"I'll just pose the question about tunnels casually," I said. "I want to watch her reaction."
"Why?"
"If she knows all about them, I learn nothing. If I sense that she's evading the question, then I'll have to assume a connection between my stalker and the crazy ladies across the road. It would sure as hell explain how this guy has been able to move around here so easily."
"That doesn't track," she said. "I thought this whole thing started as a prison ghost, back in Summerfield."
"I'm beginning to think that was all coincidental. Billie Ray kept denying that he had anything to do with any shootings, and even I thought it unlikely that he could acquire a rifle and set up a hit that quickly."
"Then someone shot him."
"Correct," I said. "So now I'm thinking more about the timing than the location. All this stuff started after I came out here and started making inquiries about land and then, specifically, Glory's End."
"What about the you-killed-my-wife stuff?"
"Beats me," I said. "One mystery at a time, I guess. Right now I'm going back out there to see if that coal mine's up there."
Carol had to go meet another restoration client. Before leaving, she gave me a quick kiss. I turned it into a slower one and then brushed my hands across her bottom. She giggled but backed away. "Not in front of the shepherds," she said with a grin, and then she left.
I called Pardee. He had acquired most of what he needed and asked if the electrician had set up power. I'd forgotten all about the electrician and said I'd have to look. Pardee said that he'd be out in the evening and that Tony had debriefed him on the events of last night. I told him about finding the second escape route and explained my theory about the Lees and a possible connection to the land. He had an interesting question: How had the Lees found out that I was going to buy the plantation? That was easy, I said, having already seen the county grapevine in action. It had to be Oatley or someone else in town, I said. He suggested I chase down that connection, see where it led. I told him that first I wanted to go find that coal mine, hopefully without distractions this time.
I went back to the cottage, fed the starving mutts, and got my field gear. Then I drove the utility vehicle over to the barn and told Cubby that I needed to see Ms. Valeria again but it wasn't urgent. He thought the vehicle was a great idea but advised me not to drive it up to the big house where Ms. Hester would see it.
"You don't think she's already seen it from one of those windows up there?" I asked.
He grinned. "Ms. Valeria? Yeah, she's seen it, and you in it. Ms. Valeria, she sees everything. But Ms. Hester? She's takin' a nap right about now. Thing is, she's got a hate-on for those four-wheelers, and that's what's she's gonna think this is. Might shoot at it, even."
When I drove back over to Glory's End, I got a surprise. Carol Pollard was waiting for me. She'd changed out of her town clothes into jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt-blouse. She was carrying a Smith amp; Wesson. 357 Magnum side gun in a holster. I asked her about her client.
"They forgot the appointment," she said. "Clients are a lot like contractors sometimes."
"And?"
"And I thought about you going out there on your own," she said. "I'm not a cop anymore, but I have had the training, if you'd like a hand."
"Absolutely," I said, eyeing the hand cannon and wondering if she could use it. "Backup is always welcome. Hopefully we won't need artillery."
"If we do, though, there's no acceptable substitute-is there?"
Carol and I rode in my trusty new chariot back out to the cut through the eastern ridge and then left up the hill to the spot where we'd acquired the newly disgraced Dobermans. The shepherds rode along in the back compartment as a concession to the fact that I'd just fed them. I was glad to have Carol along, but what really made me feel more confident was the fact that the other guy's dogs were no longer in the game. He'd made a mistake doing that. The first of many, I hoped.
Carol asked me about the so-called coal mine, and I told her what Walker had told me. She'd never heard that story, or that any coal had ever been found in Rockwell County.
"They didn't find any here, either," I said. "Sounded to me like someone came along and scammed the owners in a get-rich-quick scheme."
We stopped at the same place we'd stopped when the dogs alerted. I looked back at them to see if they were interested in anything up in that tree line. Frick burped. Good deal.
I pocketed the keys. Carol and I got out and started up the hill. I'd brought a walking stick, so I made better progress than Carol, who was being careful not to turn an ankle in all the loose rock.
Loose rock?
I looked down and saw that we were climbing up what had to be a tailings pile, hidden under a carpet of weeds and small trees. I sent the dogs ahead, but they couldn't make quick progress, either, due to the sharp footing. Carol swore behind me, and I turned around to see her hunched over, both palms on the ground and her legs out behind her. She couldn't straighten up without falling, so I went back down and rescued her.
"What is it with all these rocks?" she said. Her hands were bruised.
I told her what I thought it was, and we both looked up into a line of scrub pines that seemed to mark the top of the rockslide. The shepherds disappeared into the trees.
"Great place for a shooting gallery," she said softly, staring into those trees.
"Let's split up," I said. "Separate by about twenty, thirty yards. Divide the targets."
"Right," she said. I gave her my walking stick and then went left across the rocks. I had heavy-duty field boots on, which gave my ankles a whole lot more support than her L.L. Bean day hikers gave her. She went right, far enough to force two shots, but stayed near enough that we could still see each other. I was counting on the shepherds to give us some warning if there were bad guys up there.
In the event, there weren't. We climbed through the pines and found both mutts waiting for us in front of what had been the entrance to a smallish tunnel or natural cave in the side of the ridge. There had been two massive vertical beams for the side of the entrance, and one even bigger, tree-trunk-sized beam for the lintel. All three beams were smashed into a collapsed mass of shattered wood and rocks. The tunnel had either caved in or had been dynamited down. Either way, there was no access here, and the entire pile of rocks and crushed timber was studded with dozens of small cedars.
We poked around the entrance area just to make sure that someone hadn't staged a cave-in, but it seemed real enough. The dogs weren't picking up any interesting scents, which was comforting. I did wonder why the Dobermans had come from this direction and mentioned this to Carol.
"How about air vents?" she said.
Good question, I thought. Even if this hadn't been a real coal mine, they might have cut some air vent shafts farther up the ridge. The problem now was that the ridge went almost vertical at the face of the tunnel entrance, rising up maybe two hundred more feet to the top. There was a surprising number of trees growing off this face, slender, spindly specimens in survival mode, trapping water by putting roots down into cracks and crevices along the face.
"I'm trying to figure out how the tunnel would have gone," I said. "Straight in here, but then where?"
"If they kept going straight, they'd come out the other side of the ridge," Carol said. "If they turned it, they could go along the drift of the ridge for almost a half mile."
"I would think it would go down, not horizontally, if they were looking for coal. They wouldn't find coal in the top reaches of a ridge."
"They're finding it that way in West Virginia today," she pointed out. "They're strip-mining by taking off the tops of mountains."
She was right. Now that I thought about it, the sheriff had said they'd taken the tunnel sideways down the ridge for six or seven hundred feet.