Karen lowered the footrest on her recliner. She walked into the kitchen to answer her cell phone which lay on the table. Someone always called when she got a chance to relax. She spent her weekend cleaning and dusting in the old corner store she bought. She put the receiver to her ear.

“Hello,” Karen said.

“Hi. It’s Sarah…and Greta,” Sarah said.

“What’s up you guys?” Karen said. “I’m…

“Hey, we’ve done something terribly wrong and need your help,” Sarah said.

“What did you do?” Karen said.

“We can’t talk about it over the phone. Please meet us at the spot where we made our pact back in high school. You know the place,” Sarah said.

“Okay. See you in about 15 minutes,” Karen said. She punched the disconnect button. Butterflies fluttered in her stomach as she grabbed her car keys and a flashlight. She drove her car to the old warehouse behind the factory where the threesome smoked pot in high school. The place gave her the creeps now, especially at night.

Karen pulled into the lot overgrown with trees and weeds and strewn with trash. She turned off the headlights but left the engine running.

When Karen looked in her rear-view mirror, Greta and Sarah emerged from the railroad cars on the tracks. Then, they ran toward her car. Sarah carried an old carpet bag.

“Oh Lord,” Karen said.

Sarah got in the front seat and placed the ugly, bulbous bag on her lap. Greta sat the back.

“Drive,” Sarah said.

“Where to?” Karen said.

“Anywhere,” Greta said. “Just get out of here.”

The women remained silent while Karen drove to the interstate onramp. As soon as she got on it, she glanced at Sarah. A fat bug splattered on the car’s windshield and Karen pushed the wiper fluid button. The bug’s brown guts just smeared into a wider spot on the glass.

"Well?” Karen said, trying to look through the smeared windshield.

“We found a map to hidden jewels,” Sarah said.

“And?” Karen said. She gripped the wheel with both hands and waited for her friends to deliver the bad news.

“We found the map on a dead man,” Sarah said.

“Oh God!” Karen said. “But why were you at the factory?”

“I read in the newspaper that the owner sold the factory and warehouse. The buyer intends to make apartments in the factory and raze the warehouse to make a parking lot,” Greta said.

“Last night, we went there to drink and reminisce,” Sarah said. “We brought wood, weenies, s’mores fixings, and some lawn chairs. We built a fire in an old barrel. This bum approached us and said he wanted something to eat. So, we gave him some wienies and beer. Then, he fell asleep in a chair and died.”

“I searched his pockets and found the map,” Greta said. “But we left and returned tonight.”

“You left him there? Why didn’t you call the police?” Karen said.

“Because we smoked pot and didn’t want to get caught,” Greta said.

“So why did you search his pockets”? Karen said.

“He bummed a cigarette and my lighter. We were leaving so I asked for my lighter back. He didn’t answer, so I walked over and shook him. I felt for a pulse. He was dead. I searched his pockets, got my lighter, and found the map,” Greta said.

Sarah unbuckled the bag. Diamond, ruby, and emerald necklaces and earrings winked at her.

Karen glanced into the bag and her eyes widened. “Wow! Look at those baubles.”  

Greta grabbed the front seat and looked over it. She whistled. “Look at that. What a find.”

Sarah lifted a diamond necklace and rubbed her fingers over it.

“I just thought about something you guys,” Karen said.

“What?” Greta said.

“You left fingerprints and DNA on those beer cans,” Karen said, “and maybe on the lawn chair.” No one said anything for a minute.

“Let’s go back,” Greta said.

“Are you crazy?” Sarah said. She put the necklace back in the bag.

“We’re going back,” Karen said. She exited on the next offramp, turned the car around, and drove back to the warehouse. When the women got out of the car, they walked to the copse of trees nearby. Small embers still glowed in the rusty barrel. A cooler sat near the barrel. The corpse still sat in the lawn chair.

Karen walked over to the man and shined her flashlight on his face. His face looked like a beat-up manikin; his eyes open and fixed, but his mouth hung open. Huge flies crawled in and out of it. The heat caused his body to bloat. A fluid dripped from underneath the chair and a terrible odor hung in the air.  

“The chair stays here,” Karen said. “Nobody’s touching that. You guys left your cooler here too.”

Sarah opened the cooler. “Our ice melted.” She picked up the cooler and dumped the water into the barrel. The embers hissed and smoke floated into the air. The trio gathered the beer cans and put them in the empty cooler.

“Did you guys forget anything else?” Karen said.

“That’s it,” Greta said.

“Thanks Karen,” Sarah said.

“No problem,” Karen said.

Greta threw the cooler into the car’s trunk. They hid the jewelry in Karen’s empty store. Then, she drove Sarah and Greta home.

Two days later, Karen sat at her kitchen table and drank coffee. She opened the newspaper. On the inside of the front page in a small left-hand column, it read:

 Man’s Body Found Near Railroad Tracks

 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (AP). . . Police found the body of 58-year-old Nyles Tulane near the railroad tracks behind the now-defunct Look Fabulous clothing factory. Tulane was a former employee of Look Fabulous. The police don’t suspect foul play, but Mr. Tulane was a suspect in a jewelry store robbery in 1982. The police never recovered the jewelry.

Several moments later, Karen’s phone rang. She pulled it from the pocket of her robe.

"Hey,” Sarah said. “Get your newspaper.”

“I already read it,” Karen said.

“You know, I get all kinds of insider information as a police dispatcher,” Sarah said.

“What did you learn?” Karen said.

“The two other suspects in the robbery were killed in a car crash,” Sarah said. “So, no one else should know about the jewelry.”

“Let’s hope,” Karen said. She sipped her coffee.

“Well, if they do, we got it now,” Sarah said.

“We each need to take some of the jewelry to three different jewelry stores and sell it. Then we split the money three ways,” Karen said. “I need more money for my store.”

“How about Saturday?” Sarah said.

“Fine by me, just tell Greta about the plan,” Karen said. She looked out the window in her second-floor apartment; not a cloud in the sky. The weatherman predicted a scorcher.

Sarah remained quiet.

“What’s the matter?” Karen said. “The guy died from natural causes, didn’t he?” 

“Yes,” Sarah said. “But the police know other people partied at the scene.”

“How do they know?” Karen said.

“We left the three sharpened weenie roast sticks, and the bum didn’t have a knife,” Sarah said. “And why did he need three sticks?”

Damn! She was usually so good at the little details. Sarah did say they roasted wienies. Why couldn’t they have used reusable roasting sticks? Stay calm. “So? As far as anybody knows, those sticks could have been there for a while,” Karen said.

“They say the ends of the sticks were too freshly carved to have been there for a long time,” Sarah said.

Stay calm. “Hopefully you guys didn’t eat from them,” Karen said. “If your mouths touched the sticks, DNA could be there.”

“Uh…I don’t remember if we did,” Sarah said. “We were pretty out-of-it.”

Karen harumphed. “Well then, the only action we can take now is to wait it out. We’ll have to keep the jewelry for a while until all this blows over.”

“Good idea,” Sara said. “I’ll tell Greta right away.”

“Okay. Bye.” She hit the disconnect button.

The police detectives decided that kids must have been around the site shortly before Mr. Tulane died. The jewelry store that Mr. Tulane and the others robbed kept good inventory, but it went out of business and the inventory was lost in police custody. Karen, Sarah, and Greta kept their shares of the jewelry. It was too beautiful to pawn and much better to wear, although they had to wait decades.