Digging For Trouble

by K. J. Emrick

  It made sense. Obviously someone had been in Arthur’s house to look for something, or they wouldn’t have broken into this closet.

  So what was in the jars that was so important?

  I looked at the rocks again. Now, when I looked, I could see that some of them weren’t rocks. They were dried up clumps of dirt. In a few, small stones sparkled in the light.

  “Arthur was a fossicker,” I suggested. “Always digging in the dirt out in the bush around town. These could be samples of what he found.”

  “Right. But, I mean, look at this house. It wasn’t like he ever struck it rich or anything. If there were two jars of gold here, why didn’t he sell them and keep digging for more wherever he found those samples? Why keep digging all over creation? I’m willing to bet this is all fool’s gold.”

  Pyrite, he meant. Sparkly bits that look like gold but aren’t. He was right, though. If Arthur had ever hit the real thing—gold—I’d never heard of it. Sure didn’t live like he had.

  But I remembered him from this morning. Frantically digging in the ground for... what?

  Kevin took some more pictures, inside the closet, and then outside where the hasp had been pried off. “Square pry marks in the wood. Probably a crowbar. Nothing remarkable about it that I can see.”

  I let him do his thing. He might actually be smarter than I am, in a lot of ways. Still comes to me for advice though.

  Just proves how smart he is.

  “Right. Not much more to do here, I suppose,” he said, putting his phone back into its holder on his belt. “I want to look at the paperwork on the kitchen table.”

  “You know,” I suggested, “Myles is a real estate agent.”

  That thought had been in the back of my mind since we came in. I want to see if Kevin’s made the same connection I have.

  “So?” he asked.

  Apparently, he hasn’t come round to where I am yet.

  I pointed back to the closet. “There’s a bunch of rock samples in that closet. This morning, Arthur was out digging in the ground. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that our coot prospector actually did find something. Something valuable. Wouldn’t that be of interest to a real estate agent?”

  “Sure, but...” He paused, and I could see the gears turning in his mind. “Sure. Well. Guess we need to go have a sit down with Myles.”

  “We?” I asked, surprised. I don’t usually get invited along to Kevin’s police investigations. Usually, I have to invite myself.

  “I need my witness with me,” he said with a wink.

  “Witness? Kevin, I didn’t see him here. That was Mister Brewster.”

  “I know that.” He smiled. “But Myles doesn’t.”

  Heh. Good point. “All right, then. I’m game if you are. I only know what Mister Brewster told me, though.”

  He eyed me in an odd way. “Do you even know that man’s first name?”

  “Of course I do. Everybody signs the register. Plus, we need to take payment information and addresses and such. Why?”

  “Because I never hear you call him by his first name. Just always Mister Brewster to you.”

  “Don’t be silly.” I went to tell him that of course I know Mister Brewster’s first name and it’s...

  Something.

  Odd. I couldn’t remember.

  Whatever. I’ll look it up when I get back to the Inn, but I’m really not worried about it right now. “So do we go talk to Myles now?”

  “Right quick. Just let me look through the papers on the table. We could spend the rest of the day going through all the mess in this house, but I don’t know that it’d do us any good.”

  He sat on one of the poorly padded chairs at the table. I chose to stand. I’m already overdue for laundry.

  Sorting through the papers, one at a time, Kevin found unpaid bills, junk mail, and flyers for discounts down at the Milkbar. Then, a few handwritten notes. In something that resembled Aramaic.

  “Arthur’s handwriting is horrible,” Kevin said. “I think this might be some type of code, too. A shorthand that only Arthur understands.”

  There were seven sheets of lined notepaper that we found that had Arthur’s sloppy scribbles on them. Kevin folded them up and slipped them in his front pocket as he stood up.

  Then he stopped.

  “Kevin, you okay?” He was just staring down at the table.

  More specifically, he was staring at the three coffee cups.

  “Look at this,” he said, pointing from one cup to the other. “This one is nearly full. That one is half full. That one is empty.”

  “You’re right, but we already know how messy Arthur was. Does it matter if he left his coffee cups on the table?”

  “It does,” he said with a meaningful smile, “when one of them has lipstick on it.”

  I followed his finger as it pointed to the half-empty, squat, white cup. Dark red lipstick marked the perfect impression of a lip on the outside of the rim.

  A woman’s lip.

  Chapter Three

  “Does that mean Myles is not our suspect?”

  I couldn’t help asking the question. I still think he has something to do with whatever happened to Arthur but there’s no way he left that lipstick on that cup. I mean, proximity doesn’t exactly equal guilt, but if Myles was at Arthur’s house just before he went nutters and started making like a gopher out on that walking trail, then I don’t see how we couldn’t suspect him.

  Besides. He was a slimy little man who used his good looks to corner people into selling their houses or buying a dry patch of land he has labelled as “lakeshore view with potential.”

  Just about everything here has a view of a lakeshore. If you own powerful enough binoculars. Myles just tends to leave that bit out.

  “Don’t think we can count him out,” Kevin said, agreeing with my own thoughts with a shake of his head. “Myles was there, we know that. The lipstick stain just means Arthur had a lady friend over.”

  I looked at him skeptically.

  “Hey, even a guy like Arthur can find a girlfriend.”

  Still, just looked at him.

  “Fine. I admit it’s not likely. Not likely doesn’t mean impossible.”

  He stopped the car on Main Street along the curb. Just up past the Thirsty Roo, past a few other rinky-dink businesses, was Myles Sinclair’s real estate office. It was a skinny little building that was squashed in between two others, taller than it was wide, and painted white just like every other place was. A blue and red sign over the front door declared “Myles Sinclair will get you there!”

  “He sure has a high opinion of himself,” I said, “doesn’t he?”

  Kevin shrugged as he shut off the engine. “Guess when you’re the only real estate agent in Lakeshore you can afford to tell people you’re the best.”

  “From what I understand he can afford anything he wants. The land deals he’s made have set him up really well. Hard to believe there was that much money in the land around town.”

  “Everybody wants their own little slice of Tassie Heaven,” he said with wry humor.

  As I was about to knock on the door to the office it flew open and Myles Sinclair stood there with a warm smile and a greeting that died on his lips. “Oh. It’s you, Dell.”

  Then he looked up at Kevin over my shoulder. “And the law. Why, what an interesting surprise. What can I do for the Powers family today?” He stepped back and let us into the office. “You finally want to move into yer own place, do ya, Dell?”

  “No. I’m fine at the Inn.” Once upon a time I’d shared a house with my husband. It was a beautiful place where we raised our kids and made our dreams. Not long after Richard left me, the house seemed to be too much. Too big, too suffocating. So I moved into my room at the Pine Lake Inn. It was all one girl needed, after all.

  “We’re here for another reason,” Kevin told him, shutting the door behind us.

  “Well, anything I can do to help the police,” Myles answered, sitting down at h
is desk and spreading his hands wide.

  The way he said it wasn’t very convincing.

  On the inside, the real estate place was even smaller than it looked from the outside, if that was at all possible. It was just Myles’ office, crammed with his desk and some filing cabinets and a table with books showing photos of houses for sale. I knew for a fact there weren’t that many houses for sale in town anymore, so I had to believe that Myles was handling properties outside of Lakeshore, too. At the end of the long rectangular room was a set of stairs that led up to whatever he had on the second floor.

  Two wooden chairs were on this side of the desk, for prospective clients, but they fit us just as well. Myles looked from me to Kevin, an eyebrow quirked, waiting for one of us to say something.

  He was a bit of a good looker, I had to give him that. The good Lord had given him more than his fair share of handsome. The sun had tanned his skin to a deep caramel, and his face had that rugged quality that some men were born with and others paid plastic surgeons to fake. Myles’ was real. So were those brown eyes that were just a few shades darker than his skin. I’d heard a friend refer to him as “exotic” once, and I guess that was as good a word as any to describe him.

  I’ve heard other folks call him things that shouldn’t be repeated in polite company. Those descriptions had nothing to do with his looks and everything to do with his personality.

  “So how can I help?” he asked, a little impatiently. His eyes turned to me, and his smile warmed up. “Dell, I hope you know I wasn’t disappointed to see you. I was just expecting someone else.”

  “Arthur Loren?” Kevin asked, all innocent like.

  The smile on Myles’ face slipped. “How’s that?”

  “I was asking if you were waiting for Arthur Loren.” This time as he asked the question Kevin took out a small notepad from his back pocket and plucked a pen from a cup on Myles’ desk. There were a number of them in the cup, all with “Sinclair Real Estate” printed on them.

  “Now, Officer Powers,” Myles answered him. “Even if I have business with Arthur you know I can’t discuss it.”

  Kevin shifted in his chair, his expression amused. “Confidentiality extends to people like lawyers and priests. Are you a priest now, Mister Sinclair?”

  Myles laughed softly.

  Then he winked at me.

  “I’m no priest,” he said, shifting through the folders on his desk to pick out one from among the rest. “Just an honest businessman. I have a deal I wanted to offer Arthur but I’m afraid he wasn’t interested. I’m afraid I can’t say more’n that.”

  “So you were there at Arthur’s house this morning.” Kevin wrote down a few notes on the white pages of his notebook.

  “I don’t think I have to answer that,” Myles told him.

  “We have a witness that saw you there, and then saw you running away.” With the end of his pen, Kevin pointed to me. He didn’t exactly say I was his witness, but he didn’t say I wasn’t, either.

  Myles shifted his eyes to me again before shrugging. “Well, then I guess there’s no reason to deny it. Yes, I was there. So what? Is the man dead or something?”

  “No, not dead,” Kevin answered. “Just seriously hurt. In hospital. Seems someone assaulted him and then broke into a locked closet in his house.”

  “Hospital... broke into...? What the Devil could a man like him possibly have that’d be worth a dingo’s hind foot?”

  Which is exactly what I would have said just a few hours ago. Only, Arthur was a prospector, and now that I’ve seen the collection of jars in that closet, I know what Arthur probably had.

  “Gold,” Kevin said. Exactly what I’d been thinking. “We have reason to think that Arthur may have finally found gold out in the bush. Now, you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you Mister Sinclair?”

  Myles tapped a finger against the file he’d taken out, thinking over something silently behind those eyes of his. He really is a good looking man. And I think he’s single...

  Ahem. Not my type.

  “Gold, you say.” Tap. Tap. “No. I hadn’t realized that old Arthur had found... hmm. Now that is interesting.”

  Tap. Tap. Tap.

  “So, Mister Sinclair,” Kevin said after a long, silent moment, “what did you and Arthur talk about this morning, if you didn’t talk about gold?”

  Abruptly, Myles stood up, shuffling all of his papers and folders together. “I’m sorry, Officer Powers. I don’t want to discuss any of this without Arthur’s consent. You said he was assaulted. Do you know if he’s all right? When will he be home?”

  “Soon, I’m sure. As soon as he can talk, I’m sure he’ll have a lot to tell us.”

  Kevin let that hang in the air, not getting up out of his chair. I followed his lead. It does my heart proud to see my son working. He’s very good at his job. Of course, I take all the credit for it.

  “Well... good,” Myles said. “Good. I hope he tells you who assaulted him. Poor guy. Very misunderstood, you know. I’ll, uh, see you out, then. Unless there was something else?’

  With that, Kevin did stand up, slowly, taking his time putting the notepad away. “Nothing else, Mister Sinclair. For now. I suppose I don’t have to tell you not to leave town?”

  Myles was in an obvious rush to get us out of his office, waving us to the door already, but what Kevin said stopped him cold. “Don’t leave town? Where would I go? Oh, I see.” Part of his smile from earlier returned. “I’m a suspect, am I? Well isn’t that brilliant. Guess we’ll just have to wait for Arthur Loren to wake up, won’t we?”

  Unless he never wakes up, was the unspoken part of that. All three of us were thinking it. No need to say it out loud.

  Kevin held out the pen he had taken off Myles’ desk. “Thanks for letting me borrow this.”

  Lowering his eyes to the pen like it had suddenly turned into a snake, Myles turned his back on Kevin to open the door. “Keep it. I’ve got others.”

  “Guess he doesn’t like his stuff touched,” my son joked as we got back into the patrol car. “Dodgy guy, ain’t he?”

  “He’s hiding something, that’s for sure.” I checked my watch. “Kevin, I really need to get back to the Inn. I’ve been ignoring it all day.”

  “Sure, Mom.” He started the engine. “I’ll drop you right off. Call me if you hear anything more.”

  “I will, if you do the same for me?”

  “Mom...”

  “Kevin.”

  He looked at me with one of those looks I’ve so gotten used to. He knows he’s going to do it anyway. It’s just the way it works between us.

  The Inn was certainly close enough that I could have walked, but I enjoy the time Kevin and I spend together. Plus, I’d done enough walking for one day. Next time maybe I’ll just take a ride on my bike. The Wallaby. My pretty red bicycle needs to be put through her paces every once in a while or her chain starts to rust up.

  I like to take good care of the Wallaby. After all, she saved my life once.

  Slowing down for the severe slope of Fenlong Street, Kevin drove into the Inn’s driveway and let me off at the front door. “You know,” he said to me, “you should come by for supper next weekend. Ellie’s going to be in town, and she promised to cook for me.”

  Now that surprised me. “She cooks, too?”

  “Lots of people do. Ellie’s actually a really good cook.”

  “So why haven’t you married this woman yet?”

  “Mom.”

  Not often that my Kevin’s cheeks turn red, but there it was. He and Ellie are really good together. A mom’s got to have her fun, though.

  I waited for him to leave, waving as he went, then went up into the Inn.

  It was a late Friday afternoon, and we were packed to begin with. There were people milling around everywhere in the lobby and the common room. Young women on holiday from University, tourists looking for the excitement in Lakeshore that the newspapers had promised them, a family down from Hobart just to g
et away from everything. Nice folks, those ones. A husband and wife and their two little daughters. The youngest one tugged at the pink ribbon in her pigtail as they played a game of Scrabble in the common room.

  Rosie met me as I came in, rushing out from the kitchen, an apron wrapped around her generous waist and her hands and cheeks covered in flour. She’s the same age I am. She just acts younger. With those pretty brown eyes and the flawless skin of her oval face, she could easily pass for younger than me, too.

  “There ya are, Dell. Thought maybe you decided to take the day off. You really should take more time off. All work and no play makes a woman go crazy, ya know. Why, I was just telling my hubby the other day, I said Josh, I think—”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Rosie,” I interrupted her. “Maybe I’ll take a break before the Christmas holidays fill us up again. How’s things been today?”

  I love Rosie. She and I have been best mates for years. Since University, at least, when we both decided to open our own Inn sometime in the future. That future became a reality with the Pine Lake Inn.

  “Oh,” Rosie said with a big smile, “things are just wonderful here. Been a while since we were as full as all this. So many people in the dining room! The staff and I have been running around all day. Reminds me, I’ll need to order more bream for the fish stew.”

  “Whatever you need, Rosie. I trust you in all things food related. Thanks for taking care of the front desk for me today, too. Anyone else check in?”

  “No, thank the Lord above. We’ve only got the two rooms left open, after all. Been having a bear of a time making the payment slips match the receipts, too.”

  She stepped back to point toward the floors above us, where all the rooms were nearly booked, about to say something more when her backside bumped into the framed painting of Lieutenant Governor Collins on its tripod easel, nearly knocking it over.

  “Begging your pardon, Mister Collins,” she joked, grabbing the frame to keep it from falling, laughing and red faced.

  Rosie’s a tad bit clumsy. We had to replace the sink in the kitchen not too long ago when it caught fire while she was cooking a roast.