“Adele said that I can get a license. Then I can harvest some of it. I don’t care about getting it all, but I don’t want to see someone rushing in here and taking the whole crop without replanting it like they’re supposed to.”
“Alright. Let me get people onto this.”
“I don’t know if you should just leave Tom to guard it by himself. I wouldn’t want him to get shot like Jeremy. He might not be as lucky. And it’s so remote out here… no one would know if he was injured.”
“Jeremy,” Terry repeated, looking at her. “Jeremy was shot because of ginseng?”
“Apparently. I didn’t know that’s what he was guarding, but Adele is familiar with the farm he’s been working on. She says they grow ginseng.”
He shook his head. “I can’t fathom people shooting each other over plants.”
Erin couldn’t help but smile. “You’d understand if it was marijuana or poppies, wouldn’t you?”
He considered. “Those are more in my realm of experience.”
“Or even just plain gold instead of forest gold. Until we found out that gold wasn’t really gold, this made perfect sense, didn’t it?”
“True.” He nodded. “I’ll get up to speed on this as fast as I can. In the meantime…” He nodded to Beaver. “Maybe you want to get a ride to the hospital with Beaver. I’m obviously going to be out here a little longer than expected.”
“Okay. I’ll see. Sorry about this…”
Terry nodded. He gave a smile, making the dimple in his cheek appear. “I’d rather know now than have something happen. At least this time, you’re not in the middle of the action.”
“Well… I almost was.”
“I’ll see you later. Or tomorrow.”
Erin went back over to Beaver and Adele, who didn’t appear to be hitting it off. Erin found both women easy to get along with, so she wasn’t sure why they treated each other with such wariness. But Adele was hard to know, and if she didn’t want to share her reason for being there with Beaver, then that, together with the fact of who her husband was, would be enough to raise Beaver’s suspicions about her motives.
“Beaver, are you going to the hospital soon?”
“That’s the plan. Officer Piper doesn’t want me to stay around?”
“No. He suggested I ask you for a ride to the hospital.”
“Sure, of course. Are you done here?”
Erin nodded. There wasn’t any reason for her to stay around. Adele wanted to be left alone to deal with her blessing and Terry needed to make sure that the land was properly guarded before he could leave. Erin wanted to get to the hospital and get an update on how her friends were all doing.
“Let’s hit the road, then,” Beaver agreed. She motioned for Erin to go with her and pulled out a flashlight. “Follow me.”
She struck off across the glade. Erin shook her head. “The road is out this way.”
“If you go for parking on roads where anyone can see you,” Beaver agreed, and gave a grin. “Some of us don’t like to paint targets on ourselves.”
“Oh.” Erin followed Beaver. They worked their way around the house and the debris where other buildings had been built. Erin stopped, looking toward the house. She couldn’t really see it; she could just sense that the darkness was a little blacker and more solid there. “We should probably check out the house before we leave.”
Beaver looked toward it. “You looked at it earlier, didn’t you? You didn’t find anything there. I didn’t find anything there. There wasn’t anyone hanging around the house, everyone stayed toward the mines, where you would expect.”
Erin thought about the little house, and about the root cellar beneath it. “I think… maybe I should go in. There’s something I should look at.”
Beaver raised the flashlight toward Erin’s face and paused, looking at her.
“Okay,” she agreed. “We’ll go check out the cabin.”
She and Erin picked their way toward the house. It seemed like it was a lot farther away than it should be, having to watch every step to get there. Eventually, Beaver shone the light on the building. “There it is. You want to go in?”
“Yeah.”
Beaver didn’t head for the door. “You want me to go in?” she asked finally, as if reluctant to do so.
“It’s not haunted.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I’m not in the habit of going into abandoned buildings late at night.”
“We both looked at it before. There’s nothing there.” Erin took a couple of steps toward the door, trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince Beaver.
“Then why do we need to look at it again?”
Erin kept moving toward the cabin. She put her hand on the door handle and it turned in her hand. “It will just take a minute.”
Beaver walked her in and shone the flashlight around at the walls. It was very dark. It was just as bare as it had been when Erin had visited it earlier. Erin pointed toward the trap door.
“There’s a cellar.”
“You want to go down to the cellar?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Then how about we leave it? It’s been empty for a hundred years. We don’t need to.”
“I need to look at it again.”
Beaver shrugged and moved toward it. She raised the trapdoor and shone the flashlight down the black hole. “Nothing there.”
“Hold the light on me so I can see.”
The other woman didn’t object. Erin could hear her chewing on her gum. Erin did not want to go down that hole. It didn’t matter that she had gone down before and hadn’t found anything. It didn’t matter that she had seen it already. She just didn’t want to go down there. It was a dark hole in the ground and no one would want to go down there.
It was difficult to find her footing and she went down the steep stairs unsteadily, constantly worried that she was going to fall down and break her leg. She had a flashback of the splint around Willie’s leg. She did not want one around hers.
There were no more steps. Her feet were flat on the floor.
“Can you see anything?” Beaver asked.
“No. Do you want to pass me the flashlight?”
“Not particularly, no.” Erin could see it flickering over her head as Beaver shone it around.
Erin pulled out her phone and turned it on. Her power was getting low, but she had enough for a few minutes. She used the screen rather than the flashlight LED to take a quick look around the room. The box in the corner was still there. She went over and looked at the lumps of dried-out roots in the bottom. Potatoes? No. Ginseng. That was what Orson had been harvesting. That was his treasure. Erin used her shirt as a basket and piled the remains of the hundred-and-fifty-year-old ginseng into it. Then she awkwardly climbed back up the ladder.
Beaver looked at the dirty collection of roots. “This is what you came looking for?”
“This is gold,” Erin said.
“This?”
Erin nodded.
Chapter Thirty
B
eaver got Jeremy’s information from the reception desk and headed to his room, while Erin got Vic’s and Willie’s and tried Vic’s room first. She wasn’t at all surprised to find Willie sitting in a wheelchair beside Vic’s bed instead of in his own room. His leg was in a cast, but other than that he didn’t look any the worse for wear for his experience. The staining of his skin meant she wouldn’t be able to tell if he was pale or if he had bags under his eyes anyway, but he looked bright-eyed and alert.
“Didn’t they give you anything for the pain?” Erin asked. “I thought you’d be knocked out.” She motioned to Vic, who was sleeping peacefully, her arm in a cast resting on top of the bed sheet.
“I didn’t want anything,” Willie admitted. “They insisted they couldn’t set it without giving me something, but they kept the dose low, so I’m doing pretty well.”
“But you must be in a lot of pain. Wouldn’t it be better to sleep?”
He shook his head. “I want to hear what you found out.”
Erin opened her mouth to protest that she didn’t know anything. Then she stopped. Willie leaned forward.
“You always know something, Erin. I want to know what you figured out.”
“It was Adele, not me.”
“But you know, so spill. They booby-trapped the mine, didn’t they?”
This Erin already knew from what she’d overheard from Terry and the other officers. She nodded. “You were right about there being a tripwire. They’re going to have an expert come and look at everything, but Terry said he doesn’t think it was an expert. Maybe someone who has used explosives for small jobs like stump removal. They only put the charge in one place, instead of in series along the tunnel.”
“That’s what saved us. If they’d strung it out ahead and behind us…”
Erin closed her eyes, not wanting to think of the devastation that would have caused. “Maybe it was only meant as a warning. Maybe it was only supposed to scare us off.”
Willie nodded. “Yeah, it’s possible. They cut off our exit, but assumed we’d be able to get out another way. The map wasn’t very clear. I figured when I looked at it that we had multiple ways out. Maybe there used to be, or maybe the map was drawn to illustrate what he wanted to have done, not what had already been done.”
Erin looked at Vic. “So how is Vic?”
“She’s fine. They just wanted to keep her under observation, because of shock, but I’m sure they’ll let her go tomorrow. I haven’t heard how Jeremy is doing, but hopefully we can all go home tomorrow.”
Erin nodded and blew out a breath. “I was so worried. I didn’t know what kind of shape you were going to be in when we got to you. If we could get to you.”
“The town really came together. There have been people trickling in and out of here all night.”
“Yeah. It’s really something to see. Bald Eagle Falls really knows what to do in an emergency.”
Willie reached over to the bedside table and sipped a cup of water with a straw. “What else?”
“What?”
“You know something else. What is it?”
“Well… we found it.”
“Found what?” Willie’s eyes widened. “The gold?”
Erin nodded. She proceeded to tell him about the wild ginseng. Willie sat back, thinking about that.
“My grandmother used to gather sang. I never heard her call it forest gold.”
“I guess it’s really valuable. It’s endangered now. You have to have a license to harvest it.”
“Orson Cadaver was selling sang.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Who would have guessed.”
A nurse poked her head in the door. She looked at them and focused her attention on Willie. “You, sir, are not supposed to be here. Do you know how many people are looking for you?”
Willie grinned. “I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
“You are supposed to be in your bed sleeping. Now off you go.”
“I can’t stay here with my girlfriend?”
“No.”
“I’m not going to sleep in my bed. At least here, I can rest if I know she’s okay.”
The nurse strode into the room. Willie released the brakes on the wheelchair. “Okay. I’m going.”
She stood with her hands on her hips, watching him go. She didn’t assume he was really going to do what he was told. When he was gone, the nurse turned to Vic and checked her vitals.
“You seem to be spending a lot of time here,” she said to Erin.
“What?” Erin studied her. She had seen the woman before but couldn’t remember where from. The nurse’s name tag said Chantel.
“You were here not so long ago after being mugged.”
“Oh, yes I was,” Erin admitted. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember you.”
“A knock on the head will do that to you. You’re looking a lot better.”
“I’m fine now.” Erin put her hand over the bump on the back of her head. It was tender, but she didn’t feel like she had after being hit. The pain, nausea, and shakiness had subsided quickly, and though it wasn’t fully healed, she hadn’t thought much about it.
“You should be more careful, wandering around out there in the dark,” the nurse said. “Something could happen to you. This time, it was just a knock on the head, who knows what it might be next time.”
“I know,” Erin agreed. She’d been through enough dangerous situations to realize that things could always be worse. The head injury she’d sustained after first moving to Bald Eagle Falls had been much worse and she’d been afraid she wasn’t going to make it. She shook off the images. “But I wasn’t out there wandering in the dark. I was going to my car. I even had a security guard walk me out. I wasn’t taking chances.”
“Still, you don’t want to go around taking unnecessary risks. Maybe you should listen to your boyfriend and take up another hobby.”
Erin frowned. That wasn’t part of the conversation she’d just had with Willie, but one she’d had with Terry when Jeremy had been in the hospital.
“Do I know you?” she asked. “I’m sorry, but are you from Bald Eagle Falls? Or do I know you from somewhere else?”
“No. Just someone you have had the serendipity of crossing paths with.” The nurse fiddled with her watch. “Your friend here is going to be just fine. But if the two of you want to keep it that way, I would think about what people are saying. Just mind your bakery and leave the sleuthing to people who are properly trained.”
“Umm… okay.” Erin nodded. It wasn’t like she hadn’t heard that advice before. Obviously, Nurse Chantel had overheard one such conversation. “Thank you for your advice.”
The nurse looked at her for a moment, as if expecting something more, then she nodded briskly and left the room.
Chapter Thirty-One
T
erry was tired, but he was off duty and Erin was sure he’d go home and crash for a few hours very soon.
“You and Adele were right about the ginseng, of course,” he advised. “We’ve called the Department of Environment and Conservation, and they are trying to coordinate someone to keep an eye on the farm; but they don’t have their own security force, so they’re having to scramble to figure out what they can do. In the meantime, we don’t have a large enough team to take over security there as well as maintain order in Bald Eagle Falls, so they are looking at using some other department’s agents to keep an eye on things for a while. Who knows, maybe Beaver will end up being one of the people out there guarding it.”
“That would be funny. Although I’d be a little worried about her making off with some of the ginseng…”
“Why would you say that?”
Erin shrugged. “I just get the feeling that… she might not be the most… honest agent. That’s not the word I want… but I’m always wondering what she’s up to. She seems like she always has something else going on. Do you have any idea what it is she’s been doing with Campbell?”
“Campbell?”
“Cox. Mary Lou’s oldest.”
“No, I’m not aware of anything. Why? What do you think she’s been doing?”
“I don’t know. Using him as a confidential informant, maybe. I can’t think of anything she would have to do with a teenager like that.”
“I guess CI is a possibility. Kids tend to be able to worm themselves into some unhealthy situations. But I don’t think that means Beaver is doing anything she shouldn’t be.”
“You don’t think she’s the one who set the explosives in the mine, do you?”
Terry sat down and stared into Erin’s eyes. “What?”
“It’s just that… she was suddenly there. Not in an official capacity, but she was there before anyone else, other than you. And I think… she might have actually been there before you, and just hadn’t made herself known to us. I think she and Campbell were already on Orson’s farm for some reason.
”
“What reason could they have? You don’t think she was there as a treasure hunter, do you?”
“Why not? You know that’s her hobby. This thing with Campbell, I don’t think it’s official. I think she just knows him personally. She could have been there ahead of us, and she might have had a chance to search the mines and set the charge, booby-trapping it for when one of us came along to see it.”
Terry shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. “You think she tried to blow up her own boyfriend?”
“I don’t think she knew he was going to be there. She probably thought he was still too injured from being shot and would be staying at home, not out exploring caves with Vic and Willie. I don’t think she meant to blow him up.”
“But you think she set the explosives that injured them. That she didn’t care about blowing up Willie and Vic.”
Erin sighed. She ran her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. I just know… she was on the farm before anyone else. She implied that her case had led her there. But how would a case have led her to exactly the same place as we were going? The Orson farm had been deserted for a hundred years, untouched by anyone, and suddenly it’s the center of a treasure hunt and a drug investigation? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“How would she have found out about the Orson farm? Did you tell her? You don’t think she’s the one who stole the maps at the hospital, do you?”
Erin considered. Could Beaver have hit her over the head and stolen the maps and her purse? Could she really have done that to someone she pretended was a friend? Erin’s impression was that it had been a man, but with Beaver’s boxy silhouette when wearing her hunting jacket, and her long, loping stride, she might easily be taken for a man at only a quick glimpse in the dark.
“We told her about the farm. Showed her pictures of it. I never thought… I mean, I knew she was a treasure hunter, but I didn’t think she’d ever do anything to hurt anyone. I thought there was… some kind of code, that you wouldn’t go after the treasure that your friend was looking for. Or that you would only do it together.”
Apple-achian Treasure (Auntie Clem's Bakery Book 8) Page 19