Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (23 page)

As I was closing out the computer file, Kirby appeared again, bounding down the front steps of the house. He got to the car and climbed in, out of breath.

“I’m sorry I took so long,” he said. “I couldn’t find the one I was looking for, so I had to call my dad. Turns out, he has it with him. I grabbed this older one instead.”

He handed me the GPS unit, which looked like a cross between a cell phone and a walkie-talkie with a rugged outer shell. On the screen was a topographical map of the area, our current position indicated by a pulsing red circle.

“It’s fairly user-friendly,” he added as he started up the car. “Feel free to play around on it if you want.”

As he headed up the driveway, I did just that, pressing various buttons on the unit and bringing up a series of different images, including a compass, a bunch of numbers, and an assortment of maps.

“This is cool,” I said finally, flashing Kirby a smile as I set the unit down in an empty cup holder between us and turned my attention to our surroundings. It was a gorgeous fall day, the air crisp, the sky a vivid blue. Despite my earlier reservations, there was something intoxicating about sailing down the winding highways at full speed in such a luxurious vehicle. I decided to relax and enjoy myself and the company of Kirby Collins.
We’ve got to get you more friends,
Harriet had said to me just a few days before.

Okay, Harriet,
I thought.
I’m working on it.

We chatted as we drove, and I found Kirby to be both witty and intelligent. I asked about his life and how he filled his days. He explained he was an electrical engineer and that he used to be in the research and development branch of his father’s company.

“I took a leave of absence last year to help out my mom when she got ill,” he said. “I still haven’t gone back.”

“Wow, she was lucky to have you around.”

“Mostly I just took over all of her duties,” he said. “Running the household, entertaining dad’s clients. Keeping an eye on my grandmother.”

“It must be exhausting.”

“Exhausting. Frustrating. Boring. I don’t think we ever realized how many different things my mother handled until she couldn’t do them anymore. Beyond all the things I’m doing now in her place, she also served on two boards, worked with a couple of charities, did things at the church…”

His voice trailed off, remembering.

“When will you go back to your job?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Kirby replied, a vague expression on his face. “It’s hard to say.”

“Surely you could hire someone to run the household for you. If you’re not happy there, you should go back to work.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he said. “Though it’s been a little hard to get motivated.”

I nodded, remembering the weeks after Bryan died when I struggled even to get out of bed. I knew the kind of lethargy the mourning process could induce.

“In any event, I bet your dad appreciates having you around the house.”

“Mostly for my grandmother’s sake,” Kirby said, nodding. “He likes knowing I’m around, just in case something happens.”

“Like the incident with the broken pictures?”

“Yeah. Or if she walks off or something. Even though she wears a PTD, he’s always worried about that.”

“A PTD?”

“A personal tracking device. So we can always know where she is.”

“Like the kind they put on prisoners?”

“Sort of. It uses the same GPS technology, but it’s smaller and a lot more comfortable. She’s not even aware it’s there.”

“It keeps track of her location?”

“Yeah, just in case. If she disappears, I simply log into the corresponding website and it shows exactly where she is.”

“Impressive. That would be handy in my line of work. For keeping track of suspects.”

Kirby laughed. “Handy, yes. Legal? Probably not. Though I do know some people use ’em to monitor the whereabouts of their teenagers.”

“Oooh, sneaky,” I said, thinking that GPS was one of those technologies that could be used in millions of ways, both good and not-so-good.

“Would you ever do that?” I asked. “Use a tracking device to keep an eye on your kids?” As soon as the question was out of my mouth, I felt embarrassed for having asked it. Maybe he was one of those people who didn’t even want children someday.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem startled or offended by my question but instead was obviously giving it some thought.

“Only if I had reason to believe they were in some kind of danger,” he said finally. “Serious danger, I mean. And only as a last-ditch effort, assuming all else failed. How about you?”

I shrugged, turning to look out the window, thinking of the children Bryan and I hadn’t had, would never have. Outside, the landscape rushed past at breakneck speed, the glorious fall colors a blur of reds and golds.

“I have no idea,” I replied, wishing the conversation hadn’t gone in this direction. As if sensing my sudden sadness, Kirby changed the subject, reaching out to grab the GPS unit from where it sat in the cup holder.

“Hey, Callie,” he said softly, handing it to me, “we’re getting closer. Why don’t you plug in the coordinates? Let’s see if this thing really can help us find our way.”

Twenty-Five

“It says we’re here,” Kirby told me, studying the GPS unit as we stood in the middle of a big field. “It’s supposed to be accurate within twenty feet or so, depending on certain variables.”

“Twenty feet? That’s a pretty wide margin of error.” Fists clenching in frustration, I forced myself to relax and look around at the beautiful scenery. The drive had taken us about an hour, the coordinates leading us south of our peninsula, into the next county, and out to Carson Point, a piece of land that directly lined the Intracoastal Waterway. The bay was truly a mighty thing from this vantage point, wide and beautiful and strong. We had parked alongside the road and then hiked through low brush to the spot indicated on the GPS unit. Now we were here, but where were we?

Around us was simply an empty field, lined on three sides by trees and one side by coastline. There was nothing remarkable about the place, no big red “X” to mark the spot or anything—just sea grass and cattails and the remains of what looked like an ancient duck blind. Peering out toward the water, there was an abandoned osprey nest on a platform and, beyond that, what looked like a string of small, wooded islands. All very beautiful, yes, but fairly average terrain for the area.

“What next?” I asked.

“My dad said he usually looks for natural hiding places, like fallen logs, hollow trees, things like that. We’ll use this point as our center marker and work our way out from here.”

I could tell that Kirby was having a ball, though I didn’t really see the thrill of it. I just wanted to find this thing and get out of here, but he acted like an ancient explorer: Ponce de Leon looking
for the fountain of youth, when in fact we were just Callie and Kirby, looking for a capsule of junk.

We walked around the field for half an hour, growing itchy from the tall grass, our hands cold, our feet frozen. As much as I usually loved being out in nature, I couldn’t imagine doing this as a hobby. The longer we searched, the more ridiculous I felt.

“I thought GPS units were more exact than this,” I complained as we walked. “Twenty feet in every direction is a bit much.”

“Well, remember, this is an older unit. A newer one could get us within about ten feet, maybe less, but where’s the challenge in that?”

“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “Why do I get the feeling that, once this is all over, you might decide to join your father’s club?”

Kirby laughed.

“Hey, you never know,” he said. “It is a lot of fun.”

“I just hope your girlfriend’s a good sport about stomping around in the wilderness.”

“Yeah, right. What girlfriend?”

“Your girlfriend.”

He stopped walking and turned to me.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

His expression was genuinely puzzled.

“Sure you do,” I said. “You told me about her yesterday. You said the two of you watched me paddling on the river. She made you study my canoeing technique.”

“Oh, gosh, that was ages ago. We broke up last spring. I haven’t gone out with anybody since then.”

“Not at all?”

“Well, sure, I go out. But not any one person, not steady-like.”

“I see.”

He gave me an enigmatic smile, and I wondered if I
did
see. Certainly, there was an intensity to his expression that made me feel somehow disquieted.

“Hey, we haven’t tried back by the duck blind,” I said quickly. “Let’s take a look over there.”

I led the way this time, and Kirby trudged along in my wake. It was slow going, our feet methodically taking one step after another through the tall grass. I’d have to check myself for ticks tonight, I realized as I scratched at the back of my leg. We checked behind the duck blind but found nothing but a battered old rowboat, tipped over on its side. Finally, we just stood there, arms crossed, looking out over the land. It had to be here somewhere, unless Eddie Ray had removed it.

“Hey, maybe Eddie Ray stole the whole thing,” I said suddenly. “Maybe he couldn’t get it open, so he brought the entire capsule home.”

“If that’s the case,” Kirby said, “then at the very least we should be able to figure out where it was located before he took it.”

We looked around us again, wondering if there was any spot we had overlooked.

“How about by those rocks?” I said.

“Too close to the water. The capsule would’ve washed out with the tide.”

“No, up there,” I said. “On that rise. The back side of those rocks would be protected.”

“Worth a look.”

We marched up a slight incline to a point at the edge of the waterline where surf met rock. There was a cluster of black boulders at the point, and behind them, nestled into a crook of the biggest one, was a small gray container.

“Bull’s-eye!” Kirby cried.

He wrestled the container from its hiding place, and we sat on the rocks and opened it, eager to pore through the contents inside.

“I can’t believe we found it,” he said excitedly.

“I can’t believe it’s just a Rubbermaid plastic box,” I said. “I was expecting something a little more high tech than that.”

The box was a rectangular shape with a snap-on lid. We knew it was the capsule because across the top, in bold black letters,
someone had written the website address, along with the words “Property of the Chesapeake GPS Society.”

Kirby popped the lid open, and we peered inside to find what had to be at least 30 little objects. I imagined this was probably their most popular capsule, considering that it was the closest to where these men actually lived.

We pulled out the items one by one—the tangle of wire, the plastic eagle, the keychain. Everything else was, as expected, just junk, like a small hairbrush, a bar of soap, a “C” battery. I wondered again how we could ever know what Eddie Ray had found here and why it was worth so much money.

“Hey, what’s to keep these guys from cheating?” I asked. “If they’re so dead set on winning the trophy, what’s to stop them from removing some of the other guys’ trinkets?”

“This log book,” Kirby said, pulling a small spiral notebook from the pile. On the cover, the same hand that had printed the words on the lid had written here “Capsule invalid if logbook not present.”

I took the notebook from him and flipped it open. The first page was dated the previous New Year’s Day, and it was headed “Congratulations! Please log in.” What followed was page after page of short notes, each written in a different hand, each signed by some sort of code name.

“Hey, look for my dad. His club name is ‘Jolt.’”

“Jolt?”

“Yeah, like electricity. Collins Electronics. Get it?”

I flipped through the pages until I found an entry marked ‘Jolt.’ It was short and to the point: “Excellent cache! Took about 20 minutes to find, great coordinates. Capsule is in good condition and dry. Left wires.”

Most of the entries were similar, I decided as I scanned through them. It was as Kirby had said: a bunch of men playing hide-and-seek in the wilderness.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” I asked, waving the notebook at Kirby.

“Yeah. It means we have to do a quick inventory.”

That we did, going through the entire notebook, comparing it with the items in the box. When we were finished, we had to admit that not one thing was missing.

Silent and disappointed, we put the lid back on, and then Kirby returned the capsule to its hiding place. I still wasn’t sure if this had anything to do with Eddie Ray’s murder or not. But if it did, I knew the answer wasn’t going to jump out at me. I would have to work at it a bit more.

We walked back toward the car in a nearly straight line, finding it on the side of the road right where we left it. As I climbed inside, I realized it was nearly dark. We had wasted the entire afternoon clomping around in the bushes after buried treasure.

“Now remember,” Kirby said as he shut the door, “not a word of any of this to my dad. He didn’t mind telling me all about the club, but I don’t think he’d appreciate finding out that we actually came and looked at one of their capsules.”