Treasure of the Dead

Chapter 7

Odelin swore as he paced within the narrow confines of the office at the back of the church. He and his men had torn the place apart, top to bottom. His hopes had risen when they discovered a secret compartment in the floor chancel area behind the pulpit, but inside were only a pistol and some general survival items. He thought it likely that what he sought was once in that hiding place, but for now his hopes had been dashed.

Making matters worse, he had just received word from one of his men that the search of Abbe’s home had been completed and that effort, too, had produced no fruit. Odelin now had the most unenviable task indeed of reporting these developments to his boss. He dialed the desk phone in the church office and waited with the receiver to his ear. His superior came on the line and Odelin relayed the bad news.

His boss gave a sigh of exasperation. “How certain are you that this record even exists, or still exists?”

“One hundred percent certain. There can be no doubt. I have come across references to odd tales told by a priest long ago who died here while serving the church. The priest was never specific, but he referenced his journal and the ramblings of a sailor who confessed to him during an exorcism.”

A pause ensued during which his boss seemed to digest this information. While he waited, he eyed the old personal computer on the well-worn desk. His eyes traced the dial-up modem cable from the phone jack to the PC. Then his boss was back on the line.

“Well then, what could Abbe have done with these documents if they were not on his person, nor in his home or place of work?”

“At this point I am considering many possibilities.” Odelin wished he could give a better answer, but that was all he knew at this point.

“Do you think he might have turned them over to someone else, someone he trusted?”

Odelin sat down in front of the computer and saw that it was already powered on. He woke it from sleep mode and examined a few of the files on the system.

“Odelin, are you listening?” The tone was sharp. Odelin had become absorbed in looking at Abbe’s files and forgotten that a response was required.

“Yes. One moment please, I may have found something interesting on Abbe’s computer.”

“Hurry up.”

Odelin frowned as he found Abbe’s internet email account and saw that it required a login and password. “One minute…” He riffled through the files in the largest desk drawer and found nothing, but as he replaced them, he noticed a tiny address book. Inside the front cover he found two words written in all lowercase: david1984 and c@1vary.

“Calvary,” he whispered. “What better password for a priest?”

“What’s that?”

“Just another minute,” he said. He typed in the two words. Success! “I’m in the account. Let’s see what we’ve got here…”

Odelin scanned the list of email subjects, looking for anything that might tip them off to the contents having to do with the missing documents. He didn’t know exactly what he expected to find, but after scrolling through a lot of them he didn’t see anything that triggered recognition.

“Odelin? Is all of that keyboard tapping I’m hearing bearing fruit?”

He shifted from reading the subjects to looking at the sender and dates of the messages. He saw a number of emails from a Fabi Baptiste, recently received. He clicked on the SENT folder. There it was! He smiled.

“I’ve found exactly what we’re looking for!”