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“This is my new snowmachine.” Elvira proudly patted the black box. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Why are you making snow?”
“Because of these.” Her former neighbor held up a snowshoe. “I’m practicing.”
“I’m not sure I want to go down this rabbit hole, but what the heck. Why are you making snow and walking in snowshoes?”
“For my trip to Alaska. I contacted a television producer up there. He’s considering letting me have a look around their gold mining operations. It’s in Whittier. Have you ever heard of it?”
“Nope.”
“It’s a cool place. The entire town lives in one big building. They live there, work there, even shop there. The schools are in the building. Everything.”
“It sounds…interesting,” Carlita replied diplomatically. “So…you’re going to go see how an actual gold mining operation works.”
“Yep. My mind is like a sponge. I figure I can go up there, check out the operations. By the time I come back home, I can tweak what I’m doing and maybe finally hit on something solid.”
Carlita playfully peered into Elvira’s ear.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking to see if there’s anything else rambling around in your head that doesn’t involve treasure, money, gems or gold.”
Elvira swatted her hand away. “I need to learn from the pros. I can’t think of anyone who knows more about gold mining than those Alaskan adventurers.”
“When are you leaving?”
“I don’t know. I’m still hammering out the details.” Elvira told her she was trying to combine her trip to Whittier with a cruise on board Siren of the Seas to visit her boyfriend, Sharky Kiveski. “He’ll be up there all summer. Timing is key. I’ll need to time it right so I can hop on board. Whittier is the ship’s turnaround port.”
“I guess this means you’ll be putting Pete’s project on the back burner.”
“No way. However, until we can get an archaeologist here to look at it, we’re dead in the water,” Elvira said. “Pete’s got the tunnel locked up pretty tight.”
Carlita grinned. “Triple locked. You’ve already checked it out.”
“I may have swung by to make sure the tunnel was secure. You don’t want to have someone snooping around, sneaking in and messing things up.”
“No, we wouldn’t now, would we?” Carlita arched a brow.
“Hey, I have to protect my potential investment too.”
She changed the subject. “Show me how your snowshoes work.”
Elvira’s efficient snowmachine had been hard at work, adding another dusting and leaving a fresh blanket covering their tracks.
“Stand back.” Elvira lifted her leg and took an awkward step forward. She tottered to the left, almost losing her balance. “It’s harder than it looks.”
“They look clunky. I think boots would be a better choice. What’s the purpose?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure. From what I can figure out, they’re designed to keep you from sinking in deep snow.” Elvira took another step and wobbled again. With arms flailing, she fell flat on her face.
Crack. The tip of the snowshoe broke off. “Great. These things are a pain in the Rumpelstiltskin.”
“Maybe you should save them for when you have deeper snow. It could be you don’t have enough to walk around on.”
“Yeah. True. I was excited and figured it would be fun to try.” Elvira flopped over, pulled them off, and tossed them aside. “Good luck with your collection people. So what kind of debt are they trying to collect?”
“A loan on a property here in Savannah. Vinnie bought the place not long before he died. I had no idea it even existed.”