by Maddy Hunter
Mumbling. Confused looks. Blank expressions.
“What’d she say?” asked Stella Gordon.
“She said everyone found the cache,” Dad explained from behind the viewfinder of his camcorder.
“She’s lying!” Isobel Kronk hammered her fists on the table as she sprang from her chair, frothing with outrage. “None of you found it. You couldn’t have!”
“My team sure found it,” argued Dick Stolee.
“Did not,” countered Isobel.
“Did so,” challenged Dick Teig.
Boos. Shouting. Cat calls.
I let out my signature whistle, sending hands flying upward to muffle distressed ears. When the room was quiet again, I nodded. “Thank you.” I leveled a look at Isobel. “Would you mind telling us why you think no team other than yours found the cache?”
“Sure,” Isobel said without apology. “Because I took it.”
five
“YOU WHAT?” Dolly Pinker shot to her feet, hands on hips, condemnation in her voice. “Oh, my God. You cheated?”
“It wasn’t cheating,” Isobel defended. “It was a simple maneuver to level the playing field.”
“In Iowa we call that cheating,” said Dick Teig.
“In Wisconsin they call it the gubernatorial agenda,” said Osmond.
“Don’t you dare give me any grief,” Isobel fired back at Dolly. “I did it for the team. Our team. Remember? The one you wanted to desert after we got screwed out of our first find because of her?” She stabbed a menacing finger at Bernice. “How else are we supposed to stay in the hunt?”
“By playing by the rules,” Cameron announced flatly.
“Bull!” Using her finger as a gavel, Isobel pounded out her points on the table in front of Cameron. “Don’t give me rules. Do mortgage companies play by the rules? Do politicians play by the rules? No! No one plays by the rules anymore, so spare me the sanctimonious lectures. Stretching the rules is what it’s about these days.”
“I’ve heard enough.” Dolly fell back into her chair. “She’s off the team.”
“I’m not aware that anyone died and put you in charge,” Isobel challenged.
I guessed this was where I should step in. Great.
“Okay, then,” I said as I clasped my hands in a gesture meant to evoke the wisdom of King Solomon. Not everyone would make the connection, but I figured it looked more self-assured than scratching my head. “Uhh … we’ve kept the rules of the contest deliberately simple to avoid confusion, and to be perfectly honest, we never thought to write up a contest manual because we never expected anyone to … uhh … modify the existing rules.”
“They never expected anyone to cheat,” Bernice translated.
“So this will be a test case,” I continued, directing a look at Bernice that cautioned her to “zip it.” “I’ll have to explain the circumstances to my husband and Wally, and then the three of us will have to decide what we should do about the situation, if anything.”
“I think she should be booted off our team,” Lucille Rassmuson piped up.
“To hell with that!” fumed Bill Gordon. “The entire team should be booted. No contest for them.”
“Don’t even think it,” Dolly warned. “The four honest members of our team don’t deserve to be punished for the flagrant rule violation by one dishonest member. Isobel needs to take a hike, but if you try to come after the rest of us, I’ll be making an overseas call to my lawyer. Our government has rules prohibiting discrimination. In case you weren’t aware, it’s un-American.”
“We’re not in America,” taunted Bill, “so the rules don’t apply. Besides which, how do I know any of you are real Americans? Can you prove it? Do you have the right documentation?”
“What’s the wrong documentation?” questioned Margi.
Yup. This was going well.
“I like to win just as much as the next guy,” Cameron explained to the rest of the room, embarrassment evident in his voice, “but not like this. What were you thinking, Isobel? I don’t want to side with the opposition, but fair is fair. You’ve probably earned our team some kind of penalty, but I’m not sure what.”
His words found their mark, because Isobel Kronk suddenly looked as if she’d been slapped, and slapped hard. I watched her bottom lip quiver for a heartbeat before she brushed aside the obvious hurt by acting as if she were immune to it. “Some friend you turned out to be, Cam”—his name shooting out of her mouth like a nail out of a nail gun. “Are you sure you’re not Scottish? Because you seem to have a real aptitude for stabbing people in the back.”
“Don’t you dare criticize Cameron,” Dolly chided. “He found that last cache singlehandedly, in record time, despite the flak that our resident bellyacher was throwing at him.”
Lucille smiled broadly. “She’s talking about Bernice.”
“Okay, time out.” I motioned for quiet as I navigated my way around furniture and guests to take center stage. “I’m confused. If Cameron’s team found the cache first, and Isobel removed it—”
“Stole it!” Bill Gordon bellowed.
“—removed it from its hiding place so no one else could find it, then what, exactly, did the other four teams find?”
Everyone flew into motion at the same time, digging into pockets, purses, and fanny packs to retrieve their cameras and mobile phones. Alex Hart was quickest on the draw, yanking his camera out of his new sporran with the skill of a marsupial yanking a joey out of its pouch. He punched a button then handed the camera over to me. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s what our team found.”
I studied the screen, trying to analyze what I was looking at. “A shoebox-shaped plastic container.”
“It was one a them real good ones,” offered Nana. “The kind what won’t decompose even if you nuke it.”
“The register was noteworthy,” said Tilly as she regarded the photo she’d taken with her own Smartphone. “It was a glittery pink notebook, with kitten and pony stickers covering the front, which might indicate that the person who placed it there was a teenage girl.”
“Or not,” I quipped as I cradled my hands around the metallic pink housing of Alex’s camera.
“I got a good shot of the page we signed and dated,” said George, brandishing his phone in evidence. “Marion did the honors for Team One because she has the best penmanship. She even managed to jot down a nice comment about the scenery.”
“I took a picture of the comment,” enthused Dick Teig as he accessed his zoom function. “It says, ‘Out.’ ” He held it up so everyone could see.
“I have a picture of that, too!” exclaimed Margi. “Do you think it’s code for something?”
“It’s code for—there wasn’t no time to write no more, so I had to leave off the last half of the word,” said Nana.
“Which was—?” I asked.
“Outstandin’.”
“I think ‘outlandish’ would have been a better word,” said Dick Teig.
“Outdoorsy,” countered Grace. “Definitely, outdoorsy.”
“You’re both wrong,” quibbled Helen. “‘Outdated’ is the word you want. I mean, didn’t you notice? The whole town looked like it was about a thousand years old.”
Tilly stared at her, deadpan. “That’s because … it is.”
“Is the pink register the only thing everyone found in the container?” I persisted.
“Our team found a travel size bottle of Hog Wild hand sanitizer,” Grace revealed. “Three guesses where that came from.”
Margi lifted her shoulders and smiled impishly. “Seemed like the polite thing to do. Kind of like a little hostess gift.”
“I could have used some sanitizer after I pried that container out of its hiding place,” admitted Dick Stolee as he inspected his fingernails. “It was a great location, but those rocks were gross. Have y
ou ever seen so much slime-green algae in your life?”
Bernice sat up in her chair as if she’d been poked by a cattle prod. “Rocks? What rocks?”
Erik Ishmael leaned over in his chair to show her the image on his camera screen. “These rocks.”
She studied the photo for a half-second before dissolving into a fit of snarky laughter. “Hate to break it to you losers, but the container wasn’t hidden near any rocks. Your team went to the wrong place.”
“Did not,” snapped Margi.
“Did so,” mocked Bernice. “This is where the container was hiding.” She held up her phone, flashing the picture to anyone sitting close enough to see. “In a hollowed-out tree trunk camouflaged by lots of weeds. Weeds, not rocks.”
“Shoot.” Helen regarded the photo on her Smartphone in dejection. “I’ve got rocks.”
“Me, too,” lamented Osmond.
“So do I,” said Alice Tjarks. She sighed. “Does this mean we didn’t find the cache after all?”
How did the saying go? If disinformation is repeated often enough, people are brainwashed into thinking it’s the truth? “Did you sign the pink register?” I asked Alice.
She nodded. “I was the official signatory for Team Two. I even took a picture. See?” She turned her Smartphone outward. “My signature, the date, and the time. And you can see where Team One signed just above me, with Marion’s comment.”
“Did you happen to take a picture of Team Five’s signature?” I pressed. “If they were first up, they would have signed before you.”
Alice shook her head. “The entry above Marion’s wasn’t written in English.”
“It was written in Lithuanian,” Tilly spoke up. “Left by two geocachers named Jadvyga and Pranciskus. Rough translation, ‘These rocks are very slimy.’”
“Aha!” I lasered a look at Bernice. “So your team didn’t sign a register?”
“There was no register,” Dolly answered for her. “There was a box in a tree trunk, and no register, which I thought was odd, but now that we know people are stealing things, should we be surprised?” She directed a haughty look at Isobel, who flipped her long gray hair over her shoulder before bracing her fists on the table, looking supremely smug.
“Would you like to know why there was no register in the box?” Isobel asked. “Have you figured it out yet? Because our intrepid leader—the guy who found the cache singlehandedly, in record time, took us to the wrong location. Nice going, Cam.” She slapped him on the back. “You found the wrong damn container.”
“No. That’s not possible.” He looked utterly bewildered. “I … I followed the right coordinates. I—”
“Turkey,” Isobel jeered.
“Point of order!” Lucille Rassmuson raised her hand, looking as puzzled as Cameron. “Which container did Isobel steal? The one with the pink register or the one with the knife?”
I leveled a quizzical look at the members of Team Five. “Knife?”
“Don’t get your panties in a wad,” Isobel shot back in a growly voice. “It wasn’t real.”
“It looked real to me,” argued Dolly.
“That’s because you’re a putz.”
If Dolly’s eyes hadn’t been weighted by so much volumizing mascara, they would have flown out of their sockets. “I’m a putz? Oh, that’s rich, coming from the freaking genius who decided to rig the contest by stealing the wrong container. You want to find the real putz? Try looking in a mirror.”
“I have a makeup compact if you’d like to borrow it,” Margi offered helpfully.
“Hold it!” Lucille heaved herself to her feet, making herself visible to everyone in the room, while at the same time insuring she was first out of the blocks in the upcoming race for the dining room. “So if Isobel stole the wrong container, whose container did she steal? Won’t the owner be mad when he goes back to get it and discovers it’s missing?”
“No one’s going back for it,” Isobel ranted. “It’s a piece of junk. Who wants a crummy box with a crummy knife inside anyway?”
“You mean, besides you?” asked Bernice. “How do we know you haven’t bamboozled us? How do we know your crummy knife isn’t worth a whole lot of money that you don’t want to share with the rest of us?”
“Cameron found it singlehandedly!” Dolly reminded us as she slanted a flirtatious smile at Dasher. “If it turns out to be worth a fortune, he’s the one who should receive all the proceeds. And then he can dole out whatever monetary settlement he chooses to the team members he deems worthy.” She gave her hair a little pouf. “You know. The ones who aren’t thieves.”
“Morons,” grumbled Isobel as she reached for her zebra print backpack.
Uh-oh. This wasn’t good. Not only was Isobel stealing other people’s property, she was stealing Bernice’s lines.
She slapped the backpack onto the table, unzipped the closure, and riffled through the contents like a petulant child before yanking out a metal box that was the size and shape of a hardback novel. She slammed it down in front of her. “Here it is. The ill-gotten treasure that’s worth a fortune. Good luck finding someone dumb enough to pay you.”
The metal was so eroded with rust that it looked to be suffering from a fatal case of psoriasis.
“Looks pretty old,” I said as I stepped closer for a better view.
“It took a little elbow grease to pry the lid off,” said Cameron. “It wasn’t completely rusted shut, but it was getting there. I’d guess it hadn’t been opened in a really long time.”
“Is the knife still inside?” I asked Isobel.
She wrestled the lid off and banged it onto the table with a noisy clatter. “The knife,” she said, eying my dad sourly as he tiptoed in for a close-up shot.
“Do you mind if I pick it up?” I asked.
“I don’t give a flip what the hell you do with it.” She gave the box a shove toward the edge of the table. “It’s not doing me any good. You can give it away for all I care.”
“I’ll take it!” Dolly and Bernice cried out at the same time.
I waited indulgently while Dad stood over the box, zooming in, and out, and in, and out. “Done?”
“Yup,” he said, panning seamlessly to a floor shot as he skulked off in Mom’s direction.
I plucked the knife out of the box, surprised by its heft. The blade was as long as my hand, double-edged, and narrowed into a point like a Viking spear. The hilt was intricately carved into a pattern that mimicked the corkscrew twists of a licorice stick. An inch below the hilt, a band of uncarved wood circled the grip, its smoothness marred by a series of deep scratches.
“Hold it up so the rest of us can see it!” demanded Bill Gordon.
I elevated it above my head and rotated in a slow circle.
“Well, would you look at that?” marveled Nana.
“Is something about the dagger familiar to you?” Tilly asked her.
“Nope. I was just noticin’ that the fog’s lifted.”
“Have you found the ‘Made in China’ designation on that thing yet?” Stella Gordon wisecracked.
I examined the dagger more closely, noticing that the blade was tarnished in long streaks near the tip—like sterling silver in need of a good polishing. Oddly, though, the oxidized streaks were rust brown instead of gun-metal gray. “I’m not seeing where it was made anywhere,” I confessed, “but it’s a great looking knockoff, right down to these smudges that I suspect are supposed to be blood stains. I bet someone used it as a prop for a play or something.”
“But why was it stuffed in a tree trunk?” asked Lucille.
I shrugged. “Before there was geocaching, there were scavenger and treasure hunts. Maybe this was an item that the participants never found.”
“Didn’t I say as much?” squawked Isobel. “It’s like a piece of space junk.”
Margi sucked in her b
reath. “You think aliens left it?”
Isobel drilled me with a hard, unflinching look. “I hope this is the end of your interrogation, because whether it is or not, I’m heading for the dining room.”
“One more question,” I ventured as I returned the dagger to its box. “Out of curiosity, how did you manage to abscond with the cache without your teammates seeing you do it?”
“By lying to us,” Dolly accused. “She said her ankle bracelet fell off, so she wanted to run back to look for it.”
Isobel fished the bracelet out of her jeans pocket and dangled it from her finger. “It wasn’t a lie.”
“Hah!” spat Dolly. “You probably broke the clasp yourself, just to have an excuse. Putting it on display proves nothing.”
“It proves that Campbells are all cheats and liars,” yelled Bill.
“Seven o’clock!” announced Dick Stolee as he launched himself out of his chair. “Soup’s on.”
Oh, God.
The exodus started with subtle movements—head bobbing, weight shifts, foot shuffling—and gradually erupted into a full-blown stampede as Lucille raced full-throttle for the door with Dick Stolee hot on her heels. I leaped out of the way to avoid being knocked down by the exiting mob, flattening myself against the library table until the room had emptied itself. Etienne and Wally ran into the room like firemen in search of a fire, eyes wild, and breath heavy.
“What was that?” asked Etienne, gasping.
“The Iowa response to the dinner bell.” I peeled myself away from the table and dusted off my hands. “They’ve gotten so much more orderly. I hardly recognize them anymore.”
“You call that orderly?” squeaked Wally.
I smiled. “You should have seen them before.”
He shook his head. “I’ll referee in the dining room. See you in there.”
Etienne walked across the room and placed a lingering kiss in the hollow below my earlobe. “In the interest of preserving the health of arthritic knees and fragile hips, do you suppose we might suggest that guests proceed to the dining room with a bit more decorum?”
