Cassie found a place called Esther’s Country Kitchen on the south side of Butte across the interstate. She could see the close-packed city sprawled across the distant hillside through the front window of the restaurant.
She ordered an omelet and texted the address to Kyle. She wanted to eat a big breakfast so she wouldn’t be hungry when she met Matthew Annan for lunch at the Club Moderne in Anaconda. It had always been a thing with her: feeling guilty for eating too much in front of men she didn’t know well. This way, she thought, she could order a salad and skip the judgment.
Esther’s was kitschy and homey and moderately busy with retirees who lingered over cups of coffee while they read the newspaper. She sat at a booth in the back corner. While she waited for her food and for Kyle to show up, she checked messages on her phone and was pleased to see there wasn’t anything urgent she needed to respond to. The only news from her office was unsurprising: Isabel had called in sick for a “mental health day.”
Her breakfast and Kyle showed up at the same time. He looked hollow eyed and disheveled.
Cassie removed her readers and placed her phone on the table.
“Have a seat,” she said to him. “Order breakfast if you’d like.”
He nodded and squinted at the laminated menu while the waitress hovered patiently. He said, “Three eggs over easy, country ham, hash browns, and pancakes.” Then: “Do you have Mountain Dew?”
“Yes.”
“I’d like a large one, please.”
To Cassie, Kyle said, “I’m a Mountain Dew man.”
“I remember.”
He looked happy with himself, she thought.
“Kyle, when is the last time you slept in a bed or took a shower?”
He thought it over. “North Dakota,” he said.
“It’s something you should think about.”
He waved the idea away. “I’m outside all day,” he said. “I sleep in my truck. I don’t bother anyone.”
“You can get a shower at most truck stops,” she said. “I was reminded of that just today.”
He shrugged and she let it go.
“I hope you’ll get right to the point because I don’t have much time this morning, Kyle,” she said.
“Okay.”
“What is it you wanted to ask me?”
He nodded and said, “Yesterday, I was in Deer Lodge. I spent the morning checking out a river for the treasure and I was starving, so I stopped to get something to eat. While I was sitting there, two guys came in. They were correctional officers from the prison, but it took me a few minutes to figure that out. They had uniforms that made them look like cops.”
“Go on.”
“They were talking to each other but I think they didn’t know that I could hear them. One guy told the other guy he was going to buy a new F-150 and they argued about the best truck to buy for a while.”
“Kyle, can you speed this up?”
Kyle said, “The one CO said he could afford a new truck thanks to Sir Scott’s.”
Cassie shook her head. “What does that mean? From the poem or the treasure itself?”
“Well, at first I thought maybe they’d found the treasure, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t. No, I would have heard about it and that news would be all over the place. So I think it had something to do with the poem, but I don’t get it. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Me, either,” Cassie said.
Kyle recounted verbatim the conversation between the two COs. Cassie trusted Kyle to recall everything in detail, even if it didn’t shed any more light on what Kyle was seeking.
It was interesting, however, that the COs seemed to have shared information about Sir Scott’s on a previous occasion. And the lines:
“What do you think? Will anybody ever find it?”
“The treasure?”
“Fuck yes, the treasure.”
“Who knows? I couldn’t care less. All I care about is that it helped me buy a new truck.”
When he was done, Kyle asked, “Don’t you have ways of finding things out about people?”
“I do.”
“Can you do that for me? Can you look up this CO and find out about him? I know where he lives because I followed him home, but that’s all I know. I think it’ll help me find the treasure.”
“You followed him home?”
“Don’t worry. He never saw me.”
Cassie finished her omelet and covered the plate with a napkin and sat back. She didn’t mind eating a lot of food in front of Kyle.
“Kyle, you know how I feel about your treasure hunt. I think you’re wasting your time.”
He nodded and said, “Yeah. But I think this might mean something.”
“Do you have a name?” she asked reluctantly.
Kyle pulled his wallet out and found the scrap of paper he’d written on. “The CO’s name is Tracy Swanson. It was on his name badge. I think he knows something about the treasure but for some reason he’s keeping it a secret.”
“There might be another explanation,” she said.
“Maybe. But why would he be talking about Sir Scott’s that way? New Fords cost thirty to fifty thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money. He must know something.”
Cassie said, “Maybe I can check on him, but I can’t get to it today. The databases we use are back in my office. When I get back, I’ll plug in the name and see what we can find.”
She thought that she could ask April to do the search in her absence. But she didn’t want to give Kyle any false hope that he’d get an immediate answer.
“How long will you be around?” she asked Kyle.
“Maybe another day. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“I’ll do what I can,” she said. “I’ve got your number. But it probably won’t amount to anything.”
“I have this feeling that it will,” he said while he waited for his breakfast to arrive. “I just have a feeling about it,” he repeated.
“How many times have you had a feeling you’d find the treasure?” she asked.
“All the time,” he said with a crooked grin. “And I will.”
“But what if you don’t, Kyle? Then what?”
He looked up and tears filled his eyes. He said, “Then I can’t help Grandma Lottie. I told you that. Look at me, Cassie. You know me. I ain’t ever going to come into big money and I ain’t ever gonna win the lottery, either. I’ve hit my ceiling. Finding Sir Scott’s Treasure means everything to me.”
His tears affected her and she looked away before she produced her own. “I just wish you wouldn’t put so much stock into something that may not even exist,” she said.
“Finding that treasure is all I’ve got. I feel like I’m getting real close, too. I’ve just got a couple more places to check.”
Cassie reached out and squeezed his hand. “Oh, Kyle…” she said.
The waitress delivered Kyle’s breakfast and Cassie let go of her grip so the plates could be set down in front of him.
“I’ll find it,” Kyle said. “But if you could help me with this CO I might be able to find it sooner.”
“I’ll do what I can.”
“Thank you, Cassie.”
“Take care, Kyle,” she said as she slid out of the booth and went to the counter to pay.
Just as Kyle had a feeling about the treasure, Cassie felt pulled back into downtown Butte for reasons she couldn’t quite explain.
She took the underpass beneath the interstate and cruised Butte’s throwback urban streets and was once again transported into the 1920s.
As before, Cassie climbed the hillside to the imposing row of old mansions on the side of the hill. She parked at the gaping hole where Matthew Annan had bought and excavated the mansion that he later moved to Anaconda. It was as if looking at the empty space would somehow tell her more about him.
Why buy the old home in the first place? she wondered. For what it cost to buy, move, and renovate, Annan could have built a massive new house anywhere he wanted to. And why move the home ten miles away where it would stick out like a sore thumb? Annan could have purchased twenty houses in Anaconda for what this one cost.
She planned to get those answers soon.
She engaged the emergency brake so her Jeep wouldn’t roll down the steep street and she climbed out. As she closed her door she was met by a young woman in period dress. The woman wore a long skirt and had a bonnet on her head. Freckles covered her nose and cheeks.
“Are you here for the tour?” she asked merrily.
“I’m sorry. What tour?”
“A tour of the Copper King mansions,” the woman said with obvious disappointment. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“Not really.”
The tour guide grinned and tried again. “We gather at ten and the tour takes ninety minutes. We’ll get to visit all of the old mansions when Butte was the richest city in the West.”
The guide listed all of the mansions they would visit that day.
As she named them and listed the onetime owners, Cassie felt a chill run through her.
“Could you please repeat those names?” she asked the guide.
“Sure.” And she named the owners once again.
“Thank you,” Cassie said. “You’ve been a huge help.”
“Help with what?” the guide asked. She was confused.
“Something I’m working on,” Cassie said.
Although she didn’t sign up for the tour, Cassie fished into her purse and gave the guide a fifty-dollar tip.
“What’s this for?” the young woman asked.
“Clarity,” Cassie responded.