Ghosts of the Past

by Mark H. Downer

  “That wasn’t very pleasant!”

  “No, I’m sure it wasn’t. Do you mind if I ask a few more questions?” Shutt persisted.

  “I’m not really sure how much more I can tell you about Dr. Karl. I didn’t know him that well.” Courtney was beginning to get agitated.

  “I’ll be very brief.” Shutt pulled out his notepad and scribbled both Courtney’s and Ferguson’s names onto a blank page. “Did you know if he had any immediate family, or have you met in any of his friends, acquaintances, significant others, girlfriends, boyfriends, you name it?”

  Courtney’s patience was thinning out rapidly, and Ferguson was feeling very uneasy about the “twenty questions” Shutt was continuing with. They both looked at each other and then back at Shutt.

  Courtney took the lead, “Look, Matt has no clue who the guy is, and I told you I don’t know the man other than him teaching me the German language. That’s it! I don’t know anything about his family, friends, his habits, behavior, or even his sex life. I do know that his secretary, who I just spoke to on the phone, probably can tell you volumes about him. You can reach her at this number at U of L.” Courtney handed over Beth Day’s phone number to Shutt, who flipped closed the notepad and took the folded piece of paper.

  Ferguson stepped forward and lied, “I really need to get back to the office, Courtney. Detective Shutt, if you don’t mind we need to be going.”

  “Certainly, I understand.” Shutt retrieved two business cards from inside his coat pocket and handed one each to Courtney and Ferguson. “If there’s anything that comes to mind about the good doctor that you think would assist me in my investigation, would you please give me a call.”

  They both shook their heads politely in unison as they received the cards. Courtney reached out and took Ferguson’s arm in her hand, which was just enough of a prompt for Ferguson to turn the two of them around and head back towards the car. They got in and drove away as Shutt glanced back before entering his own car, to watch them disappear down the street.

  Courtney was the first to speak, turning on to Herr Lane as they exited Dr. Karl’s neighborhood. “This is starting to get a little scary.”

  Ferguson grunted a “yeah”. He was preoccupied with staring into the rear view mirror; his suspicions confirmed when they came to a stop before making the turn.

  As they had left the scene at Karl’s house, he had noticed, what appeared to be, the same white Taurus and driver that he had nearly run into at the museum. While they negotiated their way out of the neighborhood, he had kept his eyes glued to the mirror, but with no Taurus immediately in sight. However, there he was, just enough distance to keep up, but not clearly noticeable.

  “Are you alright?” Courtney glimpsed over her shoulder.

  “Pull in the Chevron station up there, let’s get some gas.”

  Courtney looked at her gas gauge. “I don’t need any gas.”

  “Pull in the gas station damn it!”

  Courtney dispensed with the blinker and swerved hard left, bouncing hard against the change in pavement and pulled up to the self-serve pumps and slammed on her brakes. “I’ve about had enough of all this bullshit today. What the hell is so important about getting gas?”

  Ferguson looked her hard in the eyes. “I think we’re being followed. Ever since we left the museum.” Out of the corner of his eye, he subtly followed the Taurus as it drove past the station entrance. While he emerged from the car and walked over to the pump, he noticed it pull in the adjacent parking lot, circling around to the exit of the fruit market next door. Shit!

  “We definitely have company.” Ferguson walked back to Courtney, who was still seated behind the wheel. “Turn it off and I’ll put a little gas in it.”

  Courtney was dumbfounded. She switched off the ignition and stared at Ferguson. “Which one is it?”

  “He’s in a white Taurus, parked in Paul’s Market next door. Don’t make it obvious!”

  “I won’t!” Courtney climbed out of the car and headed into the station’s market. She looked casually around in several directions, easily noticing their tail nearby. She returned a few minutes later with a coke and package of Sugar Babies. “Put five dollars of premium in. What do we do when we leave?”

  “I don’t know. The question is who’s he following and why?” Ferguson looked warily at Courtney as she re-entered the car.

  “Oh let me guess, I’m a suspect again. He’s my henchman, operating on instructions from me.”

  “I didn’t say that.” There was a long pause. “What if he’s after you?”

  Suddenly, a small alarm went off in Courtney’s brain. A dreadful feeling of fear started to creep over her, and the consternation showed on her face as well.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you, but with what happened to me, the murder of Dr. Karl, who knows, this whole thing is getting very weird and way out of hand.”

  Courtney broke down. “Matt, I swear to you… I promise you I’ve had nothing to do with any of this. Your attack, Dr. Karl’s murder, I have no idea what’s going on either.”

  Ferguson got back in the car. “Let’s do this. Take me home. You drop me off and head to Azalea’s restaurant on Brownsboro Road. It’s just down the street from my house. You know the place?” Courtney nodded affirmatively. “Good. “I’ll lag behind for a few minutes and follow you up there. Either I’ll catch him following you, or he will still be with me. Okay?”

  Courtney nodded again, started the car, pulled out towards Brownsboro Road, and both of them watched in their mirrors as the white Taurus again fell in line several cars behind them. The black Ford sedan, two cars behind Garagua, was oblivious to all of them.

  Mr. Jones had been waiting outside Ferguson’s house shortly after he had left the bloodletting at Karl’s. He had switched automobiles. The light blue Mercury Marquis he had been driving at the time of the shootings was headed to a local chop shop, where it was destined to lose it’s identity. The black Crown Victoria was benign in appearance.

  Hoping for an opportunity to search Ferguson’s home for the missing portion of the letter, he knew he had to catch Ferguson when he returned to complete what the two morons he had hired had not been able to accomplish. However, he had not expected Ferguson to return home as soon as he did, nor to merely drop off his vehicle and leave with the lovely Miss Lewis. His interest peeked, Jones followed Courtney and Ferguson, and was curiously surprised when they went to Karl’s.

  When they returned to Ferguson’s house, he had visions of the two of them entering Ferguson’s, giving him a golden opportunity to confront the two of them, discover the whereabouts of the original letter and disposing of both. However, he watched with dismay as Courtney pulled into the driveway and let Ferguson out.

  Jones decided he would go for Ferguson now and deal with Courtney later. He pulled beyond Ferguson’s house and parked his car in the driveway of a vacant house for sale on Brookfield, which ran parallel to Elmwood, one street over. He stepped out of the car fully dressed in jogging shorts, t-shirt and a well-worn pair of Nike running shoes. Tucking his silenced Walther into the holster beneath his shirt, he took off jogging around the corner of St. Matthews Avenue and down Elmwood.

  He was approaching the house when Ferguson came down the driveway in his Explorer, pulled into the street and sped away. Damn! Well, I’ll search the house while he’s gone, and deal with him later.

  Jones continued jogging up to the end of the street, circled and came back the same way, darting up Ferguson’s driveway, while he scanned for any inquisitive neighbors. He hopped the fence and pulled out a lock pick from inside his sock. He entered the house and shut the door behind him.

  Garagua was beginning to get annoyed at the amount of activity involved in tailing Courtney Lewis. He had envisioned a nice long afternoon at the museum, followed by a return to her condo. In rea
lity, he had covered half of the east end of Louisville and she was not finished yet.

  Having just dropped off her male companion for the afternoon, she was headed home, or that’s what he thought. A few miles from her last stop, she pulled into a restaurant, parked, and proceeded to go inside. Garagua pulled in past her and parked in the back lot of the restaurant.

  He gave her a few minutes and then entered through a rear entrance, sat down at the bar and watched as she ordered a drink five stools down from where he ordered a Margarita on the rocks. He asked for a menu, in case she decided to stay for dinner.

  Five minutes later, the same young man from the afternoon showed up and they were delivered to a table on the outdoor brick patio. He shuffled down a few seats at the bar for a better view outside, ordered an appetizer and another drink, and settled down for a couple hours of down time.

  After being seated and ordering a couple of cocktails, Ferguson responded to Courtney’s anguished expression. “He’s following you.”

  “Shit! What in the hell does he want with me? Where is he?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think he might be the south-of-the-border dude sitting at the end of the bar, or the blond guy in the camel hair sport coat sitting by himself in the first booth as you go in the door.” There was a lengthy silence. “I haven’t a clue what they want with you. Are you sure you didn’t reveal any of this to someone else, even inadvertently?”

  “Not a soul!”

  “But your dad and the others knew.”

  “Yeah, but I told you dad wouldn’t say anything. I specifically told him to keep it quiet. When I first called him, I told pretty much everything I knew.” Courtney’s voice trailed off as she realized what he was thinking. “He might have trusted those details to Allen, Hancock and Keeney, but I’m telling you, no one else. Look, I can call him right now and find out who knows what.”

  “Well, at this point it doesn’t matter how somebody’s found out. The problem we have is somebody knows all about it. The letter, the contents, the whole thing.”

  “But they don’t have the map. They don’t know where the crash site is. That’s why they’re after… me… you… both of us.”

  The waiter interrupted their revelation. He lifted two very chilled glasses from his tray and placed an Absolut Martini with two olives and a Maker’s Mark Manhattan with a like number of cherries on the table. They both ordered the pasta special, and Ferguson added a bottle of Blackstone merlot. They decided to split a Caesar salad. They sat in silence for the next few minutes, sipping the straight-up mixtures of pure alcohol, adding to the state of numbness their bodies had contracted as a result of the day’s events.

  Ferguson knew what he was about to say to Courtney would not help her mental condition. Nevertheless, he realized if she was telling the truth about her innocence, she was probably in as much immediate danger as he was, and unfortunately, as much as Dr. Karl had been.

  Someone, or some people, extremely dangerous and very ruthless, had acquired enough information and knowledge to understand the potentially enormous rewards for finding any, or all of this lost treasure. Moreover, their intentions appeared to be to get it, if any of “it” still existed, at all costs.

  “Courtney, I know you probably don’t want to hear any of this, but I think you might be in some serious danger. Is there anywhere you can go? Someplace you can hide… somewhere nobody, or only a few people might know about?”

  “I’ve been sitting here thinking the same thing. I don’t really have any place in particular to go. I guess I could go to a hotel, or out of town. Hell, maybe I should take a vacation somewhere far away.”

  “I’m talkin’ about immediately… tonight!”

  “No. But if I rack my brain over dinner I’m sure I can come up with something.”

  “Well, I’ve got an idea. There’s a place I know about, I think both of us can probably hide out for the next day or two. That should give you enough time to figure out somewhere to get away to.”

  “What about you?” Courtney asked.

  “I’m headed to Switzerland. I’m going to personally check this thing out to see if there’s any validity to this whole mess.”

  Courtney did not like that answer, but looked away without saying a word. She wasn’t keen on the idea of being involved in this thing up to her eyeballs, and being told to get lost while Matt goes off trying to solve this mystery. She could help him resolve this nightmare faster than if he tackled it on his own.

  “I want to go with you,” she blurted out.

  Ferguson froze with his drink at his lips. “Where?”

  “Switzerland.”

  “No way!”

  “Yes way!” Courtney leaned over the table and stared him straight in the eye. “I can help you!”

  “You’re not going with me to Switzerland. That’s final!”

  “Give me one good reason.”

  “They’re too numerous to mention,” chuckled Ferguson.

  “That’s because you don’t have one.”

  Ferguson was trying to come up with one good reason. He knew if he spoke impulsively, the first thing out of his mouth would be that he did not trust her. However, the better part of reason took over, and he said nothing. He barely knew this girl, albeit that she was incredibly attractive and obviously quite intelligent. Nevertheless, that was not enough to convince him to take her along. Still he could not disagree with her; he really did not have any other concrete reasons. “You’re not going.” That effectively ended the conversation until dinner arrived.

  Quietly closing the door behind him, Mr. Jones slipped out the back of Ferguson’s home, and ran down the driveway and out into the street as if he had been jogging for miles. After thoroughly searching the house, he had found nothing remotely related to the letter, or any other shred of information that might provide some clues to where the letter might be. He concluded it was best to get back to his car and move on before a nosy neighbor thought to inquire about an unfamiliar vehicle that was in the driveway of an unoccupied house.

  It was time to visit Courtney Lewis’s apartment he thought. Between the two of them they had to have something he could go on, and she might be less inclined to be more cautious at this point. Nothing had happened to her to alert her suspicions. If anything, he could surprise her, or better yet wait for her inside her place without alarming anyone. Additionally, he reasoned, if there was any love interest between the two, she might be just the ticket, with a little coercion, to persuade Ferguson to produce the letter. The complete letter. He felt no regret that he would still have to dispose of the two of them.

  The pasta, even though heavy on the garlic, was excellent.

  Ferguson kept the bottle of wine flowing and immediately changed the subject of conversation to an inquiry about Courtney’s life history. She had accommodated the change in dialogue quite nicely, and they spent the next thirty minutes in a very pleasant discourse, actually getting to know a lot about each other.

  They split a cheesecake with fresh raspberries, and both ordered coffee, with Ferguson spiking his with a shot of Amaretto. Reality returned to the table.

  “Do you know the name of the woman I inherited the letter from?” Ferguson asked.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea who she is or what her name is.”

  Ferguson was almost certain that he had never mentioned Uncle Max’s name to either Karl or Courtney, and the fact that Courtney did not correct the reference to a female, was enough to convince him completely.

  “I have an idea where we can go for the next couple of days to help sort out where we go from here,” said Ferguson.

  “I say, where we go from here, is to Switzerland. The two of us.” Courtney responded.

  Ferguson was not about to get into that discussion again. “We can discuss that matter further, but first we n
eed to get to someplace safe, where whoever is after us can’t find us.”

  “What about our company up at the bar?” Courtney discreetly shifted her eyes toward the bar to make sure their ‘friend’ had not vanished. It was obvious now; the only guy who hadn’t moved for the last hour was the Hispanic fellow. Unfortunately, he was still there.

  “We need to lose him, and I’ve got another thought on that as well. First, we both need to get a change of clothes, and then we can disappear. I will leave, while you stay and have another drink. I’ll run home, throw some clothes together, and come back here. We’ll leave from here, go to your house, and get you some things for the next couple of days. In fact you might want to get enough to cover you for longer.”

  “You know, you were right. It’s the Mexican-looking guy, he’s still at the bar. Are we going to let him tag along?”

  “Yeah I noticed he hadn’t left. Once we leave your place, we’ll go in my car. At some point we’ll take a four-wheel-drive detour that he can’t handle. That should fix him.” Ferguson pushed himself away from the table, “Can you pick up dinner?”

  “It’ll be my pleasure.”

  “Thank you ‘me lady’. Ferguson bowed his head. Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Yeah, it’s in my purse.” Courtney retrieved her purse and rummaged through it for the phone and a business card. “Here’s a business card, the number is on it.”

  “Thanks, keep it on. I’ll call you in about twenty minutes when I’m headed back.”

  “You’re coming back, right?” Courtney got the sudden suspicion of an abandonment coming on.

  “In the words of General MacArthur, I shall return.” Ferguson stood up from the table. “He looked intently into Courtney’s beautiful green eyes, “I promise!”

  The young man left the table and then walked out of the restaurant. Garagua saw the check delivered to the table, but Courtney Lewis appeared to be perfectly happy to remain in her seat, and in no hurry to leave. In fact, the waiter returned with more coffee and a cordial glass of liqueur.