Peggy Dulle - Liza Wilcox 02 - Apple Pots and Funeral Plots (24 page)

“I know, Bill.
Tom’s calling the local cops.
We should get as many people as we can out looking for her.”

“I told her to stay away from those stupid mines.”

“I don’t think she went there, Bill.”

“I hope not.
She’s the only one who could find her way around that mine.
We’d all get lost looking for her in there.”

Tom came back into the room.
“We’re supposed to come down to the station.
They’re going to go through Ted’s statement again and see if they can get more information.”

“I don’t think there’s more to know, Tom,” I said.

“I don’t either, but let them try.
Where do you think she went?”

I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t know.
But I’ll bet it has something to do with whatever’s going on in this town.”

Tom nodded.

“What’s going on in town?” Ted asked.

“Never mind,” I told him.
“We need to get you down to the police station.”

We left
Shelby
in the room and we took Ted down to the station.
The lieutenant came out and took Ted.
We turned around to leave and ran into Jimmy.
Tom shook hands with him.

“I called Bill,” I told him.

“Thanks.
He called me and he’s on his way down right now.”

“If you need any help, call us,” Tom told Jimmy.

“Thanks, we will.”

The two men shook hands again and Tom and I walked out of the station.
“I’d like to stay and help,” I told him.

“Do you know the town well enough?”
Tom asked.

“Not really.”

“That’s what I figured.
I know even less.
We’d just be in the way.
Let’s let the local cops do their job.”

Reluctantly, we went back to the inn.
I sat at the table while Tom paced.
Shelby paced with him.
A few minutes later, he walked to the door.
“I can’t stay here anymore.
Let’s go for a walk.”

“I though
t
you’d never ask.”

“Where to?” he asked.

“Let’s start with the big tent.”

“Good choice.”

Chapter 23

When we got outside, Tom went to his patrol car.
I followed him.
“What are you doing?”

“Getting back-up.”
Tom got out a large flashlight, his gun, and a shoulder holster from the locked box in his trunk.
He put it on and covered the gun with a black windbreaker.
“Let’s go.”

We took Kate’s car and drove back to the fairgrounds.
There were cops on every street, searching for Kate.
After we parked, we walked toward the big tent.
Several of the carnival workers were gathered in a group, talking to the police.
It seemed like the cops really were looking for her.

The tent was totally empty.
The tables were gone and so were the dogs and the guards.
Tom turned on his flashlight.
“Let’s check the ground.”

“For what?”

“Maybe drugs or some indication that Kate was here.”

“Okay.”

But the place was swept clean.
I pointed to the floor.
“You could eat off of this ground.”

“Yeah, and that usually means there’s something to hide.”

We finished searching the tent.
No sign of anything - let alone drugs or Kate.

“Now what?”
Tom asked, as we came out of the tent.

“Let’s check the back.
I’d like to see if there really were trucks pulled up to those openings.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We walked around the tent and Tom lit up the ground outside the back.
There were tire tracks on the ground.

“These are definitely from large trucks.”
Tom pointed to the ground.

I paced back and forth.
“Okay, if I couldn’t use the tent anymore, because some nosy person was asking questions and snooping around…”

“Like you?”

“Yes…,” I said and proudly nodded.
“So, where would I take my operation?”

“Someplace where nobody goes or someplace that people think is dangerous, so nobody is there.”

“The mines.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And if Kate was there earlier, exploring and climbing, maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

“That’s another possibility.
But the mines are massive.
We’ll end up lost.”

“Not if we have a guide.”

“Who are you thinking about?”

“Edith.
Her dad was a spelunker.
I’ll bet he dragged her around those mines for years when she was a kid.
She probably knows them as well as he did.”

“Okay.
Where do we find her?”

I glanced at my watch.
It was
six o’clock
.
“Let’s try the library first.
I’ll bet she spends most of her time there.”

“Like you would at school if you didn’t have
Shelby
to go home to?”

I nodded.

We walked back to the parking lot and got in Kate’s car.
It only took a few minutes to get to the library.
A quick glance up and I noticed lights shining through several windows on the second floor.
I pointed at them.
“She’s still there.”

We went to the library door and saw the “Closed” sign.
Tom tried the door, but it was locked.
I knocked as hard as I could.
Then Tom knocked.
Then we both knocked.

Eventually, Edith opened the door.
“What’s up, Liza?”

“I need your help.”

“Come on in.”
Edith stepped aside to let us in.

“No, you need to come with us.”

“Where?”
Edith asked, frowning.

“We need a guide for the mine.”

She shook her head.
“I don’t go in the mines anymore.”

“Kate’s missing and we think she’s there.”

“How long has she been missing?”

“Several hours.”

“Are you sure she’s there?
She knows those mines as well as I do.
It would be impossible for her to get lost.”

“Like your dad?”

“Yeah, he took her down there all the time, especially after I stopped going.”
Finally, her eyes widened.
“I get it.
You think something’s happened to her and she’s stuck in the mine.”

“Yes.”

“Okay.
We need to go back to my house and get some gear.”
She pointed to Tom.
“I still have my dad’s things.
You can wear those.”

Edith got into Kate’s car and we drove to her small house on one of the side streets.
The front yard was immaculate.
The lawn had been freshly cut and the flowerbeds were weeded and growing beautifully colored flowers.
She didn’t take us through the front door, but around the house and toward the back.
There was a metal shed that sat in the middle of the backyard.
Edith brought out a set of keys and unlocked the shed.
When the door opened, a light came on inside.

“Come on in,” Edith said and the three of us walked in.

Hanging on the wall were backpacks.
Each had several ropes and fasteners hanging from it.
They were similar to Kate’s, except bigger and they seemed to hold more equipment.

Edith pointed to the biggest pack.
“That’s my dad’s,” then she pointed to Tom, “you can take that.”
She stepped toward Tom.
“By the way, who are you?”

“This is Tom.
He’s my boyfriend and a sheriff from another city.”

“That explains all the hardware.”

“Excuse me?”
Tom raised his eyebrows and looked at her.

Edith stepped forward and looked Tom up and down.
“Shoulder holster, ankle gun, knife in the boot, and probably several others located in various places.”
She walked around him.
“Cuffs in the back pocket, and what’s in the other pocket?
Mace or a stunner?”

She walked around to the front of Tom and he nodded.
“Stunner.”

I had no idea that Tom had that much hardware on his body.
I asked the obvious question.
“How’d you know?”

“Dated a cop?”
Tom asked.

“I was married to one for a few years.
Every time he’d come in, we’d play find the weapon.
I got pretty good at spotting all the ingenious places he’d try to hide them.”

This was a side of the librarian I had never seen before.
I looked at Tom.
“Why don’t we ever play that game?”

“Because I always unload before I see you.”
He smiled.
“A man’s got to keep some secrets.”

We each carried a backpack out of the shed.

Edith put up her hand.
“Let’s take my Jeep.
There are sections in the mine where we can drive right in.
It’s too rough for Kate’s Mustang.”

“You’re the boss,” Tom said.

We walked to the garage and Edith opened it.
Inside was an older black Jeep with huge wheels, five pairs of headlights, and no roof, just bars across the top.

Edith saw me looking at the Jeep.
“It’s specially built to go into the mines.”
She walked toward it, muttering under her breath, “It was my dad’s.”

The three of us threw the backpacks into the back of the Jeep and got in.
Edith drove toward the mine and hopefully Kate.

No one spoke.
It was eerie that Edith never asked why we thought Kate was in the mine.
She never asked anything, just drove the Jeep in silence.

I’m sure that going into the mine again had Edith thinking about her dad.
And about all the times she told him “No” when he wanted her to go exploring the mines with him.
There are always regrets when you lose someone.
When my parents were killed four years ago, I spent so many days regretting all the time I’d lost with them.
In the months following the crash, when something would happen in my life, I’d pick up the phone to call them, only then remembering that they weren’t there anymore.
I also spent those years despising my younger sister, Jordan, for being there when my parents weren’t.
It was irrational, but regrets always are.
Jordan and I still aren’t close.
Maybe it was time to extend my hand to her.

A few minutes later, we arrived at the forest.
Edith drove between the trees as if there were a path, even though I never saw one when I walked through the forest.
The Jeep bumped up and down, but gave a relatively smooth ride when you considered all the fallen limbs we were driving over.
It was probably another special feature of the vehicle.
But because the Jeep had no roof, it was deafeningly loud.

I heard Tom yelling to Edith, “This is a great vehicle.”

“Thanks,” she replied, keeping her eye on the road.

Within minutes, we
flew
out of the trees and on to the uneven ground between the forest and the mines.

Edith stopped the Jeep abruptly.
It’s a good thing I had on a shoulder belt or I would have landed in the front seat, maybe even on the hood.

Edith looked back at me and cringed.
“Sorry.”
She pointed to the right.
“There’s an entrance over there.
It’s big enough for the jeep to go several hundred yards into the mine.”

Tom and I nodded.
She turned the wheel quickly to the right and we took off again.
This time I was ready, so I grabbed on to the roll bar.
A few seconds later, we
pulled
around a mound of dirt and through an archway made of timbers.

Edith slammed on her brakes a few seconds before we hit a wall of dirt.
She jumped out and we followed her.
In the back, she pulled out and distributed our backpacks.
Then she went to the front of the Jeep and pulled a wad of paper from her backpack.
She unfolded the paper and laid it on the hood of the car.
Tom and I joined her after we put on our backpacks.

“A map?”
I asked pointing to the large piece of paper that covered the hood.

“Yeah, my dad made it for me a long time ago.”

“Kate didn’t have one of these in her backpack.”

“That’s because Kate knows these mines like the back of her hands.
I haven’t been here in years and I don’t want to get us lost.”

“Good idea,” Tom replied.
“The last thing we need to do is add three more lost people for the search parties to find.”

I huffed at him.
“Like they’d go looking for me?”

He ignored my comment and looked at the map.

I came over.
“Is there any place where large trucks could get close to a section of the mine?”

“Why?”
Edith asked.

“She thinks there’s something besides apples in the apple pots,” Tom said.

“Like what?”
Edith asked.

“Drugs.”

“Why?”

“Can you think of anything else that would bring in several million dollars into the town every year?
No one can make that much money selling pots, not even fancy pots.”

Edith sighed, “I guess, deep down, I knew that the mayor was up to something illegal.
It didn’t seem possible to me, either, that those apple pots would bring in that much money when ten years ago they brought in barely enough to keep the festival alive, let alone the entire town.”

“I don’t know how the drugs are brought in, but the back of the large tent at the festival had zippered doors so that big trucks could load and unload boxes.”

“Well then, let’s see.”
Edith studied the map.
Then she pointed to one section.
“This is the only place where the ground is flat leading up to the mine.
If it was as bumpy as the rest of the entrances, you’d bust an axel on a big truck.”

“Is there a large enough room near that entrance to hold several hundred boxes of apple pots?”
Tom asked.

Edith shook her head and pointed on the map.
“No, but you could take this shaft down a hundred feet or so to a huge open cavern.”

“Would it be a good place to hide a person?”
I asked.