The Last Dig Read online

  The emergency room doctor called Caroline’s parents, who immediately flew to New Mexico from Florida. When she was well enough to be released from the hospital, her parents took her home with them to Florida. They helped her file for divorce and got a restraining order against Dan in case he decided to make contact with her again. Dan got evicted from the apartment they shared. Caroline then filed spousal abuse charges against him and the police arrested him. He was found guilty as charged and spent two years in prison. He was released early on parole for good behavior.

  Caroline spent that semester absent from classes and in Florida with her parents until she felt well enough to go back. Her parents came back with her to help her find an apartment and get moved in. She was able to make up the classes she had dropped out of due to her injuries and soon got back on track.

  * * * *

  Caroline walked into town and wandered around a bit. She looked at the canopies that were set up but closed. There would be an art show going on shortly. Coordinators dressed in orange vests were setting up adult and children’s games, a children’s play area, and marking off parking spaces. Some were also directing the traffic that was beginning to come in.

  Caroline saw Penny walking up to the food trailer, so she made a beeline over to it. “Hi, Penny.”

  “Hey, Caroline. How’s it going?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Looks like we’ll have a nice day for the fourth of July festivities. I was worried after the rain last night.”

  “Yeah, it does look like it’ll be a good day,” Caroline agreed. “So, what are we cooking today?”

  “The same as we always do—hot dogs and coney dogs. We also have sauerkraut, chips, pop, lemonade, and water.”

  “Okay.”

  “We’ll set up the condiments over there at that table—ketchup, mustard, onions and pickles.”

  “I’ll get started dicing the onions,” Caroline said.

  She diced onions, got the large ketchup and mustard bottles filled, and filled another bottle with pickles. Then she placed them on the picnic table by the food trailer.

  People began coming in from miles around and things started moving pretty fast. The hotdogs were cooked and a large pot of chili was heated up. Penny and Caroline were on their feet all day and could not even get a break. Penny called her father and told him that they needed more hotdogs and to bring them already cooked as they were having a hard time keeping up with demand. About an hour later, Dave showed up with the hotdogs all ready to be served. He helped for a while and then had to go back to the restaurant. Before he left, he admitted that the restaurant was busy too and he had to call in one of the waitresses that was off today.

  By seven that night, they were out of food so they closed the food trailer down and started to clean everything up. Caroline walked out the door to take some trash to the dumpster and ran into Rand.

  “Um, hi Rand,” Caroline mumbled, looking downward.

  “Hi. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m feeling okay.” Caroline started to walk over to the dumpster when Rand grabbed the trash bag from her and walked alongside her. He dumped the trash in the dumpster.

  Rand seemed very subdued when he asked, “Were you really jealous last night when you saw Lavina standing next to me?”

  Great, he couldn’t just leave that alone. “Actually, I guess I just needed an excuse to let loose a bit.” Please, Rand, leave it alone.

  “Well, you’re back at the dig site, so it can’t be the dig site causing you to feel the need to unwind like that.”

  “No, the dig site had nothing to do with it,” Caroline confessed.

  “Is there something you want to tell me, Caroline?” Rand ask her pensively.

  “No, there’s nothing to tell you. Why?” Caroline asked, confused. “You asked me that last night too.”

  “I just thought maybe you needed a friend to talk to or something,” Rand said softly.

  “No, I’m all right. I just drank too much, that’s all.”

  Carlson walked up to Rand, and Rand told Caroline he had to leave. “If you’d like, maybe after you get the food trailer cleaned up, you can walk around the city with me while I make rounds and watch the fireworks display. Would you like to do that?” Rand asked quietly.

  “Yeah, that would be nice.” Caroline felt her spirit being lifted.

  “Okay, I’ll stop back in about an hour.”

  “See you then.” Caroline went back into the food trailer to help Penny finish cleaning up.

  Rand came back an hour later, just as Penny and Caroline were locking up the trailer. He helped them pull down the awning and lock it in place. Dave showed up with the truck to pull it away.

  The crowds still lingered, playing games and passing the time away as they waited for the fireworks to go off. Rand and Caroline walked through the streets and every so often, people would stop them to talk to Rand for a few minutes about everything from the weather to politics.

  As they wandered through the crowds, Caroline asked Rand, “Why are you doing the holiday patrol? Don’t you have deputies to do it?”

  “Yeah, I let them decide if they want to work the holiday. If I don’t have at least two deputies willing to do it, then I do it. I don’t mind, since I’m single anyway. Besides, it keeps me out of the food truck,” Rand said with a wolfish grin.

  “Yeah, that’s the real reason you do it,” Caroline added dryly, looking up at him chuckling. They wandered toward the small carnival that was also in town.

  One of the guys called out from the game booth. “Hey, Sheriff, why not try your hand at shooting a hole through the center of the paper here?”

  A couple of people also chimed in, “Yeah, Sheriff, try it out.”

  Rand pulled out a couple of dollars and gave it to the man who in turn gave him a rifle. He took aim and shot six rounds dead center. The man tending the game couldn’t believe it.

  He looked at Rand and snorted, “You are quite a shot. You get the pick of anything you want here.”

  Rand looked over at all the stuffed animals displayed in the booth and then he looked at Caroline. With a thin smile he said, “I’ll take the purple dinosaur you have over there.”

  The man pulled the large purple dinosaur off the hook and handed it to him. Rand handed it to Caroline. Some people gathered around and clapped and laughed because he won the biggest item and gave it to Caroline. They continued on walking and mingling with the crowds.

  Caroline looked up and asked Rand, “How’s work going?”

  “It’s going okay, I guess.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing’s wrong. There’s something I have to do over the next couple of days and I’m not too happy about it.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Caroline asked.

  “Can’t. It’s work related. Do you want to ride the Ferris wheel?” Rand asked.

  “Oh, I’d love to ride the Ferris wheel. Can you do it while you’re on duty?”

  “Yeah, I can go up on it.” Rand walked up to the ticket window, bought the tickets, and they got on.

  After going around a few times, it stopped to unload people at the bottom. When they got to the top of the Ferris wheel, Rand put his arm behind Caroline and rested it on the back of the seat as they looked out across the evening sky, the chair rocking gently.

  The sun was going down, and it was starting to get dark. A beautiful streak appeared across the sky in varying shades of pink. The sight was breathtakingly beautiful, and Caroline sat mesmerized by the beauty. She could see miles and miles of Badlands and remarked to Rand, “It’s so beautiful.”

  “Yeah, it is,” he observed softly.

  * * * *

  Rand, however, had his mind on something else. He didn’t know how he was going to deal with executing a search warrant in Caroline’s room and SUV and issuing an arrest warrant for Caroline. He had doubts about her being the killer, but the evidence was starting to stack up against her. He s
till couldn’t figure out how she could have dragged the body across the apartment floor, got it out to the vehicle, and took it to the dig site without being noticed. The whole situation gnawed at his guts.

  Rand and Caroline got off the Ferris wheel and headed toward the main street to wait for the fireworks display. As they got there, the sun dipped down and millions of stars shone in the night sky. The first boom of the fireworks shoot up in the air, displaying beautiful sapphire-blue stars in the sky. Pretty soon, numerous fireworks went up in the sky and everyone’s “oohs” and “ahhs” could be heard. After fifteen minutes of fireworks, the grand finale went up and then it was done.

  Rand asked, “You headed back to your motel room?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty tired,” Caroline admitted.

  “I figured you would be,” Rand commented.

  They walked slowly to the Jordan Motel. When they reached her room, she said, “Thanks for letting me tag along with you, Rand.”

  “Sure.” He looked deeply into her eyes, searching for something. He wanted to know the truth. Caroline, what have you done and how did you do it?

  * * * *

  Rand cupped his hands around both sides of Caroline’s chin then bent down and kissed her. His kiss was urgent and exploratory. She responded to the kiss by kissing him back. There was a dreamy intimacy to their kiss. This time, Caroline said no to her fears. She was too tired to fight within herself over whether or not to be kissed or to kiss back.

  Suddenly, out of nowhere, and too soon, his cellphone rang. Rand pulled away from the kiss and answered it. “Callahan,” he said gruffly into the phone. “Where is it?” A moment later he said, “Okay, I’ll be there in a few minutes.” He hung up the phone and looked at Caroline. “Sorry, Caroline, I have to go. There’s a disturbance going on near the River Basin bar.”

  Caroline let out a disappointed sigh. “Okay. I’ll talk with you later then.”

  He left and she closed the door to her room and leaned against it, trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she had just realized she still loved Rand Callahan.

  * * * *

  The next morning Rand grabbed a cup of coffee as he walked to his office. Once inside, he put his cup down and hung up his coat. He called Lavina Davis’s office. “District Attorney Davis’s office. How may I direct your call?” the person on the other line asked.

  “This is Sheriff Rand Callahan. I need to speak to Lavina Davis please.” They put him on hold for a few minutes.

  “Lavina Davis,” Lavina answered as she came on the line.

  “Lavina, I’m ready to proceed with a search warrant for Caroline Priest’s room and vehicle to look for evidence in the murder of Marc Baker. I’ll also need an arrest warrant for her under suspicion of the murder of Marc Baker.”

  “Okay, come on over to my office and give me the information. I’ll get it rolling.”

  As Rand walked out the door, he told his secretary, “I’m going to the DA’s office.”

  “Okay, Rand.” Betty waved him off.

  Rand walked down the two blocks to a modern up-to-date court building. The secretary led him into Lavina’s office. “Hello, Rand. Tell me what you have.”

  Rand sat down and went through the evidence that he had against Caroline. “We found a business card at the victim’s apartment which had only the suspect’s and the victim’s fingerprints on it. There was a strand of hair next to the business card, and I’m pretty sure if we ran a comparison between the suspect’s hair and that strand, it would be a match. We also found a pick and some fossils at the victim’s apartment which had only the suspect’s fingerprints on them. We have two witnesses who say they heard an argument and a female voice saying ‘If you come to my place again, I’m going to kill you.’ The victim and the suspect were seen together at the River Basin bar a few weeks before the murder took place. The coroner claims the victim was killed in his apartment between the hours of ten PM and twelve midnight. The suspect dragged him out of the apartment and brought him to the dig site.”

  “Okay, and the suspect is Caroline Priest?”

  “Yes,” Rand responded quietly.

  Later that morning Lavina Davis stopped by Rand’s office and delivered the search warrant as well as the arrest warrant for Caroline Priest.

  “Yo, Rand, you wanted to see me?” Traci, one of Rand’s female officers, asked.

  “Yes, I need you to go with me and Carlson to conduct a search and then make an arrest.”

  “Okay, when do you want to do it?”

  “Just as soon as Carlson gets in,” Rand said.

  “Can I ask what we’re walking into here?”

  “We’re searching Caroline Priest’s room and SUV, and we’re arresting her on suspicion for the murder of Marc Baker.”

  “Okay, got it. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

  Rand did not like this day already. He had a feeling that it was going to be a difficult one and it was not going to end well. He tried to give Caroline the opportunity last night to come forward, without really telling her anything about the case, but she didn’t open up.

  * * * *

  Caroline and her team got to the dig site and started work. Everyone seemed refreshed after the day off except Caroline. Dead tired from working with Penny yesterday, and confused regarding what to do about her feelings for Rand, she started back where she left off the previous site visit. They had about one quarter of the dinosaur dug out.

  She couldn’t shake this sinking feeling that the day was not going to be a good one even with her best efforts to create a positive attitude.

  She wondered if she would have allowed the intimacy she shared with Rand to go beyond the kissing. Would she have let him into her bed? Caroline thought that her self-confidence was coming back, but she didn’t want to rush into it. The instant memories of Dan and his abuse were beginning to fade. She felt like she was coming alive in Rand’s arms and she was learning to trust him.

  Chapter 13

  Rand, Carlson, and Traci arrived with the four CSI to search Caroline’s room. He gave Lola a copy of the search warrant and she walked down to the room to open the door for them.

  “This ought to be a quick search since it’s basically just one room,” Rand said dourly.

  The CSI looked around the room and saw nothing outwardly suspicious in nature. They searched through the piles of paper in one corner and found nothing. They pulled apart the purple dinosaur that Rand had won and gave to Caroline and ripped the bottom of it to see if it contained anything, but again they found nothing. They went through the dresser drawers, but they only contained clothing. They tapped into her laptop, and discovered nothing other than the mention of finding a dead body at the dig site that she had written in an email to her boss, Patty Durham.

  Carlson went into the bathroom to look while Rand searched through her clothes in the closet. They lifted the mattresses to see if anything lay hidden between them and looked under the bed. They looked inside the table next to the bed.

  CSI Robinson took Caroline’s brush to take in and analyze for a DNA comparison to the strand of hair they found at the victim’s place. From there they removed the mirror and the pictures off the walls to see if anything was hidden behind them. The only thing left was the safe and it was locked.

  Rand stepped outside where Lola was waiting and asked, “Lola, do you have a master key to the safe inside the room?”

  “Yes, here.” She handed him the key.

  They opened the safe and found Caroline’s checkbook, three hundred dollars in cash, and a little box with a lock on it. CSI Janson opened the box by unscrewing the hinges because the key could not be found. Inside the box there were two senior pictures, one of Rand and one of Caroline, and a lock of hair that Rand knew was his. He’d bought her that box on her eighteenth birthday, and he remembered the day she had put the two pictures in it along with a clipping of his hair. He felt awful, as if he’d betrayed her in so many ways he couldn’t count them all.
r />   * * * *

  Caroline felt uneasy all morning, like something bad was going to happen, but she didn’t know what.

  In the early afternoon, the sheriff’s cruiser pulled up and Rand, Carlson, and Traci got out of the car.

  Caroline stopped what she was doing, stood up, and slowly walked toward Rand as he came walking down toward her. The team members all stopped what they were doing and watched.

  “Caroline, I have a warrant to search your SUV and your room at the Jordan Motel.”

  “What are you looking for?” she asked pensively.

  “Evidence,” Rand said curtly.

  “Evidence of what?” Caroline prodded.

  “Evidence of your involvement with Marc Baker. We’ve already concluded the search of your room, and we’re here now to search your SUV.”

  They searched through her SUV, and under the front seat driver’s side they found a cellphone. “Caroline, is this your cellphone?” Rand asked.

  “No, my cellphone is here,” she answered and patted the case holder attached to her belt.

  “Whose phone is this?” Rand turned and looked at everyone.

  Caroline’s team all shook their heads. Carlson flipped the phone open and noted that the battery was dead.

  “Caroline, I’m arresting you for the murder of Marc Baker.”

  “What?” Caroline gasped.

  Her students hurried toward her in a vain attempt to protect her.

  “Rand, I don’t understand,” Caroline stuttered, frightened.

  He motioned to Traci. “Mirandize her.”

  “Rand, wait a minute, what’s going on?” Caroline protested.

  Traci came up behind her and grabbed her left arm and then her right to put them in handcuffs. “Caroline Priest, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. You have the right to consult with an attorney, and to have that attorney present during questioning. If you are unable to afford an attorney, one will be provided to you at no cost. Do you understand your rights?”