Frozen In Time (Behind The Crime Book 4) Page 3

  “This is why they pay you the big bucks, Cuz.” Mia loves to joke with her cousin. It's been that way since they were kids.

  Stepping out of the car, the three friends walk beneath the white arch. It is a sunny day, though fall is now fast approaching. The park is quiet, but there are a few others there walking around its flat green lawns and white paths. Several trees huddle together here and there, as though the last remaining members of a long-forgotten wood.

  “Spread out?” Jessy asks.

  Mia and Garrett nod.

  “Look for a statue.”

  They separate. Mia walks along a path to the east, Garrett to the west, and Jessy walks forward north. The park is quaint, and Jessy has long meant to attend the monthly art fair that takes place there. But life always gets in the way of such things.

  A breeze makes its way through the park, and as Jessy walks on the empty path ahead, she closes her eyes and breathes deeply. She wonders if Danny is serious about leaving New Orleans. Months ago, Jessy would have jumped at the chance to get her old life back, but now... something has changed inside her. She has fallen in love with the city and its secrets. In many ways, they are what drive her forward now. New Orleans has become an enigma, and it is one Jessy feels enlivened by.

  After some time and investigating two statues which seem unimportant, Jessy sees another path stretch off to the left. It weaves its way between several large bushes, and Jessy feels drawn to its seclusion. That's the type of place to hide a secret, she thinks to herself.

  She heads down the path. It winds on, and as it does, she begins to feel more removed from the world. Large bushes and trees flank her on both sides, and she begins to wonder if she should have told Mia and Garrett where she was going. That is when she hears it. A sound. A familiar one; the sound of feet on gravel.

  Instinctively, Jessy looks behind her. The path curves behind the bushes out of view. What she thinks were footsteps seems to have ceased. She pushes on, and up ahead she sees a small clearing. There is a statue there. It is of a local preacher from at least a hundred years ago, cast in white stone. Though it has been worn by the elements, the figure, standing there with a Bible in hand giving a sermon, is a comfort to Jessy. She misses her old church back home.

  As she looks at the figure and thinks that she should find a local church at which to become a member soon, suddenly she hears something behind her. It is the sound of feet on gravel again. But when Jessy turns, there is no one there once more. Beginning to feel that she is being followed, she looks down at her bag and opens it, looking for her cell-phone. She dials Mia's number.

  “You find anythin' honey?” Mia says after answering.

  “Mia, I think I'm being followed,” Jessy whispers into her phone.

  Before she can hear her friend's reply, a dark shape moves out from one of the bushes. It grabs Jessy's bag and knocks her to the ground. Dazed and on the floor, Jessy looks up and sees a man with black hair she does not recognize rifling through her bag.

  “Where is it!” he says with menace coursing through his voice. His eyes are filled with violent intent.

  “Help!” Jessy cries as best she can, the wind still knocked from her.

  “The map!” the man yells. “Give it to me!”

  Jessy's hand is in her pocket. Inside the warm safety of her coat's lining, her fingers touch the paper of the folded map.

  “I don't know what you're talking about,” she says, still trying to catch her breath.

  “I know you have it! I saw you looking at it when you got here! Now give it!”

  “Help!!” Jessy cries for a second time.

  Footsteps sound on the path behind the bushes. Someone is nearing them. Looking up, the man is momentarily distracted. Jessy kicks out at his shin with her feet, digging her short heel into the bone. The man yelps in pain. In that brief pocket of respite, Jessy clambers to her feet and rushes off the path and into the bushes, weaving between them.

  “Come here!” the man cries out. He follows her.

  Jessy moves through the bushes, her hair and coat catching on jagged thorns here and there. Behind her, she hears the man searching for her. In a moment, he will catch her. He is faster than her. More powerful. But Jessy is smarter. She knows she will not make it out of the bushes before he catches up with her. Using the thorns which have so far scratched against her, she finds a large one more than an inch in length. She breaks it off in her hand

  “I see you!” the man says, appearing like a wolf from the woods.

  Reaching forward, the man grabs Jessy. She lets him. With one hand he grabs her by the throat, and with the other, he thrusts his fingers into her coat pocket. “There we are,” he says, grinning as he pulls the map out.

  “Don't come any closer, he'll hurt you!” Jessy shouts over the man's shoulder.

  He turns. But there is no one there behind him. Jessy has distracted him. When he turns back, Jessy thrusts the thorn straight into the man's cheek. He howls in pain and drops the map as he clutches his face. Jessy grabs the map from the ground and then darts for the nearest path. The man doesn't follow, and when Jessy emerges from the bushes, she runs straight into Garrett and Mia.

  “Oh, thank heavens,” she says, gasping for her breath and trembling.

  Mia wraps her arms around Jessy. “Are you okay?”

  Jessy catches her breath. “I think so. There's a man in the bushes, he tried to take the map.”

  Garrett draws his gun from its holster next to his chest and then steps forward into the bushes. They both hear someone running off and Garrett returns, satisfied that the attacker is gone.

  “We should get you out of here,” Garrett says, looking around warily.

  Jessy shakes her head. “No... I have a feeling... follow me.”

  Leading Mia and Garrett back down the path she had taken earlier, the statue of the preacher comes into view once more.

  “That's a beautiful statue,” says Mia. “Makes me want to go to church, and not much does that.”

  “We'll both go when all this is over,” says Jessy. She reads the plaque on the statue. John Parsons, the kindest preacher New Orleans ever knew.

  “I think I read about him once,” says Garrett. “Didn't he set up a bunch of shelters for the homeless years ago?”

  “Perhaps he has one more gift to give the city,” Jessy says. She walks over to where the man dropped her bag, retrieving a magnifying glass from it. Then, she begins her work. Carefully, she scans the statue. Every inch. Just as Mia grows frustrated, Jessy speaks.

  “X marks the spot,” she says to herself. “Here.”

  Garrett and Mia borrow the magnifying glass one at a time and see the same thing. A small X is carved into the statue's shoulder, and beneath it, the number 12.

  “What does it mean?” asks Garrett.

  “It's only a fragment of the puzzle,” answers Jessy. “We need the rest to know the solution.”

  Chapter 5

  It is now the third day. Correspondingly, Mia, Garrett, and Jessy are staring at the third location. To Jessy, the search feels like an old-fashioned treasure hunt, and yet there is much more at stake. She knows this must be her last dalliance with detective work. If not, her marriage could be heading for divorce.

  “Danny will be back tomorrow. After that, I'm done.” Jessy looks up at the sky. It is the afternoon, but up above the weather is grim. Dark clouds swarm. A storm is coming, and the surrounding air feels charged with potential. A pressure that must be released.

  “I've got a bad feeling about this,” Mia says. Her attention is directed towards the New Canal Lighthouse. It rises up before them, its white wooden walls, picturesque windows, and deep red roof stark against the ominous sky. Up on top, the beacon remains unlit.

  “I came here when I was a kid,” Garrett says. “My dad used to bring me. You can look out across all of Lake Pontchartrain. I used to think these waters went on forever.”

  A cold wind whips up from the water and pushes at the three fri
ends.

  “Whatever we find in there, it's the third clue,” says Jessy. “Hopefully, we'll know then what all this means.”

  Since Garrett knows the lighthouse, he takes the lead. Jessy and Mia follow him to the foot of the white wooden stairs.

  “They restored all of this after Hurricanes Katrina and then Rita. It goes back to the 1800s. Man, they did a swell job. It looks just like it did when Dad brought me here.”

  “Is he still alive?” asks Jessy.

  “No,” answers Garrett. “He was a long-distance truck driver. Some guy got drunk and pulled out in front of him on a busy road. My dad swerved. He didn't make it. This place brings a lot of that back.”

  Garrett walks up the stairs. Mia pulls on Jessy's arm as she tries to follow, and whispers, “Richie was in the truck with his dad during the accident. He was just a kid.”

  Jessy looks up at her friend. She feels for him. Instinctively, she knows why he is a detective. It's to make the world better, while healing the part of himself that broke. People who have trauma often seek to mend the world of its ills.

  “That explains a lot,” Jessy says, quietly. “Let's go.”

  They ascend the stairs. The main section of the building isn't open, but Garrett was able to pull his detective's badge on the caretaker earlier, and so he slips the key into the wooden frame of the door, turns it, and inside they go.

  “Wow!” Garrett says. His voice now carries a youthful, childish quality to it. “Look at all this stuff!”

  Inside the lighthouse is a museum, a time capsule of a bygone era when electrical navigation was but a dim light on the horizon. It was only through the flame of the lighthouse that those on the lake could find their way home during bad weather. Jessy feels a sense of fate in the oncoming storm above, as though her presence at the lighthouse has awoken a deep-seated memory of a terrible event.

  “It's like this place has been frozen in time,” Mia says, looking at the brass nautical telescope mounted on the wall, and the belongings of previous lighthouse keepers preserved perfectly behind glass display cabinets.

  “So, what are we looking for?” Garrett says, finally tearing himself away from the relics around him. It appears to Jessy that, if he could, Garrett would spend his day there, reminiscing about a simpler time. No doubt when he was a child and still had his dad. That's a pain that never truly goes away; it leaves a mark.

  “Something engraved, maybe? We won't know until we find it.” Jessy begins looking, and as Mia and Garrett study the objects around them, she feels compelled to go higher. First, she takes the stairs to the next floor. Again, it is a perfectly preserved testament to a time when the lighthouse guided steamboats on the water. On the wall is a large lighting rod that was used to light the light at the top of the building when it was operational. Jessy wonders if it still works, though is certain that it must be electrified if it indeed still does.

  But Jessy does not waste any time studying the carefully curated items, time is pressing. She only has one day left to put the puzzle together before Danny returns home. But besides this, something is drawing her upward. She can feel it in her bones, deep within. Call it a hunch, but Jessy prefers to see it as guidance from above. Her family believes in guardian angels, and throughout her life, Jessy had always felt the hand of something benign looking out for her during difficult times. Sometimes, it would even provide insight of a kind; at least, that was her experience.

  A ladder sits before her. She grabs hold of it, and then she climbs. Up she goes, and after pushing a heavy hatch above her, she finds herself in a very special place.

  It is where the giant light is held. It is still there; or at least a facsimile of it. Jessy can see that much of it has been restored. Outside the wind has increased, and this high up Jessy feels it trying to finger its way into the building through wooden slats. She looks out across the lake. The water is now rippling and swelling in the wind. There is a hypnotic aspect to it. She could stare at the scenery all day.

  But Jessy is hypnotized already; by the mystery, by the chase, and it trumps all.

  She turns to the light and runs her hands around the brass fittings. Twice she does this in a full circle. There is no sign of anything; that is, until she runs her fingers along the underside of the brass rim. Something catches her fingertips slightly... Found you, she thinks to herself happily. On the underside of one of the brass fittings, out of view unless you were looking for it, she sees that a message has been engraved.

  What lies beneath... The truth is but an iceberg, much of it concealed away from the light. 23 XV – Harlan.

  Jessy takes a photograph of the message and then returns downstairs with excitement. She shows the message to Garrett and Mia, but they remain confused by it.

  “I'm startin' to think Harlan doesn't want us to figure this out,” Mia sighs.

  “Oh he does,” answers Jessy. “But remember, Kilburn had Danny and me psychologically profiled. For some reason, Harlan only wants someone with the means to understand the message to solve the mystery.”

  “I ain't that someone,” laughs Mia.

  “What lies beneath...” Garrett says out loud, as if to no one. “Wasn't that a Richard Matheson story?”

  “You're thinking about it too much,” laughs Jessy. She looks around.

  “What are you looking for?” asks Garrett.

  “The truth is but an iceberg, much of it concealed away from the light...” She stands wide eyed and smiling, waiting for an answer. “Don't you get it?”

  “No... but I am getting hungry, Jessy.”

  “Food can wait! Think about this; only 10% of an iceberg sits above the water. Most of it is underneath. And this message says 'away from the light'. Well? Do you get it?”

  Mia and Garrett are still not catching on.

  “We're in a lighthouse. The truth is underneath the light. I don't think we need to go anywhere else to solve the puzzle. I think whatever Harlan wanted us to find is here, in this lighthouse. Look for something down here. Maybe through this door?” Jessy walks up to a large, dark, wooden door with the words “Caretaker's Office” on it. She tries the handle. “Locked!”

  “Not to us, it isn't,” Garrett jangles the keys he was given by the caretaker. He tries one after the other in the lock of the door before, finally, the key turns.

  Jessy is nervous; a mixture of dread and excitement bubbles up palpably in her mind. Pushing the door open she sees a small office. A desk, a painting on the wall, and a few filing cabinets sit there, but nothing stands out.

  Garrett goes over to the desk and searches the drawers. They are empty. “There's got to be something in here,” he grumbles.

  “I'm no detective, guys,” says Mia, “but what about underneath the iceberg?”

  Jessy bursts into laughter and walks over to a large painting hung on the wall. It depicts an ice-breaker ship cutting through the arctic. Alongside it is a large iceberg which the ship is dangerously close to. “A little on the nose, Harlan. But I'll give it to you,” Jessy says under her breath, pulling the painting off of the wall.

  “A safe?” asks Mia, staring at the same small black metal door in the wall that has grabbed Jessy and Garrett's attention.

  “Looks like a wheel combination lock, but what's the combination?” Garrett stares at Jessy as a smile creeps across her face.

  She puts her bag on the desk and then pulls out a notepad and pen. Then, she pulls out the book Gabriel left for them at Gabriel's bookstore. “Harlan has already given us the combination. So stupid of me...”

  “Don't beat yerself up, honey.”

  “The dog-eared page, it's the page number that Harlan was pointing to, not anything written in the story. Page 36...”

  “Then there's the statue,” adds Garrett. “That was X12.”

  “Roman numerals!” exclaims Jessy. “X means 10, so the full number is 1012!”

  “And the lighthouse,” says Mia, clearing her throat and making sure she isn't left out. “23XV?”
>
  “The same!” Jessy almost leaps with excitement. “Roman numerals again. X means 10, V means 5, so the full number is 2315.”

  Jessy scribbles the numbers down on her notepad. “We have to try those three numbers - 36, 1012, and 2315 in various combinations to figure out the combination... Since the lighthouse is clearly the final location where the safe is, I'm assuming 2315 is the final number. Let's assume we did things in the right order for once...”

  “You'll need to break the numbers up. This combination only goes up to 50,” says Garrett.

  “Okay, so,” continues Jessy, “try 36, 10, 12, 23, and then 15.”

  Garrett moves his hand over the combination lock and Jessy quietly reads the numbers to him as he spins the lock to each number in turn. “No good,” says Garrett, disappointed.