An Eye for Gold Read online

  I began to fiddle with my napkin. He was right, geologists are just a kind of detective, but his flattery was finding a disquietingly easy way to its mark.

  He continued. “It’s been a while since you helped us with the George Dishey ‘murder. Almost a year. All those months sitting behind a desk, then standing in line for your unemployment check. Ray’s been over to Denver four times courting you, and you just didn’t know what else to do with yourself, so you came here. If I understand you at all, you’re itchy for a break from the ordinary.”

  I shot him a warning look. How did he know so much about my doings in the past months?

  He went in for the kill. “About now I’ll bet you’re wondering what you’re doing being a polite guest at his mother’s house when what you really want to do is—”

  “That’s enough!” I snapped. It was nobody’s business but Ray’s and mine if Ray wanted to stay true to his Mormon upbringing and not bed me outside of wedlock.

  He leaned back. “You’re right. That’s getting a little personal. I apologize. But I’ve been keeping an eye on you. And don’t get paranoid; I’ve only been talking to your pal Carlos Ortega. Nice guy, Carlos. Good cop.”

  I glanced into his gray eyes for a moment, then once again regarded the tablecloth.

  I set to work corralling stray bread crumbs with a pinkie. As always, I had dropped at least five times as many crumbs as anyone else at the table. It seemed to be a special talent of mine. I wondered longingly if somewhere on Earth it was considered good manners or perhaps a subtle clue to a superior intelligence.

  The blonde at the next table continued her dissertation on her new boyfriend as she scanned the menu, her spine straight as a ballerina’s. “It’s like we’ve known each other forever,” she informed her companion.

  I clenched my teeth, fighting the urge to say out loud, Oh come on, honey, you can come up with a better line than that!

  “So tell me how you met him,” her companion asked. I glanced over toward him. He looked bored. No; blank. I wondered what their relationship was. May-December lovers? No, if that were the case then he would not be suffering to hear about her new swain as calmly as he was.

  “Well,” the blonde said, lifting her chin with trumped-up dignity, “I was at a concert. I met him at the bar during intermission. He had flown in just for that day in Ids jet; like, he flew it himself. And, well, we were drinking the same brand of Chablis. It turns out he knows a lot about wine. Quite a lot.” She asserted this last with a horizontal chopping motion of her left hand.

  She’s a southpaw, I thought abstractly, then cursed myself for automatically collecting data about a total stranger.

  “What do you see?” the man across from me asked softly. “You’re a good observer, Em.”

  Their waiter appeared and asked, “Are you ready to order?”

  The agent tapped my hand. “Em, I need your help.”

  Silence hadn’t worked. Changing the subject hadn’t worked. Sulking hadn’t worked. I tried skirting the issue. “For an endangered species case?” I said. “I mean, what’s that got to do with me? I’m a geologist, not a biologist. You remember those major divisions they taught you in science class? Animal, vegetable, mineral? Biologists do the first and second parts. I do the third.”

  He leaned forward again and dropped his voice so low that I had to strain to hear him. “Sure, there’s a biologist on staff who could do the little fuzzies. It’s the setting. Gold mining, out in the middle of nowhere. Geologist’s heaven, eh?”

  “You got that one straight,” I said nervously, trying to cover just how little I wanted to consider options just now. ‘The only place I like better than the middle of nowhere is the back of nowhere.” I rolled my eyes at the fancy appointments of the splendid urban restaurant in which we were seated, all dripping with coordinated colors and restrained centerpieces. The chow was fine, and the coffee was terrific, but sitting on the ground eating straight out of the cook-pot with a stick suited me even better.

  Where was Ray? And what good was a boyfriend if he didn’t come and save me from uncomfortable moments like this? After all, half the reason that I was uncomfortable was the fact that he had butted his way into this meeting, asserting his presence as an unspoken reminder that he had a proprietary interest in how I spent my time.

  I stared at my hands, recalling our conversation earlier that day. “I’m having an early dinner with that guy from the FBI,” I’d told him. “I’ll be done about when you said you’d pick me up to go to the reservoir.”

  Being economical in his use of spoken language, Ray had said nothing, but his eyes had grown dark with sudden annoyance.

  “Not a big deal,” I’d added defensively. “He just kinda called me up and said how are you, and suggested that we get together.”

  Ray had come back with, “And just how do you think he got your phone number?” Leave it to Ray to grab the one loose thread in my thinking and give it a yank. And he had insisted on joining us.

  The FBI agent now jerked my attention back to the present moment, saying, “Here comes Ray.”

  I swiveled my head, searching the crowd for him. There he was, just outside the hallway that led back to the bathrooms. Some bald man I’d never seen before had stopped him, and was talking with his hands swinging so wildly that he looked like he was polishing the air. Ray stood straight and gorgeous, his lithe, muscular build the perfect foil for the dark blue uniform he wore as one of Salt Lake City’s finest. It took a trained eye to know that he was jumping with nerves.

  “You can come along on a recon,” the FBI agent whispered conspiratorially. “We’ll catch a hop out there tomorrow, meet with one of the other operatives. It’s just an hour or two’s flight into Nevada by light plane . . .”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I loved flying. He knew that. What was so urgent about this case that he needed to seduce me into it? Or does the seduction lie in another vein!

  When I opened my eyes again, Ray had turned a shoulder toward the man who’d buttonholed him and was storming toward the table. The bald man followed in his wake, still talking. The FBI agent across the table from me said, “Here he comes. What’ll it be?”

  “Why are you doing this outside his hearing?”

  The agent shrugged. Smiled. Feigned innocence.

  My pulse quickened.

  Ray reached the table. Looked at his watch. Looked pointedly at me.

  You possessive so-and-so, I thought irritably.

  Ray’s lips tightened. He had read my face. I stared at my hands; thought, I should never play poker.

  The FBI agent introduced the bald man who had detained Ray. “Em Hansen,” he said. “This is Tom Latimer. Ray, I see you two have already met.”

  Ray glowered.

  The bald man gave the FBI agent an inquisitive look, shrugged his shoulders, stuck out a hand to me, and said, “Glad ta meecha.”

  I glared at the man across the table from me. “Very funny,” I told him. Then I shook the bald man’s hand and said, “Amelia Earhart. Glad ta meecha yourself.”

  Ray took my jacket off the back of my chair and held it for me. I stood up and put it on. The bald man slipped into my place. The FBI agent told him, “I’ll be right back,” rose, and followed us toward the front door. On the way, he caught my elbow as we shuffled through the maze of tables, artfully setting up eddies in the flow of human traffic until I was walking a distance behind Ray. He murmured, “What was your take on the couple at the next table?”

  “He’s her father,” I answered, falling too easily into the game of analyzing miscellaneous data. “He and her mother split when she was a toddler. She’s seen very little of him since. She wants him to make it all up to her, just as soon as she’s done turning him on a spit. But he’s just a shallow, self-obsessed old pretty boy.” When the agent smiled, I added, “And she’s inherited his shallowness. Why?”

  “And you know this how?”

  “They look alike. Same nose, same angles to the face. A
t least fifty percent Scandinavian blood; they stay baby-faced and fit past ninety, but his thatch is gray. She craves emotional intimacy, but because she hasn’t known him all these years and because she’s deep down extremely pissed at being abandoned, she throws it all in his face by offering it on a channel most daughters don’t use on their fathers. Ha-ha daddy, I’m all grown up and you missed it. I talk about sex right to your face. He’s stunned that he’s even in the same room with her, and hasn’t a clue how to behave, except to be about as available as he ever has been, which is not at all.”

  The FBI agent grinned. “Like I said, you’re a natural.”

  I threw him a sideways glance. Ray had reached the door and was holding it open, his lips drawn into a straight line. I said, “Why do you ask?”

  He replied, “Because it bears on the case. The only thing you missed is the possible connection between the boyfriend and daddy, but I haven’t yet proven there is one.”

  “Oh, sure,” I said sarcastically. “We’re in a restaurant, and the people you want to observe just happen to sit at the next table. How’d you do that, Houdini?”

  He gave my elbow a squeeze and smiled more broadly. “Prior planning and agreeable maitre d’s. If you want to avoid suspicion, you find out where and when your quarry’s eating, and make your reservation just ahead of them. The man who’s now sitting in your chair, looking ever-so-casually like some big witless slob ordering creme brulee and another cup of coffee while he listens intently to their conversation, works with me. Cheap tricks. You’ll pick them up quickly.”

  I could hear Ray tapping his ring against the handle of the door. The ring his deceased wife had placed on his finger. Tap, tap, tap. Hurry up, Em.

  I wanted to spit “My truck’s in die shop,” I said. “I’d need—”

  “I know,” said the agent. “I’ll pick you up about a quarter to six tomorrow morning. Don’t worry about breakfast. I’ll have doughnuts and coffee with me. You take yours black.”

  I glanced at Ray. He was glaring at me. “I’m particularly fond of those cream-filled guys with the chocolate on top,” I said.

  “A good choice. Wear hard-toed boots,” the FBI agent replied. “Where we’re going, the Mining Safety and Health Administration rules the road. And tell Ray to calm down. I’ll have you back in time for dinner.”

  2

  PAT GILMORE SAT AT HER COMPUTER, HER FINGERtips lightly tapping at the keys, so lightly that no letters appeared on the screen. This was her habit, her nervous tic, a world of energy drawn up tight and idling. What am I going to do? she was wondering, as her fingers failed to jitter away her nervous charge. I can’t just let this happen. It’s not right. He’s lying and I know it. The data’s right here in front of me.

  She jumped up from her desk and marched back and forth across the tiny office, stumbling into the overflowing waste-basket in her haste. Grace had never been one of her attributes. Pat was a tall, large-boned person, the kind of heavy-muscled woman men call a “big girl.” The men’s work chinos and short-sleeved shirts she wore did nothing to ameliorate that image. To say she didn’t care how she looked would have been inaccurate; it was more that other things in her life took priority over grooming; and while painful, other peoples’ opinions were not quite important enough to motivate her to consult a fashion advisor, or change her haircut to something softer and more feminine, or, God forbid, mess around with makeup. There were simply too many things to be done.

  Right now pacing topped that list. She moved like a penned bull, her hands balled into fists, crossing the small trailer that housed her office in three long strides. The opposite wall fetched her up with a thud. She knew the wall was there and could have avoided it, but the collision felt good next to the chaos that writhed within her. Forcing her breath out with a roar, she crashed both fists into the tack board she had slammed into, tearing a photocopied announcement regarding employee rights. She yanked a push-pin from elsewhere on the bulletin board and jammed it ferociously into the center of the memorandum, turned, then stormed toward the opposite wall.

  The telephone on her desk rang, a loud jangling that jostled her already over-tight nerves. She snatched up the receiver in one large hand. “Well?” she roared into the instrument. Her eyes went huge with rage as she listened to the voice at the other end of the line. “Bullshit!” she shouted. “No way I’m going to keep this quiet!” Without saying goodbye, she slammed the phone back into its cradle.

  Growling infrustration, she bent over her desk and yanked a hidden group of papers from underneath the blotter, then rummaged violently through the wastebasket for a reuseable manila envelope large enough to hold the pages. Finding one that would serve, she jammed the pages into it and raised it to her lips to lick the unspent shreds of adhesive that remained along the flap. It would not stick. Cursing violently, she got after it with a wad of package tape. Turning to the front, she grabbed a marking pen, crossed out the old return address, wrote “from” next to her address—Patricia Gilmore, Staff Biologist, Intermontane Biological Consultants, c/o Gloriana Mine, Winnemucca, Nevada—and then in big letters below it wrote, ‘To KREN News, Reno,” then added, in the lower left corner, “John Howell, eyes only.” She allowed herself a bitter laugh over the paltry likelihood that she could get her way in even this one small request, but kept moving. There was no time to be wasted fussing over the unfairness of life, the universe, and newsrooms. She had to keep trying, that was all. Yes, try. End this distortion of everything she by God dressed in chinos to protect.

  With these thoughts firmly in mind, she snatched her jacket off its hook, flicked out the overhead lights, and headed outside into the rumbling drone of the mill, the setting sun, and the scent of sage. She rushed across the fresh smooth blacktop toward her ancient pickup truck, for once cursing how quickly this ostentatious armoring of asphalt would give way to the miles of graded dirt that lay ahead. It would slow her transit, and tonight she wanted speed.

  3

  TO MY WAY OF PERCEIVING THINGS, RAY’S JET SKI sounded more like an angry bee than any kind of enhancement of a summer’s evening on the reservoir. But he looked happy enough. His perfect white teeth flashed in the lowering light. Smiling and waving back as if I, too, thought it was neat to make that much noise by way of entertaining oneself, I lay back on the blanket he had thoughtfully provided and tipped my straw cowboy hat over my face.

  The cooling breezes worked playfully at the hairs on my arms. With sunset, the day’s heat had quickly begun to lift from the mountain air, but I was warm enough and well fed, the granola bar Ray had supplied for my dessert blissfully masticated in my stomach. As I let the sweet thought of the next morning’s flight over the desert beyond this jazzed-up mountain playground occupy my thoughts, the incessant buzzing of Ray’s craft began to fade from my attention. My contentment might even have coasted into a happy little snooze if Ray’s dog had not decided on a moist inspection of my chin, dislodging my hat. “Shoo,” I said, swatting at the long, wet hairs that drooped around his muzzle. The dog had the couth to go away. I put the hat across my face again and tried to find my way back into my daydream.

  A moment later, the thrill of rancid dog breath was topped by the high-pitched insistence of a child imitating an alarm clock. “Ring-a-ling-a-ling!” said Ray’s nephew Teddy, about three inches from my left ear. “Ring-a-ling-a-ling!”

  I whipped the hat off my face and gave him a narrow-eyed stare. Irritation was immediately followed by humiliation, as I realized that I was trying to intimidate a five-year-old. Worse yet, he seemed pleased by my reaction. Attempting to save face, I muttered, “You rang?”

  “Ring-a-ling-a-ling!” he sang triumphantly. “Want to play chasies?” He leered at me brightly, all freckles and mischievous intent He had purple stains on his lips and chin from eating popsicles, and I wondered briefly if the synthetic red and blue dyes that had combined to make that color had short-circuited his brain.

  Rather testily, I said, “Thank you, no. I though
t I’d just he here and enjoy the evening.”

  “You’re supposed to be looking after me.”

  “Me? Ah . . . no. That would be Ray. I’m just along for the ride.”

  “Uh-uhn. Unca Ray’s out there on his jet ski. That means you get to play chasies with me.”

  Ray buzzed past in the fading light, a grinning symphony of wet muscle and athletic flair, one hand pumping in a thumbs up gesture. I began to get the picture. This was his subtle way of getting me to sample die joys of child care. We were, after all, thinking of making our relationship a serious commitment, which in his—Mormon—universe meant marriage and progeny.

  I sat up and regarded the specimen who was now shooting me with one index finger (pschew, pschew!), and tried to decide how I’d feel about him if he were mine. He was an engaging enough child, but a little hyperactive for my tastes. A little too let’s-throw-sand, and definitely too let’s-make-ringing-noises-in-Auntie-Emmy’s-ear.

  Teddy grinned more broadly. He was in charge of what was happening, and he knew it. I didn’t like that. I cursed the inexperience that had left me as ignorant as I was about asserting authority over small children.

  Teddy danced from foot to foot “Nah, nah, nah-goo-goo,” he sassed.

  I took a deep breath that soured into a sigh. “I’ll give you a lead of five,” I informed him as I lumbered to my feet, “then you’d better run like hell, because I’m from the great state of Wyoming, and we grow up chasing the wind!”

  Teddy’s eyes popped wide.

  “One-two-three-four-five!” I roared.

  He turned and ran. I dashed after him, suddenly caught in the glee of the chase, my bare toes digging into the sand. He accelerated like a jackrabbit, his slender little legs working like pistons, but my legs were longer and I gained on him, my lungs sucking in the warm air, the full blood of the hunt yanking my over-intellectualized brain from the heights of morose self-consciousness to a nub of ego. I wanted to win. My arms windmilling, I caught him by the shoulder, tumbled, scooped him into my arms, and rolled along the shore. He was squealing incoherently. I presumed that this meant he was enjoying himself, but when we tumbled to a stop, he broke free of my grasp and turned to face me, his little eyes tight with contempt. “I’m going to tell,” he said.