Mining for Justice

by Kathleen Ernst

  Chloe’s shoulders slumped. “I’m glad the men got work, but … I hate stories like that.”

  “Me too,” Adam agreed. “But I did enjoy swimming there when I was a kid. And my grandparents were able to purchase this cottage, which likely saved it from destruction. My grandpa died about ten years ago, but my grandma lived here until last spring. It wasn’t easy, but we finally talked her into an apartment.”

  “My family went through something similar with my great-aunt Birgitta,” Chloe said sympathetically. Birgitta had been, at ninety-four years old, alone on a farm. Still, she’d fought the move to a senior citizens’ complex.

  “Grandma’s guest room is ready for you,” Adam told her.

  “It’s very nice of her to let me stay with her while I’m in town.”

  “She loves having company, especially since my folks moved to California to be close to my sister’s family.” Adam cocked his head toward Chy Looan. “I get here more often now that I’m restoring the cottage. I had to make it a priority. Years of deferred maintenance were taking a toll.”

  “I’m here to help,” Roel­ke said. “I don’t know a thing about stonework, but I’m a quick study.”

  “Actually, I’ve got another job in mind for you two,” Adam said. “Want a tour?”

  Chloe and Roel­ke followed Adam up two steps carved from massive slabs of stone and into the empty cottage.

  “Watch your step,” he cautioned. “I had to take up the original floorboards, and I’ve shut off the electricity. The structure itself is stable … ”

  Of necessity, Chloe tuned out of Adam’s tour and tuned in to the space itself. Since childhood, she had occasionally perceived lingering emotions in old structures. Most often she felt only a vague jumble, as easily ignored as background chatter in a coffee shop. Sometimes, though, a mood punched like a fist. It might be anything, but the bad ones—anger, fear, despair, hatred—could render her unable to stay inside.

  “This lower room was originally used as living space, kitchen, and dining room, with a bed too,” Adam was saying.

  Chloe opened herself to anything that might remain within the old stone walls. There was something here in Adam’s cottage, something stronger than a faint muddle. But to her relief, what she perceived was contentment. Thank you, thank you, she murmured silently to whomever had left behind such good vibes. She would not have to make excuses to Adam after fleeing white-faced from his grandparents’ home.

  “I’ve been tuck-pointing … ”

  Roel­ke nudged Chloe, a question in his eyes: Any problems?

  She smiled, and gave a tiny shake of her head: Everything’s fine.

  He nodded: Good.

  Chloe reached for his hand, trying to telegraph just how much she appreciated his acceptance of something he didn’t understand.

  Adam patted a wall. “The local yellow sand gives it this nice warm hue.”

  “It is nice,” Chloe agreed, and the tour continued.

  “Families were used to living together in one open space in Cornwall,” Adam told them. “The kids would sleep upstairs, under the eaves.”

  “This place is awesome,” Chloe said happily, admiring a huge fireplace.

  Adam looked pleased. “I knew you’d like it. And you haven’t even seen the really cool stuff yet.” He walked to a plywood-on-sawhorses table and with great ceremony turned back the tarp covering it. “Look what I’ve found.”

  Chloe stepped closer, her mouth opening with surprised delight as she surveyed dozens of artifacts neatly lined up for inspection. She scrabbled in her totebag for the penlight she carried for such emergencies, and flicked it on. The treasures included a clay pipe bowl, a slate pencil, what appeared to be an ivory brush handle, several clay marbles, a whistle, and a porcelain doll head. The collection also included innumerable shards of glazed pottery.

  These were tangible scraps of real peoples’ lives. Who touched you last? she asked silently, considering the toys, the jagged bits of cookware. What were your stories?

  “This is really cool.” Adam reverently unwrapped a towel from an odd cast iron tool.

  Chloe didn’t recognize it. “What the heck is that?”

  “A candleholder. The miners called them ‘sticking tommies.’ This sharp end could be thrust into a crevice, see?” Adam pointed. “Or this hook could be hung from a spike.”

  Chloe picked up the candleholder. The cast iron was pitted with age, but the device showed surprising craftsmanship. What blacksmith had taken the time to add that decorative twist? What miner had thrust the spike into a crevice, lit a candle, and gotten to work with pick and shovel in the scant light underground?

  “Do you mind if I borrow this?” Chloe asked. “This decorative work is distinctive. I’d like to compare yours with whatever sticking tommies are in the collection at Pendarvis. I might be able to identify the maker.”

  “That would be great,” Adam said. He turned to a curved piece of earthenware, glazed a yellowish-cream with brown spots. “This one I can identify. Bernard Klais was a well-known potter in Mineral Point. He made roofing tiles, but also crocks and flowerpots.”

  “But … where did you find all these things?” Chloe asked.

  Adam walked to a door in the back wall. “Some early occupant dug a big root cellar into the hill, accessed through here. The floor is packed earth, and over the years a foot of sand and gravel sifted into the space. My grandparents eventually blocked the cellar off to keep damp out of the rest of the house. Flooding used to be a problem in this area until the city engineered a drainage system along the road.” He looked like a little boy ready to burst with the need to share a secret. “Anyway, I started shoveling out the sand, and the pipe bowl turned up pretty quick. After that I was a whole lot more careful.”

  He opened the door. Roel­ke followed him into the root cellar, and Chloe trailed behind. Inside she got an instant’s look at the windowless space—shelves built around the walls, dirt and sand floor, the wheelbarrow and shovel Adam had been using—before a jolt of something almost electric shot through her solar plexus.

  Something very dark, very … very bad, was buried among the artifacts in Adam’s root cellar.

  Chloe bit her tongue hard to keep from yelping. After stumbling backwards through the doorway, the blackness receded.

  Roel­ke glanced over his shoulder with a questioning look. Chloe gave him a tiny, helpless shrug: I was too quick to believe all was well.

  “There’s no telling what else might turn up, so I thought you guys might enjoy working back here,” Adam was saying. “I’m getting down to the bottom of the sand.” He turned and discovered that fifty percent of his team had retreated. “Chloe? Is something wrong?”

  Shit, Chloe thought, because she had no idea what to say.

  Thankfully, someone intervened before her silence became awkward. “Adam?” a feminine voice called. “You in there?” A woman in faded denim overalls stood on the front step, peering in the open door. She held several folded newspapers.

  “Winter?” Adam emerged from the root cellar’s nether reaches. “Come meet Roel­ke and Chloe. Guys, this is my friend Winter. She’s a potter.”

  Winter looked like a potter, Chloe thought. Some kind of artist, anyway. Her light brown hair was twisted into an untidy bun behind her head. Escaping tendrils framed a heart-shaped face. She had big eyes that should have given her a waifish look, but there was a tension to her, a tightness about the mouth, that was most un-elfin.

  “Nice to meet you,” Winter said. “And I’m sorry to intrude, but—Adam, have you seen this? Today’s Democrat-Tribune.” She slapped a newspaper into his hand.

  Adam’s smile faded as he unfolded the paper. “What the hell?” He held it so Roel­ke and Chloe could see the headline: Pendarvis Threatened with Closure.

  “What?” Chloe gasped. “Pendarvis is a state-owned site. Why
on earth would it be closed?”

  “Closing Pendarvis would kill Mineral Point,” Adam muttered. “This is an artists’ town, and everyone depends on tourism. Lots of visitors come tour Pendarvis, then spend the rest of their time visiting galleries and studios.”

  “You can keep the paper,” Winter said. “I wanted to be sure you got the news. A bunch of us are going to meet tomorrow evening. Seven p.m. at the Walker House. We can’t let this happen.”

  Adam was still staring at the headline. “I’ll be there.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.” Winter nodded at Chloe and Roel­ke. “Nice to meet you.”

  After Winter left, no one spoke for a long moment. Then Adam put the newspaper on the makeshift table. “I’ll look at this later. I don’t want to get sidetracked while you’re here.”

  “Let’s get to work,” Roel­ke agreed affably.

  Chloe couldn’t acquiesce. “I’m sorry, but I need to read this,” she said. After all, she was an employee of the Historic Sites Division. Besides, evil energy lingered in the root cellar. Reading the paper would give her at least fleeting cover for not following the men.

  Adam and Roel­ke left her alone. She leaned against a wall and read the lead article.

  September 18, 1983

  Pendarvis, the historical site on Shake Rag Street, is in danger of being closed. State Historical Society of Wisconsin officials have announced that financial shortfalls have forced them to consider the drastic measure.

  The historic complex includes Polperro, Pendarvis, and Trelawny Houses. These historic structures were restored in the 1930s by Robert Neal and Edgar Hellum, who were alarmed to see Mineral Point’s architectural heritage disappearing. Neal and Hellum operated a popular restaurant there for thirty-five years. When they retired in 1970 the property was transferred to the historical society.

  The state has operated the popular historic site for the past thirteen years without problem. However, the development of Old World Wisconsin, a huge outdoor ethnic museum near Eagle, has drained the Historic Sites Division’s resources.

  “Oh, no.” Chloe felt a hollow sensation in her stomach. “No, no, no.” News that Pendarvis was on the chopping block was heartbreaking; discovering that her beloved Old World Wisconsin was being blamed made that even worse.

  The news did not bode well for her having a happy week as guest curator at Pendarvis.

  I bet Petty knew, she thought. The news hadn’t trickled down to curators yet, but surely the site directors had been involved in the Division’s budget process, or at least informed. Chloe could just imagine the SOB’s self-satisfied smile as he made arrangements to exile her into the Mineral Point lion’s den—the very week the news became public. Another Petty atrocity.

  Well, this day is sucking more and more, she thought morosely. She was ready to get back into Roel­ke’s truck and—

  “Jesus!” Adam exclaimed from the root cellar.

  Chloe darted to the doorway. Roel­ke was crouching in a back corner, gently brushing sand away from something. Adam watched with an expression of horror.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  Adam pointed. “We were just going along, keeping an eye out for pottery and stuff, and then we found … ”

  “And then you found what?” She couldn’t see.

  Roel­ke stood slowly. “And then we found human remains.”

  Two

  Well, Roel­ke thought, this day is going to hell in a handbasket.

  “You found human remains?” Chloe echoed from the doorway. “Seriously?”

  “Human bones,” he confirmed, eyeing her. She’d been freaked about something in the root cellar even before this discovery.

  Then—well, duh, he thought. Chloe had felt some strong negative emotion lingering back here; somebody with a bashed-in skull was buried back here. Even he could connect those particular dots.

  “I’ll go next door and call the police,” Adam said.

  After he left, Roel­ke went to Chloe and gathered her into his arms. “You okay?” He inhaled her sweet Chloe-scent, felt her long blond braid beneath his forearm. She was nothing like the vague image of the woman he’d once thought he wanted. She was four years older than he was, had a graduate degree, and spent her days immersed in her history-world, responding passionately to events that at times seemed incomprehensible. He loved her so much it sometimes made his chest ache.

  “Well, it’s been quite the ten minutes,” she said a little shakily, “but I’m okay. You found the bones?”

  “Yeah. We’d gotten down to what appears to be the original dirt floor back there, packed hard. I scraped away some dirt and hit what looked like a neck vertebrae, so I kept going until I’d exposed the skull. It was lying on its left side. A portion of the skull, in the back, is crushed.”

  Chloe winced. “Oh my God.”

  Adam returned, and five minutes later a police car pulled to the curb. The officer who emerged was a tall, solidly built man with weary eyes and a competent air. He had a flashlight in his hand. “Good to see you, Adam. You’re making progress, I see.”

  “Well, we were,” Adam said, and introduced Chloe and Roel­ke. “This is Officer Gene Higgins.”

  “Investigator Higgins, actually,” the older man clarified.

  Roel­ke extended a hand. “Mineral Point has an investigator?” He realized that might sound rude. “Just curious.”

  “Most of the time I’m on patrol,” Higgins explained. “But my extra training comes in handy on calls like this. Let’s take a look. First thing to do is see if we can tell whether it’s a human bone or what.”

  Roel­ke didn’t blame Higgins for saying that. It wasn’t unusual for homeowners to find the remains of someone’s pet buried in the garden. He’d once discovered that the bone which had prompted a panicked 911 call was a moldy old stick. But he was pretty sure that Higgins would reach the same conclusion he had, and just as quickly.

  Adam led the way and trained his own flashlight on their discovery. Higgins crouched to get a closer look, and whistled softly. “That’s human, all right.”

  “Yeah,” Roel­ke said. “And look here.” He stepped around Higgins and pointed to the shattered spot.

  Higgins studied the skull. “When did your grandparents buy this place, Adam?”

  “Sometime during the Great Depression.” Adam shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “My grandma could tell you.”

  “What happens now?” Chloe asked from the doorway.

  Higgins straightened. “The first thing we need to do is make sure this body isn’t connected with a missing persons case. I’ll call the coroner and the state crime lab.” He rubbed his chin with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. “Once we’re sure this clandestine grave doesn’t involve a relatively recent crime—”

  “Of course this doesn’t involve a recent crime!” Adam looked incredulous. “For God’s sake, until last spring my grandmother lived in this house.”

  Higgins pressed his palms down several times, as if trying to subdue rising air. “I’m not accusing Miss Tamsin of anything. But there are procedures I have to follow.”

  Roel­ke had been trying to stay out of it, but now he felt compelled to step close to Adam. “Let the man do his job, buddy.”

  “Of course. I just—I—of course.”

  While Higgins conducted a preliminary investigation of the scene, Chloe, Roel­ke, and Adam sat outside on the wall. Adam drummed the heels of his workboots against the stone. “Since I do construction work, it’s not like I’ve never thought about something like this. But it never occurred to me that it would happen on family property.”

  Chloe put a hand on his arm. “Of course not.”

  “I’m sure we’ll learn that the body was buried a very long time ago,” Roel­ke added.

  “But somebody … well, I saw what the
back of the skull looked like.”

  Chloe hugged her arms across her chest. Roel­ke put an arm around her shoulders.

  Higgins emerged from the cottage. “I have everything I need, for now—ah. There’s the coroner.”

  The coroner, a pudgy man with a Moe Howard haircut, didn’t linger long. “I think it’s safe to issue a death certificate,” he said sardonically. He conferred briefly with Higgins and departed.

  The investigator spent some time on the radio in the squad car. “How long will this take?” Adam asked after about twenty minutes.

  “A while,” Roel­ke told him. Chloe leaned her head against his shoulder. No one found anything else to say.

  The crime scene techs arrived two hours later. “So, what all does this involve?” Adam asked, watching them carry equipment into the cottage.

  “They’ll document the scene,” Roel­ke told him. “Photographs, measurements, stuff like that. They’ll probably excavate farther, looking for any other human remains. They’ll recover and preserve whatever they find, and take it all back to the lab for study.”

  Adam sighed. “Unbelievable.”

  Higgins overheard the exchange. “You’re staying with your grandmother? I’ll keep you posted,” he told Adam. “I’ll oversee these guys, so there’s no need for you to hang around.”

  Adam hesitated.

  Roel­ke understood his reluctance to leave the property, but he also understood that sitting on the wall all evening wouldn’t accomplish anything. “I think we should go.”

  Higgins shook his head. “You know, Mineral Point’s a pretty quiet town. It’s not perfect. We’ve got our share of domestic abuse calls, speeders, kids on drugs. But I’ve been a cop for a long time, and I’ve never seen anything like this.” He went back inside.

  “Well,” Adam said, “this day didn’t go at all like I thought it would.” He tipped his head toward his truck. “My grandma is expecting us for dinner. Besides, I want her to hear about this from me.”