Cid whirled around from the computer and pulled out his notebook. He stared at Mia and looked pissed.
Mia shot her hand up again.
“I had a feeling,” Burt said. “Mia…”
“For those of you who don’t know, Stephen Murphy has decided to take a leave of absence from PEEPs. I’d like us to hold his position open for when he returns. So, I’ll be filling in as security officer. I would like permission to ask Kevin Murphy and Fergus O’Connor to help me out. Fergus is a great guy to have in a fight. Kevin is an even thinker. They aren’t much older than Mason, but I feel that Mason has more than stepped up to the task. Oh, and I’d like to recommend Sabine to take on my duties. She did an excellent job on the Chicago investigation.”
Burt stared at Mia indulgently. “Are you done?”
“Yup.”
Burt waited and everyone looked at Mia. She slunk down in her chair.
“Patrick, could you explain where the Wall treasure hunt is at? And I’ll talk about the investigation that PEEPs is going to do.”
Patrick stood up. “We went down on Gerald’s dime and found out that there was indeed a treasure of some kind sent to Guadeloupe on the French battleship the America. It wasn’t offloaded there because the cousin of Olympe de Gouges had moved to New Orleans. We found ourselves following up a lead of where the ship may have deposited the items. It was a false lead. Burt, here, had also continued researching the Wall treasure after the Gifford ghost-napping investigation. He found information that points us to another island, just not one in the Caribbean. We have every reason to believe that, if there is any treasure left, it is contained somewhere on Mackinac Island, Michigan.”
“That’s a jump,” Mike said.
“It was me,” Mason admitted. “I screwed up when I was researching the shipping records. I’m the reason all that crap went down on Lucifer’s Lip. Me and the Feds.”
“It was no one’s fault,” Mia said. “Facts are, the Feds would have opened up the can of worms you had half-opened anyway. I got some footage of the Devil’s Pride, didn’t I?”
“We have the exterior. It transmitted to the boat, and Ted picked it up,” Cid said.
Mia had a sinking feeling. She forgot about the camera. What else recorded but didn’t transmit? “What about the button cam itself?”
“I couldn’t find it on your uniform,” Ted said.
“Maybe it fell into a pocket?” Mia asked.
Fergus manifested behind Ted and waved her off.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t myself after.”
Patrick cleared his voice. “But you did get the ship. Can we see it?”
Cid brought up the footage.
“Oh my goodness,” Sabine said. “It’s beautiful.”
“Who’s with you?” Mike asked.
“Kevin and Fergus. That’s what ghosts look like in the GSD,” Mia said. “They are living and breathing. According to one source, they can live forever unless they are killed in a fight, spend too long when they cross the veil, or die from a shipborne illness. Our guys could cross back over without a problem because they are land deaths.”
“That’s a nasty piece of equipment,” Mason pointed out. “Were they a whaler?”
“Nope. The captain hunted birdmen. He shot a barbed harpoon into the wing of the birdman and reeled him in. The victim suffered not only being yanked out of the air, but having a sizable hole in their wing. The three I saw were being held in squalor until they could be sold to a demon ship.”
“So, while the ship may be beautiful on the outside,” Sabine started, “it may actually be a very horrible place.”
“Only if you’re a birdman. The sailors looked very fit,” Mia said. “They, however, did complain about the food.”
The footage ran out but resumed when Mia pulled away from the Devil’s Pride. Another larger ship loomed up on the starboard side of it.
“I know that ship. I saw it,” Sabine exclaimed.
“That’s the Peacock. It’s a slaver. It crosses the veil to pick up sea deaths. During hurricane season, the boat crosses frequently. It enslaves the ghosts and sells them to other ships. It was doing business with the Devil’s Pride when we snuck out of there,” Mia narrated.
Sabine stood up and pointed to the big monitor. “Look!”
“Jake, bring it back two minutes,” Cid instructed.
He did.
“Slow motion please,” Cid told him. “And freeze.”
“Do you see them?” Sabine asked.
Everyone looked at the screen. Three birdmen were in frozen in flight.
“They escaped!” Sabine said. “I love a happy ending.”
Mike grabbed Mia’s hand under the table. She had balled it into a fist.
“Patrick, let’s move on,” Mike said. “We can look at this footage again later. I think, if we crop out the birdmen, we can use it for filler.”
“Hang on, let me… Yes. After the hurricane, Burt and I boarded a plane and made our way north. We picked up some equipment and drove to Mackinac City and took the ferry over. We had to lug our equipment on our backs, no cars allowed on the island. Once there, you can rent a buggy or bike to get where you want to go. Burt and I checked out a few places. Jake, put up the stills I shot with my camera.”
Patrick went through the possible places he felt that the cousin could have secreted the treasure away.
Mia shot her hand up.
“Yes?”
“If it were a woman, wouldn’t she have hidden the treasure in the quarters she was housed in?”
“Mia, it depends how large it was,” Burt pointed out. “We’re looking for a sizable haul. Crates of booty. The manifest from the ship listed six crates destined for
