Chapter Forty-Two

Lockwood and I went to the yacht room, grabbed a couple of beers, and speculated. If Jankowski had tried to jump Lockwood’s claim, it would be short-lived. There was no way around that. The authorities could easily trace artifacts found in the area back to the Atocha or Santa Margarita. There had been claim jump attempts in the past, and Lockwood’s team discovered them immediately after they tested samples. Some divers even tried to sell pieces of silver they claimed they found up near Marathon. After Lockwood had conducted tests that revealed the silver pieces were from the same mine and smelt from the silver the Atocha carried, feds arrested the divers, and Lockwood got to keep the silver.

“Kind of convenient for you to be the testing authority in the region since you also lay claim to the largest treasure trove in the Keys.”

Lockwood wasn’t amused but played along.

“Well, we agree. That is why we send samples to South Carolina for verification.”

“All right. I’m just saying.”

I smiled for Lockwood, and he sipped his beer. We heard knocking on the store entrance door, and Lockwood went to answer. I waited. I already knew who it was.

Meadows took just over forty minutes to retrieve the text printouts from evidence and get over to Treasure Adventures. She walked in with a twisted umbrella and dripped water from head to toe. She wasn’t happy, but I was.

“You made it!” I said, a little too excitedly.

She shook off the wet and placed an accordion folder on the coffee table between the leather chairs.

“I've got good news and I've got bad news,” she said.

“Of course you do.”

“The text messages are from SPOT Trace.”

“What's the bad news?”

“There's a shitload of them. That’s over a hundred pages. And that's just the last thirty days. Looks like he received notifications every hour.”

“All right, we’ll all take thirds.”

I opened the accordion folder, pulled the hundred or so pages out, and divided them up between Lockwood, Meadows, and myself.

“Can I get a towel?” Meadows asked.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Lockwood said.

He left the room. Meadows’s eyes met mine. I smiled at her, and she frowned.

“What?” she asked curtly.

“Bad day?”

She rolled her eyes. Lockwood came back with a towel and Meadows wiped herself dry. She plopped down in one of the leather chairs and skimmed through her stack of text printouts.

“What am I looking for?” she asked.

“A group of similar coordinates,” Lockwood said.

Lockwood leaned on a counter and went over his stack. I sat, drank my beer, and went over mine. The search didn’t take long.

“Hm,” Lockwood said.

“Hm, what?” I asked. “Why don't you just say what it is instead of going, 'Hm,’?”

“Take it easy,” Lockwood said. “I think I found something.”

He came over to Meadows and me and sat in one of the leather chairs. Lockwood spread his printouts on the coffee table as Meadows and I leaned in for a closer look.

“Here's Chief’s charters.”

Lockwood ran his finger over a set of coordinates.

“How do you know those are the charters?” I asked.

“There's more of them and they're out in the Stream. He liked to take clients out there, but Chief wasn't much of a big-game charter. Clients didn't know that, though. Anyway, these coordinates are all along the Gulf Stream.”

“What about these?”

I spread my sheets across the ones Lockwood laid down and pointed out six of the same coordinates.

“Dry Tortugas,” Lockwood said.

“What's there?” I asked.

“It's a national park. Fort Jefferson is there,” Meadows said.

“Is there fishing out there?”

“There's fishing everywhere,” Lockwood said, “but no one goes out there except the shrimp boats. He was probably ferrying customers out there for the day. It's a popular tourist location, with a good beach and snorkeling. But that's not what's interesting.”

Lockwood pointed at three other coordinates, all the same.

“It's these.”

“I have those, too,” Meadows said.

“What about them?” I asked.

“Nothing, except they're at night. Late at night.”

“So?”

“Your buddy was a man of habit. A real military type. But he was retired and only did what was necessary to make ends meet. He worked Thursday through Sunday running charters from six in the morning to six in the evening. Like clockwork. Easy money; easy fishing. These coordinates are on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday from nine in the evening until midnight.”

Lockwood pulled out the claim file Meadows faxed to us and placed the sheets on the text message printouts.

“And they’re the same coordinates as the claim,” he said.

I grabbed the paperwork and compared the numbers. They were an exact match.

“Holy shit,” I said.

“You were right,” Lockwood said.

Meadows sat back in her chair, looking as if she had just gone twelve rounds in a heavyweight bout.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She took a moment, but finally looked over at me and smiled. A tired smile, but a good one, nonetheless.

“That’s one hell of a hunch you got there, Cutter,” she said.

“If I’m not mistaken,” I said, “that’s a compliment.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

I picked up the text printouts I had gone over and checked the time stamps on the messages.

“What time does Fort Jefferson open to the public?”

“Ferry arrives about ten, but some take a seaplane to get there earlier, charter a boat, or sail out on their own. There’re also campers and park rangers. They live on the island. But normal hours are sunup to sundown.”

“The rangers live there?”

“Inside the fort. They lock it up at sunset. Why?”

I jabbed my finger at three Dry Tortugas coordinates.

“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, three to five in the morning.”

I handed the printouts to Lockwood. He read the coordinates.

“Now why would Dan go out in the middle of nowhere in the dark then to the Dry Tortugas before heading back to Key West?” I asked.

“Overnight charters?” Meadows said.

Lockwood went to a cabinet and grabbed a chart. He sat back down and unrolled it on the coffee table. He checked the text messages, then found the spot Dan had visited in the Dry Tortugas.

“It's Fort Jefferson. North side of the island. There's a channel that leads right up to the key, mainly used by the maintenance crew. Look at the times. He went to Fort Jefferson immediately after the claim site during those nights.”

“You know what this means, don't you?” I asked.

He nodded, and we both said, “He hid something at Fort Jefferson.”

Meadows sat upright, held her hand up like she was stopping traffic.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You mean… Come on, guys.”

“There be buried treasure out there,” I said.

I wiggled my eyebrows at Lockwood and a big grin crossed his face. He loved any idea of buried treasure, it’s what he lived for every day of his life.

“Can you take a boat out to the claim site, tomorrow?” I asked Meadows.

“I could get Marine Patrol to take me out. Why?”

“See what’s there. You dive?”

“No, but Marine Patrol does,” she said. “What are the chances we’ll find something?” she asked Lockwood.

“Depends on if it’s above the sand or not. Hard to say.”

“What are you going to do?” Meadows asked me.

“I’m going to do some sightseeing.”

“What about the storm?” she said.

Lockwood and I both said, “It’s just a precursor.”

“Tomorrow, we'll go to the Dry Tortugas to get a lay of the land,” I said to Lockwood.

“There you go using ‘we’ again.”

“Hey, every Sherlock needs a Watson. You're my Watson.”

“I'm a pirate.”

“Even better, Long John Silver. We'll take the ferry.” I turned to Meadows. “You might want to check up on Carl Polk. If he’s still breathing.”

“I’ll have patrol go by the state harbor.”

“What time does the ferry leave?” I asked Lockwood.

“Seven. You know I have a boat, right?”

“Less conspicuous.” I was thinking about our friend Peter Jankowski. Catching him in my rearview mirror earlier had made me extra cautious. He’d have a hard time hiding on a public boat, and if he was cocky enough to try, I could throw him overboard. “Besides, when's the last time you were a tourist in your own city?”

“Never. I worked my whole life.”

“You gotta learn to relax, man.”