Murder on the Brewster Flats

by Aaron Paul Lazar

I exchanged a half-smile with my wife. “Albert?” I took the photocopy with the recent markings on it and handed it to him. “Is this your writing? Or maybe Robbie’s?”

  He pulled his spectacles out of his shirt pocket and studied it. “Oh, that’s our Robbie’s writing, for sure.”

  “It looks recent,” I said. “Have you heard any more about him from your daughter?”

  He slumped in his seat. “Talked to Lorraine last night. They’re still searchin’ down in Africa, but so far, they found no signs he even got there. They finally got hold of the airlines, and after days of being passed from person to person, they found out there’s no record of Robbie ever gettin’ on that plane.” He glanced at Gus. “Looks like you might be right, young fella. We think he never even left the good ole USA.”

  Jane sat up, worry swimming in her eyes. “Are Mom and Dad coming home, then?”

  Her grandfather nodded. “Yep. They made some promises they’ve gotta keep at the village, but they’ll be back in a few weeks after they give all the kids their shots. They said we oughtta report Robbie missing and let the police start lookin’ for him.”

  I nodded. “Sounds like a good idea, Albert.”

  An ominous silence descended on the room. If Robbie hadn’t left the States, then where was he? And if he’d been researching the history of the treasure just before he supposedly left, what did that mean? Could he have gotten wind of something important? Something that put him in danger?

  Camille stood. “Well, listen, we don’t want to take up more of your time, folks. Is it okay if I bring a few books home with me? I’d like to do a little more digging.”

  Albert and Jane both agreed.

  “I’ll be in touch if I find anything else.”

  Albert stood and stretched a hand toward her. “Thanks for helping, Camille.”

  The monitor squawked with a baby’s cry. Jane flew up from the couch. With a meaningful glance at Gus, she started for the stairs. “Come back soon, you guys.”

  Albert walked them to the door. “You folks are welcome any time. It’s nice to have the company, tell the truth.” He winked at Camille. “And to have someone as pretty and smart as you on our side, young lady.”

  Camille blushed. “Thanks, Albert.”

  We parted and headed for the car. I asked Camille to drive, since my knee was starting to stiffen up again.

  “Well, where to now, Mrs. LeGarde?”

  She gave me a sideways smile. “To the churches, my love.”

  “Yeah?” I raised one eyebrow. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

  Chapter 19

  The Brewster Parish sat back from the road at the end of a circular dirt driveway flanked by a small paved parking area. Painted white with an imposing clock tower and black steeple, the building looked over the village, and if you squinted, you could see a bit of the blue ocean in the distance.

  “Was this church around in the seventeen hundreds, honey?” I asked. “It doesn’t look old enough.”

  She shook her head and put the car in park. “Nope. This is actually the third sanctuary to be built on this site.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. The first was a Puritan church, built in the year 1700. The next was built around the time Reverend Cook came to Massachusetts, you know, when Sarah rescued him from that asylum around 1777. And then this one was built in 1834 after they had a fire from a lightning strike.”

  “Wow. That’s some history. And hey, 1834 is around the time our Methodist church at home was built, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Okay. What are we looking for?”

  “Church records. A talkative minister. A couple of gold crosses. You name it,” she laughed.

  I shrugged. “Sounds reasonable.”

  We linked arms and walked up to the front doors. Although my knee still ached, my limp wasn’t as pronounced this afternoon. Which meant I was healing and I’d be back on the beach in no time. I held onto that hope and walked up the cement stairs toward the main entrance.

  I opened one heavy oak door and we walked into the dark gloom of the vestibule.

  We wandered forward into the sanctuary, walking along the main aisle flanked by simple pews. Sunlight filtered through stained glass windows, splattering red, blue, and violet light across the wooden floor.

  Camille took my hand and squeezed it. “Remember the last time we walked down an aisle side by side?”

  I leaned over to kiss her cheek. “You bet I do. You were a knockout in that dress.”

  “And you looked pretty dashing, yourself,” she whispered.

  We approached the pulpit, where a large leather-bound Bible lay closed on the wooden podium. So far, we hadn’t seen a soul.

  “Think there’s anyone here?” Camille asked.

  “Let’s check in the back,” I said. “Maybe the minister has an office back there like Reverend Hardina does in our church.”

  “Okay.”

  We chose a door directly behind the pulpit and gently pushed through it. Stretched out before us was a dimly lit corridor.

  We checked in the first room to our right.

  “Looks like a fellowship meeting room,” I said, noting the coffee machine and piles of plates and napkins.

  “I think these two rooms are for Sunday school,” Camille said, quickly poking her head into the next two doorways. “Let’s try further down the hall.”

  Before we could do so, a voice came from around the corner. “Hello? Is someone out there? I’m in the office.”

  We followed the sound of the voice and found a portly elderly man sitting behind a desk, polishing his wire-rimmed glasses. Thin strands of gray hair fell forward over bright blue eyes.

  “Come in. Please, have a seat.” He peered at us, wrinkling his brow. “I don’t believe I know you folks, do I?” He stood and leaned over the desk, his hand extended. “Reverend Zimmermann.”

  I reached across the desk to shake his hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Gus LeGarde. This is my wife, Camille.”

  We shook hands and exchanged pleasant smiles. “What brings you folks here today?”

  I settled back in the hard oak chair. “We’re from Conaroga, New York, up in the Finger Lakes region. We’re here for the month, on vacation.”

  “I see,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Missing your home church, eh?”

  Camille gave him a sweet smile. “Well, yes, actually. But today we’re here to do some detecting.”

  He brightened and sat up. “Detecting? Oh, my. Now that’s something I don’t hear every day.”

  I gave him the rundown of what we’d discovered so far, leaving out most of the details about Jane, Mason, Beckett, and the feud between the Cooks and McNabbs, focusing on the treasure and its history.

  Camille showed him the photocopy. “This could refer to the lost treasure the Reverend Cook had stolen from him when he was almost ashore back in 1767.”

  He peered at the print. His eyes widened. “By jingles, this is exciting.”

  Camille pointed to the photocopy referring to the blacksmith disappearing. “And see? It’s almost like someone silenced this poor man so he couldn’t talk about what he did to the treasure.”

  Reverend Zimmermann leaned back in his chair. “Woo-ee. Well whaddya know? Poor old Reverend Cook’s treasure chest really existed?”

  I nodded. “We think so.”

  “I’ve heard all the stories, of course.” He stood and stretched, hands on his lower back. “And he was a pastor on this very location, you know, for his Puritan church.”

  Camille nodded. “I know. I read about it at the library.”

  “Well,” he chuckled. “As you know, it wasn’t exactly this building. Or even this denomination. But his church stood on this ground. He and his second wife built it. Sadly, it burned in 1833. This building here,” he waved his hands in the air, “is almost two hundred years old. Was built the next year, in 1834. And she shows her age.”

  “You’ve kept it up
nicely, though,” I said. “Looks really good from the outside.”

  He laughed. “Well, thanks. We’ve got a problem now with the foundation. And the chimney needs relining. But that’s neither here nor there.” He sat down again and leaned forward. “How can I help you with your mystery?”

  Camille came to life, asking the questions she’d wanted to ask him from the beginning. “Do you have any religious artifacts from that century?”

  He snorted a laugh. “Oh, my dear. Do you mean do we have three golden crosses hidden down deep in the bowels of this rattling old building?”

  Her face fell. “Um. Well, yes. That’s what I was wondering.”

  He stood again and approached her, patting her hand. “I’m sorry to say, the answer is no. If we had gold relics down there, they would have been sold long ago for repairs. But I do have quite a bit of lovely historical papers and books in our library. Would you like to take a look?”

  Her shoulders fell a fraction of an inch. “I guess I was a little naïve to think I’d find them here, or in any church. But I had to ask.” She smiled up at him. “But yes. I’d love to take a look at your old records.”

  My heart sank. I pictured us enclosed in a stifling library with stacks of dusty old books that showed birth, baptismal, and death records for hundreds of years. In spite of my reservations, I followed the reverend and my wife down the hall, through the basement door, and down a rickety set of wooden steps to a cool space with no windows and a cement floor.

  “This is where we keep the church records,” he said proudly. “It’s not exactly scientifically controlled, but we do run a de-humidifier down here and it stays cool most of the year.”

  “Wow,” I said, surveying three walls of floor-to-ceiling shelves and stacks of file boxes lining the fourth wall. A long table filled the center of the room.

  “Where are the oldest records?” Camille said, running her hand along the bindings of some leather bound books on the shelf nearest to her.

  “You’re close,” he said, gesturing to the leftmost side of the shelves. “All the way down here, at the top. These go back to Reverend Cook’s day.”

  She pulled a stepladder over to the bookshelves and began to take down the first couple of books in the row. “Here, Gus. Take these over to the table.”

  I reached up and grabbed them, setting them on the long library table on the far side of the room.

  Reverend Zimmermann turned on a table lamp with a green glass shade, and then rubbed his hands together. “Well, folks. Is it okay if I leave you to it? I’ve got to finish my sermon for Sunday.”

  I shook his hand and thanked him again, then settled down beside my wife to dig through the annals of history.

  Chapter 20

  “Oh my gosh,” Camille whispered. “Look what I found.”

  “What?” I leaned sideways to look at the book she’d been hunkered over for the past twenty minutes. We’d been in the library for almost two hours and I was getting hungry. Of course, I’m nearly always hungry.

  “The marriage record of Zebediah and Sarah Cook. And the birth records of their children.”

  I didn’t say anything, but this seemed to be less worthy of her enthusiasm than I’d expected. I’d hoped she’d find a clue to the whereabouts of the gold crosses, not substantiation of the facts we already knew.

  She pushed back a lock of hair and smiled. “They had five children.”

  I gave her a half-hearted smile. “Nice.”

  She shoved me. “Oh come on. Don’t tell me this doesn’t fascinate you?”

  I shrugged. “I guess I was hoping for more. Like a treasure map or something.”

  She glared at me, and then laughed. “Okay. I guess you’re right. Anyway, it was kind of silly of me to pick this church, I guess. Why would Tooly McNabb even go to church? And why would he give the golden crosses to a religious institution when he had the treasure melted down to hide it?”

  “They could have been donated here by one of his survivors. You know, if they became religious. And people do change. He might have had a guilty conscience all his life and decided to give the treasure back to the church.”

  She sighed and pushed back from the table. “I guess so.” She collected the books and we carefully put them back up on the shelves. “Shall we go get some lunch? It’s late.”

  My stomach growled in agreement. “I could sure go for a lobster roll and onion rings.”

  She patted my stomach. “Watch out there, mister. You might end up with a big belly by the time we go home.”

  I agreed, realizing that if I didn’t get back to walking in the mornings it was bound to happen with all the ice cream and fried food I’d been consuming. “Okay. Let’s say goodbye to the good reverend.”

  We spent a few minutes chatting with Reverend Zimmermann and then got in the car, turning back down Route 6A in the direction of Kate’s.

  Halfway through lunch, my cell beeped. I glanced at the screen. “It’s Jane.”

  “Pick it up, Gus.”

  I swiped it on and answered. “Hi, Jane. What’s up?”

  “Just wondering if you’ve seen my grandfather?”

  I put the phone on speaker and gestured Camille to come closer.

  “We saw him this morning, but not in the past few hours.”

  “Well, I can’t find him. His cell phone’s sitting here on the library table. And he never leaves it behind.”

  Camille bent over the phone. “Jane, it’s Camille. How long has he been gone, honey?”

  Mason gurgled in the background.

  “Over three hours.”

  “Maybe he’s out on the beach with his metal detector,” I said.

  “No. The detector is on the porch and anyway, his car’s gone.”

  “Could he have paid a visit to a neighbor?” I suggested.

  “No. He never leaves without telling me where he’s going. And like I said, he never goes anywhere without his phone in case something happens to me and Mason. You know how protective he is.”

  “I do.”

  “Maybe I’m overreacting. I just thought I’d call to ask if you’d seen or talked to him.”

  I glanced around at the late afternoon crowd at Kate’s. Only a handful of people, mostly eating ice cream. But no Albert. “We’re at Kate’s. But he’s not here.”

  “Okay. Well, thanks anyway.”

  Camille spoke up. “Wait. Why don’t you give us a call in a few hours, around dinnertime? If he hasn’t shown up, we can do a search on the beach or around the village. How’s that sound?”

  Jane hesitated. “Well, it sounds good. But there’s a big storm coming, you know. You’ll have to be careful.”

  I glanced up at the dark clouds that raced across the skies. I’d noticed it clouding up earlier, but just thought it was going to rain. “How bad is it supposed to be?”

  “It’s a hurricane. Lots of rain predicted, like twenty inches. They’ve named it Lucille.”

  We hadn’t turned on the television or read a newspaper since we’d arrived. I’d been blissfully unaware of the approach of Lucille. “Do you want us to stop by and possibly stay with you if your grandfather doesn’t come back soon?” I asked.

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, would you? I’ll be so scared all alone here with my baby.”

  Camille smiled at me, as if she were glad I’d suggested it. “Of course, sweetie. Tell you what. We’ll give you a buzz around six. If Albert’s not back, we’ll come over to stay with you.”

  “You can sleep in Robbie’s room,” she said. “That is, if you can sleep through the storm.”

  We thanked her, hung up, and went back to our lunch.

  “Where do you think Albert went?” She dipped a fry in ketchup and took a bite.

  “I don’t know. I suspect he went out for supplies to prepare for the storm.”

  She frowned. “For three hours?”

  “Well, you’re right. That’d be pushing it. Unless he met up with someone. Or his car broke dow
n.”

  She shot me a worried glance. “Gus?”

  I stood and gathered our trash onto the tray. “You’re right. Come on. Let’s go look for him.”

  Chapter 21

  After going back at the house and packing up a bag of our clothes, we cruised Main Street and the local hardware stores, stopping into a few places to ask about Albert.

  No dice.

  The clouds had taken permanent hold now, throwing the village into dark twilight. People scurried in and out of the grocery store, loading up on water jugs, flashlights, batteries, and non-perishable foods. The wind whipped papers and plastic bags across the road. One landed on our windshield, but flew off in seconds, shooting up to the sky and disappearing in the clouds.

  Camille had just ducked inside a grocery store to look for Albert, but when she came out, she also carried two jugs of water and a bag of supplies. She looked scared. “We’ve gotta prepare for this, honey. It’s coming soon. Like tonight.”

  A nervous ripple ran up my spine. We’d seen hurricanes on the television this year that had destroyed islands, homes, and killed hundreds of people.

  But could it possibly be that bad on Cape Cod?

  Jack had mentioned a hurricane that they’d weathered a few summers back. The name came to me in a flash. Delilah. It was during this storm that Scout’s father had died from a heart attack. They’d described it as a once-in-a-century-type storm, the kind that flooded valleys and floated coffins down the middle of the street.

  Could it happen again? Could Lucille be as dangerous? Wouldn’t that be twice in a century?

  I leaned forward to turn on the radio. “We’d better listen to the news.”

  “I’ll find a station,” she said, pushing the scan button.

  I backed out of our parking spot and turned onto Route 6A. “Let’s go directly to Jane’s. If Albert’s not back, she’s going to need some support tonight.”

  Camille agreed, and then turned up the volume when she found WHDH AM out of Boston. We listened to the stern warnings being broadcast. There was no music, no joking by cohosts, nothing but storm coverage. Rhode Island was already under siege, with twenty inches of rain due to fall overnight.