Airtight Case (21 page)

“You son of a bitch, I’m going to kill you!” Trent shouted at Dillon. “He’s been stealing from me.”

“Dillon?” asked Drew.

“Where is it? What did you do with my stuff?” Trent shouted.

“Gone, you stupid bastard!”

“Damn you!” Trent tried to lunge for Dillon, but Byron shoved him off balance, slamming him into the wall. Trent doubled over, trying to catch his breath.

“Stop this! Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on here!”

There were so many people crowded together, Lindsay was having trouble breathing. She hung back near the door, giving herself an escape route in case she had to flee. Dillon had calmed down enough that his brother and Adam let him go.

“Drugs. That’s what’s going on. That stupid shit’s been going down to the basement to do his drugs.”

“You’re a liar!” shouted Claire.

“Duh . . . Claire.” Dillon rapped his knuckles on his forehead. “Why do you think he’s so pissed at me? I took his drugs and shit and got rid of them. If he wasn’t doing drugs, then he’d have no beef with me. Get it?” Dillon turned and faced Drew. “We’re about to get the attention of NASA, the army, and the news media. We don’t need Trent getting us all in trouble because he’s some kind of damned addict. You’ve not done anything . . .”

“I had no proof,” Drew interrupted. “Now, let’s everyone go back to bed and we’ll sort this out in the morning.”

“He’s not sleeping in our room.” Powell pointed an angry finger at Trent.

“Trent, why don’t you sleep on the couch in the living room? We’ll talk tomorrow,” suggested Drew.

“This isn’t finished.” Trent was breathing hard, but the fight in him seemed to have evaporated.

“No,” agreed Drew. “But we’ll finish it tomorrow. Now, go to bed, all of you.”

“Well,” said Kelsey on the way back upstairs, “at least now we know who wears tighty whiteys and who wears boxers.”

“You mean you didn’t know already?” asked Marina, ducking before Kelsey could cuff her shoulder.

By morning the storm had stopped, leaving the cove soaked. Lindsay couldn’t face breakfast with the crew, so she took a walk in the woods instead. Listening to the melodic sounds of birds and rushing water was more soothing to the soul than wind blowing through the house or the bickering of the crew. She hoped the freshly cleaned forest wouldn’t hold the shadow that had dogged her. All the deadwood, dust, and sin would be washed and stripped away, leaving the pure forest she loved. It had, more or less. The canopy dripped water like rain falling and the forest litter was soft under her feet. She sucked in the mountain air as if it were life.

“Is this my lot in life, coming to drag you out of the woods?”

Lindsay laughed at the sound of John’s voice. She turned and held out her arms. “Looks that way. What are you doing here?”

He pulled her into an embrace and a kiss. The smell of him was familiar and comforting—and safe. Maybe that’s what she should do, maybe she should leave with John. Let the troublemakers solve their own problems. There were better things in life than this site.

“I talked to Dad last night. He asked me if I was taking good care of you.”

“Oh? What did he say?”

“Only that. But when he says something like that, it lets me know that I’m not.”

She kissed John again and held on to him. “I think tracking me down when I was lost and rescuing me from my would-be murderers a couple of months ago comes under the heading of taking good care of me.”

He put her hands to his lips. “I just have a few hours, but I thought we could drive somewhere for lunch. Can you get away?”

“I’d love it, and today’s a good day. It rained last night and the site’s too wet to work. Drew wants to let it dry out a day. How did you find me out here?”

“I asked at the house. That’s a strange bunch of people you have up there.”

Water dripped on John’s face, and Lindsay wiped it away with her fingers. “You’ve got that right. What did they do strange this time?”

“I went in—I thought it was all right not to knock—anyway, I heard talking and found everyone eating breakfast in the dining room.”

“You must have been a surprise to them.”

He caught her hands and held them to his chest. “No more than they were to me. They looked at me for several seconds. I think someone groaned, then this woman stood up and announced that Indians didn’t bury their dead in lead coffins. I have no idea what she meant by that, but I agreed and asked where you were. Someone told me you’d just walked down into the woods toward the stream.”

Lindsay laughed out loud. “We found some very old lead coffins. They must have thought you were here to protest us opening a burial.” Lindsay kept hold of his hand and continued walking.

“You’re expecting protesters? Wait, aren’t we going deeper into the woods? You want to go back?”

“Someone will probably kick up a fuss . . . Just a little ways further—there’s a small waterfall up ahead.”

“You archaeologists don’t like to leave people in the ground, do you?”

Lindsay leaned into him, pushing him off balance. “These aren’t your ancestors, they’re mine.”

“I’m sorry I haven’t been in closer touch.” John put a hand on the back of her neck, under her hair, rubbing her skin with his fingertips.

“I just spoke with you last week. Besides, we do better this way. Did you have any trouble finding the cove?”

He shook his head. “Dogwood Cove’s not hard to find.”

“Dogwood Cove? Is that what you call it?”

“It’s what you guys call it, too, you just don’t know it. Ka-nv-si-ta is Cherokee for Dogwood. We’ve always thought that Knave’s Seat is a corruption of that.”

The sound of the falls grew loud as they got nearer, drowning out the other sounds.

“I like Dogwood better.”

“We do, too. You been doing okay?”

“I’m all right.”

“Is that true?”

“I’m . . . handling it.”

“What ‘it’ are you handling?”

“Fear. I can’t seem to get away from it. I’m scared of everything. Last night some of the guys got into a fight. It terrified me.”

They turned a curve in the path and were at the falls, a four-foot drop of white water boiling over large boulders.

“Isn’t this breathtaking?” She stood and looked at the falls for several moments. “Do you feel connected to this place?”

John looked for several seconds at the falls, the mountain laurel, and the thick canopy above him before he answered.

“Yes, I suppose I do.” They walked to the edge of the creek, and he squatted and dipped his hands in the cold, clear water.

“My great-great-great-grandfather lived to the south of here. He had two brothers who lived up here in these mountains. There weren’t many whites living here at that time, but like the rain, they were settling in low places where the earth was rich.”

He stood up and dried his wet hands on his jeans. “They came here, not knowing how to survive the hard winters. My ancestors took pity on a family of settlers in the valley and gave them dried pumpkin to get them through the winter. There was also a quarrelsome white hunter who settled high in the mountains. He knew how to feed himself and his family and didn’t need help.

“In 1838, the government drove my people from their lands and forced their relocation into the far West. My great-great-great-grandfather’s land to the south, which he owned by deed and purchase, was also taken from him. He escaped with his family to these mountains to join his brothers and their families in hiding.

“He found when he got here that the man whose family my people had saved had repaid their kindness by turning them over to the soldiers and volunteering to help enforce their march to the west. The quarrelsome white hunter in the mountains hid and protected the other brother and his family and gave them food.

“When I was a kid and my father told me this story, I never understood how a man whose family you saved would not return the deed. I could only assume they didn’t like dried pumpkin.” John stroked Lindsay on the cheek with the back of his fingers. “These mountains hid my family. Yes, I feel connected.”

Lindsay hugged him to her. “I’m glad you came.”

They started back, arms threaded through each other’s.

“I wish I could stay here with you.”

“I need to get through this myself.” She hesitated before adding. “I’ve apparently hallucinated a couple of times.”

John stopped, gripped her shoulders, and turned her toward him. “Hallucinated? How? Have you called your doctor?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I’m not crazy.”

“I didn’t say that. But this is something your doctor needs to hear about.”

“Your father said it may be a good thing. Or at least, not a bad thing.”

“My father? You talked to him?”

“He called.”

“My father called?” He said it as if that were another hallucination.

Lindsay explained the incident in the mirror, her running out to sleep in the Explorer, and his father calling in the morning on her car phone.

“Is that what he said—he thought he was calling Emily?”

“Yes. Obviously, read the wrong number.”

“Dad’s full of surprises. But I think you need to mention it to . . .”

“Well, I’m not going to.”

“Okay. I give up—for now. Where’s a good place for lunch?”

“How about freshwater trout?”

“Sounds great. I could go for that. You can tell me about your lead coffins over lunch.”

* * *

Lunch with John was a welcome change from the zoo at the house and was over too soon. But it left her feeling safe as she drove to the local library to meet Elaine McBride. The library was one of the newer buildings in Kelley’s Chase. The one-story yellow-brick building was in the middle of town, just off the main road near a real estate office and the post office.

Besides the main room with rows of metal shelves filled with books, and a couple of offices, the library had an auditorium, a computer room with two computers, and a room dedicated to the historical society. Elaine was waiting by the front desk when she arrived, talking to a young woman with thick brown curly hair and eyes the color of a Hershey’s bar.

“Hi, Lindsay. This is Afton Phillips—one of the librarians.”

Afton looked barely out of high school. She held out her hand and grinned, showing a deep set of dimples on a face that appeared to be in perpetually genuine good humor. “Hi. Mrs. McBride tells me you are new at the site.”

“I’ve only been here about a week and a half or so.”

“Must be fun digging in the dirt all day.”

“It is. You’ll have to come out some time and have a look at the excavation.”

“Thanks. I’d love that.”

Elaine led the way to the historical society’s room, her heels clicking on the shiny green-and-white-tile floor. Lindsay’s jeans and Archaeology Club T-shirt with the skeleton of a rat and the name
Rattus rattus
on the front were a stark contrast to Elaine’s silk beige pantsuit and a gold chain neckless. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a small ponytail.

“You said you want to look first at the Hope Foute diary?” As she spoke, Elaine retrieved a spiral-bound notebook from the shelf. “This is a copy. Will that be all right? We have the original, but . . .”

“A copy is fine.” Lindsay sat down with the document. “The records show that the Gallowses bought the land from Clarence Foute. So, something in his wife’s diary may hold a clue to the writing on the floor. However, we have to realize that the writing could have occurred anytime between when the cabin was built and the present. Someone who owned the cabin before the Gallowses or someone in the Gallows household could have written it. Or someone could have come in the abandoned cabin and written graffiti on the floor.”

“Oh, I hadn’t really thought that it might have been done so recently.” Elaine looked disappointed.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll come across something that will give us a clue. Do you know if this is the only volume of her diary? This is limited to the 1830s. Might she have kept a diary before that?”

“I don’t know, really. It’s the only one we have, but her descendants may have more.”

“Where did the historical society come by the diary?”

“Hope Foute’s granddaughter bequeathed it to the town. It was kept in a vault at the courthouse and forgotten for a long time. Then someone remembered seeing it and gave it to the society.”

“Is there any way to contact other descendants?”

“I’ll look into it.” Elaine took out a notebook and began writing. “This is fun. It’s like solving a mystery.”

“Exactly.” Lindsay started on the first page scanning the diary. For the most part, it contained information she had already learned in the survey reports. Hope Foute wrote about her husband’s patients, her neighbors, her four children and sixteen grandchildren, and her older spinster sister, Faith Redmond, whom she cared for until she died. It was interesting and full of good information about the time and manners of the cove folk, but completely unenlightening about the mysterious floor carvings or any previous occupants of the Gallows cabin.

Elaine put on a pair of white gloves and began looking through old letters of the era.

“If you don’t mind,” Lindsay asked, “look for anything that has the word
Beau
or
Turkeyville
. Maybe we’ll get really lucky and solve Tidwell’s mystery as well.”

“You think maybe Miss Tidwell did give her documents to the historical society?”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

“Yes, I suppose it’s possible, but she wasn’t a person to give away something she could sell. Did Mr. Tidwell have any idea what the documents were about?” asked Elaine.

“None. Do you have provenance on all the documents here in the archives?”

“You mean, like where they came from?”

“Yes.”

“I think we do. The librarian probably knows where they came from. I’ll go ask if Miss Tidwell donated anything.” Elaine was gone for about fifteen minutes. “Sorry I took so long. I had to call the head librarian. She’s at home today. She said she didn’t think Miss Tidwell donated or sold anything to the library or the historical society.”

“Not quite an answer, is it?”