Sue Ann Jaffarian - [Granny Apples 01]

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  “See, gotta use your foot. Put some muscle and backbone into it.”

  After depositing the dirt to the side, he handed the shovel back to Emma. Granny had disappeared.

  Following his instructions, Emma went to work, managing to dig a small, deep hole in no time, but with no results. Quinn instructed her to move slightly to the left, then to the right. She was sweating and tired, and her arms were beginning to ache.

  Emma took off her jacket and wiped the sweat from her face. “What I don’t understand is who are you people? How did you even find out about this land and the gold?”

  “Linda here was old Ian’s nurse.”

  “Peter, don’t tell her anything.”

  “Aw, she’s harmless. She knows she’ll die if she tells. Isn’t that right, Sweet Cheeks?”

  Sweet Cheeks—Emma would never complain about being called Fancy Pants again, especially by Phil Bowers.

  “That was the deal we made.”

  “Ian was fascinated by his family history, and when he found documents talking about gold, Linda talked him into going to a séance to see if he could contact the spirits of his ancestors. That’s how we met Garrett Bell. He said he could help—for a fee, of course. Unfortunately, Ian died right after receiving the copies of those Winslow letters. Seeing he didn’t have any family, we helped ourselves to them and a few other things, and continued working with Bell.”

  Quinn refocused his attention on the dig. “Can’t imagine the boy burying it any deeper than that.” He scratched his chin in thought. “Go back to where we started, and dig in a little more toward the well. The boy’s paces might’ve been shorter than mine.”

  “So the condominiums were just a ruse to cover the hunt for the gold?”

  “You can work while you talk, can’t you? Or is that something you’ve never done before, like shoveling?”

  Emma went back to digging.

  “The condos were actually a real possibility. If we can clear the permits, we know a builder who’d love to build out here. Maybe one of them 55-plus retirement complexes. They’re big now with aging baby boomers. But the real goal was the gold.”

  With every shovelful of dirt, Emma realized she might be digging her own grave.

  Phil’s truck had barely come to a stop when he jumped out. A sheriff’s vehicle was parked across Main Street. Next to it was an unmarked car with a flashing light. A few of the townspeople were clustered nearby. Near the unmarked car stood Milo and Tracy talking with Detective Martinez. Archie was in Tracy’s arms. Phil headed for the group.

  “What’s going on?”

  “No Emma.” Tracy wiped her wet eyes against the dog’s long coat and hugged him closer.

  “When the deputy got here,” Detective Martinez explained, “the dog was wandering down the middle of Main Street dragging its leash. He tried to catch him, but the animal eluded him until these folks arrived and called him by name.”

  “But no sign of Emma?” Phil looked up the hill at the graveyard.

  “None. And no sign of a struggle or anything like it. Of course, it’s dark out. We’ll know more about what happened up there in the morning. Meanwhile, I’ve called in some portable floodlights to help.”

  “Damn her!” Phil paced. “I’m going to wring her scrawny neck when we find her.”

  “If, Phil.” Tracy put the dog down on the ground. “If we find her. She would never have left Archie on his own willingly.”

  Instead of her usual casual fade-in, Granny used every bit of energy she could muster to pop up in front of Milo without warning. “She’s at the homestead!”

  The mild-mannered clairvoyant slapped his hand over his heart to quiet his nerves. “Granny!”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “She’s at the homestead digging for the gold.” Granny told Milo.

  “Emma’s digging for the gold?”

  “What?” Phil Bowers moved in next to Milo. Tracy and Martinez followed. “She’s looking for the gold?”

  “Granny says Emma’s digging for gold up at the homestead.” He held up his hand to silence the living so he could concentrate on what Granny was saying.

  “I think,” Milo said, trying to piece together Granny’s excited message, “Emma’s being made to dig. Granny says they’re going to kill her.”

  Before the others could react, Phil Bowers jumped back into his truck and peeled off in the direction he’d come. As he maneuvered the vehicle with one hand, he used his other to call home on his cell.

  “You lied to us.” Peter Quinn brandished the gun in Emma’s sweaty face.

  “No, I didn’t. Billy said twenty-five paces north of the well. Are you sure we’re north?”

  He closed in on her. “If we had some rope, I swear I’d enjoy swinging you from that big oak. Was good enough for your ancestor.”

  Emma didn’t dare turn to look at the tree. She was afraid she’d faint.

  “She’s right, Peter, you might be off a bit in the direction. So just keep digging.”

  “You mind your own business, woman. If I say this is north, then it’s north.” He looked up again at the stars, recalculating his direction. When he looked back down, he pointed to another spot more to the right of the earlier dig. “Dig there.”

  Emma had just scooped up her first new batch of dirt when they heard a noise in the distance. The three of them stopped to listen. It was a truck, a large dark pickup, coming down the road from the Bowers ranch like a bullet train. Its headlights were off. Barking accompanied the roar of the engine. Ripping through the barbed-wire fence like it was string, the huge truck bore down on them like Batman gone country.

  The lights of the truck came on just as two snarling German shepherds jumped from the back. Linda Quinn froze, her gun down at her side. Her husband screamed at her to shoot the dogs, then raised his own gun. Emma lifted the shovel and brought it down on his gun arm. He screamed. Dropping his weapon, he turned to take a swing at her with his good arm, but the shovel was in motion again. Emma, holding the spade like a baseball bat, aimed for his knees. With her last bit of strength, she felled him like a giant redwood.

  “We need to go back to the cemetery, Phil.”

  “We don’t need to go anywhere, Emma.”

  “Well, I need to go back. I have to talk to Billy Winslow again.”

  They were gathered once more around the large pine dining table at the Bowers’ home. Heaped on platters were pancakes, scrambled eggs, toast, and one large serving plate with both bacon and plump sausages. The air was heavy with the mingled scents of spicy fried pork and sweet maple syrup. They had all spent the last four hours answering the detectives’ questions about the activities of the night, and even though it was only eight o’clock in the morning, for the people gathered around the table, it felt like the day should be ending, not beginning.

  As soon as Emma finished the bite of pancake in her mouth and took a drink of orange juice, she cleared her throat. “Thank you, everyone, for everything.” She started to tear up. “I don’t know what I would have done, especially once that guy realized there might not be gold buried by the well.”

  Susan Steveson smiled. “Just following Phil’s orders.”

  “My orders were for you to keep watch on the Reynolds place, not for you and Glen to play superheroes,” Phil growled as he drank coffee. “And you two,” he said, looking at Milo and Tracy, “were supposed to stay in the cottage and wait it out. I had it under control. What if the killers had still been in the graveyard?”

  Milo looked sheepish. Tracy gave off a humph as she finished a bite of eggs.

  “And what in the hell were you doing?” He glared at Emma. “You promised me you wouldn’t go to the graveyard until morning.”

  “It was just an impulse, Phil. I didn’t plan on breaking my promise. But if I hadn’
t, those two would have broken into the cottage. They told me so. Who knows what they would have done to us all?”

  Emma speared a sausage with a serving fork and plopped it on Phil’s plate, along with two slices of crisp bacon. “Here, go crazy. You deserve it.”

  Susan walked around, refreshing people’s coffee. When she reached Phil, she kissed the top of his bald head. “You can’t save the world alone, dear. Sometimes you need help. Even superheroes know that.”

  Phil finally gave in to Emma visiting the Pioneer Cemetery again. Not that he had a choice. She was determined to go with or without him. The only option he had was whether or not to go with her. He had only one suggestion—a strong one—that she ask the detectives working the case for their permission first. The cemetery was still cordoned off and under their jurisdiction.

  It took some convincing on both Emma and Phil’s part for Detective Martinez to allow them to bypass the yellow tape, but he finally agreed, with the provision that he go with them. Emma’s argument was that she had an idea about where the gold was buried, and that unless they found it, the town might end up crawling with fortune hunters.

  Leaving Tracy, Archie, and Milo back at the Bowers ranch, Emma and Phil met Martinez at the bottom of the road to the graveyard. The detective nodded to the deputy guarding the entrance, and he let them pass under the tape. At the top of the hill, Emma asked the men to stay a bit behind her. She wasn’t sure how Billy would feel about an audience.

  “So there are ghosts all over the place?” Martinez asked, his eyes darting back and forth over the hilly terrain filled with gravestones.

  “Right now there aren’t any here. So you can relax, Detective.” She glanced over her shoulder as she spoke.

  She made her way to Billy’s bench. “Billy, you here?” She waited, but nothing happened. “Please come out and talk to me.”

  She walked around the bench and a few paces to the left and right, hoping he would materialize, but he didn’t. Stopping, she surveyed the graveyard and noticed there were now a couple of ghosts in attendance. One was the young childless mother. She sat by the tree near the children’s memorial rocking empty arms, as Emma had seen her do on her first visit. The other was Garrett Bell.

  The ghost of Garrett Bell approached her.

  “Do you know where the gold is, Garrett? Did Billy tell you after all?”

  He shook his head. “No, he did not. Do you know?”

  “I think so.”

  “Who is it, Emma?” Phil called to her. “Is it Billy?”

  “No,” she called back, “it’s Garrett.”

  Detective Martinez advanced with caution, his face a marquee of disbelief and curiosity.

  “Peter and Linda Quinn are under arrest,” she told the ghost. “For your murder and for kidnapping me.”

  “Have the police look into Ian’s death, too.”

  “They killed him?”

  “He was an old man, but I always suspected they expedited things.”

  “I still don’t understand why they killed you.”

  “I came back here to see if I could get Billy to talk to me, especially after he’d been so chatty with you. The Quinns met me here after putting the snakes in your car. When I told them that Billy still wasn’t talking, Pete accused me of lying, saying I wanted the gold for myself. We argued and he shot me.”

  Emma noticed Garrett’s image fading. “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes, there’s no reason to stay.”

  “Will you come back?”

  “No. Never.”

  Once he was gone, Emma told the men what the ghost had said about the Quinns.

  “No Billy?” Phil asked.

  “No, but I have a hunch about the gold. Billy told me it was twenty-five paces north. When I asked north of what, he said the word well, then faded. Maybe he didn’t mean the well at the property. Maybe he meant something else. He might not have finished the word before disappearing.”

  She started back to Billy’s bench. “Granny told me that Billy spent a lot of time up here as a kid. There weren’t benches then, but this big tree probably was here, just a lot smaller.” She looked up at the sky. It was late morning, and the sun wasn’t quite overhead. “North would be that way, right?” She pointed in the direction she thought it should be.

  Phil looked up at the sky. “Yes.”

  She paced off twenty-five steps. “I’m not sure how far twenty-five paces is, but I can’t be too far off.” When she stopped, she started looking around the ground. “Help me look for a gravestone with the name Well or Wells or any derivative of the word well. It should be one of graves set before the first few years of 1900.”

  The three of them scattered over an arc of space spanning out from the twenty-five-pace mark. Each looked at graves, reading the names and dates.

  “Be careful,” Emma warned. “Some of the graves are difficult to read. You might have to trace them with your finger.”

  “I think I found it,” called Phil. Martinez and Emma joined him next to a grave several yards to the left of where Emma ended her pacing. The name on the grave was Welles.

  “This is it,” Emma said with confidence.

  “How can you be sure?” asked Detective Martinez.

  Without answering, Emma walked over to the bench. Standing next to it was Billy. As she walked away, she heard Martinez yell to the deputy to bring a shovel.

  “You buried the gold there, didn’t you? By that grave?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “He was a friend of mine and Winston’s. Was killed working in a mine. Just fifteen years old. Knew he’d take good care of it.”

  “Thank you, Billy.”

  “No, Miss Emma, thank you. I can go now.”

  “Go? For good?”

  “Yes, ma’am. No sense staying now that you have the gold.”

  “The gold’s not mine, Billy. Seeing that it’s on city property, it probably belongs to the town of Julian.”

  “That’s good.”

  Before Emma could say anything more, he was gone. And like Garrett Bell, he wasn’t returning.

  “Hey, Fancy Pants.”

  Emma dropped her book in her lap as her head snapped up. Standing by the door that led from the patio to the kitchen was Phillip Bowers. Just behind him was her mother, smiling from ear to ear. He wasn’t dressed hip and trendy like Grant, given to whims of fashion and vanity, but in conservative tailored slacks, a dress shirt, and sports jacket. Neither did he wear boots or a hat. Today, he looked more like a middle-aged successful attorney than a rancher.

  She hadn’t seen Phil Bowers since the day she’d left Julian over three months ago. There had been scattered phone calls and e-mails, but both had been careful to keep their relationship bound to friendship. Although it had been her idea originally, now Emma was sorry she hadn’t encouraged Phil. But with so many miles between them, and both their marriages coming to an end, she still felt it the best course of action. And Phil had seemed content to leave things the way they were. Lately, though, the calls and

  e-mails had drifted away.

  Emma was still in touch with Susan Steveson. They e-mailed each other regularly. But as Phil and Emma’s relationship waned, Susan had been quite careful not to mention Phil, and Emma had been too proud to ask.

  Sitting in a chaise on her parents’ patio, she felt the contradictory pull of both concern and pleasure at the sight of him. And in spite of herself, even being called Fancy Pants had sent a tingle up her spine.

  “Hello, stranger.”

  Archie, who was rolling around on the grass, stopped his play to greet Phil.

  “Hey, boy.” Phil sat at the patio table and leaned down to scratch Archie behind the ears. “Got something for you. A gift from Killer.” Reaching into his
pocket, he pulled out a small plastic bag containing dog biscuits. “From his own private stock homemade by Aunt Susan.” He fed the dog a couple. “Let’s leave the rest for later, okay?”

  As if understanding, Archie took off to resume his play, darting back and forth across the yard with no visible purpose, yet with a definite pattern of motion.

  Phil laughed as he put the plastic bag on the table. “I see Granny’s still with you.”

  As if on cue, Elizabeth Miller came out of the house. “Granny, let’s leave these young people alone for a bit.”

  The foggy image of Ish Reynolds started for the patio, Archie on her heels.

  “Young people? I’ll have you know I’m younger than both of them.”

  Emma watched the spirit with affection until she disappeared through the wall into the kitchen. Archie used his doggie door. She turned back to Phil Bowers.

  “She divides her time between here and Julian.”

  “And what about you? You ever coming back to Julian?”

  “As a matter of fact, my cousin Marlene and I are going down soon for Harvest Days. I’ve rented the cottage again.”

  “Going to stop and say hi to your pals at the cemetery?”

  She couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or mocking her. “Probably.”

  “And what about your living friends? Were you going to say hello to me while in town?”

  “Of course, if you’re around when I visit Susan and Glen.”

  Phil Bowers sighed. “Emma, I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch lately, but I needed time to think about this, about us.” He fiddled with the dog treats as he spoke. “I needed to get you out of my system.”

  “Gee, Phil, you make me sound like a nasty virus.”

  He grinned. “In a way, you are.” The grin disappeared. “I know you said you only wanted to be friends, and I know the long-distance thing will be a problem, but I’d like you to consider me more than a friend.”

  Emma took a deep breath and swung her legs off the chaise so that she was sitting facing him. “Phil, it’s very difficult to maintain a long-distance relationship, you know that. We’re not kids. And I won’t be having the free time I used to.”