“Get up,” Nathaniel said. “We’ve got work to do.”
Olympia dropped a K-cup of Emeril Big Easy Bold dark roast coffee in her Keurig machine and pressed the start button. “I’m not sure I like the idea of you climbing in my head while I’m asleep. What other kind of mental trespassing shit can you do?”
“I wasn’t trespassing,” Nathaniel said from the corner of the kitchen. “All I did was plant the seed in your subconscious. You did the rest. And don’t ask me how it’s done—I’m still figuring this ghost thing out myself.”
“Well, the next time you’re in there, plant some kind of mental seed to help me drop a few pounds, huh? The producers are all over me about my weight.”
“I’m dead, Olympia, and you’re worried about your weight?”
“Point taken,” Olympia said. “But tell me this—are you running into any celebrities over there? On the other side, I mean. We’re desperate for ideas for the May Sweeps.”
Nathaniel crossed his arms and did not reply.
“I had to ask,” Olympia said. “If I were dead, you’d have asked me.”
She had a point, Nathaniel thought. God how things had changed. Olympia used to play the role of skeptic, and he was the true believer. Now she was talking to a dead man as if it were normal, and he still hadn’t come to grips with the idea the dead guy was him.
The coffee finished brewing and Olympia took a seat at the kitchen table. “You sure you don’t want any? You look like you could use a whole pot.”
Nathaniel shook his head. “I drank a glass of water yesterday, and it ran right through me—and when I say it ran right through me, that’s not a figure of speech.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“It’s what you’re going to do,” Nathaniel said. “You’re going to talk your way into Declan Mulvaney’s confidence, find out where he’s hiding the materials he took from me, and figure out what the man is hiding.”
“Oh, good, for a minute I was afraid you were going to ask me to do something difficult,” Olympia said. “And how would you suggest I go about this?”
“I don’t know, charm him. Do that thing where you lower your head and raise your eyebrows and get all sexy,” Nathanial said. “Go in with a gun and say, ‘Give me Nathaniel’s things back, asshole.’ I don’t really care. All I know is that whatever is in that journal and those papers is important enough for the man to have me killed.”
Olympia shook her head. “I don’t know, Nathaniel. I want to help you, I really do, but I’m not equipped to do this kind of thing. You’re the reporter, not me.”
“I know,” Nathaniel said. “And trust me, I would do it if I could. Unfortunately, I’m dead.”
From the Journal of Onyx Webb
Thirteen months passed before I saw the man again.
I’d just finished singing “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” when he walked into The Apache, and my heart skipped a beat.
He was alone.
I instructed the band to play “We’re in The Money” and started to sing. He looked over and smiled.
During the break, a drink arrived. I didn’t need to ask who it was from.
“So, I see you decided to audition after all,” he said.“Yes, how did I do?” I asked.
“Ginger Rogers may have to look for a new career,” he said.
“I’m not fond of jokes, especially when they are at my expense,” I said.
“What? You think that I am joking?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No, Onyx. I’m not simply flattering you,” he said. “Your voice is strong, and you know your limits. But the thing that really sets you apart is your presence.”
“My presence?”
“Yes, your presence. Tone, control, breathing – that can all be taught. But the way you command the stage? That is something a singer either has, or they don’t. And you do.”
“Are you planning to stay for the second set?” I asked, crossing my fingers.
“I’m planning to stay until you tell me to leave,” he said.
We left each other just before the sun came up.
“Aren’t you concerned about your husband?” he asked as I sat on the edge of the bed and slid my stockings on.
“My husband will be passed out until noon,” I said.
“Well, in that case, why are you rushing off?”
Chapter Thirty
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
JULY 4, 1996
“Can you imagine? A million dollars just to blow up a mountain,” Stan Lee said as he walked into the kill room, holding a copy of the Charleston Gazette-Mail.
“What are you talking about?” Nisa asked.
“Read her the article,” Kara said.
“God, you’re mean,” Stan Lee said as he pulled a chair next to where Nisa was seated in the wheelchair. He flipped the paper open and found the page, and then began to read:
“Fathers Find Way to Heal on Wheels”
In May 1993, the unexplained disappearance of Nisa Mulvaney rocked both this community and the nation. Now real estate mogul Declan Mulvaney and the missing girl’s father, Kajika (an American Indian who goes by the single name), have set out on motorcycles from the Black Hills of South Dakota in an attempt to heal their open wounds on the open road.
The Gazette-Mail caught up with the men outside Little Rock, Arkansas, 1,000 miles into their 1,900-mile sojourn.
They both hope that the ride will rekindle public awareness that Nisa Mulvaney is still out there somewhere. “No one in either family will ever accept that Nisa is dead,” Kajika said. “And we will not rest until she has been brought home to us, where she belongs.”
“That is so touching,” Stan Lee said as he lowered the paper.
“I’m not sure how much longer we can keep her,” Kara said from the chair Stan Lee had vacated. “I mean, look at her. She’s a mess.”
“I know,” Stan Lee said. “But what are we supposed to do with her? It’s not like we can just drop her on the Mulvaney’s porch in the middle of the night.”
“Why not?” Kara asked.
“Think about it,” Stan Lee said as he dropped the paper in the trash. “She knows where we live.”
“Oh, yeah.”
An hour later, Stan Lee straightened his necktie and looked at his reflection in the full-length mirror in his bedroom. It was another rinky-dink engagement—this time for the local VFW hall—but it paid $500 for three-hours work.
Besides, having to leave his job as a photographer for the Savannah PD had made money tight. Every penny from the lawsuit over the loss of his legs was invested in the house.
He needed money to live.
The white suit had become a staple of his image as The Southern Gentleman and something he hadn’t changed in the years he’d been perfecting the character. The other thing that never changed was the watch.
A 14K gold designer piece by Longines, the watch had a matching gold, bracelet-style band, a rectangular, art deco face, and a personal inscription on the back that read:
Thanks for Having My Back.
-Your Pal, Frankie
Stan Lee had taken the watch the week before Declan left for Florida to make his millions, and he had managed to keep it secreted in his Scrabble game box during his years at the asylum.
Wearing the watch made Stan Lee feel sophisticated and more confident, more like a southern gentleman. Had Declan even missed it? he wondered. Who cared? It was his now.
Besides the suit and the watch, the rest of the outfit was negotiable.
On this night, Stan Lee was wearing a white fedora with a red, white, and blue band, a red tie, and carrying a white wicker cane, painted white. Perfect for the Fourth of July.
Shoes, on the other hand, were always an issue.
Finding shoes that worked well with his prosthetics had always been problematic. He had to sacrifice the look of the shoes for functionality, since he had to do his act standing up. Nobody wanted to hire a chair-bound maste
r of ceremonies.
In the end, Stan Lee opted for a pair of cheap Florsheim penny loafers he’d found on sale at the mall. Price and comfort did not always go hand in hand—or, in this case, foot in shoe.
Don’t forget to smile, he told himself. It should be the easy part, but smiling did not come naturally to Stan Lee. It never had. As far back as he could remember, his mother would tell him he needed to smile more. Back then he didn’t understand why he needed to smile. He understood now. There was nothing more disarming—and deceiving—as a smile.
Stan Lee walked into the kill room for the second time in a little over an hour—this time in full Southern Gentleman mode. “I thought it would be nice to practice tonight’s speech before a live audience,” Stan Lee said.
“A live audience,” Kara repeated. “That’s a good one.”
Stan Lee shot Kara a look, and then turned his attention to Nisa. She looked extremely disinterested. “What’s eating her?”
“What do you think?”
Stan Lee released a deep breath and shook his head.
“Do the speech for her anyway,” Kara said. “Pretend you’re there. You’re good at pretending.”
Stan Lee shrugged, and then gathered himself. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to—this is where I say the name of the event I’m speaking at—I am The Southern Gentleman.”
Kara clapped from the corner of the room, and then placed her fingers in her mouth and whistled. “Okay, keep going.”
“In the South, things tend to come in threes,” Stan Lee said, adopting a heavy Southern drawl. “For example, there are three movies that depict the South at its very worst: Deliverance, Forrest Gump, and In the Heat of the Night. Fortunately, there are three films that depict the South at its very best: Gone with The Wind, Steel Magnolias, and In the Heat of the Night.”
Kara laughed and applauded. “You’re doing great!”
“In the South, there are only three foods you need to have on hand in case of a nuclear attack: fried chicken, cornbread, and grits. Speaking of cooking, there are only three ways to cook-up food here in the South: fry it, grill it, or barbeque it. Sometimes people are known to do all three things to the same piece of food.”
“Funny,” Kara said.
“They also have just three drinks in the South: whiskey, scotch, and gin. There are just three religions: Baptist, Methodist, and Football. And three ways to describe the weather: hot, humid, and unbearably hot and humid.”
“That last line—is that new?” Kara asked.
“Yes,” Stan Lee said. “I just came up with it.”
“I like it,” Kara said. “You should keep using it.”
“There are only three expressions you need to know to get through any social occasion in the South: ‘Y'all come back now, ya’ hear?’ ‘Well, bless your heart,’ and my personal favorite, ‘How’s your momma?’”
“Better wrap it up, Stan. I think we’re losing her,” Kara said.
Stan Lee looked over and saw the blank look on Nisa’s face. “And—finally—the three greatest cities in the history of the world are all located here in the South: I’m talkin’ about S’vanah… Addlanna… and N'awlins! Oh, wait, there’s four. I left off the greatest city of them all—our beloved Chawl'stn!”
Nisa remained motionless in the wheelchair.
“Come on, Stan. It’s time to admit it,” Kara said.
“Maybe if we took her upstairs and got her a little sun,” Stan Lee said. “Maybe she’ll feel better?”
“If you think so,” Kara sighed.
Stan Lee got behind the wheelchair and pushed it from the kill room, the wheels squeaking loudly with every rotation. How long had it been since he’d moved the chair? Three years?
Squealing of the wheels aside, the chair rolled okay—until the wheels left the linoleum tile and hit the hard-pack dirt and stone of the tunnel. “Are you going to help push or not?”
“You take the left side, and I’ll take the right,” Kara said. It only took a few seconds for Stan Lee to realize that was not going to work, and he waved his hand for Kara to move aside.
Approximately halfway down the tunnel, the front wheels on the left side of the wheelchair hit a dislodged brick and sent the wheelchair tumbling forward to the ground.
Stan Lee pulled the chair upright and began to push. “Oops,” Kara said. “Looks like you lost something.”
Stan Lee looked down and saw Nisa’s arm had fallen off and was lying on the tunnel floor. He retrieved it and placed it in her lap.
“I don’t think sunlight is going to fix this,” Kara said. “It will probably dry her out even more.”
Stan Lee ignored her and continued pushing until, seconds later, the front wheels struck an exposed tree root and jerked to a stop—this time causing Nisa’s head to slightly detach from her body and drop to her chest.
Kara was right, Stan Lee realized, resigning himself to the reality of the situation. He’d been putting it off since the night he’d brought Nisa back from the bar in Myrtle Beach.
He had used too much ketamine.
And had accidently killed her.
“Come on, Stan, get her to the end of the tunnel and I’ll help you bury her, okay?” Kara said. “It won’t be that bad, we’ll do it together.”
Stan Lee went upstairs and took off his nice clothes. He’d gotten sweaty just pushing the wheelchair down the tunnel and could only imagine what he’d look like after digging a hole.
In the dresser drawer he found a syringe and a nearly empty bottle of ketamine. He just needed a little bump to get him by.
Stan Lee sat on the edge of the bed and waited for the drug to calm him, and then went downstairs. He found the shovel near the entrance of the tunnel and carried it to where he’d left the wheelchair. It was at the spot in the tunnel where he’d buried the body of real estate saleswoman Lullaby Logan—right next to where he’d buried the girl he’d taken near the fountain, across the street from the Forsyth Park Hotel in Savannah twenty-seven years earlier.
What was her name? He couldn’t remember.
Then, high on ketamine and naked from head to toe—wearing nothing but his prosthetics and Declan Mulvaney’s watch—he began to dig.
Chapter Thirty-One
CRIMSON COVE, OREGON
JULY 4, 1995 • 11:23 P.M.
When Clay Daniels III woke, he found himself leaning against Catfish Webb’s gravestone at the edge of the clearing near Onyx’s lighthouse. It took a good two minutes to remember why he was there. Drinking too much beer will do that to a man.
Clay III glanced at his watch. It was 11:23 p.m. Everything was quiet now. The fireworks had long ended.
Another fifteen minutes passed and then he saw Onyx exit the lighthouse, lock the big doors behind her, and head off into the night. It didn’t look to Clay III like she’d been wearing any kind of mask or sleeve, but by the time he’d found the binoculars she was gone.
A few minutes passed, and he made his move.
Clay III hurried over to the lighthouse door. He found the small silver metal pick in one of the compartments on his gun belt and inserted it in the lock.
Though he’d done it a number of times in his career as sheriff, picking the lock was trickier than expected since he was still technically drunk. But after a few minutes he finally got it and stepped into the lighthouse foyer, realizing that he’d never been inside the structure before.
Finding it much darker inside than he expected, Clay III used a Zippo lighter to guide him through the foyer.
Virtually every inch of wall space was covered with paintings, assumedly done by Onyx. Otherwise, the foyer was empty, with the exception of a baby grand piano in the center of the room.
“What a creep fest,” Clay III said aloud as he found the black, spiral staircase, the third step painted red for some reason.
Weird.
The next thing Clay III noticed were what looked like a thousand books on shelves running up the curved walls, each wi
th the distinctive “Property of Crimson Cove Public Library” stamp on the spine. Well, if nothing else, he’d finally discovered who’d been stealing books from the damn library all these years. The theft of any one book was a minor infraction. But collectively? It was a felony. He could lock Onyx up for years if he wanted to.
Halfway up the stairs, Clay III realized just how drunk he was—and out of shape—stopping to rest and catch his breath every few stairs. It took the better part of ten minutes to get to the top, but he finally made it.
Now it was time to do what he’d come to do, which was plant the marijuana. Then he could return in the morning and claim to have received an anonymous tip and bust the old bat.
Now, where to plant the drugs?
In the center of the landing sat a large, oil-burning lamp, its flame licking a good three feet into the air. The room was encased in tall glass windows. A few were opened, allowing a gentle breeze to pass through while heat escaped to the outside.
The only other items in the room were an easel, a table covered with bottles of paint, and some brushes.
Then Clay III’s eyes were drawn to a red-leather keepsake box sitting on the floor beneath the table—the perfect place to hide the pot. When he lifted the lid, he saw the box was jammed with photo albums, papers, jewelry, and a variety of other items: photos in antique frames, tickets for opening day of the Empire State Building, dated 1931, and souvenirs from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair.
And a diary.
Even in his drunken state, Clay III knew that rummaging through the woman’s personal effects was wrong. Now he was about to commit an even more egregious act. But he couldn’t help himself. He’d waited his entire life to know the truth about Onyx Webb, and damn it—now was his chance.
Clay III opened the diary and read the inscription:
How badly I wanted to know you, hold you, and watch you grow. But though we’ve never met, know how much you were wanted and loved.
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