Traffic had become heavy the closer to Davenport we got, so by the time we were ready to make our exit off the highway, there were quite a few cars between us and our silver pursuer. When I could see them I noticed that they had closed the gap—probably in an effort not to lose us—but there was still a chance they wouldn't see us take the exit.
I didn't use my turn signal, giving them as little advance warning as possible, and shot down the exit ramp. Sabrina kept an eye out for them. I was turning at the bottom of the ramp when I heard honking.
"They saw us too late and missed the exit," she said in an excited voice "They tried to slow down, but that didn't go over well with the other drivers, as I'm sure you could hear. By the time they get off the next exit, we'll be at the Hertz office. We shook them!"
I wished that I could share Sabrina's enthusiasm, but it was beginning to hit me just how dogged these people were in their quest for the treasure. Did they know something about it that we didn't—like, what it was? Had Mario's great-grandfather passed down some information as to the nature of the treasure, and all they needed were the clues in Izzy's possession?
I was beginning to think that we were in way over our heads.
Chapter 12
I said as much to Sabrina once we were outfitted in our new vehicle and again on our way.
"You think they know more than we do?" she asked.
"No, I think they know different information than we do. It's like having a puzzle in two pieces. Each piece is worthless without the other. But put them together and you have the solution. I think we have the means to find the treasure, and I think they know what the treasure is."
"And your reasoning?"
"We're looking for it mostly out of curiosity. We want to know why it got Izzy killed. We want to know how our families are connected. We're just looking for answers. If things get too hot, we can turn it over to the police and walk away. No harm, no foul. Izzy is the reason I think they know what it is."
"Izzy?"
"You don't kill someone because you are trying to satisfy your curiosity. You kill someone because they have information you need and either won't give to you or you extracted it from them and don't need them anymore. Mario—assuming it's Mario—knows what the treasure is, but until Izzy came along, it was just the stuff of legend. All traces of the map—or painting—had disappeared. Now he's presented with a way to get it. You think he's not going to take advantage of that?"
"But obviously she didn't give him the information he was looking for, so wouldn't he be better off keeping her alive?"
"He probably got everything he could from her—including my name. Remember, he had already met with her in Chicago. At this point she became an adversary. She had to go. So now he's still looking for the missing piece."
Sabrina was quiet for a minute. "If that's so," she finally said, "we're all in the same boat. In fact, we're actually in a bigger boat. In better shape than them. Wouldn't you rather know how to get the treasure and then find out what it is, than to know what the treasure is, but have no way of finding it?"
"Only two things wrong with that," I said. "First, we don't yet have the means to find it, which reduces the size of said boat, and second, they are willing to kill for it. That puts us in the middle of the ocean with floaties on."
Sabrina chuckled. "I'm sorry I ever brought up the analogy." Then she turned serious, but with a wild look in her eyes. "But Del, doesn't all this spark a sense of excitement in you? Doesn't the danger kind of drive you?"
There was definitely something to what she was saying. Besides, I didn't want to appear the wimp.
"It does." But hey, if I'm a wimp, I'm a wimp. Call it as you see it. "The curiosity factor is what gives me the adrenalin rush. I'm hoping that the danger factor will keep me thinking clearly."
While there was no direct road to Fairfield, there were three logical choices from Davenport. We took the fourth. The first three all had us entering Fairfield from the East. The route I decided on took us West on Interstate 80, way past Fairfield, then coming down through Oskaloosa and Ottumwa, entering Fairfield from the West. It wouldn't make any sense for us to do that, so if they were watching for us, the odds were that they would be waiting near the East entrance of town. All part of my caution campaign. Sabrina didn't sound an objection.
The long way got us into Fairfield mid-evening. We stopped at a nondescript chain hotel and parked around back. They had a sign out front: Riblets $8.95. Toast Buffet, 6am-10am. What the heck was a riblet? A little rib? A toast buffet? You had to be kidding me. We decided we'd be better off having a pizza delivered. We asked the front desk clerk who had the best pizza. When the answer came back Pizza Hut, I found myself seriously missing Boston. What would Seymour say about our predicament? Yeah, sometimes he ate crappy pizza, but at least he knew the difference.
Riblets and Pizza Hut. Was this Iowa cuisine? We ordered Chinese instead, knowing full well that whatever we ended up with would be a disappointment. It was.
We were both exhausted, so we laid in bed—our separate beds, of course—talking baseball. That's right, baseball. Over the years and all the dates I went on, I didn't once find a woman who liked baseball. That's actually odd for Boston. Everyone likes sports in Boston. Everyone, that is, except the women I dated. How exciting it was for me to find someone to intelligently talk baseball with. There were only two problems: 1) She was a Yankees fan, and 2) We weren't dating. The first I could live with, I suppose. She had probably been brainwashed at an early age to support the Evil Empire. So sad. The second … well, the second was beginning to have possibilities. The sexual tension we felt in Chicago was still there, and had even increased a notch. Was baseball an aphrodisiac? Or maybe it was the unspoken danger that we might be heading into. Whatever, I felt like saying, "Oh, let's just get it over with," but that seemed a bit crass. Then again, maybe she was just waiting for me to make the first move. God, I felt like a teenager.
In case she was, I thought I'd lead into it gently. When the baseball talk had wound down, I said, "Sabrina, I really like you. You are a breath of fresh air in my life."
And that was all it took. A minute later she was in my bed and we were naked. Go figure.
*****
We woke up the next morning wrapped in each other's arms. Despite the fact that she was the one who entered my bed, she was oddly hesitant about sex, as if she hadn't had a lot of experience. I found that strange. At thirty-four, and as gorgeous as she was, I would have expected her to be an expert. She certainly had the desire though; she latched onto me and wouldn't let go, as if the mere touch was all she needed. There was a story here. Hopefully I'd hear it someday.
The nice thing was, there was no morning-after awkwardness. After we woke up, we held each other for close to a half an hour, made love—still with some of the strangeness I felt earlier—then showered together. Not a lot was said, but it all felt good.
When we were back among the living, we talked about our plans for the day. But there was a different feel as we talked, the silent acknowledgement that we were now a couple. Our night together wasn't a one-night stand, and it wasn't simply two people thrown together using each other for support. It was deeper, and we both knew it.
As tempting as it was, we decided to pass up the toast buffet and eat something later. Sadly, they had never heard of Dunkin Donuts in Fairfield, Iowa.
Our one and only goal was to find out what happened to the art gallery, and more importantly, the paintings. If we were able to figure out why Bruce had come to Fairfield to deposit the painting, that would be a bonus.
There was a light rain falling. We'd have to get rain gear. That was good. A hood would cover Sabrina's hair, her most noticeable feature. I'm not sure it mattered that much for me, I had a pretty forgettable face. But I decided the hood wouldn't hurt. Between the new car and the raincoats, if there was anyone in town looking for us, we were pretty invisible.
Before venturing out, we boned up on the history of Fairf
ield, or rather, Sabrina did. I decided it was time to find out a little about my ancestors. While Sabrina was gathering information on the town, I joined Ancestry.com and looked at my family history. I found what I was searching for almost immediately.
I put my name in and my birth information popped up. It showed my birthdate 38 years earlier, and my birthplace as Northampton, Mass. Then it listed my parents. I had no interest in my mother's side of the family, so I confined my clicks to my father's side. My father was Robert Bruce. His father was Robert Bruce. His father's father's name was a little more daring—Bruce Robert. You've gotta be kidding me. And I end up with Delmore?
My father's birthplace was listed as New York, NY. His death hadn't yet been entered. Whose responsibility was that anyway? His father's birthplace was also New York, with a death date of 1944. The death location was left blank. Yeah, that would be a hard one. And here was the kicker. Great-grandfather Bruce was born in Fairfield, Iowa!
It listed his death as 1935, in New York, so that was consistent with everything I had read. I also found the answer to one of those silly questions: Why was he Bruce Robert and not Robert Bruce? Turns out he had an older brother named Robert Bruce who died when he was a teenager. God, could my family get any more boring with the names? Delmore must have come from my mother's side, and knowing her, I bet she insisted that I not be another Robert Bruce.
An interesting little tidbit was that my great-grandfather's father—yes, yet another Robert Bruce—was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1860. It would make sense for him to end up in New York and stay there with all the other immigrants. But he didn't. So how did he get to Fairfield in order for Bruce to be born here? Something for another day, I suppose.
I told Sabrina about the Fairfield link.
"He must have known the gallery owner," she replied. "And if so, how much did he tell him … or her? For all we know, the gallery owner found the treasure years ago and this is all just a wasted effort."
"Not completely wasted," I said.
She gave me a broad smile and leaned over and kissed me. "No, not completely. Besides," she added, "We have to assume Bruce had some brains. He wouldn't have given anyone the means to beat him to the treasure."
"Let's remember," I said, "He was still a Honeycutt. Stranger things have happened."
"Anyway, I found out some things about Fairfield. Did you know it is the home of Maharishi University? The TM people? A lot of the culture of the town revolves around it. It used to be a college called Parsons. Started in the late 1800s. Evidently kind of a hotshot college back in the sixties. In the mid-sixties, it had the third highest paid faculty in the country."
"What happened to it?"
"Went bankrupt and closed."
"So much for their salary plan."
"The town has a couple dozen art galleries. I suppose we could go into some of them and ask if they've ever heard of the Simpson Gallery. Fairfield had the first public library in Iowa—one place I read said it was the first public library west of the Mississippi."
She continued, "Sounds like a cute downtown. There is an actual village square, surrounded on every side with stores, restaurants, and art galleries. It sounds like for most of its history, it was just a farm community"
"Did you get a job with the visitor's bureau?"
"I always do this when I travel. Just like to know where I am."
"And where are you?"
"In the middle of pig country, having the best time of my life."
The gorgeous world-famous author was serious.
"Hard to believe," I said. "I would've guessed that you've had more than your share of good times."
She looked at me. Her eyes had misted over.
"Then you'd be wrong."
Chapter 13
I wasn't sure what to do with that comment, and she didn't seem to want to fill it in any, so I left it and moved on. We had reserved the room for three nights, just to be safe, so we left our luggage, locked up the log and the papers, and headed out to find a store to buy raincoats.
An hour later, we were walking around the town square. There was a chilly drizzle coming down, but we welcomed it for its potential to keep us hidden from view. Of course, I thought, whoever was after us might not have the slightest clue that we were here and might be three states away. But somehow I didn't think so.
After my "good times" comment, Sabrina had been pretty quiet. I asked her if I had said anything wrong and she said no. She took my hand as she said it, so I was pretty sure it wasn't me. I did know, however, that whatever nerve the comment struck was a pretty deep one. By the time we went into our first art gallery, however, she was back to normal.
It was kind of a hole-in-the-wall gallery, and looked as if it had been there a long time. I liked the looks of it specifically for that reason. My guess was that the Simpson Gallery probably hadn't been much bigger.
A middle-aged woman sat behind a crowded counter.
"May I help you?" she asked pleasantly.
"Are you the owner?" I asked.
Her eyes narrowed. "I am, but I should warn you right now that I'm not looking to buy anything and I'm not looking to be saved."
Our raincoats matched. Did that make us look like missionaries or salesmen?
Sabrina took over. Laughing, she said, "No, nothing like that. We have a historical question that we're hoping you can help us with."
The woman softened. "Sorry. You wouldn't believe how often I have to deal with that. What can I help you with?"
"Back in the 30s…" I started.
"Wow, you are talking historical. Okay, go on."
"There was an art gallery in town called the Simpson Gallery. We were wondering if you had ever heard of it."
"Can't say I have. Do you know when it closed?"
"Not really." I decided to give her a part of the picture. "My great-grandfather had loaned the gallery a painting. He died, and when my grandfather went by to claim it, it wasn't there. Now, I don't know if he meant that the painting was no longer there or the gallery, so I couldn't tell you exactly when it closed."
"Was your great-grandfather the artist?"
"No, it was somebody by the name of Lando Ford."
"Hmm, never heard of him."
"You're not the only one. I don't know anything about the artist, or about the painting, for that matter. It's become more of a quest—an ancestral quest, I guess."
"Obviously you don't have an address."
"No. I have the receipt, but oddly enough it only lists the name of the gallery and the town name, which, of course, is Fairfield."
"Probably didn't need the street back then. Fairfield isn't very big now, but it was tiny then. It had to have been somewhere in the downtown section. I can't imagine any business surviving that wasn't downtown."
"Would you have any suggestions for us?" asked Sabrina. "Any gallery owners who might know?"
"I would doubt it. My gallery is one of the oldest. Most are owned by younger people and the vast majority by recent transplants. Even I'm not a Fairfield native. I think going the gallery route will leave you frustrated. You could try the library or the newspaper office. They might have something on it." She could see the disappointment on our faces. "The only other thing I could suggest would be to try all the Simpsons in the phone book. Maybe one of them is a relative of whoever owned the gallery."
We thanked her for the information, feeling a little guilty that we didn't buy anything, and went back to the car. We decided to look in the order she suggested, first trying the library. Between the library and the newspaper, we spent most of the day, and accomplished nothing. We went online, looked on microfiche at newspapers that hadn't yet been digitally transferred, paged through old picture books of Fairfield. Nothing. Finally, we got a clue, as meager as it was.
Someone at the newspaper office suggested we take a ride over to one of the nursing homes in town and talk to some of the most ancient of the residents. Maybe one of them would remember something.
"A lot of them are in the activity room right now," she said. "Maybe asking them all together would be a better plan. Someone might say something that will spark a memory in another."
We went into the room, occupied by about forty residents, and the woman—whose name I forgot the minute after she said it—got their attention. Thus began a comedy of errors.
I stood in front of the group. "We are trying to find out some information about an art gallery that was in Fairfield back in the 1930s. It was called the Simpson Gallery. Has anyone heard of it? We'd appreciate your help."
"I can't hear you."
"Speak up."
"Stop mumbling."
So I repeated it in a much louder and clearer voice.
"You don't have to yell. We're not deaf!"
Finally, I got my message across, ending with, "Has anyone ever heard of it?"
A woman who had to be about 800 years old raised her hand and answered simply, "Yes." That was all we got out of her.
"It was owned by a guy named Simpson," said an elderly man in the front. "Never knew his first name."
Well, that was a big help.
We checked out two more nursing homes and came away with just enough information to know that it actually existed—but nothing more than that.
"I was starting to wonder if this place was real," Sabrina said finally, as we were again walking through town, this time in search of a decent cup of coffee. "Can you imagine it as some sort of great prank by Bruce. Think about it," she was having fun with this, "you come up with a joke to play on your family. It could affect the lives of your ancestors all the way down the line. The ultimate practical joke."
All Lies Page 8
