Buried Dreams (32 page)

"Thanks, but somebody else wrote it. I just read it."

“Well, we all certainly could sense the sincerity in your tone. How can I help you?"

I said, "During the services, I pretty much knew everybody who was there in attendance. But there was one couple, sitting up front. Man and woman. The woman had red hair, the man had a beard. Do you know who they were?"

His eyes narrowed a bit and he sat back in his chair and folded his hands together. "Is there a problem?"

"No, there isn't," I said. "Look. I write a column for a magazine called
Shoreline
. I'm thinking of maybe doing a memorial piece on Jon, his life, what he did here in Tyler. I thought I knew his friends, his acquaintances. But I didn't know that couple that sat up front. I thought maybe I'd talk to them."

His mood lightened and he unfolded his hands. "Well, I don't see the problem there. And besides, you could probably find out who they were just by asking them around. Mark and Jan Russell. They live up on Drakeside Road. Nice couple, just moved in last year."

"Really?"

"True."

"Do you have any idea why they were there?"

A gentle shrug of the shoulders. "Just to pay their respects, I suppose. Very nice couple, I've met Mark a few times at the Chamber of Commerce breakfasts. You're not a member of the chamber, are you?"

"Urn, no," I said, now wanting to get out of there as fast as possible. "It's just that my business is being a writer and such, and-"

He held up his hand. "No need to go on. I understand."

"Mark Russell," I said. "What kind of business is he in?"

"Woodworking, I believe. Making toys. I'm sure you'll find him in today, if you go up there."

I got up and said, "Thanks, Mister Threadgold."

"Please, call me Carl. Not a problem. And Lewis... "

"Yes?"

"Not to be too forward, but before you leave, can you tell me, have you made any plans for your future, when your time comes?"

I tried to give him my best, most self-confident smile. "No."

"You really should, you know."

"I understand, but you see," I said, now walking out, still smiling, "I plan to live forever."

After a quick stop at a nearby service station to glance through the local phone book, I was now on Drakeside Road, a narrow two-lane country road that led out of the center of town, paralleled the busy lanes of the Interstate, and went out to the very edge of Tyler, before it met up with its thinner and poorer cousin of North Tyler. The Russells lived in an old farmhouse with an attached barn, and their land was bounded by two subdivisions, one called Drakeside Woods and the other Drakeside Arms. Next to the mailbox on their leaf-covered front lawn was a wooden sign, hanging from a pole: RUSSELL'S FINE WOODEN TOYS. I pulled into the driveway, parked near a rusting Subaru and a Ford pickup. When I got outside I could hear the whine of power tools coming from the barn, and I decided I'd try the house first. I walked across the lawn, actually smelling the salt of the ocean. Close but not close enough to see.

The door was answered after just one push of the doorbell. The woman with the red hair showed up, wiping her hand on a towel, wearing blue jeans and a bright blue sweater. I gave her another patented Lewis Cole, Interesting Magazine Writer smile, and I passed over my business card.

"My name's Lewis Cole, and I was wondering if I could talk to you and your husband for a few minutes."

She looked up from my business card. "Talk to the two of us. What for?"

I said, "I write a column for the magazine. Called 'Granite Shores.' I was a friend of Jon Ericson, and I was thinking about doing a memorial piece about him for a future issue. I noticed you and your husband at the church during his funeral service, and I was wondering if I could find out how you knew Jon Ericson."

Jan Russell opened the door wider and I stepped in, making sure to wipe my feet. She was smiling and tossed her towel over her shoulder. "Oh, you can talk to us if you'd like, but I'm afraid it'll be a very short talk. You see, we weren't friends with him at all. Hardly even knew him."

Oh. Damn, there goes another theory, I thought. She went on, "Let's go into the kitchen, and I'll see if I can't drag Mark away from his work."

From the doorway I followed her through a dining room and I immediately noticed the floorboards: they were highly polished and they were wide, quite wide. From the outside this farmhouse looked like any of a half dozen or so within a mile of downtown Tyler, but the wide floorboards told me right off that this house was old. The first settlers here had their choice of timber, and the oldest houses always had the floorboards from the oldest, and widest, trees.

From the dining room we went right into the kitchen, which was red-tiled, and I sat down at a square oak table while she went up to a massive black cast iron stove and said, "How about a cup of coffee?"

"That would be great."

She poured me a cup and rustled around in the refrigerator for a moment, and came back and passed over the cup and a little tray with cream and sugar. I dropped a spoonful of sugar in my cup and looked around. The kitchen was comfortable and cluttered, and on a shelf near a window that looked out to the wide rear yard, I noted little wooden toys, from a train set to a group of dinosaurs on wheels. Jan said, "Let me see if I can tear Mark away from his latest project."

By the refrigerator there was a door that looked like it led outside, but she surprised me by standing by the door, and flipping a series of light switches, up and down, up and down. Jan noticed my look and laughed. "He gets to working so long, with the saws and vacuums running, wearing ear protection, the only way I can get his attention is by blinking the lights on and off a few times."

And sure enough, a minute or so later, there was a clumping sound, of boots treading upon flooring, and the door opened and Mark Russell came in. I stood up and his wife made the introductions, and I shook his hand, feeling the rough calluses on his palms. He seemed to be in his early forties, with black hair and a thick beard that was liberally sprinkled with sawdust. His jeans were dirty as well, and he had on a black shopkeeper's apron that went up to his chest.

"Ah, coffee," he said, sliding into a seat across from me. "Jan, will you pour me a cup and join us?"

She briefly stuck her tongue out at him. "Sawdust must be getting in your brain cells again, 'cause I didn't hear that magic word."

"Oh, all right, hon, will you please give your poor working man a cup of joe? Pretty please?"

I smiled at the give-and-take, and soon enough, the three of us were sipping cups of coffee, and before I got into the business of the moment, I said, "Have the two of you lived here long?"

Mark scratched at an ear. "Depends on what you mean by long. I grew up here as a kid, and then left when I was eighteen. Joined the navy. Spent twenty-five years in nuclear boats before retiring and coming back to the family farm."

"When was that?" I asked.

"Last year. My parents moved to Florida years ago, and they had a bunch of renters here, year after year. But when I got out, well, I always wanted to have a little woodworking business. No money, of course, but with my pension, well, we do all right."

His wife said, "Mr. Cole is thinking of writing a magazine article about Jon Ericson, and I told him I wasn't sure if we could help him or not."

"Really? Jon Ericson? Why do you think we knew him?"

"Well, I saw the two of you at his funeral last week."

Mark slapped a hand on the table. "Damn it, dear, you're right, the sawdust is starting to clog up my brain cells. I thought I recognized you, the moment I came in the house. Something about the face. Sure, you said some words at the funeral. Now I remember."

"All right," I said. "If you didn't know him, why were you at the funeral?"

Jan said, "We just thought it'd be the polite thing to do. You see, we did meet him, the day before he got murdered. Terrible thing. We had a nice chat with him and all, and then, when we found out that he got killed, Mark and I thought we should go there, to show our respect."

I gingerly touched the rim of the coffee cup. "How did you come to meet Jon Ericson?"

Mark took a noisy slurp from his own cup. "Mutual friends ... well, maybe, mutual acquaintances. You see, when we moved back here, we went through some stuff that's been in the family for generations, and ---"

"Excuse me," I said, my hands now in my lap, where they were firmly grasping each other.

"Yes?" Mark said.

"I... I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I was wondering. How long has your family owned this land?"

Jan said proudly, "Since the beginning. Just like my family."

"The beginning of what?" I asked.

"Since the beginning of Tyler," Mark said. "One of my ancestors was one of the original settlers, came over with the Reverend Bonus Tyler. Got a land grant here from King Charles the First. A Russell family has been here ever since. Of course, most of the original land's been sold off, cut up for subdivisions."

I grasped my hands tighter. "All right, then. What did you mean, some stuff that's been with the family?"

"Oh, hell, there's stuff in the barn in boxes that have been kept here, years and years. Old books. Parchment. Even some clothes. So I moved some of the stuff around for the woodworking tools and tables, and we found some old Indian stuff in a wooden box. Well, we thought it was Indian stuff. I wanted to get it checked out and I made a couple of phone calls, and Jon came down and said he wasn't sure if it was Indian artifacts, but he was certain it was old."

I cleared my throat. "The day before he got killed, right?"

"Yep," Mark said.

"Where are the artifacts now?" I asked.

"Oh, we let him take them," Jan said. "I mean, they didn't look like much, and Jon promised he'd give them back to us when he was through investigating them. I guess they're still in his house. He said not to worry, they'd be in a safe place."

I said, "Did you let the police know about what happened?"

Mark said, “We talked to a state police detective. Very nice fellow. He said the artifacts appeared to be missing or misplaced from the house. He said they would probably show up eventually, and he asked us if we knew anybody who might want to harm Jon. We told him no, that we hardly knew Jon at all."

Mark smiled and picked up his cup of coffee again. "He even asked me where I had been, the day he got killed. Just following procedures, he said. Hell, I knew what he was doing. Just checking to see if I might have had something to do with it. Lucky me, I was at the Marston School, doing a presentation to some kids on my toys."

I looked at them both, the smiling faces of the descendants of Tyler's very first European settlers, and I said, "These artifacts. What did they look like?"

Peter rubbed at his beard. "Well. Let's see, there was a rounded stone with a hole in the center. A couple of stone carvings, showing guys with cloaks on or something. Even a couple of coins, rubbed pretty bare. Couldn't make out if they were English or Spanish or French. And this was strange, there was a piece of metal. Looked like an axhead or something."

I could only nod. After all this time, all this searching, after all these years.

Jan said, "I mean, it had to have been a colonial axhead that the Indians managed to get through trade. Like the coins. Right?"

"Sure," I said, wondering just how faint my voice really sounded to them. "You're right. How did Jon act when he saw them?"

"Oh, he seemed pretty happy. Like he knew what they were when he first spotted them. And then he asked me this strange question. Well, maybe it wasn't that strange."

"Mounds of earth," I said.

He smiled. "Hey, that's pretty spooky. How did you know that?"

"Jon told me earlier he'd been looking for a farm in Tyler that once had these earth mounds on them."

Mark nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly what he said. He asked me if there had ever been these earth mounds on our land, and I said, well, I wasn't too sure, but it sounded familiar. So I went to Ezekial’s diary."

"Ezekial?"

"Yep," Peter said. "Ezekial Russell. Great-great grandson of Jonah Russell, who came over in 1623. He kept a regular diary about the farm when he was living here. Pretty boring stuff, actually. I did a high school term paper on it one year, and mostly it talked about the weather. Rain and snow. Drought. How much corn was planted. Stuff like that. And one spring, he had bought another piece of land, adjacent to the original land grant. This piece had these long earth mounds on it that he broke up with plows and shovels, in 1781, I think."

"And when the mounds got broken up, is that when the artifacts were found?"

Jan said, "That's right. It was mentioned in the diary as well. Something about ruins of the old noble savage, and that was that."

I looked around the kitchen, thinking that just over a week ago, Jon had been here, Jon had finally found it. Finally found the dream he had followed for years and years. How good he must have felt, how triumphant. After years of doubt and work and searching, he had come here, had come to this old farm and ---