The Corpse with the Crystal Skull

by Cathy Ace

  Bud whispered, “Try coming out singing, not swinging, eh, Cait?”

  I glared at him, but knew he was trying to help, so I took a deep breath and a swig of beer to try to calm down.

  Lottie had the cheek to roll her eyes before she said, “When Freddie and I met at dinner that night he died, he immediately told me that Daddy had forbidden him from acknowledging me, so I didn’t mention it. I phoned Daddy and challenged him about what he’d done when John fell asleep that night, and Daddy said he’d done it so that the subject of the treasure didn’t come up in public. Daddy always tells me I appear foolish when I talk about the treasure. He hates it. And then, when Freddie died, Daddy was afraid you might all think I’d killed him to get my hands on it. So he made me swear to not tell about knowing Freddie at all. He’ll be furious when he finds out I’ve let the cat out of the bag.”

  “What leverage did your father use to get Freddie to keep quiet about knowing you?” asked Jack. The tone he used wasn’t one with which I was familiar; usually Jack sounded jolly, or concerned, or enthusiastic…now he sounded disdainful. Odd.

  Lottie sighed. “I gather Daddy knows a fair bit about what Freddie used to get up to with his flash friends here decades ago, when he indulged in more than fine brandies and cigars. And Freddie didn’t want the stories about his peccadillos getting out and ruining his reputation as a respected and important man on the island.” Lottie looked around, then leaned in even further. “I don’t know any more.”

  I suspected she was lying.

  John looked at his plate of fish. “This is cold, and I can’t face it anyway.” His eyes were glassy when he looked up at us. “If you all want to stay and eat, go ahead. I’ll get a taxi back to the estate. In fact, please do all stay. Especially you, Lottie. I can’t bear to look at you at the moment.” He stood, angrily pushing back his chair. “Best I don’t say anything I’ll regret later. I’ll sleep in the main house tonight, or beside the pool. Feel free to use the bungalow, Lottie dear. Goodnight.”

  He cut a swathe through the tables, and was gone.

  A Storm Strikes

  The first heavy drops of rain beat a tattoo on the windshield as we all bundled into the Suburban and Sheila started the engine. We’d poked our food about on our plates for a while with Lottie sobbing quietly, but since no one wanted to comfort her except Sheila – who always did the honorable or kind thing in a crisis – the situation was so strained it had to end. Somehow. A distant rumble of thunder came to our collective rescue.

  A silent return to the estate and a subdued leave-taking followed, before I found myself leaning against the closed door of our bungalow watching Bud sit on the edge of the bed and mutter, “People never cease to amaze me.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Quietly. “I love you, Husband,” I said, sitting beside him. “It’s been quite a day. What do you make of it all?”

  Bud stood. He stretched his arms above his head. “It’s hard to know. You’ve had your day. I’ve had mine. And now? Well, mine’s not over yet, as you know.”

  I looked at my watch. “It’s only half past ten. How long will it take you to get to your midnight appointment?” I was still worried about the safety of his plan. “Even if you have to meet this bloke alone, can’t Jack and John – or at least one of them – come with you, in case you need back-up of some sort?”

  The corners of Bud’s mouth crinkled into a smile. “I’ll be fine. It’s just a chat with a guy who’s in his seventies. Nothing bad’s going to happen. I’ve been in law enforcement my whole life. I know how to ask a few questions of a guy who’s got nothing to hide. I just need to jog his memory, that’s all.”

  I didn’t like it one little bit, so decided I’d have another go. “But if Jack were to come with you, he could stay in the Suburban while you had your chat, so you could get away faster, if you needed to.” I suddenly realized something important. “But Jack’s been drinking – he can’t drive. Nor should you.”

  Bud reached to stroke my hair. “You didn’t notice I was drinking alcohol-free beer, did you?”

  I cast my mind back to the bottles I’d seen him lifting at the dinner table. “Bitburger alcohol-free?” He nodded. I was relieved. “Good job, Husband. So, you could drive, but Jack could be there, in the Suburban. Waiting.”

  “Who says we need to drive at all?” Bud tried to raise just one eyebrow; it never works.

  “Have you seen the weather? It’s a downpour. You’ll be soaked in minutes. Besides, it would take longer than that just to get off the estate’s grounds. Where exactly are you going to meet this man?” I couldn’t imagine.

  “Can’t say. But I’ll find him.”

  I was getting a bit fidgety, so stood and paced. “Come off it, Bud. You can’t just take off, alone, in the middle of a nasty tropical thunderstorm in the dead of night and expect me to be okay with the idea you’re just going to wander about until you run into an old bloke who has information you need about some papers that disappeared decades ago. That’s ridiculous. I want to say, ‘I won’t let you’, which is equally ridiculous, but you know what I mean. You wouldn’t let me do it, would you?”

  Bud scratched his hand through his hair – always a sure sign of stress – and lifted one of the slats at the window. “The weather’s not good, you’re right, but you have to understand, Cait, this is what I am trained to do. This is my job.”

  That was it – I’d had enough. “No, Bud, this isn’t your ‘job’. You’ve retired. This is – what, a hobby now? Just because you’ve done work for CSIS in the past, they can keep calling upon you to do some undercover, and possibly underhand, work whenever they want? That’s bonkers. This is real life – our life. Why you? Why not some young blade who’s not usually at home tending to his ageing parents, or the acreage, or his dog? And don’t say you can’t tell me. That’s not fair.”

  Bud pulled me into his arms. “Some young blade? You do make me laugh.” Bud chuckled. “It’s not fair, I know. What I will tell you is that the reason I’m doing this is because I know the man I need to meet. He’ll trust me when he sees me. He’ll tell me what he knows, if he knows anything at all, because of that trust. And that counts for a lot. We’re under some pressure to achieve a positive outcome, Cait. His knowing me can save us valuable time. That’s why me. Today we finally managed to find out where he’ll be around midnight, so I must be there too. Jack and I have been trying to locate him for a week or more, and our tenacity has finally paid off. And I can’t take a vehicle, because he lives on the beach, in a shack. Totally off the grid. He never gets there until midnight; the local cops give him some peace until sun-up, then he moves on again. We located the shack this morning. It’s not far. Best way for me to get there from here is along the beach.”

  He stroked my hair. I tried to not think of him petting Marty. I felt a little less anxious, but still my tummy wouldn’t unclench.

  “But Jack could come with you, couldn’t he?”

  There was a gentle knock at the door. Bud’s head snapped up.

  “It’s me, Jack.”

  “Come in.” Bud unwrapped his arms.

  Jack looked a bit sheepish. “Sheila says I’m to come with you. Won’t take no for an answer. And I agree. Can’t hurt to have me along, right? I’ll stay in the shadows when I need to. Background support only.”

  I couldn’t resist. “See?”

  Bud raised his hands in submission. “Okay, okay, we’ll go together. I guess we’d better tell John, or he’ll sulk.”

  Another knock at the door.

  “What’s going on? Anything I should know about?” It was John. He was wet through. “Couldn’t sleep. Saw Jack come over here from my vantage point on the couch in the big house. Thought I should check up on you chaps.”

  I knew when I wasn’t needed. “I’m going over to your bungalow, Jack. I’ll wait with Sheila. It might help if we share the stress. Each of you take care of the others, and make sure you let us know what’s
happening, when you can. If for any reason you can’t come straight back here after your mysterious rendezvous, then you phone me, Bud. Promise?”

  Bud kissed my forehead. “I promise.”

  “And Bud?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s just one more thing,” I said at the door. “You’ll be soaked in seconds, so please use some of the plastic bags in the bathroom to keep your phones dry. You secret agent types never seem to think about the practicalities of life, do you?”

  Bud nodded, smiling. “Plastic bags? Right.”

  Treasure Tales, and a Turn for the Worse

  Sheila opened the door to the Whites’ bungalow half a millisecond after I knocked.

  “Are they going together?” she asked, as she dragged me inside.

  I wiped the rain off my face. “Yes, all three of them.”

  “Good. I’m glad about that. If they have to go at all, it’s best they go together. Jack’s not as young as he was, but has no idea that’s the case.”

  I smiled. “Bud too. But, there again, do we?”

  Sheila’s brow unfurrowed, and she grinned. “I guess I don’t, for sure, but then we’re not the ones yomping about on the beach in the dead of night, trying to track down some old guy who upped and left a cushy job when the going got a little sticky.”

  Once again I felt a prickle of annoyance that Jack had clearly been more forthcoming with his wife than my husband had been with me. “Ah well, they’ll keep each other safe,” I said, trying to make myself believe it.

  “They sure will,” replied Sheila, sounding about as convinced of it as I was. “Fancy a drink?”

  Usually my answer to that question would be “Yes”, but on this occasion I wanted to remain fully alert, just in case. Just in case of what, I didn’t care to imagine, but Just In Case. “You haven’t got anything non-alcoholic, have you?”

  Sheila checked the little fridge that sat between the bedroom and bathroom. “Only beer.”

  “We could run over to the big house. Wait for them there. I could smoke there, too,” I suggested.

  Sheila shrugged, then grabbed her phone. “Good idea.” She waggled the phone at me. “Got yours?” I waggled mine at her. “Let’s go then.”

  Running in flipflops in the rain is a pretty slippery undertaking, so as we crossed the area surrounding the pool, where there were lots of puddles, I slowed to a waking pace – I was already wet through to my undies, so there didn’t seem to be any point in running and maybe having an accident. Just as I thought it, and not because I thought it, Sheila went skidding past me, toppled over and fell headlong onto a lounge chair. Despite the noise of the rain, the clattering of the furniture was loud, as was her ripe language.

  I rushed to her side. She was caught in the chair – quite how she’d managed that I didn’t know – so I had to pull her arm and leg free, then I tried to get her to her feet. She swore the whole time.

  Lottie loomed out of the sheeting rain. “What happened?” she shouted.

  I didn’t think the situation needed an explanation, so didn’t give one, but gestured that she should help me get Sheila into the big house. Sheila couldn’t put weight on her right foot, so we did our best to shuffle-carry her until we were under the portico, where we plopped her onto another lounge chair – this one intact, and out of the rain which drummed on the roof above us.

  Ten minutes later, we’d managed to get Sheila onto a proper sofa, with her foot elevated and wrapped in a compression bandage I’d found in the first aid kit in the bathroom. I made her take some painkillers I’d found, too. Lottie had gone to the kitchen to find something that might help reduce the swelling around the egg-like lump on Sheila’s ankle. The bag she returned with was full of bits of something brown, of indeterminate source, but at least it was cold, and malleable, so it hugged Sheila’s ankle quite nicely.

  I brought each of us a large bath towel from the linen cupboard, and we managed to dry ourselves off a little. Lottie brought each of us a brandy – which suddenly seemed like a much better idea than a ginger beer – and we all settled as best we could. Sheila looked relatively comfy, for a woman who was obviously in pain, and insisted her constitution could cope with a small brandy as well as painkillers. She even reminded us, twice, that she hadn’t had a drink at dinner.

  By the time we’d done all that, the rain had eased a little and the wind had stopped gusting, which was a relief.

  “You’ll have to stay off that for a couple of days,” I said, nodding at Sheila’s ankle. “R.I.C.E. Rest, ice, compress, elevate. But maybe you should see a doctor tomorrow, to check it’s only twisted.”

  “Maybe you should go to the hospital? Get an X-ray?” said Lottie quietly.

  “It’s a sprain, for sure,” said Sheila forcefully. “I’ve had them before, I’ll have them again. Once your ankle’s gone this way, it’ll go this way easier and easier forever more. Did it the first time falling off a barstool in Regina. Must have done it at least half a dozen times since.”

  Lottie looked puzzled. “Are you very clumsy? I’ve never sprained an ankle.”

  “With any luck you’ll still be able to say that in twenty-five years’ time,” replied Sheila tartly, “when you’re as old as me. And, no, I’m not clumsy, until I am. Such is life.”

  “Where are the men?” ventured Lottie.

  Sheila and I exchanged a wide-eyed glance.

  “Gone for a beer on the beach – some bar they heard about. Helping John drown his sorrows, and hoping the rain wouldn’t drown them in the process,” said Sheila.

  Even I almost believed her.

  “Oh,” was all Lottie managed.

  With Sheila in physical pain, and Lottie in what I expected was emotional turmoil, I knew it was my responsibility to put aside my worries about Bud’s activities and somehow carry a conversation.

  “So, do you really think there’s buried treasure to be found somewhere hereabouts, Lottie?” I asked. I had a feeling that would be a useful opening gambit, and Lottie bit.

  “Oh absolutely,” she gushed. “I firmly believe Freddie discovered the treasure’s original hiding place and was selling it off one piece at a time.”

  I had to admit, I was intrigued. There can’t be many children who haven’t been excited by the idea of an X on a map being held by a piratical figure contemplating his chests full of doubloons or pieces of eight. And I’d read enough Enid Blyton books in my formative years to believe that hidden treasure could sometimes be stumbled upon in the oddest of locations.

  I sat forward and lit a cigarette. “Well, if we’re going to wait here until the men have drunk their body weight in beer, why don’t you take the chance to tell us why you think that, Lottie?”

  Lottie smiled nervously. “I’d love to. But stop me if I go on a bit too much.”

  “We haven’t yet,” I quipped, but my barb was lost on her.

  She cleared her throat and said, “How much do you both already know about Captain Henry Morgan?” she began.

  I raised my multipurpose eyebrow. “Quite a lot, as it happens,” I replied. She couldn’t have known how entranced I’d been by the idea of my namesake since I was a child. “Born around 1635, possibly in Llanrumney near Cardiff, but definitely somewhere in Glamorgan, in south Wales – where I’m from. I prefer the idea of the Llanrumney roots, and I think it’s supported by the fact Morgan named one of his plantations here after that town. He turned up in Jamaica, aged about twenty, most likely sent as an ensign by Cromwell to serve in the fight against the Spanish in Central America. He was known to have been involved in the disastrous campaign led by the Welshman Vice-Admiral Penn – whose eldest son, incidentally, founded Pennsylvania – which failed to capture Hispaniola. There’s a letter of marque dated 1667 giving Morgan the right, as a captain, to seize vessels on behalf of King Charles II, so he must have had enough experience at sea by that time to make him worthy of such recognition. He quickly established a reputation as a
ferocious and successful fighter – on sea and land – possibly earning him the nickname Bloody Morgan, though we cannot be sure that was a contemporaneous nickname; if it was, it suggests he didn’t shy away from violence in pursuit of treasure for his king. He certainly amassed a great personal fortune by stripping Spanish wealth from ships, and towns.”

  “He was a violent man, but a great success,” said Lottie, nodding.

  I couldn’t let that pass. “He probably wasn’t the brute portrayed by Esquemeling, the disaffected Dutchman who sailed under him, who wrote a best-selling biography of Morgan, targeting readers from countries that were the enemies of the English crown. Did you know that Morgan won the first ever successful libel suit in history against the publishers of that book?”

  Lottie shook her head. “I didn’t know that. I can, however, say I know Morgan was never on a par with the infamous Welsh pirate, Black Bart Roberts. You Welsh seem to make good pirates. Roberts took more ships – four hundred – and probably more lives, than any other pirate, ever.”

  I was impressed. “Good for you for even knowing about Roberts,” I said. “A lot of people don’t.”