Hunt for the Lost Treasure

Chapter 17 — Contrition

When the three of them sat down at the kitchen table in Sam's cottage, he had his laptop rigged up to some audio-visual equipment so that they could all hear the interview he’d prepared.

He explained, “Now this was yesterday morning, where I interviewed a disturbed patient at a minimum security institution in Montreal. Apparently this bloke is terminal, so he wanted to make amends for all the shit that got him sick and all that, you know?”

On the screen a gaunt, pallid man appeared, no older than fifty-five. At the bottom of the screen rapidly running editing track numbers flickered in white in stark contrast to the man's slow, barely noticeable movements.

“His name is Erich Bonn and I found him by employing that long shot you ladies suggested — by checking the local accommodation logs to locate former managers or clerks who could remember a woman matching Leslie's description checking in,” he smiled. “And believe it or not, I found one lady who was disbelieved by her husband back when the news first talked about the missing woman. She gave me the boyfriend's name from one of her registers in a back room, gathering dust. And I found him!”

“Play it! Play it, Sam! I am dying to know all this. Did they tell you what this Erich guy was locked up for?” Nina asked.

“They did, but according to them there are a file's worth of shit wrong with this boy,” Sam explained. “Delusional, schizo, sociopath, you name it, but… get this, the court did not believe that he was dangerous and he was put in this holiday resort for psycho's. Can you believe that?”

“These days the world's common sense is so goddamn backwards that I could not say I was surprised,” Joanne remarked. “But what is your take on this guy? Is he dangerous, you think?”

“Honestly? I think he is completely sane, but that is a hazard of my vocation, and especially the adventurous side of it. I mean, the things we've seen, the things Nina and I know are possible, would make us sound batshit crazy to any therapist.”

“True, true,” Nine nodded fiercely. “They'd lock us up in a blink.”

With that Sam played the short clip where he asked Erich to tell him the story from a firsthand perspective. Erich spoke clearly, even though he was clearly under mild sedation to assure docility and compliance. He looked terrible, even for a man of his age and illness. Eyes sunken into their sockets made their color barely visible and his lips, if the slight swelling could be called so, were chapped and thin. Deep dimple cuts fell into his face to display his dreadful state of emaciation, but his recollection lacked nothing.

“Is it on?” he asked, his shadowy eyes leering at the camera lens. “You know, I have told my story so many times, but nobody believes me and nobody cares. They just bring another hypodermic, you know?” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

The loud audio setting gave the silence in the room an ominous hiss, reminiscent of old horror films of experimentation and medical malpractices. Sam's adjustment of the camera started Nina and Joanne with its sudden crackling sound.

He smiled at their reaction. “Sorry. The lens was off-center.”

Erich's blank eyes stared at the camera and he just started talking without warning.

“I met her two days before I… lost… her,” he said. “She was with some friends in Victoriaville and we met at the lake, you know? So we got along great and such. Then she told me that she had to go back to Montreal, because she didn’t have her own car. She had to go back with her friends in their car. I did not want her to go so soon, so I offered to take her home after we spent some more time together in Quebec City and she could tell her friends I'll take her,” he rambled, wringing his bony hands off camera.

Nina felt uncomfortable just listening to the story. It was an intuitive reaction to the manner in which things progressed in his tale and perhaps the fact that she knew how it was going to end. Joanne placed her hand on Nina's arm and said, “I know. I feel it too.”

“What?” Nina asked curiously.

“That sickening feeling; that apprehensive morbidity that makes you not want to hear what he remembers, but you have to because otherwise you cannot forget,” she told Nina. She caught Sam's dark eyes studying her, but he said nothing.

Erich continued. “But her friends did not trust me…”

“Christ, I wonder why,” Nina mumbled softly.

“…and they took her back to Montreal just as planned. But me and Leslie decided we would meet at the Notre-Dame Basilica after her friends dropped her off, you know? So that is what we did. I met her there and took her to Quebec City for dinner…”

Erich stopped, biting his lip. His forearms stop moving, implying that his locked hands kept still now as his thoughts wandered down a dark and thorny path. He looked at Sam and down again, catching his breath. “That was the last time Leslie was ever happy.”

“Oh God, I really need a drink now,” Nina declared with sorrow plaguing her pretty face. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this, Sam. Can't you just tell us in short?”

“It’s not that much longer, Nina,” he offered. “It’s less than thirty-five minutes long and he doesn't use detail. I know that doesn't make it less evil, but it’s not as explicit as you might expect.”

“While we were… you know, having sex in a motel outside the Mingan Archipelago Reserve, there was a knock at the door. The office of the motel got a call from the people I worked for. They had landed at the Natashquan air strip and needed me to help them up at the weather station in Torngat,” he spoke quickly as if relaying the story quicker would make it easier.

“Wonder who he worked for,” Joanne noted. “It sounds illegal to me.”

“Aye, probably a cover,” Nina replied.

“I could not leave her there and I could not drive to Montreal to drop her off, you know? So I took her with me in the plane. At the airstrip I met up with my sire, Johann… he is dead now.”

“Your sire?” Sam's voice sounded sharply on the speaker.

“That’s what they called the guy who brings you in, you know, the guy who is responsible for you and gives you High Command's orders. Johann Kriel was my sire. And his sire was waiting for us to get to the Torngat Mountains, but they told me nothing up front. Johann was very upset about Leslie, but she promised to stay out of the way and she promised, you know, not to let Yvetta see her.”

“Yvetta was Erich and Johann's boss, an Austrian aristocrat with a hard-on for gold and guns,” Sam said briskly.

“They flew us to Weather Station Kurt way up, up, up, you know…there by Martin Bay?”

By Erich's expression his interviewer (Sam) was not familiar with the places he mentioned, so he carried on. “There was a weather station there, but a few miles from there a temporary weather camp was set up by my peopl, for us to stay over if we had to, you know? I’d never been there before, but before Yvetta got there Leslie hid under one of the military beds in the second prefab structure, waiting for me.”

“We're running out of battery. Shit,” Sam's voice same from behind the camera again. “Erich, can you maybe recount your story a little bit quicker?”

“Of course. We were there to load three MAC trucks' worth of stuff hidden off-shore in Martin Bay onto two trawlers. Gold coins, precious metals cast as kettles, pots and vases, you know? Even entire boxes made of solid gold with jewelry inside! Took eight of us to load it. Of course, Leslie got curious about the temporary stores so near to the place where nothing happens…”

Nina gawked at her friend, who in turn gloated and smiled. They would leave this discussion until after the credits, so to speak.

“…and she somehow got her hands on one of the large coins when Johann and two of his men saw her come out of the toilet with it in her hand, but they decided to deal with her later. So when Yvetta arrived, we were all in deep trouble — cavity searched by Yvetta's security men for gold pieces because she did not trust us after loading the loot into the containers on the boats.”

Sam turned to Nina and Joanne. “See, he told me afterwards that the loot was kept in a sunken German U-boat under the water of Martin Bay. The perfect vault to have hidden treasure, right? I almost admire their guile.”

“It is rather cunning. Besides, nobody would even think to go up there. It’s cold as fuck and there’s no indication that a shit load of gold is stashed there,” Nina said. “It’s a perfect hiding place.”

“When I went back inside, Yvetta was on my ass. I tried to warn Leslie, but she was climbing out of the bathroom window with Johann grabbing at her feet. He told Yvetta that Leslie was a thief, but before he could point fingers I…” Erich swallowed hard and dropped his chin in remorse. “I shouted out that Leslie was with him, that she was his girlfriend and he was playing Yvetta… and then… she shot Johann in the back of the head right there!” he wailed, wringing his hands again. Erich's eyes were so wide with terror in his recollection that the lens almost captured the long lost humanity in them. “Just like that, Mr. Cleave! Right in front of me without even thinking twice, she shot my sire for a lie I told. I betrayed him and I betrayed Leslie, because Yvetta immediately promoted me and told me to help her hunt Leslie down!”

“You had to or she would have killed you,” Sam's voice sounded through the speaker.

“Do you know what it is like, Mr. Cleave? To live your whole life a wretch because your recklessness caused your woman's death?”

Oh shit, thought Nina, quickly glancing at Sam, wondering if he was thinking of the same thing she was — that his passion for getting a good story inadvertently got his fiancé killed right in front of him. Nina wondered if Sam still cried in his sleep when his recurring nightmares cheated him out of saving Trish to perpetuate his guilt complex.

But Sam did not return her gaze. Either he was actively fighting the horrible recollection or he was simply past the compunction. So she let it go, not having heard if the voice behind the camera lens even answered the wasting, weeping man.

“A day after running my beloved Leslie into a corner, Yvetta killed her like a dog after she… we… hunted her down in the outskirts of a small village a few miles away. They never told me where Yvetta's men dumped her body. Jesus! What have I done? Wh-what have I done? I was in love with her moments after I met her and that was what I gave her as a gift?”

They watched Erich curl up in his chair, sobbing like a child. Shifting uncomfortably in their seats, Joanne, Nina, and Sam sat watching Erich Bonn breaking down while the camera kept rolling. From under his hands he wailed. “I still hear her shivering breath before those gunshots ripped twice through her beautiful face. I still hear her at night. Oh Jesus, she must have been so cold before we caught up with her. So very cold! So very lonely.”

Again Nina looked at Sam. He had to relate to seeing his lover's face get blown off. It had happened to Leslie. And it had happened to Patricia. As the camera swayed, with the Low Battery light flashing on the display, Sam looked at Nina in silent reverence and sorrow. Until the clip ran its full length, the historian and the journalist — best friends, former lovers, confidants — just basked in each others eyes. They both knew. They both cared and they both found the experience deeply therapeutic.

“Well,” Joanne broke the thrall with a loud exclamation that shattered any emotional reminiscence, “now we know what happened to Leslie.”

“Aye,” Nina agreed, but her words were directed at Sam. “But I’m sure she is at peace now. He did love her and the world knows.”

In the glare of the monitor screen Nina noticed an unusual glimmer in Sam's dark eyes before a single tear escaped and fell from his cheek.