Accompanied by Schweitzer, Bet rode back out to the mine entrance. Dale came out of hiding to let her know he hadn’t seen anyone else in the area. Bet explained what she’d found in the diary.
“You really believe there’s gold down there?” Dale asked.
“I do. More importantly, it’s what Emma and Seeley believed, and it could be why protecting the cave was worth killing for.”
“What do you want to do?” Dale asked.
“Let’s head down together. Lock the gate behind us.”
“If our shooter returns and sees the lock, we might lose our only chance to grab him.”
“We might. But we might also find evidence down there of who it is.”
Dale got out the lock and chain and followed Bet to the gate.
They arrived at the naturally occurring stairs Bet now knew the first Robert Collier had enlarged in his attempt to reach the trapped miners. With Schweitzer on her heels, Bet started to climb down while contemplating the events of her town’s past.
After the explosion closed the front of the mine, Collier went immediately to the back entrance, trying to rescue his men. Finding the back tunnel blocked as well, by the same cave-in Bet and Rob had found, Collier, Amos Stand, and the original Seeley Lander tried to find another way into the cavern. They worked to make the steep tunnel more accessible, realizing they would never get through the original tunnel buried under the jumble of rocks.
Since the mine was unstable, Collier didn’t want the help of anyone else in town. He couldn’t bear the thought of more men buried inside the caves. No one else knew the back entrance existed. Collier, Seeley, and Amos Stand had just broken through to the cavern and a possible entrance from there into the mine when Collier suffered a heart attack and died. Not wanting to continue working in the dangerous caves, Amos and Seeley hauled Collier out of the cave, cleaned him up, and reported that he’d died at home.
Seeley wrote in his diary that Amos Stand reassured him the miners would all be dead by this time anyway, and Amos wanted to respect Collier’s decision to keep other men out. The two agreed to stop the search and never speak of it again.
When Collier’s son—Rob’s grandfather, Robert the Second—returned to town after his father’s death, Amos and Seeley reported that nothing could be done except keep the mine closed. There was no way to get through the cave-in at the front entrance, and they told him the back entrance didn’t lead into the mine.
Disinterested in a mine that no longer produced much anyway, Rob’s grandfather placed the bat gate on the back tunnel, and that was the end of the search.
Seeley’s life, on the other hand, was saved by greed.
The miners had found a rich vein of gold. The workers’ strike, though legitimate, covered their real reason for wanting to hole up in the mine. They wanted to explore the magnitude of the gold deposit before it came to light. One thing they demanded in their strike was partial ownership of the mine. They knew if Collier learned about the gold, he’d never give in to their demands. As it was they had a chance, because the mine’s days were numbered with the coal almost gone, and Collier would likely give in to their request, not realizing the true value of what he was giving up until it was too late.
The night of the explosion, the miners planned to blow a section of the mine to see what more they could find. Seeley, aware of the scheme, set an extra charge in another tunnel. He wanted to distract the other men while he slipped out to Collier’s place and told him the truth about what they’d found in exchange for a stake in the gold. As the youngest, most recent addition to the workers, he guessed he would earn little from the mine even if the strike went their way.
But he misjudged the amount of dynamite, and combined with what the miners set off, it collapsed the entire front entrance to the mine and inadvertently blocked the back entrance as well.
Seeley snuck out front just before the charges blew. With the fiery comet streaking overhead, Seeley witnessed the entire side of the mountain sliding down into the lake, the twisted black ties of the railroad stretching into the boiling waters like a path to hell. The locomotive, half buried, carried a man—the miner who had actually been guarding the train that night—screaming with it into the depths.
Realizing what he’d done, Seeley made up the story that he’d been the one to guard the train that night and had seen someone race out of the cave and take the train down the mountain. Seeley ran to Collier’s house for help, but he never told a soul about the gold.
After Collier’s death, Seeley left town as soon as he could and made a life for himself elsewhere. The events ate at him, however, and he founded a church in Jaxon, repenting every day for the rest of his life.
Maybe the Colliers knew about the gold. That would put My-friends-call-me-Rob on the top of the suspect list. Maybe that was the personal reason that brought him home and looking for his mother was a cover.
But why would he help me if that’s true? Why show me the mine to begin with?
That question weighed heavily on Bet’s mind as they descended into the cavern. Was Rob being helpful to insert himself into the murder investigation? Criminals did that from time to time out of a need to be involved. Or maybe to guide her away from evidence? Or to get rid of her if the need arose?
Then there was Jamie Garcia. Someone had tipped the girl off. Who would benefit from the investigation going public?
They arrived at the mouth of the cavern. Schweitzer leaned against her leg, waiting for a command. She pointed to their right. “Let’s go this direction,” Bet said, indicating a lane between boulders to the right of the return path from the crime scene.
Dale fell in behind her.
Flashlight to the ground, Bet looked for footprints or a trail, but the slick rock surface of the cave floor gave nothing away. They wound between the stalactites and stalagmites, like hikers navigating a forest of rock. Bet was considering trying another direction when Schweitzer caught a whiff of something. He growled once, a noise that echoed around the cavern and increased in volume to sound like a pack of hellhounds on the loose, then looked to Bet for approval.
“Good boy,” Bet said, though she hoped he wouldn’t do it again. The sound sent shivers down her spine.
“Find something?” Dale asked.
“It looks that way,” Bet said, following her dog as he moved away from them.
No evidence of a trail appeared in front of her, but a glimmer on the wall in the darkness caught Bet by surprise. She passed her flashlight over the area where she saw it, and nothing showed up, but once her flashlight moved on, a green glow appeared at the edge of her vision. Moving over to the cave wall, she could see a pale mark.
“Glow-in-the-dark-paint,” Bet said.
“What good’s that do down here?” Dale asked. “There’s no light source to charge it.”
“Probably a fail-safe. If someone charges the marks with their flashlight as they walk by and they have to get out without turning on a light, they can follow these marks.”
“How long would the charge last?”
Bet shrugged. “An hour, maybe an hour and a half.” She played her flashlight across the area where the mark appeared. She touched a hole drilled into the stone nearby. “Looks like a hole for dynamite. Maybe the paint is a way to locate these easier.”
“Huh.” Dale leaned in to look closer. “Left over from the miners?”
“Maybe.” Bet signaled to Schweitzer that he could continue.
The big dog stepped forward with confidence. Bet and Dale followed, flashlights moving side to side. They each found additional glow marks, strategically placed to be hard to find unless a person knew where to look, and each with a hole drilled nearby.
A few minutes later, Schweitzer turned a corner and sat down at the entrance to another tunnel. A generator sat just outside, with cables twisting away into the darkness of the next cave. Schweitzer growled once, then whined and looked at Bet for reassurance.
“There’s something in there he doesn’t like,” Bet said, putting her hand on her weapon and stepping around the dog. She gestured to Schweitzer to fall in behind her. If anyone inside the tunnel came out shooting, she didn’t want Schweitzer in front. Her bulletproof vest reassured her, but only a little. The vest couldn’t prevent a direct shot to her head.
Dale followed her into the new tunnel. A few feet in and the tunnel opened into a large room, at least forty feet on a side. White cloth covered various shapes on the floor. Other objects were stashed in niches chipped into the wall. Bet pulled back the edge of the canvas to uncover toys, clothes, and small household items. It was like an underground Goodwill Store.
Dale’s voice finally broke the silence. “What the hell?”
Black snakes of electrical cords twined around to several work lights, mounted high on orange tripods.
Bet’s flashlight illuminated another opening at the far end. Bet made Schweitzer sit/stay outside so he wouldn’t leave hairs behind or disturb evidence before they brought Todd down to process the scene. Pulling on latex gloves, Bet and Dale tread carefully down the pathway between the piles. Flashing her light inside the opening, she found a much smaller room, roughly ten by ten, set up like a primitive campsite. A cot with a sleeping bag sat against one wall, while bottles of water, a camp stove, and canned food filled a shelf chipped into the wall.
“Is someone living down here?” Bet asked.
“Looks that way, but what’s with all that crap in the other room?”
Returning to the larger room, she and Dale began looking through the items piled up. Bet peered into a dark cavity. A set of kitschy salt and pepper shakers sat in the space.
“What the hell is this?” Bet asked, with a gesture. Dale came over to see what she’d found. “Salt and pepper shakers? Who hauls decorative salt and pepper shakers all the way down into a cave?”
Dale shook his head without a word.
Bet moved down to the next niche and shined her light in. “It’s not just tableware,” she said, as her light found a porcelain doll.
At the next niche, adrenaline surged through her veins. She reached in to pull out an exquisite bracelet. Silver filigree with red and blue stones. As if it burned her fingers, she dropped the jewelry onto the stone floor.
“What?” Dale asked, as Bet stumbled backward.
“That belonged to my mother.” The bracelet was like a viper that would raise its round head and strike her.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Dad brought it back from Kosovo. It’s handmade. Totally unique.” Bet knelt and picked it up, carefully setting it back in place. “I remember looking for it a few years ago, but I couldn’t find it. I thought Dad packed it up somewhere, or threw it away. I didn’t want to ask him about it.”
“Think your dad did this?”
Bet shrugged. Her father had lived a double life before, when he served overseas and simultaneously had a life and a family back home.
Bet turned and looked across the pile in the stone room.
“Those shakers, that doll—I think these are all things stolen from people in town. You know when things go missing around here, we just blame the ghosts of the miners. I think this has been going on for years.”
“Why?”
“Maybe it’s a memorial of some kind,” Bet said. “Or a tribute, or an altar.”
“Someone killed Emma over this?”
“It’s possible.” At least she knew her father hadn’t killed the girl.
“If someone killed to protect this stuff, they’re likely to come back if they think it’s safe,” Dale said, echoing Bet’s thoughts.
“Agreed. If I go public with Emma’s death and say we’re done with our investigation, and don’t mention these two caves at all, they might think it’s safe to return. They might think we never found this.”\
“When, though?”
“We’d have no way to know. It could mean watching the cave twenty-four/seven for weeks.” Bet considered the best course of action. “This must be where our shooter holes up. They found Emma and Seeley in the cave, killed her, and tried to kill him.”
Schweitzer whined from the entrance of the room.
“I’m with you, buddy. Let’s get out of here.” Bet rubbed the dog’s head as she stepped out. “I need to decide what to do first—try to find evidence here or hope to lure the killer back. I don’t want to jeopardize anything by letting them know we found this part of the cave. They might take off for good.”
Once back in the larger cavern, Bet turned her flashlight off. Dale did the same and Bet moved slowly forward, finding one glow-in-the-dark mark after another. They followed the trail back to where Bet had found the first one. She clicked her flashlight back on.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said. “This could be someone who lived in the community for years, our ghost a real person. Maybe that’s who George has been seeing in the woods.”
“Never killed anyone before,” Dale pointed out. “Maybe your dad shared this with someone else? Who would he be that close to? Besides you?”
“And is it someone who lives in Collier?” Bet asked. “Or visits once in a while?”
Or shows up out of the blue. After being gone for years.