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.

…

With Nadia seeking gold at the beach at The Grove

…

I was waiting to be picked up at the bus depot by Nadia, trying to keep out of the public eye, knowing very few people I knew would be there at that hour.

It was early for me, not long after getting home from the night shift, with just enough time to change and get something to eat at the diner a block from the depot.

Nadia didn’t understand my obsession with anonymity, but being seen with her was just going to raise questions, and, if either my mother or Boggs found out, that would be two very interesting conversations.

I just didn’t need the aggravation.

I was not sure what to wear so I dug out the clothes I wore to a farm that a friend of my mothers owned and my mother had graciously offered my services.  It hadn’t been such a bad day, but it was hard work.

The clothes had the added advantage of making me almost invisible among the many seasonal workers currently in town.

I nearly missed her because I had been looking for her usual car, but when a large pickup truck pulled up at the curb where I was standing, it took a moment to recognize her behind the wheel.  A very unglamorous plain Jane, without make-up and her hair a mess, or so it looked to me.  I knew well enough not to make a comment.

The truck was battered and seen better days, but the engine sounded like that of a racing car.  A Cossatino’s getaway car.  Oddly, I could imagine her behind the wheel waiting for a team of bank robbers, fuelled no doubt by the many old movies I’d seen in my younger days.

I climbed up into the cabin and she had driven off before the car door was closed

“Are we in a hurry?”

“No parking zone.  Don’t need the sheriff’s deputies giving us a hard time.”

No, indeed.

“Where’s your car?”

“Too recognizable.  Where we’re going it’s better not to be recognized.”

That didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.  I knew it was going to be somewhere along the coastline, her idea to see if any more of the gold coins had fallen out of the treasure chests as they were being brought ashore.

The question was, was there any part of the coastline that hadn’t been surveyed?  That was when it occurred to me she might be headed for that stretch of coastline that belonged to The Grove, split by the coast road, either side of the road fenced off and signs telling people they would be shot on sight if caught trespassing.

There had been rumors of shootings but nothing ever made it to the sheriff’s office.  I hoped she told someone where she was going if that’s where she was taking me.

“You’re quiet this morning?”

“Just got off shift, and a little tired.”

“You should have said something.  I didn’t think…”

“It’s fine.  You’re currently the one ray of light on a very dark horizon.”

She looked sideways at me.  “That is a compliment.”

“I hope you take it that way.  With Boggs on some sort of crusade, my mother giving me dating tips, and Benderby hanging around, being with you Breaks the gloom and doom.” 

I turned slightly to get a better look at her.  If it was anyone else, I could fall in love with her, but knowing a Cossatino was a dance with the devil, and dangerous for your health.

“Well, I’m glad I bring some light into someone’s life.  It seems I can’t do anything right at home.”

“Why did you come home.  It seems to me you were happier away from this place.”

“Reasons I now think were stupid.”  There was a finality in her tone that warned not to go any further with it.

Instead, we were passing the old mall and I saw the transformation.  Fort Knox would be easier to get into.

“Do you know what’s going on at the old mall?”

“The Benderby’s are demolishing it, mainly because they have to, and do a lot of remediation, whatever that is, before they build the new marina and condos. They’re going to tap into the retirement market.”

That premise, according to a financial market magazine left on my desk, and which made interesting reading, was the next gold mine for those who had the foresight, and the financial means.

Benderby had both, and in another article, which to me at the time seemed to be profiling Benderby, opining the fact some of the new rich had not all made their fortunes legitimately, harking back to the war days and profiteering.  Had Benderby’s father and his before him, plowed this path to success, and the son and grandson found other Illegitimate means like drugs and worse to perpetuate it?

Was it possible, in this day and age to make a fortune without crossing the line somewhere?  No one could link Benderby to anything crooked, but rumors, there were plenty, including the mall, and the fact it was a huge insurance write-off.

Lenny seemed to think so, but cleverly, never quite put what he thought into words.

“Lucky them,” I muttered.

Several miles past the mall, she turned off the main road onto a track that had not been used for some time, heading towards the ocean

I could see now why we were in the truck.  A car would not be able to make it without getting bogged.  It was wet and muddy, with pools of water forming in ruts. 

When we hit a couple and got soundly shaken up, she slowed down.  Then, suddenly, the ocean came into view, and the track headed for the cliff, veering at the last minute, and going down the side of the hill until at the bottom we stopped outside a weather-beaten shack about the size of a large room.

She switched off the engine and let the silence surround us until I could just hear the sound of waves breaking on the rocky shoreline.

“Welcome to my castle.”

There was a whimsical expression on her face.

I opened the door and climbed out, in an instant the temperature dropped 10 degrees, and the effect of the wind almost knocking me over.

She slammed the door shut and went to the door of the shack, unlocking, then opening the door, then switching on a light, giving the inside a gloomy yellowish aura.  She motioned me to go in, then followed behind closing the door, and immediately it was much quieter.

“Not much of a castle.”

“It is when you want to get away from the rest of the family.  It used to be a bathing shack, but the waters around here got too treacherous for swimming, and it fell into disrepair.  I had it fixed up and this is where I come when I want to disappear.”

It didn’t look like it had been used in a while, a thin film of dust settled in everything, and smudged footprints on the floor, showing recent signs of habitation.  Two metal detectors were sitting on the table.

“It’s like a different world to be in when you have the family I have.”

“They don’t know about this place?”

“They probably do, but it’s been a wreck for years, and no one ever comes here, not anymore.  I found it one day, wandering along the coastline, exploring the boundaries of The Grove.  This is the southernmost tip.  There’s one on the northernmost tip too, where the building is much larger and used for storage.”

Say no more, I thought.  The Cossatino’s were allegedly smugglers on top of everything else, and that’s probably where the smuggled good were stored.  This part of the coastline was treacherous at best, with underwater reefs and craggy rocks along the cliff line.  There were some sandy stretches, but it was hard work to reach them, and at a guess, Nadia knew how to get there without slipping and falling.

Boats could only get within 50 years of the shoreline before the possibility of being dashed on the rocks, and for that reason, Boggs told me, that whole beachfront could not have been used by the pirate to bring his treasure ashore.

The little I’d seen from where the truck was parked verified that, at least for this section.

“But we’re here to check for gold coins, see if there is a possibility the treasure cane ashore somewhere along the Grove’s shoreline.  I know the consensus of opinion said it’s not possible, but from my explorations, I reckon there are at least a dozen spots where a longboat could land, especially if you came on the tide.”

That, I was guessing, was high tide, and it may have been a coincidence when the pirate arrived on this shore.

“The reefs would be submerged and even more dangerous.”

“There are ways.  I’ve been out there in a canoe once or twice with Vince, looking for passageways.  And, before you jump to any conclusions, I’m not a smuggler, and we may have been once, but an accident ten years ago put paid to that.  We lost four of the family, and six others in a hair-brained night landing in rough weather.”

I remembered a piece in the paper, the coastguard had been trailing a large yacht with suspected drugs aboard, waited until the Cossatino’s had transferred to the longboat that had gone out to meet the yacht, then chased it to the reef where a navigation mistake saw the longboat hit the reef, sink with all the evidence, and all but Vince had drowned in the heavy surf.

“Vince was lucky.”

“Vince was an idiot then and a bigger idiot now.  It made him believe he was invincible.  He’s not.  But let’s not talk about him, or the rest of them, we’re not exactly on speaking terms at the moment.”

She went to the table and picked up one of the metal detectors and held it out.  “Yours.”

I came over and took it, and it was heavier than I expected.

She picked up the other.  “Ready?”

For anything, I thought, then nodded.

…

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

——

A second report from Blinky’s surveillance of the castle had Leonardo on the move, and a second shadowy person following them.

It had to be Jackerby, Atherton thought.  Jackerby would be the only one who didn’t trust anyone, or, perhaps, he had more murderous intentions.  Maybe he had worked out that Leonardo was rapidly becoming a liability.

Or he had some other agenda.

“How many of resistance are waiting at the barn?” Atherton asked the soldier.

“Four.  The fifth went to find them.”

“OK.  Carlo, take some of the soldiers and stop them.”

He grinned.  At last.

“I’ll deal with the other man.” I whistled and Jack came over.  “We have a job to do, Jack.”  He had no idea what I was saying, but his enthusiasm was obvious.

“Taking any prisoners,” Blinky asked.

“If the situation warrants it, but if the fire on us, we fire back.”

“And, once that’s done?”

“We retake the castle.”

“Sounds a bit like a story out of a Boys Own annual.”

“It does.  It’ll certainly make a good story to tell your grandchildren one day.”

“If we make it back.”

“We will.  If we’re careful and don’t take unnecessary risks.  I won’t be bringing a prisoner back.  If it’s Jackerby, I have a score to settle with him.”

“Don’t let revenge cloud your judgment.”

“I won’t.  See you soon.”

When we reached the woods, on the opposite side of the castle, I planned to come at Jackaby from an angle he would not be expecting anyone.

From the moment we entered the woods, Jack went into what I would call stealth mode as if he was hunting.  In a sense he was, and perhaps he knew instinctively what we were looking for.

It took about a half-hour of carefully moving through the woods to get to a point where I could just see Jackerby, sitting beside a tree, watching the barn.  I moved a little closer, and the change of angle brought Leonardo and two other men of the resistance, sitting behind the barn, and one of sentry duty, waiting for the fifth to return.

I turned back to see where Jack was, but he had gone off.  A rabbit perhaps, or something else.

I moved closer; Jackerby’s attention was fully on the resistance members, so he would not hear me coming.

What was he doing?  He was taking an enormous risk coming out of the castle alone or did he think that if I was clever enough to have the castle under surveillance, he could assume I might be stupid enough to follow him.

It was an interesting thought, broken by the sudden rustling through the undergrowth, and then a yelp, as Jack launched himself at Jackerby, taking him completely by surprise, then, when Jackeby tried to get a gun in hand, Jack attacked that hand.

Long enough for me to get there, gun in hand.  “Stop resisting, or I’m sure Jack will do some serious damage to that hand.”

It looked serious enough to me.

“So, this is where you’re hiding?”

“Enough, Jack.”

Curiously, the dog stopped, but remained menacingly close, growling.

“I should have shot that dog when I had the chance.”

Jack moved forward and growled in his face, baring his teeth, and Jackerby shrank back.

“Don’t upset him.  He obviously doesn’t like you.”

Our attention was interrupted by gunfire, and a glance over to the barn saw two men with their hands up against the wall, and the two on the ground, including Leonardo.   Carlo was in the process of ‘interrogating’ the other two.

“Carlo is not a happy man, Jackerby.  And I promised him five minutes alone with you.”

Another glance over at the barn, Carlo was kicking one of the men who had fallen on the ground, with enthusiasm.  I didn’t rate the man’s chances of surviving.  “You really shouldn’t have let Leonardo mistreat Chiara or Martina, wherever you’ve got her.”

“She is still alive.  We can do a deal here, Atherton.”

“The trouble I have with anything you say is that I can’t believe you.  I’m sure you’d say or do anything to stay alive and renege the moment you got back to the castle.”

“I give you my word as an officer.  We are, like you, men of honor.”

I shook my head.  “You’re Gestapo, or worse, Jackerby.  And they, as far as I’m concerned, are the lowest of the low, little more than murderous thugs.  No.”

I aimed the gun and pulled the trigger.

The only way Jackerby was leaving the woods was as dead weight.

——-

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

——

Mayer was woken by the abrupt jolting of the guard van, and for a few moments was disorientated.  It was no longer dark, and the light was coming in through the cracks of the windows, and he could see now the van was quite old and battered.

And that odd smell was the residue of many fires in the potbelly stove, that presumably kept the guard warm in winter.  There were a few scattered coals on the floor.

Then he remembered he was in the van and it felt like it was being connected to a shunting loco.

That, and the sound of voices outside the van.

“How long has this lot been sitting here?”

“Three weeks, the shunting crew seem to have just forgotten about these wagons.  They were supposed to be sent back south months ago.”

Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps on the stones outside.

Mayer slipped down off the bunk, taking the blanket with him, and looked for somewhere to hide.  There was a door in the panel under the bed; he opened it and saw an empty space.

It was not very big, and in places, daylight could be seen through cracks in the outside wall.  It was smelly but manageable, and he wriggled into the space and jammed the door closed so if they tried to open it, it would not, and they would assume it had not been used in a long time.  Or he was hoping that’s what they’d think.

Just in time, steps on the ladder, and the door bang open.

“Ghastly, it’s ready for the scrap heap.”

“It’s for the war effort, even scrap is good.  You staying?”

“Until they hook it up, but outside.  This place feels like someone died in it.”

Mayer squirmed until he was in a more comfortable position, thankful that the space was large enough to stretch out, though cold.

He could see through the cracks, back up the track where another train was waiting.

His watch said it was near seven in the morning, and that mean he had slept for about four hours.  He had intended to get off before anyone would notice, but it was too late for that now.

At least he would be going in the right direction, it was just a matter of where the wagons would end up.  Maybe he would get lucky, and that would be Florence.

But, the chances were he would be discovered before then because if the man who had boarded before was going to stay with the train, the chances were he’d come back to the van, it would very likely he’d explore out of sheer boredom, and that would include that space behind the door.

For now, though, the two men were still outside beside the van, waiting for the signal to get aboard.

Another hour passed before there was more clanking and jolting as another engine connected to the wagons.  It was only a matter of time before the men came back.

A minute passed, two, five, ten, then the shrill sound of the whistle of a steam engine, followed by the stretching of wagon joiners and the slow movement forward.  The men had not returned, but, Mayer knew, they were aboard the train somewhere.

For the moment, it didn’t matter.  With each passing minute, he was closer to his objective, Florence.

It was slow progress, with a stop nearly once an hour, shunted aside while a more important train raced by.  People going about their business as if there was no war.  Mayer had time to lament his foolishness of being swept up in the fervor of restoring the Reich to its rightful place in the world.

It had also sounded legitimate, but, as it wore on, the news that they were winning the war and it would all be over soon, turned to disenchantment.  They could not have so many victories and not have won already.

Several of his friends had private said they believed the war was going badly, hence the pressure on his group to create better weapons so they could turn the tide.  Of course, no one would openly say things were going bad, that would invite the Gestapo on your doorstep, but people were beginning to suspect.

Mayer was not the first to consider turning himself over to the other side before it was too late.

The sporadic stop-start motion of the train went on all day, and into the night, after passing through several large rail yards, and cities.  He couldn’t be sure, but he believed they had passed through Verona, and then hours later, Bologna.

At Bologna, the stay was protracted, and once again the men came to the wagon, and this time, as he feared, they had a look around, rattled the door that he had barricaded, and at least they didn’t stay, one of them saying it had probably rusted with age.

Still, he didn’t breathe again until they left.

Nighttime, and very cold, he tried to get comfortable, and finally fell into a fitful sleep.

——-

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

This case has everything, red herrings, jealous brothers, femme fatales, and at the heart of it all, greed.

See below for an excerpt from the book…

Coming soon!

An excerpt from the book:

When Harry took the time to consider his position, a rather uncomfortable position at that, he concluded that he was somehow involved in another case that meant very little to him.

Not that it wasn’t important in some way he was yet to determine, it was just that his curiosity had got the better of him, and it had led to this: sitting in a chair, securely bound, waiting for someone one of his captors had called Doug.

It was not the name that worried him so much, it was the evil laugh that had come after the name was spoken.

Doug what? Doug the ‘destroyer’, Doug the ‘dangerous’, Doug the ‘deadly’; there was any number of sinister connotations, and perhaps that was the point of the laugh, to make it more frightening than it was.

But there was no doubt about one thing in his mind right then: he’d made a mistake. A very big. and costly, mistake. Just how big the cost, no doubt he would soon find out.

His mother, and his grandmother, the wisest person he had ever known, had once told him never to eavesdrop.

At the time he couldn’t help himself and instead of minding his own business, listening to a one-sided conversation which ended with a time and a place. The very nature of the person receiving the call was, at the very least, sinister, and, because of the cryptic conversation, there appeared to be, or at least to Harry, criminal activity involved.

For several days he had wrestled with the thought of whether he should go. Stay on the fringe, keep out of sight, observe and report to the police if it was a crime. Instead, he had willingly gone down the rabbit hole.

Now, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, several heat lamps hanging over his head, he was perspiring, and if perspiration could be used as a measure of fear, then Harry’s fear was at the highest level.

Another runnel of sweat rolled into his left eye, and, having his hands tied, literally, it made it impossible to clear it. The burning sensation momentarily took his mind off his predicament. He cursed and then shook his head trying to prevent a re-occurrence. It was to no avail.

Let the stinging sensation be a reminder of what was right and what was wrong.

It was obvious that it was the right place and the right time, but in considering his current perilous situation, it definitely was the wrong place to be, at the worst possible time.

It was meant to be his escape, an escape from the generations of lawyers, what were to Harry, dry, dusty men who had been in business since George Washington said to the first Walthenson to step foot on American soil, ‘Why don’t you become a lawyer?” when asked what he could do for the great man.

Or so it was handed down as lore, though Harry didn’t think Washington meant it literally, the Walthenson’s, then as now, were not shy of taking advice.

Except, of course, when it came to Harry.

He was, Harry’s father was prone to saying, the exception to every rule. Harry guessed his father was referring to the fact his son wanted to be a Private Detective rather than a dry, dusty lawyer. Just the clothes were enough to turn Harry off the profession.

So, with a little of the money Harry inherited from one of his aunts, he leased an office in Gramercy Park and had it renovated to look like the Sam Spade detective agency, you know the one, Spade and Archer, and The Maltese Falcon.

There’s a movie and a book by Dashiell Hammett if you’re interested.

So, there it was, painted on the opaque glass inset of the front door, ‘Harold Walthenson, Private Detective’.

There was enough money to hire an assistant, and it took a week before the right person came along, or, more to the point, didn’t just see his business plan as something sinister. Ellen, a tall cool woman in a long black dress, or so the words of a song in his head told him, fitted in perfectly.

She’d seen the movie, but she said with a grin, Harry was no Humphrey Bogart.

Of course not, he said, he didn’t smoke.

Three months on the job, and it had been a few calls, no ‘real’ cases, nothing but missing animals, and other miscellaneous items. What he really wanted was a missing person. Or perhaps a beguiling, sophisticated woman who was as deadly as she was charming, looking for an errant husband, perhaps one that she had already ‘dispatched’.

Or for a tall, dark and handsome foreigner who spoke in riddles and in heavily accented English, a spy, or perhaps an assassin, in town to take out the mayor. The man was such an imbecile Harry had considered doing it himself.

Now, in a back room of a disused warehouse, that wishful thinking might be just about to come to a very abrupt end, with none of the romanticized trappings of the business befalling him. No beguiling women, no sinister criminals, no stupid policemen.

Just a nasty little man whose only concern was how quickly or how slowly Harry’s end was going to be.

…

© Charles Heath 2019-2024