Hot on the Trail Mix

by P. D. Workman

  He bent down and kissed her on the forehead. “Better not. I’ll just keep you awake. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 6

  The next day, Erin’s mind was not any calmer, but was buzzing with questions about the person who had died in that cave. Who he had been and what had happened. How much did the police know? She knew that she couldn’t find out the details from Terry; he was far too careful of what he said to her. There were other ways to find out more information about the investigation. Mostly, she just had to wait, and it would come to her.

  Vic was definitely looking worse for wear. She was dressed and ready for work when it was time to go—Terry was still up and said he would drop them off—but Vic was definitely looking a little wilted.

  “Are you sure you’re okay to work today?”

  “I’m fine, boss. Got a few hours in.”

  “We don’t want you chopping any fingers off.”

  “I’ll be sure to stay away from the bread knife. You know how it is; once we get going, I won’t be tired anymore.”

  “Until you get home after the shift and crash. Why don’t you see if someone else can come in to cover the afternoon? You can just do the morning and then catch a nap.”

  “I really am fine,” Vic insisted.

  Erin shrugged. “Okay,” she finally conceded. She’d done everything she could to ensure that Vic had a way out if she needed it. She turned her attention to Terry.

  “And you’re okay to drop us off? You know all of the warnings about driving tired.”

  “I can manage to Auntie Clem’s and back.” It was only a few blocks. “I’ve driven after much longer shifts.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean it was a good idea. Driving tired is driving impaired.”

  “Are you going to administer a field test?” Terry teased good-naturedly. He closed his eyes and brought both index fingers to his nose. “Okay?”

  Erin laughed. “Okay, okay. You pass.”

  “I’ll sleep when I get back,” he promised. “I’ll get a good long chunk in by the time you’re back.”

  Erin didn’t think she would have been able to survive shiftwork, going to sleep during the day like that.

  They got their things together and headed out to the bakery.

  Erin enjoyed the cool air before the bakery heated up from the baking. It could get pretty hot in the kitchen during the summer, but it was only spring and it didn’t get unbearable. Vic and Erin worked together through their well-established routine, getting the morning’s goods baked and arranged in the display case.

  “You think the body was someone who was from out of town?” Erin asked Vic as they were arranging the display case.

  Vic looked at her, brows raised. She nodded. “Yes, I expect so. We would have heard if someone from Bald Eagle Falls was missing.”

  Erin nodded.

  “Why?”

  “It’s just that Terry… I kind of thought that he thinks it was someone from around here.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “Not exactly. But he said that I don’t know everyone in and around Bald Eagle Falls.”

  “Huh.” Vic thought about it. “Well, I mean… it could have been someone I know. He wasn’t exactly recognizable in that state. I just figured that since I hadn’t heard about a missing person, it must be someone from the city or out of state.”

  Erin shuddered. “Wouldn’t it be awful if it was someone that you knew.”

  “Yeah.” Vic paused in writing the pricing labels, staring in the direction of the front door. Erin doubted she actually saw the door or what was on the other side. “That would be pretty disturbing, actually.”

  Erin instantly regretted having suggested it. She knew how hard it could be to deal with a scene like that and, instead of reassuring and supporting Vic, she was making it worse by suggesting that maybe it was someone she knew.

  “Oh, I’m sorry… that was so stupid.”

  Vic shrugged. “Well, if it is someone I know, then it would have come up sooner or later anyway. Might as well think about it now and not be so shocked when they identify him.”

  The Fosters arrived early in the day, before the worst of the gossips came by. Mrs. Foster had been blindsided before by people discussing a murder in front of her children, so Erin was glad that she arrived when it was quiet and the discovery was not yet the main topic of conversation.

  “Miss Erin!” The children ran excitedly up to the display case to pick out their kid’s club cookies. It had been a long time since they had been there, between Erin falling out with Mrs. Foster and the birth of the latest little Foster.

  “It’s a boy!” Peter called out to Erin, gesturing to the baby Mrs. Foster wore in a sling. “I can’t believe we finally got another boy!”

  “I know,” Erin agreed. “It’s very exciting. Are you helping your mom out with everything? You’re a big boy, and taking care of a baby and your sisters is a big job.”

  He nodded seriously, watching his three sisters crowding around the display case pointing at the day’s offerings.

  “Yeah, that’s what Dad said, too. I try and help.”

  “Good. Don’t leave everything for her to do.”

  Peter agreed. He took charge of the little girls, asking them what cookies they wanted and trying to talk them into ordering the ones that he wanted them to. Mrs. Foster sighed and listed off for Erin the things that she needed for the week. The baby fussed, and she readjusted the sling, rocking her body back and forth to soothe him. He settled back down. Erin stood on her tiptoes to look over the counter and the edge of the sling to catch a glimpse of his cherubic cheeks.

  “Aw. So sweet.”

  Mrs. Foster nodded, rubbing the dark little curls at the top of his head. “It’s always such an amazing experience when they are this new,” she said. “Fresh from heaven.”

  Erin started to collect the bread and other items that the Fosters needed, giving a half-shrug. She didn’t believe in heaven or God, and mentions of them always made her feel awkward. She didn’t want to challenge people’s beliefs, but she didn’t want to pretend to agree when she didn’t, either. Silence was the best she could come up with.

  Vic spoke with the children, using tongs to get each child the cookie he or she wanted. Traci squealed and jumped up and down when she got hers. Peter looked down at his cookie and asked Mrs. Foster if she wanted a bite.

  “No, you go ahead and have it,” Mrs. Foster told him, giving his arm a pat. “It’s yours.”

  “You didn’t get anything.”

  “I don’t need anything, I’m the mom. And I have baby weight to lose.”

  “You don’t need to lose weight.”

  She smiled and pulled him in close for a hug around his shoulders. “I’m glad you don’t think so. But I don’t want to have to carry all of these extra pounds around. It’s hard enough carrying Allan.”

  “He’s not heavy.” Peter stood as tall as he could, grasping the edge of the sling to pull the side down and look at the baby.

  “No, but he’s going to keep growing. And until he’s big enough to walk around, I’ll be carrying him.”

  “You could use a stroller.”

  “I use a stroller when we go into the city,” Mrs. Foster said. “I don’t like to use one around town. It just encourages kids to be lazy.”

  Erin wasn’t sure how using a stroller encouraged a child to be lazy but using a sling did not. But she smiled at Mrs. Foster and handed her the order.

  Chapter 7

  Eventually, word started to get around about Vic’s discovery in the cave. Erin was happy to see that the most common reaction was the same as hers—horror at what Vic had discovered and shudders at the thought of exploring caves deep underground, dark and damp and full of unearthly critters. There were few women who, like Vic or Gema, a woman who had lived in Bald Eagle Falls when Erin had first arrived there, appreciated the adventure and challenge of spelunking.

  “Why on earth would anyone want t
o crawl into a hole in the ground?” Lottie Sturm demanded. “I can’t imagine any good reason for tunneling like a worm inside the earth!”

  “I understand your viewpoint,” Vic assured her. “There are a lot of people who would agree with you. But I really enjoy exploring. Stepping into a place that… few if any human eyes have ever seen before. And you’ve seen some of the pictures, right? Some caves can be absolutely beautiful. Full of stalactites and stalagmites, or beautiful underground waterfalls and pools. Even gold or other mineral deposits. You never know what you’re going to find.”

  Lottie made a disgusted noise and shuddered dramatically. “You’d never catch me going into such a place. And this just proves it.”

  “What…?” Vic asked, her eyebrows coming down.

  “Finding a skeleton. Anyplace you find a dead skeleton is a place I don’t want to be.”

  “Oh. Yes, you’re right, of course. Dead skeletons,” Vic agreed. “I can see how you wouldn’t want to come across any of them.”

  “You’re acting like it wasn’t any big deal,” Cindy Prost, mother of Bella, one of Erin’s part-time employees, pointed out. “There’s something wrong with you if that doesn’t bother you.”

  Cindy flashed a look at Lottie, which Erin interpreted as a confirmation of what they had long believed—that there was something terribly wrong with Vic. As if being transgender weren’t proof enough that she was a deviant.

  Erin rolled her eyes, directing a mental apology at Vic. At least the customers knew not to run Vic down in front of her. Anyone who did was not welcomed back into the bakery until they had expressed a sincere apology. Cindy was definitely treading a thin line. Erin wasn’t going to put up with much more from her.

  “I’ve got a pretty strong stomach,” Vic said. “I wouldn’t say that it didn’t give me a turn, but as far as it keeping me from spelunking anymore… well, it would take a lot more than a pile of bones to keep me out of the caves.”

  “It just ain’t natural,” Cindy affirmed.

  “Do they know who it was yet?” Lottie asked.

  “It’s probably some ancient, prehistoric skeleton,” Cindy said. “Been down there for a thousand years.”

  “Not unless they had blue jeans a thousand years ago.” Vic leaned forward slightly to deliver this news and to assess the ladies’ reaction to it.

  “Blue jeans?”

  Vic nodded. “Either that or someone dressed up the cave man later. And with the state he was in, that would have been pretty hard.”

  “Shocking,” Cindy huffed. “I can’t believe something like that happening right here in—right outside of Bald Eagle Falls. This isn’t the kind of place where that happens.”

  Who did she think she was kidding? Erin had been stumbling over dead bodies and other criminal enterprises since she had moved to Bald Eagle Falls. Rather than not being the kind of place bodies showed up like that, the universe seemed to be funneling them toward Bald Eagle Falls and the nearby Tennessee towns.

  “I’m shore he didn’t do it on purpose,” Vic drawled. She gave Erin an amused look, clearly in agreement that with all that had happened in the time they had both been in Bald Eagle Falls, it wasn’t unlikely that she would discover a skeleton in an underground lake.

  “Do you think he had a heart attack?” Lottie mused. “Did he look like he had a heart attack? Or like he drowned?”

  “I’m sure the medical examiner will look into that… it’s not up to me to say.”

  The women made shocked noises and placed their orders for baking that they probably didn’t actually need.

  After they were gone, Vic looked sideways at Erin. The bakery was empty for the moment, and she had something she wanted to say without others overhearing. Erin read all of this in a glance.

  “What?”

  “I don’t think he had a heart attack or drowned.”

  “Oh.” Erin thought about that. She wasn’t sure she really wanted to know the details. But Vic wanted to talk to someone about it, and she didn’t want to spread rumors all over Bald Eagle Falls. For one thing, Officer Terry Piper would not appreciate that. “You think that… you could tell what it was? From the bones?”

  “Yeah.” Vic’s voice was low and husky. “The skull was pretty smashed up.”

  Erin mumbled a response, her stomach lurching. She tried again not to picture what Vic had seen, but her imagination was too good. She couldn’t help forming a mental image.

  “I don’t think it was natural,” Vic said. “I mean, yeah, maybe he hit his head… on an overhang, or fell into that pool, but I don’t think so. And I don’t get the feeling that Terry thought so.”

  “It could have been an accident.”

  “If it was… then where was his gear? He went into the cave without any? I didn’t even see a headlamp. I’m sure they’ll drain the pool and look for one, but… no one would go in there without a headlamp. Not on purpose.”

  “So, you think it’s murder.”

  “The questions that the police were asking us last night… they didn’t act like they thought it was an accident.”

  Chapter 8

  Terry had said that he would go to sleep after dropping Erin off and would probably sleep most of the time that Erin was working. That would get him back on track so that he wasn’t in as much of a danger of coming down with a migraine or relapsing in other areas.

  When she got home, he was awake. He didn’t look like she had woken him up, or like he had just recently gotten himself up and was still groggy. That was good. He must have gotten the sleep that he had needed.

  He got up from the couch when she arrived and gave her a hug and a soft kiss. “How was your day?” he murmured.

  “Well, you know what it gets like at Auntie Clem’s when people are chasing down rumors.” Erin bent down to pick up Orange Blossom, who was yowling for her attention. She held him like a baby while she spoke to Terry.

  “I suppose there’s nothing we can do about it when Vic was one of the witnesses. You can’t exactly ground her.”

  Erin laughed. “No. I don’t think that would work very well.” She walked into the kitchen with her armful of yowling cat. Marshmallow pricked up his long ears and followed her in to make sure he didn’t miss out on any treats. “What do you want today?”

  “I can make something. You’ve been working all day, I’ve just been sleeping and lazing about.”

  “You’ve been sleeping because you were up all night. At least I got a few hours of sleep.”

  “I’ve had more than you by this time. How much did you get? Two hours? Three?”

  Erin shrugged. She didn’t really want to stop to calculate. Less than she needed, that was for sure. But she would sleep better tonight. “We’ll make something together, then. Some pasta?”

  Terry nodded his agreement. Erin put down the cat and washed her hands. They moved around the kitchen together, coordinating the preparation of pasta, a green salad, and rolls from the bakery with butter. Marshmallow hung around Erin’s feet while she chopped vegetables for the salad, so she cut a few chunks for him.

  Of course, that set Orange Blossom off again because the bunny was getting a treat and he wasn’t. So Erin had to get him something. And she didn’t want K9 to feel left out, so she got a doggie biscuit out of the jar for him. She thought about Nilla over in Vic’s apartment, but it seemed a little silly to make sure that he got a treat. Vic would see to it that he had what he needed. Hopefully, he hadn’t torn things up again while Vic had been at work and he had been in the apartment by himself. At least, Erin assumed that he had been alone, and Willie had been out checking out one of his mines or another venture.

  “You didn’t hear Nilla during the day, did you?” she asked Terry.

  “Nilla? I wouldn’t hear him from here, unless he was howling.”

  Which meant that he hadn’t. Erin nodded. “Good. I hope he’s settling into the routine.”

  They worked a little longer in silence.

  “Have you hea
rd from the sheriff?” Erin ventured.

  “Heard what from the sheriff?”

  “Any update on the case. Have they been able to identify the body?”

  “Preliminary steps are being taken. Can’t really say more than that. There are particular procedures to follow, channels to go through.”

  “I know. I just wondered if you’d heard an update from him.”

  Terry nodded, but didn’t give any further information to Erin.

  “Vic said she thought that it was a murder investigation. Not an accident investigation.”

  He turned around from the sauce he was stirring and looked at her. “Well, that was very astute of her,” he said. “Or did you hear something from Melissa?”

  “She didn’t come to the bakery today.” Melissa worked part time at the police department with administrative work. And she was a little too eager to spread information on matters that should have remained confidential.

  “Well, that’s good news. The longer we can keep that woman out of the bakery, the better.”

  Erin smiled, scooping irregularly-cut vegetables into the salad bowl. “You know that if she didn’t come into the bakery, she would just take the news somewhere else, don’t you?”

  He grunted. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”

  “She didn’t come by. So I guess your investigation is still safe.”

  He nodded and stirred the sauce. He poked a fork into the pot of pasta and teased a piece out to test for doneness.

  “So, Vic was right?” Erin asked. “It was murder?”

  “That hasn’t been determined.”

  “But you’re investigating it as murder? You think it was?”

  “We’re not making assumptions either way.”

  “Vic said he wasn’t even wearing a headlamp.”

  “Vic was there. I can’t comment on witness testimony.”

  “If he wasn’t wearing a headlamp, or there wasn’t one with him, that would mean that there was someone else down there with him. Or he was dragged down there and put in the pond after he was dead.”