What Remains of Teddy Redburn
Page 5
The excitement Cate Ferguson felt at the whole Teddy Redburn mystery had been like that time she’d found a moss cashmere sweater that perfectly matched her favorite tweed skirt. Not that you could use tweed and cashmere much in Arizona, but it was pretty exciting. Now, with the Redburn mystery she had actually thought of an idea on her own that would make her money! Gray Dog Art Gallery wasn’t generating much of a living, so you can’t blame her for being excited about what had fallen into her lap!
The idea was simple. She could draw a map of all the places where people saw Theodore Redburn and then have it printed. Using a city map, she would then put some kind of marks—numbers or symbols—on the places where he was seen and devise her own key to what the symbols meant. She’d draw that key on the side like they did in real maps, and if she took her time, the lettering could look professional. At the various places in Los Hombres, she would place the times he was seen and a short description of what happened, and then people could buy the map and walk around town pretending they were looking for Teddy Redburn’s treasure. It was just starting to be a sensation right then and she could really capitalize on it before anyone else got the same idea. If she didn’t charge too much money, she could make a profit.
What price she wondered would be good for such a map? She googled some other treasure maps and tried to think what would be the best price for Los Hombres and any treasure searchers that showed up there. Then she got to work.
She wrote down everything she knew on a legal pad. The next day she went to the city hall and asked for an old map of the city that wouldn’t have a copyright on it. That way she could sell it without any troubles. She paid for three copies and took them home. One she used to practice how to fold a map. The other one she tapped to start a preliminary treasure map. The third one served as the final copy.
She figured out where she could get the map she’d produced copied for the cheapest price and found a box to display them in. Then she thought up a banner for the store. Something like “Redburn Treasure Map Available Here!” seemed like the right thing. She vowed to order it that night from an internet site and get it delivered in a rush order, if necessary.
She worried about competitors, but if she got a jump on the idea and worked hard so that it was done before anyone else thought of the idea, she’d get most of the money from the townspeople. Then she would get some from visitors until there was someone else making a map, which would probably happen, but she’d have a share of the profits if she sold those maps! It was fantastic.
She got busy on it for several nights and had the whole thing ready by Saturday a week after Teddy disappeared. She located a printer who would charge very little to make multiple copies of it for her and even deliver them to Los Hombres. By Wednesday, ten days after Teddy disappeared, she had the maps folded and ready, the banner up on top of her shop, and the customers flowing in.
She beamed when she revealed her project to her older brother, thinking he and his wife would be impressed with what she had done. Imagine her surprise when they told her that making money off of the disappearance of an old man with Alzheimer’s horrified them. “The look on your face is really just sinister, Cate. Don’t you realize you’re making money off a man who probably died?”
In fact, they went on to insult her and intimated that she would no longer be welcomed to supervise their children for weekends with auntie!
Miss Ferguson’s miffed mood after her brother’s rejection lifted once she sold her very first map to Hector Fimbres who didn’t reveal who he was (the first to talk to Teddy in Los Hombres) to Cate when he bought the map, because he didn’t want to delay the pleasure of viewing the map by even the few minutes it might take him to talk with her.