"Thank you," she said as she started putting it on. It was then that I noticed she was wearing a wet suit. Was that where the mask had come from?
I grabbed her by the arm. "Oh no, you don't. You're not going in there."
"Because of Fred," Lauren said.
"Don't worry. I have this!" Betty pulled out a harpoon gun, which Rex wisely confiscated.
"No fair!" the girl protested. "Do you realize how long it took me to put this on?"
"Where did you get that?" I craned my neck to see a set of oxygen tanks on her back. I really needed to check my credit card statement.
She shrugged. "I brought them for all the girls. We wanted to go looking for Fred."
I shook my head to clear the water from my ears. "You brought them here?"
Betty wiggled her eyebrows at the other girls, who giggled. "No, I didn't have your credit card back home. I ordered them through Amazon. You're a Prime member, so we got one-day shipping."
"Didn't you notice the packages on the porch when we pulled up?" Inez asked.
Kaitlyn twirled her finger at the side of her head to imply I was nuts. I was starting to believe that I really was.
"Okay, no more using my credit card."
"How did you get them to send you a harpoon gun?" Rex asked as he studied it. He sounded more impressed than chastisey.
"More importantly." Kelly joined us. "Why on Earth did you stick your head in there?"
That's when I noticed she was holding a syringe full of clear liquid.
"What are you going to do with that?"
"It's a tetanus shot," she replied, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to have. "I brought my medical kit just in case. And since you were in there, I'm using it on you and Ava."
"You have a tetanus shot in your bag?" I gaped.
Kelly shrugged. "I have a few of them. Be prepared. I called in a few favors at the hospital before we left."
All five girls shuddered simultaneously. I guess shots were their Kryptonite.
"Okay, but not right now," I requested.
Kelly let her arm drop. "You still didn't answer me."
I tilted my head to one side and smacked it on the other. "When I got out of the river, my feet didn't have any purchase. I think there are caves underneath the property."
Without a word, the girls began putting on wet suits.
"No, no!" I shouted. "Take those off. We aren't going down there."
"Of course we are," Betty argued and nodded at the girls, who began dressing again. "It's the lair of Fred! We need to kill him!"
Lauren raised one finger. "Or we could capture him for science."
"We don't even have lights," I protested.
"Hand me your cell." Betty held her hand out. "I can get them here overnight."
"I mean, we're not going down there." I thought of the garter snake holes we'd found dotting the yard. "I need to check something."
On a hunch, I headed for the garage, leaving Rex and Kelly alone to deal with the lamentations of the troop. Once inside, I found a six-foot-long, hollow metal tube with the end encrusted with dirt. Bingo. I was back in the yard moments later, searching for one of the holes.
I found one and slowly drove the tube into the dirt at the edge of one of the holes, making it even wider.
Kaitlyn appeared. "What are you doing?"
"Do you remember," I said as I gently began pushing the post into the soil, "when we went to that museum in Des Moines last spring? The natural history one?"
"Yeah," Inez answered as she appeared. The other girls circled around us.
"Remember the woman who studied fungus from soil samples?" I asked as Kelly and Rex came over.
"Yeah. Boring," Betty said.
Kelly defended the scientist. "It wasn't boring to her."
"You said it was a good thing that someone had a thing for fungus so you wouldn't have to do that job," Lauren said.
"Well, yes, I did say that." Kelly caught my eye. "But that was rude and wrong of me."
I still thought it was boring, but I was now glad we had gone because it gave me this idea. I kept feeding the tube into the dirt until it was only six inches above ground. Then I pulled it up just as slowly. After a few minutes, I pulled it free from the ground.
The rod was heavier, being packed with dirt. But the other end was soaking wet. I'd hit the top of the cave.
The others looked at me expectantly. They just saw me messing with the dirt and most likely believed I'd finally lost it. "I wondered why there were all these holes."
"You said it was garter snakes." Ava eyed me suspiciously.
"I did. That's right. And maybe they are. But even garter snakes don't go this low. At least, I don't think they do."
Rex caught on. "You want to check the soil sample."
"I do. It's probably nothing. In fact, it's most likely a fool's errand. But why did someone do this already? And why was this tool in the garage? Someone was looking for something."
Kelly shrugged. "If Aunt June was planning to sell this plot of land to developers, maybe she was worried about the stability of it. If there are caves underneath, no one would want to build here."
Rex added, "She couldn't sell the land if it was unstable. It makes sense that she was concerned about that. In fact, this whole area was mined hundreds of years ago. For lead. That could explain the cave."
"I agree." I handed him the pole. "Isn't there a river museum in Dubuque? Maybe they have a geologist there."
His eyebrows went up, and he took the pole reluctantly. "You're sending me on a Ned Nickerson errand."
I nodded. "I am. And like I said, this is probably nothing. I just don't want to rule it out. What did Aunt June know? And was she keeping it a secret from potential buyers?"
"Okay,"
