When I was kid — summer job in Walter’s lab doing scutwork — he had tried to hook me on his hobby, puttering around with the geology of precious ores. He claimed to be in it for the history, prowling old mining sites, bringing back chunks of quartz-studded rock not unlike this one. When I came aboard officially after grad school, Walter was still taking jaunts in the field, following old maps and his vast geological knowledge. By the time I became a partner, Walter had pretty much transferred his interest to the internet, posting in the relevant forums.
And now Robert Shelburne walks into our lab with a gold-flecked rock and sets it in front of Walter like catnip.
Walter cleared his throat. “Mr. Shelburne, this ore specimen is connected to your brother?”
“That’s right. And now he’s missing.”
“Did you file a missing persons report?”
“The police have no interest. Henry — my brother — left voluntarily.”
There was a brief catch in my chest. I’d had a little brother named Henry. I took in a long breath. No doubt the world was well-populated with little brothers named Henry.
Walter asked, “In what sense is your brother’s disappearance connected with this specimen?”
“Everything in Henry’s life is connected with this. With gold.”
“Oh?”
“Let me give you a backgrounder. Here’s where we get into the irregular — my family.” Shelburne paused, as if selecting, and rejecting, family details. He continued, “Henry and I grew up in a small town in the gold country foothills. Our mother died of cancer, leaving us to our father’s care. Dad was an auto mechanic during the week but he lived for the weekends. A weekend prospector, you’d call him. Chasing gold. Soon as Henry and I were old enough, Dad would drag us along. Following the veins, panning the rivers. Henry went for it big-time. He still does. He’s not comfortable living in the present. He’s a throwback to the nineteenth century, to the Gold Rush.”
“And you?” Walter asked.
“I took a different path. I’m a venture capitalist. I help companies get a start. I suppose you could say my gold country is Silicon Valley — although I’d never put it that way to my brother. Gold country is gold country for Henry, pure and simple. And this,” Shelburne tapped the rock, “is what sent Henry into the wild three days ago. And what brought me to you.”
“Why us?” Walter asked.
“Well, you specifically. I found you online.”
“Our website.”
“First, I found you on the forums. You appear to be the go-to guy for anyone following the legends.”
Walter said, “I debunk the legends that deserve debunking.”
“And those with merit?”
“I add my expertise.”
“All right, then.”
“Mr. Shelburne, I must clarify that I am not, professionally, a mining geologist.”
“But you have the itch.”
After a long moment Walter said, “Let me give you a backgrounder. Did you ever watch a television program called Dogtown?”
“Sure, when I was a kid. One of those old shows you can stream on the Net.”
“It lives on,” Walter said, brittle.
“Why do you ask?”
“My mother was script supervisor. My father was production manager.”
“No shit?”
“No shit,” Walter confirmed. “When I was a boy I haunted the set, which was a false-front mining camp. For me, it was faux-gritty enough to pretend it was real. There was a consultant, a mining geologist, and one day he took me aside and scraped the gold paint off a ‘nugget’ and explained how that quartz pebble could be associated with real gold. And then I no longer had to pretend. I knew how to make the false real — become a geologist. In graduate school, however, my thesis advisor was called in to consult with the FBI about a murder, in which sand was found in the pant cuffs of the victim. I came along. And here I am, today. A forensic geologist.”
Shelburne said, “Then for my purposes you’re the best of both worlds.”
Walter pretended not to be flattered.
Shelburne turned to me. “What about you? You’ve been quiet.”
“Just waiting to get back on topic.”
Shelburne lifted his palms. “Shoot.”
I shot. “Was it your brother who found this chunk of ore?”
“No. Our grandfather found it, so the story goes. It turned up at our father’s house. Dad died a month ago. My brother and I had a reunion — Henry still lives in the old hometown — and I drove up and we went through Dad’s things. There was a lot to go through. Family things, going back to my grandfather’s day. An attic full of junk, mostly. That’s where we turned up this ugly customer. I would have tossed it but Henry recognized it for what it was. That was three weeks ago. Day before yesterday I got a message from Henry’s landlady. He lives in a boarding house, real old-timey place. She said he’d disappeared. She wouldn’t have taken notice — he went off on his wanderings all the time — but this time he’d left the sink faucet running. When she checked his room she found a note. ‘Call Robert.’ I got there in three hours. He’d gone hunting the source of granddaddy’s ore.”
I wasn’t getting it. “But he left the specimen behind?”
“Not entirely. He left this half behind.” Shelburne indicated the rock in the lunchbox. “It was on his table, along with a microscope and tools and a lot of rock dust. He’d split the rock. Hammer and chisel, bam bam bam. He took half, left me half. Very melodramatic. That’s Henry.”
“And you’re certain he went looking for the source?”
“Yes.”
“He’d know how to do that?”
“My brother is something of an amateur geologist — if you’ll pardon the expression. All those years tramping around the gold country, he’s schooled himself in the kind of things he needs to know. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure he’s gone hunting. Figuring where does take a geologist. At least, for me.”
I said, “We don’t do treasure hunts.”
“How about to save a life?”
“That we do.” I folded my arms. “Should there be a life in danger.”
“Henry’s note was a suicide note.”
It took me a moment. “You just said he was hunting the source of the rock.”
“That’s right.”
“Doesn’t sound like somebody who intends to kill himself.”
“You don’t know Henry.”
Walter asked, “Did you bring the note?”
“I did.” Shelburne took a folded paper from his jacket pocket and passed it to Walter.
Walter opened the paper and read. “This does not necessarily say suicide.” He passed it to me.
I read. It was two short lines. Shaky writing. I’ve had it, for keeps. And below that, Call Robert, with a phone number.
“There’s one more item Henry left for me.” Shelburne took another, smaller metal lunchbox from his satchel. He opened it and withdrew a plastic dish and set it on the table beside the ore sample. He withdrew a small vial, unscrewed the cap, upended the vial, and let the contents slide into the dish.
I thought, whoa.
Silvery drops found one another and congealed into a puddle.
I wanted to stick my finger in it. I wanted to scoop it up and roll it around in my palm. I’d done something of the sort in college chem, although it was officially discouraged.
“Mercury,” Walter said. “This is part of your brother’s message?”
Shelburne turned over the small lunchbox. Crudely etched into the bottom was Property of Henry Shelburne. “He collected the stuff, as a kid. I didn’t know he still had this, until I found it sitting on the table beside the microscope.”
“Still, that does not necessarily say suicide.”