The Secret (Seacliff High Mystery Book 1) (9 page)

“Dinner’s ready,” Alyson’s mom called from downstairs.

“Coming,” Alyson replied. “I guess this will have to wait. I’m starved.”

“I’ll take it home and run it through the computer,” Mac said. “It’s probably some sort of cipher or code.”

Dinner was delicious, as promised. Tucker quietly chowed down on puppy food, while the others enjoyed the thick, rich chowder. The conversation centered on Tucker and his exercise and training needs. It was decided Alyson would walk him every morning before school and her mother would try to take him out around lunchtime. Alyson planned to run him every afternoon before it got dark so he’d have a chance to get all his puppy energy out before settling in for the night. And she planned to ask Tucker the breeder’s son if she could pay his dad to continue with the dog’s training a couple of days a week because neither she nor her mom had any idea about how to proceed.

“I’ll take him out after dinner,” Alyson added. “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours.”

Alyson and Mac took Tucker for a run along the cliffs overlooking the crashing waves. “Do you think it’s true that Barkley walked these cliffs at night?” Mac shouted over the thunder of the waves crashing on the rocks below the bluff.

“Makes sense. He didn’t want to be seen by anyone for some reason, and he must have needed at least some exercise and fresh air. What better place to walk than along deserted cliffs at night?”

“Sounds lonely,” Mac observed. “And a little scary. It can get pretty dark out here, especially when the fog rolls in. He might have fallen to his death in the darkness.”

Alyson shrugged. “I’m sure he knew his way around. He lived here his entire life and never went anywhere else.” She wrapped her sweater more tightly around her body as the chill from the damp air began to seep in.

The tide had come in during the past hour, which caused the surf to morph from a gently rolling tide to giant waves. Sometimes at night Alyson would lay awake and listen to the echo of the waves as they made their way through the nearby canyon.

“It looks like Tucker is having fun.” Alyson watched his playful puppy antics with a smile. “He hasn’t stopped running since we started walking.” The puppy bounded through the tall brown grass as he chased what Alyson imagined were grasshoppers.

“Looks like he’s cornered a rabbit or something,” Mac said as Tucker stopped running but continued to bark vigorously at something near a thick growth of vines near the edge of the cliff.

“Tucker,” Alyson called to the barking dog. He immediately stopped, looked up at her, and came running back.

“Good boy,” she praised him. “He really is well-trained, just like Tucker the human promised.”

Tucker continued to sit at her feet, but she could hear him whining under his breath as he stared at the thicket near the cliff.

“I’m sure if he trapped a rabbit it’s long gone by now. We should probably get back. I’d like to have time to work on the cipher after I finish my homework. Besides, you need to have a nice long chat with your mother. Trevor is right; you might be in danger. You really need to let her know what’s going on.”

“I will. I promise.”

Mac looked at her skeptically.

“I will. Tonight. Geez, having you and Trevor for friends is like having two extra mothers.”

Alyson stopped walking and reached out to hug her new friend with all the pent-up emotion she’d wanted to deliver to Tiffany these past months. Mac seemed startled at first, but then she hugged Alyson back as long and hard as Alyson longed for.

“Thank you for your concern.” Alyson eventually pulled back. “I’ll talk to my mom. I promise.”

After Mac left Alyson sat down with her mom and filled her in on everything that was going on, including the note. It wasn’t an easy conversation to have; the last thing Alyson wanted to do was to put her mom through any more worry and pain than she already had. Of all the people she had once had in her life, her mom was the only one who remained.

“You could really be in danger. Maybe you should just drop the whole thing,” she suggested.

“Mom, the last thing I want to do is worry you. But now that I know Barkley might have an heir I can’t just drop it.”

Her mother sat back and looked at Alyson, then tucked a lock of her long blond hair behind her ear. “I understand why this is important to you. I really do. I know you felt helpless to help Tiffany, and this feels like something you and your friends might actually be able to solve. But besides the very real danger you might be in, it worries me that all of this digging around may somehow bring attention to our own situation. We really can’t afford to do anything that might make people here start asking a lot of questions about us. We’re finally starting to rebuild our lives. I’d hate to see everything we’ve worked for destroyed.”

“I know, Mom. I’ve thought about that too. But I’m being really careful.”

“If someone finds out about us we’ll need to leave,” Mom warned her.

“No one will.”

“What if you get too close to something and the police decide to look into your background?”

“Our cover is really solid,” Alyson reminded her mom. “You tell me that every day. Donovan assured us that all of the background and documentation we would need was in place. We just have to stick to our story. If the local authorities check, they’ll find school records for Alyson Prescott at Great Lakes High School and Middle School in Minnesota, Minnesota drivers’ licenses and tax returns for Sarah Prescott, and birth certificates and finger print records for both of us bearing our new names. We
are
Sarah and Alyson Prescott now. We just have to remember that.”

“I’ll call Donovan to see what he thinks,” her mother said. “I’d like to have this potential heir found too, but your life is more important to me. There are already enough people in the world who want you dead. I just want you to be safe.”

“Mom, we both know that no matter what we do, we’ll never be completely safe.”

Alyson joined Mac, Trevor, and Eli at lunch the next day. Taking a lemon yogurt and an apple from her backpack, she sat down next to Mac, who was enjoying a huge plate of the greasiest chili fries Alyson had ever seen. The girl must have a cast-iron stomach.

“I decoded the cipher.” Mac jumped right in, pulling out a sheet of paper. “It’s a Polybius checkerboard. Basically, each number refers to the row and column where the corresponding letter can be found. The first number, 44, represents four rows down, then four columns over to uncover a T, followed by an H and then an E, to spell the word THE.”

“What does it say?” Eli asked.

“The first set, which I determined to be the first two rows, given the empty space at the end of row 2, says
the dead man guards the secret
. The second set, beginning with row 3, says
the dead man lies on the path of pirates.
And the third set, beginning with
43 after the incomplete line, says
seventy west, four eighty-two north
.”

“Okay, what does it mean?” Eli questioned.

“I’m not sure, but I think if we’re going to solve this mystery we’ll need to figure it out.” 

“I’m suddenly finding myself hoping Barkley’s secret is the identity of an heir, as we thought, and not the cover-up of some gruesome murder.” Alyson shuddered.

“I guess the only way we’re going to find out is to continue to follow the clues,” Mac said. “I’ve been working on getting through the security system at the bank and was able to trace the money being drawn out of Barkley’s account and put into Mary’s. It seems the money was being deposited into a bank in Tacoma, Washington.”

“That must be where Mary went after she left here,” Eli concluded.

Mac licked a dollop of chili from her finger and then wiped her hand on a napkin. She pulled another sheet of paper from her backpack. “I checked the county records and found out Mary married someone named Michael Wellington in November 1956. She divorced him a year later. It occurred to me that maybe she married the guy to give her baby a legitimate name. So I checked the local school records and found a Jonathan Wellington enrolled between 1960 and 1968.”

“Jonathan,” Alyson interrupted. “That’s the name we found on the photograph in Barkley’s stuff.”

“We know Mary died in 1968,” Trevor joined in. “So what happened to Jonathan after that?”

“I have no idea,” Mac answered as she nibbled on the end of a French fry. “The paper trail ended, until a couple of years ago.”

“What happened then?” Alyson asked impatiently. She didn’t know how Mac could think about food at a time like this, let alone keep stuffing her face.

“I did an online search for an obituary for Mary. I didn’t find one, but I did find an obituary for a Jonathan Wellington, who died on July 22, 2002.”

“Are you sure it’s the same Jonathan?” Alyson asked.

“Well, not a hundred percent,” Mac admitted, “but the paper did say he was forty-seven years old, so the age matches.”

“What else did the obituary say?” Alyson prodded.

“Not a whole lot, except that he left behind a wife and a son named Caleb.”

“Did it say how he died?” Trevor asked.

“No, it just gave the date of his death and his surviving relatives.”

“So if Jonathan’s dead, the missing heir is Caleb,” Alyson deduced. “Can we find out anything about Caleb?”

“There’s a Caleb Wellington who goes to this school,” Trevor informed them. “He’s a junior too. A member of the drama club, real artsy.”

“Makes sense.” Mac nodded. “The article indicated Jonathan lived in Cutter’s Cove at the time of his death.”

“Do you think he knew he was Barkley’s son?” Alyson wondered.

“We don’t know for certain he
was
Barkley’s son,” Mac reminded them. “Our investigation so far seems to indicate he probably was, but we have no hard evidence, like a birth certificate, eyewitnesses, or incriminating letters. And,” she continued, “I don’t think he could have known about Barkley. Otherwise why wouldn’t he have come forward when Barkley died? It looks like the estate is probably worth millions.”

“Wait a minute. Now I’m confused. Who died first, Barkley or Jonathan?” Alyson asked.

“Good question,” Mac responded. “Hang on and I’ll check my notes.”

Mac set her plate of chili aside and dug into her backpack. She pulled out a manila file folder, opened it, and pulled out a sheet of lined yellow paper. “Jonathan died on July 22 and Barkley was found dead on August 3 of the same year.”

“Wow, that’s beyond coincidence.” Trevor shook his head. “Both men dying within a couple of weeks of each other.”

“Should we talk to Caleb?” Alyson asked.

“Not yet,” Mac replied. “We need to see if we can find anything concrete linking Jonathan and Barkley. I mean, it’s still feasible Mary got pregnant by someone else and Barkley just befriended her when she delivered his groceries, so he felt sorry for her and decided to help her out financially.”

“I doubt it,” Alyson said.

“I agree,” Mac nodded, “but so far we have tons of speculation and no proof.”

“Mac’s right,” Trevor agreed. “We don’t want to suggest to Caleb that he might be the heir to millions and end up being totally wrong. Besides,” he added, “we still don’t know where the withdrawals from the trust have been going since Barkley’s death. If someone doesn’t want an heir to be found, we might be putting Caleb in danger.”

“It seems we still have more questions than answers,” Alyson complained.

The conversation died as the gang finished eating. Alyson looked out the window at the surfers who had decided to take advantage of the unusually large waves. Cutter’s Cove was definitely a surfing town where huge waves served as almost an excuse for cutting class or calling in sick to work.

Alyson found that most longtime residents, like Mac and Trevor, took the sensational view the lunchroom provided for granted. But Alyson was sure she’d never tire of the beauty of the sun shining on the clear blue water as waves of various sizes crashed onto the white sand beach.

Alyson returned her attention to the conversation as Trevor broke the silence.

“Have you had any luck at all tracing the destination of the money?” Trevor asked.

“Not so far,” Mac responded. “There’s an extra layer of protection surrounding this particular transaction, above and beyond the normal security of the bank.”

“I almost forgot—Mac and I found a cash withdrawal for twenty-five thousand dollars in August of 1955, and now we know that was a month before Jonathan was born,” Alyson volunteered. “We think maybe Barkley used the money to pay a doctor or midwife to help with the delivery but keep things quiet.”

“Makes sense,” Trevor concurred. “I wonder if there’s any way to find out who the recipient of the money might have been.”

“We talked about that,” Mac answered for both of them. “Maybe there’s someone in town who knows who would have been qualified to deliver babies at around that time.”

“Who would most likely know the entire story behind the birth of Mary’s baby,” Eli added.

“This could be the break we’ve been looking for,” Trevor concluded.

“Wow, check us out.” Alyson offered her hand to the group in a high-five. “Only a few days and we’ve almost nailed this mystery.”

“I think we should meet at my house after football practice and work on the clue from the cipher. If the doctor/midwife thing turns out to be a dead end, it might be the only clue we have to go on,” Alyson pointed out.

“Should we bring shovels?” Trevor asked. “That code makes it sound like some type of buried or hidden body might be involved.”

“I think we have a couple of shovels in the shed if we need them,” Alyson answered.

Mac showed up at Alyson’s house at three forty-five, with the guys appearing at three fifty-eight exactly.

“Something smells really good.” Eli inhaled deeply as he walked into the kitchen and set his backpack on the floor next to the kitchen table.

“It’s the meat sauce for Mom’s famous lasagna,” Alyson bragged.

“When’s dinner? I’m starving.” Trevor walked over to the stove to look more closely at the simmering pot of meat sauce.

“Not for a while yet. Don’t worry; I knew you’d be hungry, so I set out a snack.” Alyson pointed to a tray with hunks of cheese, freshly sliced salami, fruit, and crackers. “Don’t get filled up, though. You won’t want to spoil your dinner. Trust me: Mom’s lasagna is legendary.”

The group attacked the plate like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Alyson got a kick out of watching her new friends eat. It was nice to be around people who had healthy appetites.

“So, were you able to find anything out about the deaths?” Alyson asked Mac as she nibbled on a piece of cheese.

“According to police records, Jonathan’s death was a suicide and Barkley died of natural causes,” Mac answered.

“A suicide?” Trevor asked. “Did he shoot himself?”

“No, he died from ingesting a bottle of painkillers.”

“Was any kind of investigation done to confirm it was a suicide?” Alyson asked. “I mean, given the circumstances, what proof do the police have that someone else didn’t drug him?”

“I guess he left a note.” Mac shrugged. “The police seemed to buy the suicide angle and the case was closed before it was ever really opened.”

“Was there a copy of the suicide note in his police file?” Alyson asked

“I’m not sure. I didn’t specifically look for it, but I will,” Mac assured her.

“What if,” Trevor speculated, “someone killed Jonathan and made it look like a suicide.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to confirm whether Jonathan was killed if an autopsy wasn’t performed at the time,” Alyson said.

“Alyson has a point,” Mac agreed. “It’s going to be hard to prove much of anything unless we can establish a clear motive. What kind of cheese is this? It’s delicious.”

“Gruyère. Try the Camembert on a cracker. I think you’ll like it too.”

“I’m a cheddar man myself,” Trevor announced.

“I’m not surprised in the least.” Alyson smiled fondly.

“Do you think the cops will take another look at the suicide if we can come up with a motive?” Eli moved the conversation back to the mystery at hand.

Mac spread some cheese on a cracker. “Probably not, although it couldn’t hurt to ask.”

“It seems like the motive has to be the money,” Trevor insisted as he shoved a slice of salami into his mouth. “We need to figure out where the money has been routed since Barkley’s death.”

“After I checked the police records I spent some time working on the security system attached to the phantom bank withdrawals and I think I’m getting close,” Mac informed them. “The money is being routed through several different accounts. I think the key to the whole thing lies somewhere with the trust. I wish we could get a look at the original document that established it. It might hold some important clues. I’ll work on it some more tonight.”

“So about this buried body . . .” Eli, who had mostly been silent prior to this point, changed the subject. “I came ready to dig; are we going to?”

“I think digging is very much a matter of finding something to dig up,” Mac commented. “Maybe we should see if we can find something to dig up before we drag a bunch of shovels around. We can always come back for them if we need them.” She wiped her hands on a napkin.

“I’ve been thinking about the cipher.” Alyson unfolded the copy of the code she’d slipped into her pocket at lunch. “Seventy west and four eighty-two north must be directions of some type.”

“That makes sense,” Trevor agreed, “but seventy what? Feet? Miles? Cartwheels? We really need a frame of reference.”

“Yeah, and even if we figure that out,” Eli added, “how do we know where to start counting?”

“Let’s just try something and see what, if anything, we find,” Mac suggested. “I think it makes the most sense that seventy and four eighty-two refer to feet, or maybe steps. We know Barkley never left the house, so miles wouldn’t make sense, and the guy was pretty old, so I think we can rule out cartwheels.”

“Okay, so where do we start?” Trevor asked.

“How about the northwest corner of the house?” Alyson suggested. “If that doesn’t lead us anywhere we can pick another starting place and see what we find. It really is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack, but I guess we need to start somewhere.”

It was starting to get cool, so they donned their jackets before heading out along the cliff trail, with Tucker leading the way. He ran ahead of them, as if he could guess where they were going. Seventy steps west brought them almost to the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. Four eighty-two steps north brought them to the vicinity where Alyson and Mac had walked the day before. Tucker ran straight back to the spot where he’d barked and started to dig.

“Maybe something’s buried there,” Mac said.

“Like what?” Alyson asked.

“I don’t know. Probably a dead animal or something.” Mac walked closer to the vigorously digging pup. “It looks like he’s found something.”