by Stacy Finz
As they slowly cruised a few of the subdivision’s streets, she got a closer look at the homes’ details. Big porches. Glass front doors. And hand-forged iron light fixtures.
“Check this out.” Rhys turned his truck down one of the side streets, up a driveway, and into a parking lot. He helped her out of the cab, leading the way down a lighted path to an enormous timber-frame clubhouse. They walked around the building to a series of terraced decks overlooking a golf course.
“Eighteen holes,” Rhys said.
“They didn’t skimp on anything, did they?”
Rhys gave her a wry smile and led her back to the clubhouse. “Rec room, gym, and pro shop,” he said. “There’s even an Olympic-size pool.” He gestured through a wrought iron arbor to a stone patio with two spas and a complete outdoor kitchen with pizza oven. None of it would have been out of place at a Wellmont Resort, except here the pool brimmed with slimy water the consistency of green Jell-O, and the gardens were overgrown with weeds.
“Who lives here?” Maddy cupped her hands against one of the clubhouse’s tinted windows and peeked in.
“No one. The developers fought Nugget tooth and nail to build this subdivision—promised to pay millions in improvements to the city for roads, police, schools, even to fund a clinic. But they promptly filed for bankruptcy as soon as the project came to a close. There are so many liens against the place that all the houses have been taken off the market.”
“Wow. What a waste.” Maddy walked the length of the patio to take in the view. Despite being what her brother would’ve called OTT—over the top—the place was sort of gorgeous.
“Yep. Until a few days ago they had their own security detail to at least watch over the place, keep kids and vagrants from breaking in. Now, Nugget’s stuck footing the bill for me and my officers to patrol it, when the city’s residents didn’t want it in the first place.”
“Why didn’t they?” she asked.
“Look around you, Maddy. These are million-dollar houses. Before this came in, Nugget didn’t have a wrong side of the tracks.”
“Don’t think badly of me,” she said guiltily. “But I kinda want one.”
Rhys let out a loud belly laugh.
“Stop.” She nudged him. “Okay, I can see how Nugget might be upset about this place, but I don’t see how it pertains to my inn or a downtown business association.”
They headed back to the truck, where he hooked her around the waist and swung her up into the passenger seat as if she weighed nothing. Although it was an innocent gesture, it made Maddy’s belly flop like she was free-falling off a tall mountain.
“You never heard the saying, ‘once bitten, twice shy’?” he asked her.
Oh, she’d heard it all right.
Chapter 5
Maddy had gotten into the habit of going to the Lumber Baron early in the morning, before the workers arrived and before most of the town awoke. She’d grab a cup of coffee from the Ponderosa or the Bun Boy, sit on the ramshackle veranda of the old mansion, and watch the square come to life.
Every day at seven sharp, Rhys pulled into his parking space, alighted from his truck with a thermos tucked under his arm, and let himself into the police station. At about that time, someone from the yoga studio unlocked the door. A group of men congregated at the barber shop, where Owen, the owner, held court. Merchants turned on their lights and a maintenance truck from Plumas County Parks and Recreation circled the green belt, picking up trash.
No one, except for Rhys, ever came over to say hello. Not even so much as a simple head nod or a friendly smile. She may as well have been invisible. Maddy tried not to take it personally. Rhys and Sophie had warned her that in a town like this, newcomers were viewed with the same wariness as a blind date. Still, it would have been nice to be acknowledged.
She rose from her spot on the porch and stretched her legs. Although the construction crew swore the rickety veranda was safe, they’d be reinforcing it soon. Then she’d have to set the lawn chairs she’d brought on the dirt. No sense trying to plant grass while the workers used the yard to stack their lumber and tramped across it in their heavy work boots.
For now she had a reprieve. The crew, busy completing another project’s punch list, wouldn’t be here for hours. But she was meeting Virgil Ross, the local historian. She checked her watch, and to kill time, began strolling the property.
Even in downtown Nugget, the air smelled forest fresh, like pine with a hint of vanilla and butterscotch. Someone had told her that Ponderosa sap, when warmed by the sun, smelled exactly like freshly baked cookies. And she was definitely getting hits of bakery.
As she wended her way back to the front of the mansion, a man wearing a tweed newsboy hat, carrying a walking cane with a handle braided in buckskin and decorated with fringe and feathers, stood at the foot of the porch steps calling, “Anyone home?”
“Mr. Ross?” She walked toward him and waved.
He turned to greet her and flashed a warm smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
She stuck out her hand. But instead of shaking it, he leaned the cane against the Victorian and sandwiched her palm between his gnarled, milk-chocolate-colored hands. On nearly every finger he wore a turquoise ring; some were delicate with intricate inlay designs that looked like mosaic and others more chunky, with big silver bands.
“I’m Maddy,” she said, inviting him to take a chair on the porch. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
He looked up at the mansion and Maddy could see him assessing how run-down it had gotten. “This house used to be a beauty. I’m glad you’re bringing her back.” Using the cane to help hoist himself up, Virgil slowly climbed one step at a time.
“I’m glad we are, too,” Maddy said, dragging one of the lawn chairs next to his. “I want to stay as true to the period as possible.” Then she quickly amended, “Of course we’re turning it into an inn so we’ll have to incorporate twenty-first-century amenities.”
“Of course,” he said and grinned. “People do like their indoor plumbing.”
“And their Wi-Fi,” she added. “But I very much want the inn to be a symbol of the area’s history.”
One of the only reasons Maddy had been attracted to Nugget was its rich past—the Maidu Indians, who’d hunted and gathered in these mountains; the gold and copper miners, who’d struck it rich; the nineteenth-century cowboys, who’d driven their cattle through forests and over high desert just so they could settle here. And of course there had been the loggers and the railroad men. Nugget’s welcome sign proclaimed the town to be the “Pride of the West,” and Maddy could see why. She just didn’t understand why the town didn’t work it more, especially the Donner Party angle.
“Chief Shepard says your grandfather was one of the first settlers here and that you know everything there is to know about this area’s history,” she said.
He chuckled. “ ‘Everything’ might be overstating it, but I appreciate Rhys’s endorsement. He’s right that my granddad was the first white man”—Virgil made quotes with his fingers—“to put down roots in Nugget,” he said, adding that in addition to being African-American, his grandfather had been part Native American.
“He built a trading post on the edge of town, which became popular with the miners. But he settled here about four years after the Donner Party got stranded in the Sierra.” Virgil stared out at the perilous mountain range that surrounded Nugget like a fortress. Even though a freeway ran through the pass now, these mountains could still be treacherous in winter. “And it’s the Donner Party, as I understand it, that you want to talk about, correct?”
“Honestly,” she said, “I can’t fathom why Nugget hasn’t done more to showcase the fact that it happened right here. The tragedy is so gripping. There’s the railroad museum, chronicling the importance of the Western Pacific in the Sierra, endless amounts of gold rush attractions, but other than Donner Memorial State Park, nothing to, you know—”
“Exploit it?” he said, amused.
“Well, yeah,” Maddy reluctantly admitted. “At the risk of sounding ghoulish, it’s a pretty captivating story. So why shouldn’t Nugget use it to promote the town a little more? We don’t have to be disrespectful, or tacky.” She thought about all the Donner Party cannibalism jokes she’d heard over the years and inwardly cringed.
“What exactly did you have in mind?” he asked.
“I was thinking of turning one wall of the inn into a sort of Donner Party exhibit: photos, various written accounts of what happened, maybe even some artifacts if we could get them.”
Virgil sat there pensively, as if considering how involved he wanted to be in this little project, and eventually started nodding. “It’s doable,” he said, pushing the newsboy cap back on his head and scratching. “Even though the best relics already went to the park service, we might be able to get a piece of pottery, or a remnant of clothing from some descendant’s attic.”
“Are there any relatives around here?” Maddy asked excitedly.
“A few scattered throughout Northern California. The Virginia Reed-Murphy house is just up the road.”
“Virginia Reed-Murphy?” Maddy had read quite a bit about the Donner Party, but the name didn’t ring a bell.
“It was Virginia Reed back then,” he said. “When she was twelve her family left Springfield, Illinois, to come to California. Her dad was a big businessman hoping to strike it rich out West. They met up with the Donner family, so they could all travel together and eventually picked up more people along the way.
“But you know how that turned out . . .”
Maddy knew that the trip was a catastrophe. They followed a shortcut that was supposed to shave hundreds of miles off a nearly three-thousand-mile trek. An ambitious lawyer named Lansford Hastings had written about the shortcut in a book. The problem was, Hastings had never actually tried the route himself. It turned out to be deadly.
“The trip was a suicide mission,” Maddy said.
“Yep.” Virgil nodded. “When the group of travelers finally made it to the Rocky Mountains, they caught up with an old friend of the Reeds. The friend warned them not to take Hastings’s shortcut, that the trail wasn’t wide enough for wagons. When the caravan got to Oregon, most of the travelers took the advice of the Reeds’ friend and went the safe route. But Virginia’s dad convinced the Donners and a number of other families to take Hastings’s cutoff.”
“Seems to me it should’ve been called the Reed Party,” Maddy said. “Why Donner?”
“Ah,” Vigil said, warming to the tale. “Now that is a very good observation. I suspect that it was called the Donner Party because George Donner was elected captain by the group. They didn’t like Virginia’s dad—thought he was pompous. And his decision was hasty, because somewhere between Utah and the Nevada border the Reeds lost their oxen and couldn’t take their wagon any farther.
“They had to sleep on the ground with their dogs on top of them for warmth,” he continued. “It turned out that not only was Hastings’s shortcut perilous, but it was more than one hundred miles longer than the safe route. All the travelers who’d taken the well-traveled road made it to California in five months.”
Virgil sat back in his lawn chair. “Not the Donner Party. By October, things were getting pretty bad. Lots of fighting and blaming. One day, Virginia’s dad caught one of the teamsters beating his oxen with the handle of a bullwhip. He tried to stop it, but the driver turned the whip on Reed and hit him in the head. So Virginia’s dad stabbed the driver to death with his hunting knife.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Maddy said, surprised that she didn’t know anything about this part of the story.
“The group wanted to lynch Virginia’s father. One of the pioneers grabbed a rope and was ready to hang him. Virginia’s mom got down on her knees and begged them to spare his life. So they showed him mercy by banishing him from the group. The next day he left his family with the Donners and rode west out of camp.”
“Did Virginia ever see him again?”
“Every day, as they traveled, she searched for a sign of him. Sometimes he’d leave missives stuck to trees. But then the letters stopped.” Virgil looked at his watch. “We’ll have to pick up the rest of the story another time.”
Maddy wanted to protest. She knew how it ended for the Donners, but what about Virginia and her family? Obviously Virginia had survived if she’d built a house around here. But how? “You think the Reed-Murphys would talk to me?”
“Virginia died in 1921. A descendant hasn’t lived there since,” Virgil said. “A slew of different owners, mostly weekenders, have occupied it. My guess is whoever lives there now doesn’t even know who Virginia Reed is, or that she and her husband built it as a summer home.”
“See what I mean,” Maddy said. “The residents here don’t even know what they have. Maybe we could get the whole town involved. Set up a little museum in the square, or a visitor center, maybe hold a day to commemorate the historical event.”
Virgil patted her knee, his eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. “All that might be a little ambitious. But let me look into some things and get back to you. I’ve got a few ideas. You’ve got a little time, right?”
“Absolutely,” she said.
After Virgil left, Maddy came down the steps and headed to her car.
“Hiya.” A woman with red hair jogged up, waving. “I’m Pam, owner of the yoga-dance studio.” She pointed to a building adjacent to the Lumber Baron. “For days I’ve wanted to come over and welcome you to the square, but the hours kept getting away from me. Busy time. Anyway, hello and welcome.”
She looked up at the mansion and grimaced. “You’ve got your work cut out for you.”
“Yeah,” Maddy said, thrilled to finally have one of the merchants introduce herself. “The place is pretty disgusting. But we’ll make her shine again.”
“Well, watch yourself. I’ve seen some sketchy people hanging around—probably just squatters, but I didn’t like the looks of ’em. I called the sheriff a few times, but with the whole county to patrol—not a top priority. It’ll be better now that we have our own police department again. But I felt you ought to know, especially if you’re here alone.”
“I appreciate it,” Maddy said. Hopefully Pam was overreacting. There were lots of shady-looking characters in San Francisco, mostly all harmless.
“Uh . . . I know this is short notice, but, if you’re not busy this afternoon we’re having a meeting for the Halloween festival. We could sure use some fresh blood.”
“Halloween festival?” Maddy remembered Mariah mentioning something about a holiday carnival, but hadn’t paid attention to the details.
“Yep, we hold one every year on the square. With everything spread out the way it is, the kids have a tough time trick-or-treating. So all the merchants hand out candy, there’s a couple of booths, apple bobbing, pumpkin decorating, that sort of thing. If you’re interested, the meeting’s at my studio around fourish.”
“I’m absolutely interested.”
When Pam left, Maddy texted Nate, telling him to put the festival on his calendar.
“Shit.” Rhys knocked over a glass of water as he searched his nightstand in the dark for the phone. He squinted at the glowing numbers on his alarm clock. One a.m. “Hello.”
“Sorry to wake you, Chief.”
“Connie, that you?” He finally found the light switch and flicked it on.
“Yes, Chief. We’ve got a four fifteen on Trout Lane in Sierra Heights.”
“Uh . . . What? Connie, just talk in English.”
His new dispatcher, with her cherubic face and geeky glasses, reminded Rhys of Velma from the Scooby-Doo cartoon. Owning a police scanner, being willing to take emergency calls at home after hours and having memorized the entire California Penal Code had won her the coveted position. Rhys would definitely have to rethink the penal code situation, since he was still on Texas’s.
“A disturbance, Chief. Someone called it in about four minutes
ago and Wyatt’s off tonight.” Wyatt, his sole officer, had been foisted on him because his parents were friends with the mayor. The kid was green as grass.
“All right.” Rhys already had one leg in his Levi’s and was hopping around on the other. “Text me the house number. I’m on my way.”
Shit, shit, shit! Shep. He couldn’t leave him alone. Lately, Shep had been having his worst moments at night, waking up in a cold sweat, forgetting where he was. Rhys had even found him outside, taking a leak in the pitch black, because he couldn’t find the bathroom. His doctor said it was typical of dementia, but it had scared the hell out of Rhys.
Given that Nugget shut up quieter than a tufted titmouse after nine o’clock, he’d figured this would never be a problem. Wrong.
He quickly finished getting dressed, holstered his Glock, walked across the porch, knocked on the door, and whispered, “Maddy, open up.” What the hell was he whispering for? He tried again, this time louder. “Mad—”
“What’s wrong?” She opened the door with her hair all tousled, in an oversized Giants sweatshirt, wearing fuzzy pink bunny slippers. He took one look at her, flushed and sleepy eyed, and a wave of lust hit him like a fist to the gut.
He backed away from the doorway to give himself a little space and almost forgot the reason he’d come. Get your head back in the game. “Sorry to do this, but it’s an emergency. Could you sit with Shep just until I get back? I have to go out on a call.”
“Yeah. Sure. Of course. Let me just throw on a robe.”
While she disappeared back into her apartment, he checked his phone for Connie’s text. He knew the address and could be there in minutes, but if this turned out to be a real emergency, he had taken way too long. He’d have to work out a better system or the good folks of Nugget may as well save their money and go back to contracting solely with the sheriff.
“Okay.” Maddy came flying out the door.
“Thanks. I owe you big-time.”
He ran to his new city-issued all-wheel-drive. The police SUV had been purchased with federal block-grant money earmarked for community improvements. His personal truck was fine for light duty, but Nugget needed vehicles equipped for the rigors of daily police work—especially in three feet of snow. So he’d snatched the money before someone got the bright idea of buying all new office furniture for City Hall. He had enough cash left over from the grant to buy two more if he shopped right. He jumped into the rig, turned on the flashing blue and red roof light, and sped away.
