A Treasure Deep (14 page)

“You want the truth?”

“I have no use for lies,” Anne retorted. The
comment sounded harsher than she meant.

Branson leaned forward and spoke in a
conspiratorial whisper. “I heard about your journey into the hills.
Also heard it didn’t go well.”

“How do you know about that?” Anne asked with
surprise.

“Police scanner. I keep one in my office.
When a deputy takes a civilian anywhere, it has to be called in.
That goes for the cop on the beat and the head deputy sheriff for
the substation. He told dispatch that he had you in the car. That
made me curious.”

Anne thought back and remembered that Deputy
Montulli had made such a radio call. “There’s nothing secret about
that.”

“I didn’t say there was. I’m just telling you
how I knew you went up into the hills. After hearing that, I sat by
the scanner and listened with my finely tuned journalist’s ear.
Nothing, until he radioed that he was back in the car and headed to
the station. I let some time pass and went to see the good
constable. He didn’t have much to say. Just that he drove you to
private property to ask some construction workers a few
questions.”

“There you have it,” Anne said.

“There’s more. He let on that you were
unhappy because they wouldn’t tell you what they were doing.”

“So?”

“So,” Benson went on, “they’re keeping
secrets, and secrets are news. Skullduggery sells papers.”

“What skullduggery?” Anne asked.

“I’m surprised you asked, Mayor.” Benson
leaned back in his chair. “From what I hear, you think they’re
doing something on the sly.”

“I never said anything like that!”

“Haven’t you? I did a little more research. I
spoke to Bob Vincent.” He quickly raised a hand. “Before you ask,
Montulli told me you came to see him and Vincent was with you. Bob
said he made a trip up there with you too. Two trips in one
day.”

“Just trying to do my job,” Anne said. She
took a deeper swallow of wine.

“Exactly what I’m trying to do, Mayor. I’m on
your side. People keep secrets for a reason, and I think the public
needs to know the effort you’ve spent looking out for their
interests.”

“Don’t tell me you wrote an article about
this.” Anne felt a rush of warmth to her face, and she hoped it was
just the alcohol.

“Of course I did.” Benson gave a prideful
smile. “I had to rework the layout for tomorrow’s paper, but I got
it above the fold on page one. It will be good press for you.”

Anne leaned her head back and looked at the
ceiling. “What,” she began softly, “could you have written about? I
asked a few questions; I learned nothing.”

“I wrote about the secret, Mayor. The banner
reads: Mayor Uncovers Treasure Hunt.”

The pit of Anne’s stomach dropped like a
freight elevator in free fall. “What makes you think there’s a
treasure?”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire; and where
there are secrets, there are valuables.”

“I can’t believe you did that, David. I never
said there was a treasure out there.”

“What else could it be? We know it’s not oil.
That issue was settled decades ago. It’s not a utility company
project like new windmills. And if it was, why would there be such
secrecy?”

“It’s still a long leap to buried
treasure.”

“Ah,” Branson shot back, “well, I never say
what kind of treasure it is.”

“You’re leaving it up to your readers to make
their own leaps in logic?”

“Why not?”

Anne lowered her head and rubbed her eyes.
She sat in silence for a moment then drained the wine glass in a
single gulp. “David?”

“Yes?”

“Go away. Go away now.”

“Why? I’ve done you a favor. I’ve shown the
voters of this city that they have a hands-on, take-no-guff mayor;
someone willing to leave the office and search the hills for truth
and to protect the city she loves.”

Anne motioned for another glass of wine. The
waiter nodded and disappeared into the back of the restaurant.
“I’ll tell you what the problem is, David. I didn’t uncover a
treasure hunt. All I know—and that is precious little—is that a
group of workers with lots of equipment are up on the hillside
doing something they don’t want to talk about.”

“That’s the best part of it all, Mayor.
That’s the mystery, the MacGuffin. That’s what my readers want.
Small-town newspaper work is hardly an exciting endeavor. Even the
most mundane of men get tired of reporting on petty crimes and farm
sales.”

“MacGuffin?”

“It’s a term mystery writers use,” Branson
sighed. “It refers to a plot device, something that moves the plot
of a book along, taking the reader with it.”

“Are you writing mysteries now, David?”

“What’s wrong with that? They say everyone
has a novel

in them.”

“Just make sure your mysteries don’t turn
into my horror stories.”

“I think you’re missing the point, Mayor.
This will be good for you and great for the paper. I’m planning a
series of articles. I’m writing them all myself. In fact, I plan to
go up to the site tomorrow to interview the workers.”

“Good luck,” Anne said. The words were
sarcastic, but they were wasted on Benson.

“Luck is for amateurs, not for the
press.”

The waiter appeared and adroitly set Anne’s
plate of food on the table before her. He poured wine into her
glass with a flourish. “Will the gentleman be joining you?” the
waiter asked formally.

“No,” Anne replied.

“Yes,” Branson said. And he ordered the rib
eye steak to prove it.

PERRY ROSE FROM a kneeling position and stretched out
the kinks in his back. He, Jack, Gleason, and Brent had spent the
last hour meticulously studying the core sample. Moving the sample
to one of the worktables in the oak grove would have made more
sense, but the coin and bone fragment had riveted their
attention.

“Okay,” Perry said. “Let’s get the samples
out to the labs. Jack, you choose someone you trust to hand-carry
the material out of here. The soil seems pretty straightforward,
but I’m especially interested in the Carbon 14. I’ll give you the
names and numbers of the labs I want to use.”

“Got it.”

“Also, send the crew home. Keep three workers
here. We have metal detectors, right?”

“Four of them,” Jack said.

“Good. Then let’s keep four men. I want the
whole area searched. Let’s see if we can’t find more things like
this.” Perry held up the corroded coin.

“Is that what I think it is?” Gleason
asked.

Perry studied the coin for a moment, turning
it so the construction lights illuminated its face. The coin was
obsidian black and crusted with dirt. Perry rubbed his thumb over
the image on one side. He could barely make out the image of a
man’s head in profile. Letters too worn to read ran close to the
irregular rim. “If I were a betting man, I’d put money on it, but
it still needs to be confirmed.”

“So someone lost their lunch money?” Brent
commented.

“It was lost a long time ago,” Perry replied.
“Here.” He held out his hand, pinching the coin between his
fingers. “Go take some photos of this. You can rinse it in water,
but don’t try to rub off the corrosion. We’ll leave that to the
experts.”

Brent took the coin and stared at it for a
moment. “It looks, weird. Irregular.” He turned his attention back
to Perry. “What are you guys going to do?”

“Dig, of course. I want to see what’s down
there.”

“But we found a bone. You’d be digging up a
grave.”

Perry looked at Gleason. “You’re right. He is
smart.”

“You want me to keep a couple of guys to work
the shovels?” Jack asked.

Shaking his head, Perry said, “No. We need
the exercise. You’re starting to look flabby.”

“Is that a fact?” Jack shot back. “Do you
think you can remember which end of the shovel to hold?”

“I think I can figure it out.”

Gleason, whose only calluses could be found
on his fingertips from the hours he spent clicking the keys of a
computer keyboard, looked dubious. “We have a backhoe, you
know.”

“Some things require a gentle touch,” Perry
said with a broad smile. “You can join the fun as soon as you pack
up the samples.”

Gleason groaned.

RAIN PLUMMETED FROM the Seattle sky in steady sheets
on the large window overlooking the city’s skyline. The window was
enormous, reaching from floor to ceiling and running the length of
the office. Streams of water ran down it in jagged artery and vein
patterns. Rutherford stared through the glass and water veil. City
lights scattered into starbursts of yellow and white.

The window-wall was a constant temptation for
him. When he was first confined to a wheelchair, he’d adjusted the
best he could. But when the standard wheelchair gave way to the
fully electric device that now served as legs, feet, and spine, he
fell into a deep depression. Strapped by a belt to the chair, it
had become an extension of his psyche and a constant reminder of
his impossible, hopeless affliction. How easy it would be to back
the chair up to the opposite wall and then run it full speed into
the glass pane.

He had even done the research, calculating
the impact speed necessary to explode the tempered glass into
“dice.” That’s what the manufacturer of the glass had called it.
Tempered glass was designed not to fragment into shards but to
disintegrate into small cubes of glass, hence “dice.” He’d done the
math and realized it could be done. He would need greater speed
than his electric wheelchair could provide, but that could be
arranged. No one questioned his requests. If he requested a V-8
engine be strapped under his chair, it would be done.

It was possible, he knew. He had even read
about a man who, while showing Japanese businessmen his new office
complex, tried to emphasize how safe the glass exterior walls were
by throwing his body against the pane. The glass was designed to
give, to flex and rebound. It didn’t, and the exuberant executive
plunged fourteen stories to his death.

The desire to plow through the transparent
barrier and pitch himself headfirst to the concrete sidewalk below
grew with each passing week. The thought, ironically, comforted
him. In a sense, he told himself, he was already dead; at least his
body was dead. He was a living mind in a decaying corpse. Each tick
of the clock brought him closer to total dysfunction. He wouldn’t
wait that long. If he didn’t find a cure soon, then he would take
the “heroic” way out.

Heroic way. How often had he heard suicide
referred to as the coward’s way? Those who said such things were
healthy and vital. They knew nothing of the courage it took for
people like him to get out of bed each morning; to endure the
condescending conversations of those who spoke and acted like the
disease was nothing, that it didn’t affect the way they looked at
him; but their eyes always betrayed them. Each glance said, “Poor
devil, I’m glad I’m not in his situation.”

What did they know? He was powerful and
respected in the scientific community. He had secured his place in
the annals of pure science as well as in the growing scientific
entrepreneurship. Only five people in the country had more
financial resources than he; and only nine in the world. If all his
wealth were known, if all the sequestered, hidden businesses were
revealed, those other billionaires would quickly fall behind in the
ranking.

But what did that matter? If he owned the
world’s wealth, he’d still have ALS, he’d still have trouble
swallowing his own saliva, and he’d still be welded to the chair he
hated so much.

Rutherford heard the door open behind him.
“Alex has reported in,” a voice said. Since only two people could
open that door without his permission, he knew it was either his
duty nurse or his sister.

“And?” He didn’t bother turning his chair.
The voice was enough to identify the visitor.

Julia Rutherford stepped to her brother and
joined his gaze into the wet night. She stroked his hair with her
long, red-painted fingernails. Rutherford felt some of the tension
leave. The gentle gesture always relaxed him, and somehow, Julia
always knew when he needed to relax.

“He landed in Barstow and has rented a
car.”

“Under an assumed name, I assume.” It was a
rare attempt at humor.

“Ah, word play,” Julia said lightly. “He
knows what he’s doing. No one will be able to trace him to the
corporation. He’d cut out his own tongue rather than betray
you.”

“Why, Julia,” Rutherford began. He noticed
that there was a slight slur in his words. “Do I hear romantic
tones in your voice?” He feared the day when he would be forced to
communicate through a speech synthesizer. Others had learned to do
so. The famous physicist Steven Hawking seemed to manage with it,
but for Rutherford it would be the final insult.

“There’s nothing between us. You know that.”
She paused. “Would you object if there were?”

“A hypothetical question?”

“Of course.”

Rutherford unleashed a raspy chuckle. “Let’s
see, my most trusted employee and my sister walking hand-in-hand
through the park. I have trouble picturing it.”

“I’m not the hand-in-hand type.”

“No, I don’t suppose you are,” Rutherford
said. He changed the subject. “I have something for you to do.”

“What is it?”

“It’s a bit of unpleasantness, I’m afraid.
Does that bother you?”

“Never has before.”

“No, it hasn’t. Maybe you and Alex are a
pair.”

“Does that have anything to do with the
assignment?”

Rutherford turned his wobbly head and looked
up at his sister. Any man in the world would want her. She
possessed beauty and brains and knew how to use them to her
advantage. Before her lay a rich life. Unlike him, she could know
companionship, maybe even love. Those opportunities were gone for
him, but not for her. Like him, she was unencumbered with a
conscience. It was a family trait. “I want you to pay a visit to
someone.”