by D R Lowrey
Of course, the other great revelation of the day was Cam Logan’s knowledge of a map. This kind of loopy factoid was what Annie referred to as a screwball, and this one came with hair grease on it. Nutty as it was, she knew not to ignore a pitch just because it came from left field. But still, Cam freakin’ Logan, the country singer with the electric eel. And, just five paces eastward lay the mortal remains of a man, name of Eel, with a tattoo of an eel. It made one think, and that’s what Annie was doing.
The rest of the congregation, being composed of types who required stimulation for thinking, continued to rub, scratch, wring, and finger the pertinent parts until the door was flung open.
Jack Watt, upon surveying the crowd of self-massaging thinkers, called out in his cheerful way, “Who died?”
Several heads and fingers motioned toward the casket.
“Oh,” he said.
Mr. Sandoval, who had been in deep thought, stroking both dented and undented portions of the braincase, arose from the floor and carved a path toward Jack. He stopped just inside his personal space and looked him dead in the eye.
Jack’s eyes, by contrast, shifted to the left, then the right, as if looking for a referee to step in.
“Mack?” said Mr. Sandoval.
Jack’s brow furrowed.
Annie moved closer to see if there might be perspiration.
“Mack? Is that you?” said Mr. Sandoval.
“Don’t you mean Jack?”
“Mack,” said Mr. Sandoval. “Mack Wynn, isn’t it?”
“If by Mack Wynn you mean Jack Watt, then you’ve got me right down to the socks.”
Mr. Sandoval stepped back and pulled at his face, disappointed that he could no longer trust his own memory.
Annie suspected his memory was better than he gave it credit for. The name Mack Wynn had struck a bell. He was the submitter of the second affidavit. To recap, Mr. Sandoval and the two men who had recently declared him dead had, after twenty years apart, arrived at the Sandoval estate seemingly independently. Of course, the declared dead man was alive and one of the declarers was dead but, dead or alive, somehow they had reunited twenty years after their failed Amazon expedition.
Of course, the bull’s-eye that had been on Mr. Sandoval’s back now had a companion piece to go on Jack Watt’s (or Mack Wynn’s) back. The fact that Jack was the only one of the triplets to escape a murder attempt suggested he might need to explain a few things.
“You remember Eel?” asked Mr. Sandoval, hoping to find a shard of his memory that could be trusted.
“Eel?” repeated Jack Watt. “Ah, yes. Slender creature, swims in the sea, not good eating, too fishy.”
“No, I mean our guide, Eel, the one who took us down the Amazon.”
“Eel, the guide?” asked Jack Watt, rolling his eyes upward while tapping his chin. “I went on so many trips.”
Annie could see the dillydallying, the stall, hoping for a way out. She had seen it a million times—a man struggling not to lie while avoiding the truth.
“There was this trip,” Jack mumbled. “Over twenty years ago, I think.”
“Yes! Yes! You were there. You were a financial partner. There was Eel, the guide; and me; and Dig, the archaeologist. We looked for the lost city of Kubao.”
“Kubao? Yes, I recall.” Jack pushed his head forward for a closer look at the man. “Valdy? Is it you, Valdy? How could it—”
Mr. Sandoval puffed up as if he had an air pump connected to his heel. “Yes, it’s me. You remember. We remember. I thought I’d forgotten everything about those days, but I remember you, and I remember Eel.”
“That’s incredible, Valdy. Fantastic. How long have you been alive? Am I the last to know?” asked Jack Watt.
Fantastic it may have been, but Jack had the look of someone hit between the eyes with a sock full of marbles. He was genuinely surprised, make no mistake about that. But surprise comes in many varieties. There’s joyful surprise, angry surprise, disappointed surprise, and many others. Jack seemed, more than anything, to be in the shock-surprised category.
Annie noticed Jack glancing toward Abuelita, perhaps feeling self-conscious about having just married his old friend’s ex-wife. Or maybe he wondered what her reaction would be, learning of this connection to her ex. If she cared, she didn’t show it.
The joyful reunion of old colleagues quieted quickly, as if a 500-pound gorilla had just taken a seat in the corner.
“Seriously,” said Jack Watt, trying not to look serious. “How long have you been back in circulation?”
“I was away quite a while,” said Mr. Sandoval. “I got back here on Wednesday.”
“On Wednesday, you say? The same day I arrived. My, my, isn’t that a coincidence?” Jack Watt had that knock-me-over-with-a-feather look. In fact, it was worse than that. He stumbled over to the sofa and fell into it without the aid of a feather. “I didn’t think you were alive,” he said.
“That’s too bad. A little marital advice from me could have saved you a lot of misery.”
“I certainly didn’t connect you with this place.”
Ah, but Jack knew more than he was letting on. The death certification papers would have contained Abuelita’s name and this address. He should have had no trouble connecting his old friend to the asylum. In Annie’s experience, men that have two names can’t be trusted, and Jack Watt/Mack Wynn was proving the rule.
It would have been fun to materialize out the woodwork, expose the con, and demand an explanation. But that’s not how cases are solved, not if you want convictions. Confrontations work in books and movies, but in real life, keeping eyes open and beak to the ground was how to pull up the worms. Besides, the afternoon had fairly swarmed with revelations. Who knew what the evening might bring?
“It’s wonderful we had this little reunion,” said Breadbox. “But if youse wants my help putting this man in the ground, we better hurry it up.”
****
Twenty more minutes in the tiny excavator and Nigel had kerchuggathumped his way to the estate entrance. Rattling up the drive, he noticed Cam Logan’s SUV parked off to the side a good 200 yards from the house. Why it should be parked there and not, say, in front of the house was yet another Cam Logan oddity he would let slide. He clattered past with his precious cargo on down to the garage.
Once inside, Nigel turned the scoop downward until the pot rolled out. The four-foot fall to the pavement produced a seismic thud that jolted him through his seat. He slid down to examine the pot lying at the center of a network of radial cracks in the cement.
The impact had shaken off the dirt crust encasing the surface of the object. Nigel reexamined the lid, which was so tightly fitted that hardly a seam existed to facilitate its removal. Either by design or by some decades-long chemical process, the lid had become one with the pot. The thing could have been smashed into a building, and the lid would have stayed put. No less than an acetylene torch was needed. Fortunately, he knew where to get one and the man who could use it. Stanley, it appeared, was good for more than just Hall of Justice cakes.
Nigel rubbed the black cauldron. No genie appeared. He put his ear to the filthy thing and tapped it with the blade of a screwdriver. He heard no hollowness. The pot must be filled to the brim. He was determined not to think about gold, but gold was what he thought about. After all, what were buried pots discovered from secret maps supposed to contain?
Of course, Nigel had no claim to the gold, but he wasn’t after riches, though he’d take them in a heartbeat if offered. No, he was more into redemption. While he might be a simpleton, he was not a simple man. Wealth was not his thing, nor did he harvest great pleasure from a job well done, which explained a lot. Nor did he gain much lift from compliments or positive feedback, though he’d heard good things about them. Nigel’s secret superpower, his unique inborn ability, had always been to create huge expectations for himself that then boomeranged toward continuous and sometimes spectacular failure. This sort of thing he had elevated to an art
form, a kind of gruesome spectators’ sport for friends, colleagues, and lucky bystanders. However, as accomplished as he was in that field, he had not reaped many benefits. Worse, certain people used his exploits for their own personal enrichment, be it through increased comparative social standing, cover for their own bad behavior, or that thing the Germans have a word for about joy from another’s misfortune.
It’s not that people are cruel—most, some, a few found something to like in Nigel—but there were those certain individuals who reveled in his downfall more heartily than seemed appropriate. When he slipped on the banana peel, so to speak, some chuckled behind their hands while others threw down bars of soap hoping for an encore. Nigel’s joy would be presenting those disbelievers with one blinding, incontrovertible success, rather than just another calamity. He’d waited a lifetime for the opportunity. And now, as he hugged the dirty pot full of tesuoro, he could almost hear the joyful noise of his detractors’ molars being ground into tooth dust.
But first he had to get the treasure out of the garage.
Nigel squatted down, placed both palms against the pot, and pushed with all his might. The heavy pot rolled a half-inch before encountering an impassable obstruction, possibly an ant.
While resting, he heard noises from the house.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Funeral, Interrupted
The pallbearers—two officers, the detective, Breadbox, Jack Watt, and Stefanie’s husband—shuffled the casket through the back French doors, onto the back deck, and down the trail to the garden burial site. The operation proceeded seamlessly except when Stefanie’s husband let slip his corner while exiting the house (due, he claimed, to a minor earthquake) and again when descending the patio steps. Goes to show that greasy bounders are ill-suited to pallbearing. In neither case did the occupant make a fuss.
Those glitches aside, the funeral party shuffled to the gravesite like a collection of self-absorbed zombies mesmerized by the afternoon’s revelations. Thoughts of “who’s really who,” “what’s really what,” and “how does this affect me?” had pushed the whole planting-a-dead-stranger thing into the mind’s back shelf. The funeral might well have been postponed if not for the hustling Breadbox, who had an upcoming appointment to meet a man who owed another man.
Arriving at the gravesite, the pallbearers found no provision for relieving themselves of the casket. Had they anticipated the brevity of Breadbox’s remarks, they would have deposited the box directly, but instead, they slid the coffin onto the large mound of dirt piled graveside.
Breadbox wasted no time. “We pay our respects to Emlio Ang-ly-er-o—”
“Emilio Anguilero,” corrected the detective.
“What he said,” continued Breadbox. “He passes out of this life and into the next. Ashes to ashes, doit to doit, the woims crawl in and the woims crawl out. Though with a fine box like dis, not for a while.” Breadbox closed the book—Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—and concluded, “Let’s get him in the hole, boys. Slide ’er down.”
The officers and the detective grabbed hold of the casket and eased it down the sloping dirt flank toward the grave. As the box edged toward the loamy depths, a bang and a clang convulsed the crew.
While cowered heads turned this way and that, Grumps provided clarity. “Incoming!” he yelled while flattening himself like a halibut on ice.
Other members of the group, having less experience at bombardment, jerked their heads about on their stalks like turkeys hearing a chop.
Annie dropped to the ground and saw a golf ball sail fifty feet past the funeral party. Turning her head to the opposite direction, she saw a figure with a long gun. “Everyone down,” she shouted.
A second report from the rifle was accompanied by the overhead whistle of a second golf ball. The ball shot past the gathering and skipped far down the grounds.
“Two o’clock,” shouted one of the officers. “Gunman has an AR-15 with suppressor. And someone is playing golf.”
Annie rolled her eyes, figuratively if not literally. The two o’clock designation meant nothing since people were scattered in every orientation. And, of course, there was no suppressor and no golfer. Someone was firing golf balls with a specially outfitted rifle. While not as deadly as a bullet, a high-velocity golf ball strike would do serious damage. As a matter of fact, Annie felt certain she was looking at a murder weapon.
“She’s here,” shouted Stanley. “She’s here. She’s here to kill us all.”
“Everyone,” shouted Annie, “the gunman is in the woods just past the garage. Crawl over to the grave and get in. Officers, stay low, keep under cover, and fan out.”
“Is it an Englishman?” shouted Grumps. “If it’s an Englishman, I’ll take him.”
Annie looked around for the officers. She saw one of them scrambling up the patio deck and making a leap for the French doors. The other must have been in the hole. She had visions of a frontal assault with guns ablazin’—something she’d always dreamed of—but with no gun, the dream lacked credibility. Looking around, she saw that everyone had made it to the hole except for Abuelita, who sat high in her wheelchair, holding up a middle finger.
Another shot rang out. The golf ball clanged off the wheelchair. One could only imagine the damage done by a high-velocity golf ball connecting with Abuelita’s leathery hide. Neither were built to withstand such an impact. Clearly, Abuelita needed to be extracted from the chair and moved to a safer place. Annie readied herself for the rescue.
Abuelita would have none of it. The chair bucked into gear and advanced toward the gunman at battle speed, which, on good pavement with a favorable tail breeze, was three miles per hour. Across the grassy, uneven terrain, staying upright, much less moving forward, might prove a challenge.
Abuelita’s defiant move earned Annie’s grudging admiration. Watching the wrinkled wheelchair-bound battle-axe advance into the teeth of withering enemy fire reminded her of herself fifty years in the future. As much as she would have liked to watch, Annie could not stand idle while the brave old bat got pummeled by golf balls. She raised herself for a charge, when out the corner of her eye, she spied a gangly, cloaked figure galloping on a path to intercept the creeping chair. Puffing like a locomotive and scarcely breaking stride, Annie’s mother latched onto the screaming invalid, swinging her out of her seat belt and away from the chair in a single motion. Judging by the scream, the crone appreciated being jerked from her wheelchair even less than being shot at with golf balls. She put up a fight, but within a few steps, the stampeding Mother held one leg securely to her chest while the remaining Abuelita parts bounced upside-down off her back like a bony rag doll. The veiled Samaritan, screaming hag attached, hoofed it to the house, snorting like a Clydesdale delivering Budweiser up San Juan Hill.
With Abuelita out of the picture, Annie was now the target of opportunity. She crawled toward the gravesite, lucky to avoid a ball striking the ground two feet from her head. Scrambling around the pile of dirt, she found conditions in the grave to be…well, grave.
At the sound of the first shot, the casket had been allowed to drop uncontrolled into the hole. Landing on its side, the box had opened like a book, exposing the dead Emilio who, for good reason, looked cramped and uncomfortable. The ditch, his ditch, created for his sole personal use, was now being shared with a detective, a police officer, Stefanie and her husband, Mrs. Sandoval, Jack Watt, Breadbox, Grumps, and Stanley. That’s ten in a grave—not customary. The defunct Emilio, disheveled as he was, could not complain. He held the horizontal position. The remaining occupants compacted themselves into the available space like puzzle pieces. Annie had no space to enter but was, for the moment, safe behind the mound of dirt. Nothing, however, prevented the shooter from repositioning for a better angle.
“Hey there, Mr. Policeman,” said Annie. “If you’re not going to use your gun, I’d like to borrow it.”
“Sure. Borrow the gun,” said the officer. “But you can’t borrow the bullets.”
“Ain’t got any. If I had bullets, I’d be using the gun.”
“You carry a gun but not ammo?”
“Normally I’m loaded, sure, but I’m off duty. Me and Boykin just showed up ’cause Detective Winjack wanted a show of force. It was either show up or buy the next keg for bowling night.”
“So, a show of force means empty weapons?” asked an incredulous Annie.
“Emphasis on show. Safer that way.”
Another blast sent a golf ball glancing off the gravesite mound, scattering dirt on the crowd below.
“Right,” said an annoyed Annie. “Hopefully your bulletless partner will be back soon with a weapon, some ammo, and a SWAT team.”
“Perhaps the reverend could say a prayer for our rescuers,” said Mrs. Sandoval.
Eyes swiveled toward Breadbox who was pulling loose dirt from behind a cauliflower ear.
“Would you like to conduct a prayer, Reverend?” asked Stefanie.
Having completed the detail work, Breadbox looked up. “Who? Me?”
“Who better?” asked Mrs. Sandoval.
“Anyone, probably,” said Breadbox. “I just do funerals. I don’t do estemp’raneous prayin’, especially not for no cops. No offense. What I need to do is get out of here. I got a business appointment in forty-five minutes, and if I don’t get there, he’ll get away. I mean, the deal will get away. The deal won’t be executed, I should say.”
“We can’t just stay in this hole all day and let this maniac take potshots at us,” said Stefanie’s husband.
The regulars had been waiting for Stefanie’s husband to voice his opinion. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much they could do about it. And, while no one could argue with his reasoning, no one was going to feed the beast by agreeing either.
