Page 59 of The 9th Man

“What is it?” Luke asked.

“Something’s off.”

“Like what?”

“This,” she said, pointing to the lamp on the bedside table, lying on its side, the shade askew. “Several times in his delirium Benji mentioned peonies. It was strange. I just ignored it. I thought he meant the flower, but could he have meant this.”

The vase-like lamp, about six inches wide, was painted a dark green, the exterior covered in peonies, the deeply lobed leaves in varying shades of white and yellow.

“He never used this lamp,” she said. “He said it was too bright. The last time I turned it on, he barked at me.”

She lifted the lamp and removed the shade, then the finial.

“What are you noticing?” he asked.

“Not what I’m noticing. What he said.”

He was listening.

“People might see.That’s what he said when I switched it on. He said it more than once. I never thought much of it, just part of the morphine, until now.”

She turned the lamp over. Nothing there. At the top, an octagonal-shaped nut below the bulb held the mount in place.

“Shake it,” he said.

She did. No sound or movement. Then he noticed something near the nut. Scratch marks in the glass.

“You see those,” he said.

“I do. Strange place for them. And they’re circular.”

Like the nut had been repeatedly unscrewed.

“Can’t hurt to look.”

She cradled the base with her left arm and gripped the silver nut between her thumb and first finger. Which turned. Easily. She unscrewed the nut from the threaded post. Beneath it was a silver cap that topped the painted glass pedestal. She lifted the cap away revealing a hollow interior filled with a towel. He reached in and carefully removed the tan-colored terry cloth. What remained inside were two pieces of curled white paper.

“Clever boy,” he murmured.

On the sheet appeared a drawing.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Not sure. A symbol, map, code?”

On the other sheet were blocks of random numbers, above each, either a single letter or a word.

“Did Benji have a code or shorthand he used?”

Lots of military folks did.

“Not that I know of,” she said.

“This is a key to a code,” he said.

Together they scanned the two sheets looking for any clue as to their meaning or purpose. On the drawing, there was nothing save the four symbols in each corner, an arrow with 6r? before it, and some letters, M, E, H.

“Let’s search this place again,” she said. “If Benji got this past the police, who knows what else there might be.”

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