shouldn’t I help you? I could show you openings to some of the caves I know near there. It’s not like I have to nail down my takeover strategy for Citibank in the next ten minutes. Hey, don’t sputter your coffee on that pretty sofa, Dix—I was joking. But still, I don’t understand any of this. These caves, why do you want to get into them?”
Savich said, “We’re following up on what happened to Ruth down there, Mr. Holcombe. She got into one of those caves somehow, through Winkel’s Cave.”
“So there may be both a front and back door,” Ruth said.
“Maybe there’s one that passes through to Winkel’s Cave. I remember I stumbled across an opening into a large cave near there when I was a boy looking for arrowheads. Only thing was, it was a dead end, only the one cavern. But then again I don’t remember if I looked all that closely through there, and I haven’t been back in forty- odd years. The entrance I’m thinking about is over near Lone Tree Hill, in the steep side of a gully.” He paused, pulled on his earlobe. “I’ll have to show you, what with the snow covering everything.”
Dix shot a look at Savich, who shrugged and nodded.
Ten minutes later, the five of them climbed into Dix’s Range Rover pressed in between the caving equipment along with four lanterns from Chappy’s stash of camping gear.
“A lantern and a flashlight is all you need. I never liked those built-on headlights,” Chappy said to no one in particular.
“This is a sweet car,” Chappy continued, patting the dashboard. “Christie loved this car, said the Brits got it right with this one. I bought it for her for Christmas three years back. It’s the Westminster Edition, only three hundred of them imported that year. She liked this soft black leather, said she loved to get it up to ninety just to watch your face go red, Dix, and your fingers turn white clutching the chicken stick.”
Chappy saw the closed look on Dix’s face, the same look he’d worn for nearly a year now. At least it was better than the blank despair Dix had shown that first year.
Dix didn’t respond. They both looked out at the road in silence, and Ruth was left to wonder where Christie was. If she’d left, why hadn’t she taken her prized car?
After a couple of minutes, Dix said, as he wiped his gloved hand over the bit of fog on the windshield, “
You guys okay back there? Enough room?”
Savich laughed. “I’ve been trying to talk Sherlock onto my lap, but no go. Yes, there’s plenty of room for us and all the lanterns, too.”
Ruth said, “Hey, Dillon, when I get my driver’s license replaced, will you let me drive the Porsche?”
“You think I’d let someone drive my Porsche who didn’t even know who she was until yesterday?
Forget it, Ruth.”
Sherlock said, “Your amnesia has nothing to do with it, Ruth. He won’t let anyone drive that car.”
Chappy turned in the seat. “A Porsche?”
“Yes, sir, a 911 Classic. Red, nearly as old as I am.”
“You’re a big guy—you fit in that thing?”
“He fits great,” Sherlock said. “I have to beat the women off with a stick.”
“More often it’s the guys,” Savich said, “with their heads under the hood.”
Chappy had Dix turn right off Raintree Road onto a single-lane road that was covered in snow and badly rutted. Dix said, “No one’s ever plowed this road. The snow looks pretty deep but I think we can get through. The Rover has never let me down.”
It was slow going, the snow reaching nearly to the top of the Range Rover’s wheels at times, but they kept moving. They passed a couple of old wooden houses set in hollows of land a good ways back from the road, surrounded by trees, snow piled high around them and over the old cars parked in the driveways.
Dix said more to himself than to anyone else, “That’s Walt McGuffey’s place. It doesn’t look like he’s left the house in a while. I’d better call Emory, have him check to see if Guff is okay.” He pulled out his cell phone and called the station.
When he signed off, Ruth noticed how quiet it was out in the woods. The bright midday sun beat down, glistening off the white hills, sending drops of snowmelt falling in a rapid cadence from the naked oak branches.
The road dead-ended about fifty feet ahead. Dix said, “I don’t think we should go off-road in this snow.”
“Don’t try, we’re close enough,” Chappy said. “We’ve got us a little hike now. Ruth, you up for it?”
“Yes, sir,” Ruth said. “A little thump on the head wouldn’t stop me. I’m up for about anything.”
“Bring your shovel, Dix,” Chappy said.
The snow was so deep it was inside their boots within fifteen steps of the road. They heard a rustle in the trees to their left, and a rabbit appeared, stared at them, and hopped back into the woods, up to his neck in snow.
“I don’t think he’s one of the bad guys,” Dix said. “Look around you, it doesn’t get more beautiful than this.”
Chappy said, “Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular PR guy for Maestro, and here you are, a city boy.”
Dix rolled his eyes. “Not anymore, Chappy. I’ll tell you, when I visited my family in New York City last year, it seemed like I’d landed on a different planet.”
Ruth bent over to retie her boot laces. “How much farther, Mr. Holcombe?”
“Call me Chappy, Special Agent.”
Ruth laughed. “I guess you’d best call me Ruth.”
“I’ll try, Ruth. But you know, that sounds like you stepped out of the Old Testament or should be home, spinning cloth in front of a fire.” Chappy stopped a moment, scanned. “Over there, I think, another thirty or so yards,” he said, pointing. “You can see Lone Tree Hill—that single oak tree standing on top of that rise? It’s been standing sentinel up there longer than I’ve had feet on the ground. The snow’s really changed how everything looks—the snow and all the years.”
They trudged on toward that single oak tree. Nearly goose-stepping through the snow with the bright sun overhead, they weren’t cold, but their feet were wet through. “Rob’s got lots of wool socks he can lend us, if you need any,” Ruth said to Sherlock. “Dix can see to Dillon.”
Chappy held up his hand, stopped. They were standing some ten feet from the edge of a gully that fell at least twenty feet, forming a bowl of sorts some thirty feet across. The sides of the gully were covered with scraggly trees and blackberry bushes, all weighed down with snow. Lone Tree Hill stood to their left, upslope, the oak tree silhouetted against a cobalt sky, its branches laden with snow. Ruth said, “It looks sort of like a Christmas tree. I’ll bet it’s a favorite for photographers.”
“Yeah, but mostly from a distance. Few people come up here,” Chappy said, wiping snow off his arms. “
My wife loved to paint that tree, in every season. A lot of people can see it from all around here.”
Chappy pointed to the far side of the gully. “Over there, by that bent old pine tree, that’s where the cave opening is. That old tree looked near death when I was a boy. It still looks like it’s about to fall over.”
Once they’d made it across the gully and climbed up some six feet, Chappy stopped. “The opening must be right there, beneath all that brush.”
The brush came away easily, too easily. Savich stepped back when Dix began to shovel away the snow that had fallen through the brush. When he hit solid rock, he looked over his shoulder at Chappy. “You’
re sure, Chappy? There doesn’t seem to be an opening here. Should I try to the left or the right?”
Chappy shook his head. “Nope, right there, Dix, by the twisted old bush. I’m not totally senile yet.”
“Wait a minute,” Savich said. He squatted down and wiped away the remaining dirt and snow with his gloved hand. “Chappy’s right. This is the spot all right. That brush came away awfully easy, didn’t it, Dix? It looks like somebody’s packed a bunch of rocks in here. To hide the entrance.”
“They did a nice job of it,” Sherlock said. “It’s invisible until you brush it clean and look real close. This could be where you got out, Ruth. It looks like somebody’s trying to cover up that cave from both ends.”
“Dix, you think you can pry those rocks out of the way with your shovel?” Ruth asked.
“Let’s give it a shot,” Dix said. He wedged the shovel beneath the lowest rocks and shoved it down into the earth. It took a lot of muscle, but after five minutes, Sherlock had pulled out the last stone. They caught their breath, staring at a cave opening in the side of the hill, maybe four feet high, three feet wide. They looked into blackness.
“Just a moment, Dix,” Chappy said, elbowing his way forward. “Let me check this out first.” Chappy leaned down into the opening. “Yep, I remember now. There’s the easy slope downward, to the right. You have to press
