"Christ Almighty, some spread."
"Now look over there."
"What? That patch of earth? A buried treasure'! C'mon Doc, you've read too many Argosy magazines. He wouldn't bury it for Chrissake, use your-"
"'Course he wouldn't. He buried an oil tank there. I know because I checked with the realtor earlier for records of any recent house improvements. I called the company that installed the tank. I know the tank was connected to the appropriate pipes too."
"Well then why-"
"But. I also checked a bit further. I even spoke with the man who operated the backhoe prior to the installation. The tank measured just under ten feet long. Pace the turned earth and you see it's about eighteen feet long. What else is down there'?"
"Look. After losing two grand on that old [fishing boat I am not about to get a shovel and start digging."
"We're not going to do any digging. When I first started really thinking about this, I was on the phone for an entire day calling various stores, supply houses, and rental agencies. Walter Kincaid, in his own name, rented an air impact hammer and a small compressor last April. He also rented a small cement mixer. The agency has the records. But the really interesting thing is this: he bought a septic tank."
"No shit."
"Ah, the very phrase I was seeking. That indeed is the interesting part: no shit; The town of Manchester has had sewers for almost fifty years. Ergo: no need for cesspools, septic tanks, so forth. So why the septic tank?"
We went inside. It was just dark. The expensive furniture was covered with white dropcloths.
"It was the backhoe man who tipped me off about the septic tank. It was dropped in the hole and covered before the oil tank even arrived. You know I had to phone almost twenty septic tank companies before I found the right one? Kincaid had paid for the thing in cash. The company is in Stoneham. He sure didn't want to leave any tracks. While the oil tank was public and official, with records to prove and document it, the septic tank was strictly on the QT."
We descended into the basement-which people in New England call the cellah-and I located the southwest corner of the building, then paced off eight steps. We were in the furnace room.
We paced around the place for fifteen minutes. Zilch.
"Yah know, Doc, you're the best bullshitter I've ever known."
"Now why on earth would you say that?"
"OK, here's Doc Adams, the hero who cracked the gun-running ring. Fine. But then you get me to tap the post office I box of what's-his-ass-"
"Wallace Kinchloe. Who of course was really Walter Kincaid."
"Fine. Anyway, we tap the box and what do we find? A letter from this plush bank in the Caribbean that indicates that old Kinchloe's got a fortune in gold he's about to deposit there."
"So?"
"So then, what you do is convince me to go in with you to buy the Rose at auction, with the hopes-no,. wait, not the hopes, the expectation-the expectation, mind you, of cutting open the hull and having gold ingots pour out all over us."
"Let's try over here near this workbench?
"But where are the ingots? Where are those doubloons?"
"Get over here will you?"
"'No dammit! To hell with it; I'm leaving."
"OK fine. Leave me the key."
"What are you doing?"
"We've checked the oil pipes; they're in the right places. There is a big oil tank out there, buried beyond this foundation wall. It does have feeder pipes to the smaller tank inside. So be it. But look farther down the wall."
He joined me as we slid aside the heavy workbench. Low on the basement wall was a metal flue door.
I opened the metal door and shined the flashlight inside. I fully expected to see a tunnel, with 'all that -glitters' at its terminus. The bottom of the flue was filled with ashes. It was elbow deep in stupid ashes. The back of it was lined with brick.
"Well?"
I felt back at the brick that lined the flue pipe. It was genuine: raspy, rough, ceramic-any description you could name. It was going nowhere.
We went upstairs. I checked the portion of the living room that was exactly above the room in the basement we'd just left. Nothing. We looked under rugs, behind curtains, in window sills-nothing.
"Charlie, look," said Joe in a tired, placating tone, "your hunch just didn't turn out, that's all. If there was a fortune, and if Kinchloe or Kincaid-whatever the fuck his name was-hid it away, don't you think he'd do it in some rented place where he could get at it quickly and safely-at a moment's notice-away from his wife and her boyfriend, huh?"
I admitted to myself that his theory made sense. Unhappy and disgusted with his home life, why would he bother to hide his treasure trove here?
"Let's go," I said. I picked up flashlight, Polaroid camera, and began to zombie myself toward the front door.
We locked the mansion up carefully as we departed, then I got in the car and purred off.
But two blocks away, I found myself turning the car around. It had to be there. Had to. If it were a stash of cash, or even jewels, another hiding place might make more sense. But not gold bullion. It was heavy and hard to carry around. It needed a home.
"You crazy?"
"Let's give that furnace room forty good minutes, Joe, then I'll throw in the towel."
"Done," he said with a weary sigh.
We went over the room with the systematic precision only a detective and a surgeon could muster. In considerably less time than forty minutes we found a bucket with a shovel in it. The bucket had been concealed behind the boiler.
"I may be crazy, but these look like fireplace ashes to me," said Joe, raking through them.
We opened the flue again. The ashes in the bottom matched those in the bucket. I didn't know enough about flues to be sure, but I would bet odds something fishy was happening with the furnace flue. And come to think of it, the door to the flue looked awfully big too. We examined the iron door, its. hinges and mountings… everything. It looked as old as the house.
"Goddarmnit Joe, there is a septic tank buried alongside that oil tank. What the hell's it there for?"
"If there's an entrance to it, maybe it's outside."
"Maybe, but I doubt it. I've looked it over three times carefully. And remember how close to the foundation it is."
I stepped back and looked at the brick wall in front of me. The big oil pipe came in at exactly the right place. OK, that made sense. The flue, and the door, was in exactly the right place. There was a flue, and I could look up it to where it joined the chimney.
No good. I could not detect the signs of disturbed masonry anywhere. But this Kincaid was a clever old guy. He did everything in style. He spared no pains, or costs. I knew that by his house and his company headquarters. He was a sharpie, was old Kincaid. Perhaps he'd been laying treasure away for years and years, and finally decided to construct some secret vault before disappearing. And he would enter the place on the eve of his departure, and take the stuff aboard his refitted boat, seal it in down near the keel, and slide aways to Queen's Beach, "Where Paradise Begins…"
"It's in there, Joey. I tell you it's in there. It's just very cleverly concealed."
Joe opened his pocket knife and began picking and pecking inside the flue.
"Hey hey hey, look at this, Charlie. This corner mortar is peeling off like rubber cement."
The jackknife blade scooped away the old mortar along both back seams of the brick flue. Then we realized that it wasn't mortar; it was simply caulking compound-probably applied with a gun and smoothed down with a fingertip-covered with wood ashes to make it appear old. Joe worked quickly. In less than a minute both seams were clear; the back wall of the brick flue was free of the side walls by an eighth of an inch. I rapped hard on the back wall, which was two feet across. It didn't sound hollow; it was gen-u-wine brick. Joe shoved at it, tried to slide it. No go. It was solid. Joe hunched down in front of the hole and took his chin in his hand. `