A Game of Greed and Deception: A Mystery Drama (20 page)

Tammy
felt dizzy, a bit nauseous, and sat down on the dirt floor with her legs
stretched out in front of her. She cupped her hands around her mouth and
started to scream. “Who are you and what the hell do you want with me? Show
yourself! You’ve done got Stephen and Maria, now what do you need with me?” She
was exhausted mentally and physically and just wanted the madness to end. Her
head was pounding so she leaned it against the side of the metal cage and
closed her eyes.

After
a few minutes of silence, Tammy sat up and opened her eyes.
Wait a minute – whoever killed Stephen and
Maria must need me for something. Of course – the clue from the puzzle. Only I
know what that is.
She cupped her hands over her mouth and bellowed at the
top of her lungs. “The treasure is real, and I know how to find it. Do you
fucking hear me? If you want to know where it is, then show your damn self! Or
I’m gonna take it all for myself and get the hell out of here. I ain’t scared
so you might as well come out and talk with me.”

She
waited and waited but there was no sign of sound or movement. Then Tammy looked
again at the tiles with the carvings of the Presidents in them. She was
relieved to see that below the facial carvings were the last names of each man.
She found the one with the name “
Adams
” on it.
She tried to push on it and pull it out from the floor, but it was firmly
cemented against the other tiles. Tammy grabbed the dagger and, using it as a
hammering device, starting hitting the tile as hard as she could. After some
firm strikes, a piece of the ceramic broke and fell into a small space beneath
the tile. She kept smashing it until the entire tile broke away from the floor.

Beneath
where the tile has been there was a space with a small lever at the bottom.
Tammy reached inside and pulled on the lever until it moved several inches.
Then she was startled by a loud grinding noise. A forged steel grate door came
down inside the entrance that led back into the narrow tunnel. Sharp spikes
jutted out from the crisscross pattern of the metal rods sealing off the only
exit from the room.

Tammy
stepped outside of the enclosed area and glanced around the room again. She saw
that a small door had swung open in the brick wall behind the wooden table. She
ran over to the brick wall hoping that this might be another exit from the
room. Her mouth hung open in utter astonishment at what she saw. Twenty
50-pound gold bars, neatly stacked on top of each other, had been hidden in a
small space behind the brick wall. What looked like an old iron prison cell
window prevented anyone from taking the bars of gold. The horizontal and
vertical iron bars were close together, barely leaving space enough between
them for Tammy to put her hand through.

Tammy
was suddenly light-headed from the rush of adrenaline and had to kneel down to
keep from passing out.
My God, the
treasure is real! It’s REAL!
 
I don’t
fucking believe it! I’m gonna be rich!
She grabbed onto one of the iron
bars and pulled with all her might. The prison cell window didn’t budge.

Shit, how in the hell do I get this to
open?
She yanked on the iron window bars once more, and then
was convinced that there had to be a mechanism to open it. She examined the
walls and ceiling around her, looking for some kind of lever or switch. She
found nothing. Then she went back to where the carved tiles were.

Tammy
looked inside the opening in the floor where the
Adams
tile had been and pulled on the lever again. This time it didn’t move. She
looked down at the floor around her, and noticed that there was some writing on
the inside of the tile that she had broken. She carefully collected the
fragments of the broken tile and assembled them together again like a puzzle,
only this time with the opposite side up. On the inside of the tile there was a
drawing of a man with one arm who was lying on his back as though asleep.
Written on the tile below the drawing was the following message:
Take a nap with your eyes open, and you
shall see the answer.

Tammy
leaned her good hand against her forehead.
Not
another fucking riddle. What in the hell does that mean? Take a nap with my
eyes open? Where am I supposed to take a fucking nap?
She examined the tile
once more. The man in the drawing was lying very straight, with one arm tucked
against his side, and a bloody stub where the other arm would have been.

Tammy
went back over to where the iron barrier was. She lay down next to it, keeping
her arms to her side, with her good arm against the wall. Then she looked up at
the ceiling in hopes that this might reveal something hidden. Not noticing
anything special, she turned her head to peer through the iron bars. Tammy
suddenly noticed that the space between the bars in the bottom right-hand
corner was larger.

She
reached her hand into this space. She was just able to touch the gold bars with
her fingertips and had a moment of euphoria. On the ground in front of the gold
there was an iron rod that was L-shaped. Tammy pressed down on the rod with her
fingertips and pulled it back out through the space between the iron bars.

She
reached through the opening again. Then she moved her arm back so that she
could feel along the inside of the wall in the enclosed space. Stretching as
far back as she could, she felt a lever on the inside of the wall. She was
about to push it, but then remembered the image of the man with one arm. She
carefully took her hand back out. She used the L-shaped rod to reach inside the
opening. Fidgeting around for a few minutes, she finally felt it butt up
against the lever. Tammy pushed with the rod and the lever moved. The iron
window went flying upwards like a bullet, slamming into the brick wall above.

She
gently put her hand on one of the stunning bars, brimming over with joy at her
newfound riches.
Goddam, I did it!
This just goes to show you that everything
happens for a reason.
She suddenly felt light-headed and woozy, as if she
was in a dream state. She laid down on her back, arms to her side, and started
laughing. A giggle at first and then hysterically.
This is just so fucking amazing – it’s all part of my destiny. I was
obviously meant to find this gold. This treasure is rightfully mine!

She
rolled on the floor laughing so hard her stomach hurt. Then she cupped her
hands around her mouth and shouted. “It’s mine –
ALL MINE!
And there ain’t nothing that anyone can do to stop me
from taking it! I’m getting the fuck outta here and I’m filthy rich.” Any fears
that she had of not knowing who might be down in the tunnels seemed to be gone.

Then
she sat up and smacked herself on the forehead.
Get a hold of yourself and stay calm, Tammy. I need to find a way to
get the hell out of here. I need to leave the gold here for now, find out if
someone else is down here with me, and deal with him first.

She
went over to where the only exit to the room was blocked by the steel door. She
grabbed the edge of the door and yanked on it.
There has to be a way for this thing to open.
Then she examined the
door more closely, hoping to find a keyhole that either the skeleton key or
brass key might fit into. She found nothing.

She
went back to the caged in area and sat down to think about what to do next. Then
she felt several strong gusts of wind blow through her hair coming from behind
the fire pit. Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes slipped one at a time out of the
baseball-sized holes into the room. Around two dozen of the deadly snakes
entered the chamber, each at least four feet long, with white, gray, and brown
skin. The hissing noise that all of them made together with the rattling of
their tails was deafening.

Tammy
sprang to her feet. Adrenaline pumped through her veins as she prepared to
defend herself. She had seen rattlesnakes like this before in the woods of
North Carolina
. She also
knew that these snakes must have been deprived of food and would eat anything
they could strike. Clutching the dagger tightly in her sweaty palm, she stayed
just inside the entrance to the cage. At least she couldn’t be surrounded by
them on all sides, she thought. The snakes hissed and slithered along the
floor. They formed a kind of wall and made their way closer and closer to
Tammy. She tried to tune out the constant mind-numbing noise they made with
their shaking tails. Then she bent down at the knees, keeping her bandaged hand
against the inside of the cage. She leaned forward, preparing herself to fend
off an attack with the dagger.

Some
of the snakes coiled their bodies and raised their heads well above the ground,
poised and ready to strike. They surrounded the caged area. Tammy’s eyes darted
back and forth trying to keep a close watch on the serpents nearest to her. She
waved the dagger frantically in front of her hoping that it would scare the
snakes into backing off. The serpents slid closer to Tammy, and then moved back
away from her thrusting weapon. Her heart was pounding and she couldn’t even
hear herself scream from the deafening noise the snakes made.

She
thought that it was best to try and lure the snakes closer to her one at a time
so that she could kill them. She stayed still with the dagger in her hand and
waited. Her body was turned sideways, giving less of a target to attack, but
still blocking the entrance inside the cage. Two of the snakes came at her, and
Tammy thrust the dagger at them. She missed. The weapon was too short to kill
one of the snakes without getting bit, she thought. Then she eyed the hot iron
poker on the other side of the room. That would be ideal since it was long with
a sharp, pointed end. But could she get across the room without being attacked?
Taking this risk meant life or death, that she felt certain of.

Tammy
decided to go for it. Waving the dagger in front of her, she darted out from
the security of the cage, and across the room to where the poker was. As she
grabbed the poker, one of the snakes bit her on the leg. She roared in pain and
fear, but kept her wits about her to defend herself.

Tammy
launched the hot poker at the snakes, one at a time, and then pulled it back
again. She landed a hit on two of the snakes, wounding them, and rendering
their attacks useless. But there were just too many serpents. Three more of the
rattlesnakes suddenly struck at Tammy from all sides. The attack happened in
the blink of an eye and she was unable to protect herself from the
lightning-quick reptiles. She had been bitten on the sides of her body multiple
times.

Then
more of the serpents attacked, their heads darting at her, their fangs sinking
into her flesh. Tammy waved the iron poker frantically as her mind began to
lose its grip on reality. She was bitten over and over again and soon collapsed
helplessly to the floor. Then her body started to swell, her blue eyes bulged
out like balloons, and her muscles began to go into involuntary spasms. A few
moments later Tammy was vomiting uncontrollably, unable to move her limbs, and
having trouble breathing. By the end of the hour Tammy Worthington let out her
last breath of air.

TWENTY-ONE

The administrative secretary
picked up the company phone. “Gerald, Police Chief David Halloway is here to
see you.”

“Wow,
that was quick. Thank you, Sarah, you can send him in.” Gerald Benson laid two
manila folders full of papers next to each other on his desk.

David
Halloway entered the office, adjusting his thick spectacles on his aging face
framed by combed-over grey hair, and had a seat at the desk across from Officer
Benson.

“It
has been a good while since we’ve spoken about a crime case, Gerry, hasn’t it?”

“Ya,
it sure has. A really long while. Heck, it’s been three years since we
investigated that big burglary case. Coffee?”

“No
thanks. Yes, I remember that case. The break-in at the White Falls Bed and Breakfast.
Some dumb kids trying to play a prank.”

“Exactly.
They were just some local kids that didn’t know any better. Thankfully, nobody
was hurt. I think the parents were more to blame.”

“That’s
usually the case with teens. And there haven’t been any other major crimes in
the last three years?”

“None
that I can recall.”

“That’s
really amazing. We’ve kept up the safest winter tourist spot this side of the
Mississippi
.” David
leaned back in his chair, but his fingernails kept tapping on the office desk.
“So then what in the hell happened up there at the Dilinger Resort Cabin?”

Gerald
re-filled his cup of coffee and glanced down at the folders before looking
David in the eye. “It’s like a scene from a fucking horror movie. In twenty
years on the force, I’ve never seen such a thing. Granted, I do small town
work, but still…this type of stuff just doesn’t happen up here.”

Gerald
paused to take a sip of the piping hot beverage. “A psycho bitch, that’s what
we’ve got here. A greedy, crazy, sociopathic bitch. She brought her family up
to the mountains to torture and kill them. And she bludgeoned one of our own
men.”

David
gave a faint nod. “Go over the case and evidence with me, Gerry. Lay this out
for me one step at a time. What did the preliminary investigation show? What
kind of evidence do we have?”

“Let’s
start at the beginning. We received a distress call late Friday evening – well
I guess Saturday morning technically, January 15
^th
, around 12:30 am.
A woman by the name of Tammy Worthington called to report her husband missing.
She said that she came up to the cabin with him and her step-daughter for the
weekend to celebrate their anniversary. They had dinner at a nearby restaurant
and then checked into the cabin. She told me that he went out in the car
shortly after eating and hadn’t returned. She was worried that something had
happened to him. I figured it was just the usual car stuck in the snow
somewhere and he probably went to one of the local hotels and didn’t have any
cell phone service.”

“What
about a lovers quarrel? Could they have gotten into an argument over dinner and
he didn’t want to come back for a while?”

“Well,
I asked her about that, and she vehemently denied them getting into any kind of
fight.”

“Got
it. So she called, gave you her name, and was concerned and upset that her
husband had not come back? Did you get photographs of the husband online?”

“I
didn’t ask for photographs but got his name and detailed description. So I told
her to wait until morning and see if he contacted her. I went to bed not
thinking much of it. The next morning, she calls again all frantic, waking me
up to tell me that there was no heat and she and her stepdaughter were freezing
up there.”

“So
did you send someone out to check on them?”

“I
couldn’t, really. You know how bad the roads got in that storm. It was the
worst blizzard we’ve seen in a few years. I wasn’t about to overreact to some
city chick getting a little scared of the snow.”

David
looked a bit bewildered. “Gerry, this is a mountain town in the dead of winter.
We want people to come up here for vacation and enjoy themselves. It’s our job
to make sure that they always feel safe. Anyways, go on.”

“Well,
I had my deputy go down around the base of the mountain and have a look to
investigate the claim. The family car, one of those luxury cars, was discovered
and had been in quite an accident. It went over the mountainside and crashed
down below. He found the skid marks and a part of the guard rail was missing.”

David
raised his eyebrow and spoke in an incredulous tone. “The guard rail was
missing? Those things are almost indestructible.”

“Yes,
well it had faltered. So within a couple of hours we had the car uncovered
expecting to find her husband dead. But nobody was inside. It was like the car
went over the cliff by itself.”

“Cars
don’t go over cliffs by themselves, Gerry. Why the hell didn’t you get someone
from the local hotel or somewhere nearby to come get the woman and child and
get them out of that cabin? What if they were in danger?”

“I
hadn’t thought of that. It was not an emergency situation yet. But then I
pulled up some background information on Mrs. Worthington and sent out an
officer to go speak with her. And as you know, he never returned to the office.
She killed him on the front porch with a cinder block.”

David
removed his spectacles to stare Gerald in the eye and hesitated before
responding. “I guess we’ve got some damn different ideas of what an emergency
situation is. If you found their family car crashed with nobody inside and a
man missing, that should have given you a signal that there might be a problem.
What did you find out about this woman?”

“Well,
that’s why I sent out an officer. She had quite the little history, I must say.
She was diagnosed with some social anxiety disorder. As a child she badly hurt
some kid at the playground and was suspended from school. Then as a teen she
got into credit card fraud and identity theft. Totally mentally unstable – you
know, the sociopathic type. But she had no record of being really dangerous.”

“I
think I get the picture. So she came up to the cabin to kill her husband with
the car? He was supposed to die in the crash? And then she took out an officer?
Why would she kill a cop? She was afraid of being found out?”

“I
guess so. Ya, she planned a rather complex murder scheme. We found notes and
diagrams in her luggage. She rigged the car to malfunction and acted as if it
was an accident. It was all a set-up by this bitch to kill her family.
Evidently the guy escaped before the car went over the cliff.”

“So
why didn’t he go get some help or call the police?”

Gerald
smirked. “Revenge. I think he wanted to kill her himself. We found a long
letter from him to the daughter explaining about his wife’s plan. Then he tried
to blow her up with a hydrogen bomb. I think he knew about her plan in advance
and wanted to punish her.”

David
put his glasses back on, looking a bit puzzled. “He knew about her plan in
advance – so you mean he was just playing along the whole time? At what point
did he catch on to her? Did he really escape from the car or was he just making
us think that he did?”

“He
had to be playing along. To escape from a car losing control on an icy road
like that is unrealistic. I think that he wanted to make it look like her plan
had worked so he could torture her and stalk her before enacting revenge. He
wanted her to feel terrified.”

“So
you mean that this really wealthy guy knew that his wife wanted to murder him,
and pretended that her plan had worked perfectly. Then he spent his time trying
to trap and torture her as punishment for what she had tried to do?”

“Ya,
that seems to be the case.”

David
let out a big exhale. “So then what happened?”

“From
what we can tell, she found him first and trapped him. There is this long
underground maze of tunnels and rooms below the cabin. She must have gotten
down there to hold him captive. She tortured him, sadistically and
methodically. He had burn marks all over his body and died inside an Iron
Maiden torture chamber. Have you ever seen one of those before?”

“No.
But how did she find this underground place? From what I read about this cabin,
that was supposed to have been sealed off a long time ago.”

Gerald
nodded. “I think it was. But there was a trap door underneath the floorboards
in the cabin. She must’ve found it and went down. She held him there prisoner
and tortured him for hours before killing him in that thing.”

“And
what happened to the daughter?”

“Oh
God, it was gruesome. She was hung down in another one of the rooms,
execution-style, with her arms and legs bound. She died of strangulation. The
girl must have suffered before going unconscious. To hang like that from a rope
with only the weight of her small body…”

“Thanks,
I got the idea.” David adjusted himself in his chair. “So she comes out here
and rigs the guard rail and car to make her husband’s death look like an
accident. Then when things don’t quite work out, she captures him, tortures and
kills him, and then kills the daughter? She seems awful damn resourceful to
me.”

Gerald
shrugged his shoulders while nodding at the Police Chief.

“But
why did she do it? What was her motive?”

“Oh,
Money. All for money. She had him put a will in her name not long before they
came out here. They were only married a year and she was only 23. You know the
story, a lazy young bitch marries a rich successful bastard and just wants the
lifestyle, not him. So by killing her husband and stepdaughter she would get
everything. More than 50 million.”

“Is
that all?” David chuckled to himself. “And how did she kill one of our
officers?”

“Crushed
his skull with a cinder block. He never got inside the cabin. His blood was all
over the porch.”

“A
120-pound woman threw a cinder block at his head?”

“She
was up on the rooftop. The block was hurled down at him from above the porch.”

“She
is awful fucking resourceful. So how did this crazy woman die? You said that
you found her body?”

“Poisonous
snakes – Western Diamondback Rattlers. They must have been living down in those
tunnels which nobody had been down in for decades. They caught her and had her
for dinner. A fitting end to her, don’t you think?”

“Oh
yes, I’ve read about those creatures. They hibernate in the winter time. She
must have come across their nest and I’m sure they were hungry. Not a good
thing for her. But Gerald, did you examine all of the evidence? How did she
overpower her husband if he was able to escape from the vehicle? Was she
outside waiting for him or what?”

“Well
we don’t know exactly when, but she used Chloroform to put him out. Then he
must’ve become her slave. Her prints were all over the bottle. We’ve also got
the log from the stepdaughter.”

“Log?”

“She
was keeping notes. She said that this Tammy was trying to blame the whole thing
on the father. Telling the girl that he was outside and trying to hurt them.
She even injured herself to make it look like someone was after her. All to
manipulate the girl while keeping her husband captive.”

Police Chief Halloway looked
a bit confused. “So then why did she wait so long to kill the girl? If she was
just getting in the way, why not just take care of her first?”

“I
think she thought about sparing the girl. If she could convince her that the
dad was the bad one and make his death seem like an accident. But when that
plan failed, she had no choice but to kill her too.”

David
rubbed his head, let out a big sigh, and leaned back in his chair. “Ok. What
did the fingerprint report show? And you examined all of the footprints?”

“We
have fingerprints of the wife all over the place. She had a dagger weapon with
her, but that was not used in any of the killings. Her fingerprints were on the
outside of this torture coffin. Strangely though, there was this fork-like
metal thing digging into the husband’s neck, and we didn’t find any prints on
that at all. There were not really any signs of a struggle – I think she used
the Chloroform to knock out both the husband and little girl. As for the
footprints, the wife’s were everywhere. There were tracks of the girl down in
the basement that ended in the room where she was found hanging. We also found
some other big, strange marks on the ground, but couldn’t make them out…”

“I
see. Where the girl’s footprints stopped, did you collect evidence?”

“Well
the ground was dirty and covered with dust and silt. We examined the area in
detail but didn’t find anything…”

“Did
you find the cloth that the wife used to make them pass out? And what about
this bomb in the cellar? You found the husband’s prints on it?”

“We
never found a cloth or towel with the Chloroform. As for the wine cellar, the
only prints we found down there were those of the wife. I guess we lost some of
the evidence with the explosion…”

“So
you’re telling me that this guy escapes from the car, hides out to get revenge
on his murderous wife, while risking the safety and life of his own daughter.
And she is then able to capture him, to torture and kill him. Why would a guy
of his status take such risks?”