“You drive a hard bargain,” she said, “but no.”
“Well, you’ve certainly put me off my game.” I kissed her hand and we climbed out of the car. The second floor balcony above us looked to be about two feet deep, was covered, and appeared to be decorative. But once inside the church, I saw that it was attached to a small, hidden gable about six feet wide and eight feet deep. You reach that little room by descending into a trap door about four feet below the ante way and then crawling some twenty feet under the chapel until you reach a wooden ladder. That twenty foot crawl behind Beth was the toughest of my life. Being that close to her backside would have killed a lesser man. When we got to the ladder we climbed fifteen feet to a landing. Beyond the thick, locked, wooden door, stood the little gable room where I met Libby Vail.
Libby was thin, but appeared healthy. She was sitting on a window box, surrounded by stacks of old, moldy books and parchment.
“Hey Beth!” she said, brightly.
“Hi Libby. This is Donovan Creed.”
Libby and Beth exchanged a knowing smile that was so obvious it almost embarrassed me. Beth blushed and lowered her eyes and cleared a small space on the window box and sat there. It happened to be the only place one could sit in the cramped little area.
“Hello, Mr. Creed.”
I cocked my head to one side. “I notice you’re missing a fingernail on your right index digit.”
Libby laughed. “Do you always start conversations this way?”
“I do. Always.”
She turned to Beth. “See? I told you he’d be funny!” To me, she said, “Seriously, why do you ask?”
“I found it in the picnic basket Beth brought you one day. I figured you broke it when you scratched your initials on the bottom of the basket.”
Beth looked at her curiously. Libby thought a moment, then said, “Oh. I think that must have happened the night I was trying to channel Jack Hawley. I kept scratching my initials while saying my name.”
“Why?”
She looked at me sheepishly. “I was hoping to somehow cross the space-time continuum, like they talk about in the movies. Maybe get him to send me a clue of some sort. Crazy, I know, but wow, you’re really good. I mean, to find a fingernail and scratch marks and put all this together? I’m impressed.”
Impressed or not, I had to ask the question, in spite of Beth.
“Are you being held here against your will?”
Libby laughed, heartily. “No, of course not. If I were, I could just open the door to the balcony and call for help.”
I gestured at the tiny room, “Then what are you doing? Your parents and friends have been mourning you for nearly a year. The FBI came down…”
Libby held up a hand. “Please. Don’t make me feel guilty, I know all that. I’m just giving back. Some people join the Peace Corps, I hide in a church.”
“Except that your loved ones would know if you were in the Peace Corps.”
“I won’t be here much longer.”
“You stay in this cramped room all the time?”
“It’s more like a home base. I stay with different friends at different times. There’s a schedule, but yes, I sleep here sometimes, and this is where I conduct my research.”
“What are you researching?”
She gestured to the books and parchment paper. “The local churches and library have opened all their books to me. I’ve spent the past year filling in the details of my heritage. When I’m not reading, when the church is locked, I wander around the building. And when my friends come to visit, we go for walks. Beth and some of the day ladies drive me to parks or deserted parts of the beach. It’s easy not to be recognized if I’m wearing a wig and trying to blend in. Sometimes a group of us go fishing.” She pointed to a laptop. “Plus, I’ve got all the modern conveniences, iPod, iTouch, computer, TV…”
“I’ve heard some bullshit in my day,” I said, “but this takes the cake.”
She eyed me, curiously. “You don’t believe I’m here for historical reasons?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why’s that?”
I picked up one of the maps. “This is a terrain map.” I gestured to some sheets she’d tacked to the wall. “And those look a lot like geological surveys.”
“So?”
“So you might be researching your family history, but there’s more to it. Otherwise you wouldn’t need to keep your presence quiet.”
She said nothing.
Beth watched me with a tender light in her eyes that made me feel particularly good.
And then it hit me.
“You’re searching for treasure!”
