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“I was up there the day Duke ended up down the mine,” said Oliver.
“Up where?” I asked.
“At the mine.”
“Doing what?”
“I was trying out my new detector. Not inside the mine. I know it won’t detect diamonds, but it’s excellent at detecting metal. I was looking for historical artifacts. It’s become sort of a hobby in my spare time.”
I hadn’t been aware that Oliver had any spare time, but I didn’t question him on his new hobby nor ask if he’d really shelled out over four hundred dollars for an ordinary metal detector.
“Was this last Sunday? I asked.
“Yeah. I got up early and went up to the mine. Janey and I had plans to meet for brunch and then spend the day together.”
That made me feel bad. Juanita, who’s a devout church-goer, closes the Bird Cage on Sundays, so Oliver had asked if he could have Sundays off so he and Janey, who waitresses for Juanita, could spend at least one day a week together.
“So you took your detector up to the mine last Sunday morning?” I said. “What did you see?”
“I saw two guys carrying something down into the mine?”
“What?”
“Didn’t know at the time, and I still can’t be sure, but they had something wrapped in a tarp. I was pretty far away. I got a weird feeling about it, but since I didn’t know about Duke—”
“What time was this?” I asked.
“About nine,” said Oliver.
That seemed about right to me, too, considering that Freddy had met Blake and Jimmy coming back down the Old Mine Road on his way to pick up Mrs. Ruiz.
“Did the men with the tarp see you?”
“No, my car won’t make it all the way up to the mine, so I parked at the old cemetery and cut across the hillside. I watched them go inside, but I didn’t wait around for them to come out.”
“Were their trucks parked in front of the mine.”
“One was. I’m not sure about the other one. The buildings at the front of the mine partially blocked my view.”
“You need to tell the police what you saw,” I said. “And as soon as possible.”
“You think that was Duke wrapped in that tarp?”
“I do. Someone else saw two men coming back down from the mine on Sunday morning. They were covered in mud and blood. They said they’d been up at Duke’s helping him bury a horse he’d had to put down.”
Oliver’s face was a little pale.
“You’re sure they didn’t see you?” I said. “Don’t go spreading this story around. At least, not until those two are arrested.”
“Who are they?” Oliver asked.
“Blake Vance and Jimmy Throckmorton.”
“Never met them,” said Oliver.
I hoped it stayed that way.
“I’ll drive up first thing tomorrow morning and tell the police what I saw,” Oliver promised.
“Ask for Officer Reyes,” I said. “He’s handling the case.”
When Oliver and I went around to the front, the party was in full swing. Morticia and Georgia were handing out slices of cake, and Maxwell and Menagerie were taking the stage on Marsha’s tiny front porch.
Maxwell clapped his hands for attention which didn’t work until Ledbetter bellowed out for silence, which did.
Maxwell, dressed in a plaid suit several sizes too big, topped off by a felt hat he’d dug out of my late Uncle Ricky’s things unfurled a piece of poster board on which he’d written, “Ya Got Trouble.”
This card was followed by a second, which read, “As Seen in,” followed by a third, “The Music Man.”
Maxwell motioned to his mother in the wings, who pressed play on what I supposed was the karaoke version of the original song. I’d have thought Ya Got Trouble wouldn’t be a popular sing-along song, given the length, speed, and complexity of the lyrics, but apparently, there were hardy souls out there prepared to take it on, and Maxwell was one of them.
Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of a PUG in your community.
Maxwell pointed dramatically at Earp, who, while capable of causing considerable trouble in the community on occasion, was presently in repose. The pug’s head was resting against Hercules, who was similarly somnambulant.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in Amatista.
Why sure I'm a Collie owner,
Certainly mighty proud I say
I'm always mighty proud to say it.
I consider that the hours I spend
With a leash in my hand are golden.
There was a lot more in between that I won’t relate verbatim and couldn’t if I’d wanted to because I was distracted by going over Oliver’s story in my head. I resurfaced from my reverie in time to hear Maxwell’s high pitched tenor singing:
Friends, lemme tell you what I mean.
Ya got one, two, three, four, long skinny legs on a Collie.
Legs that mark the diff'rence
Between a gentleman and a bum,
With a capital "B,"
And that rhymes with "P," and that stands for PUG!
The song was a big hit and would have earned Maxwell and company a standing ovation had the assembled guests not already been on their feet. Maxwell withdrew from the stage and turned to take one final bow before going inside his own cottage with Earp and Hercules, who’d not taken much prodding to return to base since it was supper time.
I slipped inside Georgia’s to make sure that Maxwell was dispensing diet dog food for the pug and prepared bran mash for the piglet rather than treating them to potato chips and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“Did you like it?” Maxwell said.
“It was stupendous,“ I said. “Very creative. What’s that you’re feeding Hercules?”
“A popsicle.”
“Pigs don’t eat popsicles.”
“Hercules does,” said Maxwell pointing to exhibit A.
“I should have said, ‘Pigs shouldn’t eat popsicles.’”
“But she’s already slobbered on it.”
Georgia has successfully drilled some things into Maxwell, and one of those is an aversion to waste, at least when it’s convenient.
“Alright,” I said. “Just don’t let Earp eat any of it.”
“Why not?”
“It’s bad for him.”
“Will it make his mange worse?”
Thankfully, Earp’s mange was healing up nicely. A light fuzz of fur was growing back on his bald spots.
“No,” I said. “It won’t make Earp’s mange worse it just isn’t—”
I never finished my sentence, however, because my phone rang. It was Nancy Flynn
“I thought you might want to know that the police just arrested Blake Vance at his house for murdering Duke Dundee,” she said.
“How do you know?”
“Crystal.”
“What about Roberta? Does she know?”
“I told her,” Nancy said. “To say it was a shock is an understatement.”
“What about Jimmy?” I said.
“Jimmy? I don’t know anything about Jimmy.”
“Well, I imagine you’ll be hearing about his arrest, too, in short order,” I said.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Ten minutes later, I got another call, this time from Officer Reyes warning me that Jimmy had done a runner.
“Why are you warning me?” I asked. “You think Jimmy might come after me?”
“Anything is possible,” said Officer Reyes. “I’m sure by now he’s put two and two together that you’ve been instrumental—”
That was the closest that Officer Reyes would ever come to admitting that I had been instrumental in cracking the case.
“Did you also warn Freddy Fernandez?” I asked.
“I did.”
“You should also know there’s another credible witness. Someone from Little Tombstone saw two men carrying something wrapped in a tarp into the mine early the same morning Duke’s body was discovered. This witness intends to come in tomorrow morning and make a statement to that effect.”
“Well, I hope whoever it is will also agree to testify during the trial,” said Officer Reyes, “but for now, I’m more worried about bringing Jimmy in.”