Treasure Me (2 page)

Including a Civil War-era portrait in a shadowbox frame. Bringing the article close, Birdie gazed intently at the photograph.

Curiosity swirled through her. No, she wasn’t responsible for the slaves her French ancestors had owned in the dawning years of the new republic. She’d only traveled through the South a few times and had never set foot on a plantation. Houses outside suburban Charleston now sat on the thousands of acres once owned by her forebears, the illustrious Postells. It was only fitting that their mansions had burned to the ground during the Civil War. Like slavery itself, they’d gone to ash.

Still, the story of a singular love had traveled down through the generations alongside the tales of slavery. Love between a plantation owner, who was Birdie’s ancestor, and the beautiful slave who’d comforted him after his wife’s death. The slave became a freedwoman and traveled north with riches given to her by her beloved. According to legend, the treasure had been stashed away for all these years.

Was any of it true? Birdie wasn’t sure. The bits and pieces of lore gleaned from her mother never gave enough detail to tell.

In one of the
Akron Register
photographs, The Second Chance Grill’s buxom chef stood in the foreground. But it was the portrait, clearly visible behind her, that gripped Birdie’s attention.

Is the woman in the portrait the freedwoman Justice Postell?

She knew enough American history to realize a daguerreotype of a black woman, taken in the mid-1800s, was unusual. The dress she wore was elegant, the collar tightly ruffled with tiny beads—like pearls—scattered across the bodice. Could a freedwoman have owned a dress so luxurious? The portrait seemed to confirm the stories passed down in Birdie’s family of how the plantation owner sent the black slave, Justice, north to freedom with hidden fortune. Once free, Justice became a successful businesswoman and wealthy in her own right. After she’d escaped slavery in South Carolina, where had she gone? In what state had she lived? The answer was shrouded in history.

Still, Birdie wouldn’t have believed she was actually looking at a portrait of Justice Postell if it weren’t for Hugh Schaffer’s article. The feature seemed to unravel some of the mystery behind a scrap of parchment her mother kept in a safety deposit box in Santa Fe. Wish swore the parchment had once belonged to Justice and was a clue to the location of the treasure.

Liberty safeguards the cherished heart.

The parchment had been passed down through generations in Birdie’s family as the once-proud plantation owners bred low and became a family of con artists and thieves. The cryptic message was never decoded. During those infrequent times when Birdie and her mother landed in the same city—and if they were getting along—they’d stay up late drinking Rum and Cokes and theorize about the meaning behind the words.

Every snippet of family lore agreed on one fact: Justice never sold whatever she’d carried north to freedom. Gold bullion? Antique French jewelry worth thousands on today’s market?

Liberty safeguards…

So many guesses, and Birdie had never fully believed any of the stories. Until now.

The town where the portrait resided was Liberty, Ohio.

* * *

“Don’t even start with the excuses, Hugh. You’re fired.”

Trapped inside the glass-walled office, Hugh Schaeffer planted his feet before the City Editor’s desk and tried to get his bearings. Outside in the newsroom, journalists and copy editors were hard at work. He would have been too, if Bud Kresnick hadn’t confronted him the moment he stepped off the elevator and ordered him into the corner office.

It was just like Bud to incinerate a relatively happy Monday by leveling threats. ‘Relative’ being the operative word. Hugh’s latest live-in love, Melissa, had moved out of his apartment, taking his flat-screen TV with her.

Women, the thieving witches, always took something on the way out. His flat-screen TV. His microwave. Last March, Tamara Kelly made off with his entire sound system including the speakers he’d installed in every room of his condo. From the looks of the plaster, she’d used a blunt spoon to dig them out.

The weaker sex, my ass
. Every last member of the
pilfering
sex should be banished to the seventh circle of hell.

Hugh grappled for a sense of calm. “You don’t want to fire me.” His trusty intuition warned that this time the City Editor would make good on the threat. “I’ll work late. Move up the deadlines, pile on the work—I’m your man.”

“Bullshit. You missed another deadline.”

“An oversight.”

Bud folded his hands over his expansive gut. “I went to press with a hole on page one. Know what I filled it with? Page four fluff. A ribbon cutting ceremony that’ll make me the laughingstock of every respectable paper in Ohio.”

“It won’t happen again,” Hugh said, thinking
, this is the third deadline I’ve missed this month
.

It wasn’t his fault. Melissa had been spilling tears across his apartment, in some sort of premenstrual funk over the sculpture she couldn’t finish. She blamed his vibes, claimed his energy was dark and repressive and his inability to commit thwarted her creative flow. He’d vacillated between consoling her and camping out in front of the tube to watch the Browns lose to the Steelers, with a six-pack at his elbow.

On the other side of the desk, Bud wasn’t buying. “You’ve got an addiction, pal. Now it’s cost you your job.”

Hugh glowered. “I’m not a heavy drinker. Not anymore.”

“I’m talking about women.”

He flinched. “Okay—you’re right. I need a twelve-step program.”

“You also need a job since you’re no longer employed by the
Akron Register
.” When Hugh grumbled a protest, Bud waved the words away. “Listen, I was excited when I hired you. I knew you’d been thrown off four other newspapers. I also knew you’d once been a fine investigative reporter, one of the best in the state. I even felt bad last summer when I gave you the Liberty gig. You’re a coldhearted bastard, and writing cotton candy prose must’ve nearly killed you.”

Which was true. Writing an upbeat feature about the money raised to pay for a kid’s bone marrow transplant wasn’t exactly Hugh Schaeffer material. No one had been gunned down at close range or absconded with thousands of dollars of public money. There was no sexual impropriety in high office to report or juicy grist about a corporation dumping some toxic stew into Lake Erie.

But he’d taken the assignment without complaint because Bud wanted to punish him for missing yet another deadline.
Not my fault
. Hugh was between live-in lovers at the time. When he met Zoe, a vivacious personal trainer, he left the article on union corruption in limbo.

Dodging the thought, he stuffed his pride. It was time to grovel. “If you fire me, there isn’t a newspaper in Ohio that’ll put me on the payroll. Not with five strikes against me.” Nervous tension wound through his muscles—this would be the end of his career. What would he do? He’d be a failure, a has-been—he’d be pathetic. “I’ll do anything. Give me one more chance.”

At the desperation in Hugh’s voice, Bud lowered his brows. But the City Editor surprised him when his expression softened. “Maybe you should try therapy.”

“What?”

Bud slowly rubbed his chin. “Seriously, pal. Get a therapist. Talk about it.”

“Talk about…” A sense of foreboding crept into his blood.

The members only club of newspaper editors was so tight knit, it was nearly incestuous. Had Bud heard through the grapevine about Hugh’s involvement in the Trinity Investment scandal? Ancient history, but it was the kind of archeological dig that could bury a man for years.

Fourteen years had passed since he’d written the article that derailed his life. Had Bud learned the sordid details from a colleague? The article, written when Hugh was a rookie, brought him perilously close to his subject. Naïve and eager, he plunged into the murky world of celebrity when he was too young to comprehend the danger. Had he loved the celebrated philanthropist, Cat Seavers? Impossible to recall—the intervening years had washed away the particulars of his emotional state even if they hadn’t absolved him of his sickly remorse. Her death and the subsequent uproar nearly destroyed him. He sought absolution in drink and women. He survived, barely, and his journalistic style became edgier, more in-your-face.

When he couldn’t find his voice, Bud said, “What are you, two years away from forty? All you do is chase tail, which has me thinking you aren’t chasing so much as running.”

“I’m not running from anything,” Hugh replied with enough heat to nearly convince himself. But if the City Editor had been a goddamn mystic he couldn’t have been more accurate.

“Tell you what.” Bud turned toward his computer and navigated through the Internet. “Remember those websites for the Perini girl? The ones where people donated cash for her bone marrow transplant?”

“Of course.”

“They’re still up, bringing in money.”

“She had the operation months ago.” Hugh’s inner antenna went on alert. Why were people across the country still making donations? Blossom Perini was on the mend. “What’s her father doing with all the cash?”

“Gee, Hugh, I don’t know. Think he’s funneling greenbacks into a vacation condo?”

“Could be.”

“Lots of good people donated money for the girl’s medical expenses. A real shame if Anthony Perini misappropriated the funds.”

Hugh’s brain whirled. “He could be doing anything—investing, buying cars—I’ll bet he’s already put thousands in his 401k, the bastard.”

“You tell me.”

“Okay, I will.” It might take a few weeks to uncover the scam, but if it put him back in Bud’s good graces, what the hell.

“But don’t tell me on my dime because you’re fired. You want to do some digging? Do it without an expense account from the
Akron Register
.”

Stunned, he let out a gargled laugh. “You’re telling me to spend a few weeks in Liberty without a paycheck or an expense account? Are you shitting me?” How much did he have in his checking account—a thousand dollars? Saving for a rainy day had never been his style. “If you want me to jump through hoops, I will. But not without greenbacks to make the gymnastics palatable.”

“Then forget it. I’m cutting you loose.”

The irritation churning Hugh’s gut mixed with fury. “That’s it? I’m fired unless I dig up dirt without pay?” Which wasn’t the worst of it. Liberty was a time warp from the 1950s. They rolled up the sidewalks and turned out the lights at 9:00 P.M. No nightlife, nothing. “You think I’m so desperate I’d consider it?”

Bud picked up a pen and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger with galling disinterest. “I have work to do.” He turned back to his computer. “And stay away from women while you’re in Liberty. Who knows? You might produce decent copy if you give your gonads a rest.”

“What sort of asshole demands work without pay?”

“Watch it—”

Hugh placed his palms on the desk. “I won’t do it.” Scowling, he leaned close. “You got it, Bud? The answer is
no
.”

Shivering on the cobblestone walk outside The Second Chance Grill, Birdie took stock of the small town.

Liberty Square was stirring to life beneath a slate colored sky. Bands of gold poked through the clouds to illuminate a scene from a bygone era, the brick buildings iced with snow and the cobblestone walks gleaming and wet, as if each shop owner on the Square had hurried out in the dawn chill with a broom and good cheer to sweep the place clean. In the window of the florist shop, bouquets of yellow daisies and shell pink carnations framed a poster from the local Girl Scouts for the father and daughter Princess Ball, to be held on Saturday night at the United Methodist Church. Cars drove by slowly to avoid the pedestrians dashing across the street, a few women with their children bundled nicely in heavy coats and thick scarves, and three elderly men with their bristled cheeks glowing in the frigid breeze. In the center green, business types in long coats streamed into the brick courthouse anchoring the north end of the Square.

An unsettling déjà vu gripped Birdie. This was her first time in Liberty… and yet it wasn’t. She felt as if she’d been here long ago, the memory nearly a dream. The storefronts hemming in the large rectangle of the center green, the imposing brick courthouse—it was all intensely familiar. As was the restaurant with patriotic bunting festooned in the picture window, the door attractively painted Wedgwood blue.

Had she visited Liberty during her long-ago childhood? Uneasy, Birdie silently ticked off the elementary schools she’d attended, the entire depressing list. None were in Ohio.

Shrugging off the sensation, she entered the restaurant. Many of the tables were occupied: more business types, a few women with kids and several elderly couples. The counter’s barstools were filled, and a waitress with a bad dye job dashed from one customer to the next.

Where was the picture of Justice? Birdie scanned the cluttered walls. The restaurant was like a museum of Americana, with pewter sconces competing for wall space with gilt-framed portraits and paintings of Colonial America. To her left, a businessman rose from his table and strode out, leaving his half-eaten omelet and his toast untouched. Birdie slipped into his seat. Snatching up the toast she ate quickly, her gaze bounding across the museum of artifacts on the walls. An odd feeling tugged again and she whirled, as if to catch someone watching her.

No one noticed her… and the portrait of Justice was nowhere in sight.

The feeling of being watched wouldn’t abate and she hurried back out with the last of the man’s toast. It was early enough to wander around Liberty without drawing stares so she strode to the back of the building. The alley lay silent beneath the soft-falling snow.

The building was large, three stories in all. Through the windows above, a swath of darkness filled the second and third floors, as if they were rarely visited and largely forgotten, and she wondered if the upper floors held nothing but supplies for the restaurant. The safest place to break into a building was usually in back. She didn’t relish the thought of staying in the town any longer than necessary, and now was as good a time as any to check the place out. There was only one door, with an old-fashioned lock. She sorted through the pockets of her coat and found the two-inch file she kept on hand for this sort of occasion. The lock gave, and she dashed inside.