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Except one thing from that time.
Treasure. Confederate gold and silver.
That interested him.
He had a primal need for massive wealth, brought on by a life that had enjoyed precious little of that commodity. He’d been a disappointment to his parents, not given to serious study. His father had been an academic who eventually found a career at the Smithsonian Institution. Now the old man was little more than a babbling idiot.
Talk about disappointment.
“How are you tonight?” he asked his father.
James Breckinridge was pushing eighty. And though the body had survived relatively intact, the mind had slipped away. The old man lived alone, still able, though, to care for himself. Somehow meals were cooked and the house kept reasonably clean. But it was only a matter of time before a retirement home would have to be found.
“Do I know you?” his father asked.
He could see that tonight was going to be difficult. Which was not good. He had no time for nonsense. He needed answers. The house sat on the Virginia side of the Potomac, just beyond the DC Beltway. It had been paid for long ago, which allowed his father to live comfortably off a Smithsonian pension and Social Security.
“It’s Grant. Your son. Think hard. Remember me.”
“My boy is off to college. He wants to be a teacher. That’s a good job, being a teacher.”
“No, I’m here. I’m Grant. I need you to concentrate. Can you do that for me?”
“Julie. Julie,” his father called out.
He shook his head. His mother died years ago. “Mother’s gone. She’s dead. I’ve told you this before.”
His father stared at him with a puzzled look. “Why do you say such mean things? If my boy Grant was here, he’d smack you in the face. That’s his mother you’re talking about. She’s right here. I just saw her a few minutes ago. Julie.”
Repetition was another annoyance that he’d learned to endure.
He stared around the den. Once books filled every available space, floor-to-ceiling. But he’d moved most of the important stuff to his own apartment and sold the rest to used-book shops. The old man could not read anymore. Nothing registered. All he did was sit in front of the television, flicking through the channels, watching nothing.
“Listen to me,” he said, voice rising. “I need you to focus. I’m going to the Smithsonian tonight. You remember that place.”
“I work there. I was there today.”
“No, you weren’t. You haven’t been there in a long time. Listen to me. I need you to tell me some things.”
“Young man, I’m the head curator for the Castle, and I don’t like your attitude. Not one bit.”
His father had indeed held the coveted position of Castle curator, which meant he was in charge of maintaining the Smithsonian’s centerpiece. Only three men had ever held that job, his father the first, in charge from 1969 to 1992. He and his mother had been there on retirement day, when the Smithsonian’s secretary thanked his father publicly for his service and co-workers gathered to wish him a long life. He recalled a momentary feeling of pride, one any young boy should have about his father. But those moments had always been few and far between. Tonight his father’s sick mind was apparently back twenty-five years ago. So he decided to use that fantasy to his advantage.
“I meant no disrespect, but I have to ask you about one of your exhibits.”
“Oh, gosh, we have so many of them.”
“The key. I need to know about the ceremonial key.”
The old man’s brow furrowed. “What key? I have many keys. Too damn many. I’ve tried to tell people we need to eliminate locks, but they just keep adding new ones. I have to have a key to every lock. Secretary’s orders. The curator must have access to everything. No exceptions.”
Some progress. The sick mind was staying focused on one subject.
“Listen to me. It’s the ceremonial key. I need to ask you about that.”
“That’s an odd thing to bring up.”
“No, it’s not. Think hard.”
A swipe from a withered hand dismissed any further thought. “You’re talking nonsense. A key is a key is a key. It’s just a key.”
“No, it’s not.”
He’d tried the easy way, realizing that it would probably be useless. But at least he’d tried. Time now to do what always worked. He reached down and grabbed the old man by the throat, yanking the scrawny body upward from the chair. Breath squeezed out through the constricted airway. With a vise-lock grip he slammed his father into the wall, keeping him there, feet off the ground, the pressure to the throat just enough to allow only minimal air to the lungs.
“I don’t have time for this,” he said. “You have to focus and listen to me.”
His father did not move. He never did. Rarely had simple communication achieved results. But something about violence stimulated the diseased mind. Perhaps it was a primitive survival mode. Or maybe some defensive chemical or hormone was generated. Grant had no idea. All he knew was that force made its way through the fog.
“I’ll ask you again. The ceremonial key. It’s the original that I need, correct?”
They’d talked on this subject before.
“I found it, you know. I’m the one who found the key.”
He did know that. Learned through another encounter just like this one.
“It was in the attic, at the Castle. In the rafters. Just lying there. All brass. Good as the day it was forged. I gave it to the secretary.”
Which he also knew.
He increased the pressure to the throat and the old man’s eyes widened as breathing became more difficult.
A signal that his patience was drawing to a close.
Nothing remained in the worn-out muscles that could offer any resistance. So he lifted the feet farther off the floor, which added more pressure to the throat, keeping his father’s spine tight to the wall.
“Will. It. Open. The. Lock?”
The breaths came in spurts, the lungs now choking for air.
“I swear, Colonel … I’m loyal to the South. I’m … no spy.”
Damn. The Civil War delusions had begun. He was hoping to avoid those.
“The lock is … only for the … righteous. Those of the … Order. Those who pledged their … loyalty to the cause. Are … you one of those, Colonel?”
He knew the right answer. “I am.”
The look in his father’s eyes softened, as if a light had switched on in the dark corners of his brain.
“Then … I shall tell you.”
He loosened his grip enough to allow the feet to touch the floor and his father to breathe unimpeded.
“When at last you need your rest … the South will face its greatest test. Oh elder Knights … all clad in grey, lead the charge into the fray.”
He stared at the crazy old man and shook his head.
Dammit.
More gibberish.
Why didn’t the old bastard just die? No. This fool planned to live forever. And if he could somehow communicate anything of value that fact might not be so bad. Instead, Grant had to endure fantasies and delusions, anything useful coming only in drips and dribbles from micro-moments of clarity. But time was running out. Which explained why he had to take a big chance tonight. Success hinged on two things, both of which were locked away inside the Smithsonian.
