Deadly Treasure - A Charlie Flanigan Mystery Novel (Book 1) (Charlie Flanigan Mystery Series)

by Matt Day

  “Capitan, what are your orders?” the first mate asked, fear evident in his shaky voice.

  “Turn her hard-a-port and head towards the coast. We’ll get as close as we can before we have to abandon ship. Signal the other ships to do the same.”

  He watched as the first mate picked up the lantern and began signaling the next ship in line. Soon, each ship would be signaling the one behind them as the entire fleet turned towards the coast of Florida.

  Captain Ubilla returned to his cabin, looking at his maps and hoping they could evade total destruction. The howling of the winds continued to increase, as did the up and down motion of the boat.

  As he returned to the deck, he observed many seasoned sailors heaving against the deck of the boat, their stomachs no match for the roiling seas. He looked behind them, alarmed to see the seas were so violent, the other ships could no longer be seen. The fury of the storm was fully upon them.

  The winds had what sails hadn’t ripped at full billow, and try as they might, the crewmen couldn’t bring them down. The ship was completely at the mercy of the storm now.

  He climbed the deck to the bridge, seeing that the first mate had tied himself to the wheel and then tied himself again to the railing behind him. The man was clearly exhausted, yet he struggled to control the boat and the wheel to avoid capsizing the vessel.

  “Capitan I don’t know how much more she can take.”

  Captain Ubilla nodded his head, thinking the same thing. It was the last logical thought he had as with a mighty crack, the mast broke free from the deck, its sail causing it to lift up and be flung into the sea, taking men and cargo with it. The gaping hole in the deck of the boat quickly became a vessel for the waves that crashed over the railing of the ship.

  The ship couldn’t handle the strain of the extra weight, and slowly began to sink. Captain Ubilla ordered the lifeboats to be lowered, and as many crewmen as possible to climb aboard them, but it was all to no avail. The great vessel sank beneath the surface of the frothing ocean, taking both man and cargo with it.

  It settled on the edge of a sandbar, the fury of the storm causing the sand to lift from the bottom of the ocean and deposit itself upon the ships ruins. The precious cargo of gold and silver cobs, and precious gemstones, scattered along the sandbar, quickly becoming covered up and disappearing from sight.

  One by one, the ships of the Spanish Fleet succumbed to the storm’s fury. All except the Grifon, the French merchant vessel that had been merely tagging along. While having taken a beating, the vessel wasn’t carrying the weight of the other ships, and managed to stay afloat.

  As the sun came up over the coast of Florida August 1, 1715, nary a ship was in sight. A few scattered lifeboats could be seen on the shoreline around what would much later become known as Daytona Beach; surviving crewmembers who were grateful to be alive.

  Headed across the Atlantic, a lone vessel limped its way back to Europe. The story its’ crew told upon its arrival a tale of defeat and destruction. The entire Spanish Fleet had been lost.

  Salvage operations were undertaken and some of the precious cargo was recovered by boats sent from Havana. Some of the cargo was recovered by pirates and used to further their illegal activities in the Caribbean and beyond.

  The majority of the treasure lay buried beneath the white sands of the Atlantic Ocean, just waiting for someone to perhaps discover it yet again.

  Chapter 46

  Seabreeze café, evening of September 1, 1955…

  Carmelita’s head came up, “Jimmy went home this afternoon.”

  “He did?” asked several voices at once.

  She nodded, “Yes.”

  “Hey, if everyone can hold their horses for a few minutes, I bet his parents would drive him over here. I happen to know he lives less than three minutes from here.”

  Morgan and the others looked at each other before they all nodded their agreement. Charlie used the kitchen phone to call the Spencer residence.

  Mr. Spencer answered on the second ring, “Hello?”

  “Mr. Spencer, this is Charlie Flanigan.”

  “Yes, Charlie. What can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if you could drive Jimmy over to the Seabreeze café. There have been some new developments in the case and we would like his input and ideas.”

  “Well, I guess I could do that. Yes, I’ll bring him right over.”

  “Thank you. We’ll be waiting.”

  Charlie came back out and Marsha got everyone fresh drinks while they waited. Within three minutes, Mr. Spencer and his wife were ushering a very sick Jimmy into the café.

  “Jimmy, thanks for coming,” Charlie told him. The kid simply nodded.

  “We were hoping that you and Tommy could tell us exactly what happened on Monday.”

  Jimmy looked for Tommy and when he nodded his agreement, Jimmy nodded his head as well. “Okay. I’ll go first. We went out Monday, like normal. Instead of mending the nets, I was staring over the side of the ship, when something below the water caught my attention. We were out over the sandbar that we’d fished earlier, and I thought I could see what looked like an old ship sticking up out of the sand.

  “I called Captain Maclean over, and he got this big smile upon his face. Well, Tommy got geared up and dove down there. When he came back up, he had three pieces of gold and two pieces of silver in his hands. Captain let me hold onto them, telling me since I found the wreck, it was only right I should have the first treasure from it. I gave one of the gold pieces to Tommy and then stuck the rest of them in my pants pocket.”

  “Cobs, Jimmy. They’re called ‘cobs’.”

  “Uh, yeah. Cobs.”

  Tommy interjected here, giving Jimmy a chance to catch his breath.”I did some checking on the marking found on the cob piece Jimmy gave me. The insignia says it was made in Mexico in 1715.”

  “You found one of the missing Spanish fleet ships!” Marsha exclaimed. Folks had been finding pieces of the treasure on the beaches for years, but no one had ever found anything associated with the sunken ship.

  Jimmy took a small sip of water and then continued, “Well, Captain took one look at them and told us to haul in the anchor. He didn’t want us to say nothing once we got back to the shore, but we all went to Mac’s Place and, well, I guess I probably shouldn’t drink. I started talking crazy stuff and soon these four Cuban guys were asking all sorts of questions.

  “When Tommy tried to get me to leave, one of the men got angry and told him to mind his own business. I was pretty drunk, but I remembered the man pulled a knife and all hell broke loose.

  “I crawled under the table and hid beneath it until the bartender ran everyone outside with a baseball bat. Someone called the cops, and I watched them put Tommy and the other guy into police cars and drive away.

  “I got real scared, so I ran. One of those guys followed me home and hid there until the sun started to come up. I hid the cobs in my dresser drawer, and then snuck out the back door. I made my way to the marina and hid on my dad’s boat.

  “I wanted to talk to Tommy, but I didn’t know how to find him. I figured maybe if I went down to the beach during the races, there would be so many people there, I could figure out how to contact somebody.

  “I ran into some classmates from high school, and all they could talk about was the murders. Then the Cuban guys showed up and tried to make me go with them or tell them more about the treasure.

  “They took off after I got stabbed. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want anyone else getting hurt.”

  Charlie nodded at Morgan, “What else do you need before you can level charges against the other two?”

  Morgan looked at Jimmy and Tommy, before addressing his question to the older man, “How would the Batistos have known which boat Jimmy worked on?”

  Tommy gave a rueful smile, “He told them. He told them what marina, and what berth we docked at. They would have had no trouble finding the ‘Big Mama.’ The kids got a big mouth!”r />
  Charlie started putting the pieces together, “They snuck onto the boat Tuesday morning and were waiting for the crew once they got out to where they were planning to fish. They ambushed the men, tried to beat the answers out of them, and then killed them and cast the boat adrift.”

  “But how did they return to the shore?” Detective Tulley asked.

  “They would have had to have another boat follow them out. I bet if you were to check around at the rental shops, you’d find men matching one of their descriptions rented a boat Tuesday morning.” Morgan was pleased with his suggestion, feeling that he had contributed something significant to the investigation.

  “Way ahead of you there. Tommy and I checked out rental shops this afternoon and we found one that matches the time and the physical description of the renter exactly.” Wally was proud of himself for having gotten the jump on the police. Charlie caught his grin and gave him thumbs up.

  Detective Tulley nodded, “Do you have the name? I’ll go follow up on that right now.” Wally handed him a slip of paper with the notes he’d taken on it. He left the small room, anxious to get enough evidence to press charges against the four men. With them all in custody, Daytona Beach was a much safer place to live.

  Tommy and Jimmy exchanged a look, before Tommy offered, “All of this is a moot point now. I looked at Captain Maclean’s maps and he didn’t record the coordinates for where the wreck is located.”

  Charlie thought about that for a moment, and then pulled out the piece of paper he’d found Maclean holding onto. He spread it out over the table and started looked at the numbers again.

  “Do these numbers mean anything to anyone?” Charlie read off the numbers from the piece of paper he held in his hand: 29, 10, 50, 80, 52, 10.

  Morgan and Detective Tulley shook their heads. Tommy and Jimmy had their heads together, before Tommy asked, “Where did you get those numbers?”

  “When I found Pat’s body, he was holding this piece of paper in his hand. I stuck it in my pocket, and then forgot to remove it when I took my pants in to be dry cleaned.”

  Tommy started grinning. Leave it to Captain Maclean to safe guard the location of the ship. “I’m almost certain those are latitude and longitude coordinates so that he could find the exact same piece of the ocean.”

  Charlie looked at those gathered around him and asked, “Anyone got a map handy?”

  Chapter 47

  Saturday, September 6, 1955…

  While Tommy waited for Jimmy and the others to arrive, he thought back to the last time he had gone diving. He really hoped he didn’t have a repeat experience today.

  They had checked the numbers on the piece of paper against a map and indeed they had been coordinates.

  Today was the first day the entire crew had been able to join together to visit the site. Carol, Maclean’s wife, had asked to come along, and she was presently chatting away with both Carmelita and Bernice.

  Two days ago, Tommy, Jimmy, and Carol had staked their claim on the shipwreck site. All three of them had agreed that Charlie, Wally, and even the police department, was entitled to a share of the profits. Without them, none of this would have been possible.

  “Everyone ready?” Charlie asked, starting up the engines and carefully backing the huge ship out and into the deeper waters.

  “Yeah. You’ll tell us when we get there, right?” Jimmy asked, not wanting to miss any of the action, but still feeling weak.

  “Take a rest and I’ll make sure you’re the first person I wake up when it’s time.” Charlie and the others found themselves looking out for the young man, wanting to see him make a full recovery.

  Jimmy nodded his head and Charlie watched as the women doted on him like he was their own child.

  Charlie cut the engines some time later, glancing back to see Jimmy and Tommy both still fast asleep. “Hey, wake up and tell me if we’re in the right location.”

  Jimmy awoke with a start while Tommy slowly opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. Finding no danger, he blithely rose to his feet before helping Jimmy do the same. Jimmy’s wounds had almost completely healed, but he was still weak in both energy level and physical endurance.

  Tommy helped Jimmy to the side rail and watched as he looked down at the sandy bottom of the ocean for evidence of the shipwreck. After several minutes, he finally found what he was looking for. “There it is!”

  Everyone flocked to the rail to catch a glimpse of their future.

  “Wow!” exclaimed Charlie, relieved that they had finally solved the mystery of who murdered Captain Maclean, and the Parker brothers. He was really glad that drugs had not been the driving force behind the murders, at least not directly. But then again, he’d been going about the investigation in the wrong way from the beginning.

  Shaking his head, he marveled at the way everything had come together. The Batistos were all four in jail, and not likely to get out anytime soon. He was still thinking about those things when Jimmy’s exuberant shout brought him back to the present.

  “Shazam!” echoed Jimmy, his youthful reply causing the older men to chuckle before everyone started laughing in glee. The women smiled at him good naturedly and then leaned over the rail to get a glimpse of the ship for themselves.

  Tommy started putting his wet suit on. Morgan had talked to the state historical society, and they had been told that since the wreckage was so many miles from the shoreline, they would have first right to any and all of the artifacts and treasures they might find.

  Charlie looked around at the other passengers on this ship. His schooner would have transported them to the site, but wouldn’t have been much help in the salvage operation. Carol Maclean had decided to donate her late husband’s boat to the endeavor. Tommy and Wally had spent several days making modifications to the deck.

  They had installed a pulley system, designed to help lift heavy objects off the sea floor and bring them to the surface. There was so much work to be done! Looking up, he realized that others were beginning to understand the enormity of the task in front of them.

  They would just have to take it a day at a time. When it got to be too late, they would have to start again tomorrow.

  Tommy readied himself for the first dive of the operation. It had already been decided that other divers would be needed, but not until they had a better grasp of the wreck’s overall size.

  As Tommy headed towards the ocean floor, the others made themselves comfortable around the deck of the ship and Charlie thought back to the day he’d found the “Big Mama” adrift at sea. What a horrible day that had been!

  Looking at the ship now, one would have never known such a tragedy had taken place. The entire ship had been spruced up and cleaned, all remnants of the deceased individuals blood had been completely scrubbed away and painted over.

  Charlie took a seat next to Wally and they both sighed. Another crime had been solved. Granted, it hadn’t been solved by following the path the facts had first taken him, but in the end, they had managed to flesh out the truth and make those responsible face the consequences.

  “You did good,” Wally offered.

  “No, we all did good. This was a team effort for sure.”

  Wally nodded his head, his eyes closed as he soaked up the sun, “Yeah, most things are better with at least two people.”

  “That’s true.” Charlie watched as Carmelita interacted with the other two women. She was extraordinary. Charlie saw her lift her head and smile at him. He smiled back, liking the way she still blushed around him.

  Now that the killers were behind bars, it was time to act on his attraction to the lovely Mrs. San Martin. She seemed to be inclined in the same direction and he looked forward to getting to know her much better in the coming weeks and months.

  Charlie would continue to operate his charter service, and investigate those things that needed his help, but he was also going to be focusing his attentions on Carmelita and her kids. Seeing as his schedule had just been cleared, he now had
time to spend investigating her likes and dislikes and the fastest way to her heart.

  Charlie sighed and closed his eyes as well. He started playing through the facts about Carmelita he knew. Before long, he had a plan of attack worked out. Carmelita San Martin wasn’t going to see him coming, and therefore, wouldn’t have time to run or shore up her defenses. Charlie wanted a relationship with her, and his job was to make that happen. The objective in sight, he smiled at the coming adventure.

  The End

  (Or is it?)

  Once again, thank you for purchasing this Charlie Flanigan Mystery novel, we really hope that you enjoyed it!

  Be sure to sign up for our email updates and receive:

  · Access to a bonus free Charlie Flanigan Mystery story written exclusively for our email subscribers

  · Info on the latest Charlie Flanigan Mysteries from Clean Sweep Publishing

  · Special discounts on new releases

  Visit us online to sign up at http://charlieflanigan1.gr8.com/

  Would you like to help the author, Matt Day?

  If you enjoyed reading this book, the best thing you can do to help Matt is very simple— tell others about it. Also, Matt would really appreciate it, while your thoughts are still fresh, if you could take a minute and leave a brief review on Amazon.

  Want to tell Matt what you liked, or what he got wrong (especially typos)? Matt would love to hear from you! You can email him at matt@CharlieFlanigan.com

  And be sure to look for this upcoming Charlie Flanigan Mystery in the spring of 2015!