[To Die For 02] - A Book to Die For (2014)

by Richard Houston

  “You see right through me, Bon.”

  “I’m sorry we dragged you into this, Jake. Families should keep their dirty laundry to themselves,” she said and went inside, closing the door behind her.

  Bonnie didn’t give me a chance to tell her about my conversation with Linda Grabowski and my discovery of the Corvette. She hadn’t exactly slammed the door in my face, but somehow I was left feeling like a door-to-door vacuum salesman. I was still thinking about her while preparing dinner for Fred and myself.

  Back when I still had dependable electricity, dinner would have been a TV dinner. Now we had to eat whatever canned food I could scrounge from the cupboards and heat it over my camp stove. Fred didn’t care. He would eat anything as long as it wasn’t dog food. Tonight it was raviolis and sardines in mustard sauce. I ate half the can of raviolis and then decided against the sardines. Fred gobbled down the leftovers like it was his last meal while I punched in Julie’s number on my phone. I quickly changed my mind and pushed the off button.

  I really wanted to call her. Really, I did, but I couldn’t. As much as I needed to ask her if she knew how the camera found its way into Chuck’s dumpster, my pride wouldn’t let me. She made it clear that she wasn’t interested in me the way I was her. If she wanted to talk, she was going to have to call me first.

  Chapter 12

  I had told myself before I went to bed that I was through playing detective and needed to get back to finding some gainful employment. Living off the grid might be romantic to some but it was the pits and although my ex wife didn’t bug me for money, my creditors did. Natalie had agreed to take a second on the cabin when we divorced. The market had been down and I really didn’t want to sell, so she agreed to let me pay her half of what it was worth in one hundred-twenty payments. I was two months behind on both of the mortgages. Still, my plan to get up early to look for work failed. Fred woke me instead with his barking. It wasn’t his “let me out to do my business” bark. We had company.

  I managed to pull on some pants and reach the front door at the same time our visitor started knocking. “What’s up, Tommy? Why aren’t you in school today? Are you playing hooky?” I asked after opening the door. He was my neighbor’s son from down by the creek.

  “Sort of, Mister Martin. I missed the bus and dad didn’t have the gas to drive me,” he answered while studying my bare feet. “I was wondering if you could help out our troop. If I can sell enough magazine subscriptions, I can win a new bike too.”

  Ordinarily I would make some lame excuse and send the kid packing. It’s not that I’m related to the Grinch like my wife says. It’s that the families on Upper Bear Creek have more weekly disposable income than I make all year. They don’t send their kids out soliciting for good causes, they simply write a check. But Bonnie had told me about the Hatches. Tommy’s mother committed suicide when she was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer; then a month after the funeral, the father’s company filed for bankruptcy. They were living on unemployment until the insurance company paid on the mother’s life insurance. That had been six months ago and the father was still trying to collect.

  Fred wasted no time trying to get Tommy to play. He picked up a nearby stick and tried to put it in his hand. They had played this game many times when I took Fred for walks down by Bear Creek, but Tommy wasn’t in the mood today and ignored him.

  “Sure, Tommy, wait here while I get my wallet.”

  Tommy smiled and took Fred’s stick. “Thank you, Mister Martin. Thanks a lot.”

  My cabin is small; I wasn’t gone more than two minutes. Tommy and Fred were in a tug a war. He gave up and ran up to the porch when he saw me. “I’m a little short on cash, Tommy. Can you take a check?”

  “Uh huh. Here’s the list of magazines. Just pick the one you want and write the check for that amount.”

  I filled out the check without picking a magazine, and scribbled my name. “You pick something for me, Tommy, I don’t have the time right now. Have your dad fill out who you want the check made out to.

  “Thanks, Mister Martin,” he said and looked over the check like he’d never seen one before. “Wow, Mister Martin. Thanks. Thanks a lot.”

  I was the one smiling after he left, and I didn’t lie about not having time to chit-chat. I needed to get to the bank and cover the two-hundred dollar check with a cash withdrawal from my credit card.

  My cell started ringing before I could stop Fred from chasing after Tommy. “Jake, Alec is missing.” Bonnie was frantic. It even sounded like she was crying.

  “Missing?”

  “Margot called this morning. He took off right after I told her about that tank. Nobody’s heard or seen him since. It’s not like Alec to stay out all night. Not without calling. I think he must have had an accident or something.”

  I wasn’t surprised she had called Margot. I felt a bit betrayed, then got over it. Blood is thicker than CC and coke. “I’m sure he’s okay, Bon Bon. He probably had a few too many and is sleeping it off at a friend’s somewhere. What can I do to help?”

  “We were wondering if you could track Alec’s phone with that trick you used to find the camera.”

  “We?” I asked. “You told Margot. I could get in a lot of trouble, Bonnie. God, I hope she hasn’t told Chuck. I’m sure he would find a way to have me arrested for unlawful snooping or something.”

  She didn’t answer right away, so I knew Margot must have told Chuck. “I’m sorry, Jake, but if you can help us I’m sure Margot will get him off your back. Please? Please see if you can track him?”

  “It’s not that easy, Bonnie. The app I downloaded won’t track a phone that hasn’t had the same app loaded on it, but I think there is a way to track any phone with a GPS chip just the same. I know the NSA has been spying on us that way, so maybe I can find something on the internet.”

  “Oh, thank you, Jake. Bring your laptop and smart phone. You can find that app while I whip up some breakfast for you and Fred. Then we can go looking for Alec’s phone like we did that camera yesterday.” She sounded like a teenager gossiping with her best friend. Worry over Alec had been usurped with the excitement of another adventure.

  Two hours later the three of us were in my Wagoneer and headed for Idaho Springs taking the back road past Echo Lake. I made the two-hundred dollar deposit to cover Tommy’s check over the phone and then found a computer program that could track any phone with a GPS. It wasn’t free, but Bonnie had no problem using her credit card to pay for it. Unfortunately, all we had was the GPS coordinates and an aerial map of Alec’s cell phone location. The program claimed the phone hadn’t moved in over ten hours and was located in the hills above Idaho Springs. I put the coordinates into my smart phone, hoping it would lead us to Alec.

  I knew the area well. It was an old mining district that I used to hike and camp when I was younger. It was inaccessible by anything other than four-wheel drive or a mule. The area was full of abandoned mine shafts that went hundreds of feet straight down. Most of them had once been covered with tall sheds containing cages that were lowered and raised with giant winches. That equipment had been sold off long ago for scrap and the sheds burned to the ground. Now there was nothing left but open pits that would put fear in Dante himself.

  We decided to take my Jeep instead of her Bronco because my Wagoneer had the old Quadatrac drive-train with true four-wheel drive; unlike her Bronco where only one wheel per axel works, my Jeep used all four wheels. The area hadn’t changed a lot since my youth. I had read once where it was nearly impossible to get a clear title to property in the region because of overlapping mining claims. The land had never really been developed for housing, and no new roads built in years. It was mining country where miners would stake a claim and dig their exploratory holes. There wasn’t a square inch of land that hadn’t been claimed by more than one miner. The legal hassle of getting a clear title to build a home was too much for most banks to touch, not to mention the liability of someone getting hurt in one of the abando
ned mines.

  We had been driving on a washed-out dirt trail of a road for several miles when we spotted Alec’s truck. It was parked in the middle of the road with both doors open. Fred couldn’t wait to get out of my Jeep and nearly pushed Bonnie out the minute she opened her door. He wasted no time in finding a suitable tree to relieve himself.

  “Sorry about that, Bonnie,” I said. “I guess the ride was too much on his kidneys.”

  Bonnie unbuckled her seat belt and turned toward me. The worry lines in her face made her look twenty years older than her sixty-eight years. “Where could he be, Jake?” she asked. Evidently she wasn’t the least upset about Fred’s hasty exit. “There’s nothing here. Why would he come all the way out here?”

  “You mean they don’t you?” I answered.

  She had started to get out of the truck, but stopped to face me again.“They? You think he came with a friend?”

  “Not a friend. Both those doors are open. I suppose Alec could have done that, but I don’t think so. My guess is Alec left the truck in a big hurry, like he was trying to get away from his passenger.”

  Bonnie was out her door and headed toward Alec’s truck before I finished speaking. Sixty something smokers and drinkers aren’t supposed to be so quick, especially at this altitude. My home in Evergreen was close to eight thousand feet and this place had to be a thousand feet higher. She went to the driver’s side of the truck and screamed.

  Anyone within a mile could have heard her, but I doubt if anyone other than Fred and I did. The place was too remote and inaccessible to get to. “What is it, Bonnie?” I asked when I caught up to her, but before she could answer, Fred came out of nowhere and started barking and growling. I saw a huge raccoon jump out of the truck and run toward an open mine. Fred was right on its tail.

  The raccoon knocked Bonnie off her feet in its haste to escape. I yelled out for Fred to come back and went over to Bonnie. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  To my relief, she started laughing. “I don’t know which is worse. The raccoon or that big ox of yours,” she managed between laughs.

  It was contagious. I couldn’t help it and started laughing too. “My God, Bon, I thought you had found a dead body or something,” I said while helping her to her feet.

  She brushed off the dirt from her pants. “Damn it,” she said, looking at a rip in her pants. “These were my best pair of jeans.” The ground was covered in mine tailings that had small, gravel rocks embedded in the dirt.

  “Better your jeans than your skin, Bon. Lucky you weren’t wearing shorts,” I said before calling out for Fred again.

  “You’re wasting your breath,” she said. Then, without skipping a beat, she changed the subject. “I wonder what Alec was doing with a raccoon? Do you think that’s why he left the doors open? To get the critter out of his truck?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think the raccoon came along later when it smelled those chips,” I answered, pointing to a bag of Cheetos scattered across the floor.

  The laughter in her voice disappeared, and so did the joyfulness in her face. “I almost forgot about Alec. Do you have a flashlight? I think we should search this mine.” she said, pointing toward the hole Fred had gone into.

  The mine’s entrance had been dug into the side of the hill over a hundred years ago. Alec had parked his truck just below it. Judging by the pile of tailings that had been dug out of the mine and dumped where we were now standing, I estimated that the mine couldn’t be more than a few hundred feet deep.

  Bonnie didn’t wait for me to fetch the flashlight. She was already at the mine’s entrance by the time I caught up with her. “What’s that terrible smell?” she asked.

  I nearly started laughing again. She was holding her nose to illustrate her remark. It was the kind of gesture my daughter made when she had cleaned up after Fred when he was a puppy. It brought back some happy memories.

  “Smells like ammonia,” I answered. “Or maybe there’s a dead animal in there. Better let me go in first, Bon. If it’s a dead animal, there could be some scavengers in there who might not like being cornered.”

  “Oh my God,” she said and started yelling while rushing into the mine. “Alec, are you in there, honey?”

  It was all I could do to get ahead of her with the flashlight. “Hold up, Bonnie. Please let me go first.”

  I couldn’t see anything that could have caused the smell; no dead animals, no Alec, and even more amazing — no Fred. The mine was much smaller than I had first thought. I didn’t even need the flashlight to see. It wasn’t more than ten feet deep and the daylight filled every cubic inch of the place. It didn’t make sense. There was a small mountain of tailings outside, enough to fill the mine several times over. Then I saw why. The back wall wasn’t a wall at all. It was a pile of boulders and dirt blocking access to the rest of the mine behind it.

  Bonnie had seen it too, and realized what had happened. “Is that a cave-in, Jake? Oh, God, please don’t tell me Alec is behind that.”

  I didn’t answer right away. Something wasn’t right. “Fred! Come here boy,” I called out. I could see it wasn’t a cave-in. The ceiling above the rocks was intact. Those rocks had been placed there by someone who was hiding something.

  Within seconds, Fred poked his head through a small space at the top of the rock pile. “Get your butt down here, Mister,” I said then turned to Bonnie. “Please stay put this time, Bon. I’ll crawl up there and see what’s behind that pile.”

  “Alec!” she called out as loud as she could. “Are you back there, Alec?”

  Alec didn’t answer, but Fred did. Instead of obeying my order to come down from his perch, he barked at me then went back behind the pile of rubble. It was obvious he wanted me to follow.

  This time I didn’t give Bonnie a chance to get ahead of me. I was up and over the boulders before she could respond. Fred was waiting for me on the other side. Once he saw me hit the ground, he ran off into the mine. Maybe he could see, but now that the sun was all but blocked out, I paused to turn on my flashlight. The mine did continue on for another hundred feet or so, just as I had originally thought. I swept my light in a slow semi-circle. There weren’t any dead animals or scavengers, and to my relief, no sign of Alec either.

  “It’s okay, Bon,” I yelled back to her. “He’s not here.” Then I saw what Fred was so excited about. “Oh, shit,” I said in a much lower tone. Hopefully low enough that Bonnie couldn’t hear.

  There were propane bottles, burners, cans of acetone and white-gas everywhere. One of the propane bottles must have been leaking and I could tell it wasn’t propane. It was the stench of ammonia. Fred had discovered a meth lab.

  “What is it, Jake?” Bonnie asked. She was at the top of the rock pile.

  “Don’t come down, Bonnie. You might not make it back up. The rocks on this side are treacherous.”

  “Then tell me what all that stuff is before I come down to see for myself.”

  “It looks like Alec’s meth lab,” I answered. I reached out and touched a big pan on top of a camp stove. “And by the feel of this, he hasn’t been here in a while.” Then I saw Bonnie starting down the pile of rocks.

  “Wait there, Bonnie. I’m coming up before I pass out from these fumes.”

  She surprised me this time and did as I asked and went back outside to wait for me. She was sitting in Alec’s truck, smoking a cigarette when I joined her.

  “Where could he have gone, Jake?”

  “I wish I knew. Maybe Fred can tell us,” I answered while watching Fred sniffing the ground in front of Alec’s truck.

  She flicked her cigarette to the ground and bent down to Fred’s level, “Can you do that for your Aunt Bonnie, Freddie?” Her voice was breaking up. Tears were not far behind.

  Fred seemed to understand. He turned and went back to sniffing the ground.

  “I think he’s found something,” I said, pointing to the tracks Fred was checking out. The ground was still barren and easily disturbed wherever there
were tailings. Nothing could grow in the fine gravel and decomposed granite.

  Bonnie looked up at me and wiped her face. “Why do they go away from the mine, Jake?”

  Fred looked back at us and smiled, then put his nose to the ground to follow the tracks. Well, it looked like he was smiling. It’s hard to tell with Goldens. They’re always happy.

  “You’re right, Bon. They don’t go into the mine. Looks like Fred smells something going off toward those trees over there.” I pointed in the direction Fred was heading. The tracks disappeared in the thin grass once they left the area around the mine.

  Fred stopped acting like a bloodhound and picked up a small stick from a clump of weeds.

  “Once a retriever always a retriever,” I said to Bonnie.

  “That’s not a stick, Jake,” she said, going out to see what he had. “Its Alec’s knife!”

  The fear and tone of her voice made Fred’s tail disappear between his legs. He dropped his prize at her feet. The big sissy thought he was in trouble. I hurried over to them and picked up the knife.

  “It’s okay, Freddie,” I said, petting him on the head. “Aunt Bonnie’s not mad at you. You did good. Real good.”

  The knife wasn’t anything you could buy at your local Walmart. I had seen my father use a knife just like it years ago to skin a deer, and by the looks of it, this knife had been used to skin something. It was covered in dried-out blood.

  “I bought it for his birthday at Cabela’s. I had to drive all the way up to Thornton to get it for him,” she said then screamed when she saw the blood.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he, Jake?” she asked, grabbing me around the waist.

  “We don’t know that, Bon,” I said while rubbing her shoulders in a feeble attempt to comfort her. Then I held her by both shoulders and forced her to look me in the eyes. “It’s probably from some animal. Meth isn’t the only thing Alec’s been up to. I’ll bet my next paycheck, there’s a bear or elk around here missing some vital organs.”