Dying for a Dude (Laurel McKay Mysteries Book 4)

by Cindy Sample

  “Did you find any gold down there?” I asked her.

  Mother hesitated a few seconds before responding. “I landed on something hard. Maybe I will find a nugget or two.” Her voice brightened with the thought that her tumble could result in a financial windfall. Given the current price of gold, even a pebble-sized nugget would be worth a designer purse or two.

  Fifteen minutes later, two new members of the fire department joined our group. One of them was almost my height but half my girth and possibly half my age. She introduced herself as Tina and quickly donned some equipment, including a long emergency safety line, which the men tied around one of the massive cedar pines. Then she carefully rappelled her way down the shaft. I held my breath, worried that Tina might knock some rocks loose creating an even more hazardous situation for my mother.

  The murmur of voices soon echoed up to us. I hoped my mother’s injury was not severe. Her career as a real estate broker keeps her busy especially during the summer months. Mother would not be happy if this accident affected her mobility.

  Suddenly a bright light flashed from the bottom of the mineshaft followed by a high-pitched scream. Then a second scream. I dropped to the ground, crawled to the edge of the hole and peered down.

  “Are you okay?” I called out.

  Mother and the rescue worker huddled together. The firefighter’s Maglite pointed in the direction of a pile of narrow white sticks.

  Whoa! The sticks were attached to a pelvis. And above the pelvis, a bone-white skull glowered at us through empty eye sockets as if we were personally responsible for disturbing its slumber.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Less than thirty minutes after the discovery of “Mr. Bones,” the rescue team successfully hoisted Mother up the shaft using a harness and some sort of pulley system they referred to as a ladder gin. Mother probably would have preferred a gin martini.

  Earlier, one of the men had snatched a couple of chairs from Gran’s patio. Mother dropped into the cushioned chair with relief. They urged her to let them take her to the hospital to get checked out and have her knee examined. She refused, insisting it wasn’t anything serious. She finally acquiesced to letting one of the men wrap her knee for support.

  Mother assigned me the job of picking dirt and other icky stuff from her formerly perfect coiffure and from the back of her ivory linen blazer. Her black pants could probably be dry-cleaned, but her jacket was torn in several places and beyond repair.

  I plucked a tiny white object from the fine blond strands of her short hair.

  “Oh, ick.” I dropped the item faster than a hot coal.

  My mother flinched. “What was that?”

  “Oh, nothing. Only a piece of…” my voice trailed off. No need to mention she’d sported a chip off the old skeleton.

  I decided to switch Mother’s focus to something more cheerful––her new husband. “Bradford should be here soon,” I said. His arrival was certain to cheer her up. It had only been a few months since my mother, Barbara Bingham, a widow for thirty years, had married retired detective Robert Bradford. They initially met when Bradford and his then partner, my new honey, Detective Tom Hunter, were investigating a primary murder suspect––me!

  At first, I doubted Bradford’s intentions, positive that the tall bald detective was wooing Mother solely with the purpose of finding enough evidence to place me behind bars. Several months later when I became embroiled in another deadly affair, Bradford rescued me from a frigid death in the depths of Lake Tahoe. I immediately became one of his biggest fans.

  Mother had flourished as well as mellowed since she met the detective. I love my mother, but she is a perfectionist who expects perfection from everyone else. As far as I was concerned, anyone who could loosen up my uptight mother was okay in my book.

  Speaking of uptight, I desperately needed to change my clothes into something far less revealing. Gran had tightened the strings of the corset for me. According to her, I still looked like a hussy, but at least I was keeping my goods to myself and away from the gaze of the over-appreciative firemen.

  Before they took off, the firefighters stretched yellow and black “caution” tape around the hole. Due to Gran’s property being outside the Placerville city limits, the crew contacted the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office about the discovery. Tina and her partner said they would remain until the police arrived.

  I whispered to my mother. “Do we have any missing relatives that you know of?”

  She recoiled at my suggestion. “Don’t be silly. Whoever that is has most likely been lying there for decades, maybe a century or more.”

  Despite the May temperature being in the mid-seventies today, a chill enveloped me from my feathered head to my polished red toes. Approaching voices distracted me from my somber thoughts. Gran hopped through the weeds, trying to keep up with the long strides of the tall man next to her. His tousled chestnut head bent low as he listened to her chatter.

  My heart ricocheted from one end of my bustier to the other as I greeted the newcomer.

  “Hi, Tom.” I smiled at the detective. “Guess you heard what Mother stumbled across.”

  “Not exactly how I imagined we’d be spending the evening together, Laurel.” Tom moved closer and lowered his voice. “Although that outfit is definitely an incentive to get my job done faster.”

  Gran must have set the volume on her hearing aid to high. “Keep your eyes topside, sonny,” she chastised him. “You’ve got work to do.”

  Mother morphed into broker mode. “Those remains need to be removed at once. The listing for this property went live on the MLS today, and I’m supposed to hold an open house here tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Barbara, let’s make sure this is nothing out of the ordinary,” Tom said in his soothing baritone. “It’s likely someone who fell down the shaft a long time ago. Even if there’s evidence of foul play and it’s under our jurisdiction, it would be considered a cold case. Obviously, timing is no longer critical.”

  Gran scowled at him. “Don’t you need to do some detectin’ before we open my property to the populace? Once people hear what’s been discovered, those crime-scene looky-loos are gonna be all over this place. I don’t need a bunch of nosy folks tromping all over my clean floors, rummaging through my closets and such. I got enough skeletons to worry about.”

  Mother lifted her perfectly plucked eyebrows at me, and I raised my need-to-be-tweezed brows back. What was Gran muttering about skeletons?

  A large burly man loped through the backyard, crushing the weeds attempting to impede his progress. He reached my mother’s chair and crouched down next to her.

  “Barbara, are you okay?” asked Robert Bradford, her concerned husband. “Your mother called and told me you fell down a mineshaft. You could have been killed.”

  She patted his bear paw-sized hand. “I’m fine, dear.”

  His expression brightened and the relief on his craggy face was evident as he stood. “You were very lucky.”

  “That’s what the fire crew said, but I just twisted my knee a little.” Mother rose from her chair. “See, I can walk by my …” She took two steps, winced then fell back into the chair. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine by tomorrow. I don’t have a choice. There are signs to put up, cookies to bake, flyers to send out, and…”

  “Laurel and I can help with that,” he replied. The stern look my stepfather directed at me indicated my assistance was not an option.

  Tom and I sighed in unison. Our plans for a long-awaited night alone were quickly going down the drain, or, in our case, down the mineshaft.

  Tom and Bradford went to chat with the two firefighters who’d stayed behind. Even though Bradford had retired from the force almost six months earlier, the two men had forged a strong partnership and friendship. Tom frequently sought advice from the older man.

  Tina, the firefighter who assisted in Mother’s rescue, gestured in a frenzied manner. Tom fiddled with his right ear lobe as he listened to her. That was one of his
tells, indicating something about the conversation bothered him.

  Tom walked over to me. He removed his keys, wallet and cell phone from his pockets and plopped them into my hands.

  “Going somewhere?” I asked.

  “I want to check the remains myself. Make sure nothing critical is missed. I’d hate to haul the crime scene guys all the way out here tonight if it’s not imperative.”

  Tom borrowed a hard hat and secured the harness. Then the firefighters slowly lowered him into the gaping hole. I joined the others who watched his descent. Bradford and Tina both held huge flashlights aimed to light the way for him. My tall broad-shouldered boyfriend jostled against the rock walls, encountering a tougher time squeezing down the narrow shaft than my slender mother and the petite firefighter had.

  The shaft, which appeared twenty-five feet deep, widened near the bottom providing Tom room to maneuver. He squatted and examined Mr. Bones’ remains. For several minutes, the only sounds we heard were a few muttered expletives reverberating up the shaft. As the sun’s rays plummeted behind Gran’s house, Tom requested they bring him back up.

  It took a few minutes to haul him to the top. Once he unhooked the safety equipment, Tom brushed dirt off the front of his jeans. I lent a hand and wiped some smudges from his posterior. From the dark look on his face, my swipes were as close to a caress as either of us would receive tonight.

  “Did you discover something?” I asked, not certain I wanted to hear his answer.

  “Some remains of old clothing chewed up by rats most likely,” he said. Mother and I both shuddered, envisioning the critters she briefly cohabited with down in the shaft.

  “Plus this.” Tom pulled his gloved hand from his front pocket. “I’m not an expert on its age, so the medical examiner will have to complete tests on the body, or what’s left of it.”

  We leaned forward to peek at Tom’s discovery. Although the object was smaller than today’s modern cartridges, there was no doubt in my mind what Tom had discovered––a bullet.

  “So what does this mean?” Tina asked.

  I had the answer to that question. It meant that the only person getting any action from my detective tonight was an old sack of bones.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Tom called in to headquarters and requested some crime scene techs. Although the corpse had obviously been dead a decade or two, or fifteen, the detective still needed to follow official protocol. Bradford seemed torn between helping his injured wife and assisting at the crime scene. I imagined it must be difficult to stop detecting after spending forty years on the force.

  Since whoever killed the victim was long gone, my family didn’t need to remain at the site. Bradford and I supported Mother as she hobbled back to Gran’s house. Oddly enough, my grandmother seemed more excited than disturbed by the commotion.

  She rubbed her liver-spotted hands together. “This is like watching CSI only better. I wonder if I should call the Red Hats to come over.”

  “This is no cause for celebration,” Mother admonished Gran. “We need to get your property sold while the market is hot. I don’t think a dead body will be considered a property improvement.”

  “Well, that dead body sure improved my disposition.” Gran chortled to herself. She scurried around her kitchen, making coffee and setting out homemade cookies for the men.

  I swiped one of her chocolate and toffee chip cookies off the etched glass tray. Yum. When I bent over to grab another cookie, my corset protested loudly. I couldn’t wait to change out of this ridiculous costume and into a pair of shorts and a tee shirt.

  “Are you ready to go home?” Mother asked me, her face pale and drawn. I could see she was in pain even though she would be the last person to admit weakness.

  “Sure. Is it safe to leave Gran alone with all of these forensic people wandering around?”

  “The better question,” Bradford chimed in, “is whether the crime techs will be safe with your grandmother and her friends.”

  Two members of Gran’s Red Hat group had already arrived, dressed to kill with red boas wound around their necks and hats the size of turkey platters perched on their heads. The women directed the crime scene personnel where to go. The technicians didn’t seem to mind their elderly groupies since the women plied them with cookies.

  Mother limped over to Gran’s side. “Please keep out of their way, Ma. We need to get this issue resolved as soon as possible so you can move to Golden Hills Manor.”

  “There’s no rush to lock me up at the Manor,” Gran muttered, “I’m still in my prime, you know.”

  Tom entered the kitchen through the back door. He shoved his hand through the hair tickling his shirt collar. “You might as well go home,” he said to me. “This could turn into an all-nighter. There are strict rules when exhuming a body this old.”

  “Is it okay for Gran to be here?” I asked as I reached up and flicked some dust off his formerly white polo shirt.

  He nodded. “She’ll be fine. Her friends can keep her company.”

  “Will you still be able to attend the Cornbread and Cowpokes event with me tomorrow night?”

  His chocolate-brown eyes lit up as he glanced down. “Will you be wearing that outfit?”

  “Nope. I have to save it for the Wagon Train Parade.”

  “Too bad,” he said with a rueful smile. “I’ve always been partial to black lace and red satin.”

  My toes and every other nerve ending began to tingle as his gaze roved up and down my costumed body.

  Ever the businessperson, Mother joined us and interrupted my fantasizing. “Tom, do you think I can hold the open house tomorrow?”

  He shook his head. “You’d better cancel it. You’re more likely to have crime show addicts and historians than bona fide purchasers.” Tom took the baggie with the bullet out of his pocket and showed it to his former partner. “Do you know anyone who’s a specialist in old guns and ammunition?”

  It didn’t surprise me that Bradford nodded. He’d been a member of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Department since he graduated from the police academy. Tom, a widower with one young daughter, had relocated from San Francisco to Placerville only fifteen months ago.

  “Deputy Fletcher is into old weaponry. He’s a member of the historical society, too, so if he can’t identify it, one of the other members should be able to.”

  Tom thanked him then left to complete his thankless exhumation. I walked over to my grandmother and hugged her goodbye.

  “Be a good granny, okay?” I said. “Don’t give Tom or his crew any trouble.”

  She threw me a wide-eyed “Who me?” look and went back to grilling the crime techs.

  I grabbed one more cookie then followed my mother and stepfather out the door. I figured if I couldn’t devour Tom tonight, I’d settle for second best––devouring Gran’s homemade cookies.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The phone trilled on my nightstand the next morning. I knocked the receiver over then jumped out of bed to retrieve it before the caller hung up. My contact lenses rested in their pink plastic case on my bathroom counter, so I squinted at the name on the display.

  “Morning, Liz,” I mumbled.

  “What happened to you yesterday?” she asked. “I worried all night about your mother and your granny. Or were you and Tom too busy playing Sheriff and Saloon girl to call me?” Her husky laugh carried over the phone line. “Aren’t you happy I provided a little fantasy for the two of you?”

  “What you provided was a corset torture chamber. It took me an hour to extricate myself from that thing.” I directed a baleful glance at the garments piled on my blue plaid wing chair.

  “Didn’t you and Tom have a hot date last night?” she asked.

  I plopped back on top of my covers and shared the skeletal discovery with my friend.

  “Ooch. I wonder who the dead guy is,” Liz said. “Do you think one of your relatives killed him?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I muttered, not mentioning that
her question had also occurred to me.

  “You never know if there’s a black sheep or two grazing under your family tree,” she said. “I have to run. Let’s catch up at Cornbread and Cowpokes tonight. I’ll see you and Tom there, right?”

  “Maybe. He might not make it if he’s still working on this case.”

  “That’s too bad. Although this case sounds like it’s cold enough to have freezer burn.”

  On that note, we signed off. I entered my bathroom and began my morning routine. I popped in my left contact then heard my kids yelling my name downstairs. I glanced at the clock. Nine a.m. They weren’t supposed to be home until noon. With only one lens in place, I cautiously trod down the stairs to find out why they’d returned so early.

  Jenna, my sixteen-year-old, and her recently turned eight-year-old brother, Ben, had spent the night with their father. My ex-husband is a builder, and the previous year he’d relocated to Southern California for a few months to complete a historical renovation. Hank finished that job in February. His current project involved restoring a former gold rush hotel in downtown Placerville.

  The kids were overjoyed about their father’s return to town. Joy wasn’t the word I would use to describe my state of emotions now that Hank was a continual presence in our lives. Annoyed would be a more apt description. Since I was in a relationship for the first time since our divorce three years earlier, Dr. Phil would probably tell me I should no longer be upset that my former husband left me for another woman.

  But Hank’s infidelity still stung. Instead of nailing roof shingles, he’d been nailing his client.

  Ben rushed up and threw his arms around me. I ruffled the thirty-odd cowlicks in his shaggy brown hair. “What are you kids doing back so early?” I asked.

  My tall, whippet-thin daughter wheeled her navy overnight bag over the threshold. “Dad got a phone call, and he has to meet with the owner of that building he’s working on.”