Ahead, the town of Dredge sparkled in the afternoon sunlight. The history of the place was a variation of a well-worn tale in the Rocky Mountains. Back in the late eighteen hundreds a handful of men had found gold in the river running through the center of the valley. They’d struck it rich, and word had gotten out. Even these thirteen-thousand-foot fortress walls couldn’t hold that piece of information secret for long.
One man from Denver with deep pockets named Victor Hanfield decided to come up and get in on the action. He had built himself a Dredge to extract the gold from the river, but at industrial levels. According to Piper’s father’s account, Hanfield succeeded mightily, buying up more claims, pushing other small-timers, which was everyone else, out before they could compete.
He built a hotel. He built a casino. He built a theater. Over the next few decades he took his hoard of gold and built the town. More people came. And the town flourished for a short time. They named the town Dredge, after Hanfield’s machine that made it all possible.
But then Hanfield died, and after that the town went into a steep decline. Nobody could seem to find the gold like the famed man from Denver with a Dredge.
Now the town was a step or two above a ghost town, with only a population of 1,300 people in peak summer season. Hanfield’s Dredge was a battered, weathered, shell, lying on the shores of the river just off Main Street. The casino in town had been converted to a warehouse sometime in the mid-1950s. The hotel was still a hotel, but nothing anybody wanted to stay at. The theater had shut down at the turn of the century.
Now a new resurgence was trying to take hold. A mega-corporation had moved in, building a monstrous casino on the southern edge of town, trying to pull people into the valley like Hanfield had all those years ago. As far as Piper could see, the corporation had made a poor investment. But, then again, she was no businesswoman.
She was a cop. And with that thought, she looked toward the other side of the valley, where a lone vehicle kicked up dirt on the road that she knew led up to the mine.
Wind came in through her open window, buffeting the side of her face, pushing against the car so hard she had to hold the wheel tight. The scent of grass and crystal-clear air filled the cab. She tapped the wheel with both thumbs, even though no music came out of her radio. The combination of her assignment and brisk air had her humming.
She flicked her eyes back to that dirt road that led to the mine. Rick Hammes lived on that road, too, just outside of town. Hammes was one bad cookie and she didn't relish the thought of getting eyes on him. It would definitely be a drive-by, she decided. And she would be driving fast. The guy had already proven he had a penchant for shooting up cars, and she’d hate to be next.
Once she reached Dredge, she decided to hang a right on Main Street and stop at Mary Ellen Dimitri’s first.
The noise lessened as she drove off the dirt and up onto the freshly laid pavement of the state highway. She passed The Motherlode Casino on the left, the colossal rectangular building covered in an earth-toned stucco erected ten years ago that was trying to rekindle Mr. Hanfield’s magic. She was glad her father wasn’t with her now. He would have said, “It’s a damn shame they littered this valley with that monstrosity.” He would have thought he was being clever saying it, and not just repeating the same thing he’d been saying for the last ten years.
Piper came out of her thoughts and made a right on Poppy Lane, easing off of Main onto potholed dirt. A plume of dust kicked up behind her, billowing past the front of her car and into the windows. She coughed and rolled up the windows as she slowed at the corner of Third and Poppy.
Mary Ellen Dimitri's house stood on the corner. It was identical to the others on the street, boxy and small, one of many two-bedroom houses built sometime in the early 1900s. She parked along the side of the house and got out.
In between wind gusts the sun warmed her skin. The faint scent of bar food from somewhere in town rode on the breeze, making her mouth water. She had eaten only a snack for lunch before she left. She could eat later.
She walked around the side of the house to the front porch, swishing her feet through long, unkempt grass that she suspected had yet to see a lawnmower this year.
Stepping up onto the concrete slab in front of the door, she pressed the glowing doorbell. As she backed off the porch, the image of Chris Oakley’s dead body sprawled across that monster machine the day before flashed in her mind. She put her palm on her holstered Glock and stood alert, waiting for Mary Ellen Dimitri to show herself at the door or one of the windows.
Thirty seconds went by with no answer, so she walked up, this time knocking heartily on the front door. She put her ear close, hearing nothing. Then she put her ear directly on the warmed surface. Still nothing.
Two windows at the front of the house flanked the front door. She went to the edge of the porch and leaned over the metal railing to get a good look inside the left one. She stumbled forward as the iron railing gave way from the side of the house. Sucking in a sharp breath she grabbed behind her, barely catching the edge of the brick surrounding
