“You told me some of it,” I said. “I just didn’t know it would be so detailed.”
“Nor did I,” Dalton admitted. “American and British branches of the Freemasons. A possible Illuminati connection. Jesuits. Aboriginal groups. It’s a fantastic find.”
“And it’s all in an old cookbook,” Savannah marveled.
“I told you it was important,” I murmured. I picked up the book and ran my hand across the smooth, worn leather.
“Were you able to translate any of the codes?” Savannah asked.
“Yes,” Dalton said. “Would you like to hear some of it?”
“Heck, yes,” I said. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Dalton grinned. “I doubt there’s anything here that will help you, but it’s interesting.” He reached for his notes and skimmed the pages until he found the one he was looking for, then handed it to me. “Here’s what the coded message looks like.”
I stared at the page with its curlicues, stick figures, numbers, and odd squiggles. “Okay.”
“And here’s the translation. ‘Smith’s army to cross Tanner Bridge eastward midnight three days hence.’”
“Cool,” I said, and pointed at one of the symbols. “Do these arrows indicate the direction?”
“Yes,” Dalton said. “I proceeded on the assumption that the arrows conveyed the same directions as those on a map, with north pointing to the top of the page and south to the bottom.”
I nodded.
“And I also looked up Tanner Bridge,” he said with a clever grin.
“That was so smart,” Savannah said.
I laughed. “Read some more.”
“All right.” He handed me the corresponding pages as he read the decoded messages.
“Gunpowder shipment arriving from Britain fortnight Portsmouth harbor.”
“Commander Howell being held at field camp outside Wooster.”
“Soldiers planning to burn Worthington residence.”
“That’s terrible,” Savannah said. “I’m glad Obedience was spying for our side.”
“How many more pages were you able to complete?” I asked.
“Another five or six,” Dalton said, “but I plan to take the pages back with me to work on. I’m hoping that Obedience reveals the name of her contact eventually. I imagine it’s a highly placed American officer with connections to the Freemasons.”
“Or it could be a fellow cook in that American officer’s home.”
“Indeed,” Dalton said, his eyes twinkling. “Although a cook might not have access to such a code. It’s all a puzzle.”
I sighed. “I’m bummed that there’s no real motive that could incriminate Baxter’s and Monty’s killer, but I still believe there has to be a connection somewhere.”
Derek leaned over and squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll find out tonight.”
As if on cue, his cell phone rang. We all watched as he listened to the caller for two full minutes while voicing the occasional “Hmm,” or “I see.”
Meanwhile, Dalton, Savannah, and I waited impatiently.
“Thanks, Nathan,” Derek said finally, and ended the call.
“Was that your office?” Savannah asked.
“No, it was the police.” He glanced at Savannah. “They’ve released Kevin.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said.
“Jeez, Savannah,” I said. “Remember how she attacked us with a knife?”
“That was totally lame,” Savannah said, waving my statement away. “I beat her back with an egg whisk.”
“I specifically remember a big-ass chef’s knife pointed right at me,” I insisted.
“Apparently, the police agree with Savannah,” Derek said.
“I’m so glad,” Savannah said. “I’m going to go call her now.”
I might’ve rolled my eyes a teensy bit as she skipped out of the room. Turning to Derek, I said, “Tell me everything they told you.”
“Kevin insisted she was only after the cookbook. She found Peter in the bath and thought he was dead. But before she could do anything, you and your sister arrived. So she hid in the closet, thinking Peter’s killer had returned.”
“That’s weak.”
“I thought so, too. But the police also found a partial thumbprint on the bloody handle of the meat pounder used to bludgeon Peter.”
It was gruesome but exciting. “Did they say who it belongs to?”
Derek scowled. “The print was too smeared with blood to be of any real use except to eliminate Kevin as a suspect in Peter’s assault. The thumbprint was too large. It belonged to a man.”
“Or a woman with large hands,” Dalton mused.
“Kevin has small hands,” I muttered. I was happy that Kevin was absolved of attacking Peter, but it left us with a bunch of other questions. Staring at the copied pages of the cookbook scattered before me, I asked, “Did Kevin say anything else about the cookbook? Why does she want it so badly?”
Derek sipped his coffee for a moment. “It’s what we already knew. The book belongs to her village museum and she wants to get it back to them. She also claims there’s some relation between the book and the fact that her father is being knighted for service to the queen. I’ll admit that Jaglom sort of lost me there.”