by Kathi Daley
“Afternoon, Tess. What are you doing all the way out here?” the innkeeper, Megan Rosenberg, asked.
“I’d like to speak to Andrew Barton if he’s available. Hattie gave me his name.”
Megan leaned on the counter in front of her. “He did have a reservation but ended up staying for only one night. It seems he was here to see Pike and when he learned he’d passed on he decided to cancel the rest of his reservation. Shame; he was such a nice man. I would have enjoyed getting to know him better.”
“I don’t suppose you have his contact information?”
“I do, but I’m not at liberty to give it out. Why did you want to speak to him?”
I took a piece of peppermint candy from the jar on the counter and popped it into my mouth. “Hattie told me that he was in town to speak to Pike about a secret he’d been keeping. I know it’s a long shot, but I hoped Mr. Barton might have information that could provide a clue as to why he was murdered.”
“You think some secret Pike was keeping led to his death?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but at this point I’m following every lead that comes my way.”
“I heard Donny Dunlap was arrested for Pike’s murder. I figured the case was closed.”
“Donny was arrested,” I confirmed. “Bree is sure he’s innocent, so I agreed to help her find the truth.”
Megan walked out from behind the counter and headed into the main common area, where a giant tree brightened the room with colorful lights. Near the tree was a secretary’s desk that I thought must be used as a communication center. She opened a drawer and took out a paper, then walked back across the room and handed it to me. “Have you met Wilma Cosgrove, the new librarian?”
“No, not yet.”
“This is her cell number. She wanted to speak to Mr. Barton too. She’d heard he was in town to speak to Pike and hoped to catch him before he left. When I informed her that he’d already left she asked if I’d pass her number along if I spoke to him. It seems she has information about Pike that she thought he would be interested in. The library’s open for another forty minutes. If you hurry you can catch her.”
I hugged Megan. “Thanks, Meg. I’ll head over there now.”
I felt bad telling Tilly that she was going to have to wait in the Jeep again, but dogs weren’t allowed in the library and I’d only be a few minutes. Besides, she had Tang to entertain her. They’d be fine until I returned. The new librarian had moved to White Eagle less than a month ago and I’d heard she was a nice woman the locals thought was going to fit right in. Unlike the previous librarian, who’d lived here since before I was born and had recently retired at the age of sixty-five, Wilma was fresh out of college.
“Can I help you?” Wilma asked as I approached the front counter.
I smiled. “I hope so. We haven’t met yet, but my name is Tess Thomas.”
“Of course.” Wilma’s bright green eyes sparkled with delight. “I’ve heard so much about you and your dog. I hoped you’d stop in so we could get to know each other. I have a golden retriever and thought it would be fun to set up a doggy playdate.”
Okay, common ground. That was good. Maybe she’d be more apt to share with me what she knew. “I’m sure Tilly would love that. What’s your dog’s name?”
“Sasha. She just turned one and has a lot of puppy enthusiasm, so I really appreciate dog owners who are willing to allow their canine buddies to help her work off some of her excess energy.”
“I’ll give you my number and we can arrange a time.”
“That would be great.”
I jotted down my number and handed it to the perky young woman.
“So, how can I help you today?” Wilma asked.
“I heard you had some information about Pike Porter. I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but Pike and I were friends and I’m looking in to his death in an unofficial way.”
Wilma’s face grew serious. “I heard you were the one who found his body. That must have been devastating for you.”
“It was. I’ve known Pike most of my life. I won’t say we were best friends, but he lived on my route and I stopped in to visit with him as often as I could. Of course the police are investigating, but I’m finding it difficult to sit by and do nothing.”
“You don’t think the man they’re holding is guilty?”
I hesitated for just a moment before answering. “To be honest, I’m not sure whether Donny Dunlap is guilty, but I don’t think I’ll be able to let go of this until I’m sure.”
Wilma waved a finger, indicating I should follow her. She led me into a back room and closed the door. “I totally understand how you feel, and I’ll help you if I can. I don’t know if the information I have is important, but I feel as if it might be. I spoke to the cute cop investigating the case, but I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t think what I told him was particularly valuable.”
I figured either Wilma had spoken to Hank or, if she’d spoken with Mike, she hadn’t put together Mike’s last name and my own. I decided to leave a discussion of the interrelatedness of the town’s residents for another time.
At any rate, Wilma continued before I had a chance to respond. “During the week before his death, Pike came into the library twice. Both times he wanted to look at old newspapers that have been kept in the archives in the back ever since they were donated by the last owner of the newspaper when he retired and left White Eagle. Pike never said what he was looking for, but he requested articles from the very first newspapers circulated back in the nineteen forties.”
That was interesting, but Pike was an old man and he could have just wanted to take a stroll down memory lane. “Did you notice if he seemed interested in anything in particular?”
Wilma shook her head of short blond curls. “As I said, he didn’t say what he was after, but I noticed he turned to the back of the paper, where births and deaths, land transfers, mining claims, and other information that didn’t warrant an entire article were listed.”
I wasn’t sure what I could do with this piece of information, though it did seem Pike had been looking for something specific. Might he have found it and might that have been what had gotten him killed?
“I appreciate you sharing this with me. I know you’re about to close; I may come back to look at the old newspapers myself sometime if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine. Anytime. And I’ll call about a doggy playdate.”
“Maybe this weekend?”
“That would be perfect.”
I pondered my options as Tilly and Tang settled into the Jeep for the ride home. I felt like I had a lot of clues that felt significant, but I wasn’t sure how they fit together. After contemplating the situation for several minutes, I decided on the only thing that seemed to make sense. I needed to find out what was in the emails between Pike and Andrew Barton Hattie had referred to, and for that I’d need to call on an old friend and the only person on earth who knew my secret: Tony Marconi.
******
I first met Tony when he transferred into my school during the seventh grade. Tony was a genius of sorts who probably should have been enrolled in some sort of school for gifted students, but his mother wanted him to have a normal life, and for some reason, in her mind, the tiny school in White Eagle met her definition of normalcy. When I first met him, I thought he was the biggest dork to ever walk the face of the earth. Sadly, like the other kids in my class, I was less than kind to him in the beginning. Not only was he smarter than everyone else in the entire school, including the high school students and most of the teachers, he was the tallest kid in the school as well. In a nutshell, when the goal of every seventh grader is to fit in and be part of the crowd, Tony stood out like a giraffe in a herd of zebras.
I guess the turning point in our relationship occurred when I was fifteen. I was nosing around in the attic of the house Mike and I lived in with our mother and found a letter hidden in a book I believed to be encrypted—yes, I devoured mysteries like
my life depended on it, and, yes, in those days I thought every old letter I found must be encrypted. This letter had been stashed in a book that had been stored with some items my dad had tucked away in the attic before he died in a fiery truck accident while driving the cross-country route he had been working most of my life. Believing it could somehow provide an answer to the questions I’d been dealing with since his death, I decided to try to break the code. After dozens of failed attempts, I realized I had no choice but to enlist Tony’s help. As it turned out, the letter hadn’t been encrypted at all, but our search had led us to uncover some anomalies in my father’s death, which is what I had suspected all along. We decided to keep our search to ourselves as we continued to dig, and in the end, the time I spent with Tony trying to find answers that ultimately weren’t there had cemented a friendship that has endured to this day.
Once I decided to enlist Tony’s help, I drove to Pike’s cabin and snuck back in through the cellar. I knew taking his laptop probably crossed some sort of line that could land me in jail next to Donny, but after mulling things over, I’d come to feel reading the emails between Pike and Andrew Barton was the most urgent thing I needed to do. Tony lived in a mansion on a private lake about twenty miles out of town, so I called ahead to make sure he was home. He not only was there but he was thrilled to hear from me, so I fed Tang and Tilly, then loaded them into the Jeep and headed north up the mountain.
As I drove up the narrow, winding road, I thought about the unique relationship Tony and I shared. Other than Bree, I considered Tony to be my best friend. Not only did we share a secret, but we also shared a love of gaming that gave me a reason to drive out to his place a couple of times a month to battle zombies and save the world from the domination of evil. Being a well-known tech head, Tony had access to games that weren’t on the market yet, and he was the only person in my life who could beat me on a regular basis. I love a challenge, and when it came to gaming Tony provided just that.
I turned on my brights as I pulled off the highway and onto the narrow road leading to Tony’s home. I’m not sure why he chose to live in isolation. As an absolute genius, he had the potential to live in a penthouse, drive imported cars, and date beautiful women while making billions in the world of technology, yet he chose to live in seclusion miles away from the nearest town. Don’t get me wrong: Tony isn’t wasting his talents. I’m not sure exactly who he works for or what he does, though I do know that while he seems to spend his days locked away alone, he’s amassed a fortune he seems to have earned developing software for the FBI, CIA, NSA, or some other equally secret-worthy institution. I’ve tried a time or two to pry the details of what he does out of him, but he just smiles and tells me I’m cute when I’m frustrated.
Tony was chopping wood for his fireplace when Tilly, Tang, and I arrived. Tilly bolted out of the car as soon as I opened the door, which left Tang hissing in a hunchbacked position at the unanticipated disappearance of his best friend. Tilly loves Tony. I mean really loves him. Every time we come for a visit Tilly forgets her training and leaps out of the car in a bullet race to him before I can even get the door all the way open.
“Don’t worry,” I said to Tang as I picked him up and cuddled him to my chest. “Tilly still loves us. She just hasn’t seen Tony for a while and she misses him.”
I couldn’t help but smile as Tilly leaped onto Tony’s chest, almost knocking him to the ground while she showered him with wet doggy kisses.
When Tony and Tilly had finished greeting each other they headed to me and Tang, waiting near the Jeep.
“Who’s this?” Tony asked, reaching for Tang, who hissed at him.
“This is Tilly’s new kitten, Tangletoe, Tang for short.”
“Tangletoe?” Tony asked.
“A name the cute new veterinarian in town came up with, combining tangle with mistletoe. It’s a long story. I’ll fill you in later.”
“Cute new veterinarian?”
“Dr. Baker retired and his nephew took over. It’s freezing out here. I’ll grab the laptop and we can continue this conversation inside.”
Once Tony got the laptop in his hands he was all business. He headed to the cellar, where he kept his computer equipment. The room had no windows and a single doorway he kept locked when he wasn’t inside. I’d often thought that, although the sub-ground-level room seemed to be secure, it wouldn’t be a good place to be trapped in a fire. To be honest, I was usually uncomfortable in the room, with equipment I was sure was probably worth millions of dollars, but I set aside my uneasiness and watched as Tony dusted off the laptop and set it down on a spotlessly clean table at the back of the spotlessly clean room. When he had the laptop where he wanted it he hooked it up to his own system, or at least a portion of it, and began working. He saw right away that Pike had password-protected his computer, but he assured me that wouldn’t keep him out for long.
“There’s chili on the stove,” Tony commented as his fingers flew over the keyboard so fast I could barely see them.
“Homemade?”
“Homemade is the only kind of chili I eat. It’s simmering on the back burner.”
“I’m hungry and I do love your chili. Can I bring you some?”
“No, thanks. I had a late lunch, so I’ll eat when I finish with your project.”
I headed upstairs, were Tang and Tilly were waiting. Tilly knew she wasn’t allowed in the computer room, but Tony had set up a dog bed filled with toys near the fireplace, so she never seemed to mind being left alone here for short periods of time. Most of the time when I came over it was to watch television or to play video games, which we did in the main living area where all Tony’s guests, including the four-legged, furry kind, were allowed.
As I made my way through the clean but somewhat cluttered first floor, I marveled at the view of the lake just beyond the wall of windows that made the open living area feel like you were outside among the trees. I loved sitting on Tony’s sofa and looking at the lake, but tonight I felt antsy, so I flipped on the television and continued to the kitchen.
I scooped a large portion of chili into a brown ceramic bowl, grabbed a beer from the refrigerator, and returned to the main living area. I clicked around the channels, finally settling on the Hallmark Channel, which was showing a Christmas movie that was just touching enough to maintain my interest. Tilly curled up on the sofa next to me and Tang curled up in the space between Tilly’s front paws and head. I’m not sure at what point I fell asleep, but the next thing I knew the movie was over and Tony was standing in front of me with Pike’s laptop in his hands.
“Sorry. I must have dozed off. Did you get in?”
“Of course. Let me grab a beer and a bowl of chili and I’ll fill you in.”
Another Christmas romance had come on while I was sleeping, which I figured Tony wouldn’t want to watch, so I turned off the television and gathered my empty bowl and beer bottle to take to the kitchen, where he was putting away the leftovers. We both returned to the living area and I listened while he ate and told me what he’d found.
“The emails from Pike to Andrew Barton mostly describe the history of the area. Pike did a good job of painting a picture of the trappers who first settled here, following the miners who hoped to strike it rich but mainly died in poverty and, even later, the lumber barons, headed by Hank Weston and Dillinger Wade, who realized the trees growing in the dense forest were the real gold.”
I knew Hank Weston had met Dillinger Wade at the mining camp. Dillinger had family money and Hank struck it rich in mining, and the two men joined forces and built an even larger fortune in the lumber industry. They eventually founded the town of White Eagle in 1945. Hank met Dillinger’s sister, Hillary, when she came to visit and the two married and had three sons who now owned a good portion of the land in the area.
“Pike provided other historical facts, followed by colorful accounts of some of the people he’d met as the town grew and developed,” Tony continued. “Pike was born to one of the mine
rs in 1925, so by the time Weston and Wade began developing the town he was already a young man living on his own and operating the bar. While I found the emails interesting, I didn’t find anything relevant in terms of honing on a motive for his murder. In the final three or four emails Pike did hint at a secret he’d kept for most of his life that had weighed heavily on him in his later years. Barton, of course, was all over that, encouraging him to share what he knew, but Pike insisted the consequences could be far-reaching even today and wasn’t sure he wanted to trust what he knew to someone he’d never met.”
“Which is why Andrew Barton was in town.”
“It would seem.”
Tony finished his chili and took his bowl into the kitchen. I followed.
“There must be something else on the computer that might give us a hint about the secret Pike referred to.”
“There are a lot of files on the computer. I didn’t take the time to look at all of them, but one of them was called ‘Bloomfield Mine.’ I opened it and found copies of old maps that look to me to be claims of mines that go back to the early twentieth century. I saw the shaft Weston struck it rich mining was right next to a claim that belonged to Bloomfield, whoever he was. I’m not sure if that’s significant, but it could be worth looking in to.”
“I found maps and land titles in boxes in Pike’s cabin. I took a couple of them home, but I haven’t had a chance to go through them yet. And the new librarian told me that Pike had come in a couple times in the week before his death to look at old newspapers from the nineteen forties.”
“It seems Pike knew or wanted to prove something that had been gnawing at him for a whole lot of years. I wonder if he found what he was looking for.”
I poured myself a cup of coffee that had most likely been sitting on the heating plate all day, then leaned against the counter while Tony rinsed the dishes and stacked them in the dishwasher. “I wish I knew. I feel like we’re on to something, but I still have no idea how any of this ties in to Pike’s death.”
