Pilate's Blood

by J Alexander Greenwood

“Which was?”

  “You mind you’re business, for starters. Also, that we’re even.”

  “Even? So it was you?”

  “Yeah, even,” Thurman said. “Don’t be coy. We’re both men of the world, but there is one difference between me and you.”

  “More than one, but what are you saying?”

  “I’m here to stay, and you ain’t.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean? Another poorly disguised threat, Thurman?”

  Thurman nodded at Pilate’s chest. “Don’t let that badge give you any ideas. You’re still the blundering, ridiculous ass today that you were the day you arrived in Cross.”

  Pilate felt butterflies dancing the lambada in his stomach. “You wound me.”

  “Let me finish.” Thurman held up an index finger before him, looking all the world like a street hypnotist plying his trade. “I give you a lotta latitude ‘round here for a lotta reasons. One is, despite my critical words, I’ve got a grudging respect for your survival instincts.”

  Pilate nodded.

  “But that latitude ends where my interests begin. I’m sure a man like you can appreciate a little…self-preservation.” Thurman folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head. “See, I have some plans for this town, and they include purchasing the old Mostek store.”

  “So that’s why you killed Perry Mostek? To get your hands on his store?”

  “Stop it, John. Provocation of that nature is unnecessary.” He flashed his synthetic, pearly smile a moment. “That building has sentimental value to my family, and I intend to get it back. That Mick wants to build a fucking bar there, and that isn’t gonna happen. There’s already enough drinkin’ going on in this town.”

  “Yeah, well, his little bar at the B&B is always full,” Pilate said, looking mockingly around at all the empty chairs. He also watched for signs of life from the door to Thurman’s office, but he saw no movement. “Anyway, that house is that important to you? You’re willing to try to murder a banker and God knows what else?”

  “No. Even if it were that valuable to me,” Thurman said, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “what’s it to you?”

  Pilate tapped his badge.

  Thurman rolled his eyes.

  “What do you really want, Thurman? Are you after that house or what’s under it?”

  Thurman’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “My, my, my.” He laughed. “You surprise me yet again. Yes, I want what’s under it too.”

  “What for?”

  “I’m a doomsday prepper. That’s where I plan to go when the zombie apocalypse dawns.”

  Pilate nodded slowly. “Uh-huh.”

  “Constable, suffice it to say I want it. Why is none of your fucking business. Now, I suggest you get back in your lovely little Swedish car—which I think is swell, by the way—and go back to town and quit sniffing around out here. I hear you write books. Why not go someplace warm, like Florida. Take your wife and kids and your strange pal out there, pack a typewriter, and write to your little heart’s content on some sunny beach.”

  “Great idea,” Simon said.

  “Love to,” Pilate said, “but I have a job to do.”

  Thurman shook his head. “Tedious. This won’t end well if you keep pushing, ya know.”

  “Again with the threats, Thurman?” Pilate said, pushing back from the bar and standing, his guts roiling like the Gulf waves that toss Taters’s boat around.

  Thurman shook his head. “Nope. I don’t have to threaten you.”

  “I’d say you just did,” Pilate said. “I’ll be talking to the state police about this conversation, just so you know.”

  “Give them my love,” Thurman said, snorting. “And tonight, when you kiss your wife and kids goodnight, it might be wise to fucking remember that they’re only here because of me.”

  Suddenly, John Pilate’s reason evaporated. He balled his fists at his side and flexed his hands, forcing them to relax. “We’ll continue this later,” Pilate said.

  “I’ll be around,” Thurman said.

  “That hombre is a real asshole,” Taters said as the pair sped away from the Brown Betty.

  “Yeah, he is,” Pilate said.

  “Did he threaten you, like you half-expected?”

  “He showed his hand a bit. Not sure why though. It’s not like I used any spectacular feats of investigative legerdemain on him,” Pilate said, checking his rearview mirror.

  “Whatever that means,” Taters said. “Did you like my little tantrum? Oscar-worthy performance, huh?”

  “Well played. I appreciate it. It threw him off a bit.”

  “Good. What’s next?”

  “Home. I need a drink.”

  “I’ll take some Mexican swill, if you’ve got any.”

  “Derek Krall?” Kate said, her elbows propped on the backyard bar, eyeing her Modelo.

  “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure,” Taters said.

  Pilate sipped his martini, waving away a gnat that had taken a shine to the wedge of lemon in the glass. “I think she was talking to me. What about Krall?”

  “What about him?”

  “He was the librarian here at the college. He had a lot to do with dragging me into the whole conspiracy. He played me and Lindstrom and Ollie against each other.”

  Taters’s eyebrows waggled. “Wait. He was the guy who knew where all the bodies were buried?”

  “Literally,” Kate said.

  “Yeah, he nearly got me and Kate killed. He cornered me in the library during the blizzard. If his gun hadn’t blown up in his face, I’d probably be fish food in the river right about now.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Anyway, what about him, Kate?” Pilate said.

  “Well, when you told me about that tunnel under the Mostek place that leads to Cusack’s, it reminded me of something Derek told me once, way before you got to Cross. He took a break from his usual bit of nasty talk to me when I was at the library because he was so excited about something he’d found out about the Mostek place.”

  “What did he find?”

  Kate looked sheepish. “You know what a perv he was. I was trying to get away from him, so I didn’t listen for long. I just remember him saying Mostek was sitting on a goldmine without even knowing it.”

  “Goldmine?” Pilate asked, placing his glass on the bar.

  “I thought he meant Mostek was gonna make a ton of money because the other grocery store, the one over on Seventh, had just closed.” Kate shrugged. “I thought Krall meant Perry Mostek would have a monopoly on groceries here. I mean, that’s true, but what if it was something else? Something literally under the store?”

  “Well, we spent a good amount of time under there and came up with zilch, other than a couple old holes in the ground and a musty passage between the two.”

  “Yeah, hardly a goldmine,” Taters offered before another swig of his Modelo.

  Kate’s brow knitted. “How carefully did you look around down there?”

  “Well,” Pilate said, “we gave it a pretty solid look, right, Taters?”

  “We probably coulda looked a little closer, truth be told.”

  “What if what was under there is already gone?” Kate said. “Maybe somebody already hauled it outta there.”

  “Mommy!” Kara called from the back door. “Petey’s crying.”

  “Be right there, sweetie,” she called back. “John, what if somebody found something valuable under there and took it?”

  “And perhaps that person is now on some pretty nasty shit lists,” Taters said.

  “And that person is still alive for one reason and one reason only,” Pilate said.

  “Right. Because he knows where the buried treasure is now,” Kate said.

  “And Hilmer Thurman isn’t about to kill him till he gets it.”

  Kate took another swig of beer. “Guys, I’d say Parker Nemec is in more trouble than we thought.”

  “Daddy!” Kara called from the backdoor.

 
“Honey, your mom is coming,” he called over his shoulder.

  “No, Daddy, there’s a man knocking on the front door. I think he’s crying.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Parker Nemec didn’t look well. His face was gray, his eyes red and sunken, as if he hadn’t slept for days. His hair was a mass of bedhead, his clothing wrinkled and slept in. His right arm was in a tattered sling, immobile, a side effect from the axe attack. Pilate observed that the fingernails on his good arm were chewed to the quick.

  Nemec brought the Marlboro light to his lips, leaning on the backyard bar. “She left,” he said. The fading sunlight added to Nemec’s zombie-like pallor, reminding Pilate of Thurman’s stupid remark about doomsday preparation.

  “Your wife? Where’d she go?” Pilate asked.

  “To her folks, back in Norfork,” he said, pronouncing it the Nebraska way.

  Taters opened a beer and slid it over to him.

  Nemec switched the cigarette to his sling hand and scooped up the small bottle of beer. He took two deep swallows, then pulled his lips back from his gap-toothed grill.

  “Why didn’t you go with her?” Pilate asked.

  Nemec looked at Pilate, his eyes simultaneously hard and tired. “Because he’ll come after me, and if I’m with her, she’ll get hurt. I gotta fix this here and now.”

  “Who put that axe in your back, Parker?” Pilate said.

  Nemec drank more Modelo. “Tom,” he confessed after a gulp. “You know, that fat fuck henchman of Thurman’s.”

  Both men nodded.

  “I was trying to talk some sense into Thurman about this whole Mostek thing, and Tom crept up behind me. Son-of-a-bitch that hurt. I mean, I know an axe to the back isn’t exactly a hangnail, but I had no idea it would be that much pain.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “That’s the funny thing,” Nemec said. “I thought I was finished, but then Thurman realized he couldn’t finish me off till I told him where it is.”

  “What? Where what is?”

  Nemec swallowed the rest of the beer in two swigs, then placed the empty bottle on the bar. “Nice bar, by the way, Sheriff.”

  “Close enough,” Taters said.

  Pilate coaxed, “Answer the question, Parker. What did Thurman nearly killed you over?”

  “Let me put it this way,” Nemec said. “If I tell you, you’ll be as big a target as I am.”

  “Parker, just tell me, before you get your ass arrested.”

  “I’m countin’ on that,” he said. “I want you to arrest me. I want protection. Take me out of town.”

  “You got it. We’ll talk with Commissioner Ryder and the state police and take you to Lincoln.”

  “That may be tough,” Nemec said.

  “Why?” Taters barked.

  “Because I tried to skip town a few minutes ago, and Tom damn near ran me off the road. I managed to squeeze past him on Cemetery Road. He’s parked down the street right now, waiting for me to leave.”

  “Nice driving for a one-armed man,” Pilate said, “and thanks a lot for bringing him to my house, you piece of shit. I have kids in there.”

  “Sorry, Constable. I had nowhere else to go.”

  “Let’s get inside.”

  Pilate hung up the phone. “Well, we have about three or four hours before reinforcements are due to arrive. Ryder says there’s a hostage situation at a liquor store over in Vetsville, so all the reserve deputies and state police are over there.”

  “How convenient,” Kate said.

  Peter, oblivious, chirped happily, pointing at everyone and cooing as he lay in his mother’s protective arms.

  Pilate nodded. “Ryder’s heading this way though. That’s something.” He looked at Nemec. “We’ve gotta get you out of my house.” Pilate picked up his gun and holster. “Kate, would you show Taters the gun safe?”

  “Yep,” she said.

  “See? Guns can come in handy,” Taters said.

  She flashed him a dirty look, then smirked and shook her head. “Come on.”

  “What’s so damn important to Thurman and Cusack, Nemec?”

  “Oh, you know about Mr. Lucky Charms, eh?” Nemec said, his eyes darting to Pilate’s.

  “Yes. I’m not a complete idiot,” Pilate said.

  “He found out by accident,” Nemec said.

  “I don’t have time to find out by accident, so how about you just cut the shit and tell me?”

  “I will, as soon as I feel safe.”

  Taters and Kate walked back downstairs. Taters was holding a hunting rifle and wearing a semiautomatic pistol in his belt. Kate hefted a shotgun.

  “Kate, you gonna be okay, hon’?” Pilate said.

  “Yep,” she said. “There won’t be any trouble once you get Mr. Popularity out of here. I know how to use the shotgun…and please don’t give me any shit about gun safety right now.”

  “Where are we going?” Nemec said, pacing on the living room rug.

  “Jail,” Pilate said.

  “This is not a good idea,” Nemec said as Pilate closed the barred door on him.

  “Best we can do for the time being,” Pilate said. “Now, since you’re safely behind bars, tell me what this is all about.”

  Nemec snorted, falling heavily onto the squeaking springs of the old mattress in the cell. “Shit, I guess it doesn’t matter now. You wanna know the whole story?”

  Pilate glanced to his right, seeing Taters’s shadow in the doorway. “That’s the general idea.”

  “Ever heard of Alvin Blood?”

  “Nope. One of those sparkly vampires in those teen girls’ books?”

  “Hardly. You killed the only guy in town who knew much about him—your old pal, the librarian.”

  “I didn’t kill Derek Krall.”

  Nemec shrugged. “Krall was researching Al Blood.”

  Pilate sighed. “So?”

  “Derek Krall knew the secret,” Nemec said, “or at least he was getting close to figuring it out before all that stuff with Jack Lindstrom and Ollie Olafson went down, right when you moved to town.”

  “This guy loves the sound of his own voice,” Simon said.

  “Okay.”

  Nemec blew a snot rocket on the floor and smudged it with his boot. “Krall knew about the gold, see?”

  “Gold?”

  “Yeah, the gold buried under Perry Mostek’s store and on the old Bartley place and in just about every spot around town that Olafson and Lindstrom were fighting over.” He chuckled quietly. “I read your book, John. You got it right in so many ways, but you never really nailed what Lindstrom and Ollie were fighting over. It was Alvin Blood’s gold.”

  “Who the hell is Alvin Blood?”

  “A blacksmith back in 1890 or so. Legend has it that ol’ Al buried thousands of bucks’ worth of gold coins on his property.” He gestured with his thumb. “Right across the street.”

  Pilate shot Taters a look.

  “Alvin went to Missouri to buy some merchandise and never returned. The gold was never recovered, and they eventually built a house on top the smithy site. Krall found out in his research that Alvin Blood had an interesting life before becoming a blacksmith. He was apparently a road agent, a pretty good one. He was the terror of the territory,” Nemec said.

  “But he settled down to blacksmithing, and Krall also figured out it wasn’t just his takings but actually some Confederate gold entrusted to him by one Jubal Olafson. Yeah, same family. Now, a prostitute in Fort Kearney killed old Jubal, and Alvin was left to guard the gold. You know what it’s worth in today’s dollars?”

  Pilate shrugged.

  “Roughly a million, and that’s not all. Krall found out about all this in an old diary supposedly written by Blood’s estranged wife. It says he had a few three-dollar Indian Head Princess coins, including an 1855-D one-dollar gold coin. Those coins aren’t just pocket change, John. In the right condition, that one coin alone’s worth $150,000. That’s money worth killing for.”
r />   Taters whistled and walked into the back with the two men. “Hell yeah. Let’s everybody kill everybody else over less than my life insurance policy.”

  “You have a million in life insurance?” Pilate said.

  “Doesn’t everybody?”

  “So Jack Lindstrom knew about this?” Pilate asked Nemec.

  “Not exactly. Krall was good at stringing him along. All Lindstrom knew was that Ollie wanted something, and Krall made sure Ollie felt like Lindstrom was breathing down his neck.”

  Pilate sat down on an old wooden chair. “Jesus. People died over this bullshit.”

  “Not bullshit. It’s all about money, power, control. This little town may not be much, but men will fight over money, land, and pussy, no matter how small the stain on the map.”

  “I see precious little of the latter in all this,” Taters said.

  “Can’t win ‘em all.”

  “To be clear, Hilmer Thurman knows about this?”

  Nemec smiled, with little mirth. “He said Ollie talked to him about it before he died. Ollie was considering bringing in some extra muscle to deal with you and former Sheriff Scovill. So, when Ollie got his ticket punched, Thurman hightailed it down here.”

  “He did move in pretty quick,” Pilate mused.

  “Ollie caught Krall snooping around Mostek’s place, and Krall made a special effort to keep Lindstrom from tearing down the old place Cusack bought and fixed up into the Cross and Cork. Ollie leaned on Krall and got him to tell him what he knew, except—”

  “You, in the jail!” interrupted a voice from outside.

  “Shit,” Taters said, cocking his rifle.

  “Wait here, Taters,” Pilate said. He hurried to the front door of the jail and peered out through the shutters, but he saw no one.

  “Hello? You there, in the cell,” the familiar voice called again. “Constable, we just want the banker. Give us Nemec, and nobody gets hurt.”

  “Except Nemec?” Pilate called.

  “Just send him out,” the man shouted.

  “Don’t let them get me!” Nemec called from his cell. “You said I’d be safe.”

  “Shut up, you,” Taters said.