Cold Case Affair

Chapter 3

Muirinn awakened to a warm and sunny morning, but inside her gut a tiny icicle of unease was growing. As she poured her morning cup of decaf, she glanced at Gus’s laptop and the envelope of photos that she’d put on the long dining room table.

Could that laptop and those photographs be what the burglars were searching for last night? She’d removed them from the attic and taken them down to her bedroom mere hours before the break-in. Had her grandfather really been poking into the old Tolkin mystery again? Was that why he was at the mine when he died?

Nothing made sense to her.

Muirinn blew out a heavy breath of air and looked out the window at the clear cobalt sky—blue as Jett’s eyes. Her gaze shifted slowly over to his deck, jutting out over the trees next door.

An American flag snapped in the breeze, colorful against the distant white peaks. Jett had found Gus’s body—he could tell her more. But Muirinn didn’t want to talk to him.

Not after last night.

She needed to stay away from him.

Her best option was to talk directly to the Safe Harbor police. She’d go to the station later today, right after she met with Rick Frankl, the editor of Safe Harbor Publishing. She’d already left a message at Rick’s office for him to call her to set up an appointment. But first she wanted to look inside Gus’s laptop.

Muirinn set her mug down, seated herself at Gus’s rustic wood table and powered up the computer. Immediately, a message box flashed up onto the screen asking for a password.

She tried several possibilities, including O’Donnell family names, and the name of the cat.

Nothing worked.

The only way she was going to access this laptop was with the aid of a computer tech who could circumvent the password protection. She also needed a tech to help reconnect the hard drive up in the attic office. Perhaps Rick Frankl could recommend one.

Muirinn reached instead for the brown envelope and slid the black-and-white crime scene photos out. She spread them over the table. Most of the images she recognized from the book her grandfather had written years ago on the Tolkin massacre. But there were a few other images she didn’t think she’d seen before. She picked one up—a shot of bootprints in shiny black mud, a ruler positioned alongside the impressions.

Muirinn flipped it over, read the notation on the back. Missing Photo #3. Bomber tracks.

She frowned. Quickly, she flipped over the rest of the photographs she didn’t recognize, laying them all facedown on the table. On the back of each one was a similar set of notations, all with the word Missing scrawled in her grandfather’s bold hand.

What did this mean?

Surely her grandfather had given up trying to actually solve the Tolkin murders? Unless … she stared at the images strewn all over the table. Unless there was new evidence.

No. It wasn’t possible.

Was it?

She turned the images faceup again, selected a photo of a mining headframe—a rusted A-shaped metal skeleton that loomed over a small boarded-up shack. She flipped it over, read the back: Missing photo #8. Sodwana headframe. Bomber used as entry to mine?

She’d never heard any theory about the bomber using the Sodwana headframe to gain access to the mine. As far as she could recall, the old Sodwana shaft was literally miles from the actual underground blast location near D-shaft. FBI investigators had always surmised that the bomber had been someone working inside the mine that day, someone who’d crossed the picket line with her father.

Muirinn realized that she didn’t even know which shaft Gus had been found in. Had it been Sodwana?

She shot another look at Jett’s deck, inhaling deeply. He would know … but before she could articulate another thought, the phone rang.

Muirinn jumped at the sudden shrill noise, then, clearing her throat, she lifted the receiver. “Hello?”

“Muirinn? This is Rick Frankl, returning your call. Welcome to Safe Harbor—I’d love to meet with you sometime today.”

Smoothing her hand over her hair, Muirinn glanced up at the wall clock. She was nervous about meeting Rick and taking over a small business she knew little about. “How are you fixed for time this afternoon, Rick?”

“Around noon would be perfect.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Looking forward to it—we all are. And I can’t begin to tell you how sorry we are for your loss, Muirinn. Gus was our cornerstone here. We all miss him.”

She swallowed against the lump forming in her throat. “Thank you, Rick.”

“His office is ready and waiting for you. We’ve left everything as it was, apart from some cleaning after the break-in—”

“Break-in?” Her hand tightened on the receiver. “When?”

“Two nights ago. Someone managed to disable the alarm system and come in via his office window.”

“Was anything stolen?”

“Nothing that we can ascertain. Gus’s desk drawers were ransacked and his computer was turned on, but that was it. We did file a report with the police, of course. Apparently there’s not much more they can do in a case like this. The cop who responded said it was probably just vandals.”

Muirinn shot another glance at the laptop, the photos spread out over the table. “Which cop?”

“Officer Ted Gage.”

After finalizing the details of the meeting, Muirinn slowly replaced the handset, a coolness cloaking her skin. Both Gus’s offices ransacked? This was more than coincidence.

And why hadn’t Officer Gage mentioned this to her last night?

Muirinn quickly gathered up the photos and slid them back into the envelope. To be safe, she unlocked a drawer hidden in the side of Gus’s thick, handcrafted table.

She placed both the envelope and the laptop into it, but as she was about to shut and lock the drawer, she caught sight of a small bottle of pills in the drawer.

She picked up container and read the label. Digoxin.

Gus’s heart medication.

Closing her fist around the bottle, holding it tight against her chest, Muirinn walked back to the window, eyes hot with emotion. Her grandfather had never mentioned his heart condition to her. But while that hurt, it wasn’t surprising. Gus had routinely refused to acknowledge his encroaching age or ill health, and he used to drink all sorts of herb teas to ward off the inevitable.

Comfrey had been his favorite—knitbone tea, he’d called it. “To knit them old bones.”

Her chest tightened at the memory of his words, and she swiped away an errant tear.

Gus had always said crying was a useless waste of time. If something worried you, you went out and fixed it. And that was exactly what she had to do now. She needed to get to the bottom of these break-ins. And she needed to know why Gus had been looking into the Tolkin Mine murders again.

Collecting herself, she locked the drawer, slipped the key and the pills into her purse, and glanced into the hall mirror. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she scooped up the keys to Gus’s Dodge truck.

She’d go into town, meet with Rick at the paper, and then head over to the police department.

Because now she really wanted some answers.

The truck wouldn’t start.

Muirinn turned the ignition again, and it just clicked. The oil light on the dash glowed red.

Damn.

Muirinn climbed out of the cab, hoisted up her skirt and got onto hands and knees to look underneath the vehicle. Sure enough, there in the gravel was a big, dark pool of glistening liquid.

Stretching to reach under the truck, she tapped her finger lightly into the puddle so she could smell what it was.

“Muirinn!”

She jumped, banging her head on the undercarriage. Cursing, she backed out from under the vehicle and sat up, heart thumping.

“Is that you, Muirinn?”

She blinked up into bright sunlight at the silhouetted form of an old woman bent double, peering down at her with a bunch of purple flowers clutched in her hand.

“Mrs. Wilkie?” she said, rubbing her head. “My God, you half startled me to death!”

“Are you all right, dear? Did you hurt yourself?” she said in a warm, gravelly voice that Muirinn remembered so well from her youth.

“I’m fine.” She got to her feet awkwardly, dusting her knees off. “I was just checking out the oil leak.” The back of her head throbbed where she’d banged it, and her baby was kicking. Muirinn placed her hand on her belly, calming her baby and herself.

“I heard you’d come back, sprite.” Mrs. Wilkie angled her head as she spoke, wrinkles fanning out from her intelligent gray eyes. Quicksilver, who’d materialized from nowhere at the sound of Mrs. Wilkie’s voice, was purring and rubbing against the old lady’s legs.

“I was just coming up to feed the cat, and to put some fresh flowers inside your house. I’ve also got some new herbs for tea. Sorry I scared you, dear.”

Muirinn noted that Mrs. Wilkie’s body had bowed even further to age, like a gnarled tree that had spent its life on a windswept shore. But she was still beautiful, her face tanned and creased in a way that spoke of kindness, her eyes still bright and quick. A thick gray braid hung over her shoulder, and she wore a long gypsy skirt, riotous with color. Muirinn wondered just how old the woman was now. To her mind, Mrs. Wilkie had seemed old forever, like a mythical crone.

She gave the hardy old dear a shaky smile, adrenaline still coursing through her body. “Thank you. It’s good to see you, Mrs. Wilkie. I heard from the lawyer that you’d been taking excellent care of Gus, and I see you’ve been feeding Quicksilver, but I—”

Muirinn was about to say she no longer needed daily housekeeping services. Guilt stopped her. This woman had been here for Gus—she’d been a companion to him. Which was more than Muirinn could say for herself.

Mrs. Wilkie had lived in a small cottage down by the bay on Gus’s property as long as Muirinn could remember. Even though it was now Muirinn’s land, there was probably an official lease that still needed to be honored. Plus, the woman likely relied on the minimal income Gus had paid her, whatever it was.

Muirinn needed to go easy, go slow. Give things time.

“You were saying, dear?” Mrs. Wilkie was watching her intently, waiting.

“It’s … nothing.”

“Well, it’s a terrible thing about Gus. I miss him. But it’s good to see you back, Muirinn, and to see that you are expecting, too,” Mrs. Wilkie said softly. “Are you going to have the baby here in Safe Harbor?”

Muirinn realized that she hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “I. yes, I am.”

“Well, if you go running into any trouble, you know where to find me. I’ve helped deliver my fair share of children, including my two nephews.”

“I know. Thank you, Mrs. Wilkie.” Muirinn was aware that Lydia Wilkie had once been a nurse who’d moved gradually into midwifery and naturopathy. She’d always had a keen interest in herbs and the natural healing practices of aboriginal peoples. When they were kids, Muirinn and Jett used to peer into her cottage window down by the water, pretending they were spying on the Good Witch because she was always boiling some herbal concoction on her blackened wood stove.

“Now, you call me Lydia,” she said.

Muirinn smiled. “I can’t. You’ve been Mrs. Wilkie to me forever.”

Mrs. Wilkie’s face crumpled into a grin. She took Muirinn’s hand firmly in her gnarled one. “It’s so good to have you home, sprite. Gus would be mighty pleased. Especially to have a small one around the house again.”

Muirinn nodded, emotion prickling into her eyes again at the sound of her old nickname. Damn these pregnancy hormones and this trip down memory lane. “I know he would,” she answered quietly.

I just wish I’d come home sooner.

Mrs. Wilkie turned, her gypsy skirt swirling around in a rainbow of color as she scuttled up the steps toward the front door. She unlocked it with her own key.

“Do you know any decent mechanics in town?” Muirinn called after her, vaguely uneasy with the idea of this woman coming and going into her house at will.

“Why, Jett next door could fix that truck for you, Muirinn. I’ll just go right on inside, put these flowers down on the table and call him.” She disappeared through the front door.

“Mrs. Wilkie! Wait—”

The old woman peeked back out the door. “What is it, love?”

“I … I’d rather call a mechanic from town.”

“What nonsense. You’ve been away too long, sprite.” She smiled. “We look after each other out here.” And with that she vanished into the house.

Muirinn sank onto the bottom stair, tears threatening to overwhelm her again. She dropped her face into her hands fighting to hold it all in.

Pregnancy was making her so darn emotional about coming home.

So had seeing Jett.

Her feelings for him were still powerful—feelings for a man she could never have again.

A man she’d never stopped loving.

Jett found her sitting on stairs, crying.

His heart torqued and his throat tightened—the old Muirinn had never cried.

He shut of his ignition and got out of his truck. As he approached her, he felt his mouth go dry. She was wearing a chiffon skirt in pale spring colors. She had dirt on her smooth legs and he could see way too much of her thigh for male comfort. Her fiery hair hung wild and loose around her slender shoulders, glinting with gold strands in the sun.

“Hey,” he said softly, sitting awkwardly beside her, trying to restrain himself from putting his arm around her and comforting her. “What’s up?”

She sniffed, then laughed dryly as she smeared tears and dirt across her face. “God, I’m a stupid wreck. It’s … it’s the hormones.” She nodded toward the truck. “Gus’s truck didn’t start. It was just a last little straw …” her voice faltered, hitched and flooded again with emotion. “I … miss him, Jett.” Tears came again. “I really miss him.”

And then he did touch her. He put his arm around her shoulders, drew her close and held her while she left her grief out. And he knew it was a mistake.

The warm curve of her breast, the firm swell of her belly against his torso, the exhilarating sensation of her thigh against his jeans … they did things to his body. Clouded his mind. With them came a raw and powerful protectiveness that surged through his chest, and Jett felt afraid—of what this could mean to all of them.

He was crossing a line. One look at her and he was falling in love all over again, when all he wanted was a reason to push her away, a reason to hate her, to despise her for what she’d done in the past.

But in this moment, the lines between past and present were blurring.

“I just wish I could have been here for Gus, then maybe … maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

“What do you mean? His death?” Jett’s voice came out thick.

She glanced up, luminous eyes red-rimmed from crying, and his heart squeezed all over again.

“You led the search-and-rescue team that found Gus, Jett. Tell me about it. Where exactly did you find his body?”

“Muirinn—”

“Please, Jett, everything. Step by step. I need to know.”

He moistened his lips and nodded.

“When we first got the report that Gus was missing, we really had nothing to go on. Then on the thirteenth day, we got a break. A hunter called the police tip line to say he’d been on his way out into the bush almost two weeks earlier, when he’d seen Gus walking inside the perimeter fence of Tolkin Mine. He hadn’t thought anything of it until he’d returned and heard the news. We brought dogs in immediately, set them to work on the Tollkin property. They led us straight to the shaft—”

“Sodwana shaft?”

He frowned. “Yes, why?”

She hesitated. “Just wondering.”

“The grate covering the man-way inside the headframe building had been pulled off. So we went down with ropes, flashlights.” He paused, watching her, compassion filling his heart. “We found him down there. On the 300 level.”

Muirinn’s neck tensed. She swallowed. “What’s on the 300 level?”

“More tunnels. Another man-way that leads further down, possibly as far as the 800 level.”

“Who was the hunter who called in that tip, Jett?”

“The cops don’t know. It’s an anonymous tip line.”

Her cheeks flushed with frustration, or maybe anger—he’d always found that so sexy, the way her complexion betrayed her emotions so easily.

“So, basically, my grandfather might’ve been saved if he’d just taken the trouble to tell someone where he was going that day. Why didn’t he?”

“Who knows, Muirinn. You knew he was stubborn.”

“But didn’t you guys think it was odd that he was down there, down that shaft?”

“I had questions, sure,” said Jett. “But the ME and the police went through everything. So did Dr. Callaghan. Pat had been treating Gus’s heart condition for some time already. There was no evidence of foul play of any sort, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She bit her lip to stop it from wobbling, looked away.

“Hey—” he cupped her jaw, turned her face back to his, and immediately regretted the impulse. “Gus was a really eccentric old guy, Muirinn, even more so these past few years. This was in keeping with his character.”

Tears pooled in her eyes again, and Jett couldn’t stop himself from asking. “You’d have known all this about Gus if you’d come to see him,” he said quietly. “Why, Muirinn? Why didn’t you ever come home to see your grandfather?”

She held his eyes, silent for several beats, something unreadable darkening her features. Then she sighed heavily. “I sent Gus plane tickets, Jett, so he could come to see me in New York.”

“Yeah, he wasn’t that impressed with the city. He told us about it.”