Dune to Death

by Mary Daheim

  Judith waited while Renie poured iced tea for the Hokes. Handing it out to guests was one way to get rid of it, the cousins had decided. “Did he look at all familiar to you?”

  With his glass halfway to his mouth, Augie gave a little start. “Familiar? It’s funny you should say that, ma’am. Yes, he did. Larissa thought so, too. I think that’s really why she wanted to talk to him.”

  “Did your mother agree?” inquired Judith.

  Augie looked questioningly at his wife, but she had no answer. “I don’t know. Momma never said anything about it. She hired him, I guess,” Augie went on slowly. “Maybe she knew him from around here.”

  Time was running out; a killer was on the loose. Judith cast caution to the winds. “Did you know Race Doyle well?”

  Augie screwed up his face in the effort of recollection. “I never saw much of him, actually. He didn’t come to the house.”

  “Kind of…uh, flashy? Mod, I mean, for his day.” Judith based her query on the 1970s-style photo in the newspaper.

  Augie considered. “Sort of. More what I’d call a city type. Race tried to be hip, but it didn’t come off. He wasn’t all that good-looking to begin with—about my height, light brown hair, moustache, dressed like California, if you know what I mean. He always wore big sunglasses. I guess he thought it made him look cool.”

  The description tallied with the newspaper picture. The verbal sketch could also fit the bearded, drably-garbed Titus Teacher. Seven years and a change of style could do a great deal to alter a man’s appearance. Judith felt satisfied with her theory.

  Amy asked to use the bathroom; Augie accepted another half-glass of iced tea. Both of the Hokes thanked Judith and Renie for coming to Leona’s funeral. Then they were gone, a rejuvenated Amy telling an attentive Augie how she thought she had finally figured out some of the treasure hunt clues.

  “Little do they know,” said Renie, gazing at the strongbox.

  “It would be nice if Augie and Amy could get their hands on some of that money.” Judith also stared at the strongbox. “Maybe we should open it now.”

  “I’d rather wait until after dark,” said Renie. “Too many people keep popping in and out of this place.”

  Judith had to agree, but decided they should at least make some attempt to disguise the strongbox. “Let’s put something over it, make it look like an end table.”

  By the time Renie had emerged from the back bedroom where she’d found a card table-sized luncheon cloth, Judith was going through the phone book, searching for Brent Doyle’s home address.

  “It won’t be in there,” said Renie, placing the embroidered cloth over the strongbox and standing back to admire her work. “He just moved back to town a month or so ago.”

  “If he’s got a mother, she’d know where he is,” said Judith. “Here, Bartlett L. Doyle, on Pacific Heights.” She stood up. “I’ll get dressed and then we’ll call on the Widow Doyle. If anybody had recognized Race at the funeral, it would have been Brent Doyle. After all, Brent was Race’s nephew.”

  Pacific Heights was a development of expensive homes built on a hillside above the highway, overlooking the ocean and the lighthouse. Located just south of town, the two dozen homes had been constructed in many different styles of architecture, but all of them took advantage of the view with facades made up almost entirely of glass. The late Bartlett Doyle’s home was the most traditional of the lot, a contemporary Cape Cod with a huge stone chimney.

  Bart Doyle’s widow was a handsome blond woman in her fifties with a sculpted, unlined face. Her son was living at home temporarily, but had gone out with friends on a forty-foot cruiser. He wasn’t due to return until after dark. No, he preferred not to conduct business on a weekend. Certainly he never saw clients at home.

  “We just wanted to thank him for getting Mrs. Hoke to give us our receipt,” Judith explained in her most congenial voice. She wished Mrs. Doyle would stop barring the door and let them in out of the hot sun. “You see, we rented the beach cottage from…”

  “Yes,” Mrs. Doyle broke in smoothly. “Brent told me all about it. I’m glad he was of service.” She started to close the door.

  “Aren’t you spooked a little by that lighthouse?” Judith asked, waving an arm out toward the point.

  “I beg your pardon?” Fine lines showed on Mrs. Doyle’s otherwise smooth brow.

  “Isn’t that where Bernie Hoke’s boat was washed up after he committed suicide? I thought he’d been a client of your husband’s.”

  Mrs. Doyle’s face showed faint distaste, though whether it was for Bernard Hoke or the cousins, Judith couldn’t be sure.

  “I believe he was a client,” she replied coolly. “I never got involved in my husband’s business matters. It doesn’t pay to do so in a small town. Naturally, we didn’t mingle with the Hokes.” Her tone implied that the family suffered from some grave social disease, like burping in public.

  “You didn’t attend Leona’s funeral, I take it?” Judith couldn’t recall seeing Mrs. Doyle in attendance, but the fact was that she could have been lost in the crowded church.

  “Certainly not,” said Mrs. Doyle, sounding faintly offended. “I never met the woman. I’m from Portland.”

  “Oh,” said Renie faintly. “That explains it.” Seeing Mrs. Doyle’s shrewd gray eyes narrow, she smiled brightly at their reluctant hostess. “We have a cousin in Portland. Oswald. He’s one of the city’s most respected intellectuals. He even has a library card.”

  Obviously unsure of what to make out of Renie, Mrs. Doyle grew snappish. “See here, I don’t know why you two have come around to bother my son—and me—but I can assure you, I know nothing of this Hoke ménage. They’re a strange lot, if you ask me—which I’m sure you intend to do if I let you. As for Bernard Hoke, he built these houses and did such a good job that he claimed to have lost money on them. He even did a lot of the work himself. It was a shame when he died, because this area lost an excellent builder. Still, it may be just as well—toward the end, he was a wreck, mentally and physically. Or so I heard.” She forced a frozen smile. “I hear the phone ringing. I must go.” Mrs. Doyle closed the door.

  Judith and Renie went down the six steps that led to the flower-lined pathway. “She lied about the phone,” said Renie. “It wasn’t ringing.”

  “So what?” retorted Judith. “We don’t have a Cousin Oswald.”

  FIFTEEN

  AFTER IT APPEARED that their trek to Pacific Heights had been a failure, the cousins agreed that Brent Doyle might not have been much help anyway. It was now noon, so they stopped at the festival take-out stand with the shortest line and bought two orders of salmon and chips, with a side of macaroni salad. Since the streets were jammed with tourists and treasure seekers, they took their lunch back to Pirate’s Lair.

  “I feel stupid,” Judith lamented. “We’ve made a lot of progress, but we still aren’t close to solving this case. What’s wrong?”

  Renie was gazing out the picture window at the front lawn. “Our staircase. Even now, it brings us Larissa and Donn Bobb Lima.”

  Renie was right. First their heads, then the rest of the Limas appeared as they reached the top of the stairs. Weakly, Judith waved. Larissa, towing Donn Bobb, made straight for the front door. She was looking decidedly miffed.

  “Now don’t get me wrong,” she said by way of greeting, “but this whole treasure thing is just plain unfair.” She waved a somewhat wrinkled version of the place mat map at the cousins. “We aren’t the sort to go lookin’ for free stuff and all that like Augie and Amy, mind you. Still, this is more like a game, so we thought we’d tackle it just for kicks, to pass the time before Donn Bobb’s performance in the rodeo at the high school field tonight. So we got it all figured out, but we can’t get at the prize.”

  “Why not?” asked Judith, indicating, somewhat reluctantly, that the Limas should sit.

  Plopping down on the cloth-covered strongbox, Larissa scrutinized the map. “Okay—it says it’s not A or C,
so that leaves B, right?” She looked up at Judith for confirmation; Judith tried not to gape. “So that’s gotta be Bee Creek. You know, ‘B’ as in ‘ABC,’ only this is spelled out, B-e-e. Then you can take a bike or go on a hike due west, which is toward the ocean.” She stopped long enough for Renie to pour her and Donn Bobb an iced tea. “Then there’s this part about the sign that used to be wine, and of course that’s a cinch—when I was little, my daddy brought me with him while he was building this here beach cottage. He had to tear down an old tavern to put up the house. The last thing he took out was an old sign that said ‘beer and wine.’” She looked up again, a matter-of-fact expression on her heavily made-up face.

  “That’s very good,” said Judith, taken aback.

  “Astounding,” murmured Renie.

  “It’s dumb,” said Donn Bobb, with a yawn. “Too easy.”

  “Anyway,” Larissa went on, “I put it all together, and the prize has to be below this place on the beach. That means the boathouse. But you can’t go in because that poor Mr. Teacher got killed there last night. Honestly, I wish people would stop getting murdered around here. It just spoils everything.” Larissa turned petulant.

  Still dazed by Larissa’s unexpected mental prowess, Judith gave herself a little shake. “I didn’t think the sponsors of the treasure hunt could hide the prize inside a building.”

  Larissa gave an impatient shrug, causing the strap of her halter top to slip over one bare shoulder. “Inside, outside—whatever. It’s at the boathouse, that’s for sure. And there it is, under guard by a couple of dopey policemen.” She snorted with disgust and yanked at her halter strap.

  Judith made some soothing noises, then tried to steer Larissa onto a different track. “You’re right, it’s a shame about Mr. Teacher. Your brother told us this morning that you recognized him. I guess he must be an old friend of the family’s.”

  Larissa’s eyes widened. “Huh? No, I don’t think so.” She glanced at Donn Bobb, who seemed to be sliding down the couch next to Renie. “I did think he looked like somebody I knew when I saw him at the funeral. In fact, it kind of spooked me at the time. But you know how funerals are—you get all kinds of weird feelings. Besides, I was crying a lot and couldn’t see so good. Momma says I have too much imagination.”

  Judith gave Larissa a small smile. “You certainly have an uncanny ability to figure out those treasure clues.”

  Larissa seemed unaffected by the praise. “Oh—yeah, I guess I got that kind of mind. In the rodeo off-season, I work with computers.”

  “Oh,” said Judith. “That’s nice. Where?” She almost hated to ask.

  Larissa gave another shrug, but this time kept her hand on her halter. “Different places. I sort of—what do you call it?—free lance. The pay’s best at Cape Kennedy, though. And I really like doing stuff with the space program.

  Judith and Renie both gaped.

  “She could be right about the treasure,” Judith said after Larissa had awakened Donn Bobb and the two of them had gone off to complain to somebody official about the treasure hunt’s lack of fairness.

  “It makes sense,” Renie agreed. “I guess I hadn’t really paid any attention to the new map.”

  Neither had Judith. A sense of futility overcame her; maybe Joe was right. She ought to forget the murders and make plans to go home.

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I forgot to call Arlene and let her know she’ll have to keep running the B&B for at least another night.” Judith dialed Hillside Manor. Carl Rankers answered the phone.

  “My dear wife’s got me cleaning out the debris from the toolshed. I just came in to get a beer,” said Carl in his pleasant, friendly manner. “I may not get a lot done. There’s a storm coming in later today.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Judith reassured him. “I’ll sort it out when I get home. Any news of Sweetums?” There was a faint catch in her voice.

  “Afraid not,” replied Carl. “Arlene may be right for the first time in thirty years. The firecrackers must have sent him into hiding.”

  Visions of what young boys with firecrackers could do to cats exploded before Judith’s eyes. Despite her threats to do the same—and worse—to Sweetums over the years, Judith was definitely unsettled by the idea of serious harm coming to her perverse pet.

  Signing off with Carl, Judith called the ranger station in Montana. Michael McMonigle wasn’t there. He’d checked in Thursday, but had left. No, answered the rugged masculine voice, McMonigle wasn’t expected back. He might have been assigned to a fire lookout in Flathead National Forest or one of the campgrounds by Hungry Horse Dam.

  “Now I’ve misplaced my kid and my cat,” sighed Judith. “I’m a real disaster.”

  “Cheer up,” said Renie. “At least we got rid of the iced tea.”

  Before Judith could respond, a great cheer went up from the vicinity of the beach. The cousins exchanged startled looks.

  “What now?” asked Judith, heading out the front door.

  Renie followed, as the sound of applause drifted up from the sands. The afternoon had turned humid as well as hot. The heavy air seemed to weigh Judith down. Out on the horizon, dark clouds were moving towards shore. Perhaps the predicted storm that Carl Rankers had mentioned was going to hit Buccaneer Beach as well as Heraldsgate Hill.

  Stopping at the head of the stairs, the cousins surveyed the scene below. A huge crowd had gathered, with its focal point somewhere between the bottom of the staircase and the boathouse. More people were streaming from every direction. Judith and Renie quickly made their descent. At the edge of the crowd, they spotted Terrence O’Toole, camera in hand.

  “What’s going on?” shouted Judith over the din.

  Terrence beamed at the cousins. “A retired couple from Medford found the treasure. Isn’t that wild?”

  “Oh!” Judith let out a sigh of relief. Despite the buoyant nature of the gathering, she’d feared the worst. “Where was it?”

  Terrence was stepping back to take a wide-angle shot. “In a hollowed-out log,” he replied.

  When the crowd began to melt away, Judith and Renie discovered that the Freebooters’ Festival treasure chest had been tucked away inside the very same log they’d used for their picnics. The cousins exchanged bemused, and faintly shamefaced, glances.

  The departure of the treasure seekers also signaled the exit of the law enforcement men who had been keeping watch at the boathouse. Apparently the sheriff and the police chief had finished their work there. Judith and Renie trudged back to the beach cottage.

  “Just think,” laughed Renie when they were inside the house again, “we were sitting on the treasure all the time.”

  “Speaking of sitting on loot,” said Judith, eyeing the cloth-covered strongbox, “maybe we should move that into one of the bedrooms.” She whisked off the linen square and examined the lock. “Better yet, we should open this thing. It’s making me nervous. What if it’s actual cash? Let’s not wait until tonight. I’ll go get the tools of my trade.”

  But Renie stopped her. “I don’t know—this is really complicated. It takes a key and a combination.”

  Judith’s skills were put to the test. After twenty minutes, she had vanquished the lock itself, but the combination eluded her. The cousins resorted to a chisel, but their only reward was a matching set of skinned knuckles.

  “We’ll have to blow the thing,” said Judith at last.

  “Huh?” Renie shoved her damp chestnut curls off her forehead.

  “Blast the lock with dynamite or something,” said Judith, who was also melting in the oppressive heat. “I wonder where we can buy explosives around here.”

  Renie was about to ridicule the idea of finding such a purveyor open on a weekend in Buccaneer Beach, when she jumped to her feet. “I know! Let’s go!”

  Puzzled, but game, Judith followed Renie down to the beach. The crowd had now dispersed, leaving only the usual kiteflyers, walkers, driftwoodgatherers, and dogs. Searching among the vacationers on the beach
below the We See Sea Resort, Renie found her prey. The ten-year-old kite expert they’d seen earlier in the week with the giant butterfly had now turned his talents to fireworks, especially the kind that were illegal except on Indian reservations. Five minutes and twenty dollars later, the cousins had in their possession something that looked as if it could demolish the capital of a Third World nation.

  “We can’t do this indoors,” said Renie. “We need solid ground. Let’s take the strongbox out to the carport.”

  To make room, Renie shifted some of the cartons while Judith backed the MG out into the cul-de-sac. Attaching the MK24 Victory Arsenal & Whistling Stars to the box with a string, Renie lit the footlong fuse. She then raced back to join Judith on the grass between the house and the carport.

  The explosion shook the cousins, though it was the piercing screech of the Whistling Stars that particularly unhinged them. Covering their ears and gritting their teeth, they waited a full minute before approaching the strongbox.

  The metal was scorched, but to Judith and Renie’s dismay, the combination lock still held. Upon closer examination, they noticed that the giant firecracker had loosened the lid. Judith resumed her work with the chisel. Moments later, they had opened the box from the rear. The cousins stared at the contents.

  There was no money. No stocks, no bonds. Nothing of apparent value. Judith hauled out a pair of sheepskin car seat covers. They were soiled, not just with the usual accumulation of dirt, but with large rust-colored smears.

  “What the…?” She gazed perplexedly at Renie, then looked back down in the box and noticed a blank envelope taped to the bottom. Judith prised it loose, opened it, and shook out a key. “A safety-deposit box?” She handed the key over to Renie.

  “Could be,” said Renie. “It’s got a number on it.”

  “That would explain where the money is,” said Judith, turning her attention back to the stained sheepskin covers. “What do you think about these?”

  Renie made a face. “The only thing I’m sure of is that they didn’t belong to seventeenth century pirates.”