The Haunted Lighthouse

by Penny Warner

  Just a sec,” Cody said, as they began to head for the lighthouse. She ducked into the gift shop and helped herself to a free brochure. Returning a few moments later, she showed the brochure to the others.

  Quinn said, “We already have a map.”

  “I know,” she said, unfolding it, “but I want to see if there’s anything more about the lighthouse. Maybe there’s a secret entrance or something.” Cody read it over.

  “What’s it say?” M.E. asked.

  Cody skimmed it for information to share. “Ummm … built in 1854 … automated in 1963—the year the prison was closed. It’s still a working lighthouse … first one on the West Coast … built of reinforced concrete … octagon-shaped … eighty-four feet high …”

  “Skip the boring stuff,” Luke interrupted. “Is there anything we really need to know?”

  Cody frowned at him. “Only that the grounds aren’t open to the public, so we can’t go in it.”

  Quinn shot her a look of concern.

  “But we’ll see when we get there,” Cody said. “There should be a sign.”

  They climbed the steep hill leading to the lighthouse, which looked like a giant chess piece. Cody continued to read the rest of the brochure to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

  “Did you know the lighthouse also had a fog bell that helped keep ships from running into the island?” she asked. “And sailors used signals and codes to call for help in times of trouble. For example, they communicated over the airwaves using the phonetic alphabet. Each letter matched a word, so sailors could clearly understand the call. See if you can translate this example”:

  Sierra – Hotel – India – Papa

  India – November

  Delta – India – Sierra – Tango – Romeo – Echo – Sierra – Sierra

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  Cody was about to give the answer when Luke suddenly jerked her arm, startling her.

  “Hey!” she said, still annoyed at him for interrupting her earlier.

  Luke pointed to the white pile she was about to step in. “Watch where you step. There’s bird poop everywhere.”

  Cody glanced around. Luke was right—it was all over the place. She’d been so involved in reading the brochure she hadn’t been watching where she was walking. Yuck. Her shoes would have been ruined if she’d stepped in that stuff.

  As they neared the lighthouse, Cody glanced at the view from atop the hill. Since the fog had lifted, she could see all the way to Berkeley. Wow, she thought, it’s beautiful from up here.

  “There’s the door,” Quinn said. “And it’s open,” he said, wide-eyed.

  Cody nodded toward a sign Quinn had apparently missed. “But it’s off-limits. See the sign? NO ADMITTANCE. AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

  “But the door’s open,” he protested.

  “Hey, what are you kids doing?” a man’s voice sounded from behind them.

  Cody and the others spun around. She recognized Geoff, the old guard who had been assisting Ranger Huynh on the tour. He stood behind them, hands on his hips, frowning. Unlike the ranger, who’d worn the park uniform, Geoff wore a traditional prison guard’s uniform—gray, with a red tie and round cap.

  “Nothing,” Quinn said, pulling back from the lighthouse door.

  “Can’t go inside,” Geoff the guard said. “Staff only. Too dangerous, especially for kids.”

  “We were just … checking it out,” Luke offered. “The ranger said we could go exploring.”

  “Yeah, but not inside the lighthouse. Didn’t you see the sign?”

  None of the kids said anything.

  The hard frown on the man’s face softened. “You’re that kid who solved the tap code, aren’t you?” he asked Quinn.

  Quinn nodded proudly.

  “I heard you kids talking. You’re on some kind of treasure hunt or something, aren’t you?”

  “Not really a treasure hunt,” Quinn said. “We’re …” He glanced at the others. “We’re just curious about the lighthouse.” He indicated Cody. “She collects lighthouse pictures.”

  “Remembered the story of Diamond Dave?”

  The Code Busters grinned and nodded.

  This guy knows what we’re up to, Cody thought.

  “Yeah, that story always fascinated me, too. So you really want to see inside, huh?” the guard asked, readjusting his cap.

  Quinn’s eyebrows rose. “Sure!”

  “All right. If you just want a quick look. You gotta be careful, though. No fooling around. And just go up and come straight down. Got me?”

  “Awesome! We’ll be careful,” Luke said, obviously excited.

  Cody wasn’t so sure. There was probably a reason the public wasn’t allowed in the lighthouse. It really could be dangerous. What if there was another earthquake? The whole place could come crumbling down.

  Quinn seemed to notice Cody’s reluctance and nudged her. “You okay?” he whispered. “This is going to be cool.”

  Cody nodded, not wanting to appear scared. M.E. was usually the reluctant one, but this time she felt anxious.

  “Go on in,” the guard said. “But like I told you, be careful. And hurry. You got five minutes. And if you find the diamonds, we split fifty-fifty.” He grinned at them.

  Quinn led the way in through the door, while Cody brought up the rear. As soon as she entered the small, octagonal room, she was glad she’d come. Right in the middle was a black iron spiral staircase that twisted its way up to the top. Graffiti was scratched and penned on the inside walls of the room, and Cody read several slogans from a group called the American Indian Movement, which had taken over the island years before: CUSTER HAD IT COMING and TAKE BACK AMERICA.

  “Wow,” M.E. said, glancing around. Cody held tightly to the curved railing of the creaky metal staircase as they began their ascent.

  “Look for some kind of message,” Quinn said. Cody had nearly forgotten why they were here—to find a message. Well, if there was a message waiting for them inside this lighthouse, then someone who had a key must have put it there. Matt the Brat wouldn’t have had access. And if it wasn’t Matt, who could it be?

  Or was this just a wild-goose chase?

  As soon as they reached the top of the staircase, Cody felt the wind whip through slats in the tower, burning her eyes, but she was so dazzled by the thick glass windows that surrounded them, she hardly noticed. A huge beacon of bright light in the center of the tiny room turned a sweeping 360 degrees, sending its powerful light to all parts of the bay.

  “Whoa,” she whispered to herself. This was the first time she’d seen the inside of a real lighthouse. It truly was awesome. And the view was even more breathtaking.

  “Look for a message!” Quinn said again as they moved around inside the tower.

  The kids began searching for some clue related to the mysterious note they’d found in the prison dining hall. They checked the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the light itself. But five minutes later, they’d come up empty-handed.

  “There’s nothing here,” Luke said, taking a last look around. “And it’s freezing.”

  “Time’s up,” the guard called from below, his voice echoing up through the cement tower.

  “Let’s go.” Luke started down the twisting staircase.

  Cody was about to follow him down when she spotted something in one of the small alcoves.

  “Wait.” She headed over, then picked up a glass jar. “Look at this.” She held it up. An old cork lay at the bottom of the jar.

  Quinn took the jar from her and turned it over. The cork fell into his hand. “This looks like a homemade compass. We made these in Scouts. See the rust line at the bottom of the glass, where all the water evaporated? And the cork even has a needle in it. That’s how we made them—by floating a cork with a needle in water. The needle always points north.”

  “So you think this was a compass?” M.E. asked.

  “I don’t know,” Quinn said. “Let�
��s try it.” He got out a bottle of water from his backpack and poured it into the small glass jar, then held it up and peered at it. The cork floated around in circles. “I don’t think it’s working. It needs to be magnetized.”

  “Hey, you kids. Come on down,” the guard called again.

  “We’re coming!” Quinn yelled back. “Cody, where exactly did you find this?”

  Cody showed him the alcove where she’d discovered the glass jar and cork. On the wall next to it was graffiti, most of it written with a black marker. But at the bottom, someone had actually carved something into the cement wall.

  “Check this out,” Quinn said, pointing to the markings. “It looks like some kind of code.”

  Cody peered at it and recognized the dots and dashes.

  “It’s Morse code!” Cody said.

  “Translate it, and I’ll write it down,” M.E. said, pulling out her notepad from her backpack.

  Cody read it aloud.

  Code Buster’s Key and Solution found on this page, this page.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Luke said.

  “Hey, kids! Do I have to come up there and get you?” the guard called again, sounding agitated.

  “We’re coming! We’re coming!” Quinn called. He turned to the others. “Since there was a homemade compass there, maybe it refers to degrees.”

  Quinn thought for a moment, then said, “Anyone bring a cell phone?”

  Luke, M.E., and Cody all pulled out their phones.

  “How come you all got to bring your phones and I didn’t?” Quinn grumbled.

  “I only get to take it on special occasions, like this,” Cody said.

  “Me, too,” M.E. said. Luke nodded.

  “Not fair. Let me see your iPhone, Cody.” She handed it over. Quinn switched it on and tapped the compass app. He held it up. It pointed north. “Here’s 110 degrees,” he said, then looked up and out the window of the lighthouse tower. “It’s pointing to the Campanile on the Berkeley campus. I can see it from here! Maybe we’re supposed to go to the Campanile to find our next clue.”

  “When?” M.E. asked.

  “Tomorrow is Saturday,” Quinn said. “We can meet there in the morning.”

  “All right, I’m coming up there!” the guard shouted.

  He didn’t sound happy. It was time to get out of the lighthouse.

  Cody was more than ready to leave the top of the icy-cold tower. With the wind whipping through the open slats, she was chilled to the bone and her teeth were chattering. She carefully followed Luke down, holding on to the twisting railing, tailed by M.E. and Quinn.

  “You kids are going to get me fired,” Geoff the guard said as they touched down on the cement floor. Cody and her friends stepped through the door and out of the lighthouse, followed by the guard, who shut the door behind him.

  “So did you kids find anything up there?” he asked, twisting the key. “Any diamonds?”

  “Nope,” Quinn said, shooting Cody a look. “Just a lot of graffiti.”

  It was Code Buster policy to keep stuff like that to themselves.

  “There’s a lot of that from when the American Indian Movement was here,” Geoff said. “But no sign of a message to Diamond Dave, eh?”

  The kids forced a laugh. Cody felt herself blush. “Not that we saw,” Cody said.

  “Okay, well, you kids run along now,” Geoff said. “And by the way, it wouldn’t be a good idea to mention this. Could get us all in trouble.”

  The kids nodded and started down the hill. But Cody turned back and caught a last glimpse of the guard standing by the lighthouse, watching them. When he spotted her looking at him, he ducked inside the door and closed it behind him. Cody thought she saw a note flapping on the outside of the door and quickly ran back to check, wondering if they had missed a clue.

  When she reached the door, she saw the message written on the note. It was written in ABC code. The letters of the message were broken into groups, and each set of letters began with a sequential alphabet letter.

  “Ado bes cth dis ecl fue gri hng iab jel kl?”

  Code Buster’s Solution found on this page.

  The door jerked open.

  Geoff stepped out. “I thought you kids were gone.”

  “I … I just saw this note on the door—” Cody started to say.

  Geoff snatched the note off the back of the door. “Oh, that’s nothing. Bunch of jibberish left by some kid. Go on, now.”

  Cody nodded and followed the others down the hill to the gift shop, puzzled over the message she’d found. It had to be a message meant for the Code Busters, but the guard had snatched it out of her hands before she could read the rest.

  She entered the store, hoping to find some souvenirs for her family. She especially wanted to buy one of the commemorative diamonds.

  M.E. came up behind Cody as she looked at some key chains that featured pictures of the Rock.

  “So do you think those coordinates actually point to the Campanile tower?” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” Quinn said, pulling up next to Cody. He wore a striped prison cap. Apparently, he’d overheard M.E. in spite of her whispering. “That plus the ABC code message have to be the clues. The Morse code was the only set of marks that wasn’t made by a permanent marker. I doubt the prisoners had markers back in those days. If anyone wanted to leave a permanent message, he’d have to carve it. Besides, those numbers and marks didn’t fit with the other graffiti.”

  “But why would someone randomly carve out Morse code and the coordinates for the UC tower?” Luke asked, standing behind them holding an ESCAPED FROM ALCATRAZ PSYCH WARD T-shirt.

  “That’s just it,” Quinn answered. “It wasn’t random. I think it was one of Diamond Dave’s gang members. He probably came to visit Dave in prison, but he couldn’t just tell him where the diamonds were hidden in case someone overheard him. So he talked about the lighthouse or brought him a picture of it—and that was a clue. Remember how Dave kept drawing lighthouses? He seemed obsessed with them. He probably knew there was a message waiting for him there when he finally got out of prison.”

  “We’ll just have to go to the Campanile bell tower to find out,” M.E. said, shrugging. “Maybe the diamonds are hidden there.”

  “Yeah,” Quinn agreed. “We have to check. You never know. And they might still be there after all these years.”

  The kids spent the rest of their free time deciding what to buy. Quinn bought himself a tin cup that was painted with black and white stripes and had the word ALCATRAZ stenciled on the side. Luke got the T-shirt he was holding, and another one in a larger size for his grand-mère. Naturally M.E. picked out some striped Alcatraz knee-high socks to wear to school, claiming, “They go with everything!” Cody finally found a duplicate prison-cell key for her dad, an Alcatraz guard badge for her mother, an Alcatraz bookmark for her sister, Tana, and a fake diamond about the size of a walnut for herself.

  On the way out of the shop, Cody spotted her dad. He stood on the dock a few feet away, talking to the same woman she had seen him with earlier. She went up to him with her bag of gifts and pulled out his key, ignoring the woman.

  “I got you this,” Cody said to her dad, handing him the key. It was the size of a cell phone and weighed about the same. “You can use it as a paperweight to keep on your desk and remind you to get all those innocent people out of jail.”

  Cody’s dad glanced at the woman next to him as he took the key. “Thank you, Dakota, but you interrupted Ms. Webster and me. We were talking.”

  Cody blushed. She’d meant to interrupt him but didn’t think he’d notice. Now she felt embarrassed.

  “Cody, do you know Ms. Webster?” her dad asked.

  The blonde woman reached out her hand. “Hi, Dakota. I’m Matthew’s mom. We met some time ago. I don’t know if you remember.”

  Cody’s blood went cold. Matt the Brat’s mom! Cody knew she’d recognized her when the chaperones had entered the classroom earlier, but she hadn’t pa
id attention to the introductions once she’d spotted her dad. Besides, the one time she’d seen Matt’s mom, the woman had had short brown hair and looked a lot heavier. This couldn’t be the same woman—with blonde, shoulder-length hair and a slim figure. She didn’t even have the same last name as Matt.

  “You’re Matt the— Matt’s mom?” Cody asked, catching herself before the word Brat came flying out. “But his last name is Jeffreys …”

  The woman nodded. “I changed my last name back to my maiden name when Matt’s father and I divorced a few months ago.”

  Great. Her dad had been flirting with none other than Matt the Brat’s mother, and the woman was now blonde, thin, and available. Cody had to break up this little friendship quickly, before she became Matt the Brat’s stepsister!

  “Dad, could I talk to you? Privately?” Cody stared at her dad, trying to will him to agree.

  “Sure, Punkin.” Mr. Jones glanced at Matt’s mom and said, “Will you excuse us?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Hey, sweetheart. Are you having a good time?”

  “Yeah, Dad, this place is totally cool. I just got some souvenirs for you and Mom and Tana.”

  “Great … uh …” her father stammered, then said, “Did anything unusual happen while you were here?”

  Cody thought about the lighthouse side trip and the message found there, but said nothing. That was one of the rules of the Code Busters Club—coded messages were kept secret.

  “Nope,” she said, not looking her dad in the eye.

  “Not even when you kids wandered off during the cafeteria talk?”

  “Oh, that. Sorry. We were just curious about the benches and wanted to check them out.”

  Her dad patted her back.

  “Well, be careful. And let me know if you need any help with anything.”

  Why would I need help with anything? Cody wondered. “Thanks, Dad,” she said.

  She headed back to her friends, wondering if she should have told her dad about the message in the lighthouse. No, she decided. Nothing had happened. They hadn’t been in any danger. And she wanted to follow this Diamond Dave mystery as far as it went.