Aurora's Gold

by K. J. Gillenwater

  I thought talking about selling the dredge would help me work through the emotions of failure and defeat. Instead, each word out of Stella’s mouth dug a deeper wound. I wanted to be in a better frame of mind. With the dredge sold, I could forget about Nate Frazier’s crazy fixation on the business, I wouldn’t have to run into Kyle on the docks anymore, and Ben would be a tiny blip in my checkered past of failed relationships. Maybe it would even turn into an interesting story someday:’I slept with a murderer.’ Could make for good bar conversation.

  “It might be kinda fun if we can work together.” I imagined Stella and me at the Polar Cafe, filling coffee mugs and slinging reindeer sausage around. I’d have to get used to making small talk and maybe putting on some lipstick once in a while.

  Stella gushed. “That would be awesome. Sometimes it can get a little monotonous. You and me?” She picked up her phone and started up one of her playlists. “We could liven it up a bit.”

  She was in her Pitbull phase. A rhythmic beat filled the room.

  I didn’t feel much like celebrating, but rocked to the music a little.

  Stella got up and danced her empty tea cup to the kitchen sink. Then she trotted back to where I was sitting. I handed her my cup, and she slinked her way back.

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  Stella lip synced the lyrics and did the two step, swinging her arms in rhythm to the beat.

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. “It’s the police station!”

  Stella fumbled with her phone and shut off the music. She suppressed a giggle.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Darling, it’s Officer Garber.”

  “Can I get back into my apartment?” I wanted my life to move forward. Part of that began with retrieving the paper work for the equipment out of the top drawer in my dad’s bedroom and figuring out exactly what I had to sell.

  “Yes, that shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve wrapped everything up and have made an arrest.”

  “Oh, wow.” From the questions I was asked earlier today, I didn’t get a feeling they were any closer to pinning my attack on anyone.

  “Kyle Stroup confessed this afternoon.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “Kyle?” I sat in the same chair I’d been in earlier at Officer Garber’s desk, overwhelmed with confusion. “That doesn’t make any sense. Kyle has no reason to break into my apartment. He would never hurt me.”

  Officer Isaacs was also in attendance. He breezed past my objections. “After speaking to Mr. Stroup, we were able to get a confession almost immediately. We’ve arrested him and have him detained her for the time being.”

  “He confessed?” I felt lightheaded. “I don’t understand. Why would he confess to something he didn’t do?”

  “We found some of your father’s property at his residence.” Officer Garber dragged a cardboard box out from under his desk. “A toolbox labeled with JOHN DARLING. That is your father’s name, correct?”

  I recognized the tool box. It had been in my living room under a pile of other things I’d brought home from Kyle’s place. “But why would he want my father’s tool box? I don’t understand. And why would he hit me instead of just asking me for it, if it was really that important to him?”

  “I know this has come as a shock to you. Kyle told us about your relationship,” Garber said. “I know it can be hard to understand when someone you loved and trusted does something like this, but people in desperate circumstances do terrible things sometimes.”

  “Desperate circumstances?” I shook my head. It didn’t compute. I don’t remember Kyle once telling me about anything in his life that would be close to desperation. In fact, at the assayers he’d picked up a hefty dredging check. He seemed to be doing better without my father and me, not worse.

  “After Kyle’s name came up we found out some interesting things about his background. Apparently, his parents filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, and he took on the responsibility of setting them up in a new place in Texas,” Isaacs detailed. “And the place he rents, he’s going to be evicted in a few weeks’ time. He’s several months’ behind on the rent. As I said, ‘desperate circumstances.’ Sometimes people can’t see a way out.”

  “But there’s nothing of any value in the toolbox, just some old tools.” I could see Kyle stealing gold or valuable things he could resell, but my father’s old toolbox had nothing of any real value inside. “Did he take anything else? Like some extra diving equipment?”

  Isaacs shrugged. “Maybe he thought there was something in there worth hocking. I don’t know. Maybe he thought you’d be an easy mark. He knew your routines, knew your neighbors wouldn’t think anything out of the ordinary if he showed up, that kind of thing. He thought he could get in and out, and no one would remember he was there. But guess he didn’t plan on you coming home so soon.”

  Garber offered me the toolbox. The weight of it was heavier than I remembered. Or maybe my whole body had weakened from the shock of the news. “Thanks.” As I stood up I asked one more question, “Am I allowed to talk to him myself?”

  “To Mr. Stroup?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “You do know that even if you don’t want to press charges for the theft, the assault charge is going to stick, right?” Isaacs warned me.

  I nodded. “Will I need to testify?”

  “You’ll likely be subpoenaed. So expect that in the future,” Garber said. “Not for a few months’ though. Takes time to get a hearing date.”

  “I’d like to talk to Kyle if I may.” I couldn’t leave the station without more of an answer. The two officers maybe solved the case from their standpoint, but I had more questions.

  “I wouldn’t recommend it,” said Isaacs.

  “Why?” I was the victim here. If I wanted to talk to my attacker, I should goddamn be able to.

  “Sometimes after a traumatic event like you experienced, it can trigger a lot of stress and anxiety,” Garber explained. “I could set you up with a victim’s advocate.” He dug through a desk drawer and handed me a business card. “They can walk you through the next steps in the process. Confronting the perpetrator is probably not the best first step.”

  “I want to see him.” I uncrossed my legs and sat up straighter in the chair. “Please.”

  Isaacs eyeballed me. I knew he was reading my level of stubbornness. Likely drawing on what he remembered of me from the days I went to school with his kids. “Wait here. I’ll see what I can do.”

  I briefly closed my eyes. “Thank you.”

  They moved me to a lumpy couch in the back of the office. The police department buzzed quietly with the regular work of the day. I wished I could be one of them. With a regular job. Regular hours. Steady paycheck. Benefits, even. The last thing I’d needed was another hospital bill. Tears threatened to spill.

  Why on earth would Kyle break into my apartment to steal my father’s toolbox and possibly other things? Even the officers’ explanation didn’t make sense to me. Kyle knew my financial problems, why would he target me over anyone else he knew in Nome? His parents had both been teachers, as I recalled—his mother at an elementary school, his father at a middle school somewhere near Houston, I think. I didn’t know they’d had financial problems. Not sure when that all happened. Kyle didn’t really share those sorts of details about his family life with me. In fact, Kyle and I had never had what someone would call a heart-to-heart talk. But from what Kyle had told me, his parents were two responsible people, and my dad, in comparison, lived the life of a free spirit—a bit of a modern day pirate. If anyone was going to succeed in life, it would’ve been Kyle. He had a great family, with a stable home life and pretty much whatever he’d needed. I’d never thought to delve into his relationship with them. Now I wished I had. What kind of girlfriend had I been, if I didn’t know these things?

  *

  Kyle sat on a mattress in the holding cell. His head hung down. Despite what had happened to me, I felt sorry for him. The whole scene ma
de no sense.

  “Hey, Kyle,” I said gently. I didn’t know what to expect. Was he angry, sorrowful, distant?

  His dirty blond hair appeared unwashed. When he tilted his head, his brown eyes were bloodshot. I didn’t know if that was from lack of sleep or something else. “Why are you here, Rory?” He had a pained expression. “I fucked up. I really fucked up.”

  “Why, Kyle? Why did you do it?” A small bench sat opposite the cell. “I don’t have anything to steal. I don’t understand.”

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. This isn’t about you at all.” He held his head in his hands. “Why did you have to get in the way?”

  “In the way of what? You aren’t making any sense.” The Kyle in front of me was a completely different Kyle than the one we’d run into at the assayers. What happened to the confident, almost arrogant, man I’d seen?

  He sighed and chewed on a thumbnail. “I wanted the map back. That was all.”

  “What map?” In the back of my mind my thoughts went to my father’s strange conversation with me about a map. And when I’d asked Kyle about it, he’d denied knowing anything.

  A lie.

  “My great uncle.” His tone deepened. “Your dad stole it from him.”

  “What?” A sudden coldness hit my core. “My dad is no thief.”

  Kyle’s brow came together in a tight knot. His face flushed. “This is why I never said anything. I knew you would defend him. You’d always take his word against mine. Always. Do you ever wonder why things never worked out between us?”

  I frowned.

  “Because no matter how many times, no matter how many arguments, you always believed your father.” He pounded a fist on the mattress for emphasis.

  “What are you talking about, Kyle? What arguments?” I scanned my memory trying to think of anything that matched up to what he was saying.

  “Who got the most gold? Buck. Who knew where the hot spots were? Buck. Who was a better diver, tender, mechanic, prospector? Buck.” His eyes grew hard as flint. “Never once could I do or say anything that was better than Buck. Nobody can compete with that kind of loyalty.”

  I bit my lip. The memories came back in fits and starts. Times I would stand up for my father’s opinion and would reject Kyle’s. I suppose most of it was Buck’s experience and maturity over Kyle’s that would convince me to go along with my father 99% of the time. But I could see how that could’ve gotten to Kyle. He wasn’t one to express his feelings openly. He’d harbor a grief until he couldn’t hold onto any more. “I want to know, Kyle. I’m here to listen. Tell me about the map.”

  “I’m sorry, Rory.” His eyes got redder and wetter.

  I’d never seen Kyle cry, but he was awfully close. “I know.” I touched the bandage over my stitches. “Tell me about your Great Uncle.”

  He paced his cell and chewed more intently on his thumbnail.

  “My father had an Uncle…Uncle Arthur.” Kyle sighed. “Uncle Art, he called him. He used to live around these parts. He’d been a prospector his whole adult life. Started out on the beach running sand. Worked really hard for everything he had, but he managed to scrape together enough gold to buy himself a little claim about twenty or thirty miles outside of town. That was right around the time the dredgers really got going out in the Sound.”

  I remembered my father telling me the same story about when dredging took off in the Bering and the desperate scramble by locals to get an operation together.

  Kyle darted a glance at me. “Uncle Art was having a rough go of it out at the claim. He couldn’t get the right equipment, much less truck it out there. The land had potential, but he didn’t have a way to work it. So he decided to dredge. He was pretty handy. He slapped together an outfit with a friend of his—pieces and parts they’d bartered for. This was way back before GPS or any of that tech stuff. People just went for it out there. Like the Wild West.”

  I nodded.

  “You found a spot, you did whatever you could to map it, keep track of it, get back to it the next good day. Knots, bearings, all that shit. Mark it on a map. Get back to it the next day and the next and the next.” Kyle’s gaze became unfocused. “Uncle Art had a gift, my dad told me. A gift for knowing the right kind of cobble to look for, knowing when the ground had already been worked, sniffing out the gold under water like a goddamn blood hound. Over time, his map held the notes for every good spot, every potential good spot and every overworked spot out there. When the other dredgers were in drinking and waiting for calmer seas, Uncle Art got out there and added more detail to his map.”

  Kyle tightly wrapped his arms around his middle, head down, pacing, pacing, pacing. “Some thought he was nuts. But his mapping skills became legendary. He turned a quick summer scheme to finance his claim into a successful operation. Everyone would’ve killed for an opportunity to get a look at his map. Some say he found a spot with gold nuggets bigger than anyone dreamed possible.”

  The mother lode.

  Kyle was a stranger to me. All of this information, and he’d never brought it up once. Here I thought he’d been some random guy from Louisiana only to find out he’d had family in Nome. “So where does my dad come into all this?”

  “I’m getting there.” He held up a hand to silence me. “Eventually Uncle Art couldn’t really dive much anymore. He’d developed rheumatoid arthritis. Really bad. His knees locked up, his hands couldn’t work right. He had a few friends who helped him out. Maybe Buck had been particularly kind to Uncle Art. Maybe he got to trust Buck enough that he showed him that map, told him about his big find. Eager to share with someone who had the same passion, maybe. A couple of years after his diagnosis, Uncle Art moved to the Lower 48 where he had an ex-wife and a couple of step kids. He handed over everything he’d owned to my dad. But not the map. He’d lost the map. Uncle Art was torn up over it. His life’s work, all of his notes, his drawings, everything. The massive nugget field. Gone. My dad actually came up here to look for it. He poked around in every nook and cranny of Uncle Art’s old place. My dad never found it. Not too long after that Uncle Art passed away, and the map became a mystery.”

  I fidgeted on the bench.

  “But it had always been Uncle Art’s suspicion that someone close to him had taken the map. He never could quite point a finger at who, and after a while, he got too sick to care so much about it anymore. My dad told me the story, though. I got the gold bug like Uncle Art. I learned to dive, so I could come up here and carry on his legacy.”

  I remembered the day my dad had hired Kyle. Tall, lean, and confident. I think that’s what my dad liked best about him—his supreme confidence. For someone that young, it had been unusual.

  “When I got that job on your dad’s dredge, I didn’t know anything then, I swear, Rory. I’d heard he’d needed a diver, and I thought you were pretty cool. Seemed like a good gig. Saw Buck as kind of a second father to me. He’d been patient, kind, showed me the ropes. I had a little bit of knowledge, but Buck had been willing to really explain things.”

  My heart ached hearing that. I missed my father’s guidance.

  “But the day you didn’t show—it had been only Buck and me out there. He’d sent me to get a tool from the wheelhouse. It wasn’t where he said it was. A hammer, a screwdriver, I don’t even remember what he’d asked for. I saw that old toolbox of his under a pile of hoses in the corner. A toolbox that I’d overlooked before, because I’d never really needed to look for anything. But for some reason I was drawn to it. I opened it and inside was Uncle Art’s map.”

  I gasped. “I don’t believe you.” My father wouldn’t steal from someone. Never. He’d been the best father a girl could ask for. Honest, hard-working, loving. It couldn’t be possible.

  “It was Uncle Art’s map, Rory.”

  “How do you know the map didn’t belong to my father?” My stomach fluttered.

  “It had my Great Uncle’s initials on it at the top: AHS. Arthur Hiram Stroup. Plus, besides the coordinates and details for sp
ots to dredge, he had drawn his claim on it.”

  All the air escaped my lungs. My father. The one parent I’d come to depend on had built his life on a lie. “Did you try to kill my father?”

  “No, Rory. No.” His face paled. “I’d never—not intentionally…”

  “So you found your Uncle’s map and said nothing to Buck?” A sudden coldness hit me. “I find that hard to believe. If you had such a great relationship as you say, why didn’t you ask him why he had it in the first place?”

  His expression soured. “And you wonder why we fell apart after the accident?”

  “You knocked me out, Kyle.” I turned my head so he could see the bandage. “You hurt me over a map. Clearly, there was more that ruined our relationship than my attitude toward my father’s accident.”

  “You found the toolbox at my place, and I’d hidden it pretty well.” He pointed a finger of blame. “You were looking for it. I know you were. I’ll bet you knew about the map the whole time.”

  I gasped.

  “Don’t play innocent with me, Rory.” He came up close to the cell bars. His usual mild expression replaced with one I didn’t recognize. “I’m not buying it anymore.”

  I backed away and banged on the door that led out of the holding area. “I want to leave.”

  “You knew about it. You and your father.” Kyle’s voice echoed in the concrete space. “He’s a thief and you’re just as much responsible as he is.”

  “I want out of here.” I banged with both fists.

  An officer unlocked the door with a frown.

  I raced outside, taking in breath after breath of cool air. I couldn’t comprehend what Kyle had told me. I needed to talk to my father. He’d straighten this out. He’d tell me the truth. My father was no thief. Kyle had to be crazy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  My father’s apartment had been turned upside-down. Fingerprint dust dappled the door knob, door frame, tables, counters and every surface imaginable. I scanned the living area for a place to begin the clean-up. I wanted to lose myself in cleaning and straightening and reorganizing. Everything I’d built my life around had crumbled into a flaming heap. I was beginning to wonder if I had no ability to detect a liar from a truth teller. Had I been this naive my whole life? Or had I developed my naivete after I’d arrived in Nome?