Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 02 - Apple Pots and Funeral Plots (17 page)

I set the menu down.
“Okay, you’re the locals.
What’s good in this place?”

“Everything,” Kate replied, barely looking up from the menu.
“But my favorite is the prime rib.”
She peeked over her menu and frowned.
“Is that too expensive?”

“Nope.
Order what you want.”

Her eyes lit up.
“Great!”
She set the menu down.
“Then I’m having the prime rib.”

Bill gave his daughter a stern look and then asked me, “Are you sure?
The prime rib is twenty bucks.”

“Hey, if it weren’t for them I’d be sitting in a mine eating a granola bar I found in Kate’s backpack.”

“Yuck, that’s from over a year ago.”
Kate scowled.

I pointed to Kate and Ted.
“See?
They saved me from eating old food, too.”

Bill shook his head and returned to studying his menu.
I knew he was looking for something less expensive than prime rib, since I was paying.
I put my hand on his arm.
“And don’t forget, you rescued me from my car the other day.”

“You don’t owe me an expensive dinner for that.”

“I know, but let me buy you one anyway.”

Bill went back to studying his menu.
Finally, he ordered a rack of ribs.
Both Ted and Kate had prime rib.
I had trouble deciding but in the end I ordered prime rib, too.
What the heck?
If I was going to blow my budget, I might as well enjoy it too.

During dinner, we talked about everything but the dead body we had seen earlier.
We discussed the eating contests and which ones Ted would do well in.
Kate and Ted talked about some of the carnival rides.
Kate pointed out which ones she refused to get on because they creaked when they went around.
I wanted to ask Kate if she had been in the mineshaft when they opened the dead woman’s purse, but I wasn’t sure it would make great dinner conversation.

Finally dessert arrived – apple pots, what else?
At this point I couldn’t contain my curiosity.

“So Kate, did they find out who the woman was?”

“No.
Her purse didn’t have a wallet in it.”
Kate leaned forward.
“But they did find some kind of book under her body.”

“A book?
What kind?”

Kate
took several more bites of her dessert, then said, “It looked more like something you’d write in, maybe a diary.”

The butterflies did a flip-flop in my stomach.
“Could it have been a journal?”

“Maybe.”

“What color was it?”

“Red, I think.
It looked like it might have had a lacy cover at one time, but it was destroyed by the water.”

“Danielle Slammers had a red journal with white lace on it.
And it wasn’t found with her personal items.”

“Do you think it’s
Danielle
’s missing journal?”
Ted asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Well, the woman couldn’t have been Danielle Slammers.
We found her body,” Bill replied.

“But her sister is missing.”

“She is?”
Bill, Ted, and Kate said in unison.

“Yes.
She took a leave of absence after Danielle was killed and hasn’t been seen since.”
I leaned back in the booth.

“Do you think she came up here trying to figure out what happened to her sister?”
Ted asked.

“It’s possible.
Danielle may have sent her the journal and that’s why it wasn’t found with her stuff.”

“This is all speculation.
The woman in the mine could just be a tourist who liked to sketch old mines and got lost,” Bill offered.

“That’s true.”
Ted nodded.
“Sometimes the tourists who come here for the festival wander away from the town and can’t find their way back.”

“I can remember several who got lost.
We always spend hours looking for them.
A few even got into the mines.”
Bill glanced at me and smiled.
“Thankfully, we always find them.”

I ignored the obvious inference to my earlier situation and continued, “Well, if it was Danielle’s sister, I’d sure like to take a look at that journal.”

“It was pretty messed up.
She fell into one of the little streams that runs through the mines, and the journal had been lying in the mud.”

“Still it might give me some information about what Danielle was doing up here.”

“I’ll ask my brother about it, if you’d like.”

“That would be great, Bill.”
I smiled and then frowned.
“And what’s with Lieutenant Damson?”

He shrugged.
“I told you he was a bit egotistical.”

“He’s an idiot,” Ted added.

“More like an egomaniac,” Kate said, adding her two cents.

“Every time I see that man, I feel like I’m being threatened,” I said.

“He’s just trying to make sure you don’t get hurt,” Bill said.

“Yeah, right.”
I rolled my eyes at him.

We finished eating our desserts and I got to take home all four of the apple pots.
At this rate, I
would have
a complete set of eight before I went home.

Bill drove us back to his tow truck.
The place was completely deserted.
No cop cars, no coroner’s van, or any crime scene people.

“Where is everyone?”
I asked Bill.

“I guess they’re all done.”

I glanced at my watch.
It was only
nine o’clock
.
How could they have finished their investigation in only two hours?
Did they even bother to really look into this latest murder?
Is this how they investigated Danielle, Sally, and James’s deaths?

It seemed as if the whole time I had been in Clainsworth, all I had done was accumulate more questions than answers about people who died in their city.
What kind of place was this?
The bodies were piling up and nobody seemed to be doing anything about it.

Chapter 17

We all got out of the Mustang.

Kate got two flashlights out of her trunk.
“Ted and I are going to check out the opening of the mine.”
She nodded toward Ted.
“He wants to see what a crime scene looks like.”

Bill and I leaned against the car.
Neither of us spoke.
My stomach
churned and my palms sweat
.
A nice dinner and now we
stood
outside together next to a car.
This was too much like date.

“Thanks for the dinner, Liza.”
Bill finally broke the silence.

“You’re welcome, Bill, and thanks for pulling me out of my car.”

He turned and looked at me.
“Any chance of you dumping your boyfriend?”

I took a gulp.
“No, I’m afraid not.”

He leaned back against the car again.
“Okay, I was just making sure.”

Just then
Kate
and
Ted
came running back.

“There aren’t any yellow tapes or anything where they found the body,” Kate announced.
“Don’t you think there should be?”

“I would think so,” I said.

“Want to go in and take a look?”
Kate raised her eyebrows.

“Sure.”

“That’s not a good idea,” Bill insisted, his tone low and intent.

Kate put her hand on his shoulder.
“You can stay outside, Dad.”
Then she turned to me.
“He’s not a big fan of the mines.”

“Yeah, you can be the lookout,” Ted said.

“No, I think I’ll go with the three of you and keep you out of trouble.”

Kate got two more flashlights out of her trunk and handed one to Bill and one to me.
Then the four of us walked back into the mine.
I would have placed money that I’d never be back
in
them ever again, yet here I was.

Kate was a great guide.
She pointed out where timbers had fallen or holes were, making sure our footing was solid the entire way.
When we got to the place where the body had been, we shined our flashlights around the room.
Nothing had changed, except the removal of the body.
The wooden table was still in the corner, covered with dust and dirt.
The small trickle of water now flowed unobstructed by the body that had blocked it for so long.

I went over to the exact spot where the body had been and knelt down.
Because of the mud, the ground still held the impression of the body.
When I touched the spot where her head had been, a shiver ran up my back.
Why had she come to Clainsworth?
Was she just a lost tourist or Danielle’s sister searching for the answers to her sister’s death?
And if so, why had she come into the mine?

When I stood up, Kate, Bill, and Ted
stood
by the opening to the room.
Kate glanced over, “Do you want to see the waterfall?”

I glanced around the room.
There was nothing I could see that would help me figure out what happened to the woman in the mine.
“Sure, I’d love to see it.”

“It’s one of the more spectacular sights in this old decrepit mine,” Bill said.

Bill and I followed Kate and Ted through several shafts and finally came to a massive room.
On the back wall was a waterfall that started fifty feet above our heads, probably at ground level.
It ran down the back wall and into a pool, about six feet across.

“Where does the water come from?”
I asked Kate.

“From a small river that runs behind the mine.
It flows through a field and then down through a hole in the ground.”

“Like the one I fell through.”

“Exactly.
Then it fills up the pool.”

“Kate and I have even swum in the pool,” Ted said and then glanced guiltily at Bill.

“You’re not supposed to go into that pool.
It’s too deep and the current will pull you down,” he said angrily.
“You know that, Kate.”

“Of course I do,” she insisted.
“We tied a rope around our waists and then to one of the tables.
It was completely safe.”

“Where does this water go?”
I pointed to the pool trying to distract them.
If I hadn’t asked to go back into the mine, then Bill might never have known that his daughter went swimming in the forbidden pool.

“According to Mr. J, it goes down a hundred feet or so and then it finds it way back up into small streams in some of the shafts,” Kate continued, avoiding the stern looks from her dad.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bill said, heading toward the shaft we had entered through.

Kate called after him.
“You’re going to get lost, if you don’t wait for me.”

He stopped, but didn’t turn around.
“Then let’s go.”

Kate caught up to where her dad was and Ted and I followed.
By the time we came out of the mine, Bill was laughing at something Kate had said.
It was obvious she knew exactly how to handle her dad.

Ted and I reached them at the car.
“What’s so funny?”
Ted asked.

“I was telling Dad how you almost got loose from the rope when we went swimming.”
She punched him on the arm.
“You never could tie a good knot.”

“Thanks again for dinner,” Bill said.

“Yeah, thanks!” Kate and Ted said in unison.

“You’re all very welcome.”

Bill took Ted and Kate home in his tow truck and I drove back to the inn.
When I opened the door,
Shelby
was bouncing up and down and barking.
“Got to go, girl?”
I asked.

She barked again.

I decided to take
Shelby
for a nice long walk.
She needed it and I wanted to unwind and think about what I’d learned in the last few days.

All of the shops on
Main Street
were still open and the streets were busy with people.
I saw several of the eating contestants wandering around, including the small Asian man who’d eaten the most hotdogs in the preliminary contests.
I wonder if he actually won during the finals.
Right now, he was devouring a huge waffle cone overflowing with chocolate ice cream.
It looked good, even though I was still full from dinner.
Maybe on my way back down the street I’d get a small scoop.

Tomorrow I was supposed to read a story to the kids at the library, but I didn’t have any of my picture books with me.
Since everything else was open, I hoped the library would be too.
If it was, I’d pick out a book and practice using an expressive voice.
But when I walked by the library it was dark.
In fact, it was probably the only building not open.
I’d have to go early tomorrow and get a book.

Shelby and I got to the end of the street and turned around.
We stopped at the ice cream shop and I got my chocolate ice cream.
It was delicious.
We sat at one of the tables outside of the shop and I people watched while I licked my ice cream.

A few minutes later, Jimmy joined us.
“Hey,
Liza
.
How’s it going?”

“Fine.
But I’m a little surprised you guys are already done at the mine.”

“There wasn’t much to find.”

“That doesn’t seem possible, since there was a murder there.”

“We don’t know that it was a murder.”

“What else could it have been?”

“A lost tourist who fell, hit her head, and then drowned in a stream.”

“She drowned?”

“I don’t know.
I was just speculating.
We don’t have the autopsy results yet.
We just took the body over to Doc Gordon an hour or so ago.”

“Do you know who she was?”

“No.
Her wallet was missing from her purse.”

“What was in the purse?”

“Not much, just a couple of pens, a makeup case, and a small note pad.”

“No cell phone?”

“Nope.”

“Did you find any fingerprints?”

He laughed.
“It’s a mine.
It’s not easy to get fingerprints off sharp rocks.”

“What about other evidence around the body?”

“More rocks and dirt — that’s all there is in a mine.”

“When I left, you hadn’t moved the body yet.
So was there anything under the body?”
I wanted to get him to talk about the journal, but didn’t want to get Kate in trouble for sharing that information with me.

He raised his eyebrows.
“Yes, there was.”

“What was it?”

“A journal.”

“What color?”

“Red with some kind of white lace top.”

“Could you read anything that was in the journal?”
I asked, hoping for some information about why Danielle was investigating Sally’s death.

“Not much.
It looks like it sat in the muddy water too long.
You couldn’t read anything on the pages.”

“Could it have been Danielle’s journal?”

“It’s the right color and has the lace top like hers.
But I never saw her journal.”

“Edith did.
She might be able to identify it.
Danielle had it with her when she was interviewing her.”

“I’ll take it over to her tomorrow.”

“I’d love to take a look at it, too.”

He cocked his head and grinned.
“Then I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Excuse me?”
I raised my eyebrows.

“Not that kind.”
He blushed and shook his head.
“My girlfriend, Maggie, is in charge of the children’s eating contest tomorrow morning.”

“I didn’t know they even had a children’s contest.”

“It not official, just something we do with the local kids.”

“That’s nice.”
I said, although I thought the idea of letting kids stuff their face with food didn’t sound good to me.

“But she’s got a problem I think you can help her with.”

“What?”

“She’s got a terrible cold and she doesn’t think it’s a good idea for her to be around the kids.”

“Okay.”
I had a feeling about what was coming.

“I’ll let you take a look at the journal if you’ll organize the kids for the contests.”

My eyes went wide.
“Jimmy, I have no idea what to do with kids at an eating contests!”

He pulled out a piece of paper from his jacket.
“It’s all here.
Maggie wrote it down.
All you have to do is follow the list.”

“Did you specifically come looking for me tonight?”

“Yes, and I didn’t know how I
would
convince you to help me.”

“And then I just opened the door and walked right in, didn’t I?”

His smile broadened.
“Yep.”

I took the paper from Jimmy.
He started to say something, but I put up my hand.
“Wait.
Let’s see what I got myself into.”

The list was very detailed.
At eight in the morning the kids would arrive at the fairground.
They had to be at least seven years old to participate in the contests.
There were three eating events: granola bars, bananas, and ice cream.
The kids sign up for the event they want to participate in and then they’re put into groups of five, similar to the adult rounds.
The contests are organized by age:
seven to nine
, ten to twelve, and thirteen to sixteen.

The kids are given a minute to eat as much of the food as they can.
The top five winners in each of the events come back for the finals, which are held at
five o’clock
on Saturday, right before the adult apple pot finals.
It didn’t sound too complicated.
But I still had a few questions.

“How many kids participate in these events?”

“Almost every kid in town.”

“How many is that?”

“About a hundred.”

“How much help do I have?”

“Two adults for each of the three contests.”