The Pact: A Detective Locklear Mystery Read online

  The trooper put her fingers back into the space and ran them along the length of it.

  “It feels like a ...”

  “Like a what?” Locklear asked.

  “Never mind,” she said. She did not want to disappoint her boss. The contents of the box would do that in the next few minutes.

  Mendoza pushed the item around as she tried to move it into a position that would enable her to pull it through the opening in the box.

  Locklear curled his fists into a ball in frustration as he waited for her to reveal the treasure.

  “OK,” she finally said. “I have a hold of a narrow section. I’ll pull it through.”

  Slowly and with great care she gripped the shaft of what she now knew was a long and very heavy, metal key.

  She lifted it out and glanced briefly at her boss who was speechless.

  “There’s paper as well,” she said as she returned her narrow fingers into the hollowed-out space.

  She pulled the paper out and handed it to Locklear who held the key in his hand.

  “What is it?” Carter asked.

  Locklear unfolded the paper and studied the document.

  “It’s a map and, look, someone’s written on it,” Mendoza said.

  Her boss had still not uttered one word.

  “Sarge?”

  “Carter – get me the book Jefferson’s wife gave me in New York. Open the section where there’s a letter written by Grant.”

  Carter went to Locklear’s desk and retrieved the book. He opened it to the relevant page and laid it on the table.

  Locklear looked from the writing on the map to the letter in Hennessy’s book.

  “It’s the same writing – look.”

  Carter and Mendoza studied the handwriting.

  “So, Grant drew this map?”

  Locklear nodded. He ran his hands over his unshaven face.

  “I reckon Grant saw Eli with this box and thought it was valuable. He took it and found a double use for the box by hiding his map and key in it for safe keeping. I’d say that chamber was where Mennonites hid valuables they were trying to smuggle out of Germany so that they had something to barter with when they arrived in America. Grant must have cottoned onto it and when he found there was nothing in it, he at least found a good place to hide his map and the key to whatever it opens.”

  “So, when Eli found out Grant had stolen the box from him, Grant wouldn’t admit to it because he had hidden his own treasure in it?” Carter asked.

  “Exactly,” Locklear replied.

  “I gather at some point Eli figured out that there was something far more valuable in the box?” Mendoza suggested.

  Locklear took a deep breath. He lifted the book written by Hennessy. It was dated 1867. Two years after the war had ended.

  “I do believe now that at first Eli simply wanted the box so he could go home. He was a despicable man but he just wanted to be accepted back into the community. When Grant was apprehended in New York, the newspapers were full of his arrest for treason, murder and there were references to missing valuables which he had admitted to stealing. Eli would have heard about it, if not from this book, then from the newspapers. Something like that would have been printed all over this country. Even back then. Maybe he assumed that there was something more valuable in the box now?”

  “Probably – and every generation of the Shanks knew the dirty secret too. More recently, the desperation to find the box increased when the Shanks realised they were bankrupt.”

  “Hence the reason to go after Andrew?”

  “Yeah, I guess they thought Luke was lying about not having found it. Maybe they thought he knew where it was and, while he wouldn’t cash it in himself, he’d get at them by not handing it over. Unless, of course, his brother was in danger.”

  “But, what does this mean? What could Grant have stolen back then that could possibly be so valuable?” Mendoza asked.

  Carter lifted the map and turned it sideways. A broad smile washed over his face.

  “Well, Mr Historian, do you want to tell her or will I?” Locklear asked.

  Carter laughed. “It’s Confederate gold. Stolen Confederate gold that has been missing since the end of the Civil War!”

  “But, sarge,” said Mendoza. “We have no idea what the code means and we have no idea where to find it.”

  Locklear examined the map. It contained neither a townland reference nor landmarks and consisted only of a simple, child-like drawing of a small forested area with badly drawn miniature trees dotted around the page. In the front line of the wood, the fifth tree was marked with an X with a coin drawn beside it.

  On the side of the map Grant had written IF1861.

  “I know what it means,” he said. “IF is the initials of Isacc Falk. He was Helena Wyss’s ancestor and he died in the Civil War. 1861 refers to the year he died.”

  “So, it’s a grave?” Carter asked.

  Locklear looked at Lee. “No. His body was never returned to the family. I guess the man was buried where he fell. Helena told me that Isaac’s wife carved his initials into the tree in the woods at the back of the Wyss farm. It’s in the exact spot I got caught in that trap and it’s the tree we found Helena Wyss hanging from.”

  “Sir, how would Grant have come into possession of the gold?” Carter asked. “I mean, there are lots of myths surrounding the treasure – it wasn’t gold as in gold bars or nuggets. I remember studying it in college. It was actually what’s known as ‘specie’ so it was a mix of silver and gold coins and they’re actually worthless now – in monetary terms anyhow. I’d say if the coins exist they’d only be considered valuable to a museum.”

  “But the Shanks obviously didn’t know that.”

  “Obviously not,” Carter replied.

  Locklear sighed. “All that murder, and deceit. All for nothing.”

  “There may even be some truth in the rumour that the gold never really existed, that the ‘missing’ gold was actually used to pay Confederate soldiers at the end of the Civil War. The story that many historians think is correct is that only some of the gold was stolen but the amount taken only really accounted for about $70,000. It happened when the coins were moved from Richmond by train to Danville and from there it was moved on horseback and by wagon train. It was heavily guarded by Confederate soldiers but the wagons were hijacked in Wilkes County in Georgia. That’s a long, long way from where Grant was hiding. Some of it has been found over the years but a lot of the coins were never found.”

  “Remember Grant said that he met up with ‘others in the same situation’?” said Mendoza. “I think he meant thieves, outlaws. It’s possible that he met up with thieves who had been in Wilkes County and had been involved in the heist.”

  “Bushwackers, Mendoza,” Locklear interrupted.

  Carter looked at his boss.

  “I read,” he said in response to the look of surprise on his trooper’s face. “He also had a horse by the time he met up with the Fehrs. I think it’s very likely that he met up with one or some of the thieves and in turn stole the gold and a horse from them.”

  “Sounds likely.”

  Carter looked upwards as though a light had been switched on over his head. His mouth opened.

  “Sir, I wrote my thesis on the history of Harrisonburg in the 1800s. When I was doing my research I read a piece somewhere about three bushwhackers who were imprisoned for stealing Confederate gold. A Confederate soldier who they’d bayoneted during the theft in Wilke’s county ID’d them and said they had made off with a locked ammunition trunk full of coins. They were apprehended a few miles from Harrisonburg but they had nothing on them. They swore that a black Union soldier had stolen it from them and had taken their horses. Of course, no one believed them and they were imprisoned in Richmond. Two of them escaped together and were never heard from again and the third made a later escape and made it all the way to Canada.”

  Locklear tapped the map and grinned. From his grave somewhere in New York,
Grant had led them on a merry dance. He figured the man had run from Dayton when it was clear that Eli Shank was going insane but he intended to return swiftly to dig up the treasure he had hidden in the woods at the back of Wyss’s farm. His capture and subsequent death by firing squad prevented the man from ever collecting his prize. The treasure had been here all along.

  “Well, let’s get digging.”

  The pouring rain in the woods the following morning did nothing to dampen Locklear’s mood. The investigation was coming to the end. He had solved the more recent part of the case and the testimony of Stoll’s surviving goon, who admitted to carrying out the attempted murder of Andrew Fehr at the behest of Stoll and her Uncle Jacob, would mean that the angry woman would spend the rest of her natural life in jail. The goon’s description of the last moments of Helena Wyss’s life had brought him to tears which he had shed in the privacy of his hotel room. Helena Wyss, he said, had fought Stoll bravely and it was their employer who had taken the woman’s life and taken it, he reported, with pleasure. He also admitted to the killing of Aaron Fehr in his cabin at the pinnacle of Fehr farm on the orders of Jacob Shank. Locklear wondered if the old man had chosen the site so that, as the second son of his family, he could see the Shanks when they eventually came for him. The hired killer insisted that Samuel Shank knew nothing of the murders and that the uncle and niece had kept much of the more sinister side of the business from him. Locklear wasn’t sure if this was true but it didn’t matter now anyway. Shank was dead, Jacob was dead.

  Carter stood to one side as Locklear and Lennox dug the land beneath the tree where only days before Helena Wyss had been strung up and where Locklear himself had been saved by the kindness of Luke Fehr.

  He glanced around himself and knew the man was watching from the distance. He could feel his eyes, his brooding presence and wondered how a man like Luke Fehr could go back to living a normal life after so many years living in the shadows.

  A loud clink rang out as Lennox’s shovel met with hard metal. With renewed energy Locklear and he shovelled off the sodden earth until a large box was revealed. They freed the earth from around its sides and then, with great difficulty, hauled the leaden box from its ancient grave.

  They laid it on the ground and sat back panting from its weight.

  Locklear knelt on the cold wet ground and ran his hands over the top of the box. He looked upwards into the tree and tried to visualise Helena Wyss alive, watching him uncover the secrets that in all that time had been so close, but it was his mother’s eyes he saw and he realised then what Wachiwi had been trying to tell him that day he climbed the tree – the day that he saw her image surrounded by pearls – that it was here in this spot that the secrets to his case lay. It was not something he would ever tell his troopers, or even Kowalski. No one would ever understand or believe him. It was something he hardly believed himself or understood.

  “Should we open it here?” Carter said.

  Mendoza produced the huge, ancient key and slid it into the lock. Surely it would have rusted over the years? But with one swift click it turned. She pulled back the clasp and opened the box, hoping her boss would not be disappointed.

  All four stood and stared down at its contents.

  “No wonder he needed a horse,” Mendoza breathed. She knelt and ran her hands through the heavy coins. “There are hundreds of them. Carter, are you sure these coins are worth nothing?”

  Carter smiled. “Well, let’s put it this way, you won’t be exchanging any of them for dollars at Wells Fargo!”

  Locklear dug his hands deep into the box and rummaged around.

  “What are you looking for, sarge?”

  “Pearls.”

  Mendoza laughed. “Now – those I could use.”

  Locklear stopped when he felt something different between his fingers. He pulled it from under the heavy coins. A string of pearls.

  “Sarge! How did you know there were pearls in there?”

  Locklear sat back and thought about what answer he’d give. Some of the response he decided to give was true, so he wasn’t lying. Not altogether anyhow.

  “Just a hunch. I figured the Shanks must have suspected that the coins were worthless and even if they weren’t they’re stolen goods. They couldn’t offload them even if they wanted to. They always knew there was something else in the box.”

  Locklear dug his hands in again and pulled out another necklace, then another followed by two gem-stoned rings.

  “Looks like Grant had a sideline going as he made his way through the south. I bet much of this belongs to that old lady who put him up.”

  Locklear stood and looked down at his filthy trousers.

  He wiped the rain from his face and glanced up higher into the tree line where he thought, for just a moment, that he saw Luke Fehr standing in a clearing that did not exist. He blinked. When he opened his eyes the man was gone.

  The rain began to beat down hard on the group. Locklear leaned back and let the rain pour down his face. It was over. He had solved the case. Past and Present. It was time to go home.

  Chapter 32

  The short drive to the Schumer household one week later was a task Locklear was happy to be charged with. He glanced at Anabel Schumer, recently released from a New York hospital and escorted by plane by the recently promoted Robbins, as she sat in the passenger seat beside him. The marks on the woman’s face would heal and in time, he hoped, the mental scars of her days in the captivity of Beth Stoll’s men and their threats to hurt her family if she didn’t comply with them would fade and the woman would get on with life back in her home town.

  As he pulled over to the kerb Anabel wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He patted her arm as it crossed his chest but did not turn to look at her.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He waited kerbside and watched for only a moment as she hugged her father and grandfather at the door but drove off before the girl’s father had a chance to thank him.

  Anabel had only made it as far as her first bus changeover and the five-hour stopover gave the goons ample time to catch up where they laid in wait for the vulnerable woman. She never made it onto her final bus to Minnesota and remained captive until Stoll came up with a good use for her lookalike – to impersonate her in New York and provide her with an alibi while she committed murder in Harrisonburg.

  Peter and Helena Wyss had left their farm to the Fehr siblings; the will had been written in a solicitor’s office in Richmond seven years before when the Wysses had first fostered three of the Fehr children. The gift would, Locklear hoped, provide Luke Fehr with a means to make a living from farming. Locklear wondered if the man now slept in a bed, in a house, with his siblings, knowing that he and his family were safe. The transition from nomadic to settled living was a difficult one, a transition Locklear himself was familiar with.

  At Dayton police station, he watched from the periphery as Carter and his wife proudly showed off their new baby girl on a brief visit to the station. Carter had handed in his notice as soon as the treasure was lifted from the ground and Lennox had gladly accepted it. He walked over to Locklear who stood alone at the window and handed the baby to him.

  “Oh no, Carter, don’t do that. I don’t know how ...”

  “It’s fine. I wanted to introduce you to Sara – Sara Carter.”

  Locklear looked down at the sleeping baby.

  “Your wife doesn’t mind?”

  Carter glanced over at his wife who was talking to cops in the corner.

  “No. She thinks the name is fitting. To celebrate new beginnings and acknowledge what is past,” he replied.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  Carter smiled and the boyish man who had met Locklear on his first day on the case returned.

  “I’ve accepted a research position at Virginia’s Commonwealth University in the fall. I’ll be getting back to what I always wanted to do. It’ll mean moving the family to Richmond. My dad’s going to follow
when he’s well enough.”

  “I’m glad for you,” Locklear replied.

  “We’ll be neighbours. I was hoping you’d come and visit. Mendoza too. We’ll all be living in the same city. It’ll be nice.”

  Locklear looked over at Mendoza who was in deep conversation with Gonzalez. He nodded but did not answer.

  “Say maybe,” Carter insisted.

  “Maybe,” Locklear replied.

  He handed the sleeping infant back to her father.

  “She’s beautiful,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  Locklear watched the crowd mingle in the room he would no longer now call his incident room and listened as they easily conversed with each other.

  He smiled as Mendoza approached him and poured herself a coffee.

  Locklear smiled. “Gonzalez, eh?”

  Mendoza laughed and looked across the room at the cop.

  “I’m hurt, Mendoza. All the time I thought you had eyes only for me.”

  The cop laughed again. “I’m going back to Richmond, Sarge. That’s where I belong. I hear there’s a sergeant there who has trouble keeping troopers on. Seems like they all get fed up with his idiosyncrasies and his moods. I heard he has an opening. I was thinking of applying.”

  Locklear laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Hug?”

  Locklear moved forward and pulled the woman to him. She patted his back. When he stood back there were tears in her eyes.