X Marks the Scot

by Kaitlyn Dunnett

  “Move fast,” Sherri said when a loud buzz and the click of the door unlocking signaled that they’d been approved for entry. “I’ve had experience with this kind of system. Hesitate and the door automatically locks itself again.”

  Once they were inside, Liss expected someone to appear to greet them, perhaps even ask them to sign in, but apparently vetting them at the door was sufficient. The entrance hall opened into a large room comfortably furnished with armchairs, sofas, and card tables. A large, flat-screen TV was mounted on one wall but no one was watching it. In fact, there were only a handful of residents visible. Several casually dressed women gathered around one of the card tables were engaged in a cutthroat game of Nurtz—fourhanded solitaire—and didn’t look up when Liss and Sherri appeared.

  Liss blinked and adjusted her thinking. She wasn’t certain what she’d expected a nursing home’s residents to look like. There were no housecoat-wearing old grannies here. Neither were there any stylishly dressed matriarchs. Blue jeans or yoga pants paired with tunic tops seemed to be the uniform of the day, at least for the women. The two men in the room wore jeans and T-shirts. One was hooked up to an oxygen tank. The other was sound asleep in his chair, bald, liver-spotted head flung back and mouth open to show teeth so perfect that they had to be dentures.

  “Directory.” Sherri pointed to a floorplan prominently displayed on a bulletin board. Next to it a list of names and room numbers had been posted.

  “Great. Except that we don’t know who it was Benny came here to visit.”

  “No Chadwicks or Beamers,” Sherri reported after a quick scan of the residents’ names. “I guess we’ll have to hunt up someone on staff. You’d think there’d be a nurse around.”

  A cry of triumph came from the card players. “I win again!” crowed a scrawny woman with pumpkin-colored hair.

  The three who’d gone down to defeat shifted their attention to Liss and Sherri.

  “Can we help you girls?” The woman’s face was deeply lined but her eyes were bright and inquisitive as a baby bird’s.

  “Did you happen to notice another visitor arriving here earlier today?” Sherri asked. “A small woman a little younger than we are. Very light, curly blond hair.”

  “What about her?” A raspy, smoker’s voice emanated from a wizened little woman who had to be eighty if she was a day.

  Liss warned herself not to stereotype. Neither the woman’s age nor her prominent widow’s hump had stopped her from slamming cards down on the table at top speed.

  Sherri sauntered over, all smiles and charm. She’d changed from her uniform into civvies before they left Moosetookalook, since Waycross Springs was well out of her jurisdiction, and Liss knew she did not intend to reveal her profession unless she had to.

  “We’d like to talk to her,” Sherri said. “Do you know who she came to visit?”

  “Old lady Drucker,” croaked the smoker.

  “She’s having a good day,” bird’s-eyes chimed in.

  “Left-hand corridor, second door on the right,” the winner of the game contributed. She looked younger than the others, but not by much, and she was what Liss had heard old-timers call a BMW—a big Maine woman.

  Following the directions they were given, Liss and Sherri found a door that stood open. Inside, an aged woman sat in a wheelchair. Benny Beamer was seated facing her, a notepad on her lap and a pen in her hand.

  Sherri put out a hand to stop Liss from entering. She was right, Liss realized. Benny had not yet noticed them and there might be some advantage to eavesdropping until she did.

  “He meant well,” Mrs. Drucker said.

  “I’m sure he did.” Benny’s eagerness was palpable and she spoke in a way designed to encourage confidences.

  “Nineteen thirty-three, it was. Just before they repealed the law. And my what a handsome lad!”

  “Walter Chadwick?” Benny asked.

  The old lady hooted with laughter at that. “Not that tightfisted old bastard. I mean Harry Snipes. A real charmer, he was. Brought me a gift of silk stockings once. These legs don’t look so good now, but in my time I had real nice gams.”

  Good grief, Liss thought. How old is this woman? To have been wearing stockings in 1933, she’d have to have been born close to a hundred years ago.

  It was then that she caught sight of the object resting across the old lady’s knees. It was, unmistakably, a Boston Post cane. Decades ago, that now-defunct newspaper had given one of those canes to just about every town in New England. They were presented to the oldest living resident. Upon the holder’s death, each one was supposed to be passed along to the new oldest living person in town. After all these years, there weren’t many of them still in existence, let alone in the keeping of a person entitled to have possession.

  “They must have made a lot of money,” Benny said.

  “Made it and spent it.” Mrs. Drucker smacked toothless gums together. “Easy come, easy go. That Effie, she liked nice clothes, and if they cost a bundle, she liked them even more.”

  Figuring that Effie had to be a nickname for Euphemia, Liss leaned closer, reluctant to miss hearing a single word that related to the Chadwicks. That tiny movement was her undoing. Benny looked up and saw them.

  Her pale face flashed pink, but she was quick to get herself under control. She turned back to Mrs. Drucker. “What else did she spend money on? Jewelry? Art?”

  “Who?” Blank-faced, the old woman stared at Benny as if she’d never seen her before.

  “Euphemia Chadwick.”

  “Do I know you?” Mrs. Drucker asked in a voice that quavered. All of a sudden, she looked afraid. Her eyes darted from Benny to Liss and Sherri, standing in her doorway. “I don’t know any of you. Go away.” Sounding petulant, she added, “I want Susan.”

  “Who’s Susan?” Liss mouthed at Sherri.

  Her friend shrugged.

  Demands for the unknown Susan escalated in volume, accompanied by an unnerving wail that eventually caught the attention of someone on the nursing home’s staff. A trim, efficient-looking, middle-aged woman in white pants and running shoes and a flowered nurse’s top skidded to a stop at the door.

  Her words to the three visitors were curt.

  “You’re upsetting her. Leave now.”

  Then she was kneeling beside Mrs. Drucker’s wheelchair, her voice gentle and her manner as comforting as that of a loving mother calming a small child.

  Back in the common room, Benny turned on Liss and Sherri, sputtering in indignation. “It has taken me four visits to get something out of that woman. This was the first time she’s been anywhere near coherent. You two ruined everything!”

  “What, exactly, were you trying to get out of her?” Sherri steered Benny to a grouping of easy chairs well away from the other occupants of the room.

  The four Nurtz players, engaged in another cutthroat round of the game, didn’t seem to notice their return. The bald guy was still asleep. The other man had disappeared.

  “Who the hell are you and why should I tell you anything?” Benny demanded.

  Liss blinked at her in surprise. Benny had seen Sherri, in uniform, at the auction and she’d seen her again at the hotel. She’d run away from her. Hadn’t she?

  “This is Chief of Police Campbell from Moosetookalook, Benny. She has good reason to want to ask you some questions.”

  Still seething, Benny flung herself into a chair. “Fine. Ask.”

  Sherri took a seat directly across from her. “Let’s start with you telling me the reason for your interest in the Chadwicks.”

  “I told her.” She jerked a finger at Liss. “I’m an independent scholar. I’m writing an article so I can get a regular gig at some college.”

  Sherri fixed her with a steely gaze and waited.

  Sherri was a small woman, but Benny was even smaller. Liss felt like a giant standing there looming over both of them. She hastily settled into the third chair.

  “We know you’re a Chadwick descendant,” Sherri
said.

  Benny slumped in her seat. Bowing her head, she stared at her hands. After a few moments, she looked up. After sending an enigmatic glance Liss’s way, she focused on Sherri.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll believe me, but the family connection is irrelevant. I only discovered the link after I started my research. I admit that having a personal interest added to my enthusiasm for the project, but that’s not why I started it.”

  “Why did you leave The Spruces?”

  “I needed to be closer to Mrs. Drucker. I figured it was going to take some time to get her to remember what she knows. In case you didn’t notice, she has Alzheimer’s.”

  “Can the sarcasm, Benny. You left Moosetookalook in a big hurry, almost as if you were trying to avoid being questioned.”

  Benny glared at her but said nothing.

  “What did you have hidden under your mattress?” Sherri asked.

  “How—?”

  “We saw the mess you left.”

  Benny shrugged and once again kept mum.

  “We wondered if someone else had searched your room after you left,” Liss said.

  “Who would do that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Sherri cut in before Liss could say more. “Do you have any other relatives who may think they have a claim to the mythical Chadwick treasure?”

  The look on Benny’s face suggested that she thought Sherri had lost her mind.

  “Seriously, Benny,” Liss said. “Could there be someone else in your family who thinks X marks the spot where a Chadwick hid something of value? A cousin? An uncle?”

  “I’m an only child of an only child,” Benny said. “My parents died years ago. As far as I know, I don’t have any living relatives.”

  “No one who might have heard the same family stories you did growing up?”

  “What stories?”

  “There must have been stories. Someone had to have given you the idea there was a buried Chadwick treasure. Don’t bother to deny it. I know you were out there digging in the middle of the night.”

  “Oh, not this again!”

  “If you weren’t, then where’s the flower? The lady’s slipper. Do you have it in your room at the Sinclair House?” Liss had given Rhonda every penny of her spare cash in exchange for answering a second question, but all her cousin’s aunt had been able to tell her was that she hadn’t noticed any flower in Benny’s room when she cleaned it. She couldn’t swear that there hadn’t been one.

  “I tossed it.” Benny’s tone was glib and she emphasized her lack of concern with a careless wave of one hand. “I didn’t want to take the chance of getting arrested.”

  “Ladies, please,” Sherri interrupted. “Can we get back to my question? What did you hide under your mattress, Ms. Beamer?”

  “Look, I’m a little paranoid, that’s all. There are people, other scholars, who wouldn’t hesitate to steal my research and rush their own articles into print before mine is published.”

  “So you put your notes under the mattress?” Sherri sounded incredulous.

  Benny nodded. “And sometimes I hide my laptop, too. And I keep the flash drive I use for backup with me at all times.”

  “All right,” Sherri said. “I guess that might make sense. But what about your address?”

  “What about it?”

  “Don’t get smart with me. So far I’ve found three different addresses for you and you no longer live at any of them.”

  “My current residence is the Sinclair House.”

  Sherri drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair, clearly waiting for an explanation. Benny shifted uncomfortably. Liss had to press her lips together to keep from breaking the tense silence that ensued.

  “I never have a permanent address,” Benny said. “Didn’t Liss tell you? I work as a house sitter. Right now, I’m between jobs, so I don’t have a street address to give you.”

  “An independent scholar, sometime adjunct faculty, and a house sitter?”

  “I’ve walked dogs and worked as a waitress, too. Not everyone can be lucky enough to find a full-time job with benefits. Look, are we done here? I’m tired of answering stupid questions.”

  She hopped to her feet, and Sherri rose, too, one hand out to detain her. By now the residents had taken notice of the charged atmosphere. All four card players were staring at them, but the sleeping man continued to slumber, unaware of his surroundings. His uneven snores were the only sound in the room.

  “Just one more question,” Sherri said. “Where were you between the time you attended the auction and the day you showed up Moosetookalook Scottish Emporium a few weeks later? You didn’t, by chance, leave the country?”

  Benny looked surprised. “I’ve been staying at The Spruces. I told her that. I took a room there right before the auction and I didn’t give it up until I came here.”

  “How could you afford their rates?” Sherri asked. “You being between jobs and all? And the Sinclair House is even pricier.”

  “I had some money saved up. It’s worth spending every cent to be on the spot. You don’t seem to realize how important on-site research is.”

  Sherri glanced at Liss. “Anything else you’d like to ask her?”

  Liss shook her head. Since her theory about a villainous Chadwick cousin hadn’t panned out, she was at a loss. She had to consider the possibility that Benny might have been telling the truth all along, that she might be exactly what she claimed to be. She had an admittedly odd lifestyle, and Liss still didn’t quite buy her story about digging up an endangered species of flower and then throwing it away, but what she’d observed of Benny’s interview with Mrs. Drucker did seem to verify her claim to be an independent scholar doing historical research for an article.

  She watched in silence as Sherri handed Benny one of her official cards with the number of the police department printed on it.

  “If you move again, let me know.”

  “Why should I?” Unspoken, Liss could almost hear the childish taunt of You can’t make me!

  Sherri smiled sweetly at her. “I don’t advise that you disappear again. I’d hate to have to send the entire law enforcement community out looking for you.”

  Head high, looking as indignant as a tiny woman could, Benny stalked out of the nursing home. Liss and Sherri followed at a slower pace. By the time they reached the parking lot, Benny’s white van was long gone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday morning dawned chilly and damp, although the temperatures were supposed to soar into the low eighties by afternoon. Still half asleep, Liss climbed into the passenger seat of the truck and let Dan do the driving. It only took a few minutes to reach the old Chadwick property. Two vehicles were already parked in the drive. One was Sherri’s cruiser. Liss assumed the other belonged to Brad Jardine and was not surprised to find the developer waiting for them at the wall marked by the X on the map. He huddled in a gray hoodie, a steaming cup of take-out coffee held tightly in both hands.

  “Ridiculous waste of time,” he grumbled.

  “You didn’t have to come.” Sherri was short with him as she pulled a sheet of paper out of her pocket and handed it to Liss. “Here’s what my expert came up with. You want to do the honors?”

  Liss read what was written on it and started to laugh. She passed it on to Dan.

  “And then go forty paces due west of X,” he read. “Unbelievable.”

  Liss squinted at the sun, slowly rising in the east, before turning her back on it. The direction she was facing was heavily wooded. That figured!

  “I have a compass,” Sherri said, producing it.

  “How long is a pace?” Liss asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, but you have to figure that Widdowson counted it off himself. He was a tall, skinny, geeky-looking guy, so he probably took long strides.”

  Liss glanced first at Dan, then at Jardine. Dan was taller. She gestured for him to lead the way, but before he could take the first “pace” the sound of voices reached
them from the direction of the driveway.

  “I thought this was a private party,” Jardine complained.

  “I didn’t invite anyone,” Sherri said.

  Liss shook her head in denial, but she wasn’t surprised that word had leaked out. Not only was this a small town, but at least two interested parties—Dolores and Rhonda—had been keeping an eye on what the local chief of police and her friend the amateur snoop got up to. Dolores had her bird’s-eye view of the town square. Rhonda knew more of what went on at The Spruces, but she also had a conveniently placed nephew to pump for information.

  There were three uninvited spectators. Aaron Lucas and Maurice Kelsey arrived together. The conveniently placed nephew in question trailed along after them. There was no mystery about how he’d learned what was going on. Liss had told Beth when she’d asked her to mind the store that morning. Of course Beth would share that information with her boyfriend. No one had told her not to.

  Liss nodded to her cousin. He’d hadn’t reported finding any interesting records left behind by Harry Snipes, so she assumed he’d struck out in Cracker and Rhonda’s attic. She supposed she couldn’t blame him for being curious about today’s expedition.

  She was about to suggest they get started when yet another figure emerged from the surrounding underbrush. Sean Widdowson’s appearance did surprise Liss, although she knew Sherri had contacted him to ask about the Indiana Jones connection. Greetings and introductions had barely been exchanged before a rustling in the bushes alerted them to someone else’s none-too-silent approach. A moment later, Benny Beamer stumbled into the clearing.

  “More research?” There was only a hint of sarcasm in Sherri’s voice.

  “Did Rhonda tell you, too?” Liss asked.

  The question had Kelsey and Lucas exchanging a startled glance. Benny stayed mum.

  “Is this everyone?” Jardine tossed away his empty Styrofoam cup with a fine disregard for the environment and directed his next question to Sherri. “Can we get on with this nonsense now?”