Father helped Goldie stack the short railroad ties at the mine entrance back to the way they were before. She was still a little dizzy from her journey into the mine, so they worked slowly. By the time they were finished, the generator had cooled down, so they replaced the tarp just as they had found it. While they worked, Goldie didn’t say anything to Father Fitz about what she was thinking. After all, she wasn’t sure about her thoughts. They were half-baked at best. Her guts told her that Mayor Banyan was shady, and she suspected his fingers were in a lot of pies, but that didn’t mean anything. All she truly knew was that Martha Eggleston didn’t like him, felt pressured to keep her home maintained when she and Bucky owned it, and she also had to sell her house out of desperation at a loss, which certainly made her like Banyan even less. Then, she’d seen a street vendor hand him an envelope that looked like a payoff, but she had no proof. She’d noticed that three of the five houses on Martha’s side of the street on Falcon Drive were for sale, and now she’d discovered that a tunnel in an old abandoned mine apparently went under the same street. But how did it all add up? She definitely had to get more answers.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” Father Fitz said. “You certainly have a reckless side, and that probably made you attracted to that gangster boyfriend you told me about.”
“Ex-gangster boyfriend,” she clarified. “But, yeah. You could be right.”
“Well, since everything is back the way it was, can we please get out of here now? Idohave other things to do today.”
“Sure. Okay. Thanks for your patience and taggin’ along. I do appreciate it, Father.”
They started to head down the dirt road back to town.
“Is there anything more you want to talk about regarding your confession?” he asked.
“Only that bein’ with this guy for so many years gave me a very heightened sense for smellin’ when somethin’ was wrong. And I think somethin’ isverywrong about what we discovered here today.”
At that instant, Goldie looked ahead and saw a strange sight. A woman, about her age, was coming around the bend in the road ahead of them. Her long blonde hair was messy, and several strands were hanging in front of her eyes as if she’d been running through the woods. But that wasn’t the oddest part. She was wearing only a long, thin, short-sleeve white nightgown and was barefoot. The temperature was about thirty-four degrees, and here was this woman walking barefoot in a thin gown in winter, yet her body didn’t seem to be affected by the cold. The woman didn’t look at Goldie or Father. Her stare was a combination of forlorn and emptiness; it was almost trance-like. But that still wasn’t all. She also carried a rope in her right hand. A rope with a noose at its end.
“Not necessarily,” Father Fitz said, replying to his companion’s last comment. “As I said before, the generator could be from a lone miner hoping to strike it rich. Or maybe Maynard Mining is considering resurrecting the site. I’m sure the mayor would probably know.”
Goldie looked at the woman, then at the priest. If she could see her, he certainly would’ve seen her by now, too.Unless,she thought, he couldn’t see her. Then she realized she’d seen that same lost expression on someone else’s face in Sparkledove. She’d seen it on Claude Bolton.
“Uh, that’s a good thought,” she responded, still waiting for Father to acknowledge the woman. “Maybe Maynard Miningisconsiderin’ doin’ somethin’ with the mine again. But let me look into it, Padre, please. I think this needs to be done very discreetly.”
“What am I going to tell folks?” he asked. “That I trespassed up here with a visitor, then let her break into a mine?”
The woman turned off the road and walked up the pathway that led to the partially open front door of the director of operations’ house.
“That’s a cool lookin’ house,” she said. “Mind if I take a moment and peek inside?”
Father looked at the house and directly at the woman going into it through the open door.
“Nowthatplace reallycouldfall down around your head at a moment’s notice,” he answered, oblivious to the woman. “Part of it already has. See?” He gestured to the right-hand side of the house and the single-story wing where the roof had collapsed.
“I’m just gonna look through the front door,” Goldie said, now convinced that Father wasn’t seeing what she was. “I’ll be right back.”
As she walked toward the door, the clergyman shook his head and muttered. “‘I’ve got to look at the mine. I’ve got to look at the house,’” he said quietly, mimicking Goldie. “This must be why husbands hate to go shopping with their wives.”
The inside of the house featured a large foyer and a staircase. At the top of the stairs was a railing and landing that was about six feet wide and led to the upstairs bedrooms. By the time Goldie peeked around the partially opened door, the blonde-haired woman in the nightgown was most of the way up the stairs. Goldie watched wide-eyed as the woman reached the top of the stairs, then walked to the middle of the railing directly above the center of the foyer. She took one end of the rope and started to tie it to the railing. It was obvious what she intended to do. Once the rope was secure, she was going to put the noose around her neck, climb over the railing, and jump. Goldie was halfway tempted to either call out to her or run up the stairs and try to stop her. But she also somehow knew such efforts weren’t going to make a difference.
“Goldie,” Father Fitz called. “I think I’ve been a pretty good sport about all this. But I really need to get on with my day.”
She sadly watched the woman for a few more seconds, then turned and walked away, not wanting to see the inevitable. “Okay… comin’,” she agreed.
She was noticeably distant as they rounded the bend in the dirt road, returned to the gate, slid through the chain opening one at a time, then headed down the road toward the covered bridge with pine roping that now hung on either side. As they neared it, the priest finally spoke up.
“You okay? You seem to be lost in thought.”
She took a beat before answering. “Since I arrived in town, things keep occurrin’ in my life that I can’t explain. Not, ‘What’s goin’ on at the mine?’ although I want to know—but—other things. Things that trouble me. Things where I can’t connect the dots.”
“Maybe the dots aren’t supposed to connect,” he suggested.
“Whatdaya mean?”
“Let’s say, you’re driving down the highway and you see a dead dog on the side of the road. You saw it. It’s sad. But it’s not really connected to you. It’s just something you saw. The only thing that connects you and the dog is a road that goes on for hundreds of miles.”
“Compartmentalization,” she realized. “You’re saying to compartmentalize.”
“Maybe it would help,” he nodded.
