Coal Miner's Slaughter

by Elise Sax

  “I like stars.”

  “We could lie down in the bed of my truck and count stars,” he continued. His lips grazed the side of my neck, and he sucked gently on my earlobe, making me crazy with desire.

  “The bed of your truck,” I breathed. “I like that, too.”

  “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he told me as he trailed light kisses down my neck. Goosebumps erupted all over my body, and my core tightened between my legs. “But I won’t fail you. I’ll do this your way.”

  Drat. I so wished he would do this his way.

  Boone kissed me, again, and returned to his place. I stumbled across the courtyard to the Gazette office. Boone’s kiss had left my knees wobbly and my legs like Jell-O.

  Inside the office, everyone was working hard, and I felt a wave of guilt because I had wasted time getting kissed. Klee was busy working on her computer when I interrupted her.

  “Klee, I got a visit from a Navajo man, and I was wondering if you knew him,” I said.

  “And you think all of us Navajos should know each other?” she asked, accusatorily.

  “No, of course not.”

  “And we all look alike and some of your best friends are Navajo?” she continued.

  “No! I mean, you’re very nice, but I’m guessing you’re not my best friend. It’s just that there was this guy who came with a priest to exorcise me.”

  “A personal trainer?” she asked. “You’re working out while the rest of us are scrambling to get your paper out?”

  “No. Not exercise. Exorcise. Like the movie where her head turns around. They said I’ve got death on me. The Navajo guy’s name was George.”

  Klee returned to her typing. “Oh, George. Sure. The shaman. I know him. He’s my second cousin. Did he say you were cursed? You better do what he says. He knows bad spirits when he sees them.” She looked up at me, as if she just realized something. “In fact, maybe you should head out and interview Jeb right now. Get your bad spirits away from us. Hey, maybe that’s why we’re having such bad luck.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I resent that, Klee. I’ve solved murders, not committed them. And now I have to make my house historical or the HPA is going to take it away from me.”

  “What did you say, boss?” Silas asked me. “You better get that taken care of. The HPA means business. They shut down the hospice center and tossed all of the terminal patients out into the street because they knocked down a two-hundred-year-old wall.”

  “Oh no,” I muttered. Maybe it was true and I was cursed. Maybe I should have let the exorcists tie me to the bed. What was the worst that could happen?

  Chapter 3

  I drove my Altima to Goodnight Diner. My friend Adele was the owner, and she would know where I could find Jeb, since she knew everything that was happening in town. She would also be nice to me, which would be a welcome relief after my day so far.

  I parked on the street in front of the diner. Inside, there were about five customers, and Jeb was one of them. He was busy eating the chicken fried steak special, and even though I was still digesting my burrito, my stomach growled.

  In the corner, two FBI agents were eating at another table. They were in town to find and capture our resident serial killer, but so far, they hadn’t had any luck. I hadn’t had any luck, either. Silas had gotten a copy of the profiler report, and its conclusions had surprised me.

  According to the profiler, the serial killer was a highly educated man, twenty to forty years old, and very charming. I had assumed that the serial killer was a loner, a hermit with dirty hair and no cable. Now, I was suspicious of every youngish, college-educated man in Goodnight. Luckily, there weren’t a lot of them.

  I was sorely tempted to sit with the FBI agents and squeeze out information about their investigation, but Klee would kill me if I didn’t interview Jeb. I passed a table where an older lady, who looked like she was homeless and was coated in a thick layer of black dust, was eating pancakes. Just as I passed her, I saw her slip one of the diner’s forks and two spoons into her work boot. She looked around to see if anyone saw her, but I averted my eyes. I decided to tell Adele about it later, as I didn’t want to make a scene.

  I slipped into Jeb’s booth, sitting across from him. He looked up from his meal and scowled. “What do you want? You didn’t bring that con woman with you, did you?”

  “No, Tilly’s back at work.”

  “Good thing, because I’m still mad at her. Did you know that I’ve been the oldest Goodnight citizen for twenty years and have got nothing for it? Nothing at all. And that woman got all kinds of free stuff. If I was Tilly Taper, this chicken fried steak would be free. But Adele’s got me spending $8.99 for it. When I was a young man, I could buy a Buick for that amount of money.”

  “No, you couldn’t,” Adele said, appearing at our booth. She handed me a menu. “A Buick never cost $8.99. And besides, you get the senior discount. It’s only $6.99. And if you think I make a profit on $6.99 chicken fried steak, you’re sadly mistaken.”

  “I fought in the Battle of the Bulge against people like you,” Jeb told her.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Adele said and turned her attention to me. “What’re you doing here with Jeb? Where’s Boone?”

  “I’m interviewing Jeb as one of the most prominent people in Goodnight for the Gazette,” I said.

  Jeb perked up and almost smiled. “You are?”

  “Yes. We’re doing a series, and you’re number one, as Goodnight’s oldest citizen.”

  “Well, it’s about damned time,” Jeb said. “Are you going to take my picture?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said. I dug my phone and reporter’s notebook out of my purse and took his picture.

  “Did you get my good side?” he asked.

  “Which side is that?” I asked.

  Adele waved her hand at the dusty woman who stole the cutlery. “I see you stealing my napkins, again, Inga,” she called. “I can’t imagine you need that many napkins.”

  “I need what I need,” Inga grumbled.

  Jeb pointed at his temple and moved his finger in a circle. “Inga’s crazy like you,” he told me.

  I turned around and watched as Adele went over to Inga. “I’m going to do you a favor and sell my jewelry here. That will bring in more business for you. Tell me that’s not better than a few missing napkins,” Inga told Adele.

  “What kind of jewelry?” Adele asked her.

  “I’ve lived here my whole life,” Jeb said to me in our booth. “Are you writing this down?”

  My head snapped back to him. “Oh, sure,” I said, clicked my pen and started taking notes. “All your life. Go on.”

  “Goodnight wasn’t busy like it is now. And people had respect. Neighbors brought dishes over to your house. You know, casseroles.”

  I jotted down casseroles.

  “Do you have brothers and sisters?” I asked him.

  “No. Only child, and my mother died when I was ten, and I’ve been on my own since.”

  “What about your father?” I asked.

  Jeb scowled at me and speared a piece of chicken fried steak with his fork. “Mind your own beeswax, girl.”

  Behind me, Adele shouted in glee. “Inga, those pieces are lovely! How did you do that with charcoal?”

  I turned my head to see what the fuss was about. Inga had dug out about a dozen pieces of jewelry and was showing it all to Adele.

  “I treat it with resin and handcraft the rest,” Inga told her. “I’m an artist, you know. Always have been. Don’t know why you’re acting so surprised.”

  “I’m just surprised that charcoal jewelry can be pretty, that’s all, Inga,” Adele said.

  “I did a bunch of odd jobs when I was young,” Jeb continued, and I returned to my notetaking. “Got by just fine, even though it was the Great Depression, you know. Back then, everyone was starving. Everyone was poor. So, it didn’t matter a fig that I was poor and starving because I was like everyone else. No differ
ences, you see. Do you see?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I see.”

  “But poor that we all were, we never went out without our shoes shined and our pants pressed. Not like nowadays. Women wearing tights where a man can see all their little bits before knowing their name. And men in shorts and a t-shirt. It would never have happened in those days.”

  I wrote quickly, trying to capture as much of the quotes as possible. Meanwhile, the two FBI agents joined Adele in looking at Inga’s jewelry, and one of the agents was searching for bills in his wallet to buy a necklace.

  “Ingenious,” he told Inga. “Where do you get the coal?”

  “Local mine. Closed now,” Inga said, eyeing his money.

  “You can’t go in there,” Adele chastised her. “That mine’s dangerous. You’ll get yourself killed.”

  “I’ve been working in there for months, and there hasn’t been a hint of any problems,” Inga spat. “Don’t tell me how to run my business. Do you want the jewelry or not?”

  “I’ll put them out on consignment,” Adele agreed.

  “Then, the war happened,” Jeb said, drawing my attention back to him. “That was the best luck I’ve ever had. I thank God for Hitler every day for getting me into military service. They still give me a pension. The government has always done right by me, no matter what the Communists say about it.”

  “Were you ever married? Kids?” I asked him.

  “I was married for a time, but we never had kids.”

  I interviewed him for a little while longer, while Jeb talked and ate. When he was finished, he plunked down five dollars on the table and got up. On his way out of the diner, he waved at Morris the cook. Morris nodded at him and went back to cooking.

  Adele and Inga were still discussing her coal jewelry-making, and I was frustrated to see that the FBI agents had gone without me interrogating them. As Jeb left, Rocco and Mabel walked in. Rocco held the door open for her, and I could have sworn that he blushed. I had heard that he had moved to Goodnight because he was in love with Mabel, but I didn’t get the impression that Mabel knew it.

  Rocco gestured to a booth. Mabel nodded and sat down. I stood next to Adele, pretending that I was part of the conversation between her and Inga so that I could spy on Rocco and Mabel. They were two, older deacons of the town, both totally committed to rejuvenating Goodnight and making it the second Santa Fe of New Mexico. So far, their efforts had mostly ended in disaster, and the town wasn’t any better off, but I had to hand it to them: they never gave up.

  Rocco handed Mabel a menu, and they stared at each other for an awkward second before they looked down at their menus.

  “You want a bracelet? You look like a bracelet woman,” Inga told me, snapping me out of my spying on Rocco and Mabel.

  “I’m short on cash at the moment,” I said. “It’s pretty, though.”

  It wasn’t exactly pretty, but it was interesting to look at, and I wouldn’t have minded wearing it. Somehow, she had encased the piece of coal and attached it to a leather strap. Some of the other pieces looked similar, but others were more elaborate and feminine.

  Adele was choosing pieces, eager to display them in the diner for sale. Inga gathered the rest into a dirty bag and tossed some bills on the table.

  “You really shouldn’t hang out in that mine, Inga,” Adele warned her. “It’s dangerous. That’s why they closed it just after World War Two.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear. I can take care of myself. I’m not that easy to kill,” Inga said. She eyed me and spat on her hand. “Heard about you,” she muttered. “Possessed, they say. Death’s on your back, follows you wherever you go.”

  “I heard something about that,” I said. Geez, I wished they’d go back to calling me crazy. The possessed thing was starting to wear on me and give me the willies.

  Inga spat on her hand again and walked out without saying goodbye.

  “What was that about?” Adele asked me.

  “Exorcists are following me.”

  “Wow, you lead an exciting life. I thought I did, but I’m nothing compared to you.”

  I nodded. “I could use a vacation. A resort in Hawaii sounds great. There’s no serial killers at Hawaiian resorts.”

  A wave of guilt washed over me. For all I knew, there were girls waiting to be saved right this second, and instead of helping them, I was fantasizing about room service and luxury sheets.

  “I have to get back to the Gazette to give them my notes,” I told her.

  “I heard about Jack. His mother was in here, furious. She said something about military school.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know how we’re going to manage without him. And I’ve got the historical society people threatening my house.”

  Adele gasped and clutched her heart. “Not the HPA. Say it isn’t so, Matilda. They’re heartless. They’re vicious. They’ll take you down, destroy you, and eat the pieces.” Her eyes darted from side to side. “I hope they can’t hear me. Listen, Matilda, I love you, but if the HPA corners me, I’m going to deny I ever said that. You got me?”

  “Sure,” I said and gulped. “That bad, huh?”

  “Yes. Stalin bad.”

  Stalin bad was bad. I hoped Faye could give me some words of wisdom tomorrow. As the most successful contractor in Goodnight, she had to have some pull with the HPA.

  When I left the diner, Rocco and Mabel were in deep conversation, as if they were conspiring together about something.

  Back home, the Gazette office was closed already. I wondered if Klee closed early in order to get enough sleep for her paperboy route. The dogs greeted me at the gate, and I petted them, but I knew they really wanted their supper and an evening walk, not love and attention.

  Abbott the beagle jumped around me and Costello the black Labrador walked calmly by my side across the courtyard. Boone’s door was closed, and it was quiet, so he must have still been out of town.

  My side of the house was lit up, and smoke was coming out of the living room chimney. With the unseasonably cold, Tilly must have lit a large fire. We walked into the kitchen. A pot was on the stove, and soup was bubbling in it. Tilly was a pain in the ass, but it turned out that she could cook. There was a half of a loaf of her homemade bread on the table, and my mouth watered, thinking about eating it with the soup.

  Abbott howled. I picked up the dogs’ food dishes and took them to the pantry to fill them. While the dogs ate, I walked into the bathroom. Silas was soaking in his bubble bath, as usual, smoking a cigar, and reading the New York Times.

  “How’s it going, boss?” he greeted me. “The New York Times doesn’t have an Advice Annie column. Have you noticed that? But the Goodnight Gazette has an Advice Annie column. You know what that means?”

  “It means that you’re damned lucky! That’s what it means,” Tilly said, pushing her way into my small bathroom. “Everyone loves my column. The other day, a woman wrote in, saying that Advice Annie saved her little dog from crippling depression.”

  “Swell,” Silas bellowed, blowing cigar smoke out of his mouth. “A Pulitzer is right around the corner.”

  “Do I smell something burning?” I asked to get rid of Tilly. It worked. She trotted out of the bathroom as fast as her ninety-year-old legs could take her.

  “I interviewed Jeb,” I told Silas. “I have my notes. You want to see them?”

  “No, boss. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to type up the questions and answers. Then, you’re going to rearrange them in order of importance.” He put his hand up. “Before you ask, order of importance means what the readers want to know first. You’re a reader. You know what’s interesting or not.” He put his hand up, again. “And yes, I realize that Jeb isn’t interesting. But you get the picture. Once you get it into order, flesh it out a little. Then, send it to me, and I’ll tweak it.”

  “We need to get Jack back,” I said with more than a tinge of panic in my voice.

  Silas nodded. “I sent Susan flowers, but I thi
nk it’s going to take more than that for her to let her son work on the paper when he should be at school.”

  Tilly and I sat at the kitchen table to eat dinner. I opened my laptop on the table and typed while I ate. Silas made it sound so easy, but for me, writing was like pulling my own teeth. Not fun and very painful. I was hoping that it was just a steep learning curve and that someday it would be easy for me. But I wasn’t optimistic.

  I didn’t finish the article until two in the morning. Since I never slept anyway, I decided to not even try tonight. Tilly was snoring loudly in the living room. She could sleep through a missile strike, but I was still careful not to make too much noise at night.

  I scrubbed the kitchen and pantry floors on my hands and knees and rearranged my dresser drawers while the dogs followed me, dozing on and off at my feet. I took a long bath, which gave me time to think about my responsibilities: The Gazette, my house, finding the abducted girls, my budding relationship with Boone.

  And where were my priorities? All over the place. But it became clear to me that I needed to put the fires out before I did anything else.

  I needed to get the repairs scheduled for the house as soon as possible, help out more with the Gazette until we could find a replacement for Jack, and as for Boone, there wasn’t a fire. I just had to be patient like a normal person in a normal relationship.

  After my bath, I washed down the bathroom and flossed my teeth. By that time, the dogs were antsy for me to take them for a walk. I bundled up in my parka and boots because the wind was howling and it was butt cold.

  Outside, Abbott howled once and ran ahead of me into the forest. Costello walked slowly next to me, pausing every few seconds to sniff something. I loved our nighttime walks when everyone in Goodnight was sound asleep and the stars were out in a breathtaking display. It was my only truly peaceful moment in my “day,” and I had gotten dependent on it.

  I also hoped on some level that I would get more hints about the serial killer in the forest. I was first visited by a dead girl here in the forest behind my house. I hoped that maybe no other girls were being held by the serial killer and that maybe he had stopped his evil ways now that the FBI was in town searching for him, but something in me believed that he didn’t care about the FBI and that he had a poor girl hostage right this second.