Not exactly a fortune.
Which made it not exactly worth mugging me for.
That pretty much sealed the deal. With that piece of the puzzle in place, I was convinced the coin had nothing to do with the attack outside my apartment building, and since the attack-and what it meant in terms of my investigation-was what I was supposed to be thinking about, I was grateful to eliminate it as a possibility. I was sitting on my couch holding the coin, with my legal pad in my lap. I ripped off page three with its question about the coin, wadded the sheet into a ball, and tossed it onto my coffee table, officially eliminating it as an avenue of investigation.
It wasn’t the most exciting way for a girl to spend a Sunday evening. But believe me when I say that being home alone thinking about clues and murder and a mugging gone (thankfully) wrong wasn’t the worst thing in the world. If I was deep in thought about my investigation, I could avoid answering my phone when it started to ring.
And it was going to start ringing soon.
How did I know?
Well, for one thing, the latest episode of Cemetery Survivor was scheduled to start in about five minutes, and when it did, I knew Ella would call immediately to tell me how cute/smart/hard-working I looked. My two aunts would wait a little longer. But then, they’d be busy throughout the show on a three-way call with my mom, giving her the play-by-play. Once the show was over, I was fair game. For all three of them.
As for me watching the show…
I’d already thrown out the khakis and the emerald green shirt I’d worn to work on Friday. No way I was going to relive the whole ugly experience by watching myself go down in the mud.
So there I sat with time on my hands and questions spinning through my head. I wondered why anyone would bother to bury a pretty ordinary coin at Jefferson Lamar’s grave. And yes, I couldn’t help it. I wondered, too, if the coin meant anything in terms of Vera Blaine’s murder.
Maybe it was the sitting there thinking and the staring thing. Or maybe I was just getting better at the whole Gift that kept on giving. In the empty spot next to me on the couch, I actually saw a little ripple that reminded me of the shiver of air around a candle flame-right before Jefferson Lamar showed up.
That explains why I didn’t screech when he said, “That’s a Morgan silver dollar you’re holding. George T. Morgan was the man who designed the art on it, what we collectors call the obverse and the reverse of the coin. The coins were produced between 1878 and 1904, then again in 1921, and the silver they’re made out of came from the Comstock Lode-you know, that big silver strike out in Nevada in the 1850s.”
The only thing I knew about Nevada was that Las Vegas and Reno were in it. The only thing I knew about the 1850s was that I was glad I didn’t live then, I mean, what with the no running water and the lack of fashion choices and-
None of this seemed relevant, so I simply held out my hand so Lamar could see the coin better. “It’s hardly worth anything. I mean, not like some coins are. So why would anyone bother to bury it next to your grave? Maybe somebody owed you money? Or maybe it’s the silver that means something. Or this whole Compost Lode thing.”
“Comstock.” He pushed his big plastic glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Like I said, I used to collect coins. Plenty of people knew about my hobby. We even had a group that met at Central State. You know, prisoners, a few guards, me. It gave the inmates something to look forward to, and something to read about and study between our meetings. I also belonged to a coin group through the church Helen and I attended. I was president for a couple years. But if anyone from the numismatic community left that coin as a sort of gift, I can’t see why. You’d think they would have chosen something more unusual.”
“Or more valuable.” I tossed the coin in the air and caught it again. “So why take the time and trouble to dig a hole next to your grave and leave it there?”
“I don’t think we’ll ever know.” Lamar sighed. “And I doubt it has anything to do with Vera. How could it?”
He was right, and I was wasting my time on a mystery that wasn’t the mystery I should have been thinking about. With that in mind, I told myself to focus, and reached for the fabric we’d found with the coin so I could wrap it and put it away.
“What’s that?” Lamar pointed at the orange cloth.
I sniffed delicately. “Nasty old fabric. The coin was wrapped in it.”
He scooted forward, and if he could have plucked that piece of cloth from my hands, he would have. Instead, he stopped just short and bent nearer for a better look. “That’s not just old fabric,” he said. “It’s a piece of a Central State prison uniform.”
“You think?” I had never paid any attention to the eight-by-eight square of cloth, and I smoothed it open on the couch between us. If I looked really hard, I could just make out faded black numbers against the orange.
Behind his big-as-boats glasses, Lamar’s eyes gleamed. “It’s a Morgan silver dollar, and Dale Morgan… he was an inmate at Central State. He was in the coin group.”
“So you think he may have left the coin for you?”
Lamar rubbed his chin. “It’s possible, I suppose. Dale was a small-time gambler who got in over his head and got in plenty of trouble because of it. That’s how he ended up at Central State. But inside, he had a good heart. I was certain he could be rehabilitated. Maybe once he got out of prison and turned his life around, he left the coin because he was grateful I had such faith in him.”
“It’s possible.” Thinking, I tossed the coin. “Any idea what happened to this Dale guy?”
He shook his head. “None.”
“Is there a way I could check? I mean, if he wasn’t rehabilitated? If he’s still in the system?”
Lamar didn’t look pleased at the thought. “What about that Inter-thing I’ve heard people talking about? Interweb? Interweave?”
“Internet. Perfect!” I hopped off the couch and grabbed my purse. I don’t have a computer at home, but I do have a key to the administration building at Garden View and the code to get me into the side gate that employees use when they’re leaving late and the main gates are closed.
While I was at it, heading out on a Sunday night gave me the perfect excuse for not answering phone calls. I was busy, I’d tell Ella, my mom, and my aunts when they finally did track me down, and as if the Universe heard me, my phone rang at that exact moment.
It was Ella, but I didn’t answer.
After all, I was busy.
The good news was that thanks to the Internet, Dale Morgan was easy to find.
The bad news was that Jefferson Lamar’s faith in the possibility of his rehabilitation had not been justified.
Morgan was incarcerated at a prison facility not far from Cleveland, but when I called him the next day, he refused to come to the phone.
The good news was that I kept trying, and the third time, he agreed to take my call.
And the bad news?
“I never get any visitors,” Morgan whined. “You want to talk to me, lady, you’re going to have to come here and do it.”
I told him I would.
Then I found a thousand ways to avoid it, and is it any wonder? How could I visit Dale Morgan in prison when I’d never even been out to visit my dad? And how could I do that? Ever? If I did, I’d have to face what he’d done to our family. I’d spent too much time learning the fine art of denial to let that happen.
Fortunately, I had lots of things to keep me from thinking about it. One of those was obsessing about our Cemetery Survivor score. We were ahead by ten points one week, fell back the next, and though I told myself time and again that it didn’t really matter, it really did. I was tired of being short-changed by the Greers of the world. I was tired of being snubbed by the Mrs. Lambs. I wanted to win, and I wanted to win bad.