He chose the army. Lysander was only fifteen, but before he left home he had to be wrestled away from strangling his mother. He never saw her again, but every strong woman he met had her face.
Lysander’s vicious nature and keen ability to manipulate groups saw him promoted. But only to a point. Then everything came to a crisis in Colorado. Relishing the freedom the army had given him to practise his favourite pastime, Lysander finally disgusted even his own commanding officers and was about to be charged with genocide.
Mama Kershaw intervened and greased enough palms to stage her son’s heroic death and equally bogus state funeral. Lysander was given money and sent south to Mexico to hide, but instead he continued his killing spree in the guise of a bandito called El Chacal, The Jackal.
And that’s where he first heard the alluring tale of Isabella’s Cross.
Harried by the Mexican army and about to lose his livelihood, Lysander decided to come north on the trail of the cross. He also wrote to his family, demanding more money. Instead Mama Kershaw sent his younger brother, Hector, with a firm refusal to take any more responsibility for the family black sheep.
So Lysander killed his brother and stole his identity and his clothes. Except for the shoes … Lysander’s feet were much bigger and besides, his three pairs of US cavalry boots were much treasured mementos of all the Native Americans he’d ever trampled upon … He’d worn them as El Chacal for the same reason.
Dry Gulch got him access to Spruce Tree Mesa and Isabella’s Cross. With the cross firmly in his possession, Lysander decided it was time to lay claim to his own kingdom. The debauched reputation of boom-town San Francisco made it the perfect next stop on his rampage. The prospect of the hauntingly beautiful Prairie Rose finalised his decision. He couldn’t resist her sexual challenge …
I flicked through the section on old San Francisco.
Beside Lysander describing how he murdered the three Boston bankers Professor Wauhope had talked about — to stop them from unmasking him — it didn’t tell me much of anything new. It was just pages of Lysander gloating over how clever he was …
How he even wore red snakeskin boots to celebrate his past life as El Chacal and his old intimidation method — The Reaping. How disappointed he was that no one made the connection between his boots and all the rattlesnakes found in the fiery disaster at Portsmouth Square. How there were no challenges left …
But I wanted to know why, after defeating the Corsairs and everyone else who had stood in his way to power, Lysander Kershaw had left? Why did he disappear at the height of his power? Just when he’d won.
And where had Lysander gone?
I turned to the last page but it told me nothing. It merely said he had an appointment with his mistress, Prairie Rose.
I shook my head — there had to be a clue in here somewhere. I went back one week and began reading more closely.
Sunday
Everything is done now. The Corsairs are dead and I’ve been mayor for nearly a year. Sitting here I realise I am unstoppable … no one can match me in cunning. But that thought merely bores me … The only thing that is amusing is seducing my Prairie Rose. She loves me, I can see that in her cow eyes, but she adamantly refuses to give me her favours. She cries and says she has a duty to her people. That she’s vowed to produce Indian children to repopulate her tribe.
I’ll break that bitch yet.
Monday
Edwina has just confessed she is pregnant, but I had to beat it out of her. Stupid slut — that will teach her to keep things from me. It will be a boy, a prince to follow me and help me build my dynasty.
De Vivar is acting strangely. I’m starting to wonder if Rodrigo is really the pompous fool I took him for. I caught him watching me today, when I was talking to the new head of police. For an instant I was certain he knew exactly what I was up to.
Tuesday
Today, Prairie Rose looked at me with cold eyes. I know she still loves me but for some reason, she no longer trusts me. Love me or not — I own the stupid little squaw. But how best to break her?
I think I’ll get her pregnant and then kill her just before the birth. I can watch her face as she dies knowing her tribe is extinct. How delicious!
Wednesday
Someone has been in here, in my secret room. Nothing has been disturbed, except that my diary was opened to the wrong page. Maybe I’m mistaken? Who would know how to get in here? Who would be smart enough to know about it in the first place?
The fools that surround me have become so tedious.
Thursday
I found de Vivar in a huddle with Prairie Rose. They stopped speaking as soon as I came up to them. I asked her about it but she said Rodrigo was only asking her opinion of his new hat.
Later de Vivar told me he was commissioning a sculpture of me, a memorial to Dry Gulch. He said he knew a good sculptor who he hoped would be able to put some of the real me into his work. Would I agree to pose for it?
What a pompous fool.
Friday
I was working late, when I chanced to look down to the courtyard. There was a man … he’d been watching me in my office. The lamplight from a passing carriage showed that it was de Vivar …
But not the one I’ve known, not my stupid business partner who I’d manipulated like dough. His face was changed. This de Vivar had a lean and hungry look, like a wild dog waiting for his chance at the carcass.
Saturday
Prairie Rose has just left. She has invited me over for dinner tonight. She’s hinted that she will finally accede to my sexual demands.
I sat staring at the final diary entry …
I knew why Lysander disappeared.
And where he went …
It was lunchtime on a brilliant blue-sky day and the plaza outside de Vivar Library was packed.
I studied the Dry Gulch Memorial.
It was surrounded by the de Vivar Library, the bell tower and the Department of Criminology in South Hall.
The memorial dominated this plaza, the beating heart of the Berkeley university campus. Here the best and the brightest wandered past on their way to the de Vivar Library or classes in South Hall or sat and ate their lunch while listening to the carillon that sounded from the great bells. Above our heads the statues of the five chiefs on the roof of Rodrigo’s tower watched and waited for justice.
I nodded to myself. Now the real message of the dramatic cluster of sculptures was so very, very clear …
Lysander’s bronze face leered down at Lucretia, the governor’s young wife, his malicious intent completely revealed to his terrified victim and his exposed cavalry boot skimming her soft cheek.
This tableau was a clue, a treasure map to the truth, both abstract and material …
I had to do it quickly or I’d be stopped …
I grabbed the lip of the memorial and hoisted myself up and into the group of sculptures.
Students wandering past stopped to watch.
I knelt, mirroring Lysander, and peered into his face. I touched his chin then knocked on it with my knuckle. The sound echoed.
‘Hey, what are you doing?’ yelled someone. I ignored him.
I unsheathed the battery-operated angle grinder and, with care to my strapped thumb, started it up. The noise was deafening. The now expanding circle of spectators gasped and moved away.
I could hear running feet; they were going to get security.
I leant the blade into the side of Lysander’s cheek. It screamed and whined, sparks flying as I cut down, then proceeded to encircle his entire face …
The bronze mask fell off.
Someone screamed.
A human face was revealed, preserved in its exquisite entirety, down to the dying expression of … surprise.
It was Lysander Kershaw.
I worked on his bronze chest, another revelation close.
The hole revealed the broken shaft of a red arrow … Only one was needed — it was sticking out of his heart.
I turned off the angle grinder.
Lysander had been right, someone had penetrated his secret room. Prairie Rose, watching from her guard tree, had found out about Lysander’s secret room … and his plans to get her pregnant and kill her and her child. The arrow through Lysander’s heart showed how she’d taken her vengeance.
I looked around the plaza.
But why had Rodrigo Juan de Vivar left a trail of oh so very dramatic and detailed breadcrumbs to the truth about Lysander … and even to his body?
Why this elaborate plan — one that scaled centuries?
Was this a public act of contrition for unwittingly helping a mass murderer?
Or was it something very different indeed? Something far more complex … and devious.
I remembered back to the way Lysander described his last sight of Rodrigo de Vivar. ‘He was not my stupid business partner who I’d manipulated like dough … this de Vivar had a lean and hungry look, like a wild dog waiting for his chance at the carcass.’
I looked up at the five figures on the tower battlements … The chiefs seemed to nod, finally at peace.
What was de Vivar really doing?
61
TRUTH, THE DAUGHTER
OF TIME
Amparo de Vivar was in the herb garden. The manservant left me in a grand reception room while he got her.
I stood stock-still. There was an oil painting on the wall opposite.
She was a haughty Hispanic aristocrat, with a hooked nose, high cheekbones and intricately braided long black hair. No mantilla for her, her head was uncovered and her dark eyes brimful of wilfulness. She was young, before time had carved suffering into her features and wisdom into her eyes.
It was Mother Leocadia, the Abbess of the Convent of Our Lady of the Wilderness.
Amparo joined me. Now I could see the resemblance.
‘She was a wild one,’ I said. ‘What happened to her?’
Amparo scanned my expression and decided to answer. ‘Donna Leocadia spent most of her life in the desert in New Mexico. She loved it. She said it had given her more than any other home.’
‘Did Leocadia die there?’ I hoped she was never dragged back to Mexico to answer charges in front of the Inquisition.
‘No, eventually she came to live here in San Francisco … with her son Rodrigo …’
‘What …’ I turned to stare at Amparo. ‘The Abbess had a son?’
‘Yes, of course.’ She stumbled under my gaze. ‘Rodrigo Juan de Vivar was her son; I thought that was how you knew who Leocadia was?’
I frowned. ‘Was Rodrigo born before she was banished to the Convent of Our Lady of the Wilderness?’
‘No.’ Amparo shook her head. ‘As you said, she was a wild one; he was born in that convent. I know it was outrageous for that time but our family saw the de Vivar bloodline as precious, so they accepted him completely. Leocadia called Rodrigo her gift from God, her protection in that desert wilderness.’
I’d heard Leocadia describe the stranger who guided her on her vision quest through the desert in exactly the same way … So the vision quest that the local shaman had sent her on had become a sexual odyssey? She’d met some man in that desert who’d saved her and she’d borne his child.
I stared at the portrait. I’d actually seen Leocadia when she was young … in that vision where she was playing with the little coyote cub. The vision she hadn’t wanted me to see …
My brain lit up like a light bulb. ‘Do you have a portrait of Rodrigo de Vivar?’
‘Yes, but only one from when he was very young. It was done when he first came down to visit his estates in Mexico.’
We walked into the next room and stood in front of the painting. A young boy, aristocratic in his clothes and bearing but his golden eyes alight with mischief, couldn’t resist grinning down at us from the picture.
It was Coyote Jack. There was no doubt of that.
So each time he’d disappeared into Mexico, Jack was visiting his mother’s people. He was visiting the de Vivar estates …
His estates.
The manservant interrupted. ‘Madam, you have another visitor.’ Amparo followed him out.
So Coyote Jack had tracked Lysander Kershaw to San Francisco. Using his real name of Rodrigo Juan de Vivar, he’d lured Kershaw into a partnership and played with him, super predator to clumsy amateur butcher. Mastermind to blunt force crim.
‘Miss Dupree, I’ve finally tracked you down …’
I turned.
Seymour Kershaw stood in the doorway, next to Amparo; their faces mirrors of each other, both wanting to know what I knew.
‘I needed some answers,’ said Seymour. ‘My family has carried the burden of secrecy for too long.’
Amparo nodded. ‘I want to know what happened too. I see now Rodrigo’s full story has never been told.’
We sat there, beneath the portrait of Rodrigo Juan de Vivar, Coyote Jack, while I told them the long story. Seymour’s face grew sadder as I spoke. His family secret was even worse than he’d imagined. Amparo just listened, enthralled, occasionally gazing up at Coyote Jack’s portrait with fondness.
‘Now I have questions for you to answer,’ I said to them both. ‘Coyote Jack tracked Lysander here, to San Francisco … And, using his aristocratic name and money, played a cat-and-mouse game ending in Lysander’s death by Prairie Rose’s arrow. Then Coyote Jack left all these clues at Berkeley — and all over San Francisco — for someone in the future to discover the truth.’
They waited.
‘But why?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t Coyote Jack just reveal Lysander for who he was and what he’d done?’
Amparo was swift to defend her beloved ancestor. ‘Rodrigo arrived in San Francisco after the explosion at the Montgomery Building, in the year before Hector Kershaw —’ She corrected herself. ‘Before Lysander Kershaw went missing. So there was nothing for him to prevent.’
‘Okay, he had nothing to prevent, but why did Coyote Jack go the other way and build that memorial as Lysander’s coffin?’ I stopped, remembering. It was just the kind of thing he would do.
‘I think it must’ve been because of Edwina Kershaw,’ replied Amparo.
Seymour raised his bowed head at the name of his ancestor.
‘Rodrigo had a great fondness for Edwina and her daughter,’ said Amparo.
I raised a brow. Edwina gave birth to a daughter? So Lysander was cheated of his male heir … Good!
‘You mean,’ said Seymour, ‘that Rodrigo was protecting Edwina and her daughter from the wrath of San Francisco?’
Amparo nodded. ‘Imagine what would’ve happened to Kershaw’s wife and daughter if San Francisco had found out that their beloved Hector had slaughtered so many people and then played them like puppets on a string.’ She shivered. ‘I think that without Hector to vent their vengeance upon, Edwina and her daughter would’ve ended up dead at the hands of an angry mob … like the Corsairs did.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Seymour. ‘Old San Francisco wasn’t known for its mercy.’
Amparo nodded. ‘And I know Rodrigo was fond of Edwina and her daughter … the little girl often played here with Rodrigo’s own children.’
‘So you think Coyote Jack was leaving justice for the future, when Edwina and her daughter had gone?’ I mused.
Amparo shrugged. ‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’
‘What happened to Coyote Jack?’ I asked Amparo. ‘You said he had children.’
‘Yes, many.’ She smiled to herself and touched her gently rounded stomach. ‘We de Vivars are blessed with great fertility.’ She corrected herself. ‘Well, we were after Rodrigo was born. Before that the de Vivars were rare, sparse nobles. That’s why the family accepted Rodrigo so quickly and so completely. He was the only child that survived in his generation — and the only son to inherit the estates. But everything changed after that. Rodrigo had eight sons and fourteen daughters of his own. He lived a rich life surrounded by all his children, watching them prosper.’
I smiled. That was good to know, a happy ending at last. ‘And what about Prairie Rose?’ I asked, expecting that there’d be no answer.
Amparo looked at me strangely. ‘Don’t you know?’ she said with disbelief. ‘Rose was my great-great-grandmother.’
I sat stunned.
Amparo smiled. ‘It was a huge scandal but Rodrigo still married her in style. Rose de Vivar became a great lady, using her wealth to help others.’
‘But …’ I frowned. ‘I thought she’d try to return to her homeland?’
‘She did,’ said Amparo with pride. ‘Rodrigo bought back what he could of her homelands and set it up as a special nature sanctuary. It was one of the first of its kind in the world. Rose took all her children there and taught them her language and ceremonies — so they would never die out. Rose is buried there.’
‘When did Coyote Jack die?’ I asked.
‘The week after Grandma Rose died.’ She shook her head. ‘He didn’t want to stay here without her.’
I touched my heart. ‘That’s wonderful.’ I was so glad Coyote Jack had loved Prairie Rose. That they’d made so much of their lives together.
‘I feel they are not gone,’ said Amparo. ‘My whole family … we all still carry something of both of them. We have Grandma Rose’s teachings and …’ She unbuttoned her blouse. ‘This memento from Rodrigo.’
It was there on her chest. The same birthmark I’d seen on Coyote Jack’s. A yellow sun.
Seymour gaped in surprise. ‘It can’t be …’ He opened his shirt. There was the same birthmark.
Amparo and Seymour looked down at each other’s birthmarks then into each other’s matching dark eyes.
So Edwina’s daughter had been fathered by Coyote Jack …
I looked up at the portrait of the laughing boy. Just when Lysander Kershaw thought he’d won, Coyote Jack stepped in and took everything away from him … like toys from a child. His position, his power, his life — even his wife and his bloodline.
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