Page 25

I answered the door and let Devon in.

“You said you wanted to see me,”

he said, stepping past me, tablet tucked under his arm.

“Yes, I do.

We have Oliver’s laptop and I’ve convinced Chief Flanders to let you have a crack at it.

It’s password protected, but I know you’ve managed to work around those kinds of things before.”

“I figured that’s what you wanted,”

Devon said, proffering the tablet.

He looked over at Jon.

“I saw you carrying a laptop that was bagged as evidence.”

“You’d make a hell of a detective,”

Jon teased.

Devon laughed good-naturedly and headed for the island, where the laptop still sat.

“How long will it take you?”

Jon asked him.

“Have your guys tried any passwords yet?”

“I don’t think so,”

Jon said, slicing through the evidence tape on the bag with one of my kitchen knives.

Then he put on gloves and slid the laptop and power cord out of the bag.

“We didn’t think it was that important in the beginning and no one has signed it out since it was collected, so I doubt it.”

As Devon reached for the laptop, Jon stopped him.

“Do you mind putting on some gloves?”

he said.

“It is evidence.”

“Not at all.”

I handed Devon a pair from the box I’d taken from the side cabinet, and once he had them on, Jon handed the device to him and plugged the power cord into a nearby outlet.

“Let’s start by trying a couple of obvious passwords,”

Devon said, flexing his gloved fingers over the keyboard.

“I did a little background check on our Mr.

Sykes to obtain some of the pertinent dates and places he might have used.”

His hands descended and his fingers flew over the keyboard while Jon and I stood behind him and watched.

I tried to figure out what passwords he was trying but he was typing so fast, I couldn’t make out most of the keys he was striking.

I was about to say something to Jon when Devon said, “There we go.”

I gaped at the laptop screen as Oliver’s desktop appeared.

“You’re in already?”

I said, astounded.

“What was the password?”

“KayakKing.

All one word with the first K’s in each word a cap,”

Devon said.

“It’s a moniker he used on his social media a lot.

Now that we’re in here, do you want me to disable the password?”

Devon and I both looked at Jon, who appeared momentarily perplexed.

“No, leave it,”

he said eventually.

“As long as we know what it is, we should be okay.”

“Okay,”

Devon said.

“What would you like me to do first?”

“Check his emails,” Jon said.

“Internet history,”

I said at the same time.

Devon raised his eyebrows at the two of us, waiting.

Jon’s wide mouth narrowed into a thin line of resignation.

“Do the internet history,”

he conceded.

“It’s more likely to produce something usable.”

Devon launched one of the browsers—Oliver had three of them on the device—and checked the history, which produced several porn sites.

“I think we can move on from there,” I said.

The second browser produced nothing.

On the third attempt, we hit pay dirt.

Or at least we found some potential.

As Devon scrolled through the history, we saw several sites related to treasures and treasure hunting.

Devon clicked on one and we saw a list of potential treasures that could still be found in the world.

He clicked on another, and it produced an article detailing the top ten missing treasures yet to be found in the continental United States.

“This could take a while if we need to read all of these,” Jon said.

“Go to that one,”

I said to Devon, pointing at one of the sites farther down in the list.

“It says ‘sunken treasures.’?”

Devon opened the page and scrolled down.

“There!”

I jabbed at the screen hard enough to make the images and typeface morph briefly.

“That’s about a sunken treasure rumored to be on or near Poverty Island.”

I saw the name Napoleon Bonaparte in the article and snapped my fingers.

“Of course! I forgot about that one.

Devon, can you print a couple of copies of that? Use the printer in my parents’ office.”

“Sure.”

Five minutes later, Jon and I were both seated in the living room, me in Marty’s chair, Jon on the couch, reading our respective printouts.

Devon was reading it on the laptop.

The article highlighted a legendary treasure dating back to 1863 that was thought to have been lost near Poverty Island, a small, rocky bit of land in Lake Michigan off to the northeast.

The first time I’d heard about it was when I was five years old.

My parents were all abuzz over a TV show called Unsolved Mysteries, which was one of their favorites.

A production company had come to the area to do a piece about the lost gold and the resultant episode was going to air that night.

I have vague memories of watching it with my father, and hearing the story for the first time.

The legend claimed that in 1863, when the Civil War seemed to be turning in favor of the North, the cash-poor South asked France for help.

Napoleon Bonaparte, who at the time was Napoleon III, the emperor of France, obliged by supposedly putting together five or more chests filled with gold bullion and coins that were estimated to be worth around four hundred million dollars today.

France had a vested interest in seeing the South succeed because it relied heavily on Southern cotton.

The plan was to send the chests down the Saint Lawrence River to Escanaba, Michigan, and then transfer them to a schooner on which they would eventually make their way south via the Illinois waterways and the Mississippi River.

It was supposed to be very hush-hush, and all went well until the schooner carrying the gold was discovered and pursued in Lake Michigan.

According to the legend, the crew didn’t want to be caught with the gold and risk being arrested and tried for treason, so they chained the chests together and pushed them over the side, letting them sink to the bottom of the lake, perhaps in the vicinity of Poverty Island.

Skip ahead to the 1920s, when a freighter ran aground off the shores of Poverty Island.

An anchor on one of the tugs that came to help free the freighter apparently snagged some wooden boxes that were chained together.

But as the boxes got close to the surface, they broke free and sank again before anyone could find out what was in them.

Skip ahead again to the 1930s, when the son of the lighthouse keeper for Poverty Island claimed he watched a salvage boat work its way around the small island for three summers running.

The boy knew about the gold legend and figured that was what the crew was looking for.

When he saw the men rejoicing and celebrating on board the ship that third summer, he thought maybe they’d found it.

But shortly after the celebration, one of the lake’s infamous storms blew in, sinking the salvage boat.

Finally, there were the efforts of the crew from Unsolved Mysteries, though in the end, the gold, if it ever existed, remained undiscovered.

There might have been another TV show or documentary that had been filmed some years back—I vaguely remembered hearing something about it at a chamber of commerce meeting—but once again, nothing ever came of it.

“Is there any indication that Oliver might have been looking around Poverty Island?”

I asked Jon.

“That seems like a crazy trip to make from Schoolhouse Beach in a kayak.”

Jon shrugged.

“You’re right.

That would be an insane trip to make in a kayak.”

“Wouldn’t he have to have equipment with him if he was going to be looking for a treasure like this one?”

I posed.

“Scuba gear or, at the least, sonar, like a fish-finder?”

“He might have had some of that with him,”

Jon said.

“According to his friends, he had a large backpack that he took with him whenever he went out, but no one knew what it contained.

It was apparently lost when he went overboard.”

“You didn’t tell me that before,”

I said, a hint of a whine in my voice.

“Sorry.

It didn’t seem relevant to the reason I hired you.”

He had a point.

“How far is it from Schoolhouse Beach to Poverty Island?” I asked.

After a couple of quick keystrokes, Devon said, “Fifteen point six miles, and that’s if you go through the middle of St.

Martin Island rather than around it.

And going around it is a bit dicey because it has a shoal of rock extending out nearly a mile in most directions.”

“More of an issue for a ship or boat than a kayak,”

I said.

“But I can’t see anyone going that far in a kayak in those waters.

Seems like a fool’s errand to me.”

“Oliver was an experienced kayaker,”

Devon offered.

“And he’d have attracted less attention in a kayak.

He might have wanted to be as incognito as possible.”

I shook my head.

“That area has to have been explored hundreds of times.

What could some guy in a kayak possibly know or find that more experienced divers, boaters, or salvagers couldn’t?”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,”

Jon said, “because I haven’t lived on the water all that long, but my understanding is that the storms this area is so well known for can sometimes stir things up to the point where items on the bottom that were once buried are then revealed.”

“That’s true,”

I conceded.

“And if I remember right, there was a hell of a storm that blew through the area back in late May.”

“You’re right.

There was,”

Jon said, snapping his fingers.

“I remember because I had to answer a call for someone who was injured when a tree blew down.

But even if Oliver found something, it doesn’t explain what happened to him.

Or the condition of his body.”

“It does if there’s a lake monster out there,”

Devon said.

“Maybe Oliver found one of those caves that are studded all along the coastlines in this area.

Maybe the gold was in there.

And maybe some creature was in there, as well.”

Jon started to dismiss that idea with a laugh that made it clear he thought the idea nonsensical, but when he saw the look on my face, his smile rapidly disappeared.

“Is that possible?”

he asked me.

“Possible? Of course.

It’s all possible,”

I said.

“Probable? That’s another question.”

The three of us looked at one another, lost in our individual thoughts, until Jon said, “Let’s see what else we can find on Oliver’s computer.”

For the next three hours, we dug through Oliver’s private life via his computer and his box of treasure-related stuff.

The box didn’t offer much of interest, as its contents were mostly about land-based treasures.

The computer, however, did offer up a few chat rooms dedicated to treasure hunting that Oliver had bookmarked, though there was no way to know what conversations he might have had or with whom he’d had them.

“It’s possible that the folks who visit these chat rooms regularly might not know that Oliver’s dead,”

Devon said.

“If you want, I could pretend to be him and see what I can find out.”

That sounded like a great idea to me, but when I looked over at Jon to see if he approved, the frown on his face suggested otherwise.

“This isn’t what you were hired to do,”

he said.

“You’re too far outside of your wheelhouse here, Morgan, stepping into investigative police work.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?”

I asked him.

“You hired me as a consultant to see if I could find out if the injuries inflicted on these two men’s bodies could be from a lake creature, and that’s what I’m doing.

Devon’s cave theory is not outside the realm of possibilities.

If we can get a better idea of exactly where Oliver went that day in his kayak, it might help me answer that question more definitively.”

Jon made a face.

“I don’t know, Morgan.”

“Couldn’t you at least get the patrol boat from the other day and take me out to Poverty Island to have a look around?”

“Poverty Island is technically part of Michigan, not Wisconsin.

It’s outside of my jurisdiction.”

“Does that mean we can’t take a look?”

Jon blew out an exasperated breath, making his lips vibrate.

“I’ll have to check in the morning to see if Haggerty is available.

But I can’t leave the laptop with Devon.

It’s evidence and it has to stay with me the entire time it’s out of the locker.”

“I don’t need it,”

Devon said.

“I’ve bookmarked the sites Oliver was visiting on my tablet and I know what his IDs were.”

Jon made that equivocating face again and I offered up an alternative, one I felt certain he wouldn’t like.

“I can rent a boat to take me out to Poverty Island if you’d rather not be a party to that.

I’ll have a look out that way on my own.

Of course, it would fall within the realm of what you hired me to do, so I’d have to pass that expense on to you.”

Jon cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at me.

Then he broke into a grin—the kind of grin that said he knew what I was up to.

“I’ll call you in the morning and let you know if Haggerty is available to take us out,”

he said, deftly avoiding a direct response.

He glanced at his watch.

“I’ve missed the last ferry for the night, so I’m going to have to get in touch with my staff and let them know I’m not on the island.

And then I need to find a place to stay.

Any suggestions?”

“Why don’t you stay here?”

I offered.

A heavy silence filled the room and Devon was suddenly very focused on the laptop.

“I have a spare bedroom,”

I added quickly, lest there be any confusion as to the nature of my invitation.

“I don’t have a change of clothes,” Jon said.

“I still have some of my father’s clothes,”

I told him.

“You’re about his size.

I’m happy to lend you something.”

“That wouldn’t bother you?”

he asked, and I appreciated his sensitivity on the matter.

“Not at all.

I’ve been meaning to box them up and donate them to Goodwill for months now.

I just never got around to it.”

“It would save me a lot of time and trouble in the morning,”

he said.

“If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“I’d enjoy the company.”

“That’s my cue to leave,”

Devon said, giving me a salacious wiggle of his eyebrows when Jon wasn’t looking.

I made a face at him.

“I’m supposed to open in the morning with Rita.”

“You can stay, too, Devon, if you want.

I know from personal experience that my couch is quite comfy.”

“Thanks, but I need to feed my cat,”

he said, closing the laptop and gathering up his tablet.

“She gets vindictive if she doesn’t get her breakfast and then she’ll howl at me all night.”

Jon laughed and blurted out, “Sounds like a girl I dated once.”

Then, seeming to realize what he’d said, he blushed from his hairline to his neck.

“That’s not as bad as it sounds,”

he said.

“I’ll explain it later.”

Yes, you will.