CHAPTER NINETEEN
Scheming the Schemes
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved
The next few days proved just as baffling. Alexis was convinced that the man in the photograph, taken by the Canadian Press--Canada's national newswire and online news source covering Canada in English and French—was Sean. He’d obviously shaven his hair and grown out a monstrosity of a beard to disguise himself. To the uneducated eye, he looked a totally different person. But she could see it in his eyes.
All Davies, or anyone Davies asked around the news floor, knew about Kelly Williamson was that he was in incisive trial lawyer with a recently founded legal firm Schifini, Mitsumi, and Holt out of Halifax. They represented Anthony McGinnis, et. al. in his determined and incredibly fast-tracked land ownership case. His direct phone calls to the firm were met with his unavailability and screeners upon screeners.
Alexis drove down to the firm’s listed address the very next morning. She was told that Mr. Williamson was away from the office and would be away indefinitely. The Administrative Assistants seemed to have been trained in keeping folks away from this illusive Mr. Williamson. All she was able to acquire was a company profile with Williamson’s biography laid out in a short blurb:
KELLY WILLIAMSON, ESQ.-
-UCLA School of Law Graduated with J.D. (top 1% of class).
-Canadian Jurisprudence Award for Business Associations
-Trial Counsel & Legal Assistance Attorney (private practice)
-Land Custody & Estate Specialist
-Administrative Separation Board Certified
-Senior Advisor to Provincial Commanders
Why would a Canadian trial lawyer, one who’s entire practice has been in the realm of Canadian law, attain his J.D. from UCLA? It was a dead give away. Davies was still a bit skeptical, though. Many Canadians would leave Canada in pursuit of higher education from other countries. The States are a major target for that population, though many also go abroad for their studies. After they graduate, they return and work close to home with their families and friends—akin to students going away for college or graduate school and then returning as, say, doctors, to work in their hometown.
No photograph was included in the bio.
Alexis spent the next few days driving around Mahone Bay in her rental car looking for some sign. The town was one of the most beautiful towns she’d seen: Situated on a bay of more than 100 islands, it was a capital of history, culture and 19th century architecture. The charming main street hosted an assortment of art galleries, shops and living museums - all within an easy stroll.
Romantic restaurants and small inns complemented the serenity and natural beauty of the distinctive township. Folks would be out on their sailboats and in their kayaks all day, it seemed. It was a very laid back and relaxing place.
She sensed a certain majesty the first time she laid eyes on Oak Island itself. It was connected to the mainland by a dirt causeway some sixty yards in length. Heavily fortified, any passerby would think it was a military base: Heavy drilling equipment two full size T-cranes, lighting fixtures all around and a massive array of barbed wire fencing surrounding nearly the circumference of the island. Guards, with guns, no less, were stationed at the causeway.
Alexis drove down to the causeway gate, despite the numerous NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OFF signs, posing as a lost tourist. She was spoken to quite sternly and directed back onto the main highway with only a gas station reference from the guards.
She drove about and snooped around town, stopping in for some lunch at a place called the Mug and Anchor, a lively bar/restaurant featuring a three-piece blues band that played all day long. She asked a few of the locals about Oak Island and how they felt about all that was going on. Few were responsive, if that. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn’t hide her foreigner’s appeal; perhaps the desperation that seeped through her demeanor cued people to withhold. She sensed some enstiflement. These people, though simple and kind, were suspicious of anyone who’d bring up Oak Island or Anthony McGinnis. It seemed to her that the people of Mahone Bay were very weary of out-of-towners.
Then, she’d driven back up to Halifax and touch base with Davies, who had to follow up a few other stories he was developing and running some of his daily errands.
Throughout this initial part of the search, Alexis had to decide whether or not to let her friends and family back home know what was going on. After some thought, she decidedly chose to keep her discoveries of late to herself. She didn’t want to raise the hopes of Sean’s family without concrete evidence (although she was certain his parents would recognize him in the press photo).
They worked out of Davies’s home. Their aim was to find out as much about Anthony McGinnis and Kelly Williamson as possible. To their surprise, however, they were met with dead end after dead end. Nearly every website that popped up for the key words “Anthony McGinnis” was “under construction” or not existent. This international philanthropist who had been at the center of a somewhat significant land-deal was a virtual personae-non-grata. Davies had been working off of an extensive bio the profile room at the Herald had furnished him about Anthony McGinnis. When he inquired how they came up with the information, he found that McGinnis’s lawyer’s law firm provided the bio to them. So, Alexis and Davies turned to a more wide-ranging resource.
The Public Archives of Nova Scotia had created a new online digitized print resource. With funding assistance from Industry Canada, the Archives produced a fully digitized version of Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia—the most comprehensive record of public documents available to the populace. The original book, published first in 1967, Place-Names is still the best source available for basic, reliable and easily accessed information about Nova Scotia's cities, towns and villages. Over 2400 communities appear in Place-Names, in alphabetical order and accompanied by a brief, concise entry describing community highlights such as first settlement, first churches, first schools, primary industries, significant events and, most importantly to Davies and Alexis, notable citizens.
Davies had used the source as an invaluable supply for a wide range of heritage interests--from genealogical research to environmental studies to landmark dates for community development. The online version was fully searchable by community name or by county, and accompanied by a selection of period postcards taken from the Archives' photographic holdings.
Alexis was very impressed. She was aware of the digitized-library movement underway in the States. Only a few databases, mostly classified, were completely digitized. The Google Organization, who she interned for a brief period during graduate school, began with the intention of digitizing libraries but quickly turned to the more lucrative cataloging of websites as their initial ambition proved too costly-both in time and money. Only recently, after their enormous success with their search engine enterprise, had they returned to working with major universities in compiling an online library. To see Nova Scotia so ahead of the public information retrieval game curve was a bit of a bolt from the blue to her.
What they discovered was that, although there were many Anthony McGinnis’s listed, none of them were the man Davies had been reporting about. He was a near phantom. The same turnout came about when searching Kelly Williamson.
Davies had phoned an old friend, Detective Nolan with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and pulled in a favor. A few months ago, Nolan was the Best Man at a friends wedding. In his role as safe-keeper of the wedding ring, he had proven to be an absolute misery: He’d forgotten the ring at his apartment—the day of the wedding! Davies, in a madcap dash that would rival a COPS episode, had driven through rush hour traffic to Nolan’s apartment to cover for him. Nolan owed Davies and big.
“I’m sorry buddy,” claimed Nolan on the phone, “It’s showing up as classified. I couldn’t get any information about it if I tried. He probably worked as a consultant for the government. As for Williamson, it’s not showing a match in Halifax. I can try the county if you’d like.”
“You know who I’m talking about though, right?” asked a frustrated Davies.
“I think I do. Anthony McGinnis…uh…he’s the guy you’ve been writing about, right? What’s his story?”
“No. I mean Kelly Williamson. Never mind, pal,” replied a hopeless Davies, “Gimme a call this weekend. We’ll…uh…I don’t know…we’ll go curling, ey?”
Alexis had gotten to downloading any pertinent information she could find off the Public Archive’s site. She could not believe the tomes and tomes of information and lore she was able to retrieve about Oak Island. One of the more mesmerizing ones was a landscape and mining-history report dated about a year and a half ago, which read:
“…one of the last major hunts for the treasure was conducted by the Neptune Alliance Company. With the aid of resources from IBM, they managed to relocate the original shaft and sunk what has come to be known as Borehole 10-X. The hole was dug down to a depth of 217 feet below the surface. Although nothing was struck, they continued on their search. In March of 1974, an underwater camera was sent into Borehole 10-X and the results were incredible. The camera drifted down to the 217 feet mark and found nothing. The murky waters made visibility next to nil. As the camera withdrew back to the surface, it encountered an incredible image--a severed human hand. The hand floated in front of the camera and then began to drift ot the side. The camera was controlled by a remote control system operated by a crew in a shack on the surface. As the camera followed the hand, it recorded what appeared to be a chest handle. The camera then pulled back to try to encompass the entire object. As it pulled into focus, the most startling image was revealed: A human body hunched over a small chest. Both the body and the chest began to drift out of frame due to the mud swirls created by the camera. Despite repeated attempts, the camera never caught site of any of the aforementioned objects again."
“Well Ms. Walls,” spoke the journalist, “It appears as if you have something of a story here: A ghost would leave more of a trail than McGinnis or Williamson have. I want to get my Editor to approve an investigation. That way, we can expand our…”
“No!” exclaimed the woman, “That’s not a good idea. There must be a reason why Sean is communicating with me incognito. Let’s just keep this between us for now. I think he’s living under this other name and can’t…or won’t… ”
Davies began noticing a rash tone in Alexis’s speech.
“Alright, it’s a bad idea. But there’s something here, Alexis. I was only able to trace Kelly Williamson back two years,” he continued, “He has no address other than his firm’s office in Halifax. I called around—no high school records, no dental records. He just appeared out of thin air. Close as I can say, he’s in his late thirties.”
“I remember seeing him once—he was walking out of the courthouse behind McGinnis. Never spoke. They seemed to be sharing some confidential information with one another. Of course McGinnis’s bodyguards always surrounded them. It was near impossible just getting within twenty feet of the guy. You’d think he was the Pope or something. Good, honest folk don’t need that much protection,” declared Davies.
The two were now driving back to the Herald’s headquarters. Alexis had been unusually quiet. The time was 4:36pm but it didn’t feel like it; it got darker much faster in Nova Scotia than back in California.
“We’ve got to do it,” Alexis calmly said.
“Do what?”
“We’ve got to get in direct contact with McGinnis. I’ve come this far; I can’t quit now. He’s the link to Williamson and Williamson is my husband! Something’s going on and I’m going to find out what’s what,” she said angrily.
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Davies.
“Where is McGinnis now?”
“Where he spends most of his time—in his compound on the island,” he said automatically.
“Then we’ve got to go,” Alexis proclaimed as she bit her fingernail.
“Where? On the island?! Are you out of your mind?” shouted Davies.
“It’s the only way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Chapters
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, 23, 24, 25, Epilogue
Scheming the Schemes
Copyright 2004, All Rights Reserved
The next few days proved just as baffling. Alexis was convinced that the man in the photograph, taken by the Canadian Press--Canada's national newswire and online news source covering Canada in English and French—was Sean. He’d obviously shaven his hair and grown out a monstrosity of a beard to disguise himself. To the uneducated eye, he looked a totally different person. But she could see it in his eyes.
All Davies, or anyone Davies asked around the news floor, knew about Kelly Williamson was that he was in incisive trial lawyer with a recently founded legal firm Schifini, Mitsumi, and Holt out of Halifax. They represented Anthony McGinnis, et. al. in his determined and incredibly fast-tracked land ownership case. His direct phone calls to the firm were met with his unavailability and screeners upon screeners.
Alexis drove down to the firm’s listed address the very next morning. She was told that Mr. Williamson was away from the office and would be away indefinitely. The Administrative Assistants seemed to have been trained in keeping folks away from this illusive Mr. Williamson. All she was able to acquire was a company profile with Williamson’s biography laid out in a short blurb:
KELLY WILLIAMSON, ESQ.-
-UCLA School of Law Graduated with J.D. (top 1% of class).
-Canadian Jurisprudence Award for Business Associations
-Trial Counsel & Legal Assistance Attorney (private practice)
-Land Custody & Estate Specialist
-Administrative Separation Board Certified
-Senior Advisor to Provincial Commanders
Why would a Canadian trial lawyer, one who’s entire practice has been in the realm of Canadian law, attain his J.D. from UCLA? It was a dead give away. Davies was still a bit skeptical, though. Many Canadians would leave Canada in pursuit of higher education from other countries. The States are a major target for that population, though many also go abroad for their studies. After they graduate, they return and work close to home with their families and friends—akin to students going away for college or graduate school and then returning as, say, doctors, to work in their hometown.
No photograph was included in the bio.
Alexis spent the next few days driving around Mahone Bay in her rental car looking for some sign. The town was one of the most beautiful towns she’d seen: Situated on a bay of more than 100 islands, it was a capital of history, culture and 19th century architecture. The charming main street hosted an assortment of art galleries, shops and living museums - all within an easy stroll.
Romantic restaurants and small inns complemented the serenity and natural beauty of the distinctive township. Folks would be out on their sailboats and in their kayaks all day, it seemed. It was a very laid back and relaxing place.
She sensed a certain majesty the first time she laid eyes on Oak Island itself. It was connected to the mainland by a dirt causeway some sixty yards in length. Heavily fortified, any passerby would think it was a military base: Heavy drilling equipment two full size T-cranes, lighting fixtures all around and a massive array of barbed wire fencing surrounding nearly the circumference of the island. Guards, with guns, no less, were stationed at the causeway.
Alexis drove down to the causeway gate, despite the numerous NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE PROPERTY-KEEP OFF signs, posing as a lost tourist. She was spoken to quite sternly and directed back onto the main highway with only a gas station reference from the guards.
She drove about and snooped around town, stopping in for some lunch at a place called the Mug and Anchor, a lively bar/restaurant featuring a three-piece blues band that played all day long. She asked a few of the locals about Oak Island and how they felt about all that was going on. Few were responsive, if that. Maybe it was the fact that she couldn’t hide her foreigner’s appeal; perhaps the desperation that seeped through her demeanor cued people to withhold. She sensed some enstiflement. These people, though simple and kind, were suspicious of anyone who’d bring up Oak Island or Anthony McGinnis. It seemed to her that the people of Mahone Bay were very weary of out-of-towners.
Then, she’d driven back up to Halifax and touch base with Davies, who had to follow up a few other stories he was developing and running some of his daily errands.
Throughout this initial part of the search, Alexis had to decide whether or not to let her friends and family back home know what was going on. After some thought, she decidedly chose to keep her discoveries of late to herself. She didn’t want to raise the hopes of Sean’s family without concrete evidence (although she was certain his parents would recognize him in the press photo).
They worked out of Davies’s home. Their aim was to find out as much about Anthony McGinnis and Kelly Williamson as possible. To their surprise, however, they were met with dead end after dead end. Nearly every website that popped up for the key words “Anthony McGinnis” was “under construction” or not existent. This international philanthropist who had been at the center of a somewhat significant land-deal was a virtual personae-non-grata. Davies had been working off of an extensive bio the profile room at the Herald had furnished him about Anthony McGinnis. When he inquired how they came up with the information, he found that McGinnis’s lawyer’s law firm provided the bio to them. So, Alexis and Davies turned to a more wide-ranging resource.
The Public Archives of Nova Scotia had created a new online digitized print resource. With funding assistance from Industry Canada, the Archives produced a fully digitized version of Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia—the most comprehensive record of public documents available to the populace. The original book, published first in 1967, Place-Names is still the best source available for basic, reliable and easily accessed information about Nova Scotia's cities, towns and villages. Over 2400 communities appear in Place-Names, in alphabetical order and accompanied by a brief, concise entry describing community highlights such as first settlement, first churches, first schools, primary industries, significant events and, most importantly to Davies and Alexis, notable citizens.
Davies had used the source as an invaluable supply for a wide range of heritage interests--from genealogical research to environmental studies to landmark dates for community development. The online version was fully searchable by community name or by county, and accompanied by a selection of period postcards taken from the Archives' photographic holdings.
Alexis was very impressed. She was aware of the digitized-library movement underway in the States. Only a few databases, mostly classified, were completely digitized. The Google Organization, who she interned for a brief period during graduate school, began with the intention of digitizing libraries but quickly turned to the more lucrative cataloging of websites as their initial ambition proved too costly-both in time and money. Only recently, after their enormous success with their search engine enterprise, had they returned to working with major universities in compiling an online library. To see Nova Scotia so ahead of the public information retrieval game curve was a bit of a bolt from the blue to her.
What they discovered was that, although there were many Anthony McGinnis’s listed, none of them were the man Davies had been reporting about. He was a near phantom. The same turnout came about when searching Kelly Williamson.
Davies had phoned an old friend, Detective Nolan with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and pulled in a favor. A few months ago, Nolan was the Best Man at a friends wedding. In his role as safe-keeper of the wedding ring, he had proven to be an absolute misery: He’d forgotten the ring at his apartment—the day of the wedding! Davies, in a madcap dash that would rival a COPS episode, had driven through rush hour traffic to Nolan’s apartment to cover for him. Nolan owed Davies and big.
“I’m sorry buddy,” claimed Nolan on the phone, “It’s showing up as classified. I couldn’t get any information about it if I tried. He probably worked as a consultant for the government. As for Williamson, it’s not showing a match in Halifax. I can try the county if you’d like.”
“You know who I’m talking about though, right?” asked a frustrated Davies.
“I think I do. Anthony McGinnis…uh…he’s the guy you’ve been writing about, right? What’s his story?”
“No. I mean Kelly Williamson. Never mind, pal,” replied a hopeless Davies, “Gimme a call this weekend. We’ll…uh…I don’t know…we’ll go curling, ey?”
Alexis had gotten to downloading any pertinent information she could find off the Public Archive’s site. She could not believe the tomes and tomes of information and lore she was able to retrieve about Oak Island. One of the more mesmerizing ones was a landscape and mining-history report dated about a year and a half ago, which read:
“…one of the last major hunts for the treasure was conducted by the Neptune Alliance Company. With the aid of resources from IBM, they managed to relocate the original shaft and sunk what has come to be known as Borehole 10-X. The hole was dug down to a depth of 217 feet below the surface. Although nothing was struck, they continued on their search. In March of 1974, an underwater camera was sent into Borehole 10-X and the results were incredible. The camera drifted down to the 217 feet mark and found nothing. The murky waters made visibility next to nil. As the camera withdrew back to the surface, it encountered an incredible image--a severed human hand. The hand floated in front of the camera and then began to drift ot the side. The camera was controlled by a remote control system operated by a crew in a shack on the surface. As the camera followed the hand, it recorded what appeared to be a chest handle. The camera then pulled back to try to encompass the entire object. As it pulled into focus, the most startling image was revealed: A human body hunched over a small chest. Both the body and the chest began to drift out of frame due to the mud swirls created by the camera. Despite repeated attempts, the camera never caught site of any of the aforementioned objects again."
“Well Ms. Walls,” spoke the journalist, “It appears as if you have something of a story here: A ghost would leave more of a trail than McGinnis or Williamson have. I want to get my Editor to approve an investigation. That way, we can expand our…”
“No!” exclaimed the woman, “That’s not a good idea. There must be a reason why Sean is communicating with me incognito. Let’s just keep this between us for now. I think he’s living under this other name and can’t…or won’t… ”
Davies began noticing a rash tone in Alexis’s speech.
“Alright, it’s a bad idea. But there’s something here, Alexis. I was only able to trace Kelly Williamson back two years,” he continued, “He has no address other than his firm’s office in Halifax. I called around—no high school records, no dental records. He just appeared out of thin air. Close as I can say, he’s in his late thirties.”
“I remember seeing him once—he was walking out of the courthouse behind McGinnis. Never spoke. They seemed to be sharing some confidential information with one another. Of course McGinnis’s bodyguards always surrounded them. It was near impossible just getting within twenty feet of the guy. You’d think he was the Pope or something. Good, honest folk don’t need that much protection,” declared Davies.
The two were now driving back to the Herald’s headquarters. Alexis had been unusually quiet. The time was 4:36pm but it didn’t feel like it; it got darker much faster in Nova Scotia than back in California.
“We’ve got to do it,” Alexis calmly said.
“Do what?”
“We’ve got to get in direct contact with McGinnis. I’ve come this far; I can’t quit now. He’s the link to Williamson and Williamson is my husband! Something’s going on and I’m going to find out what’s what,” she said angrily.
“What do you suggest we do?” asked Davies.
“Where is McGinnis now?”
“Where he spends most of his time—in his compound on the island,” he said automatically.
“Then we’ve got to go,” Alexis proclaimed as she bit her fingernail.
“Where? On the island?! Are you out of your mind?” shouted Davies.
“It’s the only way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Chapters
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 & 22, 23, 24, 25, Epilogue
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