Charlie's Key (23 page)

“This one,” he says, pointing the light at the wooden box closest to him. It’s stained dark, I can tell, and it’s smaller than I expected. Not a coffin, really—just a long, thin box.

“Probably,” I say. “Closest to the door.”

He stands at the coffin, working the pry bar under the lid. He gives a grunt and there’s a ripping sound—a screw yanking outta wood. He moves the bar along the edge and pries up another bit and another till finally the whole thing pops off onto the mud floor.

“Charlie,” he calls. I don’t move, so he calls again.

“C’mon, b’y. There’s nothing down here what’s going to do you no harm. C’mon now and grab hold a this light.”

I step down onto the floor and take it.

“There’s another box in here—a little ’un,” he says. “Give us some light while I gets it out.”

Nick reaches down and grabs the smaller box, stirring up dust when he picks it up.

“Now,” he says, cradling it in his arm. “How do you figure you opens this?”

I take a closer look.

“It’s not a cash box,” I say. “It’s an urn—like for my dad’s ashes.”

“Well,” says Nick, “it’s plenty big to hide a good bit of cash. C’mon, let’s get it open.”

“Here,” I say, reaching for the box. “On my dad’s there’s a button you press.”

Nick’s finger finds mine in the gloom and brushes it aside as he presses the button. A second later the lid swings open. He shoots his claw deep inside, swirling dust as he moves it back and forth.

“Shhhit,” he says, teeth tight together. “Nothing but goddamn ashes.”

He snarls, pulling his hand out, streaked black and gray in the flashlight beam.

“The old lying bastard,” he says, dropping the urn back into the box. “The lying bastard.”

“Maybe not,” I say. I reach past Nick and pick up the urn. “I mean, Sullivan—he was alive when he wrote the letter,” I say.

“Jesus, Charlie,” Nick says. “It ain’t the time to be arsing around. Course he were alive.”

“I’m not kidding around,” I say, brushing dust off the urn with my sleeve. There’s a brass plate on the lid, covered in twenty years of dirt.

“Maybe we’re not looking for the coffin you just opened,” I say. I point to another coffin, the one right behind Nick, farther from the door, with a wooden lid split open with age. “Maybe we’re looking for that one.”

“How’d you figure?”

“Because when Sullivan drew the map, that older box
was
the one closest to the door. But then Sullivan died…”

Nick gives his forehead a smack.

“And he got buried here too,” he says.

I brush off the brass engraving and read, “Sean Seamus Sullivan:
1935
to
1989
.
Cineres cineribus, pulverem pulveri
. I don’t know what that last bit means.”

“It means,” says Nick, “that these here is Sullivan’s ashes— he were the last one what got put in.”

He turns to the old coffin next to Sullivan’s box and rips off the lid, shining the beam into it.

“Take this,” he says, passing the light to me. There’s bones inside, and a skull, down at one end, a big crack in it like someone smashed it open a couple hundred years ago. Pro’bly with some old ax. I woulda figured bones’d be white, like in the movies, but these are gray and fuzzy with dust, halfway to ashes.

Nick sends all that stuff flying when he reaches in and jumbles his hand round in the bones.

“Got it,” he says, pushing some leg bones off a box that’s hidden below.

It’s black, hard, steel. Nick’s eyes are wide.

“It’s the cash box,” he says. “It’s heavy.”

He swings it off the coffin and down onto the mud floor.

“The light. Down here.”

He’s got the pry bar on it, trying to work it under the edge. There’s sweat dropping off his nose as he twists it, looking for a crack. All of a sudden he raises the bar up and smacks the box, again and again, till finally there’s a bulge in the lip where he shoves the bar. He gives one last giant pull and the lid pops open. Coins—lots of them—spill into a pool of yellow onto the mud floor.

“Loonies,” I say.

“These ain’t loonies,” says Nick, picking one up. “There’s writing on them.”

He passes one to me. “What’s it say?”

“It’s not a word I know—I’m not sure how to say it.”

“Well, what’s it sound like?”

“It’s like, Kreeger, Kruger…”

“Krugerrand,” says Nick.

“Guess so…yeah. Krugerrand.”

“I never seen ’em before,” says Nick, “but I heard of ’em plenty, specially during my last stretch doing soft time in minimum. Some of the white-collar crowd—the business boys what done a fraud—they hid some of their money by buying these up. Can’t trace ’em, easy to smuggle in and outta places. It’s gold.”

“Gold coins. What’re they worth?”

“I don’t got a clue, but they got to be worth a fair bit. A guy could smuggle one a these into the Pen and get six months of easy living outta it.”

“Easy living?”

“Sure. Slip it to a guard and you got yourself extra food, good yard work, drugs, booze. Whatever you wants.”

“But we’re not in prison.”

“Don’t matter, b’y. This is cash, Charlie—cash dollars. Thousands of ’em. Tens of thousands, maybe. Here. Help me collect ’em.”

We toss them into a pile, brush them off a bit, drop them back into the cash box and head for the steps, Nick in front.

“Keep that light on the steps, now,” he says, walking slow. “I don’t want to tumble and spill this bunch.”

I’m just stepping out onto the ground when the world goes white, the beam from a big flashlight right in my eyes, a gruff voice coming outta the glare.

“Take another step,” it says, “and I’ll put a bullet in each a ya.”

TWENTY-THREE

“Whoa,” says Nick, holding the box in one hand, shielding his eyes with the other. “No need to be adding holes to nobody, me old son. Who am I talking to anyways?”

“Never mind,” says the voice. It’s coming from the path, out where it runs along the edge of the cliff. The full moon’s out now, behind the voice, so there’s just a silhouette, with the sea sprawling out behind.

“What are you two doing up here?” he says.

“Me and the nephew was just out for a hike and stayed a bit too long admiring the view—got caught out in the dark. We’re from town, see, and I weren’t sure if we should try heading back to the car or camp out here for the night. That’s why we was checking out the old chapel—seeing if there was a spot to lay our heads.”

“You don’t need to worry about where you’ll sleep,” says the voice. I recognize it now.

“It’s Tubby,” I whisper.

“Tubby?” Nick whispers back.

“The cop. The one keeping an eye on me.”

“A townie cop?” Nick says, and for the first time since I met him there’s something in his voice—a little rise, a little tremble, like a river going over rocks—something scared. “What’s a townie cop doing out here?”

“You two,” Tubby shouts. “No talking.”

Nick turns back to the glare. “The nephew here, he were just telling me he thinks he knows ya. Says you’re a cop what’s been keeping an eye on him in town.”

There’s no answer, just the glare.

“You’re a bit off your patch, ain’t cha?’” says Nick. “This is Mountie territory, I figure.”

“You’d know, wouldn’t ya, Sykes,” says Tubby. “It was Mounties chasing you round this hill twenty years ago.”

“It were.”

Nick’s nervous, the claw clicking open and shut in the white light.

“So ya got any Mounties with ya, Constable?”

“It’s Sergeant,” comes the voice. “And no, I don’t got any Mounties with me. It’s just me and thee. And this.”

Tubby taps metal against metal, then shows the barrel of a pistol in the flashlight beam.

Nick nods. “I heard they give you guys guns a few years back. Ever shoot yours?”

“Just at the range,” says Tubby. “So far.”

“Maybe it don’t work,” says Nick. He looks back at me and gives a wink.

Right when he turns back to Tubby there’s a boom, and a flash comes from the end of the gun—a devil’s tongue licking the night. I grab my ears, it’s so loud, and drop my flashlight into the tuckamore, the beam pointing right at Tubby. He’s smiling, smoke from the barrel coming at me on the wind, smelling like a thousand cap guns gone off at once, burning my nose, metal in my mouth. Tubby points his flashlight at the wood door behind us, the one we just came out of; it’s got a hole big as my head blown in it, splinters all white and jagged.

“It works,” he says in a shout, all our ears ringing.

Then all of a sudden my guts are water and a cramp bends me double.

“I gotta go,” I say.

“Go?” says Tubby. “You ain’t going nowhere.”

“No,” I say, “I mean…I gotta go, right now.”

“So go,” Tubby says. “Right there. I’ll even give ya a bit of privacy.”

He moves the light over onto Nick, so I’m in the dark when I drop my pants.

“You okay?” calls Nick after a minute. He looks at Tubby. “I’m just going to see if the kid’s okay—don’t shoot or nothing.”

“Go ahead,” says Tubby. “You Sykeses are used to getting one another out of all sorts of shit.”

I stand up and fasten up my jeans as Nick comes over. He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“That happens sometimes,” he says, “even if nobody don’t ever talk about it. Nothing to feel bad about. You okay?”

I nod.

He leans in to whisper in my ear, “Charlie, listen. We got trouble here—whoever this guy is, he’s half friggin’ nuts. We got no choice but to try and get ourselfs outta here, so I wants you to follow me—slow. Toward the path.”

He straightens up and takes a step toward Tubby, with me behind. A few more steps and we’re almost at the cliff edge and the path. I hear the waves riding in.
Boom
,
boom
,
boom
.

“Stop. Right. There,” Tubby says, blocking the path with the sea at his back. There’s a metal-on-metal
clink
again, and I can see his badge and a gun barrel glint in the moonlight. It’s pointed right at Nick’s chest.

“Take another step and you’ll be dead in the dirt, Sykes,” he says.

“All right, b’y,” says Nick, holding up his hands. “Relax— no need to be pointin’ that thing at the kid and me. Wouldn’t want it to go off accidental.”

“It won’t be an accident when it goes off,” says Tubby.

“When?” says Nick. He tries to give a little laugh, but it comes out dry and chopped up. “Whaddaya mean ‘when’?” The ripple’s back in his voice.

“I mean when you try to make a run for it,” says Tubby. He gives a low laugh, slow and deep. “You know, when you see me coming over the hill to rescue the kid you kidnapped. That’s when you make a run for it, see? Tragic that the kid gets caught in the cross fire. But that’s what happens when you’re dealing with a crazed killer on the run.”

“But I ain’t tryin’ to run nowheres,” says Nick. “I ain’t got nothin’ to escape from—like I told ya, me and the kid, we was just out for a walk, scattering a few of his old man’s ashes out here by the ocean.”

“Cut the crap, Sykes,” says Tubby. “I know what you’re doing out here.”

Nick gives a shrug. “And what’s that?”

“You’re looking for Sullivan’s money,” says Tubby. He raises the beam so it hits the cash box. “And I’d say you found it.”

Nick looks over at me and gives me a quick shake of his head.

“You remember Sullivan, don’t ya, Sykes? How you killed him? How you split his head open?”

Boom
,
boom
,
boom
comes up from the rocks.

“I remember him too,” says Tubby. “Proper thing—him being my first murder.”

“You worked that case?” says Nick. “You was barely off your mother’s tit back in ’
89
. What was you…eighteen?”

“Twenty,” says Tubby. “Old enough to be stuck working a Saturday night, riding a radio car up and down George Street looking for drunks. That’s what I was doing when the call came in—body found, Cliffside.”

“You was working that night,” says Nick.

“I was,” says Tubby. “Couldn’t believe it when the call came in. Didn’t know it was murder right off—just a body. Coulda been a heart attack, seizure, od. But it was a chance to hit the lights and tear on up to Cliffside, which I done in under two minutes. Soon as I came through the door I knew I had something serious—the blood, the old boy’s head busted in. I called the detectives, taped off the door and waited. And while I was waiting I had a bit of a look round, to see if I could impress the suits with a bit of evidence when they showed. That’s how I come to find this.”

Tubby pulls something from his pocket, black and shiny in the flashlight beam.

“Jesus,” Nick whispers.

“Recognize it, do ya, Sykes?” says Tubby. “I don’t doubt ya do, since you were the last one but me to lay hands on it— when you tore out that page. The one with the map.”

Nick shoots me another look, with another head shake.

“Made for interesting reading,” says Tubby, “all those numbers, all those names. Tied in with some rumors we’d been hearing at the station, ’bout how Brothers was paying somebody to get transferred outta the province. Then I come to find this notebook, the last thing the dead man bothered to write in.”

“And you took it,” says Nick.

Tubby nods, the badge on his cap bouncing moonbeams back.

“I took it. Slipped it off that desk and into my pocket and took it home to have a closer look—at my leisure, like. The first thing I see is a page is ripped out. Then I see that right under that, there’s something faint, like a drawing. A map. Too faint to see where’s it’s to, but a map. So I think to myself, What kind of a map is a dead man going to draw, a dead man who’s a blackmailer? What kind of map is he going to draw just before he becomes a dead man?”

“You’re a real Colombo,” says Nick, whatever that means. Whatever it means, Tubby laughs at it.

“No,” says Tubby, “Colombo was a lieutenant; I was just a rookie constable. But I was smart enough to know what that map was to, and smart enough to know you musta had it when we were out chasing you for those three days. Once you were picked up, I figured it’d all come out—the Mounties’ would either find you with the money and start asking how you got it, or they’d find you with the map and start asking what it was to. But no—it didn’t happen. You didn’t have no money, and no map. Then your brother comes up with this story about how you hated Sullivan for abusing you, about how you were getting revenge, with never a mention of blackmail, never a mention of a map. And I knew—knew you two were cooking something up, planning how to do as little time as possible; then you’d hook up in a few years and grab the cash. So I waited to see what would happen when you got out—where’d you’d go. Because I figured the first place you’d go would be for the cash.”