Hot on the Trail Mix

by P. D. Workman

  He wasn’t yet putting in full-time hours and Erin was constantly afraid that he would do too much and end up with a week-long migraine or other relapse symptoms. He wasn’t yet fully healed. The sheriff needed to understand that.

  And Terry himself needed to understand that. He was probably the one who expected the most from himself. It had been too long since he had been injured. He felt that he should have been able to heal in that length of time. And that he should certainly not still be having any PTSD. That should all be behind him.

  “I only put in a half shift this afternoon. I’m fresh as a daisy.”

  “But you won’t be if you work all night. Be careful. Tell the sheriff if it’s too much and you have to go home.”

  He scowled at her and didn’t answer. Erin knew there was no way that he was going to tell Sheriff Wilmot that he was tired and wanted to go home. Even though the sheriff would send him home. Terry wanted too much to show that he had recovered and was just as tough as ever.

  Even though Terry had said that Vic and Willie were unhurt and everything was okay, Erin was still worried. The entire Bald Eagle Falls police department would not be called out there for nothing. It didn’t matter that the department consisted only of Terry, the sheriff, young Stayner, and Tom Banks, who was part time. There were few occurrences in Bald Eagle Falls that required all of them to be on site. And if something else happened and they needed to attend to another call, they would all be out at the cave. Or wherever it was that they had gone to take care of Vic’s and Willie’s problem.

  Something had happened. Something serious.

  A few hours went by. Erin busied herself in the little attic room reading through Clementine’s genealogy files and books, learning more about the history of Bald Eagle Falls and her father’s family. It was hard to stay focused and not let her mind wander to the call. But thinking about it wasn’t going to solve anything, so she did her best to just dive deep into the pages of history and lose herself in the stories and genealogies.

  She saw the flash of headlights out back and looked out the window to see Willie’s truck pull into the pad beside the garage. She left all of her papers and books scattered around and hurried down the stairs to see them.

  Erin keyed the burglar alarm and stepped out the back door, arriving in the yard as Vic and Willie were climbing down from the cab of the truck.

  “Hey, are you guys okay?”

  “We’re all right!” Vic assured her. “See? All in one piece.”

  Erin looked them both over. They looked tired, but unharmed. Willie went to the back of the truck to unload Vic’s spelunking gear.

  “Great granola bars and trail mix,” he told Erin. “They came in very handy when we had to stick around longer than expected.”

  “You liked them?” She allowed herself to be distracted for just a moment. “That’s great. Both kinds?”

  “Yes, everything. All good. I couldn’t tell the difference between the two kinds of granola bars.”

  “Perfect.” Erin turned to Vic. “You too? You liked them?”

  “Yes, they were good.”

  That was one question checked off of her list. Erin raised her brows and spread her hands out in a query. “So…?”

  Vic looked over at Willie, but he seemed very intent on the gear. She sighed. “Well… let’s just say… Erin Price isn’t the only one who can find human remains around here.”

  Chapter 4

  Erin felt her eyes go wide. “What? Are you serious?”

  Vic nodded. Her eyes were amused and tired, and just a little strained around the corners. She had been acting happy and relaxed for too long and was ready to crash, maybe have a glass of wine, and put it all behind her.

  “Tell me about it!”

  “Why don’t we go inside? I’m about dead on my feet. You’ll be okay with the gear?” she asked Willie.

  “If it will get me out of the recap,” Willie grumbled. “I’ll take mine home and unload, I don’t want to leave it in the truck overnight. Then I’ll be back.”

  Vic shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Okay, then. I’ll leave you to it. Erin and I will go set a spell.”

  She and Erin walked into the house together. Orange Blossom began yowling as if he’d been left alone all day. With no food, even. Vic laughed at him as he complained noisily and rubbed her legs.

  “Really? Has it been that awful? Well, I’ll definitely have a word with her.” She looked at Erin for permission. “Can I give him a couple of treats?”

  “Of course.”

  Vic knew where everything was. She used the kitchen as much as Erin did, even though she had her own kitchenette in the loft. It was just more natural for her and Erin to cook together or that she would get tea for both of them in Erin’s kitchen rather than her own. She got out the can of kitty treats and slid a few across the floor for Orange Blossom to chase and consume. Vic also called Marshmallow in to get a carrot. Then she and Erin made their way to the living room and sat down.

  “So spill,” Erin commanded. “Tell me all about it.”

  “Well, what’s to tell? You know what it’s like…” Vic teased.

  “Just tell me. Who? What happened? I can’t believe you didn’t call me earlier and tell me about it.”

  “Earlier, we were talking to the police and under strict instructions not to call anyone until we had given full statements and been questioned individually about it. And you know how they have to ask the same question ten different ways to make sure that they got a complete answer and to see if you trip over your own story. It takes forever.”

  “Yes.” Erin nodded sympathetically. She knew all about that. But she wanted to hear about what had happened.

  “So, it was just a normal day spelunking. Get all of the gear set up, work out your plan, and into the cave you go.”

  Erin shuddered at that. She was okay with the ‘getting ready’ part. And with the going home part. It was everything else in between that was the problem.

  “Where were you? Or can you even tell me that part?”

  “I’ll show you on a map later. It’s not a popular spot, just one Willie knew about.”

  Erin nodded. She waited for the punchline. Vic raised her brows as if she didn’t know what Erin was waiting for. Then she finally went on.

  “We’d been exploring another cave. But Willie wanted to show me this one before we went home, and it was just on the other side of the hill. Well, we got in about fifty feet, where there’s an underground spring and pool. Dark as pitch, but we had our lights, so we were okay. I wanted to see what wildlife we could find, so we had on the red lights rather than the big white ones. The white ones would just scare everything away.”

  Erin thought of bats hanging from the ceiling, dark things scuttling in the dark, and pale blind fish swimming silently in the underground pool. Not her idea of a romantic getaway. She would do her hiking and sightseeing above ground, thank you very much.

  She swallowed, turning her thoughts back toward Vic and Willie and what they had seen. She tried not to envision what they had come across down in that dark, damp cave.

  “You okay?” Vic checked.

  “Yeah. Go ahead.”

  “So we had just these dim lights on, and we were scouting around, seeing what we could see before we scared anything away. Some pretty bizarre critters live underground. You just won’t see them anywhere else.”

  “I’m okay with that.”

  Vic laughed. “I was looking into the pool, and down where it was deeper, I could see something white. Red, in the light, but I still knew it was white. Figured maybe it was a cave fish, so I leaned in for a closer look.”

  Erin really hoped that she hadn’t ended up going into the pool face-first, leaning over too far. She thought about the scene in Harry Potter, where the dead people started coming out of the underground lake, trying to pull them under.

  “When I leaned closer, I could see more white things. Maybe a whole school of fish. Or salamanders or something
else that might congregate and not disperse very quickly. But then I started to realize that they were arranged. And… well, arranged in the shape of a skeleton.”

  “Ugh.”

  “And of course, that’s exactly what it was. A skeleton in the pool.”

  “Just bones?” Erin asked. That might not be so bad. It wasn’t bloody and gory. Unsettling, of course, but the bones might have been in that pool for hundreds of years. They might even be fossilized.

  “That’s all I could see with the red light on, because it’s very dim, and only white stuff reflected back. I called Willie over, and he had a look, and then we turned on our white headlamps to get a better look at what we had found. It was mostly skeletonized. Like, you could see the fingers and the ribs and everything. There was still some…” Vic hesitated, and Erin thought she decided not to say what she had been planning to. “We could see that there was clothing around parts of it. So it was, you know, modern. And besides, Willie has been there before, so he knew it wasn’t something that had been there for years.”

  “That sounds horrible. Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” Vic rolled her eyes. “It’s all been very surreal. We went back outside, called the police, waited for them to get out there, led them to it, and answered all of their questions. It didn’t really feel real, if you know what I mean.”

  Erin nodded. She understood that feeling of unreality. Like maybe it was just a mannequin, or a joke, or some student film project. Her mind always went to other explanations, something to indicate that it wasn’t really real.

  “So, that’s all,” Vic said. “I know it sounds like a big, exciting thing, but it really wasn’t. There wasn’t much to see, and when we saw it, we had to get the police involved and then spend half the night dealing with them.”

  “Did you see Terry out there?”

  “Sure. Officer Terry Piper was on duty. Everyone was on duty. I talked to him. He was very good. Very professional.”

  Erin knew his professional face and manner. She nodded. “Yeah. He’s good at what he does. Did he look okay? Not like he’d been there for too long?”

  “He was fine when I saw him. I don’t think you need to worry about him.”

  “I always worry about him.”

  “I know. And maybe you should ease up a bit on that. He’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”

  “I just know that he doesn’t always do that.”

  “No one always does. We all let ourselves get a bit overtired sometimes, or don’t eat right away when we should. Or do things that we know aren’t good for us. It’s normal. And men are like that. They don’t want to look weak. They want to tough it out. Show everybody what a good protector they are.”

  Erin nodded. She knew that. She’d had plenty of experience with it the last few months. She squeezed Vic’s arm. “So, you’re okay?”

  “I’m okay. Willie’s okay. Terry’s okay. The only one who isn’t okay is the poor guy in the pool.”

  “And you didn’t… recognize him.”

  “How could I? He had no—” Vic cut herself off. “No, I couldn’t tell who it was. It was mostly just bones. And the clothes could have been anyone’s. Blue jeans, plaid flannel shirt. Practically a uniform in the wilds around here.”

  “Yeah. I don’t know anyone who has been declared missing lately, do you? I mean… no one since Joshua.”

  “Nope. No one I know about. He was probably from out of town. Maybe even out of state. Just came here to explore caves…”

  “You think so? No one we know?”

  “Nah. After what happened to Josh, I think we would have heard if anyone else disappeared. We’re kind of a bit paranoid about that right now. If rumors started going around town about someone else being missing, we would have heard about it, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah. That makes sense. We would have heard about it.”

  “So he must have been someone from out of town. Another spelunker or a miner. Shouldn’t have been exploring by himself. You should always take a partner, at least. File a plan to make sure that people know where you’re going to be.”

  “Yeah. I worry even when it’s you and Willie. I know you are together, and he’s experienced and good at first aid care, but… like with the mine collapse…”

  “At least we were stuck together. If we didn’t come back, you’d come looking for us sooner or later. And you and Terry would get us out. Just like before.”

  Erin hadn’t really done anything to get them out when the mine collapsed. She had called it in, and the police department and search and rescue had taken over. All she had done was sit there waiting for someone else to do all of the work.

  Chapter 5

  They only spent a few more minutes visiting. Vic stretched and massaged the back of her neck and excused herself.

  “I’m going to need some time to unwind if I’m going to be at Auntie Clem’s in the morning.”

  Erin hadn’t even thought about that. “I can call someone else in. Do you want me to do that?”

  “No. I’d rather be working. Keep my mind off of things.”

  “You’re not going to be able to do that,” Erin warned, thinking about how many people would be at the bakery the next day to gossip and get all of the details.

  “Well… no, not most of the time. But work makes it go faster. I’ll take a sleeping pill. But I want some time to just decompress first.”

  Erin nodded. “Sure. Of course. I’ll see you in the morning. But if you do have a bad night and want to sleep, just let me know so I can call someone.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Vic leaned toward her and gave her a hug goodbye. “See you tomorrow. You should be heading to bed soon.”

  Erin tried to sleep, but her brain was whirling and she couldn’t settle her thoughts. She couldn’t help thinking about the bones in the underground pond. She had a feeling they were going to figure into her dreams that night. If she ever got to sleep.

  Terry gave her a bear hug in greeting and looked at her face. “I thought you and Vic would still be talking.”

  “We talked. But we’re both on at the bakery tomorrow, so I was hoping to get some sleep.”

  “She told you all about it?” Since Terry wasn’t allowed to tell Erin anything about his investigations, he couldn’t really talk to her about anything but what she already knew from other sources.

  “Yes. I can’t believe it! What a shock it must have been for them.”

  “I imagine so. That’s not one of the things that you expect to discover when you go exploring caves. Although, there have certainly been remains discovered in other caves. Sometimes they were used as natural tombs by the native peoples or early settlers. A lot easier than digging a hole.”

  “But this one that Vic and Willie found… it’s not an Indian or early settler.”

  “Oh?” He raised his brows.

  “Not if it was wearing blue jeans.”

  “No,” he agreed.

  “And Vic said that Willie has been in there before and he wasn’t there. So it’s not even someone in one-hundred-year-old Levis. It’s… recent.”

  “Contemporary, anyway,” Terry agreed. “Willie said that he hasn’t been there for a couple of months. And even when he was there last, he didn’t take a careful look in the pool. It could have been deeper in the mud at that point. Maybe spring rains stirred things up a little to reveal it.”

  “So, you think it’s older?”

  “No. There are just other possibilities. It’s important not to jump to immediate conclusions.”

  “Like that it could be someone we know?”

  “It’s not someone we know,” he assured her.

  “Does that mean you’ve already identified the… remains?”

  “We have some initial leads to follow up. Probably won’t take long, though we’ll have to send them to the city to have them make the official identification. Don’t want to misidentify them, you know.”

  Erin thought about her father. “No,”
she agreed. It would probably take weeks or months before the city had the official identity for them. If the remains were skeletonized. Erin knew it took longer than on TV, when an episode of Bones was completed in an hour and things like facial reconstructions or DNA analysis were instantaneous. “And it wasn’t… Vic said it probably was someone from out of town, since there hasn’t been anyone reported missing in Bald Eagle Falls.”

  Terry didn’t agree or disagree. He shrugged and gave a head wobble that could have been yes or not. Noncommittal.

  “You think it was someone from Bald Eagle Falls?”

  “We’ll have to see. But you don’t know everybody in Bald Eagle Falls.”

  “Well, no,” Erin agreed. And there were a lot of outlying farms and shacks. Someone could be local and still unknown to her. She’d only lived there for a short time as an adult, though she’d been there as a child before her parents had died.

  “Is it someone you know?” she pried.

  “Can’t give you that kind of information.”

  “No, I guess not.” Erin relaxed back into her pillow. “I don’t suppose you’re ready for bed.”

  He rubbed his forehead, considering. “I’m tired, but I don’t think I’m ready for sleep. If I lay down now, I’m going to be tossing and turning and keeping us both awake.”

  Erin nodded. They’d been through it enough to know what didn’t work.

  “I’ll need some time to relax and veg out before I’m ready for bed,” Terry said.

  “Okay… well, come in once you’re ready, if you can.”

  “Sure. I don’t want to wake you, though.”

  “You won’t.”

  Erin wondered if she would wake him. Her brain was still whirling and she had a feeling that she was going to have a night filled with restless nightmares. “Do you want to cuddle for a little while?”