The Pandora Box (11 page)

“You sound just like Peterson.”

“I thought you didn’t believe him.”

“We still spent a lot of hours talking and going over his plan. Trading the things he needed for the things I needed. That’s how I got my story.” She nestled her coffee cup against the cushion again. “But it’s like I told him. What about all the modern equipment they have these days? Radar that allows air traffic controllers to work the entire West Coast from one tower in San Diego. You know they can pinpoint every plane in the sky?”

“That’s air traffic. Not boat traffic. And definitely not something as small as a sailboat on something as big as the Pacific Ocean. Crazy as it seems, a sailboat is still a free-moving entity unto itself. Able to get in and out of places without being noticed at all.” He glanced at the sky again and then stood. “Hire a plane and there’d be papers to file and permission to get just to veer off regular tourist routes. Could end up in months of red tape. Russia’s open, but it’s not that open.”

“Maybe they don’t know that.”

“If they stole the chart, honey, they know.” He reached into the locker beneath the seat he had been sitting on and tossed a set of the traditional, yellow foul weather gear over to Dee, then took another out for himself.

She felt a smattering of raindrops against her hand.

“Better get into that gear before it really lets loose.”

“You mean we could have been wearing these last night instead of getting wet to the skin and freezing for hours?” she accused.

“I told you I had to see what you were made of.” He donned the jacket and stashed his book in the locker.

“Well, I’m beginning to see what you’re made of.” She placed a yellow hat over the top of her cap and turned the wide brim up to see out from under it. “Can we at least agree to no more tricks?”

“Don’t expect me to believe you haven’t got a few tricks lined up yourself, D. J. Parker. Something tells me you’re probably an expert on tricks.”

“I haven’t been out-and-out deceptive like you have.”

“You look deceptively vulnerable. Does that count?”

“I can’t help how I look.”

“You look pretty cute in that outfit.”

“Let’s stick to business, OK?”

“You got something against making friends?”

“No, but—”

“Then lighten up. A month is a long time to be formal, especially under the circumstances.”

“Well…” She tightened the straps on the overalls she had just climbed into and reached for the jacket. “How would you like to be called all sorts of pet names by someone you hardly knew?”

“Anytime, baby.” He flashed a winning smile. “Anytime.”

“You’re incorrigible, Hawkins.”

13

Under the Bridge

“I know everybody was experiencing a slight weariness, though we should all have stoutly denied such a reflection on our constant companions…and gladly welcomed the change of a few hours on shore.” ~ Nellie Bly

Other than wind-tossed rain and a few periods of choppy seas, the
Pandora
sailed past Cape Mendocino with no trouble.

Dee found it amazing how four people squeezed into such small quarters could have so much order and solitary time on their hands. Three hour watches around the clock meant that, other than the ten or fifteen minutes one lingered in handing over their watch to the next person, everyone was either sleeping or working away at private projects during their off-watches.

In her own free time, Dee pored over the journal and compared notes from her talks with Peterson to maps and references that indicated the location where the diamonds had been hidden. She could only generalize distances when looking at nautical charts that she came across in the navigation locker.

Meanwhile, the steady whir and click of Marion’s laptop from within her little cabin proved that the solitude and fresh sea air was having a significant effect on the advancement of her friend’s novel. She didn’t talk much about it, but the satisfied glow in her gray eyes as she took over Dee’s watch spoke volumes for the effect of the sea on her creativity.

Starr was forever tinkering in the engine room or down in the bilges or simply lounging on deck with a fishing line rigged up for trolling as they skimmed along. Which almost always resulted in something delectable, like a yellow fin tuna that was barbecued off the fantail for their dinner.

Other than an occasional sail repair or rigging change, Dee wasn’t exactly sure what Hawk did in his cabin during the off-watch. But the enthusiasm and vigor he often brought back on deck proved he was not always sleeping.

Which made her wonder if he wasn’t poring over Peterson’s charts and logbook as avidly as she was deciphering the journal. But she wasn’t about to ask him.

Things were fairly smooth and casual between them and after such a horrendous beginning, neither of them seemed eager to “rock the boat.”

They were all on their best behavior.

By the time they reached San Francisco Bay, Dee and Marion had become familiar with the routines of sailing and being at sea and were even learning to adjust the sails.

They were now linked like a chain to the enormous prospects of their expedition. An electric excitement ran like an undercurrent just below the surface of everything they did.

When they finally sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and into the city of San Francisco, it was a sunny, blustery afternoon. They tied
Pandora
at the transient docks set aside for visitors at the Berkley Marina along Market Street.

Even though the women put on light, festive blouses in contrast to their jeans and were ready for a shopping spree, they agreed to meet back aboard in the evening for a dinner and night of sightseeing in the famous city.

After two days on a slanted deck, Dee felt good walking on solid ground again. About four o’clock, when they were enjoying coffee in a little espresso stand along the boardwalk, Dee leaned close to Marion. “Don’t look, Mare, but that guy over at that corner table...the tall one with reddish hair and dark suit...I think he followed us here.”

“Oh, gads, Dee, you’re not going to get paranoid again, are you? He’s probably sightseeing just like us.”

Dee shot another look over at him. Her freshly washed curls were twisted up into a new tortoise-shell clip she had bought, and it was a relief to finally stash the black knit cap into her shoulder bag and not worry about the wind, which was blowing steadily against the back of her neck even in this sheltered nook of the little sidewalk cafe.

“He looks suspicious,” she continued to whisper. “Like he works for the Mafia or the CIA or something. He keeps watching us, too.”

He glanced in their direction and she made a pretense of studying the menu card, even though they already had their coffee.

“What if someone turned us in and there’s an APB out on us?” she asked over the top of the coffee-colored menu card.

A momentary alarm flashed over Marion’s face. “Who would turn us in? Listen, even if they did put out an APB, we’ve only been here a couple of hours. Right? This is a huge city, Dee. How would anyone even know where to look? Believe me, it would be some lucky guess if they thought to look in San Francisco. It’s not even in the same state. You didn’t see any police boats following us, did you?”

“You’re right. It’s carrying this stolen ring around with me: that’s what’s doing it. Probably as cursed as everybody says it is. Worse yet, it probably has the same curse as Achen’s stuff.” She gave an exaggerated shudder and set the card back in its holder.

“I’ve never heard of a pharaoh named Achen,” Marion’s gaze fell on the menu-card. She took it from the holder and pointed at a delectable photo of a fudge brownie
a la mode
. “Wonder how much that costs? But I don’t know how much of that curse stuff I believe anyway.”

“Achen wasn’t a pharaoh, and curses are definitely real,” said Dee. “I thought you used to teach Sunday school.”

“Six-fifty! Can you believe it? You want to split one?”

“Sure.”

“I didn’t teach the kind of Sunday school you grew up in, Dee.”

“Achen’s story has no gray lines of controversy, Mare. It’s in both our Bibles. Guaranteed.”

“That’s what you always say. Next thing you know, we’re arguing differences. But all right, I’ll take the bait. What sort of curse did Achen have on his stuff?”

“Enemy loot!” Dee’s face took on the animation of her enjoyment of storytelling, and she spoke the words like a reporter describing a hot lead. “He thought he could get a good price for it on the gold market, I guess. Even though the Lord said everything those people made was evil, and He didn’t want anyone to have any of it. Can you believe that?”

“Well, I don’t know. I guess maybe he...”

“Achen kept some anyway and buried it under the floor of his tent. Can’t hide from God, though. That’s why it’s the only place in history you’ll ever hear anything about Achen and his family.”

“What chapter and verse is it in?”

“Off the top of my head? Joshua, maybe. Or one of the early prophets.”

“You see, that’s the beauty of memorizing chapter and verse. It’s like an address. With the exact address, anyone can find their way to it, no matter what church they were raised in. You’re talking about this guy like he was down at the New York Stock Exchange just last week. Here comes the waitress.”

“Go ahead and order that dessert.” Dee slid her chair back and got to her feet. “I’m going to take a few more pictures for my column.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?”

“A working vacation if I can talk Devlin into it. Like a travel log or something. Because he still thinks I’m coming back in two weeks.”

“How are we going to keep any secrets if you leave a trail in your column publishing everywhere we’ve been?”

“Not until way after we’ve been there. I can’t just disappear for a whole month without telling him something, I’ll get fired. Here…” She took her camera out of her shoulder bag before shoving it toward Marion. “Why don’t you carry the goods around for a while? I’m telling you, they’re giving me the creeps.”

“All right, I’ll do it. But only if you promise not to rope me into an all-night discussion on whether inanimate objects can be good or evil.”

“OK, I promise. Back in a minute.”

****

Marion had become engrossed in the brownie a la mode. By the time she got concerned about Dee, the coffee was cold, and the man at the corner table had left. She left her brownie and searched. She couldn’t find Dee anywhere.

She screamed. Which brought the owner of the cafe out on a run, as if someone was having a heart attack. He told the waitress to call 911 and darted toward Marion, through the labyrinth of tables and into the little knot of onlookers that now surrounded her. Looking relieved there was no body and he would not have to perform CPR, he listened with sympathy as she wailed that her friend had been kidnapped by one of his patrons.

The police arrived. They gave the routine excuses: complaints of missing persons could not be filed until after forty-eight hours unless the missing person was a child, or there was hard evidence that foul play was involved. Because most of the time adult missing persons tended to be missing of their own accord.

“No woman,” Marion insisted, “ever leaves her purse in a cafe of her own accord! Especially one who is on vacation and only stepped out on the street to snap a picture!”

The two officers conferred together for a moment, after which one went back to the patrol car, only to return a few minutes later and whisper something to his partner. “Mrs. Bates,” the officer in charge studied the notes he had just taken. “It looks like we have something of a coincidence here. Did you and Miss Parker arrive in San Francisco today, aboard a sailing vessel named
Pandora
?”

Marion blinked her gray eyes in a moment of surprise, thought of being evasive and then thought better of it. “Why, yes, we did,” she finally admitted. “But I can tell you right now, we had every intention of...”

“Just a minute, ma’am.” He turned to his partner again. “Steve, who’s handling that?”

“Dispatch said it was a federal case. Couple guys named Eddington and Reynolds were sent out with a couple of ours this morning to check on the marina. No reports yet, though.”

“Okay. Get them on the radio and have them meet us at the station. Mrs. Bates, we’re going to have to take a ride downtown.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“Not at the moment. But there are some pretty hefty charges here, so I suggest you cooperate.”

“What about, Dee?”

“Every officer in the city has their eye out for her, ma’am. She’ll turn up.”

14

Against the Law

“There are so many murders committed, and the police never catch the murderers...”
~
Nellie Bly

“Excuse me,” Dee said automatically when she backed into someone. She lowered the camera, only to realize she was surrounded by strange men who began to force her backwards into a waiting car.

“Hey...what do you think...” In seconds, she was squeezed into the back seat with two men beside her and two more in front.

A moment more and they were speeding away, leaving the crowded little cafe in their wake, where no one even noticed what had happened.

“Dorothy Jane Parker?” Dee recognized the reddish hair of the man in the front passenger seat.

“Oh, no...” she moaned. “Am I under arrest?”

“Let’s see some identification, first.” He grinned a wide toothy smile, as if he had just won a prize. “Then I’ll let you know.”

“I...well, it’s back at the cafe. In my purse. But I have my social security number engraved on my camera…what sort of arrest is this anyway? Don’t you need a warrant or something?”

“Miss Parker.” He flashed a badge and then put it away before Dee had time to scrutinize it. “Does the name Heinrich Keller mean anything to you?”

“It seems to me”—Dee tried to sound firm and irate while her heart was pounding hard enough for the men next to her to hear—”that I have the right to remain silent.”