by Zack Norris
Helen Wallace laughed. “I don’t wonder.”
“It made no sense to me,” said McNab. “I kept saying I sold groceries. I really thought they were crazy. Now I know what they were up to. Well, time for me to turn in. It’ll be the first good night’s sleep I’ve had in a while. I kept thinking I’d see one of ’em pop out of a dresser drawer while I was nodding off.”
“Wait a minute, Mr. McNab,” said Aunt Edith. “I want everyone to take a look at my nephew’s latest painting.” She went over to an easel covered with a drapery. She pulled the cloth away to reveal a beautiful picture of the inn at sunset. Just barely visible was a pirate peering around the corner of the building.
Everyone oohed and aahed. “It’s great,” said McNab. “But I hope we don’t hear from that pirate’s ghost tonight. I need some rest.”
One by one, the other guests said good night. Soon there were only Rae and the twins, along with Maxim, Mr. Carson, and Aunt Edith.
“Too bad we never found that buried treasure,” Cody said. He yawned and stood up. “See you in the morning.”
“Just a moment,” said Mr. Carson. “I want to show you where I got the idea to do a painting of the inn at sunset. It’s from an old picture Aunt Edith showed me. It’s hanging in the hall.”
“I found it in a trunk in one of the rooms upstairs,” said Aunt Edith. “It was wrapped in a cloth, framed and everything. I’m so glad it was in such good condition. The frame looks so old. Come on and I’ll show you.”
They all walked into the hallway to have a look at the painting. “It’s old, all right,” said Cody.
Otis gasped. “Look at that!” He pointed to a tiny skull in the corner of the picture. He gently took the painting from the wall. The backing was loose and it pulled away when he took the picture down.
“Oh dear, do be careful with it,” cried Aunt Edith.
“There’s something under here,” said Otis. He was right. Underneath the loose backing was a treasure map on yellowed parchment, with a red skull marking a particular spot near the inn.
“The pirate forgot where he put his own clue!” Cody marveled.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth a wind blew open the French doors at the end of the dining room. The curtains blew and the plates on the table rattled.
The map flew from Otis’s hand and spiraled into the air. As they watched, spellbound, the page blew out through the open doors. And then the gust of wind died down as suddenly as it had sprung up.
Cody rubbed the goose bumps that had appeared on his arms. “Spooky,” he said.
Otis and Rae shivered. “Yeah,” Otis agreed. “But don’t worry. I got a good look at that map. I know where the treasure is buried.”
He led them to a corner of a stone wall behind the inn. Then he and Cody got shovels from the garden shed and began to dig. Soon the shovels struck something hard. Not long afterward, they pulled a trunk from the ground.
It took a long time, but they finally busted open the lock with a hammer. They were amazed at what they found inside.
“It’s buried treasure, all right,” Cody said with satisfaction. He held up a golden goblet. There were others inside, along with jewelry and gold doubloons.
Mr. Carson lifted up a goblet and borrowed Cody’s penlight. He shone light on the underside of the base. “Mendoza,” he whispered. “This is part of the lost treasure of Count Francisco Mendoza. It was stolen from one of his ships by pirates.”
“By Black Heart’s crew,” said Cody. “The pirate ghost can stop looking for it now.”
[Chapter Eighteen]
One week after the trip to Calavera Island, the Carsons, Maxim, and Rae were gathered in the den of the Carson house. Maxim rattled his newspaper.
“Listen to this, everybody,” he said with excitement. “They caught the con man! Barber and Wallace did it. They found him in Paris. It was McNab after all. And guess who was with him? Muriel Esposito! She was calling herself Sally Perkins, though. She was his wife!”
“Wow, he gave quite a performance, right up to the end,” said Otis.
“That’s right.” Cody gave him a little shove. “So much for your book about spotting liars. Mr. McNab and Ms. Esposito were the only ones you trusted.”
Otis scowled at him. “Well, there were plenty of other liars there who gave themselves away from the beginning. But I have to admit that Mr. McNab was an expert liar,” he said. “He must have enjoyed having a joke on all of us.”
“Right,” Rae agreed. “But he made a mistake when he left his brown contact lenses in the lobby to be found after he left. He meant to tweak everyone’s noses, but it started the investigators on his trail again.”
“He wore colored contact lenses. He had doctored photographs. Imagine, we all fell for it! Dumb.” Cody punched the air.
“I should have known when Winston Cato told us about that conversation he overheard between Mr. McNab and Sam Keller. Mr. McNab conned him the same way he conned Ms. Wallace and Mr. Barber and everybody else.”
“Why should you have known?” asked Rae.
“I once read an article about a man named Victor Lustig, a con man from back in the 1920s. He was famous for conning somebody into buying the Eiffel Tower. Lustig roped in his victims by pretending to be just like them … same politics, same religion. And he was always interested in them, never bored.”
Otis shook his head. “I was really stupid not to figure him out.” He snorted. “He even sat there talking to us all about convincing Mr. Barber and Ms. Wallace they were wrong about him.” Otis mimed a thumb and forefinger in the shape of an “L” on his forehead.
Mr. Carson looked up from his sketch pad and saw it. “Oh, stop that,” he said. “I think it’s awesome, as you would say, that you all caught those crooks. And you found treasure that has been placed in a museum in Spain. I’m proud of you.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Otis said. He thought for a moment. “Y’know, Aunt Edith ought to change the travel agents she uses. They didn’t send people who wanted to get away from it all. They sent people who were running away from it all.”
“You mean running from the law,” quipped Cody. Everyone chuckled.
Maxim peered over his newspaper and smiled. “They’ve finally got the biggest crook of all—Moe Kleese—scrambling. He’s having a hard time trying to prove he had nothing to do with the pirated DVD scam. He tried to hang the whole thing on the two brothers, but they sang like a couple of canaries.”
“Well, Moe Kleese is a pretty slick guy,” Mr. Carson mumbled, his eyes on his sketchbook. “I’m happy that Aunt Edith won’t have any more trouble with his gang. Maybe now she can enjoy some success with her inn.”
“Well, it got her some publicity, that’s for sure,” said Rae. “The inn has been mentioned every day in the paper, and it’s all over TV and the Internet.”
“Jamal will make sure she keeps getting media attention when the buzz over the DVD case dies down,” said Cody. “He said he’d have his own publicity people make sure she gets coverage from time to time. Plus, he promised to spread the word about the inn himself.”
“Hey, there’s Jamal now!” Otis pointed to the TV screen. “Look.”
Jamal was talking to a reporter. A banner that read Jamal Mason talks about his stay at Caribbean inn crawled across the bottom of the screen. Cody turned up the sound and everyone listened eagerly.
“I want to tell everyone what a wonderful place the Calavera Inn is. The island scenery is so beautiful, I can’t say so enough. The snorkeling is right up there with some of the best I’ve experienced in places like Cozumel. There are so many beautiful animals. I think there are almost five hundred kinds of birds on that little island, so you see them a lot.”
Jamal looked into the camera and smiled. “Is the inn haunted by a pirate? I don’t know. I know it certainly seemed like there was a ghost around, but he didn’t try to hurt anybody. I’d say, see for yourself. Who knows? Now that the treasure has been found, he might not be back. On
the other hand, he might decide to stick around.”
He stopped smiling and turned serious. “I have to say that I don’t know what would have happened to me if it hadn’t been for my good friends Cody and Otis Carson and Rae Lee. Life isn’t like the movies, and I didn’t have any special powers to help me when those kidnappers were holding me prisoner,” he said. “If you guys are watching, I want to thank you once more for coming to my rescue.”
“Wow!” the twins shouted.
Rae grinned. “That was so awesome!”
Jamal smiled again. “I hope you guys are hearing this. We are definitely on for a visit. I’ll call you in about a week. Bye for now!” Jamal waved to the camera, and his face faded from the screen.
“Jamal turned out to be really cool in the end,” said Cody.
“The coolest,” Otis added. “He’s doing lots of stuff to help Aunt Edith. He helped her find a new cook and another guide and a maid.”
“He’s quite a guy,” said Mr. Carson.
“Quite a guy. Quite a guy,” echoed Pauly the parrot. “Give him a treat!”
Dude was lying on the carpet next to Cody. When he heard the word “treat,” he jumped up and wagged his tail. Woof! he barked eagerly and began to trot toward the kitchen.
“Uh-oh,” Cody whispered. “I think Pauly is setting the dog up.”
Sure enough, the next words that erupted from the parrot’s beak were, “Sit down! Roll over!”
Just like always, Dude fell for it. He snapped into a sitting position, and then whirled into a roll. When he heard the parrot cackle, he growled and slunk into another room.
Everyone laughed. Then Otis scowled at the bird. “Shame on you, Pauly. It’s a good thing Dude isn’t a bird dog.”
Cody thought for a moment. He was trying to come up with a palindrome to follow Otis’s pun. “No, Dude isn’t a bird dog,” he said finally. “And he’s smarter than he seems. He’s a dog god.”
Maxim groaned at the corny palindrome. Everyone else laughed.
