by Peggy Dulle
“I know, Bill. Tom’s calling the local cops. We should get as many people as we can out looking for her.”
“I told her to stay away from those stupid mines.”
“I don’t think she went there, Bill.”
“I hope not. She’s the only one who could find her way around that mine. We’d all get lost looking for her in there.”
Tom came back into the room. “We’re supposed to come down to the station. They’re going to go through Ted’s statement again and see if they can get more information.”
“I don’t think there’s more to know, Tom,” I said.
“I don’t either, but let them try. Where do you think she went?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. But I’ll bet it has something to do with whatever’s going on in this town.”
Tom nodded.
“What’s going on in town?” Ted asked.
“Never mind,” I told him. “We need to get you down to the police station.”
We left Shelby in the room and we took Ted down to the station. The lieutenant came out and took Ted. We turned around to leave and ran into Jimmy. Tom shook hands with him.
“I called Bill,” I told him.
“Thanks. He called me and he’s on his way down right now.”
“If you need any help, call us,” Tom told Jimmy.
“Thanks, we will.”
The two men shook hands again and Tom and I walked out of the station. “I’d like to stay and help,” I told him.
“Do you know the town well enough?” Tom asked.
“Not really.”
“That’s what I figured. I know even less. We’d just be in the way. Let’s let the local cops do their job.”
Reluctantly, we went back to the inn. I sat at the table while Tom paced. Shelby paced with him. A few minutes later, he walked to the door. “I can’t stay here anymore. Let’s go for a walk.”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“Where to?” he asked.
“Let’s start with the big tent.”
“Good choice.”
Chapter 23
When we got outside, Tom went to his patrol car. I followed him. “What are you doing?”
“Getting back-up.” Tom got out a large flashlight, his gun, and a shoulder holster from the locked box in his trunk. He put it on and covered the gun with a black windbreaker. “Let’s go.”
We took Kate’s car and drove back to the fairgrounds. There were cops on every street, searching for Kate. After we parked, we walked toward the big tent. Several of the carnival workers were gathered in a group, talking to the police. It seemed like the cops really were looking for her.
The tent was totally empty. The tables were gone and so were the dogs and the guards. Tom turned on his flashlight. “Let’s check the ground.”
“For what?”
“Maybe drugs or some indication that Kate was here.”
“Okay.”
But the place was swept clean. I pointed to the floor. “You could eat off of this ground.”
“Yeah, and that usually means there’s something to hide.”
We finished searching the tent. No sign of anything - let alone drugs or Kate.
“Now what?” Tom asked, as we came out of the tent.
“Let’s check the back. I’d like to see if there really were trucks pulled up to those openings.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
We walked around the tent and Tom lit up the ground outside the back. There were tire tracks on the ground.
“These are definitely from large trucks.” Tom pointed to the ground.
I paced back and forth. “Okay, if I couldn’t use the tent anymore, because some nosy person was asking questions and snooping around…”
“Like you?”
“Yes…,” I said and proudly nodded. “So, where would I take my operation?”
“Someplace where nobody goes or someplace that people think is dangerous, so nobody is there.”
“The mines.”
“You’re probably right.”
“And if Kate was there earlier, exploring and climbing, maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”
“That’s another possibility. But the mines are massive. We’ll end up lost.”
“Not if we have a guide.”
“Who are you thinking about?”
“Edith. Her dad was a spelunker. I’ll bet he dragged her around those mines for years when she was a kid. She probably knows them as well as he did.”
“Okay. Where do we find her?”
I glanced at my watch. It was six o’clock. “Let’s try the library first. I’ll bet she spends most of her time there.”
“Like you would at school if you didn’t have Shelby to go home to?”
I nodded.
We walked back to the parking lot and got in Kate’s car. It only took a few minutes to get to the library. A quick glance up and I noticed lights shining through several windows on the second floor. I pointed at them. “She’s still there.”
We went to the library door and saw the “Closed” sign. Tom tried the door, but it was locked. I knocked as hard as I could. Then Tom knocked. Then we both knocked.
Eventually, Edith opened the door. “What’s up, Liza?”
“I need your help.”
“Come on in.” Edith stepped aside to let us in.
“No, you need to come with us.”
“Where?” Edith asked, frowning.
“We need a guide for the mine.”
She shook her head. “I don’t go in the mines anymore.”
“Kate’s missing and we think she’s there.”
“How long has she been missing?”
“Several hours.”
“Are you sure she’s there? She knows those mines as well as I do. It would be impossible for her to get lost.”
“Like your dad?”
“Yeah, he took her down there all the time, especially after I stopped going.” Finally, her eyes widened. “I get it. You think something’s happened to her and she’s stuck in the mine.”
“Yes.”
“Okay. We need to go back to my house and get some gear.” She pointed to Tom. “I still have my dad’s things. You can wear those.”
Edith got into Kate’s car and we drove to her small house on one of the side streets. The front yard was immaculate. The lawn had been freshly cut and the flowerbeds were weeded and growing beautifully colored flowers. She didn’t take us through the front door, but around the house and toward the back. There was a metal shed that sat in the middle of the backyard. Edith brought out a set of keys and unlocked the shed. When the door opened, a light came on inside.
“Come on in,” Edith said and the three of us walked in.
Hanging on the wall were backpacks. Each had several ropes and fasteners hanging from it. They were similar to Kate’s, except bigger and they seemed to hold more equipment.
Edith pointed to the biggest pack. “That’s my dad’s,” then she pointed to Tom, “you can take that.” She stepped toward Tom. “By the way, who are you?”
“This is Tom. He’s my boyfriend and a sheriff from another city.”
“That explains all the hardware.”
“Excuse me?” Tom raised his eyebrows and looked at her.
Edith stepped forward and looked Tom up and down. “Shoulder holster, ankle gun, knife in the boot, and probably several others located in various places.” She walked around him. “Cuffs in the back pocket, and what’s in the other pocket? Mace or a stunner?”
She walked around to the front of Tom and he nodded. “Stunner.”
I had no idea that Tom had that much hardware on his body. I asked the obvious question. “How’d you know?”
“Dated a cop?” Tom asked.
“I was married to one for a few years. Every time he’d come in, we’d play find the weapon. I got pretty good at spotting all the ingenious places he’d try to hide them.”
>
This was a side of the librarian I had never seen before. I looked at Tom. “Why don’t we ever play that game?”
“Because I always unload before I see you.” He smiled. “A man’s got to keep some secrets.”
We each carried a backpack out of the shed.
Edith put up her hand. “Let’s take my Jeep. There are sections in the mine where we can drive right in. It’s too rough for Kate’s Mustang.”
“You’re the boss,” Tom said.
We walked to the garage and Edith opened it. Inside was an older black Jeep with huge wheels, five pairs of headlights, and no roof, just bars across the top.
Edith saw me looking at the Jeep. “It’s specially built to go into the mines.” She walked toward it, muttering under her breath, “It was my dad’s.”
The three of us threw the backpacks into the back of the Jeep and got in. Edith drove toward the mine and hopefully Kate.
No one spoke. It was eerie that Edith never asked why we thought Kate was in the mine. She never asked anything, just drove the Jeep in silence.
I’m sure that going into the mine again had Edith thinking about her dad. And about all the times she told him “No” when he wanted her to go exploring the mines with him. There are always regrets when you lose someone. When my parents were killed four years ago, I spent so many days regretting all the time I’d lost with them. In the months following the crash, when something would happen in my life, I’d pick up the phone to call them, only then remembering that they weren’t there anymore. I also spent those years despising my younger sister, Jordan, for being there when my parents weren’t. It was irrational, but regrets always are. Jordan and I still aren’t close. Maybe it was time to extend my hand to her.
A few minutes later, we arrived at the forest. Edith drove between the trees as if there were a path, even though I never saw one when I walked through the forest. The Jeep bumped up and down, but gave a relatively smooth ride when you considered all the fallen limbs we were driving over. It was probably another special feature of the vehicle. But because the Jeep had no roof, it was deafeningly loud.
I heard Tom yelling to Edith, “This is a great vehicle.”
“Thanks,” she replied, keeping her eye on the road.
Within minutes, we flew out of the trees and on to the uneven ground between the forest and the mines.
Edith stopped the Jeep abruptly. It’s a good thing I had on a shoulder belt or I would have landed in the front seat, maybe even on the hood.
Edith looked back at me and cringed. “Sorry.” She pointed to the right. “There’s an entrance over there. It’s big enough for the jeep to go several hundred yards into the mine.”
Tom and I nodded. She turned the wheel quickly to the right and we took off again. This time I was ready, so I grabbed on to the roll bar. A few seconds later, we pulled around a mound of dirt and through an archway made of timbers.
Edith slammed on her brakes a few seconds before we hit a wall of dirt. She jumped out and we followed her. In the back, she pulled out and distributed our backpacks. Then she went to the front of the Jeep and pulled a wad of paper from her backpack. She unfolded the paper and laid it on the hood of the car. Tom and I joined her after we put on our backpacks.
“A map?” I asked pointing to the large piece of paper that covered the hood.
“Yeah, my dad made it for me a long time ago.”
“Kate didn’t have one of these in her backpack.”
“That’s because Kate knows these mines like the back of her hands. I haven’t been here in years and I don’t want to get us lost.”
“Good idea,” Tom replied. “The last thing we need to do is add three more lost people for the search parties to find.”
I huffed at him. “Like they’d go looking for me?”
He ignored my comment and looked at the map.
I came over. “Is there any place where large trucks could get close to a section of the mine?”
“Why?” Edith asked.
“She thinks there’s something besides apples in the apple pots,” Tom said.
“Like what?” Edith asked.
“Drugs.”
“Why?”
“Can you think of anything else that would bring in several million dollars into the town every year? No one can make that much money selling pots, not even fancy pots.”
Edith sighed, “I guess, deep down, I knew that the mayor was up to something illegal. It didn’t seem possible to me, either, that those apple pots would bring in that much money when ten years ago they brought in barely enough to keep the festival alive, let alone the entire town.”
“I don’t know how the drugs are brought in, but the back of the large tent at the festival had zippered doors so that big trucks could load and unload boxes.”
“Well then, let’s see.” Edith studied the map. Then she pointed to one section. “This is the only place where the ground is flat leading up to the mine. If it was as bumpy as the rest of the entrances, you’d bust an axel on a big truck.”
“Is there a large enough room near that entrance to hold several hundred boxes of apple pots?” Tom asked.
Edith shook her head and pointed on the map. “No, but you could take this shaft down a hundred feet or so to a huge open cavern.”
“Would it be a good place to hide a person?” I asked.
“No, it has several holes in the roof. A person could yell and get attention in this room.”
“But if the person was unconscious or gagged?”
“Then it’s big enough to hold an entire high school band.” Edith folded up the map and put it into her backpack. “Do you want to try there first?”
“Yes,” Tom and I said together.
“Turn on your large flashlights.”
We did as she said. Edith led and we followed. She never looked back at the map.
We wove through several shafts. I recognized some of the rock piles and sticks I had constructed when I was trapped. Finally, we came to a huge open space.
Edith pointed around. “This is the biggest open space in the mines.”
“But there’s nothing here,” Tom said. “Where’s the entrance you were talking about?”
“Over there.” She pointed to the right wall. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
We followed her out of the room, down a shaft, and then to a wide archway. It certainly was large enough to back a truck into it. Tom shined his flashlight at the ground. There were obvious tire tracks.
“Heavy trucks came in here not too long ago,” Tom said. “They must have picked up their shipment and left already.”
Edith turned to us. “Where do you want to try next?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “Can I see the map again?”
“Sure.” She unfolded the map and set it on the ground.
I looked at the map. The mine was an intricate maze of shafts. “Kate knows these mines well, right?”
“Like she was born here,” Edith replied.
“Where would you take her so she wouldn’t know how to get out?”
“Oh, I see what you’re getting at. If she managed to get away, then where would they put her so that even she would be lost?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”
Edith pointed to the left side of the map. “This is the most unstable section of the mine. Not even my dad would go there, and he would have never taken Kate there.”
“Then that’s where we need to go.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Tom said. “If Edith’s dad wouldn’t go there, then should we?”
“It’s safe enough, as long as you watch your footing and the timbers. We’ll just have to be careful.” Edith folded up the map and put it back in her pack.
We followed Edith through several different shafts. In the outside world I consider myself “directionally challenged,” but in the mine without any land markers and all of the walls looking the same, I was totally turned around. It was a good
thing Kate had come and rescued me when she did because I never would have found my way out.
Edith stopped and Tom and I stood next to her. “This is the unstable section.”
This part of the mine smelled mustier than the rest. I hoped the air was good. The last thing I wanted was all three of us to pass out from lack of oxygen.
I put my hand on Edith’s shoulder. “What’s that smell?”
“This section has methane gas underneath it. That’s part of the reason it’s so unstable. I want you to follow me in a single file line. Step where I step and nowhere else.”
Tom and I nodded. Edith started taking deliberate steps; I followed, and then Tom. It was like one of my single file lines at school. I always tell the kids to watch the shoes in front of them and that’s exactly what I was doing.
A couple of times, Edith’s foot slid and she’d quickly pull it back, find a new spot to put her foot, and continue. It was terrifying. Each time her foot slipped, my heart jumped into my throat and I’d reach for her. But she never fell.
Edith and I walked close to each other, with Tom a few feet back. His face was tight and held a huge frown. I guess mine walking wasn’t one of his favorite pastimes.
I leaned over toward Edith. There was something I was dying to ask her now that Tom was slightly out of earshot. “So what happened with the cop?”
She glanced back at Tom and then looked at me. “Well, in the beginning it was great. He was so confident and self-assured. All the things that I’m not.” She shook her head and shivered. “And oh, my God, he looked so good in that uniform. Every time I’d see him in it, my body felt like a volcano ready to erupt.”
It sounded a lot like Tom’s and my relationship, which scared me. “So what happened?”
“Well, his self-assuredness and confidence started to grate on me and pretty soon he turned into a pompous arrogant ass.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. After about a year I realized that we didn’t agree on anything. Not the temperature of the house, not what I should or shouldn’t wear, not what we should eat, or whether I should work or not.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it earlier.”
“So what finally happened?”
She laughed. “Well, do you listen to country music?”