by Lucy Quinn
“Did you tell him he had a small fortune waiting for him?” Dylan asked.
He shook his head. “I knew how he felt about the whole thing. The money, the stock market, everything. So I didn’t want to upset him. I did suggest we ‘sell off’ some of it to cover his medical bills and cross some things off his bucket list, but he said no, leave it be. He’d manage without it. And he did—beat the cancer, paid his hospital bills, and that was that.” He grimaced. “Until a few weeks ago when the doc told him the cancer had come back.”
This time everyone was silent when he paused, waiting for the old man to continue his story.
Lester took a deep breath. “It turns out the lab made a mistake. Fleet’s results had been switched with a forty-eight-year-old woman’s. Can you believe that?”
Cookie shook her head. “That’s pretty crazy.”
“You’re telling me. Anyway, after old Fleet got the all-clear last week, he came over here to talk. He told me he’d decided it was time to dig up the treasure, to take a good look at what was left in that chest. Said he was ready to spend a little bit of the spoils. He was insistent, agitated, almost as if he was daring me to argue with him. He didn’t seem like himself at all. I figured he was just letting off steam after being jerked around by the doctors, you know?” Again he let loose that sharp laugh. “That’s when I finally told him I’d invested it all.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t take it all that well,” Cookie said.
“Hell no,” Lester said. “Oh boy, was he hot. Madder than a coon with rabies. Before I could stop him, he took off on down to the boathouse and started digging for the chest. I don’t know what he thought he was gonna find. I’d already told him I’d sold the coins.”
This time Cookie was certain she had it right when she ventured to say, “I’m guessing you followed him and the two of you fought.”
“Oh boy, did we.” Lester’s lined face creased into a smile even as his eyes sparkled with tears. “We’ve had some scraps over the years, Fleet and I, but this one was the worst. Him accusing me of stealing, me calling him a coward who was too afraid to grab the gifts life’s given him, and it went from there.” He rubbed his jaw. “He was so pissed and kept insisting that I’d broken my word, broken our agreement to not touch the money.”
“But you helped people,” Dylan cut in. “Like Mike and Lindsay and so many others. Not to mention you made Fleet a rich man.”
“Didn’t matter. Fleet never got to enjoy the money the way I did. And oh boy, did he resent that,” Lester replied. “Still, that wasn’t the point.” He shook his head. “I’d lied to him time and time again. He was right to be upset. I should’ve told him what I was doing. It didn’t matter that I’d turned the money into more than either of us could ever use. I’d gone against his wishes and invested it in something he thought was evil, and that was an ultimate betrayal in his eyes. It wasn’t about what I was doing with the money—if I’d wanted to help someone with it, I could’ve gone to him, told him. He might’ve even agreed. But I hadn’t. I’d gone behind his back, and lied to him for years.” He ran a hand over his thinning scalp. “So he hauled off and decked me. Knocked me clean off my feet.” He bowed his head, and Cookie could see the tears beginning to drip down.
She had to know, though, so she asked as gently as she could, “Lester, what happened next?”
The old man looked up, tears flowing freely down his cheeks. “I killed him!” he wailed. “I killed Fleet!”
Cookie glanced over at Dylan and then at Hunter. They both sat there with their mouths open and their eyes wide, both just as shocked as she was. They’d all been so sure Fleet’s death had been tied to the money, the buoy, and the security token. Lester’s confession was the last thing she’d expected. Especially since he’d been so convincing when he acted surprised to hear about Fleet’s death.
“I didn’t mean to,” Lester insisted, wiping angrily at his eyes and face. “It was an accident.”
“Okay,” Cookie said, locking eyes with Hunter. Her former partner nodded, urging her to continue the questioning. Whatever they learned in these moments would likely determine Lester’s fate. “What happened, exactly?”
He sighed and studied his hands, looking surprised to see the gold coin still there. Then he thrust it onto the table as if he couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. “Fleet knocked me down,” he said, picking up where he’d left off. “So I got to my feet and tackled him. We slammed into the open chest and both hit the ground. My hand landed inside the stupid thing, and when I pulled it back, well,”—he gestured to the mantle—“I had that in my hand.”
Dylan rose to his feet at once and crossed the room to the blocky stone structure.
“There, next to the drinking horn,” Lester told him.
Dylan reached into his back pocket, pulled out a kerchief, and used the cloth to scoop up the item before turning and retreating back to the couch. Then he placed the object in question carefully on the table in front of them.
Cookie peered at it and instantly registered that is was a broken arrow. The whole thing had been carved from wood, which was now darkened with age, but the shaft had snapped off at some point. Small, jagged white shapes lined the arrowhead’s sides, which she guessed were either some kind of teeth or bits of shell. They’d been added to do more damage, she realized. But even without them, the tip was long and sharp—and wider than a needle, narrower than a knife. And one that she already knew would perfectly match the wound Jared had found on Fleet’s neck.
“You stabbed him with it,” she said.
“I wasn’t thinking straight,” the old man confessed as he nodded with a look of horror on his face. “It was just there in my hand, and I didn’t even really notice it until I was already swinging at him. I hit him on the shoulder, but the arrow sort of bounced free and scratched his neck before it fell.” He laughed bitterly again. “That stopped him in his tracks, more from surprise than anything. Then he stood there in shock as he yelled, ‘You stabbed me!’ I told him to quit being such a baby… his biopsy scar was bigger than that.”
Lester gulped a bit before continuing. “But then he started clutching his throat and making these awful, strangled-cat noises. I thought he was just messing with me, you know? Being dramatic about a flesh wound then pretending to die from such a nothing of a cut.” He stared at the arrow between them. “Until he started turning blue and fell to the ground.”
Dylan lifted the arrow with the kerchief and held it up, staring intently at its tip. “That could be a stain from poison,” he said, holding it out so both Cookie and Hunter could get a better look at the weapon.
Cookie nodded. “Jared said it was poison that did Fleet in. And that it worked fast, really fast. He couldn’t identify it right away, though.” She frowned, thinking. “It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that pirates picked the arrow up along their journey from some island or other faraway land. Then it sat in the chest all that time.” She leaned across the table and patted Lester’s hand. “It was an accident. You couldn’t have known.”
The smile he gave her was bleak. “Thank you, young lady. But accident or not, it was still my fault. Fleet is dead, and I killed him.” He sighed. “It was over in seconds. All I could do was hold his head up, trying to help him get some air. Then he was gone.” He scowled. “I should’ve just called for help and told them what’d happened, but I was scared. So I took the chest and the arrow, and left Fleet—my best friend, my brother—just lying there on the floor like some old trash. I figured the next kids who came out there to get high would find him and call it in.” He scrubbed at his face with one hand. “I still can’t believe I did that to him.”
But Cookie could. “You weren’t thinking straight,” she assured the grief-stricken old man. “You panicked. It happens.” He had technically covered up a crime by removing the arrow, but given his age and his obvious guilt over what’d happened, she suspected a judge would go easy on Lester. He’d still be found guilty of involu
ntary manslaughter, but considering how light Stone’s sentence had been for the same crime, she felt confident Lester would be able to serve whatever time he got on house arrest.
He’d be forced to live with what he’d done and the ghost of his best friend for the rest of his life, though. And there was nothing Cookie could do about that.
14
Silence hung in the air after Lester’s confession, and finally Hunter cleared his throat. “That explains about Fleet,” he said. His tone was more gravelly but less gruff than usual, showing that he had not been immune to the guilt and grief of their host. “And I am sorry for your loss. Cookie’s right, though, it was an accident. A terrible one, but still just an accident.” He took a deep breath then let it out slowly. “But what does any of this have to do with the man with the orange hair, or this?” He held pulled the security token out of his pocket, holding it up for everyone to see.
Lester sighed then straightened in his chair, leaned forward, and held out his hand. Hunter relinquished the small digital device.
The old man studied it for a second before speaking. “You’re right, you deserve to know.” His eyes, when he raised them, were still wet with tears but sharp. “Remember I said I’d used a dealer named Daryl to sell off the coins?”
Cookie nodded. “But you said he was always professional.”
“He was,” Lester agreed then frowned. “And not only did he have connections to sell off the coins, but he was also a finance guy. Skilled at investing. In fact, I asked him to manage Fleet’s share of the bounty. It felt like the ethical thing to do. I never wanted Fleet to question if I’d handled his money fairly—” he stopped and snorted. “Damn if I wasn’t naïve.”
“What do you mean by that?” Cookie asked, wondering if Daryl had skimmed off the top.
“Daryl sent me quarterly updates so I’d know how Fleet’s money was doing. Damn good, even better than mine at certain times. I never worried about it. Figured it’d be there when it was time to tell Fleet, you know?”
“Are you saying that eventually Daryl lost his money?” Cookie asked, already grimacing.
“No. Not at all. When Fleet got sick again, I figured it was time to cash in to help him cover those crazy-expensive treatments. But when I contacted Daryl’s office, he wasn’t the one who answered. Lester’s frown turned to a fierce grimace. “Seems he’d retired at some point since we’d last talked, and now it was his son Brad handling the business.”
Cookie took a wild stab. “Brad is Carrottop,” she ventured.
Lester nodded. “You got that right. I thought I could trust him—he was his father’s son, after all.” Their host shook his head. “Boy, was I wrong. Oh, he seemed on the up and up at first, told me he’d get me the money to cover Fleet’s bills right away. But when I told him I wanted all of it, he laughed, said that was crazy. He told me I’d get killed on taxes and should put the remaining money in an overseas bank where I didn’t have to report it or pay taxes on it. And I listened to him, thinking I could let Fleet decide what he wanted to do with it once I finally came clean.” His gnarled but still-strong hands tightened on the security token. “He helped me set up an account at some Swiss bank and told me it was untraceable.”
Dylan leaned forward. “So what happened?” he asked, his own voice rough. Cookie knew he was feeling his still-fresh grief over Fleet’s death and now the knowledge that this other man who had helped raise and shape him was the one responsible for it.
“He tried to rob me, that’s what,” Lester replied. “He added his own name to the account so that he could siphon off money whenever he wanted.” The old man snorted. “But I caught on to that. Had the bank take him off the account. It wasn’t hard since it was all in my name and he was just listed as a secondary. Then, just to be safe, I asked them about extra security. And they sent me this.” He waved the token at his audience of three.
Cookie figured she could fill in the rest. “Brad tried accessing the account and discovered he was locked out,” she guessed. “Which is why he came out here.”
Lester’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “That’s exactly right,” he confirmed. “Brad came out here, tried to bully me into giving him the token, told me I didn’t need all that money anyway, claimed it was his fee for helping me, and said anything else he could think of. But I wasn’t buying it. He didn’t stop, though.”
“He tried to get to you through Fleet,” Cookie added, and was surprised when Lester stared at her.
“He did what?” The old man looked genuinely shocked, and Cookie felt bad that she had to explain about that part, but he deserved to know the whole truth, too.
“Stone said Fleet came by Ship It a week or so ago,” she answered. “A guy with crazy orange hair was with him and waited outside in the blistering cold.”
“Damn.” Lester’s hand curled into a fist around the token, and he pounded the table hard enough to make it jump. “Damn! He must’ve hoped Fleet would convince me to give up the money. But instead he just made him wonder where all that money had come from in the first place—and realize there was only one possible answer. That’s why he came over here, itching for a fight and demanding it was time to dig up the treasure.”
Cookie felt bad for the old man, but at the same time she could see a glimmer of relief in his eyes. He had accidentally killed his best friend, yes, but now he knew that he wasn’t the only one to blame, not completely. Without Carrottop’s—Brad’s—prodding, Fleet might never have decided to unearth the chest. The fight never would’ve happened, and Fleet would still be here today.
“So you hid the token inside your buoy,” Hunter said, bringing them all back to the present situation. “And when Rain expressed interest in it, you gave it to her?”
His question worked, and Lester glanced up at Cookie with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye. “I figured if he wanted it so bad, I’d move it off-premises,” the old man said, chuckling. “And your lovely mother was the perfect way to do that without anyone noticing.”
“But he did notice, right?” Dylan asked. “He figured it out somehow. That’s why he went to the inn looking for it.”
Lester’s expression turned haunted with fresh guilt atop the old. “I am so sorry,” he assured Cookie. “I never meant for that to happen. I thought it’d be safe, and that after not finding it anywhere, he’d just give up and leave.” His jaw tightened. “Instead he just got desperate—and dangerous.”
“What did he do?” Cookie asked. She couldn’t find it in herself to blame this tortured old man for what had happened. No, she was reserving all her rage for Brad and his goons.
“He came back here right after Fleet died,” Lester said. “Threatened me if I didn’t hand it over. I told him ‘do your worst, I’m an old man anyway and my best friend is dead, what do I care?’” His mouth twisted and his eyes sparkled with tears again. “But there was somebody I still cared about, and he figured that out, too.”
Cookie already knew the answer to that one. “Winifred B. Lassiter,” she supplied.
Lester nodded. “They came back, him and his bully boys. Told me I still had something to lose and showed me a picture of Winnie leaving the library. Said they’d hurt her if I didn’t give them the token.” He slumped in on himself, and when he spoke again, his voice was a mere shadow of its usual strength. “I told them where it was. I’m sorry.”
Leaning forward, Cookie patted his hand. “Don’t be,” she told him fiercely. “You did the right thing. You were protecting someone you loved.” She frowned. “If we hadn’t been sitting there when they showed up, they’d have taken the buoy and that’d be that. The money’d be gone, but Winifred would be fine, and so would Scarlett.”
Their host glanced up at her. “Who’s Scarlett?” he asked, his tone full of dread.
“My best friend,” Cookie answered. “She saw them, tried to stop them, and”—this time she was the one who had to pause and gulp for breath before she could continue—“they grabbed her instead.”
“Thank you,” she replied, standing as well and giving him a quick hug. “I appreciate that. But I think you should let us take it from here.” She glanced back at Hunter, who nodded, as did Dylan. “This is really a police and FBI matter now.”
“Whatever you want.” Lester held out the token, and she took it. “Anything you need from me, you’ve got it.”
Cookie hugged him again. “Right now, I think the best thing is for you to just lay low for a bit. Don’t disappear or go looking for any trouble. That might make them suspicious. Just go about your normal business. Okay?”
He nodded, and behind her Dylan and Hunter both rose to their feet. Hunter offered his hand and a gruff nod, but Dylan pulled the old man into a fierce hug that Lester returned. “We’ll find her,” Dylan assured him when they finally parted. “Brad won’t get away with this. Any of it.”
“Glad to hear it,” Lester said with a sad smile as he showed them out. “But it won’t bring Fleet back. I’ll have to live with that.”
“We will need to report that,” Hunter warned, his tone soft. “I’m sorry. But we’ll do whatever we can for you.”
