“It looks just like the drawing in the book,” Kaylin said, inspecting the fence.
Dane looked out across the graveyard. It was an old place that carried the evidence of its years in the weather-stained tombstones and eroded statuary. The paint on the fence was chipped. Patches of rust stood out everywhere on its pitted, black surface. Thick patches of clover stood out in the green carpet of grass. There being no gate nearby, he vaulted the fence, and then gave Kaylin a hand over.
They stood in the midst of several old gravestones. Dane knelt down to inspect the nearest one. It was dated 1841. He looked around.
“Where do you want to start?” he asked Kaylin.
She opened her notebook and looked over the images she had recopied onto one page. She had drawn a rough outline of the cemetery, and placed the house, river, bridge, fence, tree, and the name “Domenic” in their proper places. At Dane’s suggestion, she had sketched in the compass alongside the house. He pointed out that the objects they had located all were directly southeast of the house; the same direction the compass was pointing.
“Let’s orient ourselves with our backs to the house, facing the hill where the oak tree was,” Kaylin said. “We’ll walk straight ahead, and see if we come across anything that might be represented in these other sketches.”
They began their walk, taking care to appear to the casual observer to be a couple on a leisurely stroll to visit the resting place of a family member. Not, Dane noted, that there seemed to be anyone around. He looked carefully at each headstone they passed. The oldest ones were so eroded that he could not make out anything carved into them. One of the stones, however, drew his attention.
“Kay, look at this.” He knelt and rubbed a bit of moss from the discolored face of the old marker. As the gray-green moss was scraped away, it revealed the faint outline of a dove carved into the stone. It was weathered, but still easily recognizable.
“Check one more off the list,” Kaylin said. She crossed out the picture of the dove at the bottom of the page, and sketched it into its location on her rough map. The ground sloped gently upward as they approached the place where the oak tree had stood many years before. As they rounded a large, above ground vault, she laughed.
“The torch!” She pointed to a statue of a woman that topped the crypt. Dressed in a flowing robe, the figure held a torch aloft in her right hand. We’re tied,” she said, adding this new find to the map.
They each located one more item. Dane found a headstone with the outline of a cross carved in the top, while Kaylin found a fleur-de-lis. Kaylin added these to the map, leaving only the sketch of a bird unaccounted for. As they topped the rise, they stopped and looked out over the old burial ground. This was the view that Covilha would have had from beneath the oak tree. Might he have stood on this very spot and created his code?
“Maddock, look there.” Kaylin indicated a small, worn headstone just down the hill from where they stood. It read, Domenic LaRoche. “That’s it.”
“I don’t know,” he said. “We’re still missing the bird.” He scanned the nearby headstones but nothing immediately caught his eye. Where was it?
“The bird,” Kaylin said to herself. “What if it was carved onto one of those stones that was so badly eroded that we couldn’t make out what was written on it? Or,” she held up a finger like a schoolteacher giving a lecture, “the drawing might have represented birds that nested in the oak tree.”
“Maybe,” Dane agreed, “but let’s keep going just to make sure.” It was his nature to be thorough. He did not want to miss an important detail because he had made an assumption based on incomplete information or a bad presupposition.
They continued their trek down the hill and across the graveyard. By the time they reached the far boundary, they had seen no bird symbol. Hoping that Kaylin’s earlier assessment would prove to be correct, they returned to the grave.
Kaylin knelt in front of the small tombstone. There was a faint inscription beneath the name. She ran her fingers across it gently.
“What does it say?” Dane asked.
“I can’t make it out. Hold on.” She tore a sheet of paper from her notebook and held it flat against the stone above the inscription. Fishing a pencil from her purse, she made a rubbing of the headstone. When she had finished, she held it up and read aloud. “Domenic LaRoche, Son of Marie-Louise, 1834–1836.” She stared at the paper for a moment, then looked back at the small marker. “He was just a baby. That’s so sad.”
Dane nodded. It was sad, but not unusual for that period in history. Something else was bothering him.
“Don’t you think it’s strange that only the mother’s name is listed?” he asked.
Kaylin pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Maybe he was illegitimate.”
“If that’s so, I’m surprised he had a proper burial and a headstone. Most mistresses couldn’t afford it, and the fathers wouldn’t usually spring for it.”
“Must have been an unusual circumstance,” she mused. A frown creased her brow. She opened her notebook, found the page she was looking for, and grinned broadly.
“Tell me,” Dane said.
“The letter you found in the book. You remember, I said it sounded like a letter from Covilha to his mistress? Look at her name.” She held the translation up for him to inspect.
“Marie Louise,” Dane marveled. “He buried the sword with his son.”
“That’s why they didn’t find anything when they dug up Francisco’s grave.” Her hands trembled. “It’s right here, Maddock! Right here beneath us!” She jumped to her feet and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He hugged her awkwardly and gave her a pat on the back before pulling away gently. Something was not right. He thought about it for a moment, before realizing what was bothering him.
“I’ll be right back.” He hurried down the hill and over to the fence that encircled the graveyard. A brief inspection of the wrought iron revealed a loose bar: a vertical post topped by a spike. A few twists, and the old solder broke, freeing the rod.
Kaylin greeted him raised eyebrows. “What’s that for?”
“You’ll see.” Choosing a spot in line with the center of the headstone and about three feet out, he pushed the spiked end of the bar into the earth. The ground was fairly soft, and he encountered no large rocks. With only a bit of persuasion, the bar sank slowly into the earth.
“Maddock, don’t tell me…” Kaylin covered her face. “You’re not going to dig up that little boy’s casket, are you?”
“Think about it,” Dane said as he continued digging. “Would a regular sword fit into the coffin of a two year-old? We’re talking about a sword that was wielded by a nine-foot tall warrior.” He stopped as the bar struck something solid. He wiggled it gently, and felt it slip over the side of the object. Ignoring Kaylin’s questioning look, he gently drew the bar back up, and continued to probe.
He quickly found the other edge. He guessed the object, the sword, he hoped, was about six or seven inches wide at this point. It was certainly too narrow to be a casket, and it was at a depth of just over two feet. He turned to Kaylin and smiled.
“I think we’ve got it.” They definitely had something. He just hoped it was the right something. What if it wasn’t the sword? What if they had come to New York for nothing? He pushed the worries from his mind. Such defeatist thoughts wouldn’t get them anywhere, and he’d find out soon enough what lay buried in this child’s grave.
Kaylin beamed back at him, confidence gleaming in her eyes.
“Turn around and screen me from the road,” he instructed. “Pretend you’re writing in your notebook, but keep an eye out.”
“No way,” she said. “Don’t you think we should wait until after dark to do this?”