Digging Up the Dead by Jill Amadio Page B

back to Isabel Island.
    “Tell me more about the beautiful tourmaline and its twin,” said Tosca, “if you can bear to utter more than a few words.” She punched him playfully on the shoulder.
    “I can talk your ear off about rocks and stones, and I know a little about mineral mining,” he said, “which I learned from Jeff.”
    Thatch told her he’d first met Stanger at a gem show where booths were laden with dazzling minerals and natural gemstones of every hue. The Oceanview booth had as its centerpiece a framed poster-sized, full-color photo of the blazing pink tourmaline crystal that came to be called the Chandelier. One of the largest and its most renowned find since the mine opened in 1907, the tourmaline was famous for its three pipes that resemble holders for tiny candles, although that is equally true of the Candelabra.
    “The Chandelier’s various shades of pink, lavender and mauve are magnificent,” said Thatch. “I was instantly smitten and began going to the local mineral mines for digs. It’s great fun, and a day up in these mountains is a pleasure. It’s an active mine and one of the few that allows the public to spend a day digging.”
    “Did you ever find any wonderful gems?” said Tosca.
    “Nope. Some chips of black tourmaline, a chunk of aquamarine, and a few pieces of kunzite, but nothing that was worth much in terms of money. To me, it’s the anticipation, the discovery, not the end result that counts. Plenty of amateurs come here, some regularly, hoping for a big payday. Did I tell you about the Empress of China?”
    “Is that another great find? A piece of tourmaline like the Chandelier?”
    Thatch let out a hearty bellow and shook his head. He took his right hand off the steering wheel and patted Tosca’s thigh.
    “Sorry,” he said, “but I can see why you would think so. No, she was a real person.”
    He told her of a legend, that the last Empress of China, Tzu Hsi, had a passion for pink and red gems. In the early 1900s tourmalines in various colors were being found in the Big Kahuna Zone around Pala mines. Tiffany and other American jewelers sold the crystals for carving to local Chinese jewelers. When the Empress saw the bracelets and necklaces brought to her in China, she fell in love with them and sent her people to the Pala mines to buy up vast quantities of the gemstones. She loved every variation of the color pink and had it fashioned into jewelry, embedded into custom-made ceramic dishes and even into a stone pillow she was said to sleep on.
    “What a fascinating story,” said Tosca. “Do the Chinese still buy from the mines?
    “I doubt it after China became Communist, and luxury was prohibited.”
    “Yes, of course, I forgot, although these days the rich Chinese are buying tons of American real estate. Oh, we’re almost home. What a splendid day we’ve had. Wait till I show these gems to J.J.,” she said, rattling the small plastic bag Thatch had given her.
    They crossed the narrow bridge onto Isabel Island, and Thatch stopped his truck in front of Tosca’s house. As she alighted, prepared to invite Thatch in for a nightcap, she paused and held up her hand.
    “Listen. Do you hear that?”
    “Music.” Thatch shrugged.
    “Not just music, keresik . It’s ‘Greensleeves’ and being played on a spinet, no less, the instrument it was originally written for.”
    She looked up and down the street.
    “Is that significant?” said Thatch, following her as she began to walk toward the sound. “It’s a beautiful composition, by the way, but not one of your operas, I’d bet.”
    “Then you’d be wrong,” she retorted. “It’s from Ferrucio Busoni’s short opera Turandot. He incorporated into it a ballad called ‘Greensleeves.’ The piece was originally a medieval folk song in England, and the rumor is that Henry VIII composed it, but it was written several years after he died, so it’s Elizabethan, not Tudor. Even so, can’t you just see the king in his