SEVEN DAYS AFTER
Cassie occupied a round table with a steel-mesh top in the corner of the visiting area of the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge. Both the table itself and the bench seats surrounding it were bolted to the polished concrete floor. She was nervous and fidgety.
They’d taken and stored her purse, phone, wristwatch, jewelry, and dignity in one of the battered lockers in the intake lobby that morning. Cassie felt vulnerable and exposed, which she knew was their aim.
The walls were painted off-white and a television with its sound muted showed an afternoon game show. In the corner were small chairs and a box of toys for visiting children. The toys looked dated and dirty, Cassie thought.
A short-sleeved correctional officer sat behind a steel desk against the north wall. He was there to keep an eye on inmate interactions with visitors and to enforce the list of rules printed on a laminated poster taped to the cinder-block wall behind him.
KEEP CONVERSATIONS CIVIL
NO PHYSICAL INTERACTION
NO MORE THAN ONE INMATE PER TABLE UNIT
NO ITEM EXCHANGE
NO EXCEEDING TIME LIMIT
No, no, no, no. Cassie was certain she wouldn’t do well in prison, either as a CO or an inmate
The room was largely empty except for two prisoners in identical orange jumpsuits and blue slip-on boat shoes. She observed them furtively because she didn’t want to be caught staring.
One inmate was a wiry Causcasian with stringy black hair and a neck tattoo of a fist emerging from his collar gripping a double-bladed knife. He was missing most of his teeth. Across from him was a mousy woman in glasses who seemed painfully shy and needy for him to touch her and hold her hand. They whispered their conversation to each other and when the woman reached across the table to cup his jaw, the CO behind the desk said, “Break it off.” Her hand shot back as if she’d touched an electric circuit.
The second inmate was a bulky American Indian with a black braid halfway down his back. His visitors—she guessed—were his parents. The three of them sat wordlessly at his table and stared at their hands. The only time they looked up was when the CO barked at the other man. Then they returned to staring at their hands.
There was a hum and a click and the electronic lock opened on the east door. Cassie looked up to see an inmate enter with a CO a step behind him.
She sized up the inmate as he approached. He looked to be in his mid-sixties. He had longish swept-back ginger hair streaked with silver, a neatly trimmed goatee, and green eyes that sparkled with wry pleasure, as if he was amused by her. His orange jumpsuit was a size too large but the man wore it as if it were a badge of honor. The CO treated the inmate with deference, despite his apparent haughtiness.
The man had a strong resemblance to his younger portrait on the back of his book jackets.
After delivering the inmate to Cassie’s table, the CO nodded to her and left to join the CO at the table in an apparent effort to give her and the inmate their privacy.
Cassie stood and extended her hand. “As you probably know, my name is Cassie Dewell.”
The inmate reached out and shook. His grip was warm. “Regis Stanhope.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stanhope,” she said. “I believe you owe me twenty-five thousand dollars.”
Stanhope threw his head back and laughed. He attracted the attention of everyone in the room and the CO behind the desk threw him a scowl.
“I suppose congratulations are in order, Cassie Buzz-Buzz,” he said “How, pray tell, did you find me?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you,” she said.
Cassie kept her voice low. “I came here today with Agent Tom Wright of the Montana DCI. We’ve just had a long and very productive conversation with a CO by the name of Tracy Swanson,” she said.
“That rat,” Stanhope said with a chuckle. “We hate rats in prison, you know.”
“Well, he’s very intent on keeping his job here,” she said. “We made him a deal that we wouldn’t inform his supervisor in regard to what he did for you on the outside if he told us everything.”
“How did you even get on to him?”
“I’m good at my job,” she said. “Isn’t that why you hired me in the first place? To try and find you? To find the man who actually wrote the ‘Sir Scott’s Treasure’ poem that started this stupid treasure hunt?”
“It’s not stupid,” Stanhope said, revealing his incisors. “It’s delightful. The treasure hunt has been a source of delight not only for me, but for the world at large.”
“I got that right, didn’t I?” Cassie asked. “I didn’t say you wrote the poem on the menu board in Manhattan. You actually wrote it in here and gave the job to Tracy Swanson to take it and copy it inside the restaurant. Then you sent him to Billings to post the photo of the treasure chest. And you paid Swanson to deliver my retainer so I’d assume you were on the outside all along.”
“Is that what Swanson told you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he certainly turned out not to be trustworthy,” Stanhope said with regret.
Cassie continued. “The call you made to me came from his cell phone, which you borrowed from him against regulations. Swanson isn’t too swift: it was still there on his call register when we looked at it.”
“Perhaps I hired the dumbest guard in prison,” Stanhope said. “I’m starting to believe that. But I’m not discouraged, not in the least.”
“What do you mean?”
“You found me,” he said. “There can be no denying that. I owe you your bonus fair and square. But based on what you know and how you found me, can your investigation possibly be replicated by one of the treasure hunters? I think not. How likely is it that a treasure hunter will run into the likes of Tracy Swanson? That ship has sailed.”
Cassie smiled and said, “One did.”
Stanhope’s eyebrows shot up in alarm. He wasn’t expecting that.
“One did what?” he asked.
“One of the treasure hunters overheard Swanson bragging about what he was going to spend his Sir Scott’s money on.”
“Who is this person?” he asked.
“That’s privileged information.”
“I’ll pay you for the name. I’ll double your bonus.”
“No deal,” Cassie said.
“There are things you aren’t telling me,” he said.
“Correct. I’m under no obligation to do so. Now tell me, did you have someone other than Swanson hide the so-called treasure? He swears he didn’t do it.”
“He didn’t,” Stanhope said.
“So who did?”
“That’s privileged information,” he said, mocking her.
“There isn’t any treasure, is there? It was all a scam.”
“How dare you,” he spat. His face was instantly red. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Of course there’s a hidden treasure. I hid it myself.”
Cassie gave him the side-eye. “Sure you did. Where? In the prison yard?”
Stanhope leaned across the table and glared at her. “I hid it myself. It was a week before my unfortunate … incident. I had planned to post the poem myself but I had to get help later to complete the setup. I assure you there is a treasure and that someday it will be found by clues within the poem itself. And that’s the important thing,” he said. “It needs to be found based on the clues within the poem—not by discovering my identity.”
“I understand,” she said. “I heard you the first time you told me that. But I’ve got questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“Your three novels did okay but they weren’t bestsellers. I may get this wrong from memory but their titles were The Ides of Ipswich, Chronicles of Suffolk, and Stories of East Anglia…”
“Tales of East Anglia,” he corrected.
“Fine. Anyway, they got some good reviews and sold modestly here and in the UK. Given that, how did you amass the fortune you supposedly hid?”
“Did you come here to insult me?” he asked. “My books did fine.”
“Not three million dollars in gold fine,” she said. “I looked them up.”
He said, “My fortune, alas, didn’t come from my work. You may not know this, but very few authors make fortunes from their work. That’s not why we write.”
“I’ve come to understand that,” Cassie said, recalling her recent interviews. “So where did the money and treasure come from? How can you prove that it even exists?”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t have to prove anything to you.”
“You do if you expect me to stay quiet about finding you.”
“That’s blackmail.”
She nodded. “You could say that. And promising a nonexistent three-million-dollar treasure to innocent dupes could be construed as fraud. I’ve about had it with men committing fraud lately.”
Stanhope stayed still but his eyes shifted to check out the two COs. For the moment, the man at the desk was showing the other something on his phone and neither were looking their direction.
Carefully, without making any sudden movements, Stanhope undid the top button of his jumpsuit and reached inside beneath his left armpit. He came out with a small paper square. He slipped it to Cassie across the table and mouthed, “Don’t let them see it.”
He looked away while she unfolded the damp square. She really didn’t want to touch it but her curiosity got the best of her.
It was faded photo of an open treasure chest leaned against the base of a thick pine tree. Inside the chest were what looked like gold coins, one-ounce bars of gold, and jewels. She wished it hadn’t come from his armpit.
“I keep it on my person for inspiration,” he said quietly. Then he took it from her, folded it again, and slipped it back.
Swanson sighed. “My second wife was heir to a San Francisco frozen seafood conglomerate. When she died her rather large inheritance went to me. I write to keep my sanity and my curiosity intact, not for profit. But wait until I publish my memoirs. I’m working on them now. Then you’ll see a bestseller, my dear.” His eyes twinkled.
It took her a moment, then she said, “You’re going to write a memoir from the point of view of the man who started the treasure hunt.”
“A treasure hunt that captivated a nation,” he said with a wolfish grin.
“A treasure hunt where five people died trying to find it, and more might add to the body count,” Cassie said. “I know personally of a young man who has given up all of his vacation time and weekends trying in vain to find your treasure. He’s a very good person who has been through a lot in his life. Now he’s wasting the rest of it on your stupid treasure hunt.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” Stanhope said. “I’ve given him hope. I’ve given many people something they couldn’t find elsewhere: hope and a reason to seek adventure in a staid, increasingly totalitarian society.”
“I want you to call it off,” Cassie said.
Stanhope laughed and rolled his eyes theatrically. “How could I possibly do that, even if I was so inclined? Look around us. I’m in prison. If I ‘call it off’ the treasure will still be out there and people will still try to find it. I can’t exactly rush out there and recover it at the moment.”
“Maybe you could send Terry Swanson,” Cassie said. “He’s done other things for you.”
“And it appears he can’t keep his mouth shut,” Stanhope said sourly. “I’m through with that blabbermouth.”
Cassie said, “Send someone else you can trust.”
“There’s no one I can trust. Not with millions in gold.”
“You’ll get out in a year or two. How many more people will have died by then?”
“That’s not my problem. The world is filled with losers and reprobates and people who just aren’t very smart. I can’t make people be safe, and I can’t save them if they’re bound and determined to hurt themselves. I keep saying, over and over, that no one needs to risk their lives finding the treasure. I mean—look at me, Mrs. Dewell. I’m not exactly a specimen of physical fitness, so therefore I hid the treasure where I could easily access it. I didn’t climb into a canyon on ropes or ford a raging river with an eighty-pound box of gold. I put it in a place I easily walked to.
“It’s all in the poem,” he nearly shouted. “The location is glaringly obvious! And it’ll all make for a richer read when I complete my memoirs.”
She studied his face as he talked. Cassie could tell that Stanhope was adamant about letting the hunt go on.
She asked, “What is it about discovering your identity that will give away the location of the treasure? Is it something in your novels? Your books are historical fiction and set in England.”
“Yes. So what?”
“You told me you didn’t want to be discovered because of your writings.”
“I said that?”
“You did.”
“Well, that was certainly a slip. I shall be more careful in the future.”
“So what is it?” she asked again.
He smirked. “That’s privileged information.”
“Damn you,” she said as she smacked the table with the heel of her hand. The action brought the attention of both COs.
“No acting out, miss,” the CO behind the desk cautioned.
She motioned to him that she was under control. As she did a thought suddenly hit her. She wished she had her phone to confirm it.
Stanhope apparently noticed her quick change in demeanor and it worried him. He looked around as if preparing to get up and leave. She couldn’t stop him. Wright had used up all of his favors, especially getting the interview with Stanhope in the first place. She doubted Stanhope would now be inclined to add her name to his visitor list.
She would never see or talk to the man again. And she’d be shocked if he actually paid her the money he owed her without a fight.
“You owe me twenty-five thousand dollars,” she said. “A deal is a deal and my attorney friend assured me it would be considered a legal contract in a court. But I’m sure you don’t want to go to court and be exposed, correct?”
Something passed over his eyes. After a beat, he said, “I’ll ask my lawyer to send you a check.”
“Thank you.”
Stanhope placed both of his hands on the table and pushed himself up. “Well,” he said, “this has been a nice diversion. You can’t imagine how tedious each and every day is in here. The only things that keep me going are hearing news from the treasure hunt and working on my memoir. But this has been nice.”
Cassie looked up. “Besides Swanson, am I the only person who knows it was you?” Cassie asked.
“Yes,” he said. Then: “Why do you ask?”
Wright was waiting for her in the intake lobby when Cassie emerged from the visitation room. He looked up and said, “You look wrung out.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Get anything?”
“Maybe,” she said. “I’ll tell you about it on the way back.”
“I was talking to a couple of the COs,” Wright said. “Stanhope is pretty slippery.”
“He is,” she said as she retrieved her personal items from the locker.
“Is he the poet?”
“I’ll get back to you on that,” Cassie said as she gestured toward the door to the women’s restroom. “Give me a minute.”
Inside, she powered up her phone and opened up the web browser. She quickly found the bookseller bibliography site she’d used earlier to find out about Stanhope’s published novels that were still available for purchase. But this time she scrolled further down.
“Bingo,” she said with triumph.
In the parking lot on the way to Wright’s DCI cruiser, Cassie said, “Can you give me a minute to make a call?”
“Sure.” He sighed. “We’re late as it is to get back to Helena. Might as well be even later.”
“Thank you.”
Cassie walked toward a brick structure that enclosed Dumpsters. It was far enough away that Wright couldn’t overhear.
She called Kyle, who answered on the third ring. He sounded out of breath.
“Hey, Kyle.”
“Hey, Cassie. Sorry, I’m working and I stopped to get a Mountain Dew. I left my phone in my truck and I had to run to get to it.”
“Kyle, stop everything you’re doing and listen to me carefully.”
“Wow—okay. I’m listening.”
“I’m going to send a web page to your phone. It’s a page about a Montana author named Regis Stanhope. When you read it, ignore all the stuff about Ispwich, Suffolk, and East Anglia. Just keep scrolling down.”
Cassie recalled the page on her phone and texted it to Kyle.
“Got it?” she asked.
“Yeah. It looks kind of boring.”
“It is. But keep scrolling.”
She waited. Finally, he said, “Okay, I got to the bottom.”
“What does it say?”
“Hmm. It says Barefoot Wanderer, 1987—out of print.”
“It was his first book when he was barely in his twenties. Now read the subtitle.”
Kyle read, “Barefoot Wanderer: Fly-fishing and Coming of Age on the Waters of Grand Teton National Park.”
“Kyle,” Cassie said, “the man who hid the treasure and wrote Sir Scott’s poem is Regis Stanhope. Barefoot Wanderer is his first book. He didn’t want anyone to ever find it.”
“How did you ever find him?” Kyle asked.
“You found him, Kyle,” she said. “You found him. I just followed up.”
After an inordinately long time, Kyle said, “You’re telling me I’ve been looking in the wrong state?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“My God, Cassie. There aren’t that many rivers in the park.”
“Find the book, Kyle,” she said. “Go to your library and ask for help, or look for it online. There has to be a copy for sale out there somewhere. Then go find that treasure, my friend.”
His voice caught when he said, “I’m going to find it, Cassie.”
“Call me if you do,” she said. “Be careful and give my best to Lottie. And don’t tell a soul about this call.”
“Are you kidding me?”