Site Unseen

by Dana Cameron

  “You don’t know him!” I insisted. “I saw him escaping, and he didn’t look like he was getting ready to just up and drown! He looked like he was just starting to enjoy himself! You don’t know, he’s out of his mind!” My voice was getting high with hysteria.

  “Hey, hey, it’s all right,” the sheriff soothed. “Calm down, I’ve got all the bases covered. I’ve notified the FBI, the Coast Guard, and even they told me I was crazy, that there wasn’t a hope of him having made it through that nor’easter. So not only do you have the assurance of the Fordham County Sheriff’s Department,” he said, smiling, “but two federal agencies as well. The boat was a complete wreck.”

  I wasn’t mollified. “That’s not the only boat in the world,” I pointed out. I practically expected Tony to crawl out from under my bed at any moment.

  “No, no, course not. In fact, I was just down to the marina, getting an assessment of the damage down there. Lots of boats were wrecked, pulled right off the moorings.” Suddenly he frowned.

  “What?” I demanded. “What did you just think of?”

  He shook his head. “It was nothing to do with this case.”

  “Tell me!”

  Stannard shook his head. “It’s really nothing, you just knocked a thought loose in my head, something to check on. One of the missing boats had been tied up, but I don’t remember seeing any rope left on the cleat. I’ll have to go back and have another look.” He carefully pulled out his notebook and jotted down the note. “Probably just a loose knot,” Dave said. “The owner is a weekend sailor, with more boat than he knows how to handle.”

  “What kind of boat was it?” I asked nervously. I no longer believed in coincidences, not anymore.

  “A Wayfarer,” he said. “But look, you’re making a whole lot out of nothing. And I’ve still got some holes to fill in on my report.” Dave reached over and helped me peel the paper off the bottom of the muffin. “I found the fax in the car when we found you. I translated it, but I’m still missing some of the pieces. How come no one went after it before now, I wonder?”

  “For whatever reason, the report and the proposed plans to recover the bullion never made it back to France,” I explained. “They were probably picked up en route by a Spanish ship, and that’s how they ended up with a bundle of church documents in the archive in Madrid—it’s amazing how often things end up in weird places like that. There they rested, with their veritable treasure map, for better than two hundred years, until Tony happened upon them.

  The sheriff looked confused. “What was his connection with Grahame Tichnor? How did they ever end up together? I’d’ve thought they were the original odd couple—oh. The mug shots.”

  I nodded. “But the thing that slowed me down before I found the map in the storage room was that I couldn’t understand why Tony was so interested in Penitence Point—there was nothing there that should have caught his attention, professionally or…otherwise. Tichnor, he was just there to hunt pots, I figured. Even when I thought they were working together, I couldn’t understand why Tony, an archaeologist of the first water, would bother looting my site—nothing valuable there for them to sell, really.”

  “The Saugatuck River has got a bunch of forts all along it,” Stannard said. “And there’s lots of other rivers in Maine. How could they tell which one was the right one?”

  I took another sip of ginger ale, another bite of muffin. “You’re right. Unless you’re familiar with the area around Penitence Point, the letter might have referred to anyplace in Maine—it only mentioned the ‘le fortin Anglais au cote du fleuve de Sauckatuc.’ And based on the map, it would taken a lot of computer hours to recognize that particular point on the river. Unless, of course, you immediately recognized the shape of Penitence Point and the relationship of the two forts. Once you knew the location, it was a simple matter of a little patience and discreet diving to get you a couple hundred pounds of gold and silver. Tony knew the location, Tichnor knew the rumors of gold around here. I thought they were just the same sorts of rumors that spring up around any historic site, but this time they had a grain of truth to them. But even knowing all this, it took them a while to find the exact resting place of the ship’s boat.”

  “I don’t understand why they didn’t just wait until after the storm to go after it.”

  “I think Tony was nervous that I was getting too close. He wanted to get something, before I actually found him. Remember, he said he’d been out there on Thursday too. If he’d had all the time he wanted…” I paused, marveling at what he’d almost won. “With the crew of the boat drowned, the only ones to know about the loss would have been the British Admiralty, and they wouldn’t have known where the wreck was. The letter was lost, so the French couldn’t have found it. I guess the Spanish wouldn’t bother with it; too little a prize to risk a ship in wartime.”

  “And Markham recognized it from the descriptions of your work,” Stannard supplied.

  “Right. The first time I started to think about Tony’s connection with the map we found at Tichnor’s, I didn’t understand the attraction. But he did. Dr. Markham knew about my research from the lecture I gave when I was being interviewed for the Caldwell job a year and a half ago. I had slides, handouts, maps, everything one could want to make the location on the fax abundantly clear to someone trained to put those data together. Tony was an unscrupulous bastard, but he had a brilliant mind. It’s not surprising that he put things together so quickly—I don’t think I would have, without my familiarity with the site.”

  I chewed my lip, remembering his sudden phone call to the dorm back in mid-July, even allowing myself to remember how much I was looking forward to his visit. “I guess that explains why he was so surprised to find that I was working out at the Point: As far as he knew, I wasn’t supposed to be out there for another season. He thought he’d have the whole place to himself. Instead, he found half the department camped out there.”

  The sheriff chuckled at the irony of that, and I continued. “Not only would Markham have had to worry about nosy Yankee neighbors, but there was a whole slew of folks who spent their time looking for tiny little details. And every one of them knew his face. I’d have panicked in his shoes too. But it’s surprising how close he came to getting away with it. If it hadn’t been for Tichnor killing Pauline when he went back to check out what we were finding, they both would have gotten clean away.”

  “You know,” Stannard said, “I think I can fill in a few details for you. Your instincts if not your facts were right on target, but I think I might have reached the same conclusions from a totally different angle.”

  He settled back into his chair and began to recount his side of the adventure. “About a week ago, I ran into Amy Griggs. I try to ‘run into her’ about once a week, keep an eye on her. I worry about her, but there’s not much I can do unless she makes a complaint or I have good cause to believe that Billy’s been hitting her again.” He grimaced. “But this was after you stopped by the office and knocked a couple of thoughts loose in my head. It was pure chance I should have run into her just then. You see, I was leaving the Bakersfield Dive Shop, just as she was going in.”

  My jaw dropped. “What…how did you end up there?”

  “I got the idea when Ms. Garrity and you stopped by last week. You kept insisting it had something to do with the river, and she just kept fiddling with that key chain whatzit Big Johnny Serino sells. That bothered me at the time, but I couldn’t figure it out. I didn’t know anything about Markham, but I sure as hell—pardon my French—could find out what Billy’d been up to.

  “See, I hadn’t heard a peep out him all summer, not since Denny Sheehan ran him in after Ms. Westlake’s memorial service. And being so well behaved wasn’t like him. So I checked in with Johnny and asked if Billy’d been buying any gear, or renting it. And wouldn’t you know it, he’d been in a couple of times since July—”

  “Just after Tichnor and Pauline died,” I pointed out, then briefly told him about Billy�
�s thwarted plot with Tichnor to steal the entire hoard.

  “Right. So I began to wonder where he’d got the money for all of that, and what he was up to. And when I really did just run into Amy going into the dive shop, I gave on to her like I knew what they were doing—I doubt she knew everything herself—and she was excited. All she’d say was that they thought they were close, and soon Billy wouldn’t have to be worried anymore and they could be happy.”

  He paused again, angry, barely able to contain it. “That’s the way she looked at things, Billy only hit her because he was anxious about money, and she made it worse by worrying him. Poor thing was broke up yesterday, finding out he was dead, when she should have been dancing in the street. Anyhow, I just kept my mouth shut and let her talk—she was too excited to even be shy around me, like she generally is. But all she kept saying was, Billy’s got a new friend, teaching him about old stuff.”

  “Old stuff.” Dave laughed humorlessly. “When she said it, at first I thought she was talking about that New Age mumbo-jumbo she tends to go in for. But when she said it again, I remembered you talking about Professor Markham, another archaeologist, and then the two sort of…overlapped…for me.” The sheriff sat back drumming a pen on the sole of his shoe while he remembered. “And that reminded me of the phone number at Tichnor’s place. That’s when I started wondering about a possible connection to the department besides you.

  “And I think that, considering what you said Markham told you, we need to reexamine Augie Brooks’s body. That looked like an accident, but now that we have—”

  He was interrupted by voices, a scurrying outside my room, and an “Emma!” as Brian came hurtling through the door. He brushed past Sheriff Stannard, stopping short of my bed for a heartbeat, shocked by the picture I presented. I stuck out my good right hand and pulled him over to me slowly, feeling for the first time that I might eventually stop aching, itching, and just plain hurting so completely. I could feel bone knitting up, just at the sight of him.

  “Oh God, look at you!” he said. “Your poor head! Your hand! Are you okay?” With his free hand he moved to touch the bandaged and bruised parts, but wavered and pulled back each time, not wanting to aggravate anything.

  I scootched up the back of the bed to sit up straighter. “I feel pretty crappy, which is apparently a good sign, but a hell of a lot better than I did yesterday. It’s good to see you, love.”

  “She’ll be tangoing again in no time,” Marty said reassuringly as she surveyed my situation.

  “Which is a miracle”—Groucho Marx’s voice came out of Kam’s mouth—“considering she couldn’t tango before!”

  I burst out laughing. Unfortunately that started me coughing again, and I shoved Brian’s hand away to cover my mouth with my good hand.

  Brian wheeled angrily on his friend, bringing his face to within an inch of Kam’s. “You shut up! Can’t you see she’s in pain?”

  We all stared in shock. “Brian, it’s okay, I’m fine! Kam’s just trying to cheer me up!” I said.

  There was an awkward pause, then everyone spoke at once.

  “Kam, I don’t know what—”

  “Don’t give it another—”

  “Good heavens! Timmy just kicked Lassie!”

  A giggle broke the tension just long enough for Marty to suggest to her fiancé that she was desperate to explore the delights of the hospital coffee shop. “We’ll be back in half an hour, okay, darling?” she told me. “Don’t tell any good stuff till we get here.”

  Dave Stannard cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’d better be going, I’ll come back tomorrow if you’re up for it.” He paused a minute, sizing up Brian, nodded, and left.

  I couldn’t help feeling a little bereft to see him go; in spite of the fact that we didn’t always agree, Sheriff Stannard had been through all of this with me.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I said, grabbing Brian’s hand again. “No harm done.”

  Brian shook off his anger, exhaled deeply, then dragged the ugly blue plastic chair to the side of the bed, never letting go of me. He sat down and rested his head against my hand in his for a minute and looked up at me. “Jesus, I was so afraid you were going to die. Even though Kam told me the hospital said you’d be fine, I was afraid I was going to lose you. If I could’ve gotten out and pushed that damned plane, I would have…”

  I couldn’t see the lower half of Brian’s face, but I could feel him chewing gently on my knuckles, making sure I was still there. His eyes were red-rimmed.

  “It was all an accident,” I said softly. “I didn’t think that anyone would be on the cliff, that’s all. I was trying my best to stay out of trouble, just so you know.”

  “I know you’re careful, that’s the only thing that kept me from going totally nuts, was knowing you’re not stupid,” my husband said. “But if you could please not do it again, I’d appreciate it.” He sniffed. “’Kay?”

  “’Kay.”

  “I love you.”

  “I know that. I love you too.”

  Brian sat there for a long while, and I knew instinctively what he was going to ask. “They got Tony Markham, right?”

  When I didn’t answer right away, he started getting agitated. “Tell me Tony’s dead, tell me he’s in jail—”

  “No, not yet,” I said lightly. “But the sheriff is sure a body will wash up soon. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Brian scowled and I knew just how unbelievable I sounded. Despite the odds, I couldn’t believe that Tony was dead or that anyone would ever capture him. He had used everything I’d ever admired in him, found—God help me—attractive in him, against me and might do so again. He had a head start, a small fortune in gold probably stashed somewhere, and had just consciously shed the last of whatever moral restraint he might have possessed.

  The Wayfarer is a sweet, salty little craft, capable of coastal and deeper water travel. It’s the sort of thing folks who know what they’re doing buy when they get ready to retire and sail off to the Caribbean in their retirement years.

  Or when they’re just setting off to discover the wide world.

  Chapter 31

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON MEG KNOCKED TENTATIVELY AT the door. My back was to her but I could see her reflection in the bathroom mirror. I sighed and decided, finally, that I wouldn’t pretend to be asleep and rolled over.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked quietly. She had a small Band-Aid on her chin.

  “Not bad, considering,” I said, too quickly. “Bit like a Kleenex that’s been used to clean the hull of a battleship. Give me a minute, would you? I have to use the, er…” I nodded my head toward the bathroom and swung my legs stiffly over the side of the bed.

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, I can manage.” I hobbled over without the crutch and shut the door behind me, turning on the faucet for camouflage as I stared into the mirror. I needed a minute to think.

  I’d spoken with Brian about my reluctance to see Meg. At first I assumed that I had just been scared that she could have gotten herself killed—rushing around during a storm by herself like that! He let me keep talking about how angry I was that she had risked herself so foolishly, until even I realized that I was repeating myself and started thinking about what I wasn’t saying.

  I was mad because Meg had, to use Sheriff Stannard’s words, pulled my fat out of the fire.

  Brian, sensing that I had hit on the real reason for my anger, kissed my hand and went off. To get a soda, he said. To let me think privately, I knew.

  It didn’t take me long from there to figure out that I resented her rescuing me. It took another half hour before I acknowledged that she was the one who had come closest to actually stopping Tony. The rest of the day until I accepted the fact that she had come out to the site better prepared than I, in every way. She was not only aware of the potential for danger, but also willing to meet it with the force necessary to survive: She’d found a gun and had even used it on Markham.

  In the end i
t was just my ego, that tenderest and most fragile of organs, that was suffering. But in confronting the fact that she and Neal were the reason I was still breathing, I was also forced to realize just how skilled Tony Markham had been in manipulating me. He made it very plain, knowing precisely my mania for shouldering my own burdens, that he had been the one to gruesomely punish Pauline’s killer, that he had slain the monster of my teenaged nightmares. It made me wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t come out to the site, if I had put my suspicions of him behind me. We might have continued on in the department together, a true sadist’s feast, for who knows how long.

  But as for Meg…

  I gritted my teeth and slapped a big, stinging dose of honesty to the shreds of my pride. The trick is knowing when to be brutal about it, and when to lay off and let it heal gradually, and this was no time for niceties. I washed my hands and went back out.

  Meg sat in the repellent blue plastic chair now, and looked up expectantly.

  “How are you doing?” I asked. “How’s Neal feeling?”

  “He’s good, though you’d never know it from the amount of bitching that I hear in a day.” Apparently fearing that she sounded too disloyal, Meg added, “It can’t be easy for him, though, he’s used to being in charge of things.” She took a deep breath and blurted out, “I’m moving into his place, just to look after him for a while. Might even stay on.” She shrugged with elaborate carelessness, daring me to gainsay her decision.

  “I didn’t know,” I said, not surprised by anything but the speed at which this event had come to pass. “And, ah, where’s Alan?”

  “Alan and I swapped, he took my dorm room,” Meg answered. “It was a good solution, I mean, he’s pretty seriously messed up…I mean, I think his father wanted him to be an anthropologist, now he just has to decide if that’s what he wants too.”

  “I hope he figures it out.” I didn’t tell Meg that Alan had already been in to visit me, and before I could stop him, apologized for his behavior all summer, bringing in far too many details about his family life and his father’s suspicions about me for my pleasure. But I figured if he was brave enough to do something like that, I could ignore his discomfort until it went away through daily wear and tear.