Incident At Elder Creek Page 6

  Chapter Three

  TUCKER WOKE WITH the morning light shining through the window. The problem was she found the window on the opposite side of the wall from when she fell asleep. She groaned. Where would she find herself today? Would she end up on some distant planet in a different solar system? She chuckled in response to her own bizarre thought, but she didn’t feel amused. Instead, fear coursed through her veins, riding on her life’s blood like a surfer in treacherous, shark-infested waters. She took in a deep breath. She’d have to get up to find the answer and she’d have to face the day, even if she didn’t know if today would be the day she’d confirm her own insanity.

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes then opened them and looked around again. On her bedside table, she found the phone with the usual instructions about which buttons to push for services and what charges would be incurred by making particular types of calls. When she looked over at the credenza across from the foot of her bed, it held a flat-screen TV and an ice bucket with two glasses on a small tray. A ball of pressure built up in her chest, stopping below her throat. She felt like she might cry in relief at her familiar, modern surroundings, but no tears came. She swallowed the emotion down until it disappeared, then she threw off the bedcovers.

  When her feet touched the floor, they met the sheaf of papers she discarded as she settled in for the night. She failed to make any progress on her notes from the previous day’s meeting, so she would have to finish going through them before she did anything else today.

  One thing she knew she needed to do—find Joe Dawson and figure out why he opposed the opening of the mine. Maybe she’d even get him to divulge what he told people as he walked around the room after the meeting. She still felt pretty certain he was up to no good.

  When she talked to him, she knew she must make him understand the tours alone would bring in considerable income to the town, which in turn would help the revitalization project flourish and the businesses thrive. The future success of Elder Creek depended on it.

  Before she walked into the bathroom to shower, she switched on the television. Maybe some distracting noise would help orient her and keep her grounded in the present.

  When the picture materialized, the face of a middle-aged, distraught woman filled the TV screen. A local news reporter held a microphone up to the woman’s face. Tucker stood, riveted to the woman’s image. She looked fragile, as if she might shatter into tiny pieces if someone touched her. The interviewer asked about the missing young woman, apparently the older woman’s daughter.

  She hesitated before speaking but finally straightened as if coming to a decision, saying she felt her daughter may have fallen under misguided influences, adding she’d always been impressionable. The reporter pressed her for more on the subject, but she declined to say anything more.

  The reporter asked, “Do you have anything else you’d like to add for our viewers?”

  She looked directly into the camera, a resolute expression on her face, and added, “I would like to plead for the safe return of my daughter. Please let her come back to us. She’s very precious to her father and me and we want her to come home to us.” She paused, composing herself and added, “My husband was admitted to the hospital in Portero last evening with an angina attack. He was so distraught over Amy’s disappearance that it has affected his health. He’s stable now, thank goodness, but needs to rest and be monitored. He wanted me to send his love to Amy and add his appeal for her release by her captors.” Emotion overtook her then, her eyes filled with tears and her voice caught. She wasn’t able to continue.

  The reporter’s face filled the screen and he said, “We wish Mr. Hammersmith a speedy recovery. Today marks two weeks since the disappearance of Amy Hammersmith and as you just heard from her mother, her parents are pleading for her return.” He summarized the missing girl’s description and reminded his viewers if they had any information, they should call the Portero police at the number flashing on the screen. Then he signed off and the anchors back in the studio came on screen, switching to another story. Tucker blew out her breath. So much tragedy these days, she thought as she headed for the bathroom. Maybe her present reality wasn’t as attractive as she thought.

  A shower and clean clothes did Tucker a world of good. The hotel room coffee helped a little. She hoped to finish up her meeting notes and then get some breakfast. With some real coffee, she thought.

  TWO HOURS LATER, Tucker sat at the desk in her small hotel room, pleased with the notes she’d made for herself, as her expanded plans congealed in her mind.

  While she re-read and annotated, something about her dream during the night pushed its way to the front of her mind. She kept trying to push it back to the recesses for later scrutiny. She needed to get this work done, but the thoughts were insistent, demanding to be heard. When she finally let them flow, she found they weren’t related to her own experiences back in the Elder Creek of the post-gold rush days, but instead they were a suggestion for the here and now—a good suggestion.

  Why not propose each person who met the public take on the persona of a real-life personality from Elder Creek or the surrounding area? They might dress in the clothing of the era and speak within character, regaling tourists with stories of their character’s lives. The shopkeepers would become docents of sorts. Maybe others in the town would like to become guides, too, giving tours of the main street of Elder Creek, telling colorful stories to visitors, giving them a real flavor of life around the time when the mine was in its heyday.

  Leah, as a historian, possessed resources and knowledge to research potential characters the citizenry of Elder Creek might be willing to adopt as their own. Asking Leah about this project went on her list of things to do. After entering this new task on her list, Tucker grinned. She’d have another excuse—no, an opportunity—to talk to Leah again soon.

  When Tucker finally looked at all the information, questions, and things to do written on the page, she felt a little overwhelmed by it all. She’d have to figure out a way to delegate some of this. Otherwise, she’d never get anything done. Jackie offered to talk to Doris and Phil Ackerman. They weren’t at the meeting yesterday afternoon. She’d have to confirm with Jackie to make sure she’d be the one to talk to them. Joe, she knew, might be tricky. She wanted to talk to him herself, but it looked like he was trying to avoid her. As she thought more about it, she realized he might be avoiding everyone, except for his brief appearance at the meeting.

  With the list completed, she felt better about the direction of the project. Now, the thoughts about the dream crowded in on her, filling the empty space left by putting the task details aside. She found herself a little disturbed Jackie and Leah were a part of the dream. But their roles were very different. As a matter of fact, they weren't Jackie and Leah at all. Instead, they were Olivia and Lily. Then the face of the bartender loomed in her mind’s eye. Dunbar. He didn’t look like anyone in Elder Creek she knew. She felt his animosity toward her, even though they never met until she walked into The St. Charles Saloon. She wondered why.

  His hostility niggled at the back of her mind where her fear resided. She pushed it down, not wanting to feel it, not wanting to know what it all meant. Maybe he would be the one to open a doorway, finally confirming she did, indeed, lose her mind. She wasn’t ready to face that possibility yet.

  “HAVE YOU SEEN the news about the missing woman from Portero?” Jackie asked.

  “Yes, I saw it this morning. They were interviewing the woman’s mother. Terrible,” Tucker said.

  They sat in Jackie’s living room. Tucker hoped to talk to her about two things: the project and her most recent experience of a very different Elder Creek. Jackie, however, needed to talk about this missing woman. The look of concern on Jackie’s face made Tucker realize she should allow her the opportunity to vent.

  “Sad about the father,” Jackie said. “Although he’s supposed to be okay, it must be so stressful. People around here are getting jumpy about it. It’s too clo
se to home.”

  “So, does the missing girl live in Portero?”

  “On and off, I guess. From what I’ve gleaned from the news reports, she lived with her parents until recently. They’re from Monterey. According to the reporters she met the boyfriend at some kind of spiritualist’s conference there a while back. Evidently, she comes to Portero quite a bit. I’m not sure if she stays with him or someplace else. Apparently she was pretty taken with this guy. They interviewed him on the news a few days ago. He cried—big crocodile tears, if you ask me—and said how tragic it was, but he looks kind of oily to me. It’s a feeling I got while watching him. I guess he’s pretty controversial in Portero. A lot of people don’t care too much for him. Others from out of the area think he’s god’s gift. He’s supposed to have psychic powers or something, but you know how I feel about that.”

  “Yes, I do know how you feel.” Jackie thought all spiritualists and psychic gifts were a load of hogwash. Tucker didn’t believe in it either, but she tried to keep an open mind.

  “I didn’t see him—you know, the guy—on TV. I saw something last night on the missing woman, and this morning I saw her mother’s plea for her return, but that’s about it. You know I’m not a big television person.”

  Jackie laughed, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes as it normally would have. Now Tucker understood how upsetting she found this whole thing. When she said it affected people in Elder Creek, she meant it included Jackie herself.

  “Have they looked at Mr. Oily as a suspect?”

  “The Portero police called him a person of interest early on, but I haven’t heard any more about him being a concern. Apparently, they questioned him at length but didn’t see any need to hold him for anything. When they released him, he cried his big tears on TV and we haven’t heard anything from him since.”

  Tucker added her “hmm” to the conversation while she tried to figure out how to ease Jackie’s worry. “Well, I guess if the police haven’t seen any reason for him to be a suspect, he’s probably in the clear.”

  “I know, but there’s something about him. I find him a little bit creepy. I don’t know why. I’ve got nothing to base it on but a gut feeling. I’ve never even met the guy. It’s strange.”

  Tucker believed strongly in gut feelings. They were usually right, in her experience, but she knew if she voiced such a thing, it would merely feed Jackie’s concern, so she commented with another “hmm” and decided it was time to change the subject to get Jackie’s mind off the whole situation.

  “Actually, Jackie, I stopped by to talk about the project. Do you mind?”

  Jackie shook her head as if pushing away unpleasant thoughts. “No, not at all. Let’s do it. It might be good to focus on something else.”

  Tucker plunged ahead. “Well, I’ve come up with this idea. I want to run it by you and see what you think of it. What if we got Leah to sign on to do some research for us about townsfolk at the time when the mine was open? We might find some colorful personalities people might want to adopt, and they could use those personas while they’re at their places of business or if they volunteered as docents doing tours of the town. What do you think?”

  Jackie smiled her first real smile since Tucker walked into her home. “It’s a great idea. And if Leah can do the research, maybe write up bios for the people she finds, then people might be inclined to take on the personality more readily because they won’t have to do the work.”

  “And if they want to know more than Leah comes up with, she can give them an extended bibliography, so they can read up more on the person,” Tucker added. “They can get into it as much or as little as they want. Hopefully, they will want to get into it more. It might actually enhance the experience for visitors.”

  “So have you settled on the exact time period?”

  “I think so. Since we don’t want to go anywhere near the bad stuff around the mine, we should probably concentrate on when it first opened, say 1850 or so. The town was booming then. There’ll be lots of interesting characters around.”

  “Really? I would have thought you’d want to concentrate on a later period. After all, they sealed up the mine because of rumors of ghosts and strange happenings there.”

  “Yes, but do we want to bring up the story about a young girl being killed? I know ghosts are a very popular attraction, but that little girl’s death was supposed to be pretty gruesome, according to the stories. I don’t think we want to go there.”

  “You’re probably right. Maybe interjecting information about someone being killed later in the mine’s period, in passing, might work. So we don’t have to go into too much detail. But if there’s any interest, maybe later we’d do a ghost walk or something and make clear it’s after the period we’re implementing. After all, we wouldn’t want to say no to a good thing if it brought in visitors, now would we?”

  Tucker broke out in a big grin. “Great idea, Jackie. This is exactly the kind of thinking we need from the chairperson for the Elder Creek Living History project.”

  Concern returned to Jackie’s face. “What? What are you talking about?”

  Tucker pulled a piece of paper from her shirt pocket, unfolded it and smoothed it out flat against her thigh. “Well, it says here Ms. Jacqueline O’Malley has signed up for this gig. And I recall a certain friend of mine informed me only recently she actually acquired more time since she has one Tracey, the beneficent, newly hired and properly trained bartender, in her employ.”

  “No, Tucker. Not happening,” Jackie said. She pushed her lips out in a pout.

  Tucker ignored her, continuing, “Also, if I recall, someone recently told me I should delegate responsibilities to people who signed up to work on this project—”

  “Now, hang on, Tuck. I don’t have that much time—”

  “Oh, don’t worry. If it’s too much for you, you, too, can del-e-gate.” She thrust the flattened paper toward Jackie. “I hereby appoint you committee Chairperson for the Elder Creek Living History Project.”

  Jackie snapped her mouth closed. When she opened it again, she asked, “Well, what the heck are you going to do, Miss High-and-Mighty?”

  Tucker continued to hold out the piece of paper, her smile widening again. “I, madam, am the High-and-Mighty Executive Director.”

  “Tuck, no. You can’t—”

  “I can. I did. And I will.” She pointed at the wrinkled sheet of paper with her other hand. “This is an outline of the things to be done. You’d better get the committee together again and schedule out some meetings. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  Jackie snatched the paper from Tucker and scowled. “This isn’t fair, you know.”

  “I know. But nobody said life and living history was fair. Now get cracking, girl. Let me know when you’ve got a calendar for the meetings. I’m wide open.”

  Jackie stuck her tongue out at Tucker. Tucker glanced around as if the room were filled with people. “Jackie, not in front of the children,” she chided. Then they both laughed.

  “All right, you,” Jackie said. “Uncle. I should have known you’d rope me into doing your dirty work for you.”

  Tucker raised her eyebrows. “Jackie, you wound me. You think I’ve given you the dirty work? You’re quite mistaken. I’ve given you the easy part. I’ve put you in charge of rounding up the posse—the people who have already volunteered for service, I might add. I’ve kept the proverbial dirty work for myself. Don’t you have a list for me?”

  Jackie’s face softened. “Oh,” she said. She grabbed a small notepad, scribbled something and tore off the page, handing it to Tucker. “You’re going to take on the naysayers. I didn’t want to do it, anyway.”

  Tucker saluted. Maybe it would be better if she talked to the Ackermans herself, anyway. She’d have a clearer picture then of what the people who opposed the mine opening thought. “Yes, I’ll talk to them,” she said.

  Jackie put her hands together and bowed before Tucker. “Thank you for your cooperation, your High-
and-Mighty-ness. May abundant blessings be upon your endeavors.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll see about that.”

  She lifted the paper Jackie handed her into her field of vision. Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman weren’t a surprise. Everyone in town called them Mr. and Mrs. Curmudgeon. Everyone knew them to be old and cantankerous. It was already Elder Creek lore, even when Tucker was a kid. They were vehemently opposed to anything different in the town. They threw a fit when the city decided an old bus shelter needed to be torn down on the main road outside of town. She figured they were only still alive because of their innate stubbornness.

  Joe Dawson’s name came next. She didn’t have any idea what his issues were, but she intended to find out. The most difficult part would be pinning him down. He was clever at avoiding people when he wanted to, and he mostly kept his opinions to himself. She wondered how he ventured to verbalize anything at all to get him on this list. Well, she’d find out one way or another.

  “I notice you’ve assigned me the unpleasant jobs. It also hasn’t escaped my notice you’ve decided to re-assign me one of the jobs I assigned to you. The Curmudgeons. Joe. Are you kidding?”

  “I’m sure you’ll enjoy talking to the last person on that list.”

  Tucker looked at the list again. Her eyes widened when she saw Leah Hudson’s name.

  “Leah?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea,” Jackie said. “She called me and asked how to get on the list. She didn’t say why. Looks like it’s your job to find out, oh, delegated one. Not only that but if you’re serious about opening the mine, you’d also better be prepared to use all your charm on every one of those people to change their minds.”