Five Secrets

Chapter One

The God I realized I believe in is hidden for a very different reason, I said from my hospital bed. I’d been recovering from a stab wound for several weeks. It was touch and go for a while. The knife had nicked my spleen and lacerated my liver. I’d gotten a secondary infection after surgery, and my fever had spiked several times; but I was recovering nicely now, and Mia had come to visit from the house that she and I shared with her boss who was my  - well, I don’t know what I’d call him. Lupa Schwartz was not my boss, and he wasn’t exactly my friend after the way he’d used me as bait to lure a murderer. But I needed to stay where I was in order to chronicle his cases for the magazine I worked for.

I had come to Pittsburgh almost a year before in an attempt to simply score an interview with the man who, working as an independent contractor, had successfully resolved more unsolved murders in the tri-state area than any two official police investigators combined. However, what began as a hoped-for interview had snowballed into a living arrangement and a working partnership between Lupa Schwartz and myself.

Mia pulled her fingers like a comb through my hair as she spoke in comforting tones. What reason is that? she asked genuinely curious. Mia was a Catholic, the same as our other roommate, Beverly Seanesy, Schwartz’s housekeeper. Well, maybe not the same as Beverly. Beverly’s Catholicism was the devout variety that did rosaries and went to confession. Mia’s was the nominal variety that wore a crucifix and only spoke about sex in whispers, but who nonetheless actually had sex, although probably with the crucifix still on. All of which was in stark contrast to the man of the house, who was a vocal and outspoken atheist; the kind that fundamentalists called militant despite his never having actually declared his intention to shoot anybody for their refusal to denounce faith.

That way we can find Him when we need Him, I said answering her question about why I thought God was hidden. The question had come up as part of a discussion about why I had called things off with my most recent beau. I had been dating Schwartz’s friend, Ulric, a rabbi and a somewhat older man. Ulric was sweet and kind and handsome and charming; but he’d been too paternal; and I don’t think that was because of our age difference. I think that was just who Ulric was. Oddly, I’d seen Schwartz behave in much the same way with Beverly; and there was no secret that Beverly was madly in love with Schwartz.

Well, Mia said, I hope you let him down gently.

I hope I did too, I said. I tried to.

Has he called you since the break up? Mia asked still tugging at my shaggy mane. It had grown-in more than I normally liked in the weeks since I’d been bed-ridden.

No, I said, I haven’t heard from him.

Does your doctor still plan to release you tomorrow? Mia asked mercifully changing the subject.

***

The ride home from the hospital had been quiet and awkward. Schwartz knew that I was furious with him, but I had the feeling that there was something more to it. There was something I was not being told. He and I had worked more than a few cases by this time. I knew his body language cues. I’d made it a point to learn them. Not only were they an insight into his character – which I needed to understand so I could write about him; they were an insight into his thought processes – which I wanted to understand so I could help him in his investigations. My father had been a gumshoe. I was instinctively drawn to that life.

As we finally climbed to the top of Murray Avenue, I could see that there were several Pittsburgh police department cars parked on Hazelwood Avenue, and I knew that something was definitely going on. Schwartz pushed the button on his key-fob signaling the garage door to open, and as he pulled his Jensen into the drive that led to his private parking complex, I could see that standing outside one of the cruisers was Detective Trevor Johns. Something off was definitely going on.

By the time Schwartz had returned the keys to Mia, off-loaded my bags, and we had climbed the stairs out of the subterranean car park to enter the main hall of Schwartz’s large Victorian home; Trevor had already rang the doorbell, and Beverly was already welcoming him into the residence along with two uniformed cops and a skinny guy with a laptop.

What’s going on? I asked Schwartz as the door to the garage level shut behind me. He ignored me, and moved forward to greet Trevor, dropping my bags in the open foyer.

Beverly retrieved the discarded luggage. We didn’t want to tell you while you were in hospital, she said as Schwartz and Trevor entered the office, but Ulric has gone missing.

Missing? I said as I stormed past the uniform and entered the office before the door was fully closed. I stood slumped in the doorway, expecting to be rebuffed and told to leave.

Ah, Schwartz said from his place behind his desk, Ms. Hoskin, please have a seat. You look uncomfortable. He directed me to sit across from him in the far seat of the two that faced his desk.

What’s this I hear about Ulric gone missing? I demanded.

Cattleya, Trevor said as he took the seat beside mine, relax. It’s only been a few days.

Is that why Mia was asking me so many questions about Ulric yesterday?

We’re still trying to piece together the whole picture, Trevor said. I asked her to find out if Ulric had been in contact with you.

Next time you want to grill me, I said with a sarcastically curled lip and a wink, do it yourself. Don’t be sending your girlfriend in to do your dirty work. I sighed and shook my head, but sloughed it off. You don’t think he hurt himself because of our breakup, do you? I asked.

No, Trevor said quickly. I mean, at first we weren’t sure, but today we found this where Lupa said we should look for it, so now we need his help to decipher it. Trevor was holding a flash drive in a plastic zip-lock baggie. It was inside a puzzle box in his enigma room.

I’d been in that room. Ulric was a collector with two passions, maps and puzzles. His enigma room was filled wall-to-wall with every kind of brainteaser imaginable. If he’d taken the time to secret a flash drive in one of the many puzzle boxes he owned, I could understand why they’d come to Lupa Schwartz for help. Whatever information it contained would be cleverly encrypted, and it would take a sleuth of Schwartz’s abilities to decipher it.

It’s a code of some sort, Trevor said. There’s only one thing on it; a document in Word format. The entire document consists of three lines of text. Each is a long string of numbers. Do you think you can decipher it?

Of course I do, Schwartz said. May I see it please?

Do not copy the file or in any way alter it, Trevor said. It’s potential evidence. My throat closed.

Trevor handed the memory stick to Schwartz who slipped it into the port on the front of his computer tower. Momentarily he had the document open on his computer screen. It was just as Trevor had described it; three lines of numbers and nothing more. As Schwartz was loading the file, Trevor had invited the computer tech into the office. Have a seat there, Schwartz said indicating the couch just inside the entry beneath the fern. Please open a notepad window and type the numbers as I call them out. Before typing, please press down on the alt-key and the plus-key on the numbers pad simultaneously, and hold them down as you strike the numerals I call-out. After each fourth number I call out, please release all of the keys.

That would be for Unicode, the tech said.

That’s right, Schwartz said. Actually, it’s technically ASCI in this particular circumstance.

The numbers are not ASCI or Unicode, the tech insisted.

Schwartz pushed back from his position behind his keyboard. Do you have a copy of the file saved on your laptop? he asked. The tech indicated that he had. Open it for a moment. The tech opened his copy of the file. Please read off the first line of numbers. The tech read aloud the string of seemingly random numerals; 073146118357129360097868863372879143615591873110884111160872617100105622871149. As he read, Schwartz leaned in to read along. From his vantage, Trevor could see neither screen, and I was sitting too far away to be able to follow along from the monitor. However, I was not so far away that I didn’t notice a brief flash on Schwartz’s display. For a brief moment, extra characters had appeared and then vanished.

As he finished reading the string of numbers, the tech said, That’s not ACSI code. I tried it, and it comes up gibberish.

It is if we put a zero at the front of every three digits, Schwartz said. Please type this into the notepad window: zero zero seven three.

That’s a capital letter I, the tech said.

Zero one four six, Schwartz continued.

An apostrophe, the tech announced. Minutes later the tech was reading the first line of text. I’ve had to go into hiding. Before long, we had the entire message:

I’ve had to go into hiding. My life is in danger. Tell Schwartz you’ll find me on Washington, his and Herrs.

It’s another puzzle, Trevor said in clear annoyance.

He’s on Washington’s Landing, Schwartz announced confidently.

It could mean that, Trevor agreed. Or it could mean Mount Washington or Little Washington.

Schwartz shook his head. Prior to 1987, Washington’s Landing was known as Herrs Island, Schwartz said. It was spelled without an apostrophe, just like in the coded message. That wasn’t an oversight. Earlier in the message Ulric used the apostrophe in the word ‘I’ve.’ If he was using a possessive he’d have used it again. The word ‘his’ references Washington, and the word ‘Herrs’ references the alternate name. His and Herrs means Washinton’s and Herrs. Ulric Devacki is on Washington’s Landing in the Allegheny River, and he’s in hiding because he feels his life is in danger.

Chapter Two

That was extremely impressive the way you were able to figure all that out, I said once the police had cleared the building. The code, that it was a reference to Washington’s Landing, that was amazing. But you know what would have been really amazing? If you hadn’t already known that he was there.

He’s not there, Schwartz said. He was, but now he’s on Twelve Mile Island, about eight miles north of Washington’s Landing.

Is that what the hidden code showed you? I asked.

You saw that, huh? Schwartz asked. Well, better you than Detective Johns. That’s why I put you in that seat.

You punched the show/hide command, right? I asked.

The pilcrow key, yes, I did, Schwartz said. And I also punched the print screen button. The image is on my clip board. He opened a Paint window and navigated to the paste command. An image manifested of the screen that he had only momentarily seen.

He explained, This large area of the page is filled with spacebar commands, tab bar commands, and enter commands. Each line before the break shows characters for those commands; dots for spaces, and arrows – which we’ll call dashes – for tabs. It’s Morse code. It says, ‘I am on Twelve.’

So the other code is a red herring? I asked.

More or less, Schwartz said. It’s complicated. Get yourself ready, we’ll have some lunch, and I’ll explain it to you as we go to find out what this is all about from Ulric.

***

It was roughly two hours later before we were back in the Jensen on Rt. 8 headed toward the Allegheny Valley Expressway. First I’d had to change not only my clothes, but the dressing on my wound, and then Schwartz insisted on eating the lunch Beverly had prepared to welcome me home. Just before we left a call came from Trevor indicating that they had located Ulric’s car on Washington’s Landing, but so far they’d found no sign of Ulric. It was a large island, though, with acres of hiding places and they were sure that if he was there, they’d locate him.

Okay, I said as we left Squirrel Hill. I’m dying to know, what’s going on?

Schwartz took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It has to do with the Five Seekers, Schwartz said.

That social club you and Ulric are in? I said.

You know it’s more than that, Schwartz said indignantly.

Honestly, I have no idea what it is, I said. It has never made any sense to me.

Well, all you need to know for now is that the Seekers have five secret hiding places scattered around the city. Each of us is assigned one as a safe house, and from that safe house we can access three others. In times of emergency, we are to get to our starting base, and then leave our car and flee to a second site from our list selected at random.

What’s your safe house? I asked.

You don’t need to know that.

Call me crazy, I said, but I think I do.

Schwartz glanced at me to gauge my sincerity. Twelve Mile Island, he said. I remained silent burning his ear with my stare. If I ever felt the need to disappear, I would drive to Harmer Township and canoe over to Twelve Mile. We own a cottage there with an amphicar in the garage.

A what? I said.

An amphicar, a car that’s also a boat, Schwartz explained. It’s a Gibbs Aquada. You’ll see it soon enough. Anyway, you can’t really drive inconspicuously around Pittsburgh in an Aquada, so I have a 2007 HHR in a storage locker in Oakmont; so as fast as I can, I would drive to Oakmont, switch cars, and drive to one of my three safe house destinations; Station Square, Brunot Island, or Neville Island.

Brunot Island? I said. I’ve never heard of it.

It’s between Neville Island and the Point on the Ohio River, Schwarz said.

And you can drive there? I asked.

Ferry, Schwartz said. It only runs a couple times a week, but I would only go there if it fit with the timeframe.

But it’s somebody’s first safe house? I said questioning the logistics.

Dwayne Lovell, Schwartz said. He has a guy on the inside at the power plant who has a small Rotorway Scorpion helicopter hidden in a shed. He’d cross by foot on a railroad trestle and fly off.

Fly? I said incredulously.

That’s not even the weirdest, Schwartz said. Melanie travels to her locations by subway, and John Dachnewel travels the rails disguised as a hobo if he has to go into hiding.

So how did Ulric get from Washington’s Landing to Twelve Mile Island? I asked.

Schwartz shrugged, Boat. We had a boat docked at Washington’s Landing. He abandoned his car, and took a boat to his secondary safe house location. His other options were Brunot Island and Station Square … we have an office at Station Square. It’s the only one that isn’t an Island. I sat silently looking at him. That’s everything. I swear it.

What’s the point of all the subterfuge? I asked. Why not just have a safe house and go to it?

Because this way, the only person who can know for sure where you’ve gone is you, Schwartz said. If you have to go into hiding, it’s because somebody is looking for you. If your friends know where you’ll go to hide, that makes you vulnerable.

Then what was the deal with the flash drive and the codes?

Schwartz spoke purposefully, his patience wearing thin. Every day as part of our routines each member of the Seekers sends a message to another member in a round-robin. I say ‘hi’ to Dwayne Lovell. He says ‘hi’ to Melanie Randolph who says ‘hi’ to John Dachnewel who says ‘hi’ to Ulric who says ‘hi’ to me. If you don’t hear from your contact for forty-eight hours, you try to make telephone contact. If that fails, you call the police and report them missing. I reported Ulric missing yesterday morning.

But that doesn’t explain the flash drive and the codes, I interrupted.

I’m getting to that, Schwartz said. If I had to go into hiding, I would have left a flash drive in the glove box of my Mercury Tracer stake-out car. I knew that car well. I hated that car. Lovell would wait until the appointed hour and tell the police where to find the file. At that point, whoever I was hiding from would know that the police were on the trail. They’d be following the police and might even have a person on the inside, which is why I can’t trust Detective Johns with this information just yet. Right now, if the people who are after Ulric are still actively looking, they’ve hopefully taken the bait and are on a wild goose chase on Washington’s Landing.

Ah, I said nodding. That makes sense. I actually understand that. So that’s why we weren’t in a hurry to leave after the police left?

No, that was just because I was hungry, Schwartz said. By the way, you might want to turn off your cell phone and remove the battery. We need to go dark.

***

Finally we had arrived in Harmar Township, and Schwartz had pulled into the parking lot of a public dock. The car in the spot next to us was parked over the line taking up two spaces. I could see the vein throbbing in Schwartz’s neck. He had a personal loathing for those who were rude and dismissive of the rules of public parking. He actually had a habit of deflating their tires so they couldn’t flee and reporting them to the police. He’d leave a stock note with only their individual infraction noted differently from note to note. But we couldn’t involve the police today, so his hands were tied. I was loving it.

Finally he bit his lip and said, That’s the Allegheny River, and that land you see there is Twelve Mile Island. 

How do we get over there? I asked.

We wait for Ulric to see us, the great detective