Stone Cold Dead

by Catherine Dilts

  STONE COLD DEAD

  A ROCK SHOP MYSTERY

  STONE COLD DEAD

  CATHERINE DILTS

  FIVE STAR

  A part of Gale, Cengage Learning

  Copyright © 2013 by Catherine Dilts.

  Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  The publisher bears no responsibility for the quality of information provided through author or third-party Web sites and does not have any control over, nor assume any responsibility for, information contained in these sites. Providing these sites should not be construed as an endorsement or approval by the publisher of these organizations or of the positions they may take on various issues.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Dilts, Catherine.

  Stone cold dead : A Rock Shop mystery Catherine Dilts— First edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2743-4 (hardcover)

  ISBN-10: 1-4328-2743-X (hardcover)

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2891-2 eISBN-10: 1-4328-2891-6

  1. Women-owned business enterprises—Fiction. 2. Rocks— Fiction. 3. Teenagers—Crimes against—Fiction. 4. Murder— Investigation—Fiction. 5. Donkeys—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3604.I4633S76 2014

  813′.6—dc23 2013031774

  First Edition. First Printing: December 2013

  This title is available as an e-book.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-2891-2 ISBN-10: 1-4328-2891-6

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  Contact Five Star™ Publishing at FiveStar@cengage.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 17 16 15 14 13

  To my husband, Leonard.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  An afternoon in Lin Ottinger’s Moab Rock Shop in Moab, Utah, provided the inspiration for this story. Kyle answered my many questions about the business, and sold us a fossilized fish. I give credit for the legal and procedural scenes in this book that are correct to the El Paso County Fourth Judicial District Citizen’s Academy presented by District Attorney Dan May.

  CHAPTER ONE

  When Morgan Iverson pushed open the rock shop door, a cowbell clanged loud enough to raise the dead. There were plenty of candidates for resurrection in the shop, starting with the massive T. Rex skull.

  “Anybody here?” she called.

  The shop faded into gloom as the winter sun dropped behind the mountains. Morgan felt her way through the maze of dusty specimen tables, cluttered with fossilized fish and dinosaur bones. The living quarters butted against the back of the building, separated only by a door with a “Private—Do Not Enter” sign thumbtacked to its center. As Morgan tapped lightly, the unlatched door swung open.

  “Hello?”

  A fire crackled in the wood-burning stove in a corner of the kitchen. Faded linoleum creaked under Morgan’s shoes. Straight ahead, the door to the back pasture stood ajar. She stepped outside, where a van idled with staccato hiccups, spewing exhaust into the chilly air. Morgan watched her brother stuff a suitcase into the back of the van while his wife supervised. They wore baggy, faded jeans, sweatshirts, and hiking boots, not the sandals and camelhair robes Morgan had expected.

  “I’m here,” Morgan said.

  Allie turned, brushing straw-blond hair back from her forehead. “Morgan! You were supposed to be here hours ago.” Worry lines creased her fair skin.

  “I should have called. My car doesn’t like the mountains. I crawled the last hundred miles.”

  As Allie rushed toward her, Morgan opened her arms, expecting a hug. Instead, Allie splashed through the slushy snow and ran past her into the house.

  “It looks like you’re leaving already,” Morgan said to her brother. “I thought you were going to show me the ropes before you took off.”

  “Slight change of plans,” Kendall said.

  Allie lugged a suitcase to the van, brushing past Morgan.

  “I’m so grateful you can take over for us,” she said.

  “This will be like a vacation for me,” Morgan said. “Two weeks in the Colorado mountains is a treat, even in the middle of January.”

  “Two weeks?” Allie frowned and looked up at Kendall. “Didn’t you tell your sister?”

  He took the suitcase from Allie. “I thought you were going to,” he mumbled.

  “Tell me what?” Morgan asked.

  “Kendall.” There was a threat in Allie’s voice.

  A gust of wind tossed Kendall’s wild mane of gray-streaked hair. Scraggly whiskers hid his face. Six years had passed since Morgan had last visited Colorado, but something beyond age had etched deep lines in her brother’s face. The part of his face she could see, anyway. Morgan had been so caught up in her own crisis that she hadn’t considered her brother and sister-in-law might have faced troubles of their own.

  “The thing is, we’re not coming back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Kendall glanced down at his hiking boots. “Our trip has kind of been extended into forever.”

  Morgan shoved her hands into her coat pockets, and drew in a slow breath. “But I’m only supposed to watch the shop for two weeks.”

  Kendall finally looked her in the eyes. “How can I make it any clearer?” He placed his hands on his hips and leaned toward Morgan, like he used to when they were kids, squabbling over the rules to a board game. “Are you listening? Not. Coming. Back.”

  His words echoed off the mountain and bounced back at Morgan like a slap across the face.

  “Be nice to your sister,” Allie said. “She just drove all the way from South Dakota. She must be exhausted.” Allie grasped Morgan’s hand. “I thought Kendall told you.”

  And then he did, explaining with precious few details that their two-week mission trip had morphed into a scheme to establish a group of like-minded religious folks in the Central American jungle. Lately, Kendall and Allie had been speaking of their faith with a zeal that didn’t fit the sleepy little church they attended. Morgan tried to banish television news images of failed cults that had ended badly, this time starring her brother and sister-in-law.

  Kendall slammed the rear door of the van. “That’s it. We’re ready.”

  Morgan wanted to scream that she wasn’t ready, that everything was moving too fast, that she needed time to adjust to the curve ball Kendall had just lobbed off the side of her head. Instead, she felt frozen to the walkway, a chill creeping up from the ground, coiling around her legs and working its way under her winter coat.

  “You’ve lost your mind.” Morgan turned to Allie. “You’re not going along with this, are you?”

  “We’ve been called by the Lord to go on this mission,” Allie said.

  Morgan tried unsuccessfully to wrap her head around what that phone call must have been like.

  “We’re leaving,” Kendall said. “Just walking away. And if you won’t take over, so be it.”

  He dangled a fistful of keys in front of Morgan.

  “Can’t you wait anoth
er day or two?” she asked. “We need to talk this over. You can’t throw away the shop. The land.”

  “Allie and I have been managing the Rock of Ages for the past twenty years. You used your family as an excuse to dump it on me. Well, that excuse is gone now.”

  “Kendall.” Allie grabbed his arm. “You’re out of line.”

  He shrugged off her hand. Morgan tried to return his glare, but her eyes filled with tears. She was too tired to fight. Kendall balled his hand into a fist and pulled his arm back, preparing to pitch the keys across the pasture.

  “Wait.” Morgan snatched the keys away from Kendall. “I said I’d stay for two weeks, and that’s how long I’m staying.”

  The next morning, Morgan heard thudding noises through the thin wall. For a moment, she imagined she was back in Sioux Falls, and Sam and the kids were rattling around the kitchen. Then she opened her eyes to a view of a mountain through southwest-patterned curtains, and remembered she was at the Rock of Ages, alone. She pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and opened the door dividing the living quarters from the shop.

  An old cowboy helped himself to coffee from a carafe on the checkout counter, then settled onto an aspen-wood bench.

  “Del!” Morgan rushed down the aisle between two long tables covered with dusty rocks.

  Delano Addison rose from his seat, his cowboy boots clomping across the pine floor. A tooled leather belt cinched blue jeans to his lean frame, and a worn cowhide vest covered his pressed western shirt.

  He thrust out his knobby hand. “Glad you made it in one piece.”

  Morgan grasped his hand for a moment before Del pulled her into a quick bear hug, then held her at arm’s length.

  “How you doin’, kid?”

  Del towered over her. A few more wrinkles creased his weathered face, and his gray hair had thinned out some, but it was the same old Del, bristly mustache and all.

  “It’s been two years,” Morgan said, “and I still miss Sam.”

  “It don’t get any easier, despite what folks try to tell you.”

  Morgan turned from Del to survey the shop. “I don’t have a clue about running a rock shop.”

  “No problem at all. Kendall’s been preoccupied with his church group the past few months. I know the ropes pretty well.”

  So, Kendall had apparently dumped responsibility for managing the shop onto Del, before dropping his bomb on Morgan. She struggled to smile and nod.

  “I’m glad you agreed to take over,” Del continued. “I’d be at loose ends if the Rock of Ages closed. Jobs are hard to come by in Golden Springs.”

  “Kendall wasn’t clear about his plans. I came to fill in for two weeks. After that, I’m not sure what’s going to happen.”

  Del’s smile collapsed. He tugged at his mustache.

  “After I get a cup of coffee,” Morgan said, breaking the uncomfortable silence, “how about you show me around?”

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with running the shop, but it appears you just woke up. Maybe the place to start is the barn.”

  “The donkeys.” Morgan slapped her palm against her forehead. “I forgot all about them. My first day on the job, and I’m late with their breakfast.”

  In past trips, the smell of hay, manure, and aged wood in the solid old barn had been soothing. This time, Morgan felt the burden of being responsible for its residents, for the next two weeks, anyway.

  A stall door stood open to the elements in all but the worst weather. Houdini and Adelaide could enter the barn as they pleased, but Del told her they preferred to wander around the pasture behind the rock shop. Except, of course, at mealtime.

  “So where are they?” Morgan asked.

  “Maybe they got tired of waiting for breakfast.”

  Morgan followed Del outside.

  “Shoot. The back gate is open. Guess we’ll have an old-fashioned roundup your first day here.”

  Houdini and Adelaide apparently lived up to their escape-artist namesakes. Morgan didn’t think all-terrain vehicles were standard equipment in the Old West, but she didn’t argue when Del insisted they needed an ATV to retrieve the donkeys. She zipped up her thick blue coat, well suited to South Dakota winters, but too bulky for cowgirl work. Morgan climbed onto the ATV behind Del, gripping the handholds with her mittens as the noisy machine bounced across a pasture soggy with melting snow. Del parked beside the fence and turned off the ATV.

  “Get your oats. Rattle the can a little. They should come right to us.”

  The donkeys grazed on the far side of the fence. Morgan shook her coffee can. Houdini stretched out his neck, his nostrils flared and his brown eyes riveted on the tin can as Morgan approached the open gate. Mud caked the donkeys’ gray legs from hoof to knee. Their thick winter coats looked impervious to the chilly wind, and their stubby manes stood at attention, stiff as bristle brushes.

  Morgan wondered what would become of the donkeys if she sold the Rock of Ages. Would their final home be a glue factory?

  “Houdini.” Del rattled his can of oats. “Adelaide. Come get your oats.”

  Instead of enticing them back into the pasture, Del’s offer seemed to alarm them. The donkeys spun around, parting ways where the trail branched in three different directions. Houdini followed the fence line to the left, while Adelaide headed straight uphill.

  “What do we do now?” Morgan asked.

  “Follow them.” Del sighed. “On foot. If we go after them with the ATV, they’ll just run faster. I don’t want to take a chance on them getting injured. It’s gonna be a long morning.”

  Morgan’s sneakers filled with cold mud as soon as she walked through the gate.

  “I’ll go after Houdini,” Del said. “He’s harder to catch. You get Adelaide.”

  “What if I can’t catch her?”

  “They’ll tire out after a while. Do you have a cell phone on you?”

  Morgan patted her jeans pocket. “Yes.”

  “Not that you always get a signal out here, but it’s best to be prepared.” Del lifted a daypack off his ATV. “There’s water, granola bars, and a first-aid kit in here. If you don’t make it back to the shop in an hour, give me a call.”

  “It could take that long?”

  “With these two, you never know. Put this on.”

  He helped Morgan pull the pack on over her winter coat. The straps dug into her shoulders.

  “This weighs a ton. I’m just chasing a donkey. What could happen?”

  “You hear about it every winter,” Del said. “Some flatlander heads out unprepared. They don’t get found until a hiker sees their frozen body in a snowbank come springtime.”

  “You have quite the way with words.”

  Del tugged his bushy gray mustache. “I’m just saying.”

  “Adelaide,” Morgan called. “Come back. The mountain lions will get you.”

  The threat used to work on the kids, when she and Sam hiked with them on summer visits. The donkey ignored her warning, disappearing over the top of the hill. Morgan clenched her hands into fists inside her wool mittens.

  “Stupid donkey. I’m not acclimated.”

  Coming from low altitude prairie to the mountains was a difficult transition. It was best to ease into strenuous activity. Instead, Morgan was chasing a donkey up a mountain her first full day in Colorado.

  The crisp January air puffed out of her lungs in humid clouds. Like the steam locomotive in the children’s story, Morgan told herself. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. It hadn’t been this hard six years ago. Halfway up the hill, she paused. No bird song. Pale sunlight filtered through high thin clouds. Sodden brown grasses and naked branches poked through the last of a week-old snow.

  Not exactly a picture postcard.

  She shrugged out of the heavy daypack. She could pick it up on the way back. Right now, it was just slowing her down. At the top of the hill, Morgan pressed her hands to her knees and leaned over, gasping for breath. Adelaide stood at the bottom, drinking from the creek th
at ran across the trail. Morgan hurried downhill, her worn sneakers slipping. The donkey lifted her head, water dripping from her muzzle. She waited until Morgan was nearly close enough to grab her halter, then trotted up the next hill.

  The path ended at the intersection with a wider, well-groomed trail. Adelaide seemed to know where she was going, taking the trail branching to the right. When Morgan reached the intersection, she read the wooden trail sign. They had reached the Columbine Trail.

  “I should just go back,” Morgan said aloud. “Leave you to fend for yourself.”

  She waited until her racing heart slowed, then continued her pursuit. At the top of the next hill, the trail leveled out. A meadow stretched from the railroad tracks on the right to the creek on the left. Across the creek, at the top of a cliff, Morgan could see four log cabins peeking through pine trees.

  Adelaide strolled past the meadow, following the trail as it plunged into a grove of cottonwood trees. Morgan hurried to catch up. Bare limbs arched over the trail. The dim January sun cast mottled shadows onto a carpet of decomposing leaves.

  Morgan walked swiftly, anxious to escape the short section of tunnel-like trail. A shiver ran up her spine, and not from the chill wind. She tried to catalog the discordant symphony of sounds, connecting each to a harmless source. Wind gusted through the brush, rattling dried leaves. The creek gurgled over rocks and under sheets of ice. Birds cried warnings to each other. Morgan wouldn’t have called it song.

  An abrupt crashing instantly drowned out the subtler sounds of the forest. Morgan stopped and held her breath. An unseen creature thrashed its way through the brush, parallel to the trail. She searched the shadows, hoping she had caught up with Adelaide at last.

  She thought she glimpsed dark wings fluttering like a curtain blown by the wind. The racket faded as it moved away from Morgan. She started walking again, debating the wisdom of continuing her chase. It had to be a deer, she told herself. A clumsy deer.

  Morgan rounded a curve, then skidded to a halt. She squinted, straining to identify the dark object sprawled half on the trail, half in the brush. For one instant, she feared it was Adelaide, the victim of a mountain lion after all.