She looked at Father Fitz. “Y’know, for someone young, you talk like you been doin’ this priest stuff for years.”
He smiled appreciatively. “Thanks. But I have to ask: Is that it? Are we done with your confession?”
“Yeah… I think so.”
“Good.” He blessed her with a prayer of absolution, then added: “For your penance, say a rosary, stay away from your old boyfriend, and don’t ever bring me up here again.”
Fifteen
ANSWERS & KISSES
As soon as she got to her hotel, Goldie went to work. The first thing she did was go up to her room and write herself some instructions in all caps that read: SEPARATE THE SUICIDES FROM THE FAMILIAR SONG LYRICS! SEPARATE THE TIME TRAVEL FROM WHAT YOU SAW IN THE MINE! Then, she wrote out a list of questions to help identify possible connections. Questions like:
• Where was the headquarters of Maynard Mining?
• Are they still in business?
• Why did they leave Sparkledove?
• What happened to the mineral rights?
• Who made the holes in tunnel “22” and why?
• What was in that envelope given to the mayor?
And since she saw Eli Johnson and the mayor’s two tough-looking associates, Tully and Crosby, cordoning off streets together, she wrote one more question:
• Does Banyan have Sheriff Johnson in his back pocket?
She figured that if she could get the answers to these questions, a lot of other facts would start to fall into place.This has to be my mission!She thought to herself.Otherwise, what am I doin’ here?”
Realizing she still had time to catch the morning bus to Denver, she changed into a dress, made sure she had her pencils and notebook, then grabbed her overcoat and gloves. She grabbed a cup of coffee for the road from the restaurant, returned the flashlight she’d borrowed, then looked in the Denver phone book to see if there was an address for Maynard Mining. There wasn’t, so she got the address of another mining company, as well as the address of the Denver Mining Museum. She also wanted to return to the Denver library and verify a couple of things she’d read about Sparkledove. She caught the bus just before it left at 9:10 a.m., ready to research.
First, she went to the Big D Mining Company, flashed her business card, and met with a man named Matt Colvin. He was very knowledgeable about the state’s mining history and informed Goldie that Maynard Mining had gone out of business in 1930 after nearly eighty years. Colvin also verified facts that Goldie had read during her first visit to Denver. The most important of these was in 1882, when new, larger deposits of both gold and silver were discovered closer to Denver, and it was simply more profitable to mine those deposits than the remote and harsher location of Sparkledove. Large and smaller operations may have moved away, but that didn’t necessarily mean Maynard’s mine in Sparkledove was totally played out, as both Charles Banyan and Eli Johnson had said. In fact, after meeting with Colvin, Goldie returned to the Denver Library to reread the articles about Sparkledove. The articles only said that companies moved on to more lucrative opportunities. She concluded that that could certainly mean there was more silver to be found. But so many years had passed that nobody in town realized it.
Next, she went to the Denver Mining Museum. She learned that the usual way mining companies negotiated for mineral rights in a populated area was to contact homeowners and offer them a lease contract where they would receive a small percentage of profits for any ore mined on their land or transported underneath it. According to the law, a landowner’s land was his or hers, whether silver was found six inches or six hundred feet below the ground. So, standard contracts were offered to homeowners who, in most cases, were only too happy to lease their mineral rights since they had no way of finding, extracting, or separating the ore. To them, it was free money. If a mining company ceased operations for a certain period of time or went out of business, it invalidated all leases. But the best way to assure absolute mining rights was to purchase the homes outright.
She also learned that one way to find additional veins of silver in a mine was to drill small holes, then extract samples and look for silver ore. Once a sample of silver ore was found and weighed, the size of the vein could be determined, and a likely yield from the vein could be estimated. Such estimates held no guarantees, but estimates done by geological engineers did provide circumstantial evidence of potential wealth. She asked someone at the museum about the current price of silver. Since she was used to double-checking Markie’s books, she was a whiz with numbers and did some quick calculations. At a 1942 price of $1.29 an ounce, a ton of silver was worth $41,280.00. Five tons would be worth $206,400.00. Adjusting for inflation, she figured that would be worth over $3,200,000.00 in present-day money. And when one considered that gold was often found with silver, very serious money could be made, depending on the tonnage, if there was a forgotten vein in tunnel “22.”
She returned to the Denver bus terminal at 3:15 p.m., where she stopped and chatted with her friend Gerome, the maintenance man. Fortunately, she didn’t encounter his irritating, racist boss, Bradley Hammersville.
The day had been very productive, and she’d gotten several answers to her questions. It was about 4:15 in the afternoon when Goldie was walking from the bus stop back to the Sparkledove Arms. A little to her surprise, as she was approaching the lobby door, Eli Johnson came out of it. He was wearing his usual tan uniform and brown suede jacket and gave her a nod. She wasn’t particularly pleased to see him. Partly because he’d refused to let her go see the Maynard mining operation, partly because he thought her queries about the covered bridge, Claude Bolton, and Bucky Eggleston were off track with her reason for being in town, and partly because she’d seen him associating with two men that she instinctively knew were goons for the mayor.
“Howdy,” he greeted in his Gene Audrey way.
“What can I do for you, Sheriff?” she asked, unenthused.
“I was just looking for you. Took your advice and had a chat with Martha Eggleston. She told me about all the coffee Bucky had been drinking the day he died and how he hated decaf.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. She also told me where their wrecked car was. So, I drove out to the junkyard and looked it over. Saw a couple of things that were interesting.”
“Like what?”
“His front wheels were turned to the right, like he swerved to avoid something. When his vehicle went off the road, it rolled several times before stopping. So thatcould’vecaused the wheels to be in that position. But…”
“But what?”
