Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

The Ormiston’s from the papers

…

It was a question of what was I looking for.  It would be easy to say I wanted a piece of paper that definitively said where the treasure was or find a map that led straight to it.

Instead, there was, in one box, a dozen journals filled with the ramblings of a madman.

Searching for treasure had sent Ormiston senior mad.  For an hour, perhaps longer, I tried to decipher the spidery writing and then gave up when it switched to German.

I assembled the journals in order of his expeditions and found the first easy to follow because it was a time of excitement and expectation, that he would find the treasure.  There were pages on exactly what he thought the treasure was worth, the sort of pieces they would find, and what he would do with the proceeds.

There were drawings of items off the map and his interpretation of what they represented.  It was a rather good description of the coastline and its anomalies as they related to map landmarks.  They were, almost all, the same as the Boggs interpretations.

When the discovery didn’t happen, when the first euphoria wore off and the search became bogged down in acrimony and arguments, and the realization the map they were using was not as clear as first believed, that was where it all began to fall apart.

Reading the words, feeling the disappointment seeping off the page, it must have been quite a blow.

The second expedition didn’t start off with the same fanfare, but almost as if they were expected to fail.  Too little time had been spent analyzing what went wrong and reidentifying the coastal landmarks.

And, when it did fail, the last comment in the diary was fairly succinct.  “What if there is no treasure?”

In another, scrawled heavily on several pages at the back, “look for the big A” was repeated several times, and much underlined.

There were five other boxes with papers, charts, notebooks, and books that belonged on a shelf but instead were neatly stacked.  They’d been in the boxes for some time, and had that aroma books got when left in the damp too long, and, in fact, when I tried to open some, the pages had stuck together.

A lot of the books were about pirates, reference texts, and fiction.  Part of one box was set aside for our particular pirate, and, reading through what could be read, a lot of the information was contradictory.  One book postulated that the said pirate wasn’t a pirate at all, casting doubt on whether he ever existed at all.

The maps were a different story, and, yes, they were all similar except for small details an observation I had made before.  None had what I would have called ‘new’ features, just a rehash of all the others.  Some were old, but most had the appearance of being made to look old.

Then, at the bottom of a box of books, were copies of newspaper articles, aged, stained, and some in various stages of disintegration.  The Bahama Argus, The Barbadian, The Antigua Herald and Gazette, The Bermuda Colonist, and the Dominica Chronicle.  All had references to Captain Johannsson, and his vessel, the Sea Serpent.

There was such a Captain, and there was such a ship, and there were reports of a vessel roving the seas, looking for prey.  And those reports covered a great deal of plunder, definitely, the sort that would find its way into a number of sea chests.

But, was this the treasure that Ormiston believed was hidden somewhere in The Grove?

Something caught my attention on the first diary, the way it sat and the light reflected off it, and picking it up and looking at it showed no anomaly in the surface, not until it sat on a certain angle and in the sunlight.

A slight ripple down one edge of the spine, and with careful probing, there was a split in the material of the cover pasted back down, but in the time since it had been glued back, the glue had dissolved and the simple act of picking the book up and parted the split.

Lifting it gently, I could see a piece of paper tucked in and gently coaxed it out.

It was very thin and fragile, but the writing was clear.  Entries from what might have been a logbook.  I knew this only because I had been out of a sailing boat once when at school, and had seen the boat’s logbook, noting where the boat had been.

This page had only a few entries, the location of its departure, in latitude and longitude, a number of the daily distances travelled, and conditions, and the last, another latitude and longitude.

When I put the first coordinates into my GPS, it was near the island of Antigua, and then the destination, just up the coast near the old mall.  The name of the vessel, in almost illegible writing, the Sea Serpent.

So, there was a logbook, although it might not exist now, it did at some point in the past, and Ormiston had either found it or seen it.  The writing on the piece of paper was his. It proved, if it was authentic, there was a ship, and it did come to this coast.

I carefully folded it and hid it in my wallet, then replaced everything where I found it.  Enough research for today.  I tried not to look guilty when I left.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2023

50 photographs, 50 stories, of which there is one of the 50 below.

They all start with –

A picture paints … well, as many words as you like.  For instance:

And the story:

It was once said that a desperate man has everything to lose.

The man I was chasing was desperate, but I, on the other hand, was more desperate to catch him.

He’d left a trail of dead people from one end of the island to the other.

The team had put in a lot of effort to locate him, and now his capture was imminent.  We were following the car he was in, from a discrete distance, and, at the appropriate time, we would catch up, pull him over, and make the arrest.

There was nowhere for him to go.

The road led to a dead-end, and the only way off the mountain was back down the road were now on.  Which was why I was somewhat surprised when we discovered where he was.

Where was he going?

“Damn,” I heard Alan mutter.  He was driving, being careful not to get too close, but not far enough away to lose sight of him.

“What?”

“I think he’s made us.”

“How?”

“Dumb bad luck, I’m guessing.  Or he expected we’d follow him up the mountain.  He’s just sped up.”

“How far away?”

“A half-mile.  We should see him higher up when we turn the next corner.”

It took an eternity to get there, and when we did, Alan was right, only he was further on than we thought.”

“Step on it.  Let’s catch him up before he gets to the top.”

Easy to say, not so easy to do.  The road was treacherous, and in places just gravel, and there were no guard rails to stop a three thousand footfall down the mountainside.

Good thing then I had the foresight to have three agents on the hill for just such a scenario.

Ten minutes later, we were in sight of the car, still moving quickly, but we were going slightly faster.  We’d catch up just short of the summit car park.

Or so we thought.

Coming quickly around another corner we almost slammed into the car we’d been chasing.

“What the hell…” Aland muttered.

I was out of the car, and over to see if he was in it, but I knew that it was only a slender possibility.  The car was empty, and no indication where he went.

Certainly not up the road.  It was relatively straightforward for the next mile, at which we would have reached the summit.  Up the mountainside from here, or down.

I looked up.  Nothing.

Alan yelled out, “He’s not going down, not that I can see, but if he did, there’s hardly a foothold and that’s a long fall.”

Then where did he go?

Then a man looking very much like our quarry came out from behind a rock embedded just a short distance up the hill.

“Sorry,” he said quite calmly.  “Had to go if you know what I mean.”

I’d lost him.

It was as simple as that.

I had been led a merry chase up the hill, and all the time he was getting away in a different direction.

I’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book, letting my desperation blind me to the disguise that anyone else would see through in an instant.

It was a lonely sight, looking down that road, knowing that I had to go all that way down again, only this time, without having to throw caution to the wind.

“Maybe next time,” Alan said.

“We’ll get him.  It’s just a matter of time.”

© Charles Heath 2019-2021

Find this and other stories in “Inspiration, maybe”  available soon.

…

Worthey updates Detective Bryson

…

Bryson was glad to get out of the apartment building where he felt the air was so rarefied that it was beginning to strangle him.

The fact he let her snootiness get to him was almost unforgivable especially if she chose to make a complaint because everyone like her had a “friend” in the city administration, he would get into trouble.  Again.

He dialled Worthey’s cell number.

Six rings before he answered, dropping the file in his hands and reaching for the phone, papers spread over the floor.  “Yes,” he growled, angry at the interruption.

Bryson ignored it.  “Write this down.”  He gave Worthey the cell number and the business name.  “Get a request in for the cell records and track down where that business is.  I want to get there before they find out the boss is dead.  Text me the address the moment you get it.  Have you found any further evidence at the scene?”

“Not yet, but there’s an interesting wrinkle, the car was not his, it was a rental in the name of Phillip Magarry.”

“Who the hell is he?”

“As far as I can make out, Bergman.  I tracked the car to a rental outlet in Manhattan, took a photo of Bergman there, and the desk clerk said it was him, although he tried to hide his identity.  He didn’t try very hard, because I doubt, he expected anything would happen.  Always expect the unexpected I say.”

Anyone could be wise after the fact, so Bryson simply ignored that remark.  The real question was why Bergman needed to have an alternative identity.  Did his estranged wife know about it?  A note to ask her next time.

“Anything else on this Megarry?”

“There was a copy of his Megarry’s driver’s license hidden in Bergman’s wallet, and it shows Megarry’s from Nevada, and when I checked the address, it was for a vacant lot in Las Vegas.  Then I had the lab guys take a look at it, and it’s fake, but it’s a very good fake.”

Two possibilities Bryson considered that Bergman was trying to cover his movements for some reason, driving around in a car that could not, without some investigation, be associated with him, if at all.  The other, Bergman had more than one identity, possibly living more than one life.  Why couldn’t he just get a simple case for once?

“I take there was no sign of a phone at the scene, or in the car?”

“No.”

“Preliminary cause of death?”

“Like we thought, single gunshot at close range to the head.  Death was instantaneous, we’ll get the time of death when the medical examiner had done his preliminary report, but from early indications, sometime between ten last night and two this morning.  Also, it seems likely that the killer was known to the victim to get that close. We’ll find out what type of weapon was used before the afternoon is out.  I put a rush on it.”

It would be closer to 2 am, Bryson thought, having seen similar conditions before.  Being in a car and given the sub-zero temperature during the night would mess with the time of death, so they were going to have to wait until a proper examination of the body was completed.

“Something else the wife told me.  Bergman had a mistress or another woman.  She didn’t know her name but said she remembered him lining up a date at a hotel, one of the Hiltons in the city.  Get a man to take a photo of him and check the front desk, and the restaurant staff for identification, and a description or the name of this woman.”

He could hear Worthey scribbling notes, cursing once when the pen he had picked up ran out of ink.

“I’m going to get coffee.  Hopefully, by the time I’ve drunk it, you will have sent me the workplace address for our victim.”

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2023

I wandered back to my villa.

It was in darkness.  I was sure I had left several lights on, especially over the door so I could see to unlock it.

I looked up and saw the globe was broken.

Instant alert.

I went to the first hiding spot for the gun, and it wasn’t there.  I went to the backup and it wasn’t there either.  Someone had found my carefully hidden stash of weapons and removed them.

Who?

There were four hiding spots and all were empty.  Someone had removed the weapons.  That could only mean one possibility.

I had a visitor, not necessarily here for a social call.

But, of course, being the well-trained agent I’d once been and not one to be caught unawares, I crossed over to my neighbor and relieved him of a weapon that, if found, would require a lot of explaining.

Suitably armed, it was time to return the surprise.

There were three entrances to the villa, the front door, the back door, and a rather strange escape hatch.  One of the more interesting attractions of the villa I’d rented was its heritage.  It was built in the late 1700s, by a man who was, by all accounts, a thief.  It had a hidden underground room which had been in the past a vault but was now a wine cellar, and it had an escape hatch by which the man could come and go undetected, particularly if there was a mob outside the door baying for his blood.

It now gave me the means to enter the villa without my visitors being alerted, unless, of course, they were near the vicinity of the doorway inside the villa, but that possibility was unlikely.  It was not where anyone could anticipate or expect a doorway to be.

The secret entrance was at the rear of the villa behind a large copse, two camouflaged wooden doors built into the ground.  I move aside some of the branches that covered them and lifted one side.  After I’d discovered the doors and rusty hinges, I’d oiled and cleaned them, and cleared the passageway of cobwebs and fallen rocks.  It had a mildew smell, but nothing would get rid of that.  I’d left torches at either end so I could see.

I closed the door after me, and went quietly down the steps, enveloped in darkness till I switched on the torch.  I traversed the short passage which turned ninety degrees about halfway to the door at the other end.  I carried the key to this door on the keyring, found it and opened the door.  It too had been oiled and swung open soundlessly.

I stepped in the darkness and closed the door.

I was on the lower level under the kitchen, now the wine cellar, the ‘door’ doubling as a set of shelves which had very little on them, less to fall and alert anyone in the villa.

Silence, an eerie silence.

I took the steps up to the kitchen, stopping when my head was level with the floor, checking to see if anyone was waiting.  There wasn’t.  It seemed to me to be an unlikely spot for an ambush.

I’d already considered the possibility of someone coming after me, especially because it had been Bespalov I’d killed, and I was sure he had friends, all equally as mad as he was.  Equally, I’d also considered it nigh on impossible for anyone to find out it was me who killed him because the only people who knew that were Prendergast, Alisha, a few others in the Department, and Susan.

That raised the question of who told them where I was.

If I was the man I used to be, my first suspect would be Susan.  The departure this morning, and now this was too coincidental.  But I was not that man.

Or was I?

I reached the start of the passageway that led from the kitchen to the front door and peered into the semi-darkness.  My eyes had got used to the dark, and it was no longer an inky void.  Fragments of light leaked in around the door from outside and through the edge of the window curtains where they didn’t fit properly.  A bone of contention upstairs in the morning, when first light shone and invariably woke me up hours before I wanted to.

Still nothing.

I took a moment to consider how I would approach the visitor’s job.  I would get a plan of the villa in my head, all entrances, where a target could be led to or attacked where there would be no escape.

Coming in the front door.  If I was not expecting anything, I’d just open the door and walk-in.  One shot would be all that was required.

Contract complete.

I sidled quietly up the passage staying close to the wall, edging closer to the front door.  There was an alcove where the shooter could be waiting.  It was an ideal spot to wait.

Crunch.

I stepped on some nutshells.

Not my nutshells.

I felt it before I heard it.  The bullet with my name on it.

And how the shooter missed, from point-blank range, and hit me in the arm, I had no idea.  I fired off two shots before a second shot from the shooter went wide and hit the door with a loud thwack.

I saw a red dot wavering as it honed in on me and I fell to the floor, stretching out, looking up where the origin of the light was coming and pulled the trigger three times, evenly spaced, and a second later I heard the sound of a body falling down the stairs and stopping at the bottom, not very far from me.

Two assassins.

I’d not expected that.

The assassin by the door was dead, a lucky shot on my part.  The second was still breathing.

I checked the body for any weapons and found a second gun and two knives.  Armed to the teeth!

I pulled off the balaclava; a man, early thirties, definitely Italian.  I was expecting a Russian.

I slapped his face, waking him up.  Blood was leaking from several slashes on his face when his head had hit the stairs on the way down.  The awkward angle of his arms and legs told me there were broken bones, probably a lot worse internally.  He was not long for this earth.

“Who employed you?”

He looked at me with dead eyes, a pursed mouth, perhaps a smile.  “Not today my friend.  You have made a very bad enemy.”  He coughed and blood poured out of his mouth.  “There will be more …”

Friends of Bespalov, no doubt.

I would have to leave.  Two unexplainable bodies, I’d have a hard time explaining my way out of this mess.  I dragged the two bodies into the lounge, clearing the passageway just in case someone had heard anything.

Just in case anyone was outside at the time, I sat in the dark, at the foot of the stairs, and tried to breathe normally.  I was trying not to connect dots that led back to Susan, but the coincidence was worrying me.

 

A half-hour passed and I hadn’t moved.  Deep in thought, I’d forgotten about being shot, unaware that blood was running down my arm and dripping onto the floor.

Until I heard a knock on my front door.

Two thoughts, it was either the police, alerted by the neighbors, or it was the second wave, though why would they be knocking on the door?

I stood, and immediately felt a stabbing pain in my arm.  I took out a handkerchief and turned it into a makeshift tourniquet, then wrapped a kitchen towel around the wound.

If it was the police, this was going to be a difficult situation.  Holding the gun behind my back, I opened the door a fraction and looked out.

No police, just Maria.  I hoped she was not part of the next ‘wave’.

“You left your phone behind on the table.  I thought you might be looking for it.”  She held it out in front of her.

When I didn’t open the door any further, she looked at me quizzically, and then asked, “Is anything wrong?”

I was going to thank her for returning the phone, but I heard her breathe in sharply, and add, breathlessly, “You’re bleeding.”

I looked at my arm and realized it was visible through the door, and not only that, the towel was soaked in blood.

“You need to go away now.”

Should I tell her the truth?  It was probably too late, and if she was any sort of law-abiding citizen she would go straight to the police.

She showed no signs of leaving, just an unnerving curiosity.  “What happened?”

I ran through several explanations, but none seemed plausible.  I went with the truth.  “My past caught up with me.”

“You need someone to fix that before you pass out from blood loss.  It doesn’t look good.”

“I can fix it.  You need to leave.  It is not safe to be here with me.”

The pain in my arm was not getting any better, and the blood was starting to run down my arm again as the tourniquet loosened.  She was right, I needed it fixed sooner rather than later.

I opened the door and let her in.  It was a mistake, a huge mistake, and I would have to deal with the consequences.  Once inside, she turned on the light and saw the pool of blood just inside the door and the trail leading to the lounge.  She followed the trail and turned into the lounge, turned on the light, and no doubt saw the two dead men.

I expected her to scream.  She didn’t.

She gave me a good hard look, perhaps trying to see if I was dangerous.  Killing people wasn’t something you looked the other way about.  She would have to go to the police.

“What happened here?”

“I came home from the cafe and two men were waiting for me.  I used to work for the Government, but no longer.  I suspect these men were here to repay a debt.  I was lucky.”

“Not so much, looking at your arm.”

She came closer and inspected it.

“Sit down.”

She found another towel and wrapped it around the wound, retightening the tourniquet to stem the bleeding.

“Do you have medical supplies?”

I nodded.  “Upstairs.”  I had a medical kit, and on the road, I usually made my own running repairs.  Another old habit I hadn’t quite shaken off yet.

She went upstairs, rummaged, and then came back.  I wondered briefly what she would think of the unmade bed though I was not sure why it might interest her.

She helped me remove my shirt, and then cleaned the wound.  Fortunately, she didn’t have to remove a bullet.  It was a clean wound but it would require stitches.

When she’d finished she said, “Your friend said one day this might happen.”

No prizes for guessing who that friend was, and it didn’t please me that she had involved Maria.

“Alisha?”

“She didn’t tell me her name, but I think she cares a lot about you.  She said trouble has a way of finding you, gave me a phone and said to call her if something like this happened.”

“That was wrong of her to do that.”

“Perhaps, perhaps not.  Will you call her?”

“Yes.  I can’t stay here now.  You should go now.  Hopefully, by the time I leave in the morning, no one will ever know what happened here, especially you.”

She smiled.  “As you say, I was never here.”

 

© Charles Heath 2018-2020

Here’s the thing…

Every time I close my eyes, I see something different.

I’d like to think the cinema of my dreams is playing a double feature but it’s a bit like a comedy cartoon night on Fox.

But these dreams are nothing to laugh about.

Once again there’s a new installment of an old feature, and we’re back on the treasure hunt.

…

Where is Boggs

…

It was getting to the point where I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Boggs.

I’d dropped by his place and found his mother having a cup of coffee before heading off to her day job.  Boggs, she said, had gone off somewhere, these days he didn’t tell her what he was doing, and wouldn’t be back for an hour or so.

But, seeing me, she stopped cleaning and invited me in for coffee, and a chat.  I knew it was going to be about what Boggs was doing, rather than what he was supposed to be doing, getting a job.

“Ever since he found his father’s papers in a box in the attic, he’s become obsessed with the treasure.   There is no treasure, there never was, only in his father’s imagination.  Anything to keep him from having a proper job.  It was always about easy money, him and that layabout brother of his Rico.”

“What’s happened to Rico?”

I had meant to ask the sheriff, but he hadn’t dropped by to see my mother lately, and there’s been no news in the paper.

“He’s being indicted for murder.  He didn’t do it, or so he says.  I knew he was a criminal, but I didn’t think he was capable of murdering anyone.  Seems I was wrong.  We can’t afford a lawyer and the person the court has appointed to represent him is not very good.”

“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Rico killed him either.”

“Who was he, this man on his boat?”

“An archaeologist.  Someone who knew about treasure, though I’m not sure it’s the treasure Boggs is looking for, more about some coins that were found in the ocean off the coast.  I think that discovery put a fire under the other treasure story, you know, coins falling out of the chests as they were being brought ashore.”

“You should tell Benny this.”

“He won’t believe me.  Do you know anything that his father might have known and told you about?”

“It’s all he ever went on about, especially when he had too much to drink, how it was going to make us rich and we’d live in a large house with servants.  Look where it got us?”

Not in a large house with servants.

“The maps?”

“He drew them himself.  Told me he had a commission from old man Cossatino to create treasure maps for the fools who believed there was treasure buried somewhere on the coast.  They were all different.”

“Was there an original map that he based all the others on?”

She shook her head.  “No.  Though he did say one time that he’d seen a map out at the Cossatino’s place in Patterson’s Reach, up on the wall that looked old.  Probably just a piece of artwork because they had a lot of paintings and artwork on the walls.  Knowing the Cossatino’s, they probably invested the first map themselves.”

“Boggs said he had an original, found it in his father’s stuff.”

“A copy of a copy most likely.  I don’t think Al knew what was real and what was not in the end.  He stopped talking to me about it because, by that time, I’d had enough of his obsession and told him to get a real job.”

“What happened to him, do you know?”

“The last I remember was that he told me this time he’d worked out where the treasure was buried, what he called the ‘X marks the spot’ moment.  I ignored him, because there had been dozens before that with no results, and by that time we were defaulting on everything, I was working two jobs, and just too tired to care.  We argued, he stormed out and that was the last I saw of him.”

“Lenny reckoned he went down the hotel and started bragging about having found where the treasure was.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.  As far as the investigation into his disappearance went, he was seen leaving with two men in suits who had arrived in town earlier that day, asking for him.  They said they were reporters doing a story on the possibility pirates from the Caribbean had buried treasure along the Florida coastline, and that he was something of an expert.  He would have fallen for that flattery hook line and sinker.  After that, nothing.  Because he’s not officially dead, I can’t even get a death payout from the insurance company, so here we are.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It’s not your fault.  I’m just glad he has a friend like you that cares.  He’s never really got over his father’s disappearance, not the idea that cursed treasure exists.  But he doesn’t listen to me, nor you, I guess, so all I can do is hope he finally comes to his senses eventually.  Now, I have to go to work.  If you find him, tell him to come home.”

“I will.”

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022