Pirate Gold and Murder Page 11

  Chantal didn’t answer and didn’t look hopeful, either. I considered suggesting I step in to fund the search but didn’t want to do so without talking to Crew first. We had time and if the treasure really was down there and Gregg found the trail to it, I knew my husband would be on board.

  We’d sort it out, I had no doubt. Which lightened my attitude while the others seemed to sink back into their depression over the whole thing.

  “It doesn’t matter right now,” Anja said, sounding like she’d given up after all, map clue or not.

  MC seemed to agree, though she sounded on the interested and cautiously optimistic side. “Fee, when will the doctor release the coins so we can have a look?”

  I hated to put a damper on her renewed enthusiasm, but I didn’t have much choice. “Considering they are evidence—since the doc gave me the impression he thinks Gregg was murdered—it could be a while.”

  All three women stared at me while I winced. Whoops. I hadn’t meant to deliver that particular piece of information in quite so callus a way. But, there it was.

  Chantal spoke up first. “Your sheriff told us not to leave town,” she said, sounding sullen and more than a little like she’d been doing her best to keep her temper in check, was failing at last. “I thought it was because she had more questions about the dive. But if Gregg was killed… I guess we all need lawyers.”

  Grim, the next few moments. I left them, heading for the washroom, my head pounding all over again. A quick splash of water on my face helped a little. I stared at myself in the mirror, shocked at how horrible I looked, skin pale despite my faint tan, freckles standing out, dark circles under my eyes. Yup, I’d been through the ringer just about enough for one day, thank you.

  As I grasped the door handle to leave the washroom, I paused at the sound of hissing voices on the other side. The back hallway where the bathrooms were located carried sound pretty well, so as I eased the door open a crack it was pretty simple to catch the two arguing Reading residents in the act without them spotting me right away.

  Olivia was in Barry Clement’s face, her fury written all over her. “And I’m telling you,” she snarled, “if this comes back on me, I’ll make sure you never see the light of day again.”

  “I’m taking care of it,” he said, sounding faintly panicked. “They won’t find anything that ties either of us to it.”

  “You just be sure of that.” She poked Dr. Aberstock’s assistant firmly in his narrow chest, hand shaking from the violence of the jab. “I won’t be drawn into something that has nothing to do with me, and if they find out Geoffrey was part of things—”

  The sound of someone approaching drove the two of them apart and, before I could go after them, they both left in a rush, disappearing as a pair of teenaged girls headed my way.

  I thought about going after them both and asking some pointed questions. After all, mention of Geoffrey Jenkins so soon after his death? Suspicious, as far as I was concerned. Barry wasn’t exactly my biggest fan and vice versa. He’d been team Patterson pretty much from the start, though. So why would he want Geoffrey dead? As for Olivia, I couldn’t bring myself to believe the former mayor might actually kill someone.

  Then again, I’d seen how driven she could be. What if Geoffrey found out something about her, something he was using against her? Would she ever get to the desperation point where she’d act to protect herself no matter what?

  If I’d learned anything, it was that people were capable of things they wouldn’t normally do under the oddest circumstances. And no one was completely innocent.

  My mind turning, I thought about calling Jill to fill her in about the overheard conversation. Instead, I texted Liz, shared with Dad, and got an almost instant response.

  Thanks for this. Will have agents look into it.

  Crew’s okay, Dad sent then. Good work, Fee.

  I really couldn’t take credit for what I’d overheard, but if fate had taught me lessons I could count on, I was a magnet for other people’s troubles being dumped on me. Listening and paying attention paid off in the past. I’d just have to keep up the trend and hope what I’d stumbled over could help my husband.

  Darius’s hulking form flashed in my mind and I firmly pushed that thought aside with the kind of loyal faith he’d vanished for reasons that had nothing to do with murder. Because I wouldn’t be hanging him out to dry, thanks.

  Still, his disappearance coincided with Geoffrey’s death, didn’t it?

  I returned to the table to find everyone still quiet and withdrawn, even my normally sparkly Daisy. She looked distraught and caught my hand as I sat down.

  I might not have been able to solve Geoffrey’s murder right then, nor Gregg’s, for all that. But I wasn’t going to just sit here and mope. I sighed and shrugged, trying to shed the mood along with my headache. “There’s nothing we can do about what happened to Gregg,” I said. “But if we have a chance to find the treasure, shouldn’t we do everything we can to take it?” Selfish, who, me?

  But the women were collectively nodding even as my bestie stared hard at the map. And, as if on impulse, touched the folded corner where Anja’s fingers rested. Just above the red line.

  Before any of us could do a thing to stop her, she quickly slid the map out from under our hands and folded it, first one end on an old line that looked like it had been creased by accident, a faint crust of rubbed-in dirt showing where it had been abused in the past, and then the other, down below the compass pointing at the wrong angle if its purpose was to point north.

  And then, in one last fold, brought the edges together. Where the now halved compass and red mark formed a clean junction as if the two were made for each other.

  Creating a line that started at the yacht club and ended its journey, not on the lake at all, but on the mountain that was part of the Patterson family property.

  ***

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fresh excitement did wonders for our mood, though my worry about Crew certainly made things uncomfortable for me, if not the three divers huddled over the map now relocated to the annex, spread out on Mom’s stainless steel counter. She’d quickly moved aside her bread making in favor of the Tortuga team’s rekindled treasure talk and, with Daisy beside her, hovered and listened as the three experts debated the details.

  I, for one, had no doubts whatsoever the line ending at the Patterson land was our true goal. Questions lingered, like the three small, odd marks more like mistakes than clues bracketing the Patterson end, making no sense and likely just dots of dirt left behind by age. The debate raging about what the line itself meant and how to infiltrate said property lost my interest as the swinging door opened and Liz walked through.

  Rather than interrupt her friend and the other two divers now nose to the map, the FBI agent came right to my side. I found I was less interested in what the Pattersons might be hiding on their mountainside property and far more what was going on at the sheriff’s office.

  Liz kept her voice down, hand on my arm, face that familiar blank professional stare that I found so hard to read. “He’s okay,” she said first, thankfully, clearly understanding I had to have info about Crew and if she didn’t get to it quickly I’d be irate in three, two, one…

  I exhaled and hugged her, knowing such a demonstration might not be her choice at the moment, but grateful for the embrace she dished right back. When I let her go, she even cracked a smile.

  “Just be patient,” she said. “John is handling it. That’s not why I’m here.” She glanced over her shoulder at the team then back to me. “Have you had much of a chance to research Gregg Brown?”

  I shook my head, wondering what she’d come up with, FBI database at her beck and call. “I take it you’ve found some interesting details I need to know about.”

  “Not so much about him,” she said, lips barely moving and volume turned down so far I had to lean close. “Did you know that the only other person in common with MC every time Gregg scooped her finds is in this
room?” Liz’s words were light but full of meaning. “Suspicious, if you ask me. Despite working with him in the past and, personal tensions aside, how well they hunt together, I know MC would never hand over her own jobs to him. Not without admitting it.”

  Which meant the link between was a suspected culprit in betraying Tortuga’s owner. I bit my lower lip. “Which one?” I did my best not to stare at the two divers, though I now had my suspicions. I’d seen them arguing, hadn’t I? Were they more closely connected than I’d given them credit for, distracted by the MC tie-in to drama?

  Liz’s soft exhale was followed by a single name. “Chantal.”

  It kind of hurt. Not that I wanted it to be Anja. I liked them both, a lot. Part of me was hoping it had been Martin. And I wanted to reject the truth, though Liz’s steady surety wasn’t up for debate.

  “Let’s see what she has to say about it, shall we?” Liz’s interrogation style wasn’t the same as my husband’s. He preferred long, careful and drawn-out question periods that left the suspect rather flustered and more likely to hand over information they might not under normal circumstances.

  Liz, on the other hand, had a more direct approach. She spun before I could stop her and headed for the counter, laying one hand on Chantal’s shoulder. The diver looked up, startled, while the FBI agent smiled her enigmatic good nature at the other woman before hitting her with both barrels.

  “How long have you been giving Gregg Brown information into Tortuga dives, Chantal?”

  She paled instantly, unable to speak for a long moment while MC’s head whipped back and forth, first to Liz, then to her diver, while Anja took a surreptitious half-step back, arms crossing over her chest, head down.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Chantal spun and marched past me, out the back door, while MC stared after her, eyes wide, mouth gaping open.

  “I’m sorry,” Liz said, sounding like she really meant it. “You had no idea?”

  The Tortuga leader shook her head, sinking to a stool Mom rapidly supplied. “None.” She swallowed hard. Then laughed, guttural and without joy. “All this time.” She glanced at Anja who wouldn’t meet her eyes, then at Liz, suspicions clear. “You’re certain?”

  I didn’t get to witness Liz’s assurances or hear her evidence, not when my phone rang, Dr. Aberstock on the other end of the line. I ducked into the dining room, closing the door behind me, as the cheerful voice of the coroner greeted me.

  “That information you were asking about,” he said. “My suspicions were confirmed just now.” I heard paper rattle, so he must have printed off the lab report. That was the doc. Not satisfied with the digital version, so old school. “How familiar are you with oxygen mixtures for diving, Fee?”

  I’d had the basics, obviously. “I know the deeper you go, the less oxygen you’re supposed to have in your tanks.”

  He grunted his agreement. Cool, I got something right. Yay me.

  “When I conducted my autopsy, I noted a mass of air bubbles in his heart, and petechiae in both the heart and lungs. There was enough micro tearing in the soft tissue I had a feeling I knew what I was dealing with. But the cerebral edema and microscopic perivascular hemorrhage in his brain?” He sounded satisfied while I struggled with the medical terminology and waited for him to get to the point already. “All consistent with a grand mal convulsion brought on by oxygen toxicity.”

  “Dr. Aberstock,” I said, slow and low. “In English.”

  He chuckled, the creaking on the other end of the line from the unoiled base of his office chair, familiar enough I didn’t have to guess to know he was at his desk. “Mr. Brown had a seizure due to elevated oxygen in his blood, far too high for the depth he was diving.” He paused a moment, then resumed. “According to his dive computer—state of the art, these new dive watches—shows that his heartbeat became erratic shortly after he reached 180 feet. And while the seizure itself didn’t kill him, it did cause him to spit out his mouthpiece, and prevent him from replacing it thanks to the convulsions, causing him to drown.”

  Okay, but not proof of murder, was it? “Could he have made a mistake in his air mix?” My mind flashed to Martin, to MC’s tanks, while the doctor answered.

  “Someone of his experience? Impossible.” He actually sounded a bit offended. “Besides which, his dive computer shows a completely different air mix to the one in the tank.”

  “Which means someone sabotaged his equipment.” Got it.

  “Correct.” I guess he’d forgive me for questioning his results. “You have a murder on your hands, Fee. And several experienced divers who were perfectly capable of making sure Mr. Brown didn’t come back up from that depth alive.”

  ***

  Chapter Twenty

  I hung up from Dr. Aberstock, lost in thought a moment as I stared out the windows into the back yard at the annex, considering what to do next. Thing was, the doc was absolutely right. Between MC, Chantal, Anja, Martin, even Crew, there were more than enough people on the list of experts—Liz included—who had the know-how to tamper with Gregg’s equipment.

  And, if I recalled correctly, everyone had the time and access to the dive shed, didn’t they? I’d even witnessed his widow take a side trip into the shack before leaving, right around lunch time.

  Which left me with more questions and people to prod for answers than ever. I knew right where to start, spotting my first as she paced past the glass in the sunshine.

  I slipped out the back door, hearing Liz talking in the kitchen and leaving her to the others, joining Chantal as she huffed a furious line back and forth between the rose bushes. Her shoes crunched on the gravel, kicking fine bits of it across the heavier flagstones where benches offered a normally peaceful oasis for visitors to enjoy the quiet of the sunny space.

  She spotted me as she made her turn, but didn’t stop, face scrunched in anger, hands jammed into her pockets, shoulders hunched in that particular protective fashion that told me she had things to hide, guilt to keep compressed as deep as possible.

  Could it be I’d found Gregg’s murderer without much of a treasure hunt of my own?

  “Is Liz right?” I was careful to keep accusation out of my voice, opting for level and merely curious. Maybe I should have been angry. After all, if Chantal did tell Gregg about the treasure and the evidence we had to prove it existed despite his initial attempt to debunk the find, that meant his dead body was on her. Though, that thought made me shudder because she hadn’t borne the brunt of said body, had she?

  Nope. That had been on me. And I was so over it.

  Okay, maybe a bit of heat rose inside me, even as Chantal shot me a furious look but didn’t deny anything. She didn’t even try.

  “I just spoke with Dr. Aberstock,” I said, same tone, though fighting to maintain it now. “According to him, Gregg’s tanks were tampered with. Too high an oxygen content. And his dive computer, too.” She stopped, turned to face me in the reverse of her stalking pacing, eyes wide. “Which means, only someone with the kind of knowledge, say, you have, could have arranged for his death.”

  Chantal spluttered, shook her head, and despite myself, I believed her wordless denial. I might not have been a great judge of character at the best of times, but I knew true shock when I saw it.

  She sank to one of the benches, hands on her thighs, staring off into the distance now. “Murdered,” she whispered before clearing her throat. I joined her, watched her sag back against the wood slats of the bench. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “But you did scoop MC’s finds,” I said. “For Gregg.”

  Chantal squirmed a little, her light brown hair tracing across one pale cheek as the breeze picked up and took control. Her hand brushed the errant lock away from the corner of her mouth, fingers trembling. “I’ve known Gregg a lot longer than MC,” she said. “He asked me not to tell her, when they first met. I thought he was just being careful. Treasure hunters.” She snorted. “We’re all suspicious of each other.”

  “So
you betrayed MC out of loyalty to Gregg?” She started at my use of the “B” word. “Don’t tell me you had a relationship with him, too?”

  She shook her head then, lips a thin line. “No. His brother, Walter.” She looked away again, as if she couldn’t bear to meet my eyes. “We didn’t last, but Gregg and I stayed friends.”

  “Did you go to work for MC just to spy on her?” I’d liked her. Really liked her. Was she so despicable? And was I proving to myself, yet again, I couldn’t read people at all and maybe I was in the wrong job, despite finding dead bodies on a regular basis?

  “It wasn’t like that.” Chantal lurched to her feet, started pacing again. “MC and I met a few years later. Became friends. I didn’t even think about Gregg, to be honest, until he approached me when we were heading out on a job. He just wanted to know what we were looking for.” She stopped and finally met my eyes, hers full of regret. “I thought he was my friend, just asking. I should have known better.” She stilled, sighed. “When he showed up, took over, I knew he’d used me. But when I confronted him, he threatened me.” She seemed more broken up about that than his death. “Said if I didn’t continue to share information with him, he’d tell MC about hiding our history and that I’d sold her out.” Chantal wiped at a tear that escaped, panic taking her over while she settled next to me, grasping for my hands. “Fee, if anyone finds out, I’ll be blackballed. Even Gregg said if word got out he’d never hire me.” She choked out a bitter laugh. “He said I wasn’t trustworthy.”

  “That’s what you were fighting about the night before the dive.” I was trying very hard not to judge her but I wasn’t going to win for long. Family and friends, loyalty and trust? Yeah, if I only had those things in the end, I had enough.

  She nodded, misery clear on her face, as though she knew despite her attempts to the contrary her career was over. “I told him I was done. He threatened me.” She tensed, eyes narrowing. “And now you do think I killed him.”