"She must have hidden it then," I said, "maybe waiting until she had time to find out what it was."
"At any rate, Colton went to Hog Heaven that morning to get the shells for what was going to be the final salt of the claim. When Dan told him what had happened to the diamond, he flew into a rage. He saw Opal going to the Four Mile ruins and followed her. I suppose he thought he could force her into giving it back. Instead he killed her."
"I know how desperate she must have felt," I said. "I don't blame her for telling him she'd given me the diamond. She was excited about showing me the Four Mile ruins; my name was on her mind. The ironic part is that I did have it. It was probably already in my pocket when he killed her. Or maybe..." I began, thinking of more high woo-woo possibilities. Maybe she did know, I had been going to say, but decided not to voice the thought out loud. I remembered the strange force that had overtaken me in that small room. Maybe Opal knew that through me her death would be avenged.
"At that point, with Thea's help, their whole scheme began to unravel," Max said.
"I wasn't always a help. I really thought Jennifer was involved somehow. Why did she react so strongly when she heard that someone had tampered with Ronnie Mae's medicine?"
Rusty looked at Charlotte. "My father," she responded with a grimace. "In his own inimitable way, he had mentioned more than once that someone should put the poor dear out of her misery, even suggesting at one point that someone should cut off her insulin. Jennifer was scared that he had done just that and that she might be implicated because she'd been so friendly with him. She rushed right over and told Rusty all about it." She sighed. "Thank goodness Dad didn't do that, but he was more involved than I thought he was, Thea. Rusty found out that the two lay brothers were imposters. They were geologists my dad had hired to investigate some rumors he'd heard about a diamond find. He also hired Pussyfoot to try to get them on the Lorenzo site."
"At this time there's no evidence to indicate that Pussyfoot's accident was the result of another of Colton's rages," Rusty said.
"But it was enough to frighten my father into leaving town," Charlotte said, wryly.
Poor Charlotte, I thought. She'd had bad stuff coming at her both from her father and her best friend. Finding out the truth about Yvonne had shaken my faith in my judgment about people, as well. I had liked her. She was smart, quippy, fun to be around, but I guess there's nothing in the rule book that says all ruthless, greedy, conscienceless people have to be plodding dullards. Depressing. I wanted to be done with it. "I for one am ready to put all this aside for awhile," I said.
"Right," Max chimed in. "On to the business of the day." He and Rusty got eagerly to their feet. "Diamond hunting. Finders, keepers?"
"Not quite," Rusty said. "We're looking for evidence, man."
We were taking a picnic lunch to the claim site, and they were both as excited as kids on a treasure hunt. Our mission was to gather evidence about the salting project. But I must admit, the fever was catching. What if there really were diamonds there? I could hardly wait to start pawing through the dirt.
"Wait a minute," Charlotte said, "before we go, I have an early house-warming present for you, Thea." She ran off to their car to get it.
We had asked Charlotte and Rusty to stand up with us when we got married next week, and Charlotte was delighted. We were going to live in Max's house until it sold. He didn't think this was the place where he wanted to settle down for good, and thought we should choose another home site together. I was well acquainted with his reluctance to settle in one place, and found I didn't mind at all. There was nothing I would like better than to poke around in all the unknown corners of Wyoming, whether we were looking for oil or diamonds. As long as it was with Max.
Charlotte returned with a brightly wrapped package, and handed it to me with a mischievous smile. "To commemorate one of the brighter moments since your arrival."
I tore the paper off. "Oh, no!" I exclaimed, then had to laugh with the others. She had framed the front page of the local paper, with its giant picture of me, mouth open, hair afly, arms raised to protect myself from Sugar flapping in my face. The headline read, Murder Suspect Indulges in Fowl Play.
The End
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Page forward for a special Afterword,
followed by an excerpt from
DEATH BY DOODLEBUG
The Thea Barlow Wyoming Mystery Series
Book Four
Afterword
by W. Dan Hausel, Senior Economic Geologist, Wyoming State Geological Survey.
The Leucite Hills lie in southwestern Wyoming, just north of Interstate 80 and the towns of Rock Springs and Superior. Visitors to the Leucite Hills are impressed by several seemingly young volcanoes, volcanic necks, dikes, and volcanic flows overlooking the sandstone cliffs north of the interstate. These volcanoes are very young in geological terms and have been dated by scientific methods to be only one to three million years old.
The unique rocks of the Leucite Hills have been the subject of several geological investigations and research projects. Today, geologists recognize that the Leucite Hills may contain some of the rarest rock types on the surface of the earth. These are classified as lamproites and are similar to kimberlite. Lamproite and kimberlite are the only two rock types currently mined for diamond in the world.
Diamonds are found in lamproites at Murfreesburo, Arkansas; Argyle and Ellendale, Western Australia; and Majhgawan, India. The Argyle lamproite is the richest diamond deposit in the world based on the number of diamonds in each ton, even though the value of the diamonds is considerably less than those found in some South African kimberlites.
Although no diamonds have yet been found in the Leucite Hills, I personally believe there is a good possibility they could be there. This belief is based on several factors. One is that the geology of this region is similar to that of South Africa, and another is that a few other lamproites in the world have produced diamonds. In addition, the chemistry of a certain indicator mineral from the Leucite Hills, notably chromite, is suggestive of being derived from depths great enough for the formation of diamond. It is also notable that diamonds have been found southwest of the Leucite Hills along the Wyoming-Utah border near Lone Tree, and also south of Laramie along the Colorado-Wyoming border.
Page forward for an excerpt from
DEATH BY DOODLEBUG
The Thea Barlow Wyoming Mystery Series
Book Four
Excerpt from
Death by Doodlebug
The Thea Barlow Wyoming Mystery Series
Book Four
by
Carol Caverly
Bestselling Author
Left at the altar! Me. In my wedding dress, with a church full of people, I still can't believe it. A week and a half later, and still I can't believe it. I leaned against my desk, watching out the bay window for Jennie Colman's rattletrap Dodge to appear. Jennie, a new friend, is the one bright spot in the whole dismal affair. She works at the Glory Hole restaurant and helped with the food for the wedding reception that didn't happen.
She's just the kind of crazy woman I need to be around. She makes me laugh. She loves exploring ghost towns, collects paintings of outhouses, and has talked me into going gold panning this weekend. It helped that she was with me yesterday when the sheriff's office called to say that the errant groom, Max Holman, had been tagged on the far side of the st
ate, driving toward Sheridan.
Finally accepting that Max had disappeared by choice, not accident, hurt dreadfully. All of us had been crazy worried that only some kind of horrible accident could have kept him from the church. I was perhaps more aware of Max's dark side. The deep crannies' of hurt, doubt, and uncertainties that lie hidden in all of us, but to leave without a word...
Where are you Max? And why, why, why?
And how about my little house? I looked around at all the familiar nooks and second-hand furniture. I loved my house. But what should I do now? Stay here in Garnet Pass, or go somewhere else in Wyoming?
Thankfully, Jennie's car burst into sight stopping my constant ruminating about the same old stuff.
I opened the front door just as she pulled open the screen door.
"You are now a free woman, Thea Barlow," she announced, stooping to pick up a piece of paper as she stepped through the door. "All packages delivered! And Max Holman now owes me a hundred dollars for gas, wear and tear on my tires and anything else I can think of."
Only a true friend would take on the miserable job of returning wedding presents to local residents while I packaged the last two to be mailed.
"Here," she said, handing me a folded piece of paper. She plopped down on a chair. "
"What's this?" I unfolded the scrap of paper.
"I don't know. It was stuck in the screen door."
Words straggled haphazardly across the paper. I gasped at the first word. Jennie jumped up and peered over my shoulder. I smoothed the paper out on my desk. Max ok, it read.
"I tried," Jennie said, reading what seemed to come next.
One word, longer than the rest, dribbled down to the bottom. I pointed to it. "What does that say?" We both squinted at the letters: dugul, then maybe a space and bug. "What on earth?"
"Well, if the guy can't spell, I know what a doodlebug is," Jennie said, with a puzzled frown, "but that hurry might come after dugul."
"Could be, and there's another hurry or burry over there." At the end was deef with the f's tail slithering off the page.
With a huff of disgust, I turned away, not wanting Jennie to know how the sight of Max's name had bought me close to tears. "It's probably someone's idea of a joke."
"Maybe," Jennie said, "but let's see what we have." She bent over the paper and read, putting in periods where there weren't any. Max ok. I tried. Hurry. doodlebug deef.
Read like that, it sounded ominous. Still, it could be a joke. I just wanted my heart to stop pounding. Decision made, I folded the note back up and stuck it in my pocket. "We'll drop it off at the sheriff's office after we mail these. Despite my queasy stomach, I guess it shouldn't be a concern of mine any more. I picked up the three packages I'd wrapped and we trailed out the door.
The sirens began when we left the Post Office. The street erupted. Doors slammed open and shut. Two men ran out of the bar and raced past us.
"What's up?" Jennie hollered at them.
"Some guy found a body out by the park!"
Death by Doodlebug
by
Carol Caverly
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Death by Doodlebug
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I was raised in a Chicago suburb and married into a Wyoming pioneer ranch family. Yes, it was a bit of a culture shock, but I quickly grew to love the stark dry landscape and, most of all, the people. I was fascinated by how close their lives were to the happenings of what I considered to be the old Wild West.
My husband's grandfather talked about how the Butch Cassidy gang trailed through a ranch where he worked as a fourteen year old kid. The gang was on their way to Hole in the Wall. They stole horses on the way, but frequently left a note on a fence saying where the horses could be found in a few weeks time. Most all ranches had a "kid" working on them and, not surprisingly, the kid usually got the stickiest jobs. So grandpa got sent on horseback to go miles away to retrieve the bosses stock. He was always afraid the gang might still be there with the horses and would tie him up, or shoot him. Enthralled, I could sit for hours listening to his stories.
Men younger than grandpa, such as my father-in-law, were less talkative. I never could get them to tell me about the Johnson County War, one of the last battles between the ranchers and the rustlers, which happened close to where we lived. Most of their fathers were involved in it to some degree, and I think they were saddened by the event, or even afraid they might be called to account for it.
So I guess it's no wonder that when I began my writing career I wanted to honor my love and fascination for Wyoming and the clash between the old and new west that never seemed to be far away. I hope you enjoy my stories as much as I enjoyed writing them.
www.carolcaverly.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
A Note from the Publisher
Afterword
Excerpt from DEATH BY DOODLEBUG (The Thea Barlow Wyoming Mystery Series, Book 4)
About the Author
Dead in Hog Heaven (A Thea Barlow Mystery, Book Three) Page 24
