The Pandora Box (20 page)

“Probably meant killing Keller,” said Starr. “Last entry in the log was nothing special. Position and weather conditions from somewhere in the Arctic Sea, about a week off from the island. Poor duffer never saw it coming.”

There was a moment of silence as it all sank in, during which Hawk noticed a barely detectable flutter along the edge of the foresail and got up to take in the sheet a little. “I think the Feds are right.” He adjusted the sail and returned to his seat. “I think what the old man told Dee happened the other way around. He really was Heinrich Keller. A war criminal who killed Nelson Peterson back in 1946.”

“Some partner!” Starr mumbled in disgust. “Must have had it in mind all along. For the identity more than the diamonds. What people won’t do for money!” Then, he gave an embarrassed gasp, let his brown eyes roam self-consciously around the group, and pointed out, “None of us have been acting like angels, around here, either.”

“I think he wanted the
Pandora
. He needed a way out nobody would notice, and
Pandora
was it.”

“That makes sense.” Dee tugged back and forth on the fishing line as she talked. “Keller wasn’t just a regular officer, he was an aide to Goering. With the Nuremberg Trials in full swing by then, the bloodhounds were out for anyone in that elite circle. They still are. Remember just last year, some radical crashed into an apartment in Europe and shot a ninety-some year old man who turned out to be another war criminal in hiding?”

“I do remember reading something about that,” he replied. “And Keller was a survivor who had switched identities before. I say he just strung Peterson along enough to learn how to handle the boat on his own and then dumped him somewhere out at sea.”

“That’s the most gruesome thing I ever heard.” Marion declared. “On this very boat, too! No wonder I’ve been having nightmares. I thought it was just exhaustion.”

“But if it’s so easy to figure all this out by looking at these two books together…” Dee set the pole aside and finally turned to face the circle. “Why didn’t Peterson―my Peterson—just destroy the evidence? I can’t imagine he’d leave something as incriminating as the logbook floating around.”

“It wasn’t floating around,” Hawk replied. “I found it in a hidden compartment behind the bookcase in the aft cabin, about four and a half months ago.”

“Nels sailed this boat around for nearly thirty years, Hawk,” she objected. “Why wouldn’t he have found it, himself, in all that time?”

“The only reason I found it is because after five years of being abandoned, the yacht was deteriorating. There was a leak in that aft cabin behind the bookcase and when I pulled it apart to fix it, I found the logbook. It’s one long, gripping narrative of the five months Keller and Peterson spent together. It’s what got me caught up in this thing in the first place. I pulled into Oregon on my way south to Mexico and stayed almost six months before making a deal on
Pandora
.”

“I thought you said you didn’t find that logbook until after you started renovations, though.” Dee sounded skeptical. “What made you want
Pandora
in the first place?”

“I guess she haunted me,” he replied. “Every time I walked by, some unearthly magnetism grabbed at me. When I started asking questions, the legend that had built up around it was just as intriguing. Became an obsession.”

“It’s an obsession, all right. He got me dreaming about diamonds right along with him.” Starr reached for the pole Dee had set aside and cast the line out himself. “Look at me. I haven’t put in a decent day’s work since you started talking about this trip.”

“How ironic,” Dee marveled. “To think you started planning it around the same time I met up with Nels.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if Divine forces were merging to absolve an unjust murder.” Marion said. “A tortured soul, that’s what it is.”

“I don’t believe in that junk,” Starr objected. “There’s always a logical explanation if you look hard enough.”

“Cases of that nature have been very well documented,” Marion argued. “Especially if foul play was involved. And as long as we’re on the subject...well, I’ve been trying to think of a way to bring it up ever since we started. I haven’t even told Dee.”

“Told me what, Marion?”

“My cabin,” she replied in a tone of deadly earnest, “is haunted.”

There was a tentative tug on the fishing line and Starr’s attention was diverted. He adjusted the drag, reeled in a little, and then gave a sigh of vague disappointment. Then as if there had been no break in the conversation, he commented, “A boat this old has creaks and groans all over. Nothing supernatural about that.”

“I don’t just have creaks and groans,” Marion clarified. “I have a wet spot.”

“A wet spot—we’re cruising—we got wet spots all over. Here, Dee, you want this back?”

“But you have a bite, don’t you want to do it?”

“Just a lousy mackerel, go ahead.”

“How can you tell?”

“Because it fights like one and I fish for a living.” He handed her the pole and turned back to Marion. “So, what’s a wet spot look like when it’s haunted?”

“No different than any other, except it shows up for no reason. Right in the middle of my bed. If I didn’t know better I’d think I had a bladder problem.”

“For heaven’s sake, Marion,” Dee said over her shoulder, “that’s the strangest thing I ever heard.”

“Strange isn’t the half of it. Listen to this. I dry everything out, remake the bed, and two hours later it’s wet again. Downright eerie. It’s getting so I can hardly sleep in there anymore.”

“You should have said something.” Dee pulled back on the pole and reeled in more line. “At least to me.”

“It was too embarrassing. I thought maybe my health was going.”

“How could your health be going when you’re barely fifty?” Starr objected.

“I’m fifty-one. And for all I knew it was the preliminary symptoms of some fatal disease. I’ve been totally depressed.”

“Marion, that’s just awful!”

“Well, it’s a relief to know that’s not what it was. But on the other hand, it’s pretty unnerving to be sharing living quarters with some kind of poltergeist.”

“It’s not a poltergeist,” Hawk said.

“Tell us what it is, Cap’n.” Starr reached for the net as Dee’s fish began to splash off the stern.

“It’s a chain reaction from something you probably did when you first came aboard,” he suggested. “Tell me if I’m right. The first night out when we were taking on all that water, I’ll bet you went down there and sat on the bed with your wet things on.”

“Fell on the bed is more accurate. I was so exhausted I fell on it, wet clothes and all, and I couldn’t have moved if you paid me. I think I slept eight hours straight before I even realized it. But I told you I dried everything out. How do you explain the fact that it keeps getting wet again?”

“The salt residue left over from sea water acts like a sponge. Absorbs moisture right out of the air. Result? The proverbial wet spot.”

“Now how did you come up with that?” Starr deftly dipped in the net at the right moment and scooped up eighteen inches of flailing silvery mackerel.

“Just logical,” Hawk replied.

“Logical—it’s brilliant. A bloomin’ scientist couldn’t have figured it out better. How do you think up those things?”

“I spent my first fifty-eight days at sea soaking wet from one end of my boat to the other, that’s how I figured it out. When I was in Tahiti, drying every mattress and cushion aboard, the white salt rings were a dead giveaway.”

“Well...” Starr held the wiggling fish for a few seconds while he removed the hook and then threw it overboard.

“Hey!” Dee protested, “I was going to―”

“They’re not worth eating,” Starr said. “Just a scavenger fish.”

“That would explain things,” Marion conceded. “I’ve sure had some eerie feelings over it, though.”

“Which proves my theory that ghosts, and demons, and Bermuda Triangles, are nothing but a bunch of junk.” Starr yawned, scratched lazily at his thick dark beard and sat down again. “Let’s get back to the round table. I’ve been up since three, and I’m beat. We figured out a mystery here. I don’t see what difference it makes whether Keller was Peterson or Peterson was Keller. What’s that got to do with us? Can we make it on coordinates alone, or can’t we?”

“We’ve got as much of a chance as we always had,” Hawk said. “We just don’t have the sure shot we would have had with landmark descriptions. One island looks as much like another and your guess would be as good as mine as to where Keller might have hid the stuff.”

“I have landmark descriptions,” Dee spoke up. “They’re in a cave, halfway up a rock face on the north beach. You can’t get to it from the beach. You have to come by way of the south and climb down. Besides, the beach is populated by sea lions and they don’t like intruders. Anyway, it was fifty years ago.” There was such a long silence that she stopped dabbling with the fishing line and turned around.

Everyone was staring at her.

“Why in the world didn’t you say that before?” Hawk finally demanded. “You’ve known that all along and you only just now mentioned it?”

“It only just now came up,” she answered.

He cast a warning glance. “This is the sort of stuff that makes me wonder who you’re really working for, sweetheart.”

“Oh, gads,” Marion sighed. “No one’s working for anybody. We’re all just four regular, ordinary people with everyday lives, who happen to be going berserk at the thought of a share in fifty million dollars. I don’t think any one of us is acting like our own decent selves, it’s like we’re possessed or something!”

“And you two are the worst,” Starr agreed. “At each other like a couple of kids.”

“We’ve all got to be more understanding when everyone’s on edge like this,” Marion soothed in a tone that only years of mothering could produce. “Hawk, you have been awfully harsh with Dee, sometimes. You don’t realize how sensitive she is.”

“I know what she is,” he replied in a tone Dee recognized as a dam about to burst.

“And Dee,” Marion went on, “you’ve got to quit being so mistrustful of Hawk and tell him everything. Everything! The best thing to do is go down right now, and bring up all your maps and notes and…”

“You’ve got maps and notes?” Hawk was out of his seat so fast Dee barely had time to scream, much less fend him off. He swept her up like a madman snatching a child and, in one swift motion, carried her kicking and hollering down the companionway ladder.

****

“Starr! For heaven’s sakes, do something!” Marion thumped him on the shoulder. “You can’t just sit there and let him—”

“What am I suppose to do, Marion, punch him in the nose? He’ll deck me. I’m sixty-three, and overweight,” he reasoned. “Nothing but an old fisherman, and he just got out of the military. Besides, I think she can hold her own.”

“Hold her own? You saw that blind rage—we’ve got to do something!”

“Leave them alone. Like I said, they’ll either kill each other or come out friends.”

“They still have their safety lines on…” She leaned over to see if she could hear anything alarming.

“They reach from one end of the boat to the other, so you don’t have to unhook in heavy weather.”

“If he lays one hand on her, I’ll get a frying pan, and—”

“Leave them alone, Marion.”

25

Torn Apart

“This dreadful exhibition made me feel that probably there was some justification in arming oneself with a club.”
~
Nellie Bly

Although Dee was furious at such treatment, she was not afraid of brute strength. She knew from experience that it was almost always coupled with weakness. And after years of being bossed, pushed, and dragged around by four brothers, she had become a near-expert in pin-pointing the weaknesses. Hawk’s weakness was women.

The surest thing that would stop Hawk in his tracks was a contrite, irresistibly upset female. It wasn’t difficult. Since her youngest brother Dan had a similar nature, she was fairly well-practiced. It had been a few years, but it was a knack one never lost.

Only she didn’t have time to use it.

He grabbed her by the lapels. “We agreed no more secrets! When are you going to be straight with me, Dee?” Then he swore and let go of her before imploring, “When are you—going to be straight?” His anger turned to the hurt of betrayal, which swept over his face like a breaking storm.

“Hawk, I’m sorry,” she whispered. But it was a feeble effort against a wound that was already made.

“You’re just like all the rest.” He turned away from her.

“I wasn’t keeping secrets, Hawk. I told you last night I had a general translation. You didn’t give me a chance to share it.”

“What kind of chance were you waiting for? You didn’t bring any maps and notes to share with the group. You were fishing!” He turned with a look of pure astonishment. “I was fumbling around with vague coordinates, and you didn’t see a chance? I think if Marion hadn’t slipped up and mentioned it―”

“If you hadn’t lost your temper like some rampaging bull, I would have come down here like she suggested and got them!”

“We’ll never know.”

“You know, Hawkins.” She felt her own emotions start to churn at such a loss of faith in her. “You do know!”

“I thought I did. I thought there was something different about you. That you had some genuine concern for others that went beyond just what’s in it for you. Like there might be something to the way you’re always talking to God like He’s right there next to you, and I just never tried it, myself.”

“There is! And if you’d only listen, I could—”

“All religions are garbage! It just takes some longer to rot than others.”

She hadn’t known he’d been watching her in this way or even thinking about God. He had passed judgment without the subject ever having come up between them. A realization that made her feel the heat of tears threatening to spill over at the very thought of her own unwillingness to be open was driving him away from the God she knew and loved.