Hexes and X's (Z&C Mysteries, #3) (12 page)

Claire flipped through to a couple of pages at the end.
“I followed Claire’s ex-boyfriend down the attic floor’s door. I needed his help to reverse a couple of automatic locks, but he betrayed my trust. He took the master key and tools with him and then evidently decided that my sloughing off that there wasn’t any real treasure was a lie, and continued on by himself. Fool!

“
I got the key back when I found him in the gate room, injured and snake-bitten. I didn’t think he’d still be living today. We both got caught there at the end… Scary for a moment. Good thing I heard Zoey and Claire talking in the maze, so I could put those old gunnysacks over our heads after tying up his and my own hands. Agile is my middle name.

“
Jack had continued to reverse the locks all the way to the sewer so that this key would prevent door-traps. That will prove very useful to me, while the others, should there be any more, may have the same luck in the snake room as Jack. Grandpa would be proud of me.

“
Anyway, after the Kanes found us, they continued on at my blubbering request for help. We had a ceiling moving down to crush us in the gate room. I pretended I couldn’t get out. Then after some hours, there was a loud, mechanical sound and the ceiling went up. Zoey Kane and her daughter, Claire, had made it through and out. Amazing! I give them their due.” Claire peeled back tape that held a key to the page.

“Matilda was so sneaky. She had this extra key,” Claire said, wagging it.

Next entry: “Claire and Zoey Kane ended up at the bowling alley. I didn’t know about that exit. Too bad I had to risk their lives; but, like I said, better them than me.”

“Final entry, Mom
: ‘Pat Bule stopped me in the hallway and asked to see me early tomorrow morning at five a.m. Said she has something to talk to me about. She said she has a pearl that proves there is treasure and she wants to talk some business with me.’”

“Well, we know who stole your pearl now, don’t we?!” said Claire
, looking at her mother with narrowed eyes.

“Correct,” Zo said.

The windows began to rattle in whistles and blusters of day two of the record breaking storm, ever raging on.

*

Zo suggested to go down for breakfast, and then confront Pat Bule later. Accusing her of being a suspect for murder would be wiser later, rather than in front of a bunch of other guests. Deputy Jones agreed. Zo stopped into her suite first and picked up the pouch and the notes Claire had written down about the painting. Then the three proceeded to the kitchen.

When the mother and daughter entered, it was like seeing a community of lemurs standing at different heights, staring at them, especially Zo, for the sure-to-be-awesome announcement.

“Before I give you the details of the map, I just want you to know that we have papers brought here by Matilda’s ex-husband, confirming she was indeed heir to Captain Dread’s property and fortune.”

Everyone was quiet and unmoving. Even the judge,
town council, and lawyer Kendaloaf.

“And now that she has passed, there is no heir. This means the treasure is up for grabs, for whomever finds it first, and I have the map.”

Their eyes widened more. Zo was about to share the anticipated, and critical, information, when Debbie could be heard from the infirmary: “Lay back down, John. You need to lay back down.”

An agitated grunt responded, followed by a swish-thump, swish-thump. John soon appeared, as haggard as ever, sliding a foot along the wood floor and stamping down with the other, until he stood before everyone. “Half the estate was mine,” he breathed hoarsely, his grey skin over his gaunt features. “Our divorce… wasn’t final. Now that she’s dead, it’s all mine.”

A glass crashed loudly by Pat Bule, though she was staring straight ahead beside the butcher’s block with an emotionless face. People shifted their weight, and looked to each other, perplexed. “I guess that ends the hunt,” one said.

“Not for me,” answered Cynthia. “John and I are rather a couple.”

John raised his brows in agreement, and as if speechless by the pronouncement.

“That is not what you said to me last week!” accused Pat.

“There is no accounting for LOVE, Patricia dear.”

“You make me sick!” growled Pat.

Debbie stood beside John, and ordered, “You should lay back down, hon.”

John squinted at Debbie as if seeing her for the first time, and exercised his jaw back and forth in annoyance. “The treasure is mine.”

“Okay, hon. Just come with me, and lay back down.”

With one last hurrah, he turned back to everyone, raised his arms crookedly in the air, and proclaimed, “The treasure is… MINE!”

Just as lightning flashed, spotlighting the situation, John fell to the floor with a THUD accentuated by a thunder’s BOOM.

The kitchen returned to its gloomy, dimly-lit atmosphere. All was silent, until a timid Mrs. Lane said, “Maybe he was murdered. Maybe you murdered him, Ms. Debbie.” She eyed the room warily. “I don’t trust any of you.” She passed a look around the room at everyone. And it was no wonder—some actually looked elated that John was dead. One wearing a pleased grin with raised eyebrows was Pat, looking at Cynthia. “Oh, so sorry for the loss of your fiancé, Cynthia dear.”

“Shove it!” The witch picked up her pen and paper.

“Every man for himself!” announced Judge Huff. “Law breakers will be hanged. Keep that in mind. Get on with the map, Ms. Kane.”

Deputy Jones and Debbie swiftly brought John back into the infirmary for a moment’s resting place. When they returned, Debbie had a prescription pad and pen to take notes. Everyone was ready and waiting. Only the officer stood without note-taking material, the muscle of his jaw working and his eyes fixed on the crowd.

“Okay. We found five trap doors with hexed rooms, or rather booby-trapped rooms,” Zo explained. “The start of the game is up in the attic, through a hatch in the floor and down a ladder. If it closes, it locks you in, making you finish the course. Use caution when going forward. We made it through a few of the scary rooms already. In my estimation, no point in going back through where we have already been and found nothing.”

“What if we want to go through for ourselves?” asked Kendaloaf, seriously.

“You are entirely welcome to do that—at your own risk,” Claire confirmed. “Though, if you decide so, beware of the room that will gate you in and lower its ceiling down on you. Then there’s the spider room, which is probably harmless but creepy, followed by the snake room that can definitely kill you. If you make it that far, the next is a sewer, of which you saw and smelled the evidence on us from head to toe.”

Her mother cut in. “You will have to leap over Poop Falls and there is no Rock Candy Mountain. But I did find a rather sizable pearl there, proving that the treasure does exist.” Zo pulled the pink pearl out of her pocket and showed it, which brought “Woos” and “Oh mys” because of its beauty and size. Then she flattened out the pouch for everyone to see the writing. It says, “Four more. Follow the finger.” She put the dismembered finger on the table along with the X map and pouch-clue.

“In our bedroom we found an oil painting which may have clues. We can’t be sure.” Claire went on to say, “But since we’re all in on this together now, I’ll explain. Captain Dread was a pirate. The possible clues are ‘Dead men do tell tales.’ Also, we saw a Bible passage underlined, painted in his picture, Habakkuk
chapter two, verse one, that says, ‘I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.’”

Zo added, “We will let you study the painting from two to four o’clock to see what else you might see as a clue. That is it. You can eat your breakfast now.”

A couple of people grabbed a bagel and cream-cheesed it, and then took off in separate directions. Others poured cereal and ate quietly, going over their clues. Kendaloaf stuck a banana in his suit’s inside pocket after checking his cell phone, only to find out it still didn’t work. The judge leaned back and looked like he was sleeping, but every once in a while he would peek at the notes he had taken; finally, he got up and said to the duo, “I will see you at two” and left.

The deputy came gliding back from helping Debbie in the infirmary over to the table where Zo and Claire had sat down. “I don’t think there is any room for any more bodies
,” he said, with a mean smile and twinkle-eyes. “Can I fry you ladies up some eggs and ham?”

“I’ll have some,” accepted Claire, delighted at the offer.

Zo said simply, “Thank you.” She noticed for such a large man with big hands that had long fingers, how he had graceful dexterity in cracking eggs without breaking yolks. She broke at least one egg in four. She continued her thoughts, admiring how the veins ran over his biceps and into his hands.

He flipped the eggs with one skillet and turned the ham with a fork in the other. Soon he was over with Claire’s breakfast, including toast and milk. Next he came over with Zo’s plate, toast and milk. He leaned down with the plate and spoke with a smooth voice, “Hope you like your eggs sunny side up, ma’am. That’s all I know how to cook.”

Zo returned a look at his eyes which were riveted on hers. “Oh, I don’t know, Deputy, I think you can cook a lot of things…”

“Double entendre, ma’am?” The determination of his unblinking fix upon Zo was unrelenting.

Zo found herself girlishly looking down, feeling somewhat overwhelmed. “Where’s your breakfast, Deputy Jones?” she asked, looking up again into the turquoise fire framed with dark lashes.

“You might as well pass the dynamite, Ms. Kane,” he said, not accepting a change of subject. “The fuse is lit—ma’am. I can’t keep my mind off you.”

“Hellooo. Still here,” interjected Claire with an amused smile.

“Okay, let’s eat!” He smiled big over teeth that flashed both top and bottom when he talked, which was totally mesmerizing to Zo.

Eating was suddenly uncomfortable, since a knot in Zo’s stomach formed from self-consciousnesses. She thought her chewing sounded loud, and then there was this horrible sense of a burp that had to be fought down.

Loud
, angry voices broke through to the diners’ earshot. The deputy’s demeanor turned serious, and he pushed his chair back and stood at the same time. Zo and Claire also left the table to see what the ruckus was all about. Several people were joining up when a voice came yelling over the crowd, “The painting has been cut out and stolen!”

“How would you know?! Remember what I said about being hanged if lawlessness occurred?” yelled the judge. “That is breaking and entering an occupied room of the Kanes and destruction to private property! Any
more behavior like that and I will throw the book at the perpetrator and then become very creative in sentencing. Deputy! …A room to room search.

“Nobody leaves this spot until I say so.” The judge’s white hair over bushy white eyebrows and moist blue eyes, made him look like an avenging angel.

“The people you find that are not in this group, escort over here, Deputy,” instructed the judge in a normal voice. Then he started up the hallway, the officer following closely behind.

Those left behind started a course of conversation. “Are things going to start to get nasty?” The lights blinked as the storm continued to rage outdoors. Everyone looked up and around a moment, then continued the debate.

“Sure! Where money and treasure are involved some people become obsessed.”

“Speak for yourself, Kendaloaf. For all we know, you did it.”

“Or, you council-man Swift. I’ve always thought you were a little shady anyway.”

“You are fired!”

“You can’t fire me. I’m on a city retainer for five more years!”

Swift leaped forward and threw a punch at the lawyer and the fight was on.

It is so unbecoming, Zo thought, to see people who were otherwise educated and refined, messing each other’s hair up, red in the face, and grunting in a struggle.

Pretty soon the judge reappeared at the top of the stairs with a rolled canvas under his arm, followed by the deputy who had a grip on Pat Bule’s arm. “I’m telling you that I didn’t cut down that painting. I don’t know how it got in my room; I didn’t do it!”

“I’d have the deputy put you in handcuffs, Bule, except where you going to go?!” The wind howled and the lights blinked some more. “By thunder! Jones, get that fight under control! And, give them tickets for disturbing the peace!”

It only took a moment for the Officer of The Court to pull Kendaloaf apart from Swift and get Swift in a headlock. “Promise you will quit the fight and I will let you go,” he said to the struggling man who didn’t reply. So, Jones applied a little more pressure.

“Aagggh! I promise! I promise already.”

The deputy let go. Swift fell against the wall, which kept him from falling to the floor.

“Okay. Go about your business and no more shenanigans!” the judge said generally to the crowd and headed away with the canvas still in custody and a very wry smile upon his lips. “At two o’clock, I will have the canvas ready for everyone to look at—in the library. I better not see anyone in my room!” he yelled back over his shoulder at the people.