Rumble Strip - A Blackstone Valley Mystery Novelette

Chapter Six

  A tangerine sunrise was just tinting the sky beautiful watercolor shades as we pulled in to park alongside the Pauper Cemetery. The new high school was only five minutes back toward the center of town, alongside the middle school. I wondered if any of the kids there gave thought to these paupers – to the lives the lost souls had led and to the opportunities they had missed. Maybe it would give the modern children more incentive to treasure the blessings of each day they had.

  I gave a low laugh. More likely the kids would go right back to their YouTube videos and cat memes. The youth of each generation tended to think they were invincible and unlike any which had come before. It was often only the hardships of life which helped one gain true perspective of what they had to be grateful for.

  The gray stones were sticking up about a foot above the layer of snow, with just the block-letter names visible. The dates were buried beneath the thick crust. Each stone was identical to the neighbor, all laid out in a neat, precise grid.

  Our footsteps made quiet crunching noises as traffic occasionally eased by on Town Farm Road. It was barely seven a.m. on a Saturday morning, and most people were still asleep, tucked cozily in their warm beds. Only a pair of fools would be out tromping through the frost of a pauper’s cemetery.

  Fools - or those seeking closure for a long-lost brother.

  Jack pointed. “There. That’s the one. See? You can just see the letters over the drift. William White.”

  He dropped down on a knee beside it, brushing away the snow. “And here, see? The years. 1856-1864.”

  I looked to Jack. “What do you think we should do now?”

  He glanced back toward his car. “I keep a small shovel in the trunk, in case of emergency. You’d be surprised what I’ve had to use it for over the years. I think the first step is to get the snow cleared away from the stone. See if Tony left any sort of a message for us here.”

  I hunkered down by the stone to examine it while Jack headed back to the car. In short order he was carefully removing layers of snow from the area, stopping to examine each scoop-full to see if something lay within. The snow was hard, and the work was slow going, but finally he made it down to the grass level.

  He shook his head in disappointment. “Nothing here. And I don’t see anything at all on the stone, either, on either side of it. Do you?”

  “No, not a mark,” I agreed. I circled the stone, examining it and the ground more closely. “But look, here, behind it. Doesn’t the ground look disturbed?”

  “Well, I have been shoveling around this whole area,” he pointed out. “I’m not quite a surgeon with this thing.”

  “No, it’s more than that,” I countered. “I think something might have been buried here, probably before the snow fell. So early to mid-December, maybe? And then the snow came down and sealed it in.”

  He dropped to a knee again, looking at the tumble of brown. “I think you might be right.” He experimentally rapped his shovel against it. “Hard as rock, though. It’ll take some doing to get through that.”

  I looked at him. “So we’ll just leave it until spring?”

  A smile came to his lips at that. “Not on your life. Here, hold my jacket. I’m hot enough as it is, and I have a feeling I’ll be down to a t-shirt by the time this is through.”

  Jack truly was a Michelangelo chiseling away at stone, millimeter by precious millimeter, but he didn’t give up. He stuck at it, the sun rose higher, my stomach rumbled, but I ignored it all. The only thing that mattered was the slow, steady progress Jack was making, toward … what? What might his brother have left for him? What was so important that he created this bizarrely intricate chain of clues to lead Jack to the solution?

  Maybe it was just a treasured fishing lure set, as a final memento of his ice fishing days. Maybe it was their old football that they used to toss around. Something to remind Jack of the happy times they once had. Before the world went gang agley.

  A hollow noise rang out, and Jack smiled, wiping the sweat off his brow. “I think we’ve found it! That sounded like metal.”

  I dropped to my knees, digging away at the rock-solid dirt with my fingers. I tapped with a fingernail. “Yup, that’s metal all right! It seems some kind of a box.”

  His motions took on a fresh energy, and all of our attention was focused on the growing presence of the box. It was dark grey and looked like a toolbox of some kind – maybe a foot long by a half-foot wide. There was a metal handle on top.

  Jack dug … dug … and finally cleared the entire lid of the snow and dirt. Then he hunkered down next to the hole to grasp the handle. He wriggled it, shook it, tugged … and the toolkit came up in his hands.

  We both stared at it as if it were the lost ark, resting there on the snow. It was certainly not gold-encrusted, and there was no pair of cherubim gazing at us from its cover. But I had a feeling that, for Jack, it was no less precious.

  His brow drew together. “It’s locked.”

  I saw it now. The front clasp was sealed by a four-digit combination lock. They were currently set to 1864.

  I gave Jack an encouraging smile. “You only have nine thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine combinations to try,” I pointed out. “Heck, nine thousand, nine-hundred, and ninety-eight, if we consider that we know 1864 isn’t the right one. If you do one a second, it’ll only take you seven hours. That’s the blink of an eye.”

  He chuckled. “I’m sure we can start with some of the more logical choices, though. Maybe 1856, when poor William White was born?”

  He turned the numbers and pulled.

  Nothing.

  I tapped my finger to my mouth. “Maybe 1955, when The Return of the King was written? Or 1892, when Tolkien was born?”

  He smiled. “Why am I not surprised that you know those dates?”

  My eyes twinkled. “I am a research librarian, after all. It’s my job to know these things.”

  He bowed to me, then spun the dials. Nothing.

  I tilted my head to one side. “How about Tony’s birthday? When was it?”

  “December 24th, 1979.” He tried a few combinations of it. No luck.

  I dropped my tone. “Maybe try your birthday.”

  He looked up at me at that, and his eyes shadowed, but he nodded. He turned the dials.

  Click.

  He stared at the open lock for a long moment, as if he had become lost in distant memories. Then he removed the lock and tucked it in his pants pocket. He stared at the metal toolbox for a long, tense moment.

  He lifted the lid.