4 Hemmed In (7 page)

Chapter Fourteen

A Well Digger’s Nightmare

“
A
re you gals crazy
?” shouted Beauregard Madison IV, not a man accustomed to raising his voice. “You want me to send someone down into the Wilkins well based on some cockamamie translation of the markings on a crazy quilt?”

“The marking
s are inside the well too,” said Maddy. At her perky best. Trying to convince her husband. But Beau Madison was known to be as a stubborn as a mule.

“No way
,” he shook his head firmly. “I’d get laughed out of office, helping the Quilters Club search for a lost treasure.”

“Dear,
can’t you just say a puppy fell in the well and that you’re sending out the fire department to rescue it?”

The mayor rolled his eyes.
“You’re asking me to lower someone into an eighty-foot well … not retrieve a kitten out of a tree.”

“Beau
Madison, this is an important piece of Caruthers Corners history,” insisted Cookie Bentley. “We have an obligation to check it out.” As secretary of the Historical Society, she wasn’t going to let a major event like Norsemen visiting Indiana go unexplored.

“Heck, I’ll do it,” said Ben Bentley.

Cookie turned to her husband. “Do what?”

“Go down in the well. I’ve helped dig a lot of wells in this county. No big deal.”

“You could keep this quiet?” asked Beau, showing a crack in his resistance. He had to live with Maddy. And she seemed determined.

“No biggie,” grinned the bearded man. “I’ll get a buddy to run the winch. We can do it
first thing in the morning. By lunch these girls can be counting their Viking silver.”

“Hm, there may be an ownership problem,”
mulled Beau, rubbing his chin. “That well’s on Boyd Aitken’s property. Wish Mark the Shark were here to sort this out.”

“We have to find some treasure before that becomes an issue,” Edgar Ridenour
noted. He remained skeptical about Vikings burying silver in the Midwest. But he didn’t want to say too much, for Lizzie was all a-twitter about the possibility of finding a cache of silver.

“Good point,” grinned Ben.

“I’ll call Boyd Aitkens and get his permission,” sighed Beau. “Tell him the Historical Society is trying to recover Mad Matilda’s bones.”

“Perfect,” said Maddy.

“Those bones would have a place in our little museum,” Cookie nodded. “We’d create a display around them.”

They were
all seated around the Madisons’ dining-room table – Beau and Maddy, Cookie and Ben, Lizzie and Edgar, Bootsie and Jim. The kids were in bed. Aggie would be irked that she’d missed this late-night powwow.

“Now that we’ve solved the treasure hunting issue, let’s talk about who stole the quilt and who killed Charlie
Aitkens,” said Jim Purdue. “May as well get it out on the table, seeing as Boyd’s trying to drag you gals into this.”

“We know the same thing as you, dear,” said Bootsie. “That Edgar overheard Boyd’s son telling someone he knew who stole the quilt.”

“That was probably his friend Spud Bodkin,” nodded Jim. “At least that’s what the state boys tell me.”

“
Doesn’t that make it simple?” said Maddy. “All we have to do is ask Spud who Charlie was talking about.”

“Easier said than done,” the police chief replied. “
Spud’s gone missing.”

“Missing?” said Edgar.

“That’s right. Nobody has seen him in two whole days. Went to Indy to see a Colts game and never came back.”

“Maybe he’s dead too,” suggested Maddy
as she poured coffee, refilling everyone’s cups. The Madisons liked an inexpensive brand that contained chicory.

“
You’re saying the thief killed them both to shut them up?”

“That could explain him being missing,”
she replied.

Lizzie scowled at her coffee cup. She preferred a high-end coffee from Seattle.
A Mucho Grande, with two lumps of sugar. “Charlie Aitkens said it was a guy whose girlfriend has a teenage son who’s into
Lord of the Rings
. How many people in Caruthers Corners could that be?”

“
Hmm,” Maddy considered the question. “Mildred Gertner’s son Stuart is into
Lord of the Rings
. She says he’s read the book more than a hundred times. Thinks he’s a Hobbit or something.”

“His ears
are
big and he’s barely five feet tall,” Lizzie pointed out.

“Hobbits aren’t real,” snapped Cookie.
A woman used to dealing in hard facts, she wasn’t attuned to fantasy worlds populated by wizards and dwarfs and fire-demons.

“No …
but that’s not the point. The boy’s a devotee.”

“
Mildred can’t be the thief’s girlfriend,” said Bootsie. “She and Frank have been married since high school. No boyfriend in the picture.”

“
Mildred isn’t the woman Charlie was talking about,” agreed Maddy. “But her son may know other boys who are hooked on those Tolkien books. I think Jim should question him to see if any of his friends have a single mother with a shifty boyfriend.”

“
Ahem
,” Beau cleared his throat. “That’s not a bad idea, Jim.”

The big moon-faced
policeman nodded. “I’ll put one of my deputies on it first thing in the morning. Got nothing to lose. We don’t have any other leads.”

Edgar sipped his coffee. He wasn’t as fussy about his joe as his wife. Caffeine was caffeine to him. “At least we have a plan of action. Ben goes down in the well tomorrow
morning. And Jim starts hunting for Hobbits.”

“That about sums it up,” said Beau Madison, finishing off his coffee in one gulp. He liked the taste of chicory.

≈ ≈ ≈

Aggie got up to go to the bathroom. It was just down the hall.
As she passed her cousin N’yen’s room, she heard sobbing.

Tapping on the door
, she whispered, “Can I come in?”

“Y-yes,” came a tiny quavering voice.

“What’s the matter?”

The boy sat up in bed. Aggie could see his silhouette from the moonlight coming
through the bedroom window. “I’m worried about my daddy and mommy,” he said. “I don’t want them to die.”

“They’re not going to die,” the girl reassured him. “They just got banged up a little.
That’s what my daddy told me, and he never lies. After all, he’s a lawyer.”

“Honest?”

“Honest Injun. Don’t worry so much.”

“I’m afraid of being alone again, like after my first mommy and daddy died. They were in a car accident too.”

“You won’t ever be alone. You’ve got a family now. Forever.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you’ve got me and grammy and grampy and my daddy and mommy and Uncle Freddie and Aunt Amanda and all your new cousins.” She paused. “Besides, your own daddy and mommy will be getting out of the hospital real soon.”

“Promise?”

“You know you can always trust me, your very favorite cousin.”

≈ ≈ ≈

That same night Jasper Beanie heard a noise outside the caretaker’s cottage. Could it be those prankish high-school boys again? They liked to initiate members into the Seniors Scalawag Society by sending unwary boys into the cemetery to retrieve a bone. Some of the crypts were in need of repair, access to skeletons being easier than the town commissioners would care to admit. Principal Dorrety had banned such initiations, but they still went on behind his back.

As Jasper could attest.

Proper procedure was for the caretaker to phone the police and report any trespassers … but after his week of confinement with the Indiana State Police he wasn’t eager to see more lawmen. So he pulled on his trousers and hobbled out the backdoor, flashlight in hand.

“Yo, you boys! Get the heck outta the cemetery. It’s closed to the public this time of night.”

However, the voce that replied didn’t belong to a student at Madison High School. “Hello, Mr. Beanie. Perhaps you could help us? We’re looking for a tombstone with a piece broken off.”

“There’s lotsa tombstones like that. Pleasant Glades is better’n a hundred years old.”

“Take a look at the picture,” said the voice. “Maybe you’ll recognize it as coming from one of your tombstones.”

A light flashed on
, revealing two men in suits, a photograph held out for him to inspect.”

“Just who are you guys?”

“We’re with the state police,” said Neil the Nail.

Chapter Fifteen

Hunting for Hobbits

D
eputy Pete Hitzer interviewed Harry “the Hobbit” Gertner that next morning. Harry’s mother gave him permission to call her son out of First Year Algebra for the talk. Harry didn’t mind getting out of the math class one little bit. He hated memorizing terms and coefficients. He’d rather be writing fantasy stories in an Elfin language on his online blog.

Principal Dorre
ty let them use his office. He had sent a teacher’s aide to call the boy out of class so as not to upset students with a policeman’s presence.

“Fare the well, officer,” said the chubby bespectacled nerd. “What wanteth thou of me?”
He was dressed in a top hat, vest, and morning coat, despite the school’s dress code.

“First off, let’s speak the King’s English,” said Pete Hitzer.
He only had a GED diploma, so he didn’t like it when people flaunted their fancy education.

“Alas, these days the Crown is overseen by a Queen. So should we call it the Queen’s English?”

The deputy put on his tough face, the one he used when arresting people. “I mean plain ol’ American English. Got it, Harry?”

“Uh, yes sir.”

“Good. Now here’s my question –”

It took three minutes for Deputy Pete Hitzer to get two names of
local
Lord of the Rings
aficionados who had single moms.

≈ ≈ ≈

Lt. Neil Wannamaker was on the phone with that hick police chief. “The rock used to kill the Aitkens boy didn’t come off a tombstone at Pleasant Glades,” he stated as if this were a major revelation.

“Why would you think it did?” replied Jim Purdue, determined not to show his cards.

“Because that’s where Charlie’s mother is buried. Thought it might have been a keepsake from her grave.”

“Sounds pretty ghoulish,
taking a piece of his mother’s tombstone as a memento.”

“Told you it wasn’t
that. His mother’s tombstone is as pristine as the day it was placed there ten years ago.”

Jim paused, debating whether to tell him it was a runestone. No, the ISP would never buy that theory. Vikings in Indiana? It was all too crazy. So instead he said, “There are several other cemeteries in the area. Family plots. Small churches. A big one
over near Burpyville that’s owned by a funeral home chain – Shady Meadows, it’s called.”

“We’ve checked them all. I had a dozen men poking around
local graveyards yesterday. Went into overtime, up to midnight. That rock didn’t come from any of them.”

“So where did it come from?”

“Beats me. Maybe it’s a souvenir Charlie brought back from Boy Scout camp in Michigan when he was sixteen years old. Maybe its origin isn’t even important. But we try to run down every lead.”

Jim screwed up his courage. He wasn’t used to talking back to
the state police. “I thought you said this was my case. What the dickens are your men doing checking out the murder weapon behind my back.”

“Just lending a hand. I’ve got more resources than you do, so why not help you out?”

“Yeah, thanks,” Jim said. But he didn’t sound sincere.

≈ ≈ ≈

“No,” said Cookie to the tall man with the thin moustache, “records of where the Church of Avenging Angels was located do not exist.”

“
Hey, I checked with the folks at Town Hall. They said to ask you.”

“Wish I could help, but the
church’s location is lost to history. Old newspaper articles suggest it was on the far side of the Never Ending Swamp, but no one knows exactly where.
A Personal History of Caruthers Corners and Surrounding Environs
by Martin J. Caruthers tells us a little about the leader of the church, one Rev. Billingsley Royce. Caruthers claimed the good reverend was really a scalawag from St. Paul, Minnesota, named Billy Bob Rutherford.”

“
Is he the one who drowned that witch lady?”

“According to report
s in an 1899 issue of the
Burpyville Gazette
, a local woman was drowned in her own well by a group of religious zealots. They thought she was a witch – and maybe she thought so too. The men were never identified, but rumor had it that Rev. Royce was the ringleader.”

“And nobody ever found the money?”

“W-what money?” Cookie stammered. At this very moment her husband and his pal Bombay were down in the very well where Matilda Wilkins had died. It seemed highly suspect that this stranger would be asking about her murderers on this particular morning.

“Legend has it those religious zealots, as you call them, took
Mrs. Wilkins’s money and buried it under the doorstep of their church. Silver bars, it was said.”

“S-silver bars? Why would an old farmer’s wife have silver bars?”
She was shocked he knew about the silver.

“Viking treasure she found in her well, the story goes.”

“Where did you hear this?” Cookie could feel her hand shaking as she thumbed through the Caruthers book to the paragraph about the witch’s death.

“My organization is called the Greater Midwest Occult Phenomena Association. G.M.O.P.A., for short. Or G-Mop-A if you like. We research occult phenomena. We’ve catalogued over fifty thousand strange happenings
since 1800. Naturally, we pay attention to stories about witches. The tale about Rev. Royce and the witch woman’s silver appeared in a book called
Angels of the Lord and the Silver Hoard
, supposedly written by one of Rev. Royce’s congregation, a man named Simonton Poteet. It was published in 1937 by the Peoria University Press – now defunct.”

“If you already know s
o much about Rev. Royce, why are you quizzing me?” She’d have to get her hands on that book, Cookie told herself.

“We try to be thorough.
What’s more, we know you and your quilting friends have been poking around the Wilkins homestead. If you’re after the silver bars too, you can forget it. I have a deal with Boyd Aitkens, the gent who owns that land.”

“Matter of fact, so do we. But I thought you said the money was burie
d at the church … or wherever the church used to be located.”

“That’s just it, we aren’t sure. Legends are never totally accurate.”

“Yes, I certainly agree.”

“Then if you –”

“Sorry, but you’ll have to excuse me. I’m behind in my filing.”

“I thought you were going to show me the reference in that book. We don’t have a copy
of it in our library.”

“
Yes, it’s a rare book. In fact, this may be the only copy existent. In 1913 Martin Caruthers paid to have it printed on the
Burbyville Gazette
press. Only 50 copies were pulled, according to the records.”

“Does it say more about Rev. Royce?”

“Perhaps. But I’m too busy right now to look it up.”

“Hey
–”

“Go find the treasure on your own,” snapped Cookie, closing the book
with a
bang
! “I have work to do.”

≈ ≈ ≈

At that very moment, Ben Bentley was 82-feet down inside the Wilkins well. Or if the Quilters Club was right, a well dug by Viking explorers.

Perhaps these Norsemen
had spent a season here in Indiana, camping under this canopy of oak trees. That would have given them plenty of time to dig a well and carve messages on rocks that were later used by Benjamin Wilkins to build a protective wall around the well.

“How deep’s the water?” Bombay Martinez called down to him. Bombay was a retired circus performer. He worked with the Haney Bros. (actually a man and wife rather than brothers) at the zoo next to the Bentley farm.
Among other duties, he took care of the elephant.

“Not very deep at all. Water
only comes up to my knees.” Ben was wearing his hip-waders that he used for duck hunting.

“Found any silver bars yet?”

“Nope. Nor any witch’s bones. There
is
an aluminum Coke can floating down here, but I suspect it’s of a more modern origin.”

“
Dastardly picnickers!” huffed Bombay. He hated litterbugs.

“Wait a minute,
there’s something here in the muck,” called Ben’s disembodied voice from deep in the well. “A glass jar with something in it. I’ll put it in the bucket and you haul it up.”

“G
ot it,” replied Bombay, putting the winch in motion.

That was the only
find of the day, the glass jar.

≈ ≈ ≈

After his frustrating meeting with that Historical Society lady, Maury Seiderman drove out to the Wilkins cottage. He could see people milling about in the distance, so he parked his 1975 LeSabre convertible on a side road and pulled out his Bausch and Lomb field glasses to spy on them. He wasn’t sure what to do if these interlopers had found silver down there in the well.

Seiderman wasn’t a violent man, but
his partners were. His cousin’s boyfriend had killed that Aitkens boy in some kind of argument over the stolen quilt. Maybe he’d call his cuz and let her boyfriend handle this if these people discovered the treasure.

But it didn’t come to that. No silver bars were hauled up from the well. Just a Mason jar and that stocky guy in hip waders.