A Treasure to Die For (9 page)

I didn’t see the footprints leading away from the road until my second trip back to the snowdrift.

The angle of the setting sun created shadows I hadn’t seen earlier. There were half a dozen footprints in the snow leading north toward the closest hillside. There might have been more, but several vehicles had been through here after the prints were left. I saw deep tire tracks from a heavy truck, and several narrower ones that could only be a motorcycle or ATV. A lot of people used this trail for off-road fun, which explained why most of the footprints had been obliterated. I also knew there had been more than one person because one of the prints was much smaller than the others. Bonnie and Fred watched as I got on my hands and knees to get a closer look.

Fred came over to see what was so interesting. “How about it, boy, think you can find where those footprints go to?” I suspected he thought I’d found something good to eat, but was willing to give him credit for wanting to help.

“Do you think it was those kids?” Bonnie didn’t bother to bend down to our level.

“Maybe, but I can’t help wonder what they were doing over there,” I answered pointing to where the prints led.

Bonnie’s eyes followed the path in the snow. “Well whoever it is, I don’t give a rat’s ass anymore. I’m cold and getting scared we might get stuck up here in that old Jeep of yours. Can we come back and look some other time?” She had dressed in shorts and a thin summer blouse. Great attire for the near eighty temps back in Denver, but nothing a Sherpa would be caught wearing at this altitude.

“My thoughts exactly. And the sooner we head home, the better. Unless they were leaving breadcrumbs from a jelly donut, Fred would never find their scent anyway.”

***

Bonnie and Fred both slept on the way home, which was fine with me. It gave me nearly two hours of quiet solitude to think about how foolish we had been thinking we could simply drive up to Mosquito Pass and find the treasure. We had barely started up the trail and must have seen the remnants of at least two dozen mines. There were probably over a hundred more in the area and any one of them could have been where Drake had hidden his treasure, if there was one. Even Wilson said his book was a work of fiction based on an old news article.

Thinking of Paul Wilson reminded me of the punk kids. What were they doing up there? Had they solved Drake’s riddle within a riddle? The owner of the gas station had said they were only a few hours ahead of us, so unless they went on to Leadville, we should have passed them on our way up Mosquito Gulch as they were coming back. Then again, they could have gone north on Colorado Nine to Breckenridge before we’d made the turn toward the pass. I hoped that was the case, for the road into Leadville was a widow maker in a two-wheel-drive Datsun pickup.

***

Mosquito Pass still bugged me as I sat at my computer Sunday morning working on my how-to eBook. My mind kept drifting while staring at the nearly blank computer screen. I had the title for the chapter, How to Stop Dry Rot Dead, and that was all I had written. I finally shut down the computer and called Fred. Maybe some great revelation would come to me during our walk around the lake.

Like our morning walk, the revelation on dry rot would have to wait. A county Mountie was in my driveway checking out my Jeep. Trouble is, he was checking in the wrong county. His truck said Park County Sheriff and I live in Jefferson County.

“Stay, Fred,” I said, opening the door. Maybe I should have used reverse psychology and said go. He obeyed as well as a teenager and was the first one out the door.

The deputy stopped writing in his notebook long enough to reach down and pat Fred on the head before addressing me. “Is this your Jeep, sir?”

“What I do, Officer? Get caught by a red-light camera or something?”

“Then you must be Jacob Martin,” he said extending his hand. “I’m Officer White from the Park County Sheriff’s Department. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your trip yesterday.”

Fred tired of the chit-chat and went in search of a bush. I invited the officer inside my house once I realized he wasn’t here to arrest me for breaking and entering Appleton’s cabin.

White took in everything the second he stepped through the entrance of my small cabin, including the dirty dishes stacked in my kitchen sink. Even my bedroom door was open, exposing an unmade bed. My bathroom was the only room he couldn’t see because that door was closed. He must have been disappointed if he’d been expecting a meth lab, or stacks of stolen electronics.

I offered him a chair at my kitchen table, facing away from the clutter in the sink and on the counter. “I’ve got a half a pot of coffee from breakfast this morning. I can warm it in the microwave if you care for a cup.”

“No thank you, Jacob. Or do you go by Jake?”

“Everyone, except my ex, calls me Jake. I won’t repeat what she calls me.” I no sooner let it out my mouth when I realized how dumb the cliché sounded. I chalked it up to nerves.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Jake, but we need to follow up all possible leads in a case like this. My brother-in-law owns a service station in Fairplay, and claims a man and older woman with a Golden, like the one that greeted me, stopped at his place yesterday asking questions about a couple kids. My captain was wondering if you saw them on your trip up to Mosquito Pass.”

His brother-in-law? It made me wonder if his captain was some relation too. I thought I’d left nepotism back in the Ozarks. “We didn’t get very far. My Jeep overheated and by the time it cooled off it was too late to go any further. But I can tell you we never saw the kids, or anyone else. Why do you ask? Did they rob a bank or something?”

He missed my futile attempt at humor, and hesitated before answering. It was obvious he was considering his words carefully. “They’ve been reported missing.”

I got up from the table when I heard the microwave beep. I had put a cup in for myself even if he didn’t want one. “Sure I can’t warm you up a cup, Officer?”

“Bob. You can call me Bob, no need to be formal. I only want to ask a few questions.”

I almost laughed when he said his name was Bob, but caught myself in time.

Officer White saw through me. “I know, Jake. I’ve heard more jokes about bobwhites than I can count. My parents had a cruel sense of humor.”

Fred scratched at the door, so I went over to let him in before I made a total fool of myself. “Oh, we did find this,” I said reaching down to rub my hand on Fred’s back. I was too tired to give Fred a bath after our failed treasure hunt and was hoping his swim in the lake would clean off the oil. Now I was glad I hadn’t destroyed what might be evidence.

White looked at my oily hand without touching it. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Transmission fluid. We stopped by a snowdrift and when my dog rolled in the snow, he came up with this. Someone with a leaky transmission had parked at the same spot before us. But I don’t think it was the kids.”

White stopped writing and looked up at me. His expression screamed “What?” without saying a word. I felt compelled to explain. “I don’t think the truck they were driving had an automatic, so they couldn’t be the people who hiked to a nearby mine.”

“Someone parked a vehicle and then hiked over to a mine? I thought you said you hadn’t seen anyone?”

Bonnie walked in before I could answer. “You all right, Jake?” She was as white as one of my printer papers, and her face was just as blank.

I tried to ease the situation by joking. “Officer White, this is Bonnie, my partner in crime.” Dracula couldn’t have done a better job in draining what little blood that was left in her face.

White rose from his chair, and walked over to shake her hand. “Ah, the third member of the Three Musketeers. Glad to meet you, ma’am. Jake was just telling me about the trip the three of you took yesterday.”

She accepted his hand cautiously, as though she was afraid he’d snap handcuffs on her. “I thought Jake might be in trouble or something when I saw your truck drive by. He had a burglary a couple days ago so one can’t be too careful.”

White turned back toward me. “Burglary?”

“Yeah, someone broke down my lower door and stole a bunch of stuff. I reported it to the Jefferson County sheriff, but they never found the guy.”

“He even told them who it was, and they did nothing,” Bonnie said.

White wrote a couple more notes in his book while answering Bonnie. “I’m sure they haven’t forgotten. Jeffco has a huge area to cover and a lot more crime. The most exciting thing we’ve had lately is a break-in after the owner of the house committed suicide.”

Her jaw literally dropped. I always thought the expression was nothing more than an idiom for unimaginative writers, but she was on the verge of losing her dentures. I jumped in before she could confess. “I think I heard about that. Wasn’t it over by Bailey?”

“Not even close. He lived right over the county line in Pine Junction,” Bob answered before Bonnie could pass out. “But tell me about the hikers you didn’t see. The ones you think had a leaky transmission, and why you don’t think they’re our missing persons.” He was like a bulldog --or is that an elephant?-- he hadn’t forgotten about my hypothesis.

“Those Datsuns didn’t have automatics,” Bonnie answered for me. Evidently she had recovered from the thought of spending the night in jail.

“Datsuns?” White asked.

It was my turn to interrupt. “Your brother-in-law, Rick, told us the kids were driving a Datsun.”

“And Jake used to have one of them, so he figured out all by himself it wasn’t the kids.” Bonnie finished for me.

White looked like he was getting upset. “Okay, maybe I will have that cup of coffee after all, and then we’ll start over but I only need one of you to tell me the story.”

“Do you mind Bon? You make better coffee than me anyway,” I said while leading Officer White back to my kitchen table.

Bonnie busied herself with making fresh coffee and cleaning my dirty dishes while I explained how Fred had found the transmission fluid and tracks leading to the mine. I also added my two cents about why the footprints couldn’t belong to the kids with a brief history of early Datsun pickup trucks. But for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a way to ask about Appleton without incriminating myself or Bonnie. I suppose Fred was just as guilty, but I didn’t think they’d arrest him.

***

“Do you think they’re on to us, Jake?” Bonnie asked while lighting a cigarette. The three of us were sitting on my front porch watching White drive away.

I didn’t bother acting annoyed over the smoke, for I knew she needed the nicotine to calm her nerves. “Not yet. I was surprised Bobwhite didn’t say something about my Jeep breaking down by Appleton’s. Unless that deputy never called in my plates, they must have a record of me being in the vicinity of the break in.”

“Bobwhite? Why did you call him that?”

“It’s his name,” I answered with a short laugh. “Officer Robert White, or as he prefers to be called, Bob.”

The irony of his name made her smile, but only for a moment.

“I only hope the burglary was discovered before the other deputy saw me there. Then there would be no reason to suspect me, unless the CBI finds some prints we missed when we tried to wipe the place down.”

“CBI?”

“Colorado’s version of the FBI. I doubt that Park County can afford a modern forensics lab, so I assume they outsource it to the state.”

Bonnie tapped cigarette ashes into her hand, and seemed to be considering my explanation. “What about the blood on the deck, Jake? What if the CBI finds it
and
our prints? Won’t they think we killed him?”

Fred had been sitting and listening to every word, so I tried to lighten things up a bit. “What do you think about Mexico, Freddie? Would you like to meet a cute Chihuahua?”

Bonnie wasn’t amused. “Seriously, Jake. How can you joke at a time like this? I nearly died when they thought I killed Shelia. Now I’m a suspect again!”

“I’m sorry, Bon. Even if they do connect me as the one who wiped the place clean, they have nothing on you. I promise I won’t say a word about you being there.”

Her eyes began to swell with tears, and she spoke without looking at me. “I’m sorry I was so self-centered, Jake. You remind me so much of my Diane. She didn’t have a selfish bone in her body either.”

***

Fred and I finally made it to the lake after Bonnie recovered and went home for something stronger than coffee. By the looks of the overflowing parking lot, it wasn’t going to be easy finding a place away from the weekend crowd where he could swim. And to make matters worse, someone had posted a new sign with a list of don’ts. Halfway down the list, right after ‘no power boats’ was ‘no swimming’. It looked like civilization was finally catching up with me.

I kept Fred on his leash until we were once again on the backside of the lake. ‘Dogs must be on a leash’ was also on the list, but I knew it was more for the parks protection from lawsuits than anything else, for half the dogs there were Labs or Goldens, running free or swimming. Now all I had to do was trick Fred into a bath by pretending to play fetch with a stick. Maybe I’d forget about our little adventure from the day before once his oily fur was clean again. I had better things to think about than the lost kids who were probably in Vegas or somewhere far away by now.