Photograph above: Mammoth fossil.

AUTHOR NOTE:  For clarity's sake, I'm beginning chapter 19 today by repeating the last few lines of chapter 18, to give you some context for continuing the conversation.  Happy reading!

Sunday afternoon. On Pig River.

Carlo said. "My spies around Gainesville tell me Maynard has been selling things to raise drug money."

"That's not unusual. We know he's been busted in the past for possession, and we know he's a thief."

"Si, but the things he is selling right now are not Maynard's usual merchandise," said Carlo. "Is higher quality and in much better taste. Maynard leans more toward car radios and DVR's. Now, he's selling jade art and high-class Asian clothing."

Shep said, "David Zhang's possessions."

"Si, but one thing he has not sold is a laptop computer. I think, if Maynard wants money and he has something of value, like a laptop, he would not keep it for sentimental reasons," Carlo said. "He has not sold the computer, because he does not have it."

Shep thought for a few moments.

Zeus batted at a cluster of red berries hanging over the river on a slender stalk that bounced in the breeze.

"What if he hasn't sold the laptop because his usual clientele can't afford it?" Shep said.

"So, we come back to how much is that computer worth?"

"And that depends on what is on the computer and how useful it is to the person who wants it," Shep concluded.

No one spoke further. Both men concentrated on their paddling. Shep's unique, hand-crafted canoe moved so fast it could almost have pulled water skiers.

The trio arrived at Tom Rigby's property in less than an hour.

They beached the canoe at the spot where they had enjoyed a picnic lunch two weeks before. That had been the day they first met David and Felicia, the professor's teaching assistants.

It was the time they met Tom Rigby, visited Tom's sinkhole, and saw part of a tusk protruding from the earth, just a tantalizing two or three meters below ground level.

It was also the last time anybody saw David Zhang.

"A few weeks," Carlo mused. "In such a short time, David has gone missing, and many people are behaving strangely. I am thinking about Tom Rigby and David's professor, David's fellow teaching assistant, and David's roommate."

He went on, "And, I am thinking, if mammoth bones are worth three hundred thousand dollars, how much is David Zhang's laptop worth?"

"Good question." Shep knelt on the shore beside the bow of the canoe. "Especially since his doctoral dissertation is probably on it. ... Come on, if you're comin'!"

Zeus hopped from the gunwale of the boat to a comfy perch on Shepard's shoulder. Shepard stood, took the elbow Carlo offered, and the two men walked into the woods.

"Does Felicia have the laptop?" said Shep as they dodged palmetto spikes and cypress knees. "Could she pass David's research off as her own and win the fellowship from the university? How much would that be worth, factoring in the boost it could be to someone's future career?"

Carlo pointed out, "Don't forget, according to Rocket, Maynard is getting late-night, back-door visits from someone connected to David, even though Maynard told me he didn't know any of David's acquaintances."

"Does Maynard have David's laptop?"

Carlo reflexively shook his head, even though his friend could not see him. "I did not find it when I searched his room, but maybe he already hid it someplace else."

Shep did not nod, although he understood and agreed with the statement. He seldom used nodding and head-wagging; the habits were not ingrained in him as they were in his sighted friends.

"Has Maynard come into a sum of money lately? Above what he's selling the small items for? Ask one of your hackers to get us a screenshot of the activity on Maynard's bank accounts," Shep said. "Maybe he wouldn't want to keep a large amount of cash just stuffed under his mattress."

Carlo brought them to a stop.

A three-foot corn snake slithered across the narrow trail they were following.

"Traffic," said Carlo. Then he started walking again.

Carlo continued. "Okay. Felicia and Maynard. Definitely something going on there, but maybe they too obvious. We also have to look at people who do not look suspicious, right?"

"Whom do you suggest, Inspector Frattelli?"

"Il Profesore Clarkson. On the surface he is a college professor of many years, respected and admired in academic circles, never even had a parking ticket in his whole life."

"So, he doesn't look suspicious," Shep said.

"Si. But also consider: Tom Rigby follows Clarkson's advice on anything about archaeology."

Carlo continued, "Could Clarkson be looking to score some cash — maybe split the profits or receive a commission — when Tom sells the bones?" He stopped their forward motion. "Here is a stream."

Carlo stepped behind Shep and, palms on Shep's shoulders, aimed him at the path ahead. Then he lifted Zeus from Shepard's shoulder and said, "About four feet across. Less than two feet deep, but lots of tricky rocks on the bottom."

Shepard jump-stepped across the bubbling creek in their path. Carlo did the same and placed the cat again on Shep's shoulder. The trio resumed their hike. All with dry feet.

Continuing their conversation, Shep said, "Clarkson seems upright and law-abiding, but he is nearing retirement age and may not have saved much of a nest egg on a teacher's salary."

"Si. Maybe he has realized people are living longer these days. He needs his money to last as long as he does," said Carlo. "What if he retires and then lives to be a hundred and two, but the money runs out at age ninety, or even ninety-eight? A man could get pretty hungry those last few years."

Shep rubbed behind Zeus's ears with one hand as they walked. "So, we're looking at Felicia and Maynard, and potentially Doctor Clarkson. That brings us to Tom Rigby. Hopefully, we'll know what's going on with him after we talk with him face-to-face in a few minutes."

"We are at the sinkhole," Carlo said, stopping a few safe feet away from the edge, which was a sheer drop-off into a cavern of uncertain depth.

"What do you see in the surrounding scrub?" Shep asked his friend.

Carlo scanned the clearing and trees around the hole. "I see a pile of fence posts, some bags of concrete mix in a wheelbarrow, and some coils of barbed wire. And, I see a box that looks like electrified wire, like you'd run along your fence to discourage animals."

"Hm," said Shep. "So, Tom is anxious about unwanted visitors. Why is that? He didn't seem so nervous three weeks ago. What has changed?"

"Maybe Tom found out that his fossil could be worth a lot of money?" mused Carlo. "I would like to know who told him that."

A languid Zeus stood up from his shoulder perch and chirped in Shepard's ear. Shep knelt on one knee, and Zeus trotted down Shep's back and off into the trees.

"I guess nature calls," said Carlo.

"I hope he doesn't come across any wild pigs in these woods."

Carlo chuckled. "If he does, I think I feel sorry for the pigs. That little cat already put the fear of God into every animal within five miles of Minokee."

"Yeah, but wild boars are big, strong, and mean, and their tusks are sharp." Shep thought a moment. "All these piles of fencing stuff ... Has anything actually been installed, or does it look like just supplies and materials, stacked up for later?"

Carlo scanned the woods in a complete circle around them and the sinkhole. "No. I see where they have marked the fence line with orange spray paint on the ground. Looks like they sprayed an orange 'X' wherever they want a posthole. In fact, I see the posthole digger sticking out of the ground over there about twenty yards, like somebody quit work in the middle of something. Maybe got interrupted."

Shep inhaled deeply through his nose before he said, "I don't remember it smelling so damp in this spot last time we were here. Are we close to a large amount of standing water?"

"Stay here," said Carlo and dropped to all fours. He crept carefully to the edge of the sinkhole and looked over the side. "The hole has been filling with water. Impossible to say how deep it goes."

"Probably goes all the way down to the underground river that caused the land to collapse. Can you still see the fossils?"

Carlo backed up from the edge and stood, dusting mud and gravel from his jeans. "Oh, yeah. The bones are on the north wall, about nine feet down from ground level, where we're standing. The surface of the water is about six feet below that, but it could still be rising."

"Hm," Shep said. "Let's go talk to Tom."

He called over his shoulder toward the place where Zeus had rustled off into the woods. "Zeus, we're going on to the house now. Be careful out there."

From someplace in the trees above them came a distant "merraou."

"That's good," said Carlo. "No pigs up there."

As their hike brought them closer and closer to the farmhouse, Carlo described to Shep many signs of disrepair, weathering, and neglect around the farmyard and outbuildings.

Shep said, "So, the place needs a lot of maintenance and restoration. That won't be cheap. At Tom's age, he can't do all the work himself, like he would have years ago. He'll have to hire workmen and buy parts, or maybe new tools."

"Maybe Tom is the one who realize he did not save enough for the years when he is too old to farm," said Carlo. "Is he already in those years, now?"

"Maybe. So, we agree that the rumors of Tom buying a lot of stuff lately appear to be true. The stuff is here to be seen."

"Si."

"Too bad there were no rumors about where the money is coming from."

Minutes later, the duo's path led out of the woods and onto the acre of lawn surrounding Rigby's ancient farmhouse. They crossed shin-high grass to the back stoop of the house, and Carlo rapped on the peeling paint of the battered wooden door.

The door swung open at his touch.

Seeing no one waiting to invite them in, Carlo called out, "Signor Rigby? Signor Rigby! Is Carlo Fratelli and Shepard Krausse!"

Shep and Carlo waited, but nobody answered.

"Signor Tom Rigby!" Carlo called again. To his companion, he said, "He should be home from church by now; is way after lunchtime. And, Shepard, there is a pickup truck tagged 'Elvis' in the tractor shed. If Tom Rigby's famous truck is here, he should be somewhere here, too."

Shep said, "I don't know how to explain it, but the house feels ... empty, y'know? Maybe it's the echo, but it gives me the creeps."

"Something is not right," Carlo agreed. "I keep thinking of that posthole tool abandoned in the woods. I think Tom is one of those guys who puts his tools away when he is finish with them. Good farmers are like that."

"See anything from here?"

"I can see the kitchen table," said Carlo. "Papers are scattered there. Breakfast dishes drying beside the sink. Two coffee cups, but only one plate."

"Let's go in," said Shep.

Carlo edged the door open wider and, with Shepard at his elbow, entered the house.

Once inside, Shep pulled his white cane from his pocket and telescoped it to its full length with a few quick snaps. "I'll poke around the other rooms, in case he's asleep or something. You take a look at those papers on the table."

"Good. Be careful, my friend."

"Yup," Shep said, and he began cane-tapping his way through the rooms of the house. In a few minutes, he returned to the kitchen. "There's nobody here."

"There was somebody," said Carlo. The loose pages spread across the table made faint crinkling sounds when he jabbed them with his forefinger. "I do not know Tom Rigby's handwriting, but I can see that two different people have written notes on these papers."

Shep seemed to be thinking out loud when he said, "If we assume one of them is Tom, since it's Tom's house and Tom's table, then who is the second person?"

"Could be the visitor Rocket followed here. Unless Tom is a more social man than I thought, he probably does not have a lot of visitors. And it has been only a short time since Rocket's target was here, we know."

Shepard placed a palm down atop the papers as if to glean information by osmosis. "Can you guess if either handwriting is a woman's? I don't know ... little hearts dotting the I's or some such thing?"

Carlo pushed papers around, revealing first one and then another of the penciled notations. "No. Everything is block-printed. Plain. Could be anyone."

No one spoke for the next minute or so. A blue jay squawked outside the kitchen window. A jet engine's drone drifted down from the stratosphere, a wisp of sound from tremendous altitude.

Through the beat-up open door, a zephyr pushed the scent of distant orange blossoms into the room and cooled the air of the warm kitchen.

Carlo said, "What do you want to do?"

Shep seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment more, then he said, "Send Rocket a text and find out where Felicia and Maynard are. He should be following one of them, and, if we're lucky, the two of them are together."

"Si." Carlo took out his phone and began tapping keys. "I keep thinking of that deep hole full of water out there."

"Me, too."

"Should we tell the police Tom is missing?"

"We don't actually know he's missing," Shep said. "I don't particularly want just anybody to know we're out here poking around. And, I don't think we can trust anybody much, until we know what's going on and how all these people are connected."

Carlo's phone signaled an answer to his text. He read the screen. "Rocket says Maynard and Felicia are on Interstate Ten, headed toward Jacksonville. He's four cars behind them."

"Good. Tell him to stick with them. You and I will head upstream."

"Si, I would like to be off the river before dark."

"I guess we need to round up that crazy cat."

More than one blue jay suddenly squawked up a racket outside.

"That will be Zeus coming now," said Carlo, and he stepped to the sink to look out the kitchen window. "The birds are dive-bombing him. It is time for us to go."

"Bring those papers with you," Shep said. "If Tom's visitor returns, they might take away something. And, if you don't mind, I think it would be good if you'd go to Gainesville tomorrow morning and spend some time with Win Clarkson. Tell him what we've found and see how he reacts."

AUTHOR NOTE:  Come back next time to see how Hermione and Dr. Rosario react when they find out the engagement has been broken -- and their elaborate wedding plans could be all for naught!

Here in the US, next week is Thanksgiving holidays and the official start of the Christmas shopping frenzy.  I know my friends around the world are celebrating many different holidays between now and January, so whether you're observing Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, Sadie Hawkins Day, Slobovian New Year, or whatever brings you peace and joy, have a safe, happy, and healthy holiday season.

If you have kids at your house during the holidays -- or if you just like to laugh -- this is one of my favorite Thanksgiving holiday stories.  On the turkey farm, only one nerdy little turkey is convinced they will all be eaten during the holidays, and he tries everything to make the other turkeys believe him.  Turk and Runt is terrific for reading aloud. Be sure to do all the voices!  

If you can't find Turk and Runt at your local library or bookstore, you can probably find it on Amazon in your country. In the US the link is www dot amazon dot com slash Turk-Runt-Thanksgiving-Lisa-Wheeler/dp/1416907149.

Happy reading.