Stone Cold Case (A Rock Shop Mystery)

by Catherine Dilts

  “If he or she thought there was no evidence, they might.”

  “You’d think they’d keep quiet, not try to kill someone else all these years later.”

  “Unless the killer was crazy,” Morgan said. “And that leads us right back to Big Foot.”

  The hospital emergency room was the usual combination of chaos interwoven with tedious waiting. After the church ladies arrived, it was obvious Morgan and Bernie weren’t needed. Gerda was banged up, but would be okay after an as-yet undefined stay in the hospital.

  By the time Bernie pulled into the Rock of Ages parking lot, the lights were still on and Del was pacing new holes in the worn kitchen linoleum.

  “How is Gerda?” Del asked when the women walked in.

  They filled Del in on the wreck, and brainstormed reasons for anyone to frame Gerda for drunk driving, at the least, and at the worst, attempt to kill her. There seemed to be only one explanation. Finding Carlee’s body had stirred up a hornets’ nest.

  When Del yawned, Bernie glanced at the clock.

  “Is it really that late? I need to get home.”

  “Maybe you should spend the night here,” Morgan said. “There might be a killer out there.”

  “I have to open the bakery early. And then there’s Mr. Whiskers. Besides, where would I sleep? I’ll call you when I’m safe inside.”

  Morgan made Bernie stay on her cell phone until she was locked inside her apartment above the bakery.

  “You’d think this was the big city,” Morgan said to Del. “Finding a body, being stalked by a homeless man, and now a suspicious car wreck.”

  “Just another day in the Wild West.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  * * *

  Wednesday morning, Morgan had trouble waking up. Business carried on, though, regardless of personal drama. Morgan perched on the tall stool behind the checkout counter and poured herself another cup of coffee. The phone rang.

  “Rock of Ages. Morgan speaking. How may I help you?”

  “I don’t have long, so please forgive me, and just listen.”

  “Kendall? Finally! I only know you’re alive because Sarah tells me—”

  “I need you to wire money.”

  “How much?”

  “Three thousand dollars.” His straight-from-the-pulpit voice boomed through the receiver with authority.

  Morgan’s heart skipped several beats. “Is something wrong? Has Allie been kidnapped? Are you in trouble?”

  “I can’t talk about it right now. Take this down.”

  “Hang on.”

  Morgan grabbed a pen and notepad. The last time she had seen her brother, his wild hair was a gray-streaked tangle of curls, and a beard covered his face. He and Allie had worn psychedelic T-shirts and jeans. Hardly the look of a respectable lay-preacher and his wife. Morgan could imagine a dozen scenarios placing them in danger.

  “Ready.”

  Kendall gave her instructions for wiring money via Western Union. It seemed like a shockingly simple procedure.

  “I realize you may not have that kind of cash lying around—”

  “No kidding.”

  “But if you can get it to me within the next week—”

  “Kendall. A week? Three thousand dollars? You absconded with all the cash from the rock shop, and I don’t have that kind of money.”

  “Can you call Pastor Filbury?”

  “The man just had a heart attack.”

  “What? Heart attack? Is he going to be okay?”

  “Yes, but I really don’t want to call him asking for money right now. He has enough going on.” Morgan decided not to mention Beatrice’s announcement that the Golden Springs Community Church had placed Kendall in the running for the pastor’s job.

  “There should be cash in a coffee can at the bottom of the grain barrel.”

  “Seriously? In the barn?”

  “Yes. I can’t remember how much is there, but it should be a start.”

  “Kendall, what is going on?”

  “I can’t say just yet. Please, do what you can. It’s life or death, almost. Not mine or Allie’s exactly. We need plane tickets.”

  “You’re coming home?”

  “With a little luck and three thousand dollars, yes. I’ll explain later.”

  “It’s going to be a tight squeeze. Del is living at the rock shop. David might spend the summer here, too. I don’t know where we’re going to fit everyone.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to stay in Colorado. You said you wanted us to come home, so you could go back to South Dakota.”

  “Maybe three months ago. A lot has changed.”

  “A lot has changed here, too. Look, we’ll figure it out when I get there. If I get there.”

  Kendall sounded stressed, and maybe a little scared. Coming from her take-charge brother, the situation had to be bad. Very bad.

  “Call this number when you send the money.” Kendall recited a phone number.

  Her brother had once again thrown complications into Morgan’s life, with no apology or explanation. And yet the urgency in his voice frightened her. Kendall and Allie had gotten themselves into big trouble in the jungles of Central America. And somehow it had fallen on Morgan to bail them out.

  Before she could demand he give her the specifics, the cowbell above the door clanged, announcing the entrance of Beatrice and Teruko. If anyone could pry information out of an unwilling soul, it was Beatrice.

  “Kendall, someone just came in who will want to say hi to you.”

  “No time,” he said. “Say hi and give our love etcetera.”

  Click. Morgan glared at the receiver in her hand.

  “Did I hear you say Kendall?” Beatrice’s short gray hair was flattened to one side of her head.

  “He and Allie say hi,” Morgan said. “They send their love.” Along with a hasty and insincere etcetera.

  Morgan entertained the brief thought that maybe she should let Kendall rot in the Third World predicament he’d gotten himself into.

  “Are they well?” Teruko asked.

  The tiny Japanese lady was stylish, as usual, but her mid-calf skirt was rumpled, and her halo of white hair mussed. Both women must have spent the night at the hospital.

  “They want to come home.” Morgan decided the best way to unburden herself of the worry and guilt Kendall had just dumped on her was to share a little of it with the church ladies, excluding her suspicions that their situation was somewhere beyond dire. “They don’t have money for plane tickets.”

  “Then we’ll raise it for them.” Beatrice kicked into high gear. “We do quite well with bake sales. When do they need the money?”

  “Within a week,” Morgan said. “Talk about short notice. But we can discuss Kendall later. How is Gerda?”

  “We came from the hospital,” Teruko said in her soft, wavering voice. “Gerda is resting.”

  “Teruko convinced Gerda’s daughter Camille to come to Golden Springs. She used words to the effect that Gerda is on her deathbed.”

  Teruko smiled innocently. “Perhaps I did.”

  “I didn’t know she had it in her,” Beatrice said. “It was quite the show. Fortunately, Gerda was out cold, so she didn’t hear any of it.”

  “When I came to America with my Neil, I did not see many of my family ever again.” Tears welled in Teruko’s eyes. “My grandparents and parents passed away many years before international telephone calls became less expensive, and before computers allowed conversations. You do not abandon family, if you have a choice.”

  “So Gerda’s daughter Camille and her two kids are coming this weekend,” Beatrice said. “The memorial service for Carlee will be in a week and a half. Saturday after next.”

  “Will Gerda be mobile by then?” Morgan asked.

  “She’s bruised and battered, but she’ll be out of the hospital well before the memorial service. Thank goodness for airbags.”

  “Gerda likes being in charge,” Morgan said. “I can’t imagine her
lying helpless in a hospital bed.”

  “As it turns out, this accident was a lifesaver,” Beatrice said.

  “Well, she didn’t die,” Morgan agreed.

  “Not that,” Beatrice said. “Cancer.”

  “The nurse noticed spots on Gerda’s face,” Teruko said. “They are running tests.”

  “Gerda avoided doctors like the plague for over a decade,” Beatrice said. “My guess would be she was scared they’d make her do something about her alcohol problem.”

  “Poor Gerda,” Morgan said.

  “Lucky Gerda,” Beatrice said. “If she hadn’t ended up in the hospital, no one would have noticed the melanoma. That’s one of those cancers you have to catch early if you want a chance of beating it.”

  Morgan knew too well. Her Sam had passed from colon cancer.

  “Gerda reeked of alcohol when I saw her,” Morgan said. “But the Breathalyzer test proved she was sober. Do the police know what caused her wreck?”

  “She insists there was something wrong with her brakes,” Beatrice said. “But what are the chances of that?”

  The precise German lady was unlikely to let something like auto maintenance slip.

  “There’s only one explanation that makes sense,” Morgan said. “Gerda’s brakes were tampered with.”

  “But why?” Teruko asked. “Who would want to hurt Gerda?”

  Beatrice’s eyes glittered. “Someone who didn’t want Carlee to be found. Someone who doesn’t want Gerda digging into this. The person who killed Carlee.”

  When the ladies left, Morgan turned around the be-back-in sign. She grabbed the small canister of pepper spray Del had given her and walked to the barn. Adelaide saw her, and waddled along the other side of the fence.

  “It’s not dinnertime yet,” Morgan told the donkey.

  When she entered the front of the barn, Adelaide was already waiting in her stall.

  “Doctor McCormick told me not to overfeed you. But I suppose a little hay wouldn’t hurt.”

  Morgan peeled a thin flake of hay off a bale and tossed it into Adelaide’s stall. While the donkey munched, Morgan entered the tack room and unfastened the band on the metal fifty-gallon drum of oats. The barrel was only a third full. Morgan plunged her hand inside. She couldn’t feel anything, but then she could not reach the bottom. Not anywhere close.

  She climbed the ladder to the loft, pepper spray in hand, and paused at the top. The loft appeared empty. Perhaps the mountain man had decided not to come back. She found an empty plastic bin and climbed back down the ladder. The barrel of oats was heavy, but Morgan managed to tip it up. The oats rattled and echoed off the metal barrel as she poured them into the plastic bin. Adelaide huffed a brief donkey bray.

  “I told you, it’s not dinnertime.”

  As she upended the barrel, a red plastic coffee tub tumbled into the bin.

  “That was a lot of trouble,” Morgan said to an attentive Adelaide. “I hope there’s money inside.”

  She peeled back the black plastic lid on the tub. Inside were several envelopes.

  “Unpaid bills?” Morgan asked.

  But the envelopes had all been opened, the top edges torn and ragged. Kendall and Allie were remarkably frugal, recycling envelopes to use in organizing their secret money stash. The first, a former utility bill envelope, contained twenty-five dollars. A used telephone bill envelope contained forty-two.

  “This is going to take too long.”

  Morgan poured the oats back into the metal barrel. She took Adelaide a handful, depositing them in the wooden trough inside the stall. Then she resealed the barrel, locked the tack room, and headed for the shop with the coffee tub.

  Only two customers and a man in a suit needing directions to the Dalton ranch interrupted her counting. Morgan sorted the bills into stacks, wrapping them together with rubber bands. When she finished, her tally came to five hundred and thirty three dollars.

  Morgan couldn’t imagine a bake sale netting the rest of the three thousand Kendall needed. She hoped he could escape whatever situation he was in with a lot less.

  After closing the shop for the day, Morgan heated up a store-bought lasagna casserole for dinner.

  “I’m going to the gem society meeting tonight,” Morgan said. “Are you sure you don’t want to go with me?”

  “No, thanks,” Del said. “Don’t mention the ammolite, or you’ll have a dozen new best friends, all wanting to follow you home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  * * *

  The Pine County Gemstone Society and Prospecting Club met in City Hall. The building was modeled after the Denver capitol, but instead of a gold dome, Golden Springs’s was wood shingle. The public meeting room shared the lower level of the two-story building with city offices and the police department.

  Morgan had attended a very different function in City Hall several months ago. That group had been free-thinking New Age types. She suspected that prospectors were equally independent-minded, but quite possibly poised on the opposite end of the political spectrum.

  As Morgan walked into the room, she was happy to see a familiar face. Barton Potts carried a cardboard banker’s box to the wooden table at the head of the room. Before she reached him, a skinny cowgirl intercepted her.

  “Hello. I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before.”

  Morgan had seen her. Last week, outside Rudy’s Two Step in Granite Junction. Tonight she wore a different blouse, but the tight jeans and pink and black cowgirl boots looked the same. She extended a hand tipped with polished pink nails.

  “I’m Lorina Dimple, president of the Gemstone Society.”

  Not Cooper. Morgan hadn’t thought she was Harlan’s wife. Lorina’s grip was strong for a skinny old broad. Seeing her up close, and not reflected in a dress shop mirror, Morgan could see the age in her face. Gray roots struggled against the pinkish-orange dye job in her short hair.

  “Morgan Iverson, manager of the Rock of Ages.”

  Lorina dropped her hand. “Kendall’s sister?”

  Morgan had given up trying to separate her identity from her brother’s. “Yes.”

  “How is that crazy son-of-a-gun?” Lorina’s manicured fingers flew to cover her lips. “Oh, I didn’t mean to say it quite that way.”

  “He and Allie are fine.” Morgan wasn’t about to share family gossip. She changed the subject. “Since I’m managing the rock shop, I thought I’d better come to a meeting and try to learn more about rocks and minerals.”

  “You came to the right place.” Lorina wrapped her arm through Morgan’s and dragged her along. “This here is our vice president, Barton Potts.”

  Barton turned from unpacking a box.

  “We know each other,” Morgan said. “Hi, Barton.”

  “From the Rock of Ages,” Barton said. “You know.” He looked uncomfortable. “Del lives there.”

  Lorina punched Barton’s arm. “We already made our introductions. You mean to tell me that old geezer Delano is still alive?”

  “He’s nearly healed up from his chainsaw accident,” Morgan said.

  “I did read about that in the paper. A man his age shouldn’t be playing around with power tools. Does he still hang out in that broke-down old trailer?”

  Morgan was willing to bet Miss Lorina had seen the interior of that trailer more than once. Before she had to answer, Dr. Tony Esteban walked in the door, struggling to balance a bulky leather briefcase on top of a plastic storage tub.

  “Professor,” Morgan said. “Need a hand?”

  “Mrs. Iverson, so glad to see you are still cultivating your interest in geology.”

  Lorina scrunched her face up to one side. “And here I thought you’d need introductions all around. You already seem to know everyone.”

  Her flashy boots clopped across the pine floor as Lorina sought less attached newcomers to ride herd on.

  The room didn’t exactly fill up, but a few more prospectors and rock hounds wandered in. When Harlan and Chase Cooper
made their entrance, Morgan expected Lorina to react, but she ignored the man she’d been arm-in-arm with just a week ago. By the time the meeting started, two dozen people sat on the metal folding chairs. Lorina called the meeting to order.

  “Myra, will you please read the minutes from our April meeting?”

  The young woman stood, turning to face the attendees. Morgan was certain none of the men listened to a word she read as she rattled off the dry meeting minutes, but she had their full attention. Myra was a stunning red-haired twenty-something. Although dressed like a prospector, no gold miner ever filled out a pair of jeans or tight safari-style shirt the way Myra did. The men probably didn’t notice her hesitant reading either, or how she stumbled over the big words.

  Barton seemed as affected as the rest. As Myra handed him a copy of the minutes, he fumbled the paper to the floor, bent over to pick it up, and hit his head on the podium.

  “If I could have everyone’s attention,” Lorina said, obviously annoyed by her much younger competition, “let’s move on to new business.”

  A heated discussion began about why their April fundraiser had been a bust.

  “Cate was supposed to get us some free advertising from the Gazetteer,” a man said. “We would have had plenty of people there for our event, if Cate had done her job.”

  “Since Cate isn’t here to defend herself,” Lorina said, “how about we move on to the next issue?”

  One of the Society’s numerous subcommittees gave a report on their annual mineral show to be held mid-summer.

  “We can’t take chances this time that tourists will just happen to wander into City Hall and find us,” Lorina said. “Last year we barely raised enough money to print our Society brochures.”

  Morgan wasn’t about to offer her assistance getting free advertising from Kurt, but decided she would mention it to him later. More new business, involving more mutual blame and arguing, filled another fifteen minutes. It was a contentious bunch. Maybe prospectors were too independent to form a cohesive group.