Free Thread on Arrival by Amanda Lee Page B

at least, I
hoped
it was a customer.
    I stepped out of my office to see that Angus had already greeted the rather grizzled-looking older gentleman who’d entered the shop.
    “He’s a beaut, he is!” the man exclaimed, scratching Angus on the head.
    “Thank you,” I said. I’d already guessed who the man was, but I decided to play dumb. “How may I help you?”
    “Well, I saw your message on the treasure hunters’ Web site, and I’d talked with Chester about helping him find the treasure from the
Delia
.”
    He had the name of the ship correct. He must’ve really spoken with Mr. Cantor. “How’d you find me?”
    “From your e-mail. I’d heard of the Seven-Year Stitch—the name always struck me as funny—so when I saw it was part of your address, I figured you worked here.”
    “You figured right,” I said, with a small smile. “Would you like to have a seat?”
    “Sure. You got any coffee?” he asked.
    “I do, but I haven’t had a chance to get it started yet this morning. I’ll do that.”
    “I’d appreciate it,” he said. “A fresh-brewed cup of joe sounds awfully nice.”
    I went into the office and prepared the coffeepot. The man seemed friendly and harmless enough. He obviously hadn’t given Angus any reason not to like him, and dogs sense things like . . . murderous intent . . . right? And the treasure hunter appeared to be old enough to be one of Mr. Cantor’s contemporaries. Maybe he was legitimate and wouldn’t kill me for the tapestry . . . which I no longer even had.
    “The coffee should be ready in about five minutes,” I said, returning to the sit-and-stitch square. “So had Mr. Cantor hired you to help him find a treasure?”
    “Not yet. No money had exchanged hands. My son has a boat—gives some dolphin tours and stuff like that—and he’d love to get into the salvage business,” the man said. “I’m Jack Powell, by the way.” He stretched an arm across the coffee table so I could shake his hand.
    “Nice to meet you, Mr. Powell. I’m Marcy Singer.”
    “Good to know you, Marcy. Call me Jack.”
    I smiled. “Jack.”
    “Anyway, back to Chester. He and I and my boy were trying to come up with a way to get the money we’d need to start the search. None of the three of us had much savings or seed money or whatever to go on, and we knew we’d need depth recorders, diving equipment, and underwater metal detectors. I guess we can forget about it though now that Chester’s dead.”
    “Did Mr. Cantor ever show you the map?” I asked.
    Jack shook his head. “Nope. Chester was kinda paranoid about that map. I reckon he thought that if anyone else saw it, they’d cut him out of the loop.”
    “I guess I can understand that. He showed me the tapestry that he believed contained the map,” I said. “But I think his belief that it was a treasure map was only wishful thinking.”
    “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, Marcy. There are enough legends and reports of treasure found off the Pacific coast that if we could’ve scraped the money together, we’d have looked for it.”
    I excused myself and went and got our coffee. I put the coffee and a handful of creamers and sweeteners on a tray and returned to the sit-and-stitch square. I placed the tray on the coffee table before handing Jack a cup of coffee.
    Jack loaded up his cup with sugar, stirred the steaming beverage briefly, and then took a loud slurp. “A man could have riches to pass down through three generations—at least—if he could find just one of the treasures reputed to be somewhere on this coast.”
    “But those are just legends, aren’t they?” I asked. “Has anyone ever found anything of real substance near Tallulah Falls?”
    “You can go right over to the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria and see a chunk of beeswax and a block of wood recovered from a seventeenth-century Manila galleon shipwreck,” he said. “Astoria isn’t all
that
far from here. The museum has got some