Catherine's Cross (32 page)
Seth rose from his chair and motioned for her to come with him. Together, they walked to the doorway of Detective Campbell's office. Seth knocked on the doorframe. “Thomas, I was wondering if you'd help us identify someone.”
The detective looked up from paperwork that he was filling out and noticed Jenks's tear-streaked face. “Miss Ellington, I hope you're all right.”
“I've just found some documents in my sister's home, and Seth and I are trying to make sense of it all.”
“How can I help you?”
“Does the name Fleming mean anything to you?” Seth inquired.
Thomas appeared in deep thought for a few moments, and then he responded, “The only person named Fleming who I can think of ran a fresh seafood business in Port Royal. There was thought that he was involved in a drug-trafficking ring based in the Bahamas, but there was never any solid evidence to prove this. He died several years ago, and his widow closed the business.”
“Where was the business located?”
“Not far from the shrimping docks. As you approach the docks, you'll see the buildings on the rightâbut Seth, they've been locked up for years.”
“I think we may drive over to Port Royal and take a look at those buildings.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“I think we'll be okay, but look for a phone call from me shortly. Thank you.”
“Be careful, Seth.”
“Always.”
T
he intense heat and humidity of the August afternoon caused Jenks to perspire. She could feel beads of sweat roll down her back and chest. After they parked the police car in front of the former Fleming's Seafood buildings, Seth removed his suit coat and loosened his tie. Rolling his shirt sleeves up, he removed a large silver flashlight from the police car.
A metal fence topped by a barbed wire extension surrounded the buildings. They walked to the gate and found that a chain held the double gates in place with a padlock.
Jenks handed Seth the keys she had found with the journal, and he tried the first key in the padlock. It did not open. He removed the key and tried the next key on the set. The lock fell open as he turned the key in the locking mechanism.
“Oh, my God,” Jenks said quietly.
They looked at one another, and then Seth removed the chain around the gate and pushed it open. Sweat beaded upon his forehead, and he wiped his brow with the back of his arm as they walked to the building. The grass inside the fence was high, and weeds had grown up in the cracks of the asphalt parking lot. An old powerboat sat in the corner of the lot; weeds almost engulfed the weathered watercraft.
Seth pointed to fire-ant mounds near the corners of the old concrete building. “Watch your step, Jenks. The bite of those ants can be very painful.”
When they reached the exterior door of the building, Seth chose another key from Gigi's set, and this one turned easily. He twisted the doorknob, and with a little force pushed the door open.
“Detective Campbell said that the building had not been used for years, but I can still smell an odor of fish,” Jenks commented.
“I suppose that odor is difficult to eliminate.”
They looked around the front portion of the building. There was an old table where fish had been filleted. The refrigeration equipment that had held fresh seafood was empty, and the glass windows were cloudy from age.
They walked to the east side of the building where the offices were located. A placard on one of the office doors read “Captain Emil Fleming.” Seth pushed the door open. An oak desk sat in the middle of the room. Old photographs of fishing expeditions were on the wall, showing grinning fishermen standing beside their catch. In one corner of the paneled wood office was a file cabinet. Seth slid the drawers out one at a timeâall of them were empty.
“This is kind of sad. It's like small remnants of a man's life are still in here.”
Seth gave her a hug on the shoulder. “Let's go to the rear of the building.”
They walked through the structure to the back section. The concrete floor and walls were a deep gray color, and a couple of steel shelving units were secured against one wall. Sunlight poured into the room from a couple of western-facing windows, brightening the otherwise gray area.
“I think this is the room where Gigi took the videos of her artifacts.”
At the same time, they both noticed the refrigerated meat locker at the rear of the room. Above the door a sign read, “Everyone Loves Fresh Seafood, But Fresh Seafood Ain't Cheap.” There was a padlock on the steel door handle. “There are two keys left,” Seth said. He placed one of the keys in the lock and it opened with little difficulty. Removing the padlock, he placed it on the concrete floor outside the door. Then he pulled the metal handle and the door opened. The stench of fish rushed out of the refrigeration locker.
“Oh, my God,” Jenks exclaimed. “It smells like there's something dead in here.”
“The locker's been sealed for a while,” Seth volunteered.
He turned on an electrical switch and a light in the center of the room came on. Even with the light, the space was dim, and Seth turned on the flashlight he had brought into the building. Diving equipment was stored in one corner of the room. On a steel countertop that ran the length of one side of the compartment was a Garmin GPS unit. “How about that?” Seth said, “Here's the GPS unit.” Beside it was a folder. Seth picked it up. “Let's see what this is.”
He opened the binder and inside was a lease agreement between Gigi and Leanne Fleming, a collection of water and electric billsâand invoices from a laboratory in Charleston. The address on the lease for Leanne Fleming was Winter Park, Florida.
“It looks like Leanne Fleming is Emil Fleming's widow, and from this stationery it appears she lives in a retirement community. She leased this building to Gigi for a year starting last October, for two hundred fifty dollars a month. Gigi paid her for a year up front. I bet she doesn't know Gigi is dead.”
Jenks was silent for a moment while she read a note. “Gigi was apparently worried about her home being broken into, and she had asked Mrs. Fleming if she could lease this building to store her equipment and her artifacts.”
Seth looked at the note and Jenks continued to read. “Look at this letter from Mrs. Fleming. She says that she is glad to lease this building to Gigi. It says she admires Gigi's treasure-hunting capabilities, and will only charge a minimal amount of rent on an otherwise abandoned building.”
Tears again welled up in Jenks's eyes as she read the end of the note out loud to Seth. “Mrs. Fleming wrote to Gigi, âYou must be a brave young woman, and I wish you the best with your pursuits!'”
“Your sister certainly kept detailed records that she didn't want easily found.”
“She must have felt very protective of her discoveries. What work do you suppose Bradbury Laboratories in Charleston did for Gigi?”
Seth studied the invoices before replying. “They performed conservation techniques on artifacts that Gigi had recovered from an underwater ocean environment. I think I've heard of Bradbury Labs before. A few years ago, I read that a team from their laboratory was helping preserve the remnants of a Civil War-era ship that was located in Charleston Harbor.”
Jenks turned away from the journal and looked around the room. Hanging on a wall hook was the wooden box with a wire mesh bottom that she had seen holding coins on Gigi's video. In one corner of the room was a camera tripod. She walked to where the tripod rested. Beside it was a digital video camera on a shelf.
Picking up the camera, her hands trembled. “This is what Gigi used to record her findings,” Jenks said in a shaky voice.
Seth put his arms around her. “Steady now,” he said in a calming voice.
They looked around the rest of the room. On the counter beside a steel sink were brushes, cloths, and bottles of chemicals. A large glass tank, with what appeared to be electrodes attached to it, was situated near one end of the counter. “It looks like your sister had her own laboratory here in Fleming's refrigeration locker.”
Seth lifted one of the chemical bottles and read the markings. “This is an acid solution.”
“What's the tank for?”
“See this electrical wiring?” he said, pointing to the cables. “Gigi was cleaning some of her artifacts here. I believe the process is called electrolytic reduction.”
“How do you know that?”
“One of the police divers for Beaufort County does some hobby diving. He explained the process to me once.”
“Then why the need for the lab in Charleston?”
“Perhaps some of the artifacts were in such bad shape that Gigi used a professional lab occasionally.”
Jenks looked around the room and nervously grasped the steel counter. “So nowâwhere are her artifacts?”
“Good question. Let's look around. There is one unused keyânow, where's the lock?”
Seth shone the flashlight along the base of the walls and over the floor. When he reached the wall with the steel countertops he crouched to shine the light beneath. The beam caught a metal object on the floor below one section. Seth froze the beam and bent down. “It's a padlock,” he said hesitatingly.
The padlock was clamped on a narrow handle and clasp on the floor. On inspection, Seth and Jenks traced the faint outline of a trapdoor, flush with the floor beneath the counters. Seth brought out the final, fourth key to try on the padlock. It worked. Seth removed the lock and then opened the trapdoor, revealing a rectangular space, even larger than the door, with a concrete bottom. The hiding space was about six-feet long, two-feet wide, a foot deep, and filled with Gigi's collection of artifacts.
“Unbelievable!”
“Oh, my God,” Jenks gasped.
She reached inside the hiding place and brought out antique bottles and then a number of gold and silver coins stacked in containers. “These were minted in the 1850s!” Jenks said as she examined the coins. Seth picked up a small velvet sack. They both stood up to look at the contents of the pouch together. He opened the drawstrings and pulled the bag open. A gold cross with red stones slid out. “This looks like the cross that Iris Elliott wore in her portrait in the Gibbes Museum,” Jenks said in a shaky voice.
Seth opened his cell phone. She heard him say, “Janet, could I speak with Detective Campbell?” He stood quietly for a moment and then volunteered, “The phone call has been dropped. I will get better reception out of this unit.”
Jenks watched him as he strode to the locker door. Late afternoon sunlight was streaming into the room. A few paces outside the locker, Seth raised his phone, squinting, and began dialing. At that moment, Jenks eye caught the reflection of something metallicâa silver poleâin the rays of the sun. She screamed, and Seth turned sharply to his right, but there was no time for him to react.
The pole flashed across the threshold and slammed into Seth's right leg. A horrifying cry of pain and a bone-splitting crack echoed through the vacant building. Within seconds, the metal pole descended on the back of Seth's back and head. He hit the floor with force and did not move. Then the sound of a heavy metal pipe dropping to the concrete floor resonated throughout the building.
Jenks screamed again with terror and ran to the locker door, but as she crossed its threshold, she was grabbed from the side by powerful hands, turned around, and pushed hard against the concrete wall. The back of her head struck the surface, and in a dazed condition, she looked up into the steel-blue eyes of Frank Hiller.
He pinned her against the wall and his face came to within a few inches of hers.
“Are you a conniving, deceitful little bitch like your sister?” he said in a growling voice. Beads of sweat stood on his forehead before rolling down his cheeks.
“What have you done to Seth, you bastard?”
“I have disabled him.”
“Let me go!”
Frank released her and she collapsed to the floor. She attempted to rise, but dizziness overcame her. She saw Frank take Seth's firearm out of the holster and place it in the waistband of his pants. She closed her eyes. When she reopened them, she saw Frank enter the refrigeration locker. Fighting a wave of nausea, Jenks crawled to Seth. The collar of his dress shirt was turning red with blood, and Jenks struggled to turn him over. When she maneuvered him onto his back, she loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. His face was pale, and a moan of pain escaped his lips.
“Seth, it's Jenks, can you hear me?”
He did not respond. As she leaned back up, she noticed Seth's cell phone against the wall, about eight feet away. On her hands and knees, she crawled toward the phone.
Please God, let me get to the phone
. Another wave of nausea descended upon her, and she stopped until the feeling passed, then struggled forward again. The phone was almost within reach.
Her hands were trembling, but she picked up the phone and hit redial. Suddenly, she was jerked from the floor from behind. “What are you doing, you little bitch?”
Frank grabbed the cell phone from her hands and threw it against the far wall. It shattered into pieces. Jenks was terrified and believed she was about to die. He thrust her against the wall again. The wind was knocked out of her lungs, and she started to choke while gasping for breath.
Frank held up the gold cross to her face. “Your sister and I had an agreement that we split everything fifty-fifty. I always upheld my end of the bargain, but she was planning to sell the items from the
Defiance
and cheat me out of my share. I watched her with a telescopic lens several afternoons from Skeleton Island. She had no idea I was there. I saw her recovering artifactsâincluding what appeared to be a cross. She held it up proudly.”
He increased the pressure pinning her tightly against the wall. Struggling to speak, Jenks said, “Murdererâshe planned to share everything with you. You drowned her.”