Too Much Stuff (17 page)

I was quiet for a moment. Lying to Maria was becoming a habit. I hated to do it, but—

“No. We were chased by dogs the first night and the second time we went, well, you were there. You saw what happened.”

“Yeah. What was that all about? I didn’t tell anyone you were going to be there. I hope you’ll believe me.”

“Do you know those guys? O’Neill and the motel manager?”

“I know who they are. And I’ve pitched Dr. O’Neill some property recently. There’s an old motel down where Zane Grey’s fishing camp used to be, south of here. It’s in foreclosure, and I was trying to interest him in buying it. Maybe fix it up, give it the Zane Grey western theme and, you know.”

I didn’t. Zane Grey had been a western novelist, and I knew he’d frequented the Keys, but that was about it.

“So, Maria, you know him, this O’Neill?”

“He called me yesterday.”

“Wants to buy your motel?”

“No. That’s still for sale.”

“What did he want?”

“He knew I was the one on the Harley. He wanted me to give you a message. He said he wants you to stay off his property, stay away from the medical building, don’t go near the vacant lot, and, oh, he wants his gun back.”

“Well, you delivered the message. Now, I’ve got to get back to sleep. It was a late night.” Lots of messages being delivered.

“He was pissed, Skip. And he’s usually a very nice man.”

He certainly hadn’t shown that trait to me.

“I’ll take it under advisement. Thanks, Maria.”

“Skip. If there’s anything else I can do—”

I hung up. There wasn’t. At least not then.

Em drove to the library, the three of us squeezed into her two-seat sports car. James cursed the entire two-mile trip.

“Are you going to be able to squeeze a battery for your truck out of your employer, James?” Em asked. The spymobile still sat half a mile from the infamous vacant lot that we’d pillaged.

“I certainly hope so, because I swear we’re not going back with Skip and me in each other’s damned laps.”

She just smiled as she pulled into the library parking lot.

“Guys, I have some good news for you.”

Kathy motioned us into her office, the makeshift lab.

“The paper has moistened considerably. I think we can make this thing work with a minimum of effort.”

She had already removed the folded letter from the jerry-rigged humidor, and thankfully hadn’t opened it yet.

“I’ve got the strips. We can paste this thing together and I will be happy to share it with whomever you want. But,” she hesitated, “I would like the permission to print the contents in our newsletter.”

I shivered. The contents could be worth millions of dollars. Millions.

“I’m afraid that we can’t promise that, Kathy.” I didn’t want any stipulations on what we had to do.

She glanced at the damp piece of evidence. The piece of paper that could dictate our future livelihood.

“It’s historic.” As if that gave her the right.

“And, it’s private. It actually belongs to our employer’s great-grandfather and I’m afraid we can’t authorize that the contents can be made public.”

She frowned. Librarians probably think that everything that is readable should be made public.

“You’ll ask her?”

“We will,” I said. But the answer was a given.

She started unfolding the ancient piece, very slowly unwrapping it. With a damp sponge she moistened the creases, and sure
enough, the paper responded. The first fold-over flattened out without any damage to the piece.

The second fold was more troublesome and even with extra moisture it cracked.

“You’ll have that,” she said, working with her hands like a surgeon.

There were more cracks and it was obvious that some of the paper would need adhesive.

Our archivist worked for forty minutes, slowly unwrapping the old message. When she was done, we had six pieces of paper. I’d tried to read some of it, but the way the letter unfolded, the writing was mostly on the underside of the paper.

When she finally turned one of the six pieces over and we studied the words, I saw James with a big grin on his face.

L dp vdih
.

With the first group of letters I knew
we
were safe. It was all written in code.

She’d sprung for the new battery, and James was happy.

Mrs. T. had the template and she worked on it at the desk as the three of us sipped mai tais on her balcony. Yes, we were guests at a resort. But there were certain levels of resort living and this lady was right at the top. The room was better, the view was better, the drinks, hand delivered from the bar, were better.

“Kathy was disappointed.” James was leaning out over the railing, watching two girls in bikinis sunning themselves poolside.

“First of all because she couldn’t read it and secondly because we wouldn’t let her make a copy of it.” She’d asked again if the contents could be kept at the library. I politely declined. The lady was nice and had seriously helped our cause, but—

“It was truly impressive how she melted the Japanese tissue into the paper.” Em had been fascinated with the process. There was almost no sign of the breaks in the original manuscript.

“Kids,” she called from inside.

When we stuck our heads in the door, she motioned for us to come in.

“Sit down.”

“Good news?”

“I don’t know.”

She stood up and handed Em a piece of the resort’s stationery with the translation of the coded document.

“This is from my great-grandfather, Matthew Kriegel. He was on the island when the hurricane hit. Please, read it.”

Em nodded and read out loud from the translated version.

I am safe. For the moment. As you know, I was entrusted with over 2,000 pounds of gold to be used in the purchase and upkeep of properties for the railroad. The future of the railroad at this point would appear to be in grave jeopardy. The rails themselves are twisted and uprooted everywhere you look
.

At this very moment there are crews arriving by boat to search the island for bodies, of which there are many, lying on the ground, hanging in the trees, their decay causing foul odors that spread for miles. There are hordes of men coming in and looting what remains there may be of people’s homes and businesses, (although little remains at all) and there is utter chaos among the people who survived
.

Medical care is slow in coming and I myself am in need of someone to help mend a broken arm
.

That being said, I am still responsible for the gold that I brought with me. I trust no one, but must trust someone. Even if I were in excellent physical condition, I could not move the heavy crates. There is no one to take the gold back to the mainland so I am exploring several options
.

Em looked up. “I can’t imagine how bad things were. And to be reading a firsthand account—”

James tapped his foot. “The gold, Em. He’s about to tell us what happened to the gold.”

She glowered at him and continued.

Miracle that it is, the cases are unharmed. Ten heavy wooden containers with the gold still inside, these wooden crates of riches are as sturdy as an oak. So, their being yet untouched, I can have them moved several places. Hiring a few good men, I can put them on small boats and drop them off at sea. I cannot get a boat back to Miami at this time. A good place would seem to be the rocks that are directly off the resort (which no longer stands) called The Millionaire’s Club. Corporate giants had built a spur off of our railroad to park their private railcars when they visited this fine establishment
.

I shook my head. “There were the regular railroad passengers, then there were these guys who had their own railcars. I can’t imagine what that would have been like.”

Em continued reading.

The other choice I have come up with is to bury them on land, although the chance of digging very deep is fraught with danger because we are only inches above the water table
.

I intend to explore both options. If I bury the gold, it will be on the property of The Millionaire’s Club. I will estimate the longitude and latitude of that location. The crates are 14½ by 9½ and 6 inches deep. They weigh approximately two hundred pounds each
.

I pass this information to you, my darling wife, and hope we are connected in the not too distant future. However, things are in upheaval and every minute brings a new disaster or gruesome discovery
.

My arm aches, and I am feverish. I fear that the rotting corpses will spread disease. There is already some talk of burning them in a mass funeral pyre. I pray that I will not succumb to an early death and be one of those whose ashes are cast to the wind
.

I am burying this letter in a metal box and you alone have the location of that box. Please, pray for me, but if I do not return you will have the yellow treasure to do with what you will
.

Longitude: 80° 37′ 40″ W Latitude: 24° 55′ 30.72″ E

“And that’s it.”

No one spoke for at least a minute. We were busy absorbing what we’d heard. Finally Mrs. T. broke the silence.

“Matthew Kriegel was protecting the company assets. I was a little worried that I was going to find out he’d basically stolen the gold.”

“Kind of like we’re going to do?” James had to smart off.

“We’ve gone over this before, Mr. Lessor. There is no railroad company. In fact, there really wasn’t one after the hurricane. It went belly up.”

I didn’t mention that the gold would have helped their financial situation.

“He didn’t trust anyone.” Em stood up and walked over to the balcony door, breathing deeply. “Can you picture that? The stench of dead bodies everywhere, this poor guy with his arm broken, feverish. Who knows what was going through his mind? None of these people had ever witnessed this kind of devastation before.”

“What’s important is that we’ve got two places where he may have hidden the gold. We’ve got a serious treasure hunt.” James had a grin plastered on his face.

I surveyed the assembled party and we all had a smile. Except Em. After reading about the death and destruction, we’d found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Now all we had to do was dig it up.

Who was it that said, “Nothing is as easy as it seems?”

“I think he had it shipped out to the rocks.” James was speculating.

We sipped more mai tais at the poolside bar and stared out at the water. Up until now, the idea of actually finding forty-four million dollars’ worth of gold was somewhat of a pipe dream. I thought it was possible, but I had no idea how it would feel.

Now, I could taste it. Feel it. Dream it in 3D. I was convinced that Kriegel had made this fortune accessible. And that meant that James and I and Em would be rich.

I’d checked it out at the dive shop. It was very doable. “I can dive it.”

“Skip, this is risky.” Em seemed concerned.

“Cheeca Rocks, Em. They have a supervised dive site out there. I can veer off and check out the territory.”

I’d taken a course at Samuel and Davidson University (Sam and Dave U) and learned the basics of diving. I mean I was certified, but with limited experience. But how tough could this be? Cheeca Rocks was a regular site, and was only fifteen to twenty feet deep at its deepest point. No big deal. In fact, for an experienced
diver it would be almost claustrophobic. I was far from an experienced diver.

“Pard, your diving experience, this is awesome.”

James had majored in parties and sex. I was close behind, but in this case I’d taken a class that actually made a difference. Should have called it Treasure Hunting 101.

“It does make more sense to check the dive site first. We can’t just start digging at Cheeca Lodge. I mean, they may call the sheriff.” It was obvious James wanted no more run-ins with the law.

I unfolded a map I’d picked up at Holiday Isle’s dive shop.

“It’s here.” I pointed to the spot off the shore.

24° 54′ 245″ N and 080° 36′ 885″ W.

“But if it’s a popular spot, wouldn’t someone have found the cases by now?” Em always saw the other side.

The same thought had run through my head. Thousands of tourists had visited the spot, snorkeling, scuba diving, and if the crates had been left out there, someone would have found them years ago.

“What kind of camouflage would they have?” James asked.

“Coral.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s a lot of camouflage. I would guess you could accumulate several feet of coral in seventy-five years.”

“Accumulate? So it would grow over the cases?”

I’d read about some of Mel Fisher’s treasures that had been encrusted with coral. It was hard to make out the items at all. Only because he knew the location of the ships that he investigated did he find a lot of the valuable pieces.

“If Kriegel swore the guys who hid the gold to silence, there would be no reason for anyone to suspect that a treasure was just offshore.”

“So there would be no way of detecting any gold?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know much about metal detectors, but I would guess there are some devices that can find gold. Especially if there’s that much down there. Ten crates should set a detector off, I would think.”

I was still skeptical. Ten crates of gold? Boated out to the rocks? It was a little too much to hope for.

Mrs. T. came down the steps.

“I cannot impress enough on you that we need to be very quiet about this. Even when you’re talking among yourselves. If there’s a chance that our property still exists, I don’t want anyone getting wind of our expedition.”

“We aren’t going to say anything to—”

“Mr. Lessor. You admitted to telling your employer where you were going.”

He quieted down.

“Mr. Moore, you not only told your lady friend where you were, but you invited her to join us.”

She was right. Neither of us kept a secret very well.

“If we are to keep this project to ourselves, then you will have to measure every word you speak.”