Pane and Suffering (7 page)

“Have you thought about funeral arrangements for Hugh? Since he was completely alone, there really won't be anyone but his business contacts.”

“Um, not yet. I've just started to deal with Dad's affairs and haven't even thought about Hugh. Are you sure that there's no one at all?”

“It strikes me that I should really be handling Hugh's affairs.” Her voice began a watery tremble. “I mean, we were quite good friends and now that he's gone . . .” Her gaze slipped far away. She sighed deeply and cleared her throat. “You're in quite a pickle with the shop. It's too much for you.”

Savannah felt a huge weight slip from her shoulders like a heavy coat. “Mrs. Webberly, that is enormously kind of you. Are you sure?”

“Of course, I'm sure. At my age, I've more experience arranging these things and”—she reached into a pocket, pulled out a wadded tissue, and sniffed loudly into it—“he was a very close friend.”

“I'm sure he would be pleased.”

“He was an easy man to please. Enough of that. Now, tell me. How are you coping?” She settled back into the recliner. “Your dad's heart attack was a surprise to us all. He was such a dedicated jogger and he was training Rooney to run with him. Did he tell you about that? Well, I'm sure he meant to, but he was always telling me how busy you were.”

That was a direct hit to Savannah's guilt. She should have paid more attention to what was going on in her dad's life. Their weekly Skype conversations mostly consisted of her chattering away about the new works she was attempting. He had so much more going on than she would have ever expected.
I should have known
.

She reached down and attempted to give Rooney a small pat on the head. His low growl caused her to snatch her hand back. “Rooney is not coping very well. I think he will need a new home. I can't take him back to Seattle. Do you know anyone who would like to have him?”

He heard his name and looked up at her, but returned his gaze to Mrs. Webberly.

“You can't be thinking of giving Rooney away. It's too soon for that. You need to make sure that you don't need him first. He's a wonderful companion, don't you think?”

“He doesn't much like me. At the moment, he thinks I'm the reason Dad isn't around. He tolerates me, but just barely.”

“It will just take time,” Mrs. Webberly said while gently stroking Rooney's head as he looked up to her like a punished teenager. “He's still a puppy and he's confused.”

“I know how he feels.”

“It's bad. The only person in his life is missing and he's just waiting until John comes back. He doesn't understand that he's not coming back.”

Rooney turned away and shuffled over to sit on the floor right beside the sofa. He had obviously been trained not to jump up on the furniture.

“One thing you can do right now is feed him every morsel he gets. That will make a positive bond for you both.”

“I can do that.”

“Another thing is to take him for his walks so that he will look at you as his new pack leader. Dogs are not really very complicated. And our master Rooney here is young and smart. Once he sees you as his provider, he will change.”

“Did Dad seem like anything was bothering him over the past few months? Now that I'm looking back, he seemed a little stressed.”

Mrs. Webberly pursed her lips, “Actually, now that you mention it, Hugh seemed a little strung out as well. But then, neither of them were much for chattering about feelings and such.” She sniffed noisily, “I'm going to miss them.”

Finally, Mrs. Webberly left. Savannah cleared away the few dishes, set the kitchen up for her morning coffee, and sat back down on the living room couch.
I'm going to have to get involved in the investigation.

Chapter 6

 

A
lthough it was getting dark, Savannah felt that she needed to find the hidden message at Crescent Lake as soon as possible. If her dad suspected murder, he must have had some evidence to lead him to that conclusion. Just because he was paranoid didn't mean that he was an alarmist.

Savannah clipped Rooney's leash onto him and jogged out the front door heading toward Crescent Lake. The cache was on the far side of the park from her house in the corner of what was now a dog park. Rooney would be the perfect cover. A complication was predicting the actions of a puppy. She wasn't sure how he would behave and even worse, if he would pay any attention to her at all.

In the early days of geocaching, the hidden containers were created out of military ammunition boxes, but they'd progressed to smaller more easily concealed weatherproof containers. Her dad had chosen a Hello Kitty pencil box as the perfect geocache to make a small girl excited about finding others.

The pencil box was completely unsuitable for becoming an official cache. Given that a pencil box isn't exactly rugged or expected to be used for more than carrying a little girl's whimsies around in a backpack, he had chosen to hide it in a sheltered spot. He had probably been checking on it while exercising Rooney.

Rooney behaved perfectly until they approached the dog park and he began to get excited and pull strongly on the leash to hurry Savannah toward the entrance. Thinking that he wouldn't be calm enough for dog interactions, she decided to take another mile loop around the lake, hoping against hope that it would burn off some of his puppy energy and he would listen to her.

She was right. The next pass proved to be better, and Rooney was curious but calm as they approached the double gate to enter the large dog pen. She unclipped his leash and he looked up at her with sad eyes that said,
“Only my daddy brings me here. I don't want to be here with you.”

He was reluctant to leave the gated enclosure and stood stiff-legged, eyes wide. “Come on, Rooney. You know you love this place.” A small pat on his head broke his stance and he followed Savannah into the dog park. As soon he entered, several dogs came up to greet him with sniffs and circles. He stood still and shyly returned sniffs and then he hop-jumped in playful joy and ran with the dogs in a game of chase and see who runs the fastest.

Savannah scanned the people benches and saw several clumps of doggy parents sitting together along with two groups standing together. It looked very much like a coffee shop kind of gathering. From their friendly greetings and comfortable chatter, it was obvious that most were regulars. Angling eye contact to avoid getting trapped into conversation, she wandered over to the back of the park to a small magnolia tree. It was a good deal larger than it had been when she was ten. Although it looked like a dwarf species specially selected to be slow growing and low maintenance for parks, it had been a good many years since they'd hidden their geocache.

She started scanning for the Hello Kitty pencil box from a distance. She vaguely recalled that it should be on a low branch about ten feet up the tree. She started the painstaking search for the camouflaged Velcro fasteners that kept the box well hidden if you didn't know where to look.

There it is
.

It wasn't remotely within reaching distance, but still there.

Moving to the side of the tree sheltered from view, Savannah grabbed the lowest limb for leverage and placed her foot on the trunk of the tree. She froze.
Oh, no.
She dropped her foot and released the limb. There was no way to reach the little box without actually climbing the tree. Suitable limbs were in place to make it easy for a normal person . . . a normal person who wasn't petrified by climbing a few feet. The nausea she always experienced when faced with heights returned to sap all determination.
I can't do this. It's too high. I can't
.

Pulling out her cell, she dialed Edward.

He picked up and Savannah could hear the bustle of the pub in the background. “This is Edward. What's up, Savannah?”

“I need your help. Can you come down to the dog park at Crescent Lake?”

“Dog park?”

“Yes, I need you to climb a tree.”

“Really? Have you gone crackers? Now? Right Now?”

“Yes, please. Right now. It's vital. I'm deathly afraid of heights. It's about Dad's message. He's hidden it in a tree too tall for me to climb.”

There was a pause. “I'll be there as quick as I can.”

While waiting, Savannah played fetch the stick with Rooney and admired his athletic grace. He didn't tire of the game and it was a useful means of keeping away from the other doggie parents.

It took about ten minutes until she heard the smooth rumble of Edward's motorcycle pulling up. He dismounted and strolled their way looking savagely handsome.

Savannah cringed in embarrassment but felt relief as Edward quickly climbed up the few limbs and ripped the box from its Velcro holders. He jumped down like a kid and handed it over to her. “Is this what John's code revealed?”

“Yes, this is it,” she acknowledged, turning the small pink box over in her hands. “Our first geocache. Exactly what the message said.”

Rooney was waiting a little distance from the tree, head cocked to the side. He walked up and sniffed the box in her hand and began to whine. Tears sprang to Savannah's eyes as she realized that it must smell of her dad.

“I've got it, Rooney.” Looking around to make sure she wasn't being watched Savannah pushed the small box under his nose. “Here, you can smell him, can't you?”

He stopped whining.

She ruffled his floppy ears. “Now go and play.”

Rooney wiggled his stubby tail, looked at the box again, then turned swiftly to join the other dogs playing chase at the far side of the dog park.

Motioning for Edward to join her, she sat at a deserted bench near the back of the park and opened the pencil case. She gulped a quick breath. On top was an old tattered envelope that she recognized. She picked up the creased, brittle envelope and carefully removed the yellowed sheet of ruled notebook paper. Unfolding it, she recognized her third-grade rounded cursive writing in thick pencil.

Savannah lost her closely guarded control and began to sob in great gulping heaves into her hands. Edward gathered her gently into his shoulder and let the tears soak into his cotton shirt.

After a bit, she dragged a tissue from her backpack, dried her eyes, blew her nose, and regained her composure. “Thanks. I didn't know the letter I wrote to my mom would be in the box.”

“Perfectly understandable, luv.”

“Even in my earliest memories, my mother was always sick. For the longest time, I thought if I was the perfect little girl, she would get better, that the cancer would leave her body. She knew that and encouraged me and my dad to find adventures without her long before her condition kept her in bed. I learned to fish, surf, snorkel, camp, and hike trails. My dad and I were outside all the time. She was a wise woman. I think about her every day.”

“Oh, Savannah. I'm sorry. Anytime you need me, I want you to call.”

“I appreciate that.” She looked into those green eyes and felt warm and safe.

“Do you know why John wanted you to find this box?”

She sorted through the box and found an assortment of meaningless little items. “No, I don't see anything that strikes me as meaning anything important. There must be something here, though. I'll study them at home under a magnifying glass.”

He glanced at his watch and jumped up. “This is retched timing, but the assistant cook called in sick tonight so Chef is by himself. Even on a slow night, it's a brutal workload. I've got to get back to the Queen. Are you good?”

She nodded.

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“Catch me up in the morning.”

Feeling better, she smiled, snapped the lid, and slipped the pencil case into her backpack. She watched him helmet up and ride away on the low purr of the Indian.

She looked around carefully at each person in the dog park. Could any of them be involved in what her dad warned her about—
if
the conspiracy wasn't just paranoia?

None of them looked particularly interested in her.

Rooney bounded back and nuzzled her calf, then whined a bit. “Okay, fella. Let's get home and figure out what these things mean.”

She led Rooney out of the dog park and they walked calmly back to the house. Opening the door, she keyed the alarm code, removed Rooney's leash, and checked to make sure he had water.

She took the backpack into the dining room and removed the Hello Kitty pencil box. Setting aside the letter, the box held an array of small items that she placed on the table one by one. They were:

Next to those, she placed the remaining items:

She picked up the logbook. It listed the names of the people who had located their Hello Kitty geocache and when they'd found it. There were multiple pages of entries that were spread erratically over the prior year, but the last entry was about a month ago. She felt a shock as she realized the last entry was in her dad's handwriting.

She figured that he had probably removed the location from the organization's global database before visiting the cache so that no one would look for it after that. The membership practiced compliance about rules like that.

So, he had been worried for a while. In order for her to access the geocache database, she'd have to become a member. She could renew her membership and sign into the database to find out when he had removed the cache, but knowing him it was likely only a few days before the last entry.

Savannah looked at the collection
.

She glanced over them again and ran both hands through her hair. She grabbed a small flashlight out of her backpack, then picked up each piece to look for hidden clues.

The little green snake was only about three inches long and was a little brittle from being in the box. It was a typical Florida green snake with no evidence of tampering or hidden compartments.

The guitar pick was a typical red marbleized plastic and completely unremarkable.

She picked up the insect repellent and used the flashlight to see if it had been opened then resealed. It didn't look like it had been tampered with. She set that aside as well.

The wooden nickel was fairly new and displayed the logo of the Queen's Head Pub on one side and an old-fashioned five-cent imprint on the reverse.

The little elephant was a child's molded plastic toy with no marks, scratches, or obvious tampering.

She threw it back on the table and leaned back. Her eyes brushed over each object, then she had an idea that maybe they were just distractions.

She picked up the logbook again. It was another tan Moleskine notebook that her dad favored. It was a little misshapen, probably because it had been in the little box. Anyway, she used the flashlight to examine the little notebook and found a small nick on the inside of the back cover.

She carefully slid a fingernail under the nick and pulled gently. The back cover was a double thickness and between the layers, she found a folded piece of onion skin paper. She hadn't seen a sheet of onion skin paper in ages
.

Slowly unfolding the thin sheet, Savannah spread it on the table. It was a little larger than a half sheet with tiny punched holes in random patterns all over the place.

She leaned back in the wooden dining chair. She looked down at Rooney's upturned face. She took his face in both her hands, and peered into his warm amber eyes. “Rooney, I'm absolutely lost. This is a new one for me. I don't have a clue how to decode this. Do you?”

He cocked his head to one side trying to figure out what she was saying.

“Maybe Jacob will know,” she mused. She might not be able to decipher the code by herself, but she was sure this was serious. Her dad and Hugh had been murdered. Her dad's games never had been played with more than one code at a time.