” I yawned. “Sorry, I’m getting sleepy again.”
“Okay, we’ll check into that clue. Can you remember anything else?” Mergens asked, studying me closely.
“I smelled coffee, but it may have been mine…especially since I was trying to reach my coffee cup to throw it at him.”
“You sure your attacker was a male?”
“Yes. There wasn’t anything petite about those shoes or his whiskers.”
“We’ve dusted and made imprints, which match with the other break-in. Too bad the murder scene outside the store was all messed up by the time we got there.”
“Now what?” I asked, glancing from one detective to the other. “I want to know. I’m part of the deal, you know.”
“Don’t worry about this, we’ve got it under control.” Mergens turned off the recorder and slid it into his jacket pocket.
“What’s the plan?” I hoped my persistence would urge them to open up and tell me what the next step would be. “Still going with the speech as the motive?”
“It’s the only motive we can come up with. We’ll keep you informed,” Erlandsen said. “Good day.” He nodded toward me and looked at Mergens.
“Thanks again. You’ve been very helpful,” Mergens said.
“Anytime.” I kept my growl to myself as I watched them walk out of the room. “Meanies!”
“They’ve got their jobs to do.” Aaron tried to reassure me. “They don’t tell what they’re going to do…then it wouldn’t be a secret.”
“Oh, be quiet.” I closed my eyes and pictured Lincoln’s speech lying hidden in the desk. “I hope no one else is coming by.”
“Me, too.” Aaron stood. “I’m going to the lounge for something to drink. I’ll be right back. Want me to get you a nurse so they can bring you juice or something?”
“Please.” After he walked out, I decided it was time for me to get up and move around. I knew I should wait for someone to come and help me up, but something urged me onward. My first order of business was the bathroom. I’d have to pull the intravenous contraption along with me, since it was still connected to my arm. Slowly, I brought my legs over the side of the bed and stopped to rest. After a few moments, I pushed myself upward with my palms and was grateful that the bathroom was only a couple feet away. Once inside, I debated whether to close the door for privacy or not. I closed it. Just as I sat down on the toilet, I heard a creak. It sounded like someone walking across the old flooring, but…the shoes. Walking in those wooden shoes made a distinctly different sound. Quickly, I pressed the call button alongside of the toilet.
After I pressed the lock button, the person on the other side of the door jiggled the knob. “Help!” I screamed. From my confinement in the small hospital bathroom, I heard the banging of furniture, probably the cart. “Help!” I called again.
After a few moments, I heard pounding on the door.
“Honey? It’s safe. You can open the door now.” I could almost hear Aaron’s heart beating. “The coast is clear.”
“Positive?” I waited a moment to catch my breath and steady my nerves. I also wanted to hear his voice once again. “Promise?”
“Yes. You’re safe.”
“Someone just tried to come after me!” The lock button popped out as I opened the door. “Whew. I’m out of wind and energy.” I looked past Aaron to see the two detectives’ coats piled up at the end of the bed.
“Be right outside.”
The nurse pushed in front of Aaron, and she helped me stand and take care of myself. “Ready?”
“I feel awfully weak after all that,” I said. “Did they catch him?” “Not yet,” Aaron said.
“It’s understandable that you’re tired.” The nurse helped me walk the few feet to the bed where I immediately crawled in between the covers.
“Get some sleep. Ignore them,” she whispered and made me comfortable.
“I’ll try.”
Later, after answering several more of the detectives’ questions, I realized the creaking was actually the sound of the shoes on the polished floor. The detectives wouldn’t tell me their next move, but I gathered they intended to continue with the plan to post the forged message about the hidden speech. Harris contacted Aaron, and they discussed what to type into the subsequent decoy e-mails. Would the murderer still take the bait, since now he must realize he was a wanted man? No one could be that stupid. But most criminals were just that—stupid.
The doctor also gave me a quick check and deemed me fit, but he still wanted to keep me in the hospital overnight for observation. I was happy to stay. The detectives had my room guarded by a uniformed officer.
Grandma and Grandpa came for an evening visit. They wanted me to come back to their house until the case was solved, but I turned them down. Max phoned instead of visiting in person, which gave us time to talk for a few minutes.
Aaron reached for the iPad at the chosen time to send the decoy email. He typed in the message he and Harris had drafted. Before sending it to the chosen few individuals, he let me read it.
Dearest Taddie,
Remember playing hide-and-go-seek near your father when he was busy writing speeches?
Your loving mother.
Home is where the Heart is.
I liked this cryptic message and said as much. “It says it all.
Now we just have to wait and see.”
“It’ll work, Liv. It has to. The shoes alone, the messages—at least the retrieved ones, don’t add up to a motive or lead to the killer.”
“Hopefully, catching him in the act will.”
“Harris told me how to have, Three Blind Mice, set up to play if the killer checks the e-mail tonight.
“Let’s hope.”
After the message was sent, I slept.
The drugs knocked me out for a very long time. The nurses woke me only to feed me more meds and check my vital signs. A cot was brought in for Aaron.
Sometime during the night, Aaron nudged me awake. I heard the nursery rhyme playing, and we watched the cursor fly around the screen. A nurse came into the room and stood with one hand on her hip with the other pointing at us. When she turned and left, the guard entered.
“He bit,” I whispered.
“Let’s hope we got him this time.” Aaron smiled at me.
The guard stood at the foot of the bed and pulled out his cell phone. After a minute, he disconnected. “The suspect is under surveillance.” After a few short minutes, he answered his phone,
and whispered a few words into it. He slipped it back into his pocket. “Got them.”
“Who?”
“Your neighborhood coffee maker, Luke, and his wife, Suni.”
“That figures. Why?”
“Money and greed.” He shook his head. “I’m leaving. Since the attacker has been caught, I think you’re safe and in good hands now.” He headed for the door, then stopped to turn around. “I’m sure the detectives will fill you in when they have more of the story.”
“Thanks.”
We watched the door quietly close.
“It’s over, Liv. Sleep. We’ll go home tomorrow.” Aaron kisse
d my forehead as I fell right to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-six
Two weeks later…
After touring Bloomington and Springfield, Illinois, and Lexington, Kentucky, we continued our journey. We checked into the Lincoln Motel, near Hodgenville, President Lincoln’s birthplace.
When we got to our room, I logged into the website and read the history of the area. There were few slave holders in LaRue County. Most of the citizens had ancestors from Revolutionary War days, so they had fought for preservation of the Union. The region was developed by hard-working farmers who cleared the land and tilled the soil with their own sweat and grit. The town was made up of a general store, post office, newspaper office, an ice plant, a diner, and two banks. The courthouse was on Main Street, but it had burned and been rebuilt. The Masonic Lodge sat in the far corner of town. It was possible that if I stuck around this town long enough, I would hear personal stories of Lincoln told around campfires.
Photos of the old buildings on the website were available to study. The comparison of the way it looked today must have been almost identical to how it looked in Lincoln’s day.
“Let’s mosey around the town square first.”
“Nah.” Aaron shook his head. “Let’s unpack and get settled before we go out to take a look around.”
“We should contact Frances right after we locate the speech, if we find it, that is.”
“We will,” Aaron said. “The detectives have taken care of contacting the FBI.”
I opened my small briefcase filled with the gathered information on Masonic symbols and meanings. I pulled the acorn out of a small pouch and put it in my pocket. “Let’s take another look at these symbols. Between the two of us, we should be able to remember the meanings of the key symbols.”
“Right, like the letter G, the pillar, pentacle, and the staircase.”
After we had spent a while getting reacquainted with all of the information, I stood up and stretched. I gave Aaron a long hug.
“Whatever happens, happens. Right?” I said. “Right. Let’s go.”
The square was filled with people, all shapes and sizes. A festival was in progress, and square dance music filled the air. The rich seasonings of barbecued ribs and chicken smelled delicious. My stomach growled. Dancers dressed in period clothes took turns recruiting people from the audience for impromptu square dance lessons. Abraham Lincoln’s statue overlooked the merrymakers like a great-grandpa who was dying to jump in and sashay the good-looking girls around. I could almost see the twinkle in his bronze eyes when I glanced at the statue.
“The music is fun, isn’t it?” Aaron stated. “It sure is.”
We stopped into the local diner for a bite to eat.
“I’m still shocked about Luke.” I bit into my sandwich, adding, “Why would he risk losing everything for a speech that most people don’t even think exists? We don’t know for sure, ourselves. Plus his business seemed to be doing well.”
“He and his wife were greedy,” said Aaron. “They found there were people willing to pay a great deal of money if Luke would provide a fake job for people smuggled in from their home country. Luke would hire them for only as long as it took them to receive a green card. They weren’t really employees, they were more like indentured servants.”
“At least the young woman’s story has a happy ending,” said Aaron.
“Yes. Who would have thought she jumped in, trying to commit suicide? And all because her parents had sent her from Cambodia, away from a boy they didn’t want courting her. Straight out of Romeo and Juliet.”
“She’s going back, isn’t she?”
“Yes, and we can thank her for all the evidence the immigration service has on Luke and Suni. Imagine, Suni had hacked her way into our computer, and she could read everything I wrote on it—and of course, I wrote everything on it. Talk about gall.”
“Well.” Aaron smiled. “She did you one good turn. She hacked into the library’s website and got you a copy of the Mary Lincoln letter.”
“Only because she and Luke were using us to find the Lost Speech.”
We spent the next few minutes quietly eating our food and reflecting on our adventure.
I wiped my mouth with a paper napkin. “If we do find it, do you think the agents will show themselves?”
“Yes, someone is probably shadowing us.”
“Good. I don’t want any more nasty things to happen.” I nervously glanced around me. “I suspect they’ll appear when we’ve found it.”
“Most likely.” Aaron gave me a reassuring smile.
We finished eating, then headed for the Masonic Lodge. “Got the necklace?”
“Of course.” I reached into my pocket for reassurance. “Can you believe we’re here?”
“Let’s do it.”
We began briskly walking toward the lodge, noting that the dancers were entering and exiting the building at regular intervals. “Going in there might be harder than expected.” I took a deep breath.
“Just say that we’re dancers. They’re all busy and won’t take much notice.”
I was thrilled as we walked up the few steps of the Masonic Lodge. My thoughts were of President Lincoln’s father, Tom, and of Mary, and all of their ancestors that had been Masons. I opened a side door and stepped back to let two dancers exit.
When we reached the center of the main hall, I gasped, squeezing Aaron’s hand tightly. Straight across from us, on the main wall, was a large portrait of George Washington. Beside it was a pentacle with the letter G in the center. Of course! George Washington had been the first Masonic Grand Master in the United States. A two-story balcony looked down on the main floor where seats lined the sides.
“This reminds me of a church. Look at the Bible sitting center stage.”
“Let’s hurry.” Aaron stood beside me as we gazed around the room. “Where do we begin? There are steps everywhere.”
“The Grand Master’s staircase is where?” I studied the room.
Neither of us heard the approaching footsteps, causing us both to jump at the sound of someone’s voice.
“You two wondering where to dress?” a young man asked.
“Yes, but first we were wondering where the restrooms are.”
“Down those stairs, to the left.” Quickly he walked away.
“That was close.” I tried to relax by slowly counting to ten.
“Here’s the plan. You go look on that side for something out of the ordinary, which means that I’ll start on this side. We’ll meet in the middle.” I nodded to the right.
“This flight leads up past that throne, and you have a set of stairs that does the same on the opposite side.”
“Duck if a bystander should happen in and see us. They may start asking questions.”
We each went our separate ways, carefully studying the markings on each of the risers. I still couldn’t prevent my mind from going back to one of the first seen toe smudges. There was something about the imprint of the dirt and how it had adhered to the wood, making it appear almost like an etched imprint. Continuing along the balcony risers, I looked across and saw that Aaron was equal in his inspection. Coming together, we decided to continue to opposite sides, in case one of us missed something on the way down. I almost mentioned the riser with the imprint but decided to wait and see if Aaron noticed something different about it.
When finished, we sat on the top stairs of where we’d started. “Well?” I asked. “See anything?”
“No, not really. One riser looked a little odd.” Aaron shrugged. “I know which one, too. Follow me.” I climbed down two steps. “Look at that.” Leaning over, I touched the smudge mark.
“Look how it’s kind of an etched-in picture.”
“I see what you’re saying. Let’s get a damp towel and try wiping it clean.”
“I’m staying here.” As Aaron left, I studied the drawing. “Clearly someone had etched in a drawing.” The step creaked, sending shivers up and down my spine. Just then Aaro
n returned with a damp paper towel, and I reached for it.
“What do you see?” Aaron knelt beside me.
“I’m not sure.” I studied it.
“It says something, doesn’t it?”
“Nope. Acorn picture.” I pulled the acorn out of my pocket and, holding it tight, I held it up next to the etched-in acorn. “Interesting,” I whispered. I brought it flush against the wood. “It’s the same size.” Gently, I pushed on the etching and the upper step popped up. “You’re kidding? It’s for real.” The opening revealed a small metal cylinder.
Just then a dozen dancers entered the main hall, voices filled the air, and laughter bubbled out. Someone put in a CD and bluegrass music drowned their voices.
“Take it. I’m letting the authorities know,” Aaron said, slipping out his phone.
“You bet.” I grabbed it before Aaron slammed the riser back down. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’m hurrying.” My heart pounded as we ran out the main door, heading toward a distant picnic area. “Where are they?”
“The FBI and National Park Service are waiting for us. They want us away from the spectators.”
Wind rustled through the trees, whipping up dust from the side of the road as we hurried toward a picnic table. Birds flew overhead as squirrels dashed in front of them.
“I’m nervous.” I saw two park rangers draw near plus two men dressed in suits. “So much for staying undercover.”
“True,” Aaron said.
I read the rangers’ names off their uniforms—Samantha and Ryan.
All six of us studied the tin cylinder as I turned it around slowly. “This is fairly heavy, but I can feel something moving inside it. It’s definitely old. It looks like it had been sealed with beeswax and a round cork, but most of the cork is missing.”
“Be careful with it,” Samantha said. “It belongs to the town.”
“Actually, it belongs to the lodge,” an agent stated.
“I bet that’s the Mason’s representative,” I said, nodding at the approaching man.
“I want to see your badges,” Aaron said.
“Agent Brown,” he stated, displaying his badge.
“Agent Winters,” the other stated, doing the same.
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