Mountain Ice (David Dean Mysteries)

"What was that all about?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at her retreating form.

"Sounds like your coins are worth about three times what Claire's are," Dean said, and then asked, "how did you make out with the blonde bombshell?"

"She swears she'll see the sheriff tomorrow. She wants to talk to Donald Ryland first. He and Donnie already left for dinner. What's this business about my coins?"

"It sounds as if you're in luck again," Cynthia said as she pulled her step stool across the kitchen floor so she could reach the shelf and retrieve the breakfast dishes. She and her husband related their conversation with Effie to Fred, how she had read the notebook, her comments regarding the gold coins, and their new, more respectful evaluation of Miss Effie Quincy.

"Dang!" said Fred, his face brightening. "I been meaning to check out their value on the computer. I just been too darn busy! Looks like my Internet business is pretty lucrative, wouldn't you say?" Dean just smiled and picked up the local newspaper. He owed Fred a "gotcha" after the hard time he'd given the old man about his electronic sales adventures. Fred turned to leave.

"Give my regards to Miss Worthington," Dean said.

"That's not until later. First off, I have to go to the Post Office. It's Social Security day. God bless FDR and the Democrats."

Dean laughed. "Now that you're going to make a little money on those gold coins, added to what you took in on that Flotsam Electronics stock last June, maybe you should consider seeing the light and turning Republican."

"Not on your life! I'm a tried and true democrat. I been casting my ballot that way since Roosevelt and I'll keep doing so-even if you do cancel out my vote every dang election." The two men had carried on a fifteen-year argument on politics. Dean's marriage to Cynthia hadn't helped break the tie as she wisely refused to divulge to either of them how she voted.

Dean put down his paper. "Fred, I know you're an old geezer, but Roosevelt died during World War Two. You're seventy-six. You couldn't have been twenty-one during the war and voted for FDR. Do the math."

"I sure did vote for him," Fred answered smugly, looking from one to the other. Cynthia renewed her work on the notebook and just smiled. "I voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt five or six times."

"That's nonsense! Even if you were a hundred, you'd only have voted four times. That's all the times he ran for president!" Fred didn't answer. "Well?" Dean asked, waiting for a reply.