Coal Miner's Slaughter

by Elise Sax

  “Find me,” I heard a voice say. I stopped walking and whipped around.

  “What did you say?” I asked Boone.

  “Nothing,” he said, his voice full of panic. He shined his flashlight down the mine. “What did you hear? Did it sound like Alien or Predator?”

  “No. It sounded like…a woman.”

  “Oh, no. A dead woman? A killer woman? What’re we talking about?” he asked.

  I liked that he didn’t assume I was crazy and having delusions. His first thought was that I was talking to more dead people. It was sort of romantic that he believed me.

  I gave him a quick hug. “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “Nothing. Just being you.”

  “Is this foreplay?” Boone asked. “The mine isn’t my first choice to get down and dirty, but I won’t say no.”

  “It’s not foreplay,” I said and heard the voice again.

  “You sure you didn’t hear that?” I asked Boone. He shook his head. “I get the impression that there’s something more in this mine than coal. I think that Inga found something more valuable than coal.”

  “I’m not seeing any gold nuggets, if that’s what you’re talking about.”

  I shined my light on the walls and looked closely. Nothing glimmered. No sign of gold or gemstones. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that the mine held clues to Inga’s murder. I stood in place, listening for the voice, but I didn’t hear it again.

  “Holy crap, what’s that?” Boone asked. He flashed his light at something that caught the light. We ran over to it, excited to find the secret of the mine. Boone lifted it up, and we looked at it.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked.

  “A Pooper Basket. Yep,” he said, tossing it back on the floor. “Do you ever get the feeling that we live in a crazy town?”

  Part IV: Matilda Finds the Killer, and Jack Returns to Work

  Goodnight Gazette Takes a Stand Against Pornography

  by Klee Johnson

  The Gazette has come under criticism lately about an incident regarding one of our staff. An unfortunate technological glitch was responsible for a Facebook posting that has been described as disgusting, vulgar, porn, and crazy hot.

  As soon as this mistake was discovered, the video was taken down, and we’ve had assurances from the staff member that she’ll never use the video app on her phone again.

  “I’m not a slut,” the staff member explained. “And I’m not possessed or crazy, either. I’m normal.”

  The Gazette has received hundreds of letters, asking if the staff member’s breasts are real. She has assured us that they are. She credits their gravity-defying appearance with a good bra and her relatively young age.

  And she’s never had children. Nobody should expect a mother to have breasts like that, so stop asking for them!

  Goodnight Gazette readers should feel safe and secure in the knowledge that it is a wholesome newspaper and that people of all ages and backgrounds can read it without getting offended.

  We are sorry for the upset the video has caused. It won’t happen again.

  Chapter 14

  On the way home, we drove through the Plaza. “Look at that!” I cried, pointing. Mabel and Rocco were walking across the street, and they were holding hands and gazing at each other. “They did it. They’re officially together.”

  “I can’t imagine them as a couple. I can’t even imagine them as singles. Who would have thought that they even have genitalia?” Boone said.

  “I’ve discovered that all kinds of weird people are sex maniacs,” I said. “So, I can accept that Mabel and Rocco are holding hands. It’s actually a relief from whips and chains.”

  Boone parked in front of my house, and the dogs greeted us at the gate. “I’ll take them for a walk if you need to get into the office,” he offered.

  I thanked him. The office door was open. Our weather had warmed up, and there was a nice breeze blowing in through the doorway. Inside, Klee and Silas were typing at their desks. Tilly was digging through her pile of Advice Annie letters, choosing which ones to answer.

  When Silas saw me, he stopped typing, and gestured for me to meet him in the storage closet again.

  “I’ve got movement on the story, boss,” he said, shutting the door.

  “Did you find the killer? Is it the mayor? I knew it! That man has killer written all over him. What proof did you get? You need proof because he’ll lie about his alibi.”

  “No, nothing about the mayor, and I haven’t figured out who the killer is,” Silas said. “I got more information about the sex club.”

  “Oh, geez. Not you too.”

  Silas touched his chest, innocently. “What? Not for me. I was getting more information, hoping that it would lead to the killer.”

  I crossed my arms in front of me. “I think we got all the information we need about the sex club. It’s a sex club. People in Goodnight like a bunch of kink to spice up their lives. Unless you found out that one of them killed Inga when sex got too rough, I don’t see what you could have found out that helps our story.”

  “How about this, boss? One of the FBI agents is a valued member of the sex club.”

  I gasped in shock. “What? One of the FBI agents, who’s looking for the serial killer and the missing girls?”

  “Yep,” Silas said, smiling, proud as punch about his discovery.

  I shook my head with disapproval. “No wonder they haven’t found those girls. No wonder the serial killer is still out there. The investigators are busy being dirty.”

  Silas nodded. “It’s a great story. When we wrap this up, I’m picturing us taking up the first four pages of the paper with this mammoth story. With the sex angle, we’re going to sell a million copies.”

  I got a rush of excitement. “Really? We need an influx of cash. That would be life-changing.”

  “I’m going to keep working the FBI sex club angle. Where are you on the story?” Silas asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve kind of reached a dead end.” I told him about visiting the mine. “I didn’t learn a thing. I’m nowhere closer than I was. Maybe I’ll visit Inga’s place again.”

  We left the storage closet. Jack had arrived, and Klee was hugging him. She was ecstatic, the happiest I had ever seen. “I’m going to send your mama flowers and one of those gift boxes with pears in it,” she told him, hugging him tightly with tears in her eyes.

  “My cousin Leon is going to take up my paperboy route,” Jack told her, his voice strangled. “He’s been looking for work since he got out of jail for duster huffing.”

  “No more paperboy route. Thank you, Jack Goodnight!” Klee continued to hug Jack until he was finally able to extricate himself. When he did, Silas slapped his back and handed him a cigar.

  “You’re ours now, young man,” Silas announced. “A reporter on the up and up. You’ll never be rich, but you’ll be a king among men, a beacon against the dark corruption of the state. You’ll forever be one of the good guys. Congratulations.”

  “Do I get to smoke the cigar?” Jack asked, his face lit up with excitement.

  “No,” I said. “We just got your mother on our side. You can have a day-old doughnut with sprinkles. How about that?”

  “Cool!”

  Jack grabbed a leftover doughnut and took a big bite. Silas handed him some paper. “These are Matilda’s notes on the most prominent series. She did two interviews, but there are some holes,” Silas explained.

  “I’m sure you did a good job,” Jack told me, diplomatically and conspicuously not making eye contact.

  “Between the two of us, you’re definitely the better reporter, Jack. Everyone knows that,” I said.

  Jack got right to work, and I sat at my desk, researching the mayor and Mimi to see if I could get some clues. As far as the internet was concerned, the mayor was an upstanding citizen who didn’t threaten women with guns and whose sex life, if he had one, was normal. Mimi, on the other hand, had
gone through a dozen jobs before finding her water truck delivery job. She had been fired from job after job because of a hot head and bursts of rage that had given one man a concussion and another man a broken finger and multiple abrasions.

  So, Mimi had a temper, and it was big enough to drown a woman in a bucket of resin. I moved Mimi up to my number one suspect.

  “I’ve got lots of letters from folks worried about their bodies,” Tilly announced. “They keep mentioning you, Matilda. Boy, you sure know how to piss off people.”

  “I wish I had a time machine and could erase the whole video episode. I’m never going to live it down,” I said.

  “If something bigger happens, they’ll forget about you,” Jack said. “My older brother got a girl pregnant, and now my mom doesn’t care if I ever graduate. Oh, wow. This is interesting.”

  He pointed at his monitor. I got up to look at it. “Jeb said he was a widower, right?” he asked me.

  “Yes. His wife died years ago.”

  “That’s not what this article from the forties says. She left town.”

  “She did?” I asked.

  Jack finished off his doughnut. “Yes,” he said with his mouth full. “And the crazier thing is that I can’t find a death record for her. It’s like she fell off the face of the earth. You think they didn’t keep records during the war?”

  I had no idea. Jack was a whiz at looking up records. He pushed a few buttons and followed the life of Jeb’s wife up until she moved out of town.

  “Where did she go?” I asked.

  Jack shrugged. “No idea.”

  “I’ll have to go back and interview him again,” I said.

  “Take Jack with you,” Silas said.

  “I don’t need help to interview him,” Jack said.

  “No, but you can help Matilda. Give her pointers.”

  There was nothing more humbling than being babysat by a fifteen-year-old.

  “This is strange,” Silas said.

  “Tell me about it. A high school sophomore has to chaperone me,” I complained.

  “Not that. This,” Silas said, pointing at his monitor. “Get this. I’m following your hunch about the mine.”

  I skipped to Silas’s desk. “Is it haunted? Does it have mine monsters in it?”

  “No, it closed down.”

  “Duh, I know that,” I said.

  “You don’t get it. The mine closed down because it wasn’t profitable. There wasn’t an accident. The mine wasn’t declared dangerous.”

  “No mine monsters, either?” I asked. Silas shook his head. It didn’t make sense. Everyone had said the coal mine was a danger, that it collapsed and that’s why it was closed down. How could the whole town have gotten it wrong? Was it simply a matter of a story that got changed and misinterpreted over the last eighty years?

  I had a lot of questions but not a lot of answers. It was frustrating, and now we were out of doughnuts, which was my favorite drug of choice to combat frustration.

  A few minutes later, Jack and I climbed into my Altima, and we drove to Jeb’s place, which was an old bungalow a block away from the Plaza. “How long do you think he’s lived here?” I asked Jack as I parked on the street in front of Jeb’s house.

  “According to the records, he moved into this house in 1939.”

  “You’re a whizzbang researcher, Jack. We’re lucky to have you at the paper,” I said.

  “Uncle Amos says you’ve got a sixth sense when it comes to crime. He told me to watch you and learn.”

  “He did?” I asked, surprised.

  Jack nodded. “And Uncle Boone said to watch my six because you’re a walking disaster zone.”

  “He did?” I asked, not surprised.

  “He says you’re like Lucille Ball, but with dead people and lethal weapons. Who’s Lucille Ball?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Are you ready for this? We’re visiting an ancient old man’s house, who hasn’t lived with a woman since the forties. That means caked on dirt on every surface and in every crevice. It’s going to smell bad. The curtains will be torn. The sink will be filled with dirty dishes. We’re going to have to ignore all of that.”

  “I’ll pretend I’m in chemistry class and ignore everything,” Jack said.

  “Good man.”

  Jack and I got out of the car and walked up the steps to Jeb’s front porch. I rang the doorbell. We waited a minute, and I rang the bell again.

  “Just a minute!” Jeb called from inside. “I’m the oldest man in Goodnight. How fast do you think I walk?”

  He opened the door and flinched when he saw me. It was the first time someone had flinched when they saw me. “Hi there, Jeb. Jack and I are here to ask you some follow-up questions for the prominent people article.”

  Jeb’s face brightened. “Oh, good. Am I a front pager?”

  “I think so,” I said.

  We followed Jeb into his house. It was nothing like I had envisioned. It was old, but it was pristine. I could have eaten off the floor. There wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere. There was an old television in a console, and a large couch with an afghan draped on the back of it. There was a coffee table in front of the couch, and two end tables on either end of the couch with photos on them. Jack and I sat on the couch.

  “Look at the pictures,” Jack whispered to me. “He’s folded her over.”

  “Who?” I whispered, but I quickly noticed what he was talking about. Each black and white photo was of Jeb, but they had been obviously folded over with little bits and pieces of an unknown woman remaining. It had to be his wife. “He must be really angry at her for leaving.”

  Jack handled the interview, getting the answers to fill in the blanks of Jeb’s life, which wasn’t all that exciting. As for his wife, Jeb said she left him to live with a gas station attendant in California. Nothing dramatic. No earth-shattering revelations.

  We thanked Jeb for the interview, and he walked us to the door. He took a tin of chewing tobacco from his pocket and put a pinch into his mouth. “Bye now,” he said and saw us out, closing the door behind us.

  Back outside on the porch, I grabbed Jack’s arm.

  “Oh my God, Jack. Jeb killed Inga,” I breathed, sure I was right.

  Jack’s eyes widened. “What? You’re kidding. Why did he kill her?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Chapter 15

  “Where are we going?” Jack asked.

  “I’m taking you home.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then you’re going to do what you do, and I’m going to prove that Jeb killed Inga.”

  “No way,” Jack said, forcefully. “I’m going with you. I don’t run from a story. Not ever.”

  I turned onto the Plaza. “Remember what Boone said. I’m a disaster zone. It’s not safe, and I’m not taking any chances with your safety. Your mother would flail me alive if something happened to you.”

  “Pleeeeeeaaaase, Matilda!” Jack whined, sounding like his age for once. “Let me go with you. I never have any fun. So not fair, making me go home. I wanna be part of this. I can help you.”

  “It’s dangerous, Jack.”

  “I’m strong. I can beat Jeb up for sure.”

  “No way,” I said with all the force I could muster. “I’m the boss. I own the Gazette. I say what goes, and you follow my orders. I say jump, and you say how high. That’s how this thing is going to work. I’m taking you home. I want no complaining or backtalk from you.”

  It turned out that I was a wimp. Jack stood his ground, and I didn’t take him home. He was determined to go with me and risk his life, and I was powerless to stop him. I would make a terrible mother, just like I was a terrible boss. Nobody was scared of me. Nobody followed my orders. “You better not get hurt,” I said to Jack. “Your mother will kill me and then you’ll have blood on your hands.”

  Jack put three fingers up in the air. “Scout’s honor,” he said and smiled the smile of a kid who got his way.

  I parked my car on th
e Plaza and called Inga’s boyfriend, Shep, while Jack sat next to me in the front seat.

  “Did you get justice for Inga?” Shep asked after I introduced myself.

  “Not yet, but I’m close. I have a question for you. Did Inga chew tobacco?” I asked.

  “No. She smoked when she was younger, but that’s before I met her. She was diligent about her oral hygiene. She wouldn’t have chewed tobacco. Does this have something to do with her murder? What have you found out?”

  “Nothing yet. I promise to tell you once I know.” I said goodbye and hung up.

  “What’s going on?” Jack asked. “What does chewing tobacco have to do with anything?”

  “Inga didn’t chew tobacco, but Jeb does. I found a tin of chewing tobacco in Inga’s apartment.”

  “Wow. Is that enough proof?”

  No. It wasn’t proof of anything. Inga was a hoarder. She had all kinds of things in her place. The tobacco tin could have been there for years, and even if it belonged to Jeb, it didn’t necessarily mean that he had left it there while he was killing her. But I was sure he did it. He was the killer.

  “I need more proof. Something to tie him to the murder,” I said.

  I pulled away from the curb and drove away from the Plaza. “Where’re we going?” Jack asked.

  “We’re going to visit the resin guy. I missed him last time.”

  I parked on the street, and Jack and I knocked on the door. “Be cool,” I told Jack. “The last time I was here, he threatened to Ted Williams my head like a watermelon.”

  “What does that mean?” Jack asked, startled.

  “Just be cool.”

  “I don’t know what that means, either.”

  The door opened. The resin guy smiled at me, like I was the woman of his dreams, who he had been waiting for. Obviously, he didn’t recognize me, since the last time I was here and spying on him, it was dark. The sun was about to set, and I was standing under the porchlight, giving him a good look. It was good news that he didn’t recognize me because I didn’t want him to Ted Williams me.