Forbidden Ground (Cold Creek #2)(26)
Though they were alone with the door closed, Brad leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I don’t want to rat on him, but I actually think Todd went to see Paul about something. I didn’t want to say that, thought you’d believe I’d made it up to discredit him.”
“You mean, I’d think he could be the one who ransacked Paul’s place or worse?” Grant demanded. He was starting to feel sick to his stomach. Kate had said she’d overheard Todd and Paul arguing and now this. “I’ll talk to him.”
“Better you than Deputy Miller, alias Barney Fife,” Brad said. “How many reruns of The Andy Griffith Show did we watch when we were growing up, huh?”
“Don’t try to change the subject. Jace Miller is doing a good job while Gabe’s away. He’s been hit with two big investigations—Paul’s death and major tree theft, and he’s stretched pretty thin.”
“Right.” He drawled the word as if he didn’t believe it. Brad bounced up from his seat, nearly tripped as he headed for the door then bumped his shoulder against the door frame on his way out. “See you later, boss and bro,” he threw over his shoulder.
Grant sighed. He hadn’t dismissed Brad, but he was glad to see the backside of him. He’d considered bringing up the fact he figured Brad was drinking, even during the day. He hadn’t smelled booze on him and his speech hadn’t seemed slurred, though his exit was a little shaky. Brad had always held his liquor well. But with so many saws and presses here, the mill had strict rules against drinking or drugs that dulled reaction time. Brad had always joked about this being a cutting-edge business. Grant felt that way now, like he was riding the rails toward a buzz saw—and, despite how much he wanted her, the sharp, clever Dr. Kate Lockwood might just be that blade.
*
Kate laid out both identical reddish-tipped stars on a cloth on the kitchen table and stared at them. She’d retrieved the second one from Cold Creek Mound with a fishing pole. The design did not suggest Adena symbolism—and they were too new and obviously manufactured—although the idea of them being blood-tipped echoed the way Celtic shamans had probably tipped the antler points of the Beastmaster mask either in blood or ocher pigment. She was picturing the frightening mask she’d seen in a museum in Denmark when a sharp knock on the back door nearly sent her through the ceiling.
Carson Cantrell’s clean-cut, almost boyish face popped into view through the storm-door window. With his neatly trimmed brown hair, Carson looked younger than his forty-nine years.
“Wherefore art thou, my Kate? Kiss me, Kate!” he called to her as she opened the door for him.
He hugged her hard and she hugged him back, then moved away from him quickly. After that kiss with Grant today—well, she just couldn’t let Carson kiss her.
“You should have told me you were coming, and I’d have baked a cake, but I have something better,” she said, walking to the other side of the small kitchen table while he closed the door. “Look what someone left on at least two of the local mounds, including Mason Mound. I think it’s blood on the tips, just like on the Beastmaster mask.”
The stars instantly captured his attention. He bent closely over them, whipped his glasses out of his suit-coat pocket—didn’t he know to dress casually around here? But then, Carson came from old money. His great-great-grandfather had made a fortune in the Akron, Ohio, rubber business, knew Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison and all that meant. Carson’s beautiful old home in a Columbus suburb was full of various art collections.
Carson had tenure at Ohio State, but Kate figured he could leave his teaching career and his collection of adoring students anytime to become an art collector—his other hobby beyond archaeology. Though he appreciated the finer things in life, he didn’t mind getting his hands dirty when he led excavation teams. She watched as he studied the stars close-up.
“Illegal desecration of the mounds,” he said. “But I’m glad to hear you’ve been exploring Mason Mound. That’s our target, darling, and we can’t just go waltzing in there with trowels, sieves and needle picks. Not until you get the man’s permission one way or the other. But, unlike with the old artifacts,” he went on, his voice in lecture mode now, “you’re right about this being clotted blood, so what’s the message here?”
9
As they leaned over the table and Carson studied the metal stars, Kate told him her theory. “Grant and I think there’s some symbolic message here, so I’m guessing the blood on the tips ties in to that.”
“Grant and I?” he repeated, taking a seat at the table. “I like the sound of that.” He produced a penlight from his jacket’s inner pocket, slid the cloth with the stars closer to him and shined a thin beam on one of them. “If you two are working together on this, there’s more to come—namely getting into that Adena mound on his property. I could try to get a court order, but it would take a while. Eminent domain versus private-property rights is a touchy subject, and we don’t need a setback or negative PR.”
He smiled at her. “Besides, I’d prefer to set up on his land to explore the interior of the mound, and I’d rather have him on our side. But tell me what you have discovered or analyzed about these stars.”
“We’re theorizing they were put there by a local religious-cult leader, who calls himself Bright Star. He’s got quite a group of followers in the Hear Ye compound not far down the road from here. He doesn’t like me. I got upset and more or less told him the Adena were less pagan than he is. His real name is Brice Monson.”