Stone Cold Case (A Rock Shop Mystery)

by Catherine Dilts

  “Someone cut the padlock off.”

  “We had a break-in last night,” Morgan said. “I wonder if they’re related.”

  Vernon shook his head, causing his long whiskers to brush back and forth across his Carhartt jacket.

  “What’s this world coming to? I started carrying my varmint rifle, hoping people would think twice about messing with my cattle. They didn’t get the triceratops horn, did they?”

  The most valuable fossil in the Rock of Ages was a seventy million-year-old triceratops brow horn. They kept it locked in a glass display case, in a shop with no more security than an armed old cowboy and two watch-donkeys.

  “He didn’t break into the shop,” she said. “He hit Del’s trailer house, and stole a jacket. Chief Sharp is looking for this guy in connection with a cold case.”

  “Carlee Kruger,” Vernon said. “I’ve been hearing the rumors around town. So what’s the story on this guy? Is there a killer on the loose?”

  “Chief Sharp wants to question him about Carlee Kruger. And he seems to be avoiding the police. He’s not a suspect. Yet. The first time I saw him, he looked like Sasquatch, but with Del’s stolen clothes, he might blend in better now.”

  “My wife was in the same high school class as Carlee. That was a sad deal. We talk about her from time to time. Always wondered what happened to her. Now we know.”

  “Not quite,” Morgan said. “There are a lot of unanswered questions yet.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out for a strange mountain man in Del’s clothing. I’d better tend to my animals. And get a new lock.” Vernon shook his head again. “What’s this world coming to?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  * * *

  The only gate on the Dalton property facing Hill Street was the one to their driveway. The ranch was an uneven rectangle of land encompassing most of the good pasture between Golden Springs and the base of the mountains. Morgan and Houdini had to hike a quarter mile on a path studded with cattle hoof prints that paralleled the barbed wire fence. When they reached the gate, Sherry Dalton stepped out on the wrap-around porch of the log ranch house. She held up her cell phone.

  “Vernon told me to expect you.” She trotted down the steps. “And that your donkey prevented our herd from escaping.”

  While Sherry held open the driveway gate, Morgan gave her a brief rundown on Houdini’s adventure.

  “I don’t understand how he got inside your pasture,” Morgan said. “All the gates are closed. Unless he snuck into town this morning, and came back through the historical park.”

  “Your donkeys have been known to visit downtown Golden Springs.” Sherry patted Houdini’s neck. “I shudder to think what could have happened if he hadn’t blocked that gate. You’re a good donkey.”

  Houdini melted under Sherry’s affectionate neck rub.

  “Did Vernon tell you to watch out for a mountain man?” Morgan asked.

  “We weren’t on the phone long enough, but he told me to arm myself.” Sherry pressed a hand to the pocket of her canvas slacks. “He said there might be a thief in the area.”

  Morgan’s rural neighbors, like Del, often carried guns. The police couldn’t be expected to get up the hill fast enough to save them from trouble. Ranchers had to rely on their own resources. Sherry was petite, with a pixie’s face and raven black hair falling past her shoulders. She looked vulnerable, but Morgan had heard she was an excellent shot.

  “The mountain man stole Del’s jacket.” The Daltons had already heard about her discovery of Carlee’s remains. She skipped a repetition of details. “He was the same guy who scared the wits out of me at the dugout on Temple Mountain. Vernon said you went to high school with Carlee.”

  “I helped search for her. After all those hours on foot and in the saddle, we didn’t find a single clue. That’s when people latched onto the alternate theory, that she left town. Car, bus, whatever. But not through the hills. Guess we were wrong.”

  “Any ideas about what could have happened to her?” Morgan asked.

  Sherry shrugged. “She seemed happy enough, but I wasn’t in her circle. I ran with the 4H crowd, and then she went off to college in Granite Junction, and I went to Ag school. I know her mom had some problems, and Camille, her younger sister, ran away right after she graduated high school. But Carlee seemed to have her act together.”

  Houdini shook himself, sending a cloud of dust and shedding hair into the air.

  “I’d better get my runaway home,” Morgan said. “Sorry for the trouble.”

  “Not at all,” Sherry said. “Your donkeys can visit us any time.”

  Morgan led Houdini through the gate and down Hill Street to the Rock of Ages, watching the fence line for breaks or donkey-sized gaps, and seeing none. She delivered Houdini to the pasture, then she walked back down Hill Street to her car. Finally, she parked inside the converted carriage house garage. The doors stood open, and the ATVs were gone. Morgan hiked behind the barn to Del’s trailer. Chief Sharp’s SUV sat in front, but there was no one around. Then she heard ATV engines. They were out tracking the mountain man, no doubt. And Del was in the thick of the hunt.

  They could have accidentally left a gate open, allowing Houdini to escape the rock shop property. Yet every gate Morgan checked seemed secure. The donkeys hadn’t been named after famous magicians on a whim. Maybe new gate latches should go on her shopping list.

  The Rock of Ages parking lot was empty. Morgan reminded herself that the pace of life was slower in the small mountain town of Golden Springs, unlike her former home in the big city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Instead of inventing work to keep her busy indoors, she headed for the barn. Adelaide dozed in her stall. Morgan opened the tack room and retrieved a rubber bucket full of grooming tools.

  “Hey, old girl. You need to keep a better eye on your husband. He went on another adventure this morning.”

  Morgan slipped inside Adelaide’s stall and brushed her gray coat. Wads of shedding winter hair clogged the currycomb. Morgan combed out Adelaide’s bristle brush of a mane, and a tail that lacked long hair until halfway down its length, where it began to resemble a horse’s tail. Adelaide seemed to relish the attention, her large brown eyes drooping to half-mast.

  Everyone was having babies. Adelaide and her summer foal, Sarah and Russ, Cindy and her recent birth. Morgan, in her mid-forties, was past that stage of life. Yet she wasn’t old yet. She hoped she had a couple more decades before that designation fit. She knew women in their seventies for whom the label “elderly” would be absurd.

  Morgan was free to live life for herself, if only she could figure out what that meant.

  Adelaide’s gray coat glistened, and Morgan wasn’t any closer to an answer. She cleaned the stalls and straightened the tack room. Del and Bill Sharp showed no signs of returning from their manhunt. Morgan had nothing left to do but return to the real world.

  A lime green van sat in front of the rock shop. As she approached, Professor Esteban hopped out. Under a thick fleece jacket that matched the color of the van, he wore khaki dress slacks. Morgan guessed he had come straight from the classroom.

  “I was about to give up.” He flashed a generous smile.

  “Sorry, Professor. I was up at the barn. I guess no one put out the be-back-in sign.” Shop owners in Golden Springs placed signs with clock faces in their windows when they were gone during business hours. They set the hands of the clocks to the time they expected to return. Morgan unlocked the door. The cowbell clanged. “Welcome to the Rock of Ages.”

  Professor Esteban pulled his knit wool cap off thick black hair and clutched it between his hands, almost as though he were entering a church. Maybe a rock shop was akin to sacred ground, for a geologist.

  “I’ve been meaning to drop by since I learned of your store.” He nodded. “Quite the interesting collection.”

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” Morgan asked. “Or just window shopping?”

  “I’m always on the hunt for the rare
. The unusual. But you could call my visit today window shopping. Do you mind if I look around?”

  “Please. Make yourself at home.”

  Morgan wondered if he would find any errors in the classification of the rocks, minerals, and fossils. Would the Rock of Ages make a passing grade?

  Professor Esteban strolled up and down the aisles, his hands clasped behind his back. He paused in front of Del’s antique display, peered inside locked display cases, and collected odds and ends in a battered handheld shopping basket.

  Morgan straightened out the narrow tables in the center of the shop. Customers were constantly mixing up the contents of the rough-hewn wooden cases. Pyrite, also known as Fool’s Gold, glittered among the polished agate, and arrowheads had spilled into the fossilized shark teeth. When she looked up, Professor Esteban stood at the checkout counter.

  “I’m sorry,” Morgan said. “I didn’t know you were ready.”

  “I was admiring your triceratops horn. I’m afraid I don’t have that kind of cash, but believe me, it is tempting. Although I don’t see how you could possibly give up such a treasure.”

  “For the right price, I could find a way,” Morgan said. “We have bills to pay.”

  Professor Esteban held his hands out, palms up, and looked around the cluttered shop.

  “Your store is brimming with treasures. Surely there are many more items of high value besides this triceratops brow horn.”

  Morgan remembered Mr. Cooper’s visit to the rock shop just days ago. He had asked nearly the same question, in an entirely different way.

  “Was there something in particular you wanted?” Morgan asked. “Maybe it’s tucked away somewhere.”

  “Ah.” He smiled and shook his head. “What I am searching for would certainly be under lock and key.”

  Just get to the point, Morgan wanted to tell him.

  “We keep our gemstones and the more valuable fossils in the locked display cases,” she said. “I can pull some things out, if you want a closer look.”

  A line creased between his eyes.

  “While I saw many lovely fossils and minerals, I have samples of everything in your store in my own collection. No, I am looking for that special item I do not have.”

  Morgan looked at his shopping basket. “And these?”

  “Gifts for a colleague’s birthday.”

  “Ah, yes. Coprolite is very popular.”

  Professor Esteban wasn’t the first person to buy petrified dinosaur dung as a birthday gift.

  “And the fossilized fish will look nice on his desk,” he said.

  Morgan rang up the sale, then wrapped the items in newspaper. He had his own canvas shopping bag.

  “Do you have business cards?” Professor Esteban asked. “I would be happy to refer my students to your shop.”

  “I recently had some printed.” Morgan handed Esteban a stack of cards. “If you tell me that special item you’re looking for, I can keep an eye out for it, and give you a call if I run across it.”

  The professor paused in the doorway. “You will know it when you see it.”

  The cowbell clanged as he left.

  Morgan was cleaning shelves when Del, Chief Sharp, and Deputy Parker returned. Del led them into the living quarters and started a pot of coffee, his typical gesture of hospitality.

  “Big Foot left lots of tracks in the mud.” Del set out mugs, sugar, and cream.

  “Then we lost him,” J.B. said. “He headed for the rocks where he wouldn’t leave tracks.”

  Chief Sharp pulled off his brown cowboy hat and brushed back his silver-streaked dark hair. “The guy has lived in these hills for—who knows—decades? His entire life? Usually we know who’s wandering around out here, but this guy is an unknown.”

  “He’ll turn back up,” Del said. “I have this theory that he’s looking for Carlee’s bones. He was her caretaker these sixteen years, and now we took her away from him.”

  Bill Sharp shrugged. “Who knows, Mr. Addison? You might be right. But how do we smoke this guy out?”

  “Do you think he killed Carlee?” Morgan asked.

  “You’re friends with Beatrice,” Sharp said. “I’m sure she’s already told you. There’s no clue to how Miss Kruger died. So it’s not a murder case at this point. But I sure would like to know how she came to be in a dugout, guarded by a mountain man nobody knows.”

  The shadow of the mountain crept across the rock shop before Morgan and Del started closing up. The shop’s hours were flexible. Customers had trickled in for the past hour and a half, so they stayed open late.

  “Days like this make me realize how much we need to replace Cindy,” Morgan said. “Not that she can be replaced. But it’s not even peak tourist season. We’ll never have a break.”

  “Remember, kid, you’re running your own business. You don’t get breaks.”

  “While you were hunting Sasquatch, my geology professor dropped by.”

  “What’d he think of our shop?”

  “The man makes his living teaching students about rocks, minerals, and fossils. He seemed right at home. But I felt like he was snooping around for something.”

  “He’s a typical rock hound,” Del said. “You’re lucky he didn’t break out a pick ax and a shovel.”

  “No, Del. This was different. He even said he was looking for something special. Kept hinting around that I might have it locked away, like I was holding out on him.”

  Del tugged at his mustache. “Maybe that was his way of sweet-talking you. He’s a nice looking fella. One of those dashing Latin types.”

  “He’s happily married. He talked about his wife all the time during our class. That wasn’t it. His questions reminded me of our visit from Harlan Cooper, but Professor Esteban was polite.”

  Del pulled on a string, turning on one of the overhead fluorescent lights. “Hey, it’s getting late. I can finish closing up. Don’t you need to get ready?”

  “I’m just going to Kurt’s for dinner,” Morgan said. “I don’t need to dress up.”

  “I seem to recall how much time you spent primping for your date with Piers a few months ago. And then there was that fellow from church.”

  “Piers was different. I was having dinner with a potential murderer. I had to figure out what to wear to hide the gun you insisted I carry. And as for Pete Melcher, that was just unfortunate all the way around. He’s a nice guy, but not the one for me.”

  “And Kurt is.”

  “This isn’t a date.”

  “Really?” Del’s mustache lifted on one side in a smirk.

  “We’re going over all the newspaper articles he and Anna dug up about Gerda’s daughter. Anna will be there. I think.”

  “Well, then, that’s different.”

  “Del, you’re interested in the case. Do you want to go? I’m sure Kurt wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’ll stay here. That mountain man might make a return appearance.” He pulled the handgun out of his shoulder holster and checked the ammo. “You know, kid, it’s okay if you decide to live your life again.”

  “What do you mean? I am living life. I’m so busy, I barely have time to sit down.”

  “No, I mean your romantic life.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  “I’m a geezer. My time for romance has come and gone. You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you, and it would be a shame to see you spend them alone.”

  “Del, it’s not too late for you, either. There are plenty of eligible ladies your age.”

  Del shook his head. “I’ve got a nice life, kid. I don’t want to mess it up going down that dead-end trail again.”

  Morgan hadn’t known there were modern townhomes in Golden Springs, but on the outskirts of town sat two small developments. One had the look of a Swiss chalet while the other, across the narrow street, had a southwest look with red tile roofs, sandstone-colored stucco, and strings of dried peppers called ristras hanging in the entryways. Kurt had opted for the southwest style.

&nbs
p; When he opened the door, Morgan felt woefully under-dressed. She had changed due to her time spent in the barn and cleaning the shop, but her jeans and turquoise blouse were casual compared to his shirt and tie. Nineteen forties’ vintage, as usual.

  “Come in.” Kurt opened the door wide and waved her inside. “Welcome to my home.”

  The outside might look southwest, but the living room was straight from a movie set. In spite of the open floor plan, the combined living and dining area felt cluttered with antique loveseats and chairs, curio shelves crammed with toys and dishes and books, and an oak table buried under folders and newspapers.

  “As you can see, we won’t be dining in here.”

  Morgan followed Kurt into the kitchen. Flickering candles, a bottle of wine, and service for two made Kurt’s intentions obvious.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  Morgan stared at the romantic table setting for perhaps a bit longer than she should have. When she turned to Kurt, a blush flamed across his cheeks.

  “I thought—” Morgan began. “Well, I assumed Anna would be here. Since she helped you with the research.”

  “Oh. Well, I thought it was understood. I should have been more clear.”

  They stood beside the table, neither speaking for a long minute. Then they both spoke at once.

  “Of course it’s okay—”

  “If you want to cancel—”

  Both laughed.

  “I’d be happy to stay for dinner,” Morgan said.

  “This does seem a bit much for dinner between friends,” Kurt said, probably attempting to ease his own discomfort.

  “It looks just fine,” Morgan said. “Smells delicious.”

  Kurt confessed that the main course and dessert were carry-out from an Italian restaurant in Granite Junction, near his business meeting earlier in the day. The salad and garlic bread were his own inventions. After a half glass of merlot, Morgan admitted to herself that a visit to Kurt’s world had its charms. The appliances and cabinets were modern, but the mismatched china was antique, as was the silverware. An embroidered cloth decorated a table with metal legs. The chairs had vinyl seats and backrests.