A Ton of Gold Page 6

  Chapter 12

  Mark heard the car before he saw it through the trees. An old, faded blue Chevy, in need of a new muffler, rumbled to a stop next to the sheriff's car. A tattered bumper sticker proclaimed, “Truth is all we’ve got.”

  "Here comes the fourth estate," said Glothe. "That's what Sam calls himself. Never said what the other three was."

  "Actually, the term goes back a couple of hundred years to the British parliament. It had three estates: peers, bishops and commons. Someone thought the newspapers were about as powerful, and referred to them as the fourth estate."

  "Oh.” Glothe looked like he was sorry he had mentioned it.

  Sam Teeter walked with a slight limp. He was a short man, with light brown hair just beginning to let his scalp show through on top. He wore beige slacks and shirt, and was carrying a small notebook and tape recorder. Somehow, Mark thought, he looks more like a large tumbleweed than the fourth estate.

  "We heard you coming, Sam," Bill greeted him.

  "The old blue goose does announce my arrival. I can't afford a trumpet. Long time no see."

  Glothe turned to Mark. "This is Sam Teeter, editor of the Wooden Nickel Gazette. Also the paper's comedian. We ate breakfast together a few hours ago. Sam, Mark O'Malley, Crystal’s boss."

  Sam nodded. "Glad to meet you. Sorry it had to be under these circumstances. Where's Cris?"

  Glothe answered. "Down at the lake."

  Sam turned his head and gazed toward the lake. "What happened?"

  "Well, we don't know yet. Looks like the fire started in the kitchen. Eula was on the floor in the kitchen. At this point, we don't know whether she fell and hit her head, got overcome by smoke and passed out, or what. Body was burned pretty bad. If it wasn't her house and her car outside, we wouldn't know for sure who it was."

  "Who called it in?"

  Glothe filled him in with the information available. "They did a good job containing it. It didn't even get to the car shed."

  "Timing being what it is, we'll just get it in this week's paper. Everybody knew Eula. It’s page one.” He looked back toward the lake. "I guess I'll go offer my condolences to Cris."

  Mark looked at the tape recorder. He wasn’t surprised the editor of the local paper wanted to talk to the grieving granddaughter but it didn't seem like a fair thing to do at this time. "Let me go down first and tell her you're here. See if she's ready."

  Sam Teeter locked Mark's eyes with a penetrating gaze. "Mr. O'Malley, I've known Cris a lot longer than you have. I probably understand her and her feelings better, too. I said I was going to offer my sympathy, and I'm quite capable of doing that on my own. If you're concerned that I might interview her and ask her questions that will make her feel worse, that's because you’re not from around here. You can rest easy. And you can stay here.” Then, abruptly, he turned and started down the hill.

  Glothe laid a hand lightly on Mark's shoulder. "It's okay. He thinks of Crystal as the daughter he never had. He won't do anything to make matters worse."

  Mark watched Sam negotiate the hill, the limp more pronounced as the slope got steeper. As he neared the bottom, Crystal raised her head and saw Sam. Slowly, she got to her feet, put her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.

  By now, several of the volunteer firemen were putting their equipment away and taking off their heavy protective clothing. The sheriff had gone back inside and was talking with the fire chief.

  Mark surveyed the area. He still had trouble with yellow fire trucks. Everybody knew fire engines were red. And while he had to admit the yellow really did stand out, somehow, it just seemed to destroy yet another childhood memory. He shook his head, and walked over to join the sheriff.

  "I think everything will be fine,” Glothe was saying. “Not likely anybody would come up here."

  The fire chief, whom Glothe had called Buddy Wright, stood with his hands on his hips and his square jaw thrust out. Mark judged him to be in his mid forties, and not one who laughed much, even when he wasn't around a fatal fire. "Well, we're going to wind up pretty quick now. Jimmy’ll take the body to the funeral home. Willa’s signed off on it?"

  Glothe nodded.

  "I'll be back tomorrow to do some more checking. Still don't really know how or where it started. But nothing reaches out and grabs me that this is anything but an accidental fire. Eula was just in the wrong pen at the wrong auction."

  "Your men did a fine job, Buddy. Don't think there was any more they could have done. And from what Jimmy told me, Eula was probably dead by the time he got here."

  "Thanks. Sorry as we are over the way things turned out, don't think there was anything we could’ve done about it. Call you tomorrow when I'm ready to wrap this up."

  Buddy plodded out the door, his powerful shoulders drooping, his muscular arms hanging at his sides. Mark suspected the weariness was not so much from the physical work, as from the emotional toll taken today.

  "Is there anything Crystal needs to do here?" Mark asked the sheriff.

  "Not’s far as I'm concerned. Only one funeral home in town. She’s gonna need to make some arrangements with them tonight or tomorrow. Tomorrow oughta be soon enough, unless she's planning on moving the body someplace else."

  "I can't imagine she would."

  "I figure she'll be 'round here for a few days, if anything comes up. But I don't reckon I'll need her."

  Crystal trudged in the door. For a moment, the sun reflected off a shiny, cloisonné earring, sending a jolt through Mark. Not foreseeing today’s events, Crystal had chosen bright, laughing clowns to adorn her ears.

  "Crystal, I was just telling Mark the boys are taking Eula to the funeral home. You might want to drop in and talk to them tomorrow. You probably know your grandmother used Travis Logger as her lawyer. You're staying in the area tonight?"

  "Yes.” She looked at Mark. "If you need to get back, I can rent a car.” Her voice was a lifeless monotone.

  Without thinking, Mark glanced out the back door toward the shed.

  “No. No. I couldn’t drive Nana’s car. Not for a while, anyway.”

  "I don't need to hurry back," Mark said. "I'll stay over."

  "Thanks.” She looked at Glothe, her eyes dark with pain. “I guess we'll be at the Good Night, if they have any space."

  "They'll have rooms. If it isn't Founders’ Weekend or Ancestors' Day, they're mostly empty.” He looked around the room. "I think everything’ll be okay. But you might want to take a look today or tomorrow to see if there's anything of value you want to get. You know your grandmother never would have a gate on the place. Now, I've never known that to be a problem. But with no one living here, well, you might want to think on putting a chain across the road, or something. Just to keep the curious out."

  Crystal’s shoulders sagged and her arms hung like dead weight at her side. Her whole body looked unstable, as if it might topple over at any moment. Her eyes, bloodshot from crying, seemed to sink deeper into her face. This had happened too suddenly. She had had no time to prepare, to think about things like gates or chains or lawyers or funeral homes. Like my father’s heart attack, Mark thought.

  She didn't respond. Mark put a hand on her shoulder. "We'll be here a few days, Sheriff. And we'll talk with you before we leave."

  "Much obliged. Oh, one other thing. Sam closes the paper around ten tomorrow morning. Everybody hereabouts liked Eula. Be nice if Sam put when and where the funeral was going to be in the obituary. Lot of people will come."

  "I'll try to get it settled before then," Crystal said, her voice almost mechanical.

  Bill touched the brim of his hat, and walked out the door.

  Crystal surveyed the room for a moment. "Mark, I can't deal with this today. Let's go in and get rooms. Mostly I just want to be by myself so I can cry in private. I promise I'll be better tomorrow."

  "No promise necessary."

  #

  At the Good Night Inn Crystal declined dinner and went straight to her room. Mark rea
d last week's Gazette while he ate catfish in the Inn's restaurant. Both were surprisingly good, he thought.

  Back in his room he congratulated himself for grabbing a stack of notes on the way out of the office. He sat down at the small desk, powered up his portable computer and began to work. His investors were coming and the death of a relative wouldn’t delay them. Intelligent Retrieval Systems had two weeks to look its very best.

  Somehow, he would have to talk to Crystal tomorrow about her Identification from Partial Plate Information project. From what he had witnessed today, he doubted she would be able to lead her group for a while. He wondered how much progress her team could make without her. IPPI could be a major factor in determining the second round of funding. And the fate of IRS.

  #

  Next door, Crystal fell into a fitful sleep. Her troubled mind flashed pictures behind her closed eyes, pictures of her Nana dodging cars and careening down hills in a car with no brakes. Part of the time, Crystal was sitting on the dock, looking out over the lake, completely ignoring Nana’s calls to her. Then, suddenly, she leaped up and raced after her grandmother’s car, which was now out of sight. Dr. Krupe stood at the top of the hill. Crystal tried to go around him, but he reached out with a giant hand. The fingers were snakes that wrapped around her, preventing her from saving her grandmother. She looked around, desperately searching for someone to help. Then, she saw her grandmother come back and go into the house. For an instant, she felt relieved, but quick as a sneeze she plunged into deep panic. Near the door, Phil was talking to Mark. She called to them, but neither even noticed. She saw flames serge through the roof. She looked back at the house. No one was there. She clawed and scratched at Krupe and finally broke away, falling to the ground.

  Crystal’s eyes popped open as she hit the floor. The sheet was so tangled around her she couldn’t move. She could taste panic creeping up her throat. She rolled over, yanking at the sheet, fighting her fear, struggling to free her body. Finally, she managed to break out of the tangled sheet.

  She lay there, shaking and wet with sweat. Dr. Krupe had told her she was worthless. Now, all her family had left her. Her mother, her father, her grandfather and now her Nana. All gone. She was cold. And utterly alone.

  After several minutes, she stood up, slipped the light blanket off the bed, wrapped it around herself and sat in a chair. She read the clock that sat on the bedside table. 10:35. The night had barely begun.

  Chapter 13

  It was mid-afternoon before Mark and Crystal headed back to The Park. They had eaten breakfast at the Nickel Diner, then walked a short block to the funeral home to make funeral arrangements. For a while, Crystal had kept her emotions under control, making the necessary decisions in a business-like fashion. Only when she had to select a casket did the tears come. But she managed to complete the arrangements. The funeral would be Thursday morning at the Wooden Nickel Baptist Church.

  Next, they had gone to the Wooden Nickel Gazette where she talked to Sam Teeter. Mark was impressed with the way Sam handled things. He looked like a gnarled, tough old reporter, but he was as gentle with Crystal as a person could be under the circumstances. He managed to ask her questions about Eula that actually brought smiles to Crystal’s face. Once or twice, Mark thought she might lose her composure. Each time, Sam would turn a corner and bring the conversation to a less painful aspect.

  After lunch, Crystal and Mark stopped by the law office of Travis Logger. The lawyer assured Crystal there would be no problems, probably not even probate. Everything was in good order and everything went to Crystal. They could go over the details of what had to be done after the funeral. Crystal walked out of the office, but Mark stepped back in and asked Logger about mineral rights. The lawyer looked surprised, mumbled something about covering that with Crystal later, and ushered Mark out.

  When they got back to the car, Mark said, “You know, Crystal, you don’t have to go through the house today if you don’t feel up to it.”

  "It has to be done.”

  Crystal looked straight ahead as Mark started the car and pointed it toward The Park. Several minutes passed before she broke the silence. “Nana was such an important part of my life. Even before my parents were killed, I spent summers here. Nana taught me about birds and flowers and bugs and trees. After my parents were killed, she and Granddad were all I had. Then he died. Nana was my family. She had a strong will, but she was the sweetest person you'd ever meet. I will miss her. I already do."

  Mark glanced over at Crystal. Her eyes were moist but she was smiling at the memory of her grandmother.

  #

  Eula’s home was what Mark thought of as a walkout ranch. A general living area occupied the middle, with bedrooms on either end. The center section had a large kitchen, open above a counter into the dining area. The living and dining rooms combined into a room fifty feet long. A large fieldstone fireplace dominated one end.

  The ceiling slanted from a normal height on the north side to eighteen feet high over the porch. The south wall consisted almost entirely of glass, overlooking a large porch that faced the lake several hundred feet down a gentle, grassy slope dotted with stately pines.

  From the looks of things, Mark decided the fire had started in the kitchen. Ceiling, walls, cabinets and counters were severely damaged. It looked like the fire had escaped from the kitchen through the opening above the counter into the dining room, destroying the wall over the pass-through and parts of the ceiling. Mark saw blue sky through gaping holes in the roof. One large, plate glass panel in the dining room had shattered, most likely from the heat.

  Walls and ceilings of the bedrooms on the east end were charred. Much of the damage on the west end came from smoke and water.

  Mark felt it best to let Crystal explore alone. There was a time to share grief and there was a time to grieve alone. Her pain showed so clearly, like an open gash through her flesh, all the way to her soul. Mark was embarrassed even to witness it. Every once in a while, he would hear a sob from another room, as Crystal discovered another item that evoked particularly painful memories. She moved like a zombie, no life in her eyes or her actions. Mark felt himself sinking into the sorrow that saturated the air like the strong scent of wisteria.

  At one point in their separate journeys through the wreckage, Crystal walked into the dining room and gently placed a half-burned doll on the charred table, beside other things she had salvaged. "Nana gave it to me before I started to school," she said, a catch in her voice. Without ever looking at Mark, she left the room.

  He wandered out the front of the house and onto the veranda to inspect the damage there. In the distance he heard a car approaching. Probably the fire marshal. Or Bill Glothe.

  Mark liked Glothe. In their brief meetings yesterday and today, Bill came across as a straight shooter, not claiming more than he could deliver, not trying to make things look better than they were.

  Mark’s thoughts turned back to the fire. He tried to picture the path of the flames that would create the burn patterns in the kitchen. And what was Eula Moore doing that she got trapped by the fire? Did she come in to find the fire raging? Or was she in the kitchen when it started? What

  "Hell's bells!"

  The voice didn't belong to either Glothe or Buddy Wright. Mark turned and started across the veranda. Through the broken window, he saw Crystal come into the living room and head toward the back of the house. She jolted to a stop, as if hitting a wall, and clasped her hands to her face. A small gasp escaped through her fingers and all color drained from her face. Her eyes rolled back in their sockets, all of her muscles seemed to relax at once, and in slow motion, she crumpled to the floor.

  Chapter 14

  The woman couldn't have known who the man was coming in from the veranda, but clearly she was accustomed to giving orders to friends and strangers alike. "Run cold water on a hand towel and bring it here. Squeeze it out first."

  Mark was not in an order-taking mood. He could see Crystal, lying on
the floor, apparently unconscious, and he intended to check on her.

  "You deaf or something? Get me a wet towel!"

  The last was delivered with such authority that he at once changed directions and headed for the bathroom to follow orders. When he returned, the woman was sitting on the floor, cradling Crystal's head in her lap, fanning her face and speaking softly to her. The woman took the towel from Mark without comment and gently wiped Crystal's face and neck, then folded the towel and placed it on Crystal's forehead. The harsh tone used with Mark had given way to a velvet-soft voice.

  Another woman, whom Mark had not noticed before, was also sitting on the floor, holding Crystal's feet in her lap.

  Generally, Mark took charge of a situation, dictated what needed to be done. Now, he stood and watched the two women worry over Crystal. He could not think of anything he would do differently.

  Crystal's eyelids fluttered for a moment, then opened. She stared at the woman holding her head. "Nana? Is that really you?"

  "And who else might it be?" the woman asked.

  Crystal smiled and tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she pulled the woman's head down and held it next to hers. Through sobs, she said, "I thought you were dead."

  "Now, why would you think that?” Eula kept her arms around her granddaughter, rocking gently.

  Suddenly, Crystal let go of her grandmother and moved her head back a little to look at her. "They found a woman's body here, burned in the fire. Your car was outside."

  Eula’s arms went slack and a look of anguish descended over her face. "Oh, my God."

  Melva Larson frowned. "Bessie!”

  Neither woman said another word. Melva closed her eyes, and slowly shook her head. Eula stared out the window. Her very spirit seemed to wilt.

  Finally, Eula broke the silence. “Bessie Longson wanted to spend some time here. Buried her last relative and didn’t want to go back to her place just yet. We were going camping down by Gun Barrel and asked her to go with us, but she declined. Never did like to camp. So I gave her my car and said to come and go as she pleased.” She rocked a little and tightened her grip on Crystal. "Oh, Bessie. Bessie. Why didn’t you go with us? I’m so sorry.”