The Treasure Seeker Read online

  She shushed him. “Keep your voice down. They don’t know yet. So, you can’t say anything to anyone. Remember you swore.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean they don’t know yet? If they don’t know, how did you find out?”

  “I saw it.”

  “You saw what?”

  “I saw the baby,” she said. She watched the different emotions run across his face. Maybe this had been a mistake.

  He glanced at her nervously, “Ry, you’re scaring me now. This isn’t funny. I know you think my practical jokes are childish, but joking about the baby is low. I wouldn’t even sink that low.”

  “I’m not lying to you.” She tried to think of a better way to explain, but nothing was coming to her. “Daniel, I don’t know how, but I can see things now.”

  He started to walk away. “This isn’t funny.”

  “Wait a minute. I can prove it.”

  He stopped and turned back to face her. “I’m waiting.”

  “Have you lost anything that means something to you recently?” she asked. “I mean something you’d like to find?”

  He looked confused and shook his head. “No.”

  “Oh, come on. You’re always losing things. There must be something.”

  He thought for a moment. “Well, my favorite Nirvana T-shirt is missing.”

  She made a face when she realized which shirt was missing. “You mean that god-awful, twenty-year-old gray thing that you ripped the sleeves out of?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’s the one and I happen to love that shirt.”

  “Whatever.” She waved away his protests. “I want you to think about the T-shirt while you shake my hand.”

  He stepped back. “See, I knew you were messing with me. What have you got in your hand?”

  She held out her hand, palm up. “There’s nothing in my hand. I promise it’s not a trick. Come on, shake my hand.”

  He looked her hand over carefully before he grudgingly took it.

  The burst of color instantly filled Ry’s vision. As usual, it took her a moment to interpret the scene. When she recognized what she was seeing, she sighed. The colors faded. “Gosh, Daniel, now I feel bad.”

  “Why?” He let go of her hand.

  “I think your T-shirt is in the dump. I saw it in what looked like a ripped up trash bag and trust me, bro, you don’t want it back.”

  He started to say something, but was interrupted by a high-pitched squeal.

  Ry’s first instinct was to cover her cheeks. Aunt Sophie had found her. Daniel ran, leaving her to face the cheek pincher alone.

  Twenty minutes later, Ry made her way out to the side patio where Victor stood talking on his phone. He waved her over.

  “I just received a call from Deputy Sheriff Ward over at county,” he said.

  Ry recalled the quiet deputy sheriff who had stayed with her while the Emergency Medical Technician removed the splinters from her face. “Did they catch the guy who shot me?”

  Victor shook his head. “No. But thanks to that revolver, his days are numbered.”

  Ry felt a jolt of adrenaline flash through her veins. “What about the revolver?”

  “I guess you noticed those silver grips?” Victor asked.

  “Who could have missed them? They were beautiful and probably cost a small fortune.”

  Victor nodded. “A couple of the deputies were looking it over at the station a few days ago when another deputy sees it and gets all excited. She remembered hearing her grandfather, a retired cop, talk about two guys who robbed four banks in 1932. One of them used a revolver just like this one with the silver grips. She couldn’t remember too many details and her grandfather was dead, so the county guys started going through the archives here in Jacks County. Then they called Bexar County and got them to digging and between the two counties, they found the whole story.”

  Ry waited patiently.

  Victor sipped his coffee before he began. “Back in 1932, these two guys robbed all four branches of the South Texas Farmers’ Banks. They hit two of the branches on July thirty-first and the other two the following morning. They robbed the main branch of the bank last. It was there that the shorter one took a pocket watch from the bank manager. Then he pistol-whipped the manager half to death. Apparently, they weren’t satisfied with just robbing these banks because on the night of August first, all four of the banks were burned to the ground. There weren’t many clues for the police to follow but they did manage to pull a single fingerprint from a gas can they found at one of the banks.”

  Ry frowned, not certain how this related to her.

  He rushed on. “The robbers wore masks so the only description the police had to go on was the bigger guy carried a shotgun, the shorter one a revolver with fancy silver grips.” He sipped his coffee. “Now six months later, there’s another robbery, but this time it’s a liquor store in San Antonio. Again, two guys wearing masks, one with a shotgun and one with a silver-grip revolver. Things don’t go quite as planned. The two left the store just as an off-duty police officer happened to drive in. The big guy panicked and opened up with the shotgun. The police officer was hit and eventually died. But he did manage to put two slugs into the big guy that resulted in him being apprehended along with the cash, but the shorter one got away.” He stopped long enough to sip his coffee.

  “Soon as they began interrogating the guy he starts telling them everything he knows. His name’s Harvey Jenkins and his partner’s Raymond Dodd. He tells them they buried the money from the bank robberies in an old abandoned cemetery west of Floresville. They hadn’t spent any of the money because a lot of it was new bills, and they were scared it could be traced.”

  “Could it?” Ry asked.

  He shrugged. “Probably not, but they didn’t know that. Anyway, when the cops ask him where they can find his accomplice, he tells them Dodd is in school. Turns out the guy with the silver-grip revolver is a twelve-year-old kid. So the police go out to arrest Raymond Dodd, but he’s gone. Then the police go out to the cemetery where Jenkins claimed the money had been hidden and all they find is a recently dug hole where it might have been buried, but no money. Dodd wasn’t heard of again until December 1941.”

  Victor grinned slightly. “Yeah. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Raymond Dodd, like many other young men, walks into a recruiting station in San Antonio and tries to enlist in the navy using the name Zachary Lawson. As part of the enlistment process, they run his fingerprints. They get a hit from the print found on the gas can in the bank arson. Dodd’s arrested. They charge him with armed robbery and felony murder in connection with the death of the police officer. He’s sentenced to life in prison in Huntsville. He died there at the age of ninety-four.” He looked at Ry. “Five weeks ago.”

  Ry’s head was spinning. “So how does all of that relate to me being shot?”

  “The two dead guys out at the house were identified as Roger and Larry Lawson. They were cousins. We now believe the guy who shot you is Dennis Lawson. He’s Roger’s older brother.” Victor stared at her with a look of satisfaction. He took his time as he sipped his coffee and methodically dabbed at his immense mustache.

  Ry held her breath.

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “They are the grandsons of Raymond Dodd.”

  Somewhat dejected, Ry released her breath and sat down. That still didn’t answer her question. “I still don’t understand why he’s after me.”

  “That’s a question we can ask him when we bring him in,” he assured her.

  “Do you really think you’ll be able to catch him?”

  Victor looked at his watch. “We know who he is and what he looks like. The county guys issued a BOLO, so every cop in South Texas is on the watch for him. It’s simply a matter of time. If he’s moving around, we’ll find him.” He gave her a short nod. “I feel confident in predicting that Dennis Lawson will be in police custody within the next twenty-four hours.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Tired from the day’s
activities, Ry crawled into bed. It felt good to be alone. A lot had happened since she had gotten up that morning. Her body tingled when she thought about Nicole. She liked Nicole a lot, but getting involved with her was out of the question. In fact, she didn’t think she was ready to get involved with anyone at this point in her life. She had always tended to jump from relationship to relationship. It was time to see what she could do on her own.

  She knew she still loved Kate, but they always seemed to be at odds with each other. One of their biggest issues had been Kate’s reaction to Ry’s family. Even today, Kate had called to say there had been an unexpected change in the work schedule and she had to work. She wondered if Kate really had to work or if she had bailed because she didn’t want to come. She told herself it didn’t matter anymore. Kate was no longer an integral part of her life.

  Ry gave herself a mental kick in the rear for telling Daniel about the baby and the T-shirt. He had tried to talk to her a couple of times afterward, but they had never gotten the opportunity to speak privately. When they were leaving, she promised him she would call him later in the week and talk to him. She knew she would have to follow through. He would hold her to that promise.

  If she wasn’t careful, this new ability might turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing. She would have to get better at hiding it or else she was liable to find herself being committed.

  Ry yawned and turned on her side to watch the faint shadow of tree limbs on her window shade. Would Victor be correct in his prediction about Dennis Lawson’s capture? She could feel herself drifting off to sleep. How had she gotten herself involved in a bank robbery that happened more than eighty years ago? Why had they burned the banks?

  As soon as she began to doze, the voices started. She listened for a while and made mental notes of some of the requests. She eased herself away from the voices when a series of disjointed and incomplete images began to flash through her thoughts. She concentrated on them and tried to slow them down enough to make sense of what was there. The flashes slowed and gradually settled into a complete image. She found herself in a dark, frigid room that reeked of despair. A profound sense of hopelessness dropped over her, heavy, cold and suffocating. She struggled to shake it off. The harder she struggled, the heavier the burden grew. Desperate to escape, she latched on to a dim glimmer of light across the room. She strained against the invisible bonds weighing her down until she drew close enough to identify what was before her. The light was concentrated around a middle-age man with stooped shoulders who sat a table. Across from him was a young boy dressed in ragged overalls and no shirt. They appeared to be eating. She made her way closer. The glow around them grew stronger and warmer. She realized it emanated from the deep love between the two. The glow wavered slightly as a sense of outrage surged through her when she saw the battered metal plates before them. Each plate held only a meager serving of boiled potatoes. Such poverty was foreign to her. She had never been hungry or cold.

  As she attempted to determine where she was and how she could help these two, she heard a knock at the door. Instantly she found herself standing outside on the front porch of a dilapidated house. Boards were missing from the porch. The railing on the front steps had pulled loose and hung at a dangerous angle. One of the front windows was covered with something that looked like burlap. The shredded wire on the screen door seemed to mimic the sad lives of the home’s inhabitants.

  Something white on the porch post caught her attention. She moved closer. The print faded in and out, but she finally managed to read the words “foreclosure” and “South Texas Farmers’ Bank.” As she tried to read the rest of the notice, the sound of car motors filled her ears. She turned to see three police cruisers. Not cars like Victor’s, but antique cars, like those she and Kate had seen at the car show. As she stared at the vehicles, the sound of breaking glass came from behind her. She turned in time to see a rifle barrel slide through the broken window. There was a short volley of shots before a deathly silence fell over the area. She started back into the house, but stopped when she saw the crimson stream running from beneath the screen door. Sickened by the sight, she stepped back. The front wall of the house seemed to dissolve allowing her a clear view inside. The man lay on the floor by the window, a rifle at his side. The boy leaned over him crying. She could hear footsteps crunching the dry grass behind her and knew it would be the police. The boy suddenly turned his father over and removed something from his hip pocket. As the boy stuck the object into his own pocket, Ry caught a flash of silver. She watched the boy disappear out the back door seconds before the police officers tore through the front. She followed the boy as he sped into a nearby grove of trees. He sprinted in a seemingly haphazard style until he ran directly up to what looked like a solid rock wall.

  Ry watched as he walked up to the wall and disappeared. She followed and found that a natural outcropping of the rock hid a small opening. A twinge of claustrophobia threatened as she wriggled her way through the narrow gap into total darkness.

  A match sputtered and the boy lit a lantern.

  Ry looked around. The cavern wasn’t much bigger than the interior of a car. There were three cardboard boxes stacked to her left. The faded lettering on the side indicated they were quart-size canning jars. Next to the boxes was a large metal object. A closer examination revealed the rusted remains of an old moonshine still.

  The light wavered as the boy set the lamp down and sank to his knees. She watched over his shoulder as he rolled aside two basketball size stones to reveal another opening. When he reached in and removed a shoebox-size wooden box, she peeked inside the hole and was surprised to see it was quite large beyond the opening. He opened the box and removed an old rag that smelled of oil. He unrolled the rag and removed the rusted skeleton of a much older pistol. He wrapped the rag around the silver grip revolver.

  Ry glanced into the wooden box and saw a cigar box that seemed oddly familiar. She tried to get a better view, but the boy placed the bundle with the weapons back inside the wooden box.

  He put the box back inside the hole and replaced the stones, picked up the lantern and a limb that had been lying nearby. He used the limb to wipe out his footprints as he backed out of the cave. At the opening, he tossed the stick back to where it had been, blew out the lantern and left it by the opening.

  Curious as to his next move, Ry followed him. Her curiosity turned to confusion when he ran back to the edge of the woods and waited until the officers were close enough to see him. As soon as one looked his way, he sprinted across the open field. They caught him with little effort. She tried to follow as they led him toward the cars, but something dark blocked her way. Uneasy with the darkness, she retreated and gave in to the swirling colors that never seemed far away.

  Ry sat up in bed, shaking with cold. She didn’t need to look at the clock to know the approximate time. The faint aroma of coffee wafting from the kitchen let her know it was after four in the morning. She took a quilt from the bed and wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, the dream still fresh in her memory. She raised the window shade, sat in Granny Jeter’s rocker and stared out into the early morning darkness.

  She had clearly seen the words South Texas Farmers’ Bank on the foreclosure notice. The young boy must have been Raymond Dodd. Had his father’s death been the reason he had robbed and burned the banks? Although it by no means justified his actions, it at least helped to explain them.

  The phone rang in the kitchen. Ry knew it was Victor even before she heard the soft knock at her door.

  Ry followed her mom back to the kitchen and picked up the phone.

  “I apologize for calling you so early,” Victor began, “but I knew your folks would be up and about, and I promised you I’d give you a call as soon as I knew something.”

  “You caught him?” she asked.

  “Yes. A state patrol officer spotted him at a café near Hondo. When he tried to make the arrest, Lawson pulled a gun and started firing.”

  �
�Is the officer all right?” She really wanted to ask if Lawson was still alive, but human decency demanded that she inquire about the officer first.

  “He was hit in the shoulder, but he’s going to be fine.”

  “What about Lawson?”

  “Shot twice. He lived long enough to confess he’d shot his cousin Larry. His story was that after Raymond Dodd went to prison, his wife divorced him and took his sons Sam and Truman to live with her folks in Corpus. Years later, Dennis Lawson overheard his father and uncle speculating on where Dodd had hidden the money. When Dennis got old enough, he started visiting his grandfather in prison, but Dodd denied knowing anything about the stolen money.”

  “Do you think Dodd knew where the money was?” she asked.

  “It had to be him who moved it after Harvey Jenkins was arrested or else the police would have found it then.”

  “Maybe Jenkins lied about where they hid it,” Ry said.

  “I doubt it. He sounded like a real wimp. I don’t think he’d have had the stones to lie to the cops back then.”

  Ry couldn’t help but think of the grieving young boy leaning over his father’s body. She shook off the reverie when she realized Victor wasn’t finished with his story.

  “When Dennis couldn’t get anywhere with the old man, he convinced his cousin Larry to try. Apparently, Dodd took a liking to this grandson. Larry went to see him consistently for the last year of the old man’s life. Then he died and Larry swore he never told him anything about the money, but a couple of weeks after Dodd died, another relative tells Dennis that he saw the gun at Larry’s house.

  “Dennis and his brother, Roger, became convinced that Larry had found the stolen money and planned on keeping it all for himself.” Victor cleared his throat. “Dennis claimed he and Roger got to Larry’s house just before you were leaving with a truckload of stuff. They didn’t know who you were. They decided Larry might be trying to hide some of the money, so he followed you home. Roger stayed with Larry to make sure he didn’t take off.