A Treasure Deep (11 page)

She turned back to Deputy Montulli. “What do
you mean, softer?”

“I don’t mean any offense, Mayor, but for
some reason, you have quite a head of steam up over this.”

“I take my job seriously, Deputy; you’d be
wise to do the same.”

Greg sighed then said, “Yes, ma’am.”

DAWES HAD CLICKED the “send” button only fifteen
minutes before the phone rang. He’d spent the last hour sorting
through the digital images taken from the mountain flyover. The
pilot and his brother had worked fast—more to get rid of him, he
was sure, than to show hustle for a client. He’d waited for the
film from the digital camera to be transferred to a CD, but it had
happened faster than he had any right to expect. It was a costly
business, renting a pilot for an aerial survey and insisting that
they put him ahead of others on their schedule. The pictures
weren’t cheap, either. The expense bill that he’d send would choke
most bank accounts, especially after he added his fee and sizable
markup.

It had been an uncomfortable assignment so
far. He hated flying, especially in small planes. It didn’t seem
right, all that metal and fuel winging through the air. Dawes knew
that it would have taken only one little thing to go wrong before
he would have been nothing more than a name on the lips of some
newscaster.

The phone released another sharp trill,
echoing off the walls of his Bakersfield office. He was tempted to
ignore it, to let the answering machine take a message. His stomach
was still queasy from the flight, and the drive back to the office
from the airfield hadn’t helped. A semi had overturned, closing all
but one lane of the 99. He was stuck in traffic for an hour longer
than it normally took to make the drive to his downtown office.

A glance at the caller ID screen on his phone
made him change his mind. He snapped up the receiver and tried to
sound professional. “Dawes Investigations.”

“I was beginning to think you weren’t there,”
a familiar voice said.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Olek,” Dawes replied quickly.
“For some reason the secretary didn’t pick up.” There was no
secretary. Dawes was what he had always been, a lone player. He
liked it that way, and he couldn’t afford the cost of it being
otherwise.

“The pictures came in a few moments ago. They
look pretty good.”

“Thank you,” Dawes said, relieved that Olek
was happy. “It’s a good thing I have a high-speed connection. It
would have taken all afternoon to send those on dial-up. Sorry I
couldn’t encrypt them, but I did encrypt the text.”

Dawes felt unsettled. There was something
about Olek that made him uneasy. Being a private detective required
the ability to size up a person quickly. Olek had always been civil
and professional, but there was something in his voice, in his
choice of words, that unsettled Dawes.

“Did you see anything that is not revealed in
the photos?” Olek asked.

“Not really. I used binoculars while I was up
there. Made me sick as a dog too. The pictures pretty much caught
everything. Well, there was one area that was hard to see. There’s
a grove of oak trees to the west side of the site. It looks like
they may have something hidden under the trees, but I think it’s
just where their supervisors meet. You know, in the shade of the
trees.”

“I see no other such place on these photos,
but I need to be sure.”

“Sounds like more work coming my way,” Dawes
said.

“I want you to drive up there and see what
you can see.”

“When?” Dawes asked. “There’s only a couple
more hours of daylight, and it’s going to take me at least an hour
to get there.”

“Then I won’t keep you. Just see what you can
and send me an e-mail report as soon as you get back.”

“We’re starting to get into overtime here,
Mr. Olek.”

“I understand that. You’ll be compensated
well. Be careful and discreet. I don’t want anyone to know of our
interest. That would be . . . unacceptable. Do you understand?”

The last words came over the phone dark and
thick with unstated threat. “I’m a professional, Mr. Olek. Discreet
is the only way I operate.”

“That’s good to know,” Olek said, then
abruptly hung up.

Dawes sat in his office chair with the
receiver in his hand. More work was good news. His client base was
thin at best and often nonexistent. That’s why he answered his own
phone in his one-room office. He had no desire to drive back to the
area he had just flown over two hours before, but he did want to
pay the rent. Setting the phone down, Dawes rose from his chair and
started for the door.

PERRY’S NAP HAD been short but sweet. He felt mildly
refreshed, although he would have liked to have had another hour
supine on the bed. But his mind wouldn’t let him. He was eager to
get back to the site to see how things were progressing. Perry knew
everything would be going well under Jack’s capable leadership, but
being on-site was preferable. He took a quick shower and dressed in
work clothes. He had one other task to do before leaving the motel
room.

He seated himself behind the laptop computer
and turned it on. As he waited for it to boot up, he looked at the
rest of the setup. A small digital camera was clipped to the top of
the computer’s monitor next to the built-in microphone. A cable ran
from the computer to a port in the wall. “Perfect,” he said to
himself. He checked his watch. The time was right.

The computer came to life quickly, and Perry
typed in his password, brought up the program he wanted, and
waited. A moment later a chat screen appeared. It was divided into
two “windows.” On one side was a white box in which text would
appear, and on the other, a box in which an image would come to
life. He wouldn’t need the text box. The Internet would carry his
words and image over the miles. With a few clicks of the mouse
buttons, he selected the person he wanted to talk to.

An image appeared, a woman with gray hair and
determined eyes. It was the woman he met in the hospital months
before, and next to her was Perry’s newest buddy.

“Good evening, Claire,” Perry said with a
wide smile.

“Hello, Perry,” Claire replied. “Did you
enjoy your trip?”

“I’m glad to be back. Is that the
world-famous Joseph Henri behind you?”

Joseph exploded into animated actions. “Perry
. . . uhh . . . uhh . . . uhh . . . Perry.” He waved and ran in a
tight circle.

“Easy, buddy, you’re going to make yourself
dizzy.”

“Perry . . . uhh.”

Perry laughed. He’d set up the computer
system in the Henri home for the primary purpose of communicating
with Joseph. He also had another reason: He wanted to see what
Joseph would do with it.

That night in the hospital when he stood next
to the bedside of Dr. Jamison Henri, the man whose life he had
tried to save, he’d viewed Joseph as an unfortunate boy, mentally
crippled by a fluke of unfortunate genetics. He soon learned that
Joseph was something more than that.

Much more, he remembered . . .

“The satchel is here,” Claire Henri said, but
her injured husband said nothing back, showed no reaction. He lay
upon the bed, a shell of life. His skin was pale and moist, his
eyes closed, his breathing made rhythmic by a device that pumped
air into his lungs.

Claire stood erect again, and the boy took
another half step closer to her, resting his head on her shoulder.
He didn’t look up, didn’t look at the man on the bed.

“I thank you for what you have done,” she
said to Perry. Her eyes were wet, but no tears flowed. She was
controlled, but he could see that a hurricane of emotions raged
inside her. He had no doubt the show of strength was for the young
man pressed against her side.

“I wish I could have done more,” Perry
replied.

“Most people would have done nothing,” Claire
said. “At least he’s alive. Where there is life, there is
hope.”

Perry nodded. “I’m Perry Sachs.” He held out
a hand.

“I’m Claire Henri. This is Joseph.” Joseph
did nothing.

There was an uncomfortable pause, then Perry
held out the leather case. “Your husband was very concerned about
this.”

“Yes, yes, he would be.” Claire studied the
case for a moment then took it, pulling it to her breast. “Did you
. . . look inside?”

Perry shook his head. “No, ma’am.”

“Most people would have, you know.”

“Perhaps,” Perry said softly. “It didn’t
belong to me, so I didn’t look.”

“Thank you, again.”

“Are you and Joseph going to be all right?”
Perry asked. “Do you have someone to stay with you tonight?”

“We’re going to stay here. I want to be by my
husband’s side when . . . if things get worse.”

She looked up at him, and this time, Perry
saw a tear.

“I’m going up to the site in a minute, but I
wanted to say hi to the resident genius. How’s he doing?”

“Good for the most part,” Claire said.
Despite the fast connection, her image hesitated, but her voice
came across uninterrupted. “But he’s been a little agitated. He
keeps saying your name.”

“Odd,” Perry said. Joseph was a savant and
largely uncommunicative. He spoke words occasionally, but such
times were rare. He had different ways of communicating. Since
meeting Joseph, Perry had become a self-educated expert on Savant
Syndrome. He knew of the relationship between left-brain damage and
the ability of some to perform tasks far beyond what people with
“normal” intelligence could do.

Names flooded Perry’s mind, names of those
incapable of caring for themselves yet who reached a level of
accomplishment few could match.

There was the unusual musician Leslie Lemke.
At just fourteen years of age, he played Tchaikovsky’s Piano
Concerto No. 1 without flaw, and he did so after hearing the music
only once before while watching television. To make the feat more
amazing, he played the piece even though he was blind,
developmentally disabled, and afflicted with cerebral palsy. He
continued to sing and play concerts in the U.S. and around the
world, even though he had never had a piano lesson.

Then there was internationally known artist
Richard Wawro. Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II had
collected his work. Praised by art critics, Wawro produced artwork
that touched heart and mind. But unlike other artists, Richard
Wawro was autistic and unable to communicate with anyone.

To Perry, Kim Peek was the most fascinating
savant. Peek had memorized seventy-six hundred books, could state
the name of every city in the U.S. and all the highways that
connect them, as well as cite their area codes, Zip codes, and
television and radio stations. He could recognize most classical
music, naming the composer, the composer’s birth and death dates,
as well as when the music was first published and performed.
Developmentally disabled, he depended on his father for his daily
needs.

In 1789, Benjamin Rush did research with such
remarkable people. He described meeting one young man who, when
asked how many seconds a man had lived if he lived seventy years,
seventeen days and twelve hours, gave the correct answer ninety
seconds later: 2,210,500,800 seconds—and he had taken into account
seventeen leap years.

Joseph Henri was such a person. Unable to
communicate more than a few words, he could calculate like a
computer, remember whatever he had heard or seen and repeat it,
draw it, or play it on the piano. Perry never ceased to be amazed
by him. It was because of Joseph that Perry was in the motel
room.

“Perry . . . uhh . . . uhh.”

“He’s been saying that all day,” Claire said.
“You sure must be on his mind. He’s never this chatty.”

“Maybe he knew I was going to call,” Perry
said. “How ’bout it, buddy? Did you know I was going to call?”

“Uhh . . . uhh . . . Perry.”

“Did you draw any pictures today?”

“Uhh . . . Perry.”

“He certainly did. He drew a landscape.
That’s odd too. He normally draws pictures of animals.”

That was true, Perry reflected. Joseph could
see an animal once and render it on paper at near photo quality.
Claire had told him that he would spend hours on each drawing. He
couldn’t utter more than a half dozen words, but he could draw a
bird with greater detail than John James Audubon.

Joseph disappeared from the camera’s eye then
returned a moment later with a large piece of paper in his hand. He
held it tightly in his fists, crumpling the edges.

Claire chuckled. “I think he wants you to see
his newest artwork.”

Joseph shook the paper. Even over the video
call, Perry could see that Joseph was disturbed.

Taking the picture from her son, Claire held
it up to the camera. “Can you see this?” she asked.

“Pull it back just a little,” Perry replied.
“It’s too close to the camera.” Claire did as instructed, and the
chalk drawing became clear. It was indeed a landscape. Perry had
seen all of Joseph’s drawings and not one had been a traditional
landscape. He could see the vibrant greens, a mixture of several
greens from what Perry could tell over the computer monitor. It was
perfectly proportioned and balanced with an azure sky over rolling
hills. Trees, thick and wide, populated the gentle slopes. They
looked like the oaks that Perry had seen when he flew over the site
in the helicopter—

A chilling disquiet ran through Perry.

The drawing was the site.

He leaned forward, straining his eyes to take
in the picture. A cluster of oaks stood to the right, the very
place he had stood a few hours before, reviewing the early survey
data. Several other trees stood in various places. Dominating the
picture was the open, sloped pasture rendered in verdant
greens—with one exception. On the lower end of the slope was a
spot, not green like the tall grass, but red—red like blood.