TREASURE KILLS (Legends of Tsalagee Book 1) (26 page)

Artie could hear the shower go on in the bathroom. “Wull, like... right now?”

“Oh, no. Just whenever. Anytime this morning would be fine.”

“Um, I’ve got kind of a bum leg... and arm. Why can’t Punch help you with this?”

“I haven’t seen Gale in weeks.” Artie could hear hard ice in her voice. “We’re not speaking and I don’t
even
want him over here. But if you’re not able or too busy, I’ll manage it by myself... somehow. I just thought—”

“Oh, awright,” Artie said. “I’ll come over later this morning.”

“Great. I’ll have some coffee made.”

“Okay, later.”

Artie sat there holding the phone and looking at the floor. He sighed and uttered a single swear word. At that moment, he didn’t really feel like being neighborly... especially to Sunny. The sound of the running shower caught his attention. Maybe a team shower would brighten his attitude.

Chapter 23

Sunny Plants a Trap

Sunny looked at the big-eyed cat clock on the kitchen wall again, seeing it showed two minutes later than the last time she looked at it. It was twenty-seven minutes past noon. She let out an exasperated sigh, and punched in Artie’s number on her cell again. This was her third call after leaving two previous voice mails.

When he answered, she asked, “Are you still coming?”

“About fifteen seconds from your drive right now,” he answered.

“Pull around back when you get here,” Sunny ordered.

Although you could see the tops of each house while standing in the yard of one or the other, Sunny’s and Artie’s farm houses were still a half mile apart. The fallow eastern forty acre field, where Buck Buchanan once planted soybeans, butted up against the ten acre hay meadow west of Ben and Artie Lancaster’s house.

Artie had taken his time getting over to Sunny’s. While Galynn whipped up some pancakes, he started the coffee brewing and then went outside to cut an early fall rose to give to Galynn. He walked up behind her as she stood flapping the jacks, kissed her on the back of the neck, and reached around her to present the rose.

“Aw, isn’t that sweet,” Galynn cooed, brushing the side of her face up against his lips. Thus encouraged, he attacked her with more ardor. “Stop it, now,” she admonished with a giggle. “Or I’m going to burn the pancakes.” She held the spatula up between her face and his lips. “Why don’t you put that rose in a glass of water and set it on the table.”

They ate a leisurely breakfast, and engaged in relaxed small talk, then languorously sipped their coffee. Twice, Artie’s cell phone rang off in the bedroom, but he ignored it.

After the second Galynn asked, “Who called this morning?” suddenly remembering the earlier waking call.

Artie came back to earth at the question. “Oh... hell, I forgot. It was Sunny.”

“Sunny?” Galynn asked with surprise. “Sunny Griggs?”

“Only Sunny I know,” he answered. “That’s probably her calling again. She wanted me to help her move something to her root cellar.” Then he laughed and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. “I told her I’d be right over.”

“Well, are you going?”

He settled back in his chair and said, “Yeah, in a minute. You want to come along?”

“Ew, I don’t know.” Galynn furrowed her brow as she held her coffee mug in front of her face, elbows on the table. “Got some tension there with my dad and my mom and all that. Never did much care for her, even when I was a little girl. She was weird.”

“Still is, as far as I can tell,” Artie said. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Give us something to laugh about later—all her witchiness and stuff.”

Sunny stood at the top of the back porch steps leaning against one of the posts when Artie pulled to a stop at the rear of the house. Wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, she had her arms crossed at her chest, frowning as she watched the Escort roll to a stop. When Galynn got out on the passenger side, Sunny’s frown deepened.

“Hey, Sunny,” Artie said. “Sorry I’m late.”

“That’s okay,” Sunny replied, as she continued to eye Galynn. “Guess maybe you were pre-occupied.”

“Hi, Sunny,” Galynn said. She decided to ignore the snide remark.

Sunny nodded. “Hello, Galynn. It’s been awhile.”

Artie had gone to the trunk of the car and opened it. “I brought my two-wheeler,” he said. “Thought it might come in handy.” He lifted the hand truck out and set it on the ground.

Sunny turned to go in the back door. “You guys want some coffee? It’s cold, but I can nuke it for you.”

“Naw, I’m good,” Artie said. He returned to the trunk to fish some more things out of it.

“I’ll take some,” Galynn said as she followed Sunny into the kitchen.. Then added, “I hear you make terrific coffee.” She immediately cringed inside, wishing she hadn’t said the last.

“Really?” Sunny replied as she walked over to the counter where the coffee maker sat. “Makes me wonder what else you’ve heard.”

Galynn couldn’t mistake the animosity in Sunny’s voice, which only added to her discomfort.

“Well, no... uh,” Galynn pushed some strands of hair behind her right ear, and then coughed into her hand. “It’s just... I mean, one day in the café daddy happened to mention that you made really good coffee and that we should ask you what kind of blend you used.” Galynn grinned nervously and added, “I thought my mom was going to pour the pot of coffee she was holding on his head, but...” she closed her eyes and said in a prayerful whisper,
Crap
. Sunny continued to look back at her coolly.

“Look, Sunny, whatever is going on between you and my dad is none of my business. I’m not making any judgments there, or taking any sides.” Galynn knew the last part was a lie, but she had to remove her foot from her mouth somehow, and clear the oppressive air.

Sunny turned to the microwave and opened it, sliding the mug of coffee onto the turn table.

“Well...” Sunny punched some numbers on the oven’s panel and pressed the Start button. “Okay. I’m just really mad at your dad right now. He’s such a jerk. Guess I shouldn’t be taking it out on you, though.” She smiled weakly back at Galynn.

Galynn nodded, but said nothing more, hoping to let the thorny topic drift on downstream.

Artie rattled the two-wheeler through the back door and said, “What’ve we got here?” He looked at the large earthen jar sitting in the middle of the floor, the obvious focus of their coming work. It stood almost four feet tall and maybe two feet wide at the widest. “I guess this is our bad boy,” he said, parking the two-wheeler next to it.

Grinning, he looked back and forth at the two women, but upon seeing their taut expressions his grin faded some. “What?” he asked. Like most men when he saw one or more women looking distraught as he came into a room, he figured it was his fault and immediately developed an uncertain guilt.

“I want you to help me move this jar out into my root cellar,” Sunny said. “It weighs about a hundred pounds, and I can’t lift it.”

“Not a problem,” Artie said. “All we got to do is secure this puppy onto this truck, and roll ’er on out there.” At that he set about the work of loading and binding down the earthen jar to the dolly with two bungee straps.

“What’s in there?” Galynn asked.

“It’s a Korean delicacy I made called
kimchi
,” Sunny said. “It’s mainly cabbage with some other things thrown in.” She went over and lifted the lid off the jar to let the other two look in.

“Whoa,” Artie said as he quickly drew back his head and blinked his eyes. “Powerful stuff,”

Sunny responded in her somewhat superior tone. “The recipe is over four thousand years old. It’s said to have great healing powers, both for the body and the spirit.”

Galynn covered her nose with her open hand and blinked back tears. She took a step back. “It certainly has... a unique aroma,” she said.

“Yes, well, it’s not a finished dish,” Sunny said. “It has to go through a fermentation process for at least a couple of weeks. That’s why I need to move it into the root cellar.” She placed the lid back on the jar.

“Good place for it,” Artie said.

“Let get going,” said Sunny. She walked to the back door, leading the way.

As they headed across the back yard, Artie noticed several small and brightly painted concrete statues dotting the landscape here and there. He elbowed Galynn, and asked Sunny, “What are all these little pointy-headed guys for?”

“Those are my gnomes. They help ward off bad energy and malicious spirits.”

“No kidding,” Artie said. “What about fairies?”

“Yes, probably those too,” Sunny said in a matter-of-fact tone. “But only the wicked ones.” Then she started pointing to them. “This one is Bilbo, that one is Samwise, the blue one over there by the herb garden is Peregrin, and the one back there in the flower garden by the porch is Meriadoc.”

“They have names?” Galynn asked.

“Of course,” said Sunny, turning to look back at Galynn. “I gave them Hobbit names, you know, from the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy?”

“Oh, of course,” Galynn said. She gave a corner of the eye look over at Artie. He stared straight ahead, not daring to look at her. “But... seems like I remember another one, kind of the main one,” she said.

“You’re talking about Frodo Baggins,” Sunny said. “Yes, Frodo was abducted... I mean, stolen last spring. I’d set him on that cross beam above the cellar door, to guard the cellar.”

“Stolen? Humph. That’s weird,” Galynn said. She decided to take it into another direction. “Sure is a big jar. Why’d you make so much?”

“Actually, I’d made one other batch, but it got... stolen, too, the same night Frodo disappeared. And whoever took it broke my other jar. It was about half the size of this one. But when I went back to buy another jar, all they had were these big ones, so I just decided to make a double batch. I figure, after this batch of
kimchi
goes through its fermentation thing, I’ll put all of it up in Mason jars.

“Someone stole the... ah... stuff, too?” Galynn asked. She looked at Artie and he shrugged with an amused expression. “I mean...,” Galynn thought she’d better be tactful with this, “...a person would need to have sort of an acquired taste for it, wouldn’t they? You sure it just didn’t spill out when the jar was broken? Maybe it was all just vandalism.”

“No evidence of that,” Sunny said. “As you noticed,
kimchi
has rather a pungent aroma. If the jar had broken and its contents spilled on the cellar floor, it would’ve been obvious. No, nothing had been spilled. In fact, that was what was so unusual. The other jar, or what was left of it, almost looked like the inside had been licked clean.”

“Wow,” Galynn said. She pondered what Sunny had told them. “Wonder why anyone would do that?” she asked.

“Well...” Sunny started, but she didn’t answer immediately. She let her response hang as they walked on. Finally, she continued. “I’ve got some suspicions about that.”

“From what you’ve described,” Artie said. “...it sounds to me like some kind of animal was involved. Maybe a bear or a badger? Or maybe Frodo took it to share with his buddies back at the North Pole,” he said.

“Yeah, it was an animal, all right,” Sunny said, deciding to ignore Artie. “But I don’t think it was a bear. More like the two-legged kind. See, that jar was in the cellar, where we’re going to put this one. Look at the cellar’s door.” She pointed to the grassy mound they approached, and its wooden door, which angled at about forty-five degrees from the horizontal. “To open that door, it has to be lifted. On top of that, it has a latch, so it has to be unlatched and then lifted. I suppose a bear could do that, but I doubt he’d want to be that careful. The door and the latch weren’t damaged that night.”

“So you think a person did it?” Galynn asked.

“Yes, I do.”

“That kind of brings me back to my first question,” said Galynn. “Who would want to do that? I mean... no disrespect, Sunny, but I wouldn’t think there’d be all that much of demand on the street for... whad you call it?”

“Kimchi.”

“Yes, kimchi.

“No, you’re right about that,” Sunny said. “But I do think it was vandalism of a sort. I think it was all staged as part of an elaborate prank.”

“A prank? You think some kids— ” Galynn stopped short, putting her hand to her mouth and audibly drawing in a quick breath at her sudden realization. “You think Daddy did it, don’t you?” She said. She knew about her dad’s proclivity for playing jokes on people.

Sunny nodded, her mouth set in a grim line.

“But, why?” Galynn asked.

“You mean other than just plain stupidity?” Sunny asked. Galynn smiled tightly and nodded.

“Ever since the day we met, Gale has been trying to make me believe a creature is roaming around in these hills, something like a Sasquatch or Bigfoot. Then one night last spring he and White Oxley set up this elaborate hoax where they came out late one night, stomped around with some kind of big footprint shoes, and scared the hell out of my goats and chickens. The next morning they showed me the footprints and tried to make me believe it had been their stupid Hill Man. And I think, because I scoffed at them, a month or so later they staged another hoax where they took my
kimchi
and abducted Frodo.

“Well, I never brought it up to Gale, because I knew that’s what he wanted me to do, so he could continue to play me along on that silly little game of his. Besides, it was at about that time that he betrayed my trust on another matter, and I haven’t spoken much to him since. But nothing has happened since that night.”

As they arrived at the cellar, Sunny unlatched the door and raised it open. Artie lowered the two-wheeler down the cellar steps. “Where do you want it?” he asked.

“Put it over in the back right corner,” Sunny answered.

“What’re you going to do if, um...the vandals come back?” Galynn asked. She stood in the cellar’s entrance watching Artie and Sunny.

Satisfied with their placement of the jar, Sunny patted the top of its lid, and said with a smile, “Oh, I’ll be ready for them.”

Chapter 24

Soc Tells a Secret