Alice smiled at him affectionately. “Poor Sloan! His great-great grandmother was the scarlet woman of the age! But, boy, according to everything I’ve read, she was a brilliant actress. She could go from comedy to drama in the blink of an eye. They said her performances could make the toughest cowboy weep.”
“Well, I don’t think she did run off with Marston,” Sloan said.
“Really?” Alice looked at Sloan and then Jane. “Did you finish with the skull? Do you think it belonged to Sage McCormick?”
“It’s possible. I haven’t finished, but I have done a two-dimensional sketch. Seems like it just might have been Sage.” She glanced reproachfully at Sloan. Apparently most people in town knew about his ancestry—something he might have shared with her from the get-go.
Alice shivered. “So, maybe she has been haunting the theater. But if she was murdered, who killed her?”
“Who killed who?” Valerie Mystro asked. They all turned around as they heard her voice; she was coming down the stairs.
Alice said, “The skull you found might have been Sage McCormick’s.”
Valerie shivered. “That was soooo creepy!” she said, taking a seat at the bar. “I mean—soooo creepy! But I guess she might’ve been buried around here somewhere. Under the floorboards. Oh, but...she disappeared after a performance. I wonder how and where she was killed, and where the body was hidden.”
“That was a long time ago!” came a booming voice from the theater. It was Henri Coque, heading toward them from behind the curtains, a notepad in his hand. He looked at Sloan. “We have a man who’s just been murdered in town. That’s what matters. How’s it going, Sheriff?”
“Henri, we’re doing our best,” Sloan said.
“With all these people coming to town, it’s a problem, Sloan.”
“We’re working a few different angles, Henri. And the county detectives are on it, too. So, hopefully, we’ll find the truth and the killer soon.”
“Not in time.” Henri was somber. “All the people flooding in tomorrow... I called the guy at the county, your Detective Newsome. He told me we can reopen the trail rides and the haunted hayride. That’ll be something for the crowd at night—going out where a murder was just committed.”
“I don’t think I could go under the circumstances,” Alice said. “I mean, old mysteries and murders and shoot-outs are fun. New murders are scary.”
“Believe me, there’ll be crowds who will want to go,” Henri said, almost wearily. “Sloan, why are you hanging around here when there’s a murder to be solved?”
“Eating lunch on your tab, Mr. Mayor,” Sloan told him.
Henri grinned. “All right, fine. Eat your lunch. By the way, are you going to dress up as Hardy for us this year?”
“Henri, you just said I have a murder to solve,” Sloan began.
“Yes, but you can solve it in costume, can’t you?”
“Who dresses up as Sage McCormick?” Jane asked, trying to take a bit of the heat off Sloan.
Henri turned and looked her up and down. “Hmm. We don’t usually have a Sage because I can’t get either of these two chickenhearts to play her. But, Agent Everett, you would do us a tremendous honor if you’d take on the role. After all, you’re a federal agent and not a clucking little bird like my divas here,” he said, glancing from Alice to Valerie.
“Hey, Sage haunts this theater. I’m not getting her mad at me!” Valerie said.
“Ditto,” Alice agreed.
“Please. Seriously, you wouldn’t have to stop your work. You could be in costume when you’re here on Main Street. Or you could dress up all day, and then, whenever you’re on Main Street, we’d have a Sage McCormick,” Henri said.
“What a great idea.” Sloan smiled pleasantly as he leaned on the bar.
So much for saving his ass, she decided.
“Wow. That would be cool, Jane,” Alice said.
“Really. You could be mysterious—around sometimes and not around other times,” Valerie chimed in.
“I don’t have a costume,” Jane protested.
Henri lifted his hands. “Come on! We’re a theater troupe. We have tons of costumes. We even have costumes that were actually worn by Sage McCormick. Of course,” he added. “Those are really museum pieces now.”
“Valerie, you and Jane are about the same size,” Sloan said.
“Sure!” Valerie said. “I have several costumes—not just for the show we’re doing now, but other shows, too. A number of them are late Victorian.”
“I don’t want to take your things....” Jane demurred.
“They aren’t mine. They belong to the theater,” Valerie said. “Come on. If you have a minute, I’ll take you to the dressing rooms.”
Jane started and looked at Sloan. She realized that, as he’d hoped, a plan had arisen.
“I’ll come down with you, see what’s there. We’ll need our costumes for tomorrow, so we might as well take care of this now,” he said.
“You’ll both do it!” Henri clapped his hands. “That’s delightful.”
“Come on, then. Let’s go,” Valerie said.
Alice stuffed the last of her sandwich in her mouth and washed it down with water. “Hold on. I’m coming, too.”
They left the bar and entered the theater, walking down the aisle and over to the wings and then the area behind the stage, where the dressing rooms were situated against the back wall.
As they paused at Valerie’s door, Sloan looked at her.
She recognized his silent question. This one?
She shook her head, indicating with a movement of her chin that she’d been in the room next door.
But they went inside Valerie’s, and she rummaged through the racks of period clothing. Jane waited for Sloan to take the lead.
He did. “I was just thinking.... Alice, you’re a little taller than Valerie. I guess it doesn’t have to be exact, but Jane is taller than both of you. Maybe something you have in your dressing room would fit better.”
“Sure,” Alice said, “and if not, we have more in the basement. In storage.”
“Except I’m not going down there,” Valerie insisted.
“Something here should work,” Henri said.
“Might as well try my stuff first,” Alice said. “Because it’s true. We didn’t take Jane’s height into consideration.”
They moved into the next room. As Jane went through the costumes, Alice perched on her dressing-table chair and Valerie leaned against a prop box. Henri seemed interested in her possible choice of costume.
“The blue! That’s a copy of Sage’s costume from The Heiress. That would be great!” he said.
While Jane pulled out the costume and oohed and ahhed over it, Sloan walked to the back of the room.
“Hey, Henri,” he called, kneeling down. “What’s this?”
“Huh?” Henri joined him. “I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “It’s a big brass pull on the floorboard, I guess.”
“It’s a trapdoor. Where does it lead?”
“Well, it could only lead to the basement—or to more floorboards,” Alice said.
“Do not open it!” Valerie shrieked. “Not if it leads to the basement.”
“It might’ve been a cubby where the old actors and actresses stuffed their valuables,” Alice suggested.
“Or it might’ve been for extra costume pieces, accessories, stuff like that,” Jane murmured.
“Let’s see,” Sloan said.
Jane had never thought of herself as a weakling, so she was glad to see that, at first, it seemed to be sealed tight. But Sloan levered himself against it and pulled harder—and the trapdoor opened.
It didn’t lead to the basement. It led to a dark compartment. Something seemed to glimmer.
Sloan pulled
out a flashlight and pointed it down into the hole that was about two feet deep.
Valerie let out a scream. “Didn’t I tell you not to open anything that might lead to the basement!”
“That—that’s not the basement,” Alice said.
“Those are bones!” Valerie wailed. “I’m getting out of here. No, no, I’m not. I’m not going anywhere alone. Oh! Lord, what’s happening in Lily?”
Sloan looked at her. “It’s all right, Valerie. They’ve been here for a very long time. You can see that the fabric—the dress—is nearly decayed. It looks as if a body was left here and it decayed and...it must have smelled like hell. I wonder why someone didn’t find it back then.”
“Oh, how horrible,” Valerie said.
Henri was down on his knees, horrified as he stared into the hole.
“Someone’s found it recently,” he said, a catch in his throat.
“How do you know?” Alice asked.
“Because this body is lacking something it should have,” Henri said.
“What?” Valerie demanded.
“Her head,” Jane said softly.
* * *
It did seem most likely that someone—playing a trick on the cast at the theater—had found the space beneath the floor, taken out the skull and set it on a wig stand. Despite the fact that he knew the bones had to be as old as the mummified remains discovered in the desert, Sloan called in the county medical examiner to retrieve them.
Alice moved into Valerie’s dressing room for the time being. She’d switch with either Brian or Cy after Silverfest had come and gone.
Once the hoopla over the bones had ended, the afternoon was wearing on and Henri, though pensive, was also eager to get his cast out onto the street to start entertaining the locals.
At three o’clock, Sloan and Jane were finally able to leave the Gilded Lily. “Want to go exploring?” he asked her.
“Sure. Where? But should I be working on the skull? I just worry that I’m not accomplishing what you wanted out here.”
“Doesn’t matter. I know the skull belonged to Sage. And now I’m virtually certain we have the rest of her. As soon as that’s confirmed, I’ll plan a proper burial for her. We have our own version of Boot Hill here—except ours is called Dead Horse Hill. I would like to see that she’s buried and I think that’s an appropriate place.”
“I’ll still finish,” Jane told him. “What are we exploring?”
“An old silver mine.”
“I thought the entrances were all sealed.”
“So did I. But I went by the mine entrance off the trail today and it has a few loose boulders. I hadn’t brought a flashlight or anything with me, and I didn’t want to go into an old mine shaft with no one knowing what I was up to. Of course, I had my phone, but...”
“If we’re both in the mine, who will know where we are?”
“Johnny Bearclaw,” Sloan said. “I trust him with my life.”
“And you don’t trust your own officers?”
“I do. But I’m not sure anymore that I want everyone finding out what I suspect until I’ve had a chance to prove it.”
She shrugged. “Okay, I’m game.” She turned to him; he didn’t dare do more than glance at her. The gold of her eyes could be too hypnotic. “And I’m armed, I’m fully dressed and I’m wearing shoes.”
“As I said before, that was rather a foolish thing you did last night.”
“If I hadn’t followed the ghost when she beckoned, we might not know what she’s wanted us to know all along.”
“It was stupid,” he said decisively. He was being argumentative, but he still had the feeling that something had changed, that a dark cloud remained above them.
“Like going into a long-closed mine shaft?” she said.
“You don’t have to go in. In fact, maybe you should stay outside and wait for me.”
They’d reached his house by then. He’d already called Johnny so the horses were ready. He noticed that Johnny had one of Mike Addison’s mares in the paddock and asked, “What’s Lucy doing here?”
“In case I have to come bail you out,” Johnny told him.
“Hopefully, you’re not going to have to bail me out,” Sloan said.
Johnny offered him a shrug and a wry grimace. “I wouldn’t want to lose Agent Everett out there. You, you’re going to do what you’re going to do.”
“You’ll know where Ms. Everett is,” Sloan agreed. “What did you tell Mike?”
“Nothing. Just that you were taking Kanga and Roo and I might want to ride later,” Johnny explained.
“Thanks.”
“It’s what I do,” Johnny said. He smiled, but there was a seriousness in his expression. Sloan wondered about the other night when the cat had hissed as if something was near. He hadn’t seen anything on the property, but they did have coyotes in the area. And yet he wondered if someone had been through his place. He’d consider it paranoia—except that a man had been murdered.
He led the way, with Jane behind him, breaking into a canter over the clearer ground and slowing Roo when they reached the rockier area of foothills and outcrops. She followed him wordlessly until they got to the old mine entrance.
He dismounted and she did the same. She walked over, waiting while he moved the loose boulder he’d found earlier. She played the flashlight he’d given her over the black gaping hole he created.
“See anything?” he asked her.
“A hole,” she said.
He crawled through, not wanting to dislodge more than the one boulder. If someone was doing something in the old tunnel or shaft and wasn’t there now, he didn’t want that person knowing the entry had been discovered.
When he was inside, he turned to help Jane, but she was agile and had already come through. They both trained their lights on the old shaft. He checked the sides, where rock was crumbled from the explosion. Shifting his light, he saw that the center of the shaft was clear. Had it been like that when it caved in—or had someone been clearing it?
Jane was behind him as he carefully moved forward. They went about fifteen feet before they had to crawl through another pile of rubble. Past that, they found a second clear stretch. A few feet later, they came across a large room. There, part of the floor had been dug up; pointing his light down, Sloan saw something dazzling. He crouched down and searched for the source.
“What is it?” Jane asked.
“Dust,” he said. “Gold dust.”
“When was this mine closed down?”
“Years ago. The 1920s, I believe.”
“Has the gold been here that long?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Look for signs that someone’s been in here. I can’t find prints, because the stone is so uneven....”
She walked around the perimeter. “I think I’ve found what you’re looking for,” she told him.
“What?” he asked, and shone his light toward her.
It was a plastic water bottle.
“I don’t think they made these in the 1920s,” she said.
He nodded. He wasn’t sure what anyone was doing here—other than maybe conducting some kind of illegal trade. He doubted the person or persons in question had found the cache of gold—although he had no idea why there was gold dust scattered near the entrance.
He pulled a small listening device out of his pocket and looked around for a rock with a little crevice.
“How long will that last?” Jane asked skeptically.
“Well, it’s motion-activated and the battery will last twelve to twenty-four hours when it’s active,” he told her. “Come on. Let’s get out before the wrong person comes along and realizes that we’re in here.”
They crawled back out. When they were once again standing in the late-afternoon sun ag
ain, he looked at Jane and laughed.
“That’s rude,” she chastised. “Especially from a man who looks like he’s been mud-wrestling with pygmies.”
He sobered only slightly. Jane was covered in dust; even her eyelashes were a smoky taupe shade. Her auburn hair was almost gray.
“Come on. You really should see yourself,” he said.
“Yep. And you really should see yourself!”
They both mounted up. “Let’s hope we don’t meet up with anyone!” Jane muttered.
“The trail rides don’t start until tomorrow, so we should be okay,” he said.
Johnny was waiting for them when they returned. He looked them both up and down.
“Nice. May I suggest showers? And you might want to hurry. Chet’s coming by with some reports from Detective Newsome at county.”
“Shall we?” he asked Jane.
“Yes, thanks, although my clothes will still be covered with this stuff. Remind me next time we’re going to crawl through tunnels not to wear a cotton suit.”
“I have a washer and dryer,” he told her. “We’ll be fine. Chet won’t stay, I’m sure, but I do have to get you back to town.”
They left Johnny whistling as he tended to the horses. “Strange,” he told Jane. “The other night, I was convinced someone was on my property. I didn’t find anything—but my place is the most direct route when you’re riding through to the trail. There’s that little gap between those rocky hills once you’re off the property line.”
“So you think whoever murdered Jay Berman went through your property?” she asked.
“The question is still why? Is someone selling illegal drugs? Smuggling illegal aliens? Trying to reopen the silver mine? Or—”
“Or maybe the gold from the heist was hidden in the mine.”
“I’d thought of that—except the mine wasn’t closed down until almost forty years later. So I can’t figure out what anyone’s doing in there. For one thing, it’s dangerous. The integrity of the caverns must have been destroyed when the entry was dynamited.”
Inside the house he directed her to the master suite. “Everything you need should be in there.”
“Oh?”
He grimaced. “Not to worry, Agent Everett. That suite was my grandfather’s, I never moved over from the other side of the house. Check in the closet. You’ll find soap, shampoo, towels, robes.”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever Page 13