“There was no further mention of it in that diary or in any of the others written when he was a kid. He actually seemed more interested in arrowheads. That’s his main focus throughout. There was a big event when he was sixteen. They had several days of hard rain that caused widespread mud slides. He found a whole cache of arrowheads that had washed out of the hillside road embankment not far from his home. That was the highlight of his year.
“In the diaries written after he became an adult, Mikaela found an entry mentioning the childhood gold discovery and him taking a sample to someone in the geology department at Bartrum, where he found out it was pyrite. From the tone of the entry, he seemed to take the news with good humor. We are still reading and have quite a few diaries to go,” Fisher said.
“Was there any mention of where the cave was located, or a description of it?”
“Not exactly. Early on, when he was a kid, he wrote that he wasn’t going to write down the location, in case someone read his diary. In his older years he didn’t mention it at all, so far. Like I said, we are still reading.”
“Thanks, Fisher. That’s good information. Thank Mikaela for me too,” she said.
“Sure. Oh, and there is something else. Sometimes he drew pictures of what he found. Some of the stones he thought were gold were round shaped. He wrote that he intended to polish them. We compared his drawings to some of the exhibits in Geology and think they were pyrite spheres. I imagine polished up, they would look like marbles.”
Diane was silent for a long moment.
“Dr. Fallon?” he said.
“I’m still here. Fisher, that is very helpful. Thank you.”
“Sure, Dr. Fallon. We’ll write a report for you when we finish,” he said.
After she hung up, Diane had a flurry of ideas running through her head. It looked like a gold marble, probably with nicks because of the strong isometric crystal habit. What was in the cigar box wasn’t a shooter marble, but a pyrite sphere. Possibly the one he drew in his diary, possibly the one he found in the cave. It all seemed to come back to gold—but where did the Watsons fit in? They weren’t connected to the gold. She was beginning to think the Watson murders were a red herring. Or maybe there were multiple motives in play. Something connected to gold and something connected to progressive changes in the county.
Diane sighed and opened one of the e-mails. She stopped, realizing that she hadn’t told Liam Dugal everything about the list. She called his cell.
“Liam,” he said, answering.
“I haven’t had a chance to speak with you about the note you recovered at the campsite,” she said.
“Why don’t we do it now?” he said.
“Hold the phone while I call up the e-mail from Korey.”
“Why don’t I come to your office?” he said.
“I really don’t have time to wait,” she began.
Her door opened and Liam stuck his head in. “Hi. I was visiting Andie,” he said.
“Please come in.” Diane cradled her phone.
She printed out a copy of Korey’s e-mail, handed it to Liam, and waited while he read it.
“Foolish kids,” he said. “This CND is Cora Nell Dickson—his inspiration for the gold hunt—I suppose.”
“I’m assuming,” said Diane. “I’m also assuming the notation refers to a relative, because of the possessive punctuation. Who are her relatives?”
“She has a grandson who visits her fairly often but at random times. She calls him Dicky, and Dicky Dickson is all the name that is on her emergency contact sheet. The address for him is a post-office box, and the phone number is a prepaid cell phone. I don’t know who it belongs to. The service provider didn’t have any information on file. Dicky didn’t submit his personal information when he activated the phone. I tried calling the number and got an answer once. I explained what I wanted and he hung up. He never answered again. I staked out the PO box, but he never showed. I don’t think it was ever used for anything except an address of record. I tried to ask his grandmother about Dicky and she got upset and the staff wouldn’t let me speak with her again. The nursing home staff described the grandson as medium height and medium build with light brown hair. They frankly didn’t pay much attention to visitors. They are shamefully understaffed. I did talk with