Dying to Know (30 page)

He grinned as his fifteen minutes headed for twenty. “You

wouldn’t. His distant cousin, Nicholas, owned it, on his mother’s

side—
Nicholas Voccel i.”

290

fift y-three

When Ernie left, he was gloating. Having a big secret in the

game puffed him up like a peacock. Odd, though, that he never

whispered that secret before—especial y considering his involve-

ment with Kelly’s Dig. Then again, there wasn’t much I didn’t

find a little odd about him from time to time. I never knew about

André growing up around Poor Nic either.

I wonder what other secrets were out there waiting.

Angel promised to call Ernie the moment something more

happened. He left angry, unhappy with her to be still chasing

murderers. He meant wel , but the old fart was getting a little too protective for me. But, like all good dead husbands, I kept my

mouth shut and stretched out on her office couch.

“Angel, do you think old Ernie …”

There was a knock on the door and Angel called out, “Come

in.”

291

“Sorry to interrupt you, Angela. May I come in?” The voice was

familiar but the woman who walked through the door was not.

“It’s me, Sarah Salazar.”

If not for her name, I would not have recognized her. As the

country-folk say, “she sure does clean up good.” Sarah was

dressed in a white cotton top and a tan skirt. Her blond hair was

pulled back and she was wearing round glasses that made her ap-

pear more sophisticated than I knew she was. Sarah had trans-

formed herself into a lovely co-ed who was going to turn a few

heads around campus.

“My, my, will you look at her.”

“Stop it and be quiet.” Angel said under her breath. “Privacy,

remember?”

I looked at her and her ire bothered me. She was more and

more testy with me and while all the mayhem may be to blame, I

didn’t deserve it. Maybe it was never knowing when I was around

or not, or, perhaps, not having me real y around. Maybe I was

wearing out my welcome and being just a voice in the room was

no match for flesh and blood and real companionship. Maybe.

She said, “Sarah, come in. What a nice surprise.”

Sarah walked in and gave Angel a long, tight hug. When she

let go, she blushed and retreated behind a chair facing the desk.

“I’m sorry to drop by like this.”

“Don’t be.”

“You’ve been so kind to me.” Angel gestured for her to sit.

Sarah went on, “The daycare is perfect, and I start a reception job tomorrow. I’m gonna take some classes if student aid works out.”

292

“That’s wonderful, Sarah. I’m happy for you. You’l be back on

your feet in no time. Can I do anything else?”

“No, no. I had to say ‘thanks.’” She hesitated for a second and I

thought she was going to leave. Instead, she fidgeted in her chair.

“Wel , I wanna to give you some things. You’ll know what to do

with them—I sure don’t.”

“Some things? What?”

Sarah opened her shoulder bag and took out a rolled-up

brown paper bag. She handed it to Angel. “Ray left this stuff—

you know, from the diggin’.”

Angel emptied the bag out on her desk and gold coins, a

ragged leather pouch, and tarnished pieces of metal spilled out. I recognized the coins from Sarah’s bedroom. The pieces of tarnished metal were an old, broken belt buckle and several but-

tons—pieces of a soldier’s uniform. She started to open the

leather pouch but decided to wait.

When I looked at the coins, I knew we were closer to a mur-

derer. “Angel, those are 1881 twenty-dollar gold pieces. They

look like Poor Nic’s.”

Angel picked up one of the coins and examined it, holding it

to the light to read the engravings. “You got all this from Ray,

Sarah? The coins, too? They came from Kel y’s Dig?”

Sarah nodded but didn’t speak. Angel sorted through the

items piled on her desk. Sarah twitched each time Angel picked

one up.

“Angela, I lied to you the other night.” She rubbed her wrist

and refused to look at her. Then, without warning, she began to

cry. “I knew Ray and Iggi worked for Mr. Byrd. Ray was so happy

293

about that job. He was makin’ more money there than as a guard.

Mr. Byrd and Poor Nic have been real good to me. I lied because

Nic’s men came by and …”

“It’s okay, Sarah. I understand.” Angel put a hand on her

shoulder. “Real y. It’s okay.”

“No, I should have told you.” Sarah continued sobbing. “Mr.

Byrd paid Ray under the table so we didn’t tell nobody. It was

only for a couple weeks.”

“I know.”

“Then, Iggi got a call from some guy about that farm they was

working on—the one that’s been in all the papers.”

“Kel y’s Dig?” Angel asked.

Sarah nodded. “Yup. Ray was real nervous. There was some-

thing scary about the deal— but it was lots of money. Anyway,

they were supposed to move these bones—”

Angel interrupted her. “I know all that, Sarah. Iggi told us.”

“They never even touched those old bones—Ray said they

were too scary. But, they found all this stuff—more even—and

they sold a lot of it.”

I couldn’t stay quiet any longer. “She’s hiding something.”

“Hiding?” Angel repeated. “Sarah?”

Sarah paled and her eyes grew rounder. She started rubbing

her wrist again and that’s when I saw it. She was wearing an or-

nate silver bracelet that was badly tarnished and bent. Its band

was inlaid with green gemstones and it looked as though some

were missing.

Angel looked at her wrist and gently touched her hand. Sarah

tried to cover the bracelet.

294

“Sarah, did Ray give you that?”

She nodded and cried harder. “Yeah.”

“It’s all right, Sarah. May I see it?”

With slow, hesitant movements, she slid the bracelet off and

held it out. Her crying made her stutter. “Ray found it with the

other stuff. He cleaned it up himself. He said he wouldn’t sell it

’cause he couldn’t afford anything like it for a long time.”

Angel held it up to inspect. The band was heavy, tarnished

silver that bore the scars of years buried in earth. The band was

decorated with the shapes of musical notes connected by two G-

clefts—one on each side. There were mounts for four emeralds.

Two were still affixed in the silver; two were missing. Each of the G-clefts had a ruby mounted in its center. The piece was old, but

how old I didn’t know. I doubted, though, that it came from any

Civil War soldier.

“Angel,” I said. “Remember those two nice, dead young girls?

I think this belongs to one of them.”

She held up the bracelet. “Did Ray say anything about finding

more pieces like this? Any other jewelry?”

“No, I don’t think so. Just those coins and stuff—I brought

what’s left. ”

Angel retrieved her purse from behind her desk. She took out

a folded white mailing envelope and dumped out the emerald

we’d found at Kel y’s Dig. The stone fit into one of the empty G-

cleft settings and matched the other emeralds perfectly.

“Sarah, may I keep this for a couple days?”

“Umm, sure,” she said, staring at the floor. “Do you think Ray

was killed ’cause of it?”

295

“That’s what I want to find out.”

“Take it. I don’t want it anymore.”

Angel smiled knowingly and scooped up the coins and other

items from her desk. She carefully replaced them in the bag

Sarah brought, keeping the bracelet out in front of her. “I’ll try to return it to you. But Sarah, I may not be able to.”

She shrugged. “That’s okay. I don’t want it now. If that’s why

Ray was killed—even if it’s just part of it—I never want to see it again.”

“I understand.” Angel stood up. “Does anyone know about

this—the bracelet, I mean?”

“Just Iggi.”

Angel gently squeezed her arm, making her point crystal

clear. “You cannot tell anyone about this. No one. It could be

dangerous.”

“Yeah, okay.” Sarah lowered her head, rubbed her empty

wrist, and began to cry again. “Poor Ray. Why did this happen?

Just ’cause some old bones got in the way of that highway? ‘Cause

of some road?”

We both knew the answer to that question, but Angel an-

swered her. “I don’t think so, Sarah. I don’t think it has anything to do with the highway.”

296

fift y-four

As soon as Sarah Salazar left, Angel called Bear. I tried to get

her to put the phone on speaker but she waited until after she

told him about Sarah’s and Bear’s update of mumbles about my

case.

“Nothing new,” she said to me, covering the phone. Then she

clicked on the speaker. “Bear, I think I saw this bracelet in one of the sketches from Liam McCorkle’s safe.”

“Are you sure? I mean, just from a sketch?”

“Trust me. Can you get Jack to email copies of them?”

“Yeah, I’m supposed to cal him anyway. What are you think-

ing?’

“If this bracelet is in those sketches, then someone was look-

ing for it. Maybe that’s McCorkle’s secret project. Maybe that’s

why Salazar died—because he found it.”

I said to her, “Angel, the word is ‘murdered’ not ‘died.’ There’s

an important difference.”

297

“Angela,” Bear’s voice seemed strained, almost irritated. “The

Captain is pretty pissed at me. You better be right about this.”

Angel took the phone off speaker. “What’s wrong with you?

No, what? I do understand. Do you? Just hurry.”

Bear grumbled for a long while and I couldn’t make it out.

She hung up.

I asked, “What’s he got, Angel?”

“Nothing, real y. Captain Sutter thinks the Sheriff is bringing

in the BCI, too. We’re running out of time.”

“Some of us already have.”

She looked toward me—truth be told she was looking at the

couch where she heard me speaking from—and her face was

ashen. “I know that, Tuck. Don’t you think I know? What do you

want me to do? I’m trying to help you—to help Bear, too. It’s

hard, though. It’s very hard on me. You just don’t understand.”

“Then explain it to me.”

She stood up. “I can’t. You just wouldn’t understand. And it

might make things worse.”

Worse? Worse than being dead?

For the next hour, Angel and I stayed silent. I laid on her

couch, trying to figure her out. When I had first reappeared to

her, she seemed ecstatic—confused but happy. She called for me

to save her that night in the rain, and later, she cried when she

realized I was back. Lately, however, she seemed at odds with

that; frustrated and distant.

Was it stress? Or was it something else?

My headache took flight with the famous “you’ve got mail”

ding on Angel’s computer. It was from Bear. She clicked on his

298

email attachment and sent the entire file to the printer. It took

several minutes—five after Angel put paper in the printer. Fi-

nal y, the thirty or more sketches began spitting out. Angel sorted through them. Her face brightened.

“It’s here, Tuck. I knew I’d seen this.”

It was there—a hand-drawn sketch of a bracelet with musical

notes and two G-clefts around the band. The G-clefts were set with gemstones in their center and several more around the band. Even

in this stark, black and white artist’s sketch, it was beautiful and distinctive. At the bottom of the sketch were hand-printed notes

explaining the position of the rubies and emeralds. There was an-

other handwritten notation, too—“
Paul Livingston-May 1966.
”

Angel asked, “Paul Livingston? Could he own the bracelet?’

“Hell no.” The name, and the man, were very familiar to me.

“Paul Livingston is retired—the hard way. He used to be a jeweler

in Old Town.”

“The hard way?”

I laughed—which was rude under the circumstances. “Yeah,

when Bear and I were rookies, we put him away for fifteen years.

Livingston-senior was more than just a good jeweler; he was a

great fence. He handled stuff all the way from Washington to

Philadelphia. Who would ever suspect a small town goldsmith

would be moving hot-goods—other than Bear and me that is. He

died a couple years ago.”

“We’re at a dead end.” Angel dropped the sketch atop the brace-

let on her desk. “Again.”

“No, not yet. Livingston-senior died in prison—Paul-Junior

runs the family business. He has a shop down in Strasburg.”

299

“And what if Livingston doesn’t know anything? What then?”

I thought about that. “If these sketches are the path to our

killer, you can bet Livingston knows the way, too.”

300

fift y-five

“All right, I’ll go see Paul Livingston for you.” Angel’s voice

was flat and without emotion. “But that’s that. Anything I get, I

give to Bear.”

She sat on the couch sipping a glass of wine and I was in the

chair adjacent to her. She couldn’t see me of course, but she knew where I was by my voice. I knew, by her voice, that she was growing disenchanted with being my deputy.

“Okay, Angel, okay. I real y don’t understand.”

She took a long pull on her wine. “Why can’t you let this go?

Let Bear handle it—just leave it alone, please. Why can’t you be

content the way things are?”

The way things are? “Because, Professor, I’m dead. I don’t