Digging For Trouble

by K. J. Emrick

  I already felt better. I’d spend some time with James, let him rub my shoulders with those magic hands, and then pick that amazing brain of his about any unsolved murders around Pine Lake.

  Hanging up the phone, I had to laugh. This is what my dating life had become.

  The phone rang almost immediately, and I went to pick it up, but then decided to leave it be.

  If it was a living person calling for a reservation, they’d call back.

  If it was anything else...well. I’ve had enough ghosts for one day, thank you.

  In another couple of hours I set out for James’ house. Walking, this time. There’s no rush to be there. Besides, it only takes fifteen minutes to get to Victoria Street by foot. If nothing else, living in Lakeshore keeps me in shape.

  When I got there, James was sitting on his front steps, sipping at red wine that he swirled in a long-stemmed glass. There was another sitting on the stoop beside him.

  “I sure hope that’s for me,” I said, smiling down at him.

  “It’s for the prettiest girl who happens to walk by,” he said, picking the glass up to hand it to me. “That’d be you for certain.”

  I tried to hide my smile behind the wine glass as I wet my lips with the dark liquid and then took a deep drink. “You, sir, have a silver tongue.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  He raised his glass to me, and I tinked mine against it.

  James is a very good looking man. Not just for someone our age, which he is, but good looking, period. Tall. Slender. A face that has a few laugh lines in it around his liquid blue eye but that still shows dimples when he smiles. Sandy blonde hair swept back without a touch of gray. He’s in his usual khakis and open-necked shirt, but we’re way past any need to dress up to attract each other.

  The attraction is already there.

  I remember our first real date, when I wore this killer black dress with a zipper up the back. Took him half the night to work up the courage to tell me the zipper had been down the whole time.

  Ah, young love.

  Or, whatever passes for young love at my age.

  The thing was, I really did love him. I felt all the right emotions when I looked at him. Felt all the things a schoolgirl feels with her first crush. Some nights, alone in my bed at the Inn, I thought of James and how good it would’ve felt to have him there with me. On bad days, like this one, I wanted to come rushing to him so I could let him comfort me. This was love. I knew it for a fact. I just hadn’t said it yet. Neither had he, but I suspected it was because he didn’t want to push me too fast. He let me be who I was, and wasn’t that the real definition of love?

  Right now I was still me in my khakis and satin top, but I’d dashed a bit of perfume on. Vanilla scented. A girl’s got to have her little secrets.

  “Dinner’s keeping warm in the oven,” James said as I sat down next to him. “Baked ziti, extra cheese. Just the way ya like it.”

  I leaned my head over against his shoulder. “You are a keeper.”

  “Too right.” There was a pleasant silence before he spoke again. “That mean ya plan on keeping me?”

  My free hand found his. “What would you do if I said yes?”

  “Hmm. Might want to ask a different question first, if’n I know the answer’s yes.”

  “James,” I said gently.

  “Well. Can’t blame a guy for tryin’. So what brings ya over tonight?”

  I resettled my head on him, swirling the wine in my glass. “Can’t I just be here to spend time with my beau?”

  “Er, sure. Ya could be. ‘Cept I know you. Somethin’s botherin’ ya.”

  I like to listen to him talk. His accent is strong and clear, like he’s proud of his heritage. It makes me want to take my own gentle, feminine Aussie speech and make it sharper, like my husband’s used to be...

  Ahem. One of the first rules I set up when I started dating again was that I would not talk or even think about my Ex while I was with James. Not fair to him. Me either.

  So.

  I sat up so I could look at him, keeping my fingers twisted around his. “Okay. There is one thing.”

  “This about Arthur Loren?” he asked.

  Of course he’s heard about that. He probably heard about it before anyone else in town did. He’s just that good at his job. “No, this has nothing to do with that. I hope.”

  Could it? Was there any chance my vision of the scary dead man with his rust-colored hair and blunt nose was somehow connected to what had happened to Arthur Loren? I didn’t see how. No. It couldn’t be.

  Besides, I just didn’t want Arthur’s attack to get any more complicated than it already was.

  “Alright, well,” James shrugged. “I’m always here to help, Dell. Ya know that. Can I trust that I’ll get in on any information there is to be had on Arthur Loren if I help ya out with this?”

  “Um, I’ll give you anything I can,” I clarified. “Honestly, we don’t have much.”

  Well. That was mostly true.

  “Sure,” James agreed. “Don’t want ya to compromise anything Kevin’s doin’. Arthur’s a bit of a strange bird, true enough, but he’s a good egg. Always kind of liked him. So what d’ya need?”

  “I need to pick that brain of yours.”

  As I say it, I lean up and kiss his cheek. I’m not afraid to kiss him anymore, and I like that. A lot. The memory of my husband isn’t keeping me from moving on. Might be keeping me from moving as fast as James might like, though. I wasn’t kidding earlier when I said I’d like to cuddle with him on the couch all night. After months of dating, that’s as far as I’ve let him get. Or let myself get, depending on how you look at it.

  Time moves on, but sometimes it’s a really slow process.

  “Sometimes,” James said to me, “I think you only like me for my mind.”

  “Well,” I teased, “it is your best feature.”

  That earns me a kiss on my lips, and the taste of wine is sweet on his mouth.

  Um. Yeah.

  “Ask me anything,” he declares, spreading his hands wide. “I know all, I tell all. That’s the reporter’s mantra, ya know.”

  Somehow I doubt that. “All right, all knowing James Callahan. Tell me this. Were there ever any, well, unsolved murders around Pine Lake? Maybe where my Inn is now? Maybe from the turn of the century?”

  His reaction surprised me. He stared into my eyes, trying to read something there before setting aside his wine glass, and then taking mine from me, too. Then he pulled at his earlobe, like I’d seen him do when he’s thinking hard on something.

  “What is it?” I asked him. “I’m right, aren’t I? There is something?”

  “Well, sure,” he said, rolling his hand in the air. “I just figured that ya knew. I thought they had to disclose all that when they sold ya the property.”

  “Disclose...what?”

  “The murder. The one you’re askin’ for the rundown on.”

  Murder. Such an ugly word. Somehow though, having him confirm what I’d seen in my vision made me feel a little better.

  He shook his head, then scrunched up his face. It was cute, even if he’d hate to hear me say so, but I wish he’d just get to the point. “See... they really didn’t tell ya ‘bout this? Who was the agent handled the sale?”

  Of course. “Myles Sinclair,” I said, in a flat tone.

  “Well. There ya go. Doesn’t exactly follow the rules, that one. Anythin’ to make a sale.”

  Anything to make a sale. Maybe even cracking the skull of an old fossicker who only wants to be left alone and chase his dream of digging up gold.

  Picking up both glasses of wine up, he motioned with his head at the front door. “Let’s go set up for dinner. Then I’ll tell ya one of Lakeshore’s darkest secrets.”

  “One of?” I felt the need to ask.

  “Yup. We’ve got more than our fair share.”

  The ziti was wonderful. This man cooks, looks amazing, and takes the time to listen to me when
I’m upset. Someday there’s going to be some lucky woman who makes an honest man out of him.

  I’m thinking more and more that woman will be me. Maybe.

  Please God, let me be able to make that final step.

  Sitting at his small kitchen table, we ate pasta and hunks of damper bread. Used to be just for drovers and travelers through the bush. Now any decent cookbook in Australia has a few recipes for it. James makes his with olive oil and rosemary. While we ate our food, and drank our wine, he told me a story.

  He’s quite the story teller, which is probably one of the reasons he’s such a good reporter.

  “The year was 1891,” he began. “The Pine Lake Inn had only been in existence for two decades or thereabouts. Not the Inn you run, Dell. The one before it. The one what got burned down in the 1940’s. Yours is the new Inn built during World War Two. Wasn’t called Pine Lake Inn back then, neither. Back then it was the Three Lakes Hideaway.”

  I thought about that for a minute, almost wishing I’d thought of it myself. The more I repeated the name in my mind, though, the cheaper it sounded. Like a twenty-dollar-a-night motel where people go to do things they can’t do in public.

  I like Pine Lake Inn much better.

  After a bite of ziti, James went on with the story. “Anyway. At that time in Lakeshore’s history, the land around Pine Lake was owned in trust by the Halliburton family. Most of Lakeshore, too, for that matter. Town was smaller, back then. Lots of open land. It didn’t hit its stride until the 1970s, when the leisure tourism industry really took off...”

  I settled my head into my hand, elbow on the table, waiting for him to notice.

  “Oh. Right. Ya probably don’t care about that. So. Back to 1891. Lachlan Halliburton and his brother Callum are arguing over how to use their family’s land. Lachlan wanted to sell it. Word was that he had some massive gambling debts. Man was something of a gentleman thief, or so the stories go, but every dime he managed to steal he managed to lose again on card games and the like. Well, brother Callum didn’t want to sell. The family’s owned the land for generations, he says, and we’ll own it still in a hundred years.”

  Heh. Man couldn’t have been more wrong. “Guess he didn’t figure on the likes of Myles Sinclair.”

  “Too right.”

  We raised our wine glasses together in a mock toast.

  I could picture the whole thing. Not hard, really, considering I had witnessed it first hand, so to speak. Now I could put names to the two men arguing down at the edge of Pine Lake. Brother killing brother. That would have been Lachlan and Callum.

  “One day,” James continued, pushing his fork through his pasta, “Lachlan disappears. Nobody hears from him ever after.”

  “Dead?” I had to ask.

  “That was the general rumor, yes. This is all pretty well documented by witnesses. I’ve seen most of the records meself. Callum came wandering into town that day with blood on his clothes and a mad story about shooting a wild dog.”

  “But, it wasn’t a wild dog.”

  James shook his head.

  “He killed his own brother.”

  “Arrested and hung for it, too. After that the land got sold anyway, to pay the family’s debts, Lachlan’s included. Kind of made the whole argument pointless, if you ask me. Thing was, they never found Lachlan’s body. Callum would never admit what he’d done with it.”

  I laid my fork aside. I knew where the body was. Now I was glad I hadn’t asked George to go digging around that tree. What would happen if we dug up a hundred year old skeleton? Just imagine the interest the tourists would have in my Inn then!

  “Can’t believe ya never heard that story,” James said to me. “I mean, it’s ancient history, sure, but some of the old folks in town still tell the tale. They heard it direct from their oldies, I suppose. Not the only suspicious death around your Inn, either.”

  That made me sit up straighter. “What’s that now?”

  His expression was pure disbelief. “Oh, go on, Dell. You must’a heard... Wow. Ya haven’t heard about the owners of the Inn?”

  “I’m the owner of the Inn,” I pointed out. “Me and Rosie.”

  Picking up his plate and putting it aside, he waved his hand through the air. “No, the ones before ya. Harry and Edna Davis? Died back in 1963. Both of ‘em. At the same time. In bed. Supposed to be natural causes.”

  “But instead...?” I could tell by his tone that there was more to it.

  He shrugged. “People figured Harry killed Edna, then himself. Never proved it, so can’t exactly call it a murder. Just suspicious. The Inn was run by their kids for years before you came along to buy it.”

  I remembered making the deal for the Inn via e-mails and registered mail. I just figured the owners were trying to get rid of a property that was too far away for them to take care of. I never dreamed that it was because their parents had died in the place.

  What other secrets was my Inn hiding?

  His hand settling over mine brought my thoughts back to the present. “I’m very glad that ya bought that Inn, Dell. Wouldn’t have met ya, otherwise.”

  He leaned in, and I leaned in with him, and the kiss we shared was very nice. Almost nice enough to chase away thoughts of murder and death.

  I’m glad I came to Lakeshore, too. What are the chances of one woman finding love twice in the same little town at the bottom of the world?

  I parted away from James slowly, hoping fiercely that this romance wouldn’t turn out the same way as my first one.

  Easy, I told myself. Don’t ruin a good thing by hanging onto the past.

  In James’s eyes, I could see that he wanted to kiss me again, but he settled back in his chair, respecting my need for just a little more space. “So,” he said, “d’ya think any of this has anything to do with what happened to Arthur Loren?”

  Shaking my head, I picked up my glass and had some more of the red wine. “No. I can’t see how. I had just heard... a rumor, today, and wanted to know what you knew about it.”

  Lachlan’s death was over a hundred years ago. A lot of the land the brothers owned had been bought or sold by Myles Sinclair, sure, and Myles was still a strong suspect for the attack, but I couldn’t see any other connection. I also didn’t know why Jess had shown me that tree, where a gentleman thief was buried.

  What was she trying to tell me?

  James cleared his throat. “They’re showing back to back episodes of The Kettering Incident tonight,” he said slyly. “If yer interested, I could make some popcorn after dinner and we could watch it together?”

  That’s his subtle way of asking me to stay over, on his couch, all snuggled up until tomorrow. Just what I was hoping for.

  Not gonna tell him that. Sometimes guys have to feel like everything is their idea. It’s just easier that way.

  “Make it ice cream,” I tell him, “and you got yourself a deal.”

  Chapter Six

  My cell rang early the next morning.

  Very early.

  I was tempted to smash the thing to pieces and go back to sleeping on James’s chest, here on his old, comfy couch. It was Sunday, after all. A day of rest. This was probably the most comfortable I’d been in days.

  “That’s your mobile,” James muttered, shifting his body over, sliding me down on my side, on the edge of the couch, closer to the stupid phone.

  “Mrph,” I mumbled at him, which had sounded like a really good insult in my head until I tried to speak. I was too tired to form coherent, eloquent sentences. Well. At least he can’t say he doesn’t know what I’m like in the morning.

  We had watched television deep into the night, missing most of what we were watching while we pretended we were still teenagers. I could still feel the way his lips touched me on that spot behind my ear...

  Ring, buzz-ring...

  I officially hate my ring tone.

  Figuring I at least need to check to see who’s calling me at sunrise, I reached out and grabbed the cell off the coff
ee table beside the couch to check the screen.

  Struggling to sit upright, I accidentally planted a hand in James’ midsection, making him grunt and pop his eyes open wide. Thumbing the answer button, I put the phone up to my ear.

  It’s Kevin calling me. That can’t be a good thing.

  “Mom?” he said immediately. “I need ya to come down to the police station. Are ya at the Inn? I’ll come ‘round.”

  “What? Kevin, what’s going on?”

  James is listening intently now, his reporter senses tingling. I pointed a look at him, and he sort of rolled his eyes before climbing up over the back of the couch to untangle himself from me.

  “Mom,” Kevin said after a muffled pause. I got the impression he’s not alone. “Myles Sinclair is down here. He’s under arrest.”

  “Kevin, what—?”

  “I can’t get into it now,” he told me. “Just, trust me. I’ll be right down.”

  “No, uh... no... I’m not at the Inn. Right now. I’m, uh, out.” Smooth, Dell, I told myself. Real smooth. He’ll never know what you’re up to with such clever banter. “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  “Make it ten.”

  He hung up, not pushing me on where I was or saying anything else about what was happening, leaving me to wonder.

  Why was Myles under arrest? Had Kevin found something out last night? Something important?

  Something serious?

  I bounced up off the couch and ran my fingers back through my hair. Not like I was going out to the Sydney Opera House or anything but I didn’t exactly want to show up at the station with couch hair, either. As it was I knew Kevin would notice how I was wearing the same clothes I had on yesterday. I could change into the things I had here but if I remember all I’d left here last time was a pair of jean shorts and a few t-shirts. Not the image I really wanted to present at the police department.

  Ten minutes, Kevin had told me. I went over the distances and the streets in my head. No way. The twenty minutes I had offered was pushing it.

  Holding my hair behind my neck in both hands, I took a slow breath. There was one way to do it.

  “Hey, James?” I called into the kitchen. “Any chance you can give me a ride to the police station?”