“We’re not that bad, Agent Savich,” Rob said. “Dad just pretends we are.”
Rafe shot his brother a look, then leaned forward, his eyes on his dad’s face. “We heard about you finding that murdered student in Winkel’s Cave. Everyone’s talking about it—first those two guys who tried to kill Ruth on Saturday night, and now this girl. What’s happening, Dad?”
His father said, “Yes, we found a body in Winkel’s Cave. It wasn’t pleasant.”
“You sure are lucky you’ve got FBI special agents here to help you,” Rob said.
“Yeah,” Dix said, his voice dry as a bleached bone, “I’m very lucky.”
“Do you see dead bodies all the time, Agent Savich?” Rob asked.
“Not all the time, no,” Savich said easily. “Actually I do a whole lot of work on a computer, a laptop named MAX. He and I have tracked down a good number of bad guys over the years.”
“As for us,” Sherlock said, “Agent Warnecki and I have noses like bloodhounds. They set us on a trail, and we sniff the bad guys right out.”
“Dad, this is pretty scary,” Rafe said. “What happened to that girl?”
“I’ve got to keep some things close, boys. I don’t want the media to get ahold of everything I’ve got.”
“But—”
Dix shook his head. “I’ve got some questions for Ruth about treasure hunting. Are there clubs, newsletters, that sort of thing?”
She nodded, more to the boys than to their father. “Yes, there’s all of that. Have you guys ever heard of the buried treasure at Snow Hill Farm, about a mile south of the village of New Baltimore, right here in Virginia?”
The boys, who’d been sprawled long and skinny in their chairs, sat up and leaned toward her, Rafe’s chin on his hands. “Silver coins,” she said, “gold ones, too, valued at about sixty thousand dollars.”
“Who buried it?” Rafe wanted to know. “Did you find it?”
“A Scottish pirate named William Kirk buried it back in the 1770s for safekeeping. But when he died, there was no sign of the treasure, and his widow sold Snow Hill Farm to Colonel William Edmonds, whose heirs still own the property. People have searched over the years, but still no sign of it, only an occasional eighteenth-century coin.”
“I could find it,” Rafe said, “not just one or two stupid coins.”
Rob punched his brother in the arm. “There isn’t any treasure, Dumbo. It’s a myth, otherwise someone would have dug it up by now.”
“But that’s the thing about treasure,” Ruth said, her voice dropping low, “sometimes you wonder how all the talk of a treasure even got started. An old guy in a tavern two hundred years ago spun a story so he could get a free mug of ale? And then you sometimes wonder if it isn’t all magic. When you think it’s magic, you’re ready. You go to Fauquier County and find William Kirk’s will that’s still there, and read that he not only left his wife a large property, he also left her a big bundle of currency. Where is it?”
Rafe said, “Didn’t the wife know her husband was a pirate? Everyone knows pirates always hide their gold, like Captain Kidd did somewhere on Long Island. She shouldn’t have sold the farm, she was stupid.”
Ruth grinned. “Maybe. Or maybe she didn’t believe there was a treasure, like Rob. Or maybe she believed, she simply didn’t know how to find it.”
Dix said, “Knowing Ruth for only three days, boys, you can already tell the most important quality of a successful treasure hunter: You’ve got to believe. You’ve got to be the eternal optimist, and you have to be able to stand lots of disappointment.” He cocked his eyebrow at her.
Ruth stared at him, lounged back in his chair, his fingers laced over his lean belly, his long sleeves rolled up to his elbows.
She started to say something, but found she had to clear her throat first. “Well, yes, that’s about it,” she admitted.
“So you think the gold’s still there, Ruth?” Rob wanted to know.
She nodded. “Oh yes, it’s there. I think it was in leather pouches, a number of them, and some of them have split open, scattering the coins. But the big cache is under there, still waiting.”
Dix rose. “With that, it’s time for some carrot cake from Millie’s Deli. You can each take a piece, then it’s off to do your homework. We’ve got some work to do down here ourselves.”
Rob stopped long enough on the bottom step of the stairs to tell Ruth that Billy McCleland had come by today to fix the window frame in his bedroom. “No more cold leaks,” he told her.