Plum Island (45 page)

Transaction complete, I left the antique store with the glorified bedpan in a nice pink and green gift bag.

Okay, off I went to the Cutchogue Free Library, founded in 1841 and still paying the same wages. The library was at the edge
of the village green, a big clapboard building with a steeple that looked as if it had once been a church.

I parked and went inside. There was a tough-looking old bird at the front desk who peered at me over a pair of half specs.
I smiled and breezed past her.

There was a big banner hung at the entrance to the stacks which read:
“Find Buried Treasure—Read Books.”
Excellent advice.

I found the card catalogue, which, thank God, wasn’t computerized, and within ten minutes I was sitting in a reading alcove
with a reference book in front of me, titled
The Book of Buried Treasure.

I read about a John Shelby of Thackham, England, who in 1672 was thrown from his horse into a thicket where he found an iron
pot containing more than five hundred gold coins. According to the treasure trove laws of England, all hidden or lost property
belonged to the Crown. However, Shelby refused to give the gold to the king’s officers, and he was arrested, tried for treason,
and beheaded. This was probably a favorite story of the IRS.

I read about the treasure trove laws of the United States government and of the various states. Basically, all the laws say,
“Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

There was, however, something called the Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities, and it was pretty clear that anything
found on federal land came under the jurisdiction of the secretary of either Agriculture, Defense, or the Interior, depending
on the land in question. Furthermore, you needed a permit to dig on federal land and whatever you found belonged to Uncle
Sam. What a great deal that was.

If, however, you found money, valuables, or any sort of treasure on your own land, it was pretty much yours, as long as you
could prove that the original owner was dead, and/or the heirs were unknown, and that the property wasn’t stolen. And even
if it was stolen, you could claim it if the rightful owners were known to be dead or unknowable, or enemies of the country
at the time the money, goods, or treasure was obtained. The example given was pirate treasure, plunder, bounty, and all that
good stuff. So far, so good.

And to make a nice situation even nicer, the IRS, in some unbelievable lapse of greed, required that you pay tax only on the
portion you sold or otherwise turned into cash each year, as long as you weren’t a
professional
treasure hunter. So, if you were a biologist, for instance, and you owned a piece of land, and you found buried treasure
on it by accident, or as a result of your archaeological hobby, and it was worth, say, ten or twenty million, then you didn’t
pay a dime in taxes until you sold some of it. What a sweet deal. It almost made me want to go into treasure hunting as a
hobby. On second thought, that’s what I was doing.

The book also said that if the treasure has historical value or is associated with popular culture—and here, lo and behold,
the book gave the specific example of Captain Kidd’s lost treasure—then the value of the treasure would be greatly enhanced,
and so forth.

I read for a while longer, learning about the treasure trove laws and reading some interesting examples and case histories.
One particular case caught my eye—in the 1950s, a man was going through some old papers in the Admiralty Section of the Public
Records Office in London. He found a faded letter written in 1750 by a famous pirate named Charles Wilson, addressed to Wilson’s
brother. The letter had originally been found on a pirate ship that was captured by the British navy. The letter read, “My
brother, there are three creeks lying one hundred paces or more north of the second inlet above Chincoteague Island, Virginia,
which is the southward end of the peninsula. At the head of the third creek to the northward is a bluff facing the Atlantic
Ocean with three cedar trees growing on it, each about one and a half yards apart. Between the trees I have buried ten ironbound
chests, bars of silver, gold, diamonds, and jewels to the sum of 200,000 pounds sterling. Go to the woody knoll secretly and
remove the treasure.”

Obviously, Charles Wilson’s brother never got the letter since it was captured by the British navy. So, who found the treasure?
The British navy? Or maybe it was the man who found the letter in the Public Records Office two hundred years later. The author
of
The Book of Buried Treasure
didn’t finish the story.

Point was, there is a place called the Admiralty Section of the Public Records Office in London, and God knew what you could
find there if you had time, patience, a magnifying glass, a knowledge of old English, and a little greed, optimism, and sense
of adventure. I was sure that now I understood the Gordons’ lost week in London last year.

I had to assume the Gordons had read what I was reading now and knew the treasure trove laws. Beyond that, common sense would
tell them that anything they found on Plum Island belonged to the government—no fifty-fifty split or anything—and that anything
they claimed to have found on their rented property belonged to the owner, not the tenants. You didn’t need a law degree to
figure out any of that.

It had probably crossed Tom’s and Judy’s minds that an easy solution to the problems of ownership was to simply keep their
mouths shut if they found anything on Plum Island. But maybe somewhere along the line, they realized that their best course
of action—the most profitable in the long run—was simply to change the location of the discovery, announce the find, bask
in the publicity, pay taxes only on what they sold each year, and go down in history as the handsome young Ph.D’s who found
Captain Kidd’s lost treasure and became filthy rich. This was what any bright and logical person would do. It was what I would
have done.

But there were a few problems. The first was that they had to get anything they found on Plum Island off Plum Island. The
second problem was to rebury the treasure in such a way that its rediscovery not only seemed plausible, but would withstand
scientific scrutiny. The answer to that was the eroded bluffs.

It all made sense to me. It made sense to them, too, but somewhere along the line, Tom and Judy did or said something that
got them killed.

Fredric Tobin had lied to me about a few facts, and about his relationship with the Gordons, which seemed to be open to different
interpretations. Plus, Tobin was either broke or on his way. To a homicide detective, this was like a flashing red light and
an alarm bell.

Not only had Tobin befriended the Gordons, but he’d seduced—or at least charmed—Emma Whitestone, historian and archivist.
It all seemed to fit. It was probably Tobin who’d somehow tumbled on to the possibility that there was buried treasure on
Plum Island. And it was probably Tobin who paid for the Gordons’ week in England to research this and maybe try to pinpoint
the location.

Fredric Tobin was my prime suspect, but I wasn’t discounting Paul Stevens or anyone else on Plum Island. For all I knew, this
was a larger conspiracy than I first thought, and it could involve Stevens, Zollner, and others on the island, plus Tobin,
plus … well, Emma Whitestone.

I
found Whitestone Florist easily enough; I’d passed it dozens of times in the last three months.

I parked close by, checked my hair in the visor mirror, got out, and strode into the store.

It was a very nice place, full of … well, flowers. It smelled good. A young fellow behind the counter asked, “Can I help you?”

“I have an appointment with Emma Whitestone.”

“Are you John?”

“None other.”

“She had to do some errands—hold on.” He called into the back, “Janet. John is here for Emma.”

From the back came Janet, a woman of about forty-plus, and also a younger woman of about twenty-five whom Janet introduced
as Ann. Janet said to me, “Emma asked if you could meet her at the historical society house.”

“No problem.”

Janet continued, “Emma said she had no way to get in touch with you.”

“Well, no problem. I can find the house easy enough.”

Ann said, “She may be a little late. She had some deliveries and errands.”

“Not to worry. I’ll wait there for her. I’ll wait all night if I have to.” Did I need three people to brief me? Obviously,
I was on display.

The young man handed me a business card and said, “Call here if there’s any problem.”

“I surely will. Thank you all for your help.” I got to the door, turned, and said, “Emma has a really nice place here.”

They all smiled.

I left. I easily got a passing grade on that.

Back in my Jeep and on the way to Cutchogue Green. I really didn’t like myself for even
thinking
that Emma Whitestone was in cahoots with Tobin and who knew who else. I mean, she had the entire staff of Whitestone Florist
there to check out her new friend.

On the other hand, when you wind up in the sack with a woman you just met, you have to wonder if it’s your charm or her agenda.
Still, it was I who sought her out, not vice versa. Where did I get her name? Margaret Wiley? No, I’d found it earlier in
the Gordons’ Rolodex on Plum Island. All of these people seemed to be interconnected. Maybe Margaret was in on it. Maybe the
entire adult population of the North Fork was in on it and I was the only outsider. I mean, it was like one of those creepy
horror flicks where the whole village is witches and warlocks, and this clueless tourist shows up and before long, he’s dinner.

I drove into the small parking lot of the historical society mansion. There was no florist van there, but there was a ten-year-old
Ford in the lot.

I left the chamber pot on the rear seat, thinking this might not be an appropriate time to present it. Perhaps after dinner.

Anyway, I went to the front door, and there was another Post-it note that said simply, “Enter.”

So I did. Inside the big foyer, I called out, “Emma!” No answer. I walked through the various rooms of the large house and
called out again, “Emma!” No answer. It seemed inconceivable that she’d unlock the door and leave the house with all these
antiques around.

I went to the foot of the stairs and called out again, but no answer. It occurred to me that she could be on the potty, and
I shouldn’t be calling out to her. If she had waited, she could have used her gift.

Anyway, I began climbing the stairs, which were creaky. I’m not saying I would have liked to have had my gun, but I would
have liked to have had my gun.

So, I got to the top of the stairs and listened. No sound except the sound a creaky old house makes. I decided to go into
the upstairs parlor, which was halfway down the long hallway.

I tried to walk without making the damned floorboards creak, but every step made them squeak and moan.

I got to the door that led to the parlor. It was closed, and I swung it open. The damned hinges absolutely squealed. Jeez.

I stepped inside, and from behind the half-open door, there was a scream. I turned quickly, and Emma lunged at me with a sword
and stuck it in my gut. She yelled, “Take that, you blackhearted pirate.”

My heart raced and my bladder almost let loose. I smiled. “Funny.”

“Scared you, didn’t I?”

She had on a blue tricornered hat and in her hand was a soft plastic cutlass.

“Kind of surprised me.”

“You looked more than surprised.”

I got myself settled down and noticed she was wearing tan slacks today, a blue blouse, and sandals.

She said, “I got this sword and hat in the gift shop. There’s a whole section of kids’ junk.” She went over to the armchair
near the fireplace and held up a black pirate hat with a white skull and crossbones on it, a plastic saber, an eye patch,
and something that looked like a parchment. She gave me the hat and patch, which she insisted I put on as she stuck the sword
in my belt. She showed me the yellowed parchment on which was a map that said, “Pyrate Mappe.” There was the usual island
with the palm tree, a compass, a fat face blowing a westerly wind, a dotted sea route, and a three-master plus a sea serpent—the
whole nine yards, including the big black X that marked the chest of gold.

Emma said, “This is one of our biggest sellers for children of all ages.” She added, “People are fascinated by pirate treasure.”

“Are they?”

“Aren’t you?”

“It’s interesting.” I asked her, “Was Fredric interested in pirate treasure?”

“Maybe.”

I asked, “Didn’t you tell me you taught him to read old English script?”

“Yes, but I don’t know specifically what he was interested in reading.” We looked at each other awhile, then she asked me,
“What’s going on, John?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Why are you asking me about Fredric?”

“I’m jealous.”

She didn’t respond to that, but asked me, “Why did you want to meet me here?”