Mining for Justice Read online

  They spent the afternoon peeking under protective sheets, poking into closets, opening boxes. Chloe helped Claudia determine which objects were most at risk, which ideally should be moved, those that were stable where they were.

  Claudia peppered Chloe with questions: “Should I try to clean this shawl? … How can I store this map until we can afford to buy a case for flat storage? … Have you ever seen this type of cutwork before?” Chloe didn’t have all the answers, but it was fun to talk curatorial stuff with a colleague. Nice to be needed.

  They were finishing up one of the bedrooms when a beautiful flowerpot, pale yellow with brown streaks, caught her eye. “Is this Klais pottery?”

  Claudia looked startled. “It is. Do you study pottery in particular?”

  “Hardly. But Adam found a few pieces in the root cellar at Chy Looan. I thought it was pretty.”

  “I’ve talked with Winter about reproducing this piece for site use. She’s excited about it. But there’s no money to make repros.”

  “There’s no money yet.”

  They worked until the late afternoon. “We got a good start,” Claudia said.

  Chloe stepped to the lone window. “It looks like it might rain. Clouds are—oh!”

  “What?”

  “I just caught a glimpse of a girl in period clothing running into the woods.” Chloe gestured toward a grove of trees on top of the upper property. “I assume that was Holly?”

  “Without a doubt. She gets to come here after school.”

  “Lucky girl.”

  Claudia began folding a linen tablecloth, carefully cushioning the textile with acid-free tissue. “Loren gave his okay. She has to wear period clothing, she can’t bother me while I’m working, and she can’t go to Dark Hill alone. In the summer she plays quoits on the lawn with visiting kids. She must be in hundreds of photo albums.”

  “I wish I could have wandered around some historic site when I was nine.” Chloe sighed wistfully.

  Claudia’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you, Chloe.”

  Chloe wasn’t sure what she was being thanked for, but she was glad—once again—that she could help.

  When Roel­ke turned the corner onto Hackberry Lane late that afternoon, he saw a yellow two-door Ford Fiesta hatchback parked in front of the house he’d been watching. He pulled over well behind the Ford and called Marie to run the plates. “George 220,” she responded. “License and registration up to date, no outstanding warrants.”

  “Thanks,” Roel­ke said. “George 220 out.” This was getting old.

  The driver, a skinny white woman wearing blue jeans and a pink sweater, came out of the house, slid into the car, and drove away. Then she paused at the corner, displaying one burned out brake light.

  Bingo. He hit the flashers and went after her. She pulled over on the next block.

  Roel­ke reported his status to Marie before approaching the car. “Good afternoon,” he said in his pleasant-but-serious cop voice.

  The woman stared ahead. She was about twenty, with blond hair feathered in poufy layers. She looked like a college student or kindergarten teacher. But a blister on her lower lip was probably caused by a too-hot crack pipe.

  “What’s the problem, officer?” She didn’t meet his gaze. Sitting rigid, pressed against the seat, she gripped the steering wheel with white-knuckled fingers.

  “Your left rear brake light is burned out. May I see your license and registration please?”

  “I’ll get the light fixed right away.”

  “Good. May I see your license and registration?”

  She grabbed a purse from the passenger seat and dug out her license. “Here.”

  Roel­ke glanced at it. The name matched what Marie had given him: Michelle Zietz of Oconomowoc. “And the registration?”

  “It’s in the glove compartment.”

  “Get it out.”

  For a moment he thought Zietz wasn’t going to move. Finally she reached for it, moving stiffly, slowly. Had she stashed drugs in there? A weapon? He let his hand rest on his own gun.

  Then he spotted the triangle of plastic emerging behind her hip. He opened the door. “Get out of the car.”

  “But—”

  “Out of the car, now!”

  Zietz got out of the car. The baggie of crack cocaine she’d tried to hide behind her back fell to the seat.

  Busted, Roel­ke thought, and reached for his handcuffs.

  After searching the car and finding no more drugs, he drove Zietz back to the PD in silence. It was good to let her stew for a few minutes. Ultimately, he didn’t want her. He wanted the people she’d been buying from, and he needed her help.

  The station was empty. Roel­ke pointed at the chair beside the officers’ desk. Zietz sat, her hands twisting together anxiously in her lap.

  Roel­ke took the desk chair. “So, Michelle. Tell me about yourself.”

  “Wh-what do you want to know?” she quavered.

  Prompting her along, he learned that she lived with her parents and younger brother. She was a freshman at Carroll College in Waukesha, on a partial scholarship, and planned to major in political science. She had never been arrested before, she assured him earn-estly.

  When she’d run down, Roel­ke leaned forward and regarded her intently. “Michelle, I don’t think you realize how much trouble you’re in. Prosecutors consider possession of a controlled substance a very serious crime, and Wisconsin law regulates strict consequences.”

  Zietz’s eyes grew wider.

  “All drug offenses trigger a mandatory driver’s license suspension for up to five years. Convicted felons are not eligible for academic grants or other forms of financial aid. And felony possession of cocaine leads to a ten-thousand-dollar fine plus three and a half years in prison.”

  “Oh my God! My parents are going to kill me.” She looked dazed, and her skin had turned blotchy. “Oh, my, God.”

  “I might be able to help minimize the damage you’ve done to your future,” Roel­ke continued, “but it depends on the choices you make now—”

  “I’ll do anything!”

  “We’re going to have three conversations. The first is the one we’re having now, just exchanging information. Next, we’re going to go on the record. You must be completely honest so I can testify in court that you are a reliable witness. You will provide an oral statement, and then a written statement. Third, and only if I believe your statement was truthful and thorough, we will talk about what you can do to maybe get yourself out of this trouble.”

  “What do you need to know?” the young woman asked frantically. “I’ll tell you everything.”

  Zietz’s story held no surprises. She’d never done drugs in high school, but new college friends got her started. (“I was such an idiot!”) One of them pointed her toward the house on Hackberry Lane. She’d bought crack there three times, counting today. (“How could I have been so stupid!”) She didn’t know the dealers’ names but she’d seen a man and a woman. (“You won’t have to take me to prison because my parents are going to kill me!”) The descriptions she provided matched the homeowners, Greg and Marjorie Trieloff.

  “Okay,” Roel­ke said, when her written statement was complete. “On to conversation number three. I have to emphasize that I can’t promise anything. Do you understand?”

  She wiped away a tear. “Yes.”

  “I believe you are capable of helping me out as a CI. A confidential informant.”

  “I’ve already told you everything I know!”

  “But I want to nail the dealers, and I need more help. If you agree to participate, you will sign an agreement spelling out your role as a CI. I will need you to go back to that house several times. Each time you will buy more crack with money that I provide. You will be wired to record the conversations. If you agree to the plan, I will hold all charges ag
ainst you while you complete the buys.”

  Zietz chewed her lower lip.

  “Then I will write a letter to the DA’s office and explain in detail how helpful you were, and your willingness to attend a drug-treatment program. The amount of crack found in your possession suggests personal use, not resale, and that’s in your favor too. I will explain how I believe your assistance and remorse should be rewarded by permanently dropping the charges.” He folded his arms. “Think hard about—”

  “I’ll do it,” Michelle Zietz said.

  Chloe and Claudia emerged from Trelawny House at the end of the afternoon. “Ooh, definitely looks like rain,” Claudia said. “I’ve got to get today’s take from Audrey in the gift shop, then round up Holly and scoot home. She knows she has to come by my office by five. You coming?”

  Chloe looked toward Dark Hill, then she squinted at the black clouds sailing overhead. A breeze had kicked up, but the energy appealed to her. She didn’t want to think about skeletons with crushed skulls, or Gerald’s glares, or Dr. Yvonne Miller’s criticisms, or overwhelming curatorial needs.

  “I’m not quite ready to head back to Tamsin’s place,” she said. “I’m going to take a quick walk before it rains.”

  “See you tomorrow.” Claudia hurried away.

  As Chloe lifted a hand in farewell a blue Mustang—battered but still cool—pulled up at the curb down the street. Rita, the young interpreter, hurried toward the car. She still wore period garb, and a glowing smile lit her face. She slid into the car, and she and the driver indulged in a passionate embrace. When they finally separated and he drove past, neither glanced in Chloe’s direction. She got only a glimpse of the guy, who was wearing a rakish red bandana pirate-style on his head.

  Young love, Chloe thought wistfully. She didn’t want Roel­ke to drive a Mustang or start wearing a bandana. But she did miss her guy. It would be good to talk with him that evening.

  She crossed Shake Rag Street and took the trail she’d followed that morning. There was no birdsong now, just the wind sighing through the trees. The temperature was dropping and the air smelled damp. She grinned, soaking it all in. Maybe the old miners were beckoning her: Don’t be content with the houses. Tell our stories too.

  Or maybe it was something more elemental. She was of pure Norwegian descent, and while she didn’t make nearly as big a deal about that as her parents did, she did embrace the notion of friluftsliv—free air life. It had compelled her to attend forestry school and earn a degree in nature interpretation before beginning her history career. It was one of the reasons she loved Old World Wisconsin, which sprawled on 576 acres within the Kettle Moraine State Forest. And it was one of the reasons she loved the old Roel­ke farm, which was bounded on two sides by that same forest. After this break she’d be better able to think, to talk with Tamsin that evening, to face Gerald’s scowls the next day.

  She climbed until she reached the badger hole Loren and Gerald were constructing. She stepped over the orange safety rope they’d strung and looked down from the edge. The badger hole was a tidy rectangle over five feet deep. Once Loren got a brush-and-sod roof in place, it would be impressive. She imagined Gerald interpreting here, perhaps cooking—

  A gentle pressure glanced against her back. Then she was falling.

  Before her brain accepted that, she hit bottom. Really, really hard. She flopped onto her back and lay motionless for a moment, gasping and stunned, staring at black clouds and whipping tree limbs. Tears of pain blurred her vision.

  Finally breathing came more easily, and she collected her addled thoughts. The first thing she did was indulge in a little heartfelt whimpering.

  The second thing she did was cautiously move her fingers, her toes; her arms, her legs. She ached all over, but nothing seemed badly damaged. Slowly she curled back on her side, testing the whole idea of motion, not at all sure it was a good concept. After a moment she pushed herself to a sitting position. That seemed to go okay, so she staggered to her feet, and looked around for Loren’s ladder.

  No ladder. The men had taken it, and their shovels, with them. She’d left her totebag at the historic site. She had nothing, no tools, just a tissue and the site key and half a roll of Life Savers in one pocket.

  Chloe stepped to the wall. She could see over it. She laid her forearms on the ground and strained upwards, teeth gritted, the toes of her shoes scrabbling against the earth. She raised her body an inch, another inch, legs cycling like the cartoon roadrunner … and could go no farther. She was nowhere near high enough to get a hip or a knee over the edge. She dropped back down.

  She prowled the pit with a growing frenzy. There had to be something she could use to hoist herself out of here. A protruding rock or root. Something.

  There was not. It seemed she was trapped in the badger hole.

  Well, this sucks, she thought. She bit off a cherry Life Saver and tried to think of a plan, but came up empty. Damn.

  A fierce burst of wind howled over the hill. A fat raindrop hit her face. Another, and another. Then the deluge began.

  Ten

  july 1835

  The deluge ended just as Mary and her traveling companions reached Mineral Point. “I think this is it,” Andrew said. “We’re here.”

  Mary pushed her gook back from her face so she could get her first good look at the Mineral Point diggings. “I do wish it weren’t such a dummity day,” she said, eyeing the dreary gray sky. They had traveled so far, and for so long, that she’d almost stopped believing there would be a “here” for them. Now her feet hurt, her skirt was muddy to the knees, and her bodice was stained with sweat. She and the men had pushed hard to make Mineral Point this evening.

  This is my future, she thought, overwhelmed with the enormity of it. From the moment she and her brothers had agreed to emigrate from Cornwall, she had fixed all hope on a new home in Mineral Point, in the Michigan Territory. She was seventeen years old and determined to create the life her mother had wanted for her.

  The last leg had been made on foot, with their precious belongings in a small handcart. Jory, who’d had the last stint pulling the cart, rubbed his hands. “Doesn’t look like so much.”

  “It looks like opportunity,” countered their friend Ruan Trevaskis. “Everyone I talked to in Galena said there are rich veins of mineral running through these ridges.”

  The Pascoes had met Ruan, a Cornish blacksmith, on the ship. The three men had gotten along so well that they all traveled on through North America together. They’d landed in Quebec, then continued down the St. Lawrence River, on through Lakes Ontario and Erie. They’d ridden the cars through Cincinnati to St. Louis, and steamed up the Mississippi River to Galena, Illinois. It was a rugged town with its muddy streets, gambling dens and saloons, and noisy crowds of swaggering river men, fur trappers, miners, and Indian traders.

  From there, the Pascoes and Ruan had trudged fifty miles in three days, dragging the cart holding what they’d brought from Cornwall along narrow trails and rutted roads. They’d seen only hardscrabble little mines and a few shabby settlements. They’d passed through ridges dotted with rocky outcrops and valleys running with rivulets and rivers. Some of the land was prairie, undulating oceans of tall grass and flowers she was only learning to identify—purple coneflower, yellow sunflower, red gayfeather. They already knew how to spot the dark purple lead plants said to indicate the mineral they’d traveled so far to find.

  It had been a difficult trip. But Ruan laughed often and had lifted the Pascoes’ spirits with funny stories. He had an unruly mess of black curls and blue eyes so surprisingly bright that when he looked at Mary, she felt as if he found whatever she was saying incredibly important. His arms and shoulders were massive, and he’d trundled the handcart much of the way. When they camped at night, he often appeared at just the right moment to push the end of a fallen log farther into the fire, or to lift the heavy iron kettle away from th
e flames.

  At first Mary was uncomfortable with Ruan’s help, not sure what to make of it. She was used to taking care of herself, swatting away the unwanted attention of some of the men she’d worked with at Wheal Blackstone. But nothing in Ruan’s words or manner suggested anything more than kindness.

  Now they stood on one side of a barren ravine marked with rumpled hills and limestone cliffs. As far as Mary could see were shallow pits, small piles of tailings, wagons, windlasses, and the scars made by pick and shovel. A few buildings in the distance marked the infant town of Mineral Point, but clearly many people lived out here. Scattered among the diggings were makeshift stone huts, dugouts, tiny cabins, shelters made of sod, holes in the ground covered with brush. Some had barrels as chimneys. Cookfires flickered as the miners settled in for their suppers. The faint chords of an instrument she didn’t recognize drifted over the hill.

  Mary felt a wave of panic. She’d come from a place of century-old homes and tales of King Arthur on winter nights. Of lichened gravestones in the Methodist churchyard, and Sunday School picnics at the North Cliffs where her parents had, as children, also watched waves crash below. Of Midsummer Eve bonfires on the same tor where her ancestors had danced long ago. This country felt raw.

  Andrew rubbed his chin. “Let’s make camp.”

  They settled down in a secluded spot next to a rock wall. Jory and Ruan went in search of fuel. Mary pulled her skillet and an almost-empty sack of barley from the trunk.

  “Mary.” Andrew’s voice was subdued. Melancholy, even. He sat on the ground, knees drawn up, staring down the ravine at the ramshackle community of miners. “Cornwall seems very far away.”

  So he felt it too. “It does. What I hate the most is—is leaving them all. Mama and Papa, Elizabeth and Loveday … ” Her throat grew thick.

  He nodded.

  A hawk circling overhead cried shrilly, bringing Mary back from the precipice of regret. Cornwall’s ancient terrain was steeped in comforting customs and traditions, but those were also the very things that made it almost impossible to rise, to change paths. She blinked hard and lifted her chin. “We made the best decision we could, Andrew.”