The Adventure of the First Problem: A Salem Wiley Short Story (The Witch Hunt Series) Read online

  The Adventure of the First Problem

  a Salem Short Story

  by Jess Lourey

  Salem blew on her hands, erasing the smoke-scented October chill from her flesh before aiming her phone at the mausoleum. The structure was grand, backlit by a full moon, built to resemble a miniature Greek Revival mansion. Her heart beat pleasantly. She hadn’t yet glanced at the crypt’s lock. She was going to save that treat for last, working methodically from the top down.

  Bel stood behind her, sighing deeply. “Only you, Salem Wiley.”

  Salem grunted by way of answer.

  Bel stepped closer. “This is a Scooby Doo-quality adventure, you know that, right? Taking creepy crypt photos under a full moon?”

  Salem pushed a frizzy curl out of her eyes. Her first take hadn’t flashed.

  Bel was undeterred by Salem’s lack of engagement. “You’d be Velma, clearly.”

  She tugged a brown paper bag out from under her arm and took a pull of the wine, her voice dropping. “And I’d be Fred because then I could shag Daphne.”

  Salem rewarded Bel with a smile, not dragging her eyes from the upper half of the mausoleum. “Fred’s definitely a better choice than Shaggy. If you were Shaggy, you’d probably have to arrest yourself. He smoked more weed than Cheech and Chong.” At least, that’s what she’d read on the Internet. She wasn’t a hundred percent on who Cheech and Chong were, and she’d missed the drug references in the cartoons growing up, but she studied pop culture with the focus of a medical student cramming for the boards.

  Bel took another swig from the crumpled bag. “No premature arresting for me, I’m afraid. Turns out the real police officers frown on students cuffing people. But hey, in two years, watch out Shaggy! I’m coming to getcha!” She held out the bottle. “You sure you don’t want a bump, for old time’s sake?”

  Salem shook her head, studying her phone. No wonder it hadn’t flashed. She’d set that feature to “off.” Dumb. She swiped the button and tried again. This time, the inscription over the tomb’s marble door lit up like a red carpet movie star:

  I

  CHRISTI OSTENDERE VIAM: CVLTVS PAX, VERITAS, LVX, ET VITA.

  FINIS

  Salem’s brain snapped a photo of the words at the same time as her phone. It was pidgin Latin, loosely translating to “At the end, Christ shows the way to peace, truth, light, and life.” She clicked twelve more photos, some of the inscription, others, finally, of the delicious lock below. She was grinning. “I’d maybe drink some if you hadn’t brought Arbor Mist. There’s taking ‘old time’s sake’ too far, you know?”

  A cool fall breeze picked up papery brown leaves and skittled them farther along, forming loose pyres at the base of headstones. Minneapolis’ tony Lakewood Cemetery was eerie gorgeous in the moonlight. It housed standard gravestones but also obelisks, pyramids, marble pagodas, and Grecian statues with flowing robes. The cemetery was arranged around the enormous Memorial Mausoleum, which had been crafted in Modernist style in the 60s, a cross between a Cold War high school and the Jefferson Memorial. The nearby Memorial Chapel was modeled after the Hagia Sophia in

  Istanbul. The exterior had a distinctly Persian feel. Salem and Bel had lost many a middle school afternoon in the chapel, soaking up the art and peace, talking about puzzles and their parents and where they’d be in ten years.

  It made sense that they’d return here with Bel in town for the week, on fall break from the University of Chicago. Salem was midway through her first semester at the U of M. It had taken her two years after high school to work up the courage to go. It wasn’t grades or money. She’d been offered scholarships from every major college in the country, and some international ones as well. She just didn’t like to travel far from her childhood house, wouldn’t. She had a routine that made the world feel manageable—home, college, work.

  There were exceptions, like grocery shopping or a doctor’s appointment. Any place she had been to before her dad had killed himself in front of her eyes was a safe zone, as long as she went to it with the same people as she had before. Other than those rare exceptions, she only traveled between home, college, and work.

  If she veered off the routine…well, she just didn’t.

  Bel understood. That’s why they were here, at one of their favorite preteen haunts.

  “You like your classes?”

  The change of topic compelled Salem to change her mind, grabbing the frosted bottle from Bel’s grip. Cherry Moscato. She smelled it before the liquid hit her mouth. It was cheap, sweet, a snow cone topping without the ice shavings. They’d drunk gallons of it in high school. Everyone had. “They’re fine. Mostly generals now, but I get to take some cryptography classes next semester.”

  She wanted to tell Bel about the Crypto Club, Bel who was set to graduate from the Criminal Justice program with honors, gorgeous, smart, perfect Bel. But they were no longer the pig-tailed girls who could finish each other’s sentences. College had taken all of Bel’s positive traits and cemented them. She now walked into every room like she owned it. How could Salem confess to someone that lionhearted that she’d lingered outside the Crypto Club door the last three weeks, listening to their jokes about cryptographers being makers and cryptanalysts being breakers, wishing she was part of it? She’d gotten as far as curling her grip around the cool doorknob, but then her pulse began pounding too loud to hear anything else, and her vision narrowed to black, and her stomach heaved toward her mouth.

  She’d run.

  She’d returned since, but she’d never gotten past the door knob.

  The best she could do was drag Bel to the Lakewood Cemetery to stand here, at the base of Samuel Medary’s mausoleum. Medary, the governor of Minnesota the year it became a state, had chosen to be interred in a puzzle-locked crypt. Anyone with access to the Lakewood Cemetery could walk up and spin the ten tiny bronze wheels that made up the tomb’s lock. All ten wheels were constructed around a hollow tube that, when the wheels were correctly aligned, cued ten springs to release an equal number of master pins that freed the cylinder inside and opened the door. The device brought to Salem’s mind a beautiful steampunk combination bike lock, inset in a half-ton marble door.

  But while anyone with access to the cemetery could try their hand at the lock, it had yet to be opened. No one could crack Medary’s code, which made the puzzle lock famous.

  Well, famous in certain circles.

  Dots, really, if she was honest.

  But the Crypto Club knew about the supposedly uncrackable puzzle lock, she was sure of that. They had to. It was one of the only interesting unbroken codes in Minnesota. But how could Salem possibly tell Bel, who’d led her class in both firearms and self-defense training, that she hoped to crack the lock’s code and somehow, impossibly, for the Crypto Club to find out and demand that she join?

  Bel gently tugged the Arbor Mist bottle from Salem’s grip and tucked it back inside the paper bag before swigging. “This stuff is shit, isn’t it? Like drinking flat soda, and I can’t get enough of it. By the way, don’t think I don’t see you studying that freaky little lock. And don’t for a second think I don’t know that’s exactly why you hauled us out here.”

  Salem smiled gratefully. Of course Bel had guessed what she was up to. They hadn’t grown that far apart. She inhaled the scent of rotting leaves and woodsmoke.

  The cemetery was smack dab in the middle of Minneapolis yet so forested that she couldn’t even hear traffic. Part of her was whispering that it felt good to step out of her rout
ine, with Bel at her side. She felt protected, safe. Maybe tomorrow she’d think about expanding her life routes.

  Maybe.

  Bel switched the Arbor Mist to her left hand, grabbed Salem’s with her right, and started down the paved path, away from Medary’s tomb. The only light on the cemetery’s rolling, forested hills came from the egg-colored moon. “Why don’t you get your nerd on and tell me all about that lock while we walk to the old chapel?”

  Salem flung a final glance at the mausoleum before letting Bel lead her away.

  “I’m afraid my nerd is always on,” she said, smiling. “That was a bronze puzzle lock, related to any cylindrical combination lock in that you have to know the programmed sequence to open it. Samuel Medary had that super-lock commissioned before he died, no one knows why. Most mausoleums are accessed with a standard key, but you can’t open Medary’s tomb unless you know the code.”

  Bel snorted. “Easy peasy. How many possibilities could there be? The lock only had 8 numbers.”

  “Ten.” A cracking noise to the right drew their attention. The sugary wine lurched in Salem’s stomach. The late hour was not the only reason the cemetery was deserted.

  Three weeks earlier, Mackenzie Swenson had disappeared from a nearby neighborhood.

  Salem’s neighborhood.

  The college freshman lived four houses down from where Salem still lived with her mom. Mackenzie was a math major at the U of M, same program as Salem, yet Salem’s agoraphobia meant she only knew the woman in passing. Mackenzie was a goth girl, hood always up, lipstick dark, liked to be called Mack, a bit of a genius if the rumors were to be believed.

  On October 1, she’d disappeared without a trace, last seen boarding the city bus.

  The police had camped outside the Swenson house on day one. Mrs. Swenson had appeared on the lawn, pointing angrily at an officer, her face rough and red, tears varnishing her face. Salem hadn’t seen the police back since, though missing person posters papered the neighborhood. They were treating her as a runaway. “And they were letters, not numbers.”

  Bel continued to search the unlit ink for the source of the cracking sound. When nothing emerged, she shrugged. “Probably other kids doing exactly what we are. It is almost Halloween.” Bel started walking again, her hands held a little higher than they had been earlier. “Ten letters, then. How many options does that leave for cracking the code?”

  Salem kept peering over her shoulder as they walked, toward the noise. The full moon lit most of the paths, but the gravestones and obelisks to each side were shadow and shade. “With 26 letters in the alphabet, that means there are over 141 quintillion possibilities for that lock.”

  The breeze picked up again. Faraway laughter banked off the headstones and rose toward the moon. Bel gave Salem’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Whoever runs the cemetery must have the key to the code, right? So they can do maintenance work, or stuff Medary’s relatives in there.”

  Salem shook her head. “No one has the code. It died with Medary. That’s why it’s legendary.” She thought of the pale-skinned, dark-haired members of the Crypto Club and blushed in the night. “Well, to some people anyhow. It’s supposedly a two-way lock, which wasn’t unusual back when people were sometimes buried before they were actually dead. So, if Medary woke up in his crypt, all he had to do was light the candle placed next to his resting spot, hold it to the interior lock, enter the code, and let himself out. Hypothetically, if the cemetery needed to get in, they would use the same code. But, whatever it was, it’s been lost to time. The only way in or out of that mausoleum is by solving that puzzle.”

  Bel smiled. “Or a jackhammer. Not that it matters. Medary’s probably not going anywhere.” She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Hey, can we change the mood? No more dead old white guys locked up for eternity. Let’s talk about something good. Like sex.” Her grin turned wicked. “Are you having any?”

  Salem blushed for the second time that night. “Only with myself.”

  Bel hooted. “That counts! But not forever. You need to—”

  A scream neatly sliced her words in two. It flew from the direction of Medary’s tomb and was knit of pure terror. Bel ran toward it without a second thought, Salem on her heels, her pulse battering her veins.

  The woman’s shadow appeared before she did, dark hair askew, tears streaking her swollen face. For a crazy second, Salem thought it might be Mackenzie. When the moonlight struck her face square, it was clear that this woman was too old, late twenties, a stranger.

  “My daughter!” the woman yelled at Bel. “She’s in trouble.”

  Bel dropped straight into take-charge mode, grabbing the woman by the shoulders. “Show us.”

  “You can’t help me,” the woman panted, pulling free of Bel. “I need the police. There’s no cell phone reception here.”

  “What kind of trouble is she in?”

  The words tumbled out in a manic jumble, punctuated by sobs. “She’s in one of the crypts. By accident.” The woman took off toward the cemetery’s entrance.

  Bel let her go and charged in the direction the woman had indicated.

  Salem yanked her phone out of her purse. No bars. She followed Bel over a hill and around a rise, until they saw the man crouching in front of Samuel Madery’s tomb.

  Bel reached him first. “Is this where the girl is?”

  He glanced up at Bel.

  Salem’s breath caught.

  She recognized him, even in profile.

  He was small and tight, lean not skinny, with curly black hair. She didn’t know his name. He was a lurker, and it took one to know one. She’d regularly spotted him on the periphery of Vincent Hall, the University of Minnesota’s math building. In fact, she’d nearly run him over the day she’d chickened out going into the Crypto Club’s room.

  He pitched his worried glance from Bel to Salem.

  The tender skin below her ears tingled. He was sexy, and he was creepy, the two of them blending together like black and blue. His dark eyes showed no recognition.

  “Yeah, she’s inside.” He returned his attention to the puzzle lock. “Katrina says the kid has asthma. She’s only 7. We were playing around.”

  “Don’t touch it!” Salem leapt forward and slapped his hand away from the lock. “If the girl opened it, the code might still be there.”

  He scowled. “All the letters were set to ‘A’ when I got here. That didn’t open it, so I’ve been messing around.”

  Bel pushed him aside to stand in front of the door. “What’s the girl’s name?”

  “Jinny.” He tossed an unreadable look toward Salem. “But it doesn’t matter. The walls are too thick. I’ve been yelling this whole time. Nothing.”

  Salem swallowed past a queasy burning in her throat. If the girl was having a panic-induced asthma attack, thick walls might not be the only reason she wasn’t responding.

  Bel raised her voice. “Jinny! My name is Isabel Odegaard. Help is on the way. I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to stay out here until we get someone to break the door in. It won’t be long, so don’t panic, honey.” She and Salem exchanged an anxious look. It would take big machinery to break that door down, and big machinery took time to locate. “Salem, can you crack that lock?”

  A chilly breeze gusted, organizing eddies of leaves around Salem’s feet. She ran her hand along the scar on her cheek. She glanced at her phone. Still no connection, still no internet. She thought of her dad, and how she hadn’t saved him in time. Time and sound traveled like molasses. Salem’s vision began to narrow.

  Her arms tightened.

  Bel was squeezing her. “Salem! Can you break it?”

  Salem’s vision expanded. The moon was shining. She was standing outside Samuel Medary’s tomb. Bel’s voice was urgent. This strange man was reading her, she could tell that, but his expression was otherwise inscrutable. Why wasn’t he panicking?

  Salem’s shook her head to clear it. “I can try.”

  She knelt on sh
aking legs in front of the lock. The man couched next to her, close enough for her to feel his body heat in the cool fall night, to smell the musky spice of his cologne. She felt an overwhelming urge to run.

  “Are you a codebreaker?”

  His voice sounded taunting, but that wouldn’t make sense. She couldn’t risk a glance to take his measure. “Can you light the lock with your phone? The moonlight isn’t cutting it.”

  He drew out his cell, shining a bright light on the neat little letters, which all read

  “A.” That was odd. Salem had seen him shuffling through them, rotating each letter’s wheel. Either he’d lied about all of them originally being set at “A,” pretended to be moving them, or the lock had an automatic reset. In the background, Bel was talking steadily to Jinny, speaking as if the child could hear her, honeyed words about safety and toys and love.

  He repeated himself, this time with more intensity. “I asked you if you’re a codebreaker.”

  He was too close. His breath was laced with alcohol. She pressed on the icy metal of the first A, its cold scarring her fingertip like a tiny brand. She changed all ten letters, each rotating on a 26-point wheel like flattened typewriter ball. She attempted the most basic sequence first: A-B-C-D-E-F-G-H-I-J.

  The door didn’t budge.

  “I’m interested in codebreaking,” she said, fielding his question as broadly as she could. He didn’t need to know that she’d read every book ever written on the subject and had even published a paper hypothesizing a potential break to the Dorabella Cipher in a math journal. “How’d Jinny end up inside? This door hasn’t been opened since Medary was sealed in here in 1864.”

  He pulled away from her, but not so far away that she couldn’t still smell the liquor on his breath, something grainy and cloying, like whiskey. “I dunno. Katrina and I were kissing.” He ran his fingers through his hair and then leaned back in. “Katrina had to take a leak. We told Jinny to wait by this tomb. I stepped around the tree to give Katrina privacy, just in time to see Jinny step inside.” He tipped his head toward the crypt. “The door closed before I could reach her. Boom. It must be rigged because it slammed shut so quick that she didn’t even have time to grab her doll.” He pointed to a ratty teddy bear in the shadows, a shredded red bow around its neck.