by J. A. Kerley
“You get anything back from the Bureau on that piece of art from the convent?” I asked.
He reluctantly set the swatch of bright and swirling color on the lab table. “I know a few folks at the Bureau, managed to get it frontburnered.”
Hembree’s technical and intuitive abilities had, over the years, dramatically heightened his stature in Bureau eyes. They even brought him to Quantico to lecture once in a while, the result being a few important strings he could pull when the occasion warranted it.
“Timeline?” I asked.
“They’re making some progress, and hoping to overnight what they have so far.”
Harry said, “What sort of work would they do on art?”
“You want the ten-dollar answer?”
Harry put his hand in his pocket, jingled his coins. Hembree looked disappointed. “OK then, the quarter-nickel-dime version is laserdirected spectrographic analysis plus a carbon-fourteen…”
Harry held up his hand. “Already more than I need to know.”
Hembree sighed. “They check the age, check to see if it’s layered - anything underneath - test pigment composition and so forth. That’s the medium, the paint and ink. Then they’ll check the canvas, basically for the same qualities. They were also having one of their art types study the composition itself, brush strokes, pigment mixture, and so forth.”
“We blissfully ignorant types thank you. That’ll give us all there is to know about this swatch?”
Hembree grinned. “Hardly. That’s a prelim. We’re talking complex analyses here. It could be weeks before anything else comes through.”
“So we probably won’t have anything to help us find this stuff that’s floating around?”
“Not unless the Bureau can make the scrap of painting talk: ‘Hi, I was torn from a larger canvas currently at 15 Maple Lane, Atlanta, Georgia.’”
Harry frowned. “They can’t do that? Well, shit, Bree, what the hell good are they?”
We gave Danbury a couple hours to get Carla squared away, then headed over. She was in the front yard filling feeders with birdseed.
“How’s Carla?” Harry asked.
“In the guest room. Snoring. I don’t think she’s slept since you guys first showed up last Saturday; it brought back too much of the past. Today she went into stress overload and I think her mind felt like shutting down for a while. She relaxed a bit after I showed her my fondness for locks and alarms.”
Danbury set one bag of seed to the ground, picked up another. “Driving down here with Carla I got an idea of what you’re looking into. She told me the highlights about crazy Marsden and his down-on-the-farm circus.”
I said, “She mention Marie Gilbeaux?”
“What little she knew. Poor Marie. I got the impression there were just a few bloodthirsty types on this tour from hell, the rest were pathetic little followers. The savagery seemed to come from Hexcamp, channeled through some wacko Nazi bitch…”
“Calypso.”
“Jesus, yes. Just saying her name made Carla start shaking. Marsden and Calypso were like, ‘Hey, kids, let’s put on a show,’ and little Buffy and Timmy and Marie and Carla and Heidi and Johnny - or whatever their Marsden names were - all these ragtag castoffs lined up for instructions, thinking they were part of some great experiment in artistic expression.” Danbury’s eyes flicked to the house. “Over thirty years later and that woman in there still basically thinks of herself as a piece of walking filth.”
“Did talking with Carla give you any insights into what might be going on? Or spark questions we might not have considered?”
Danbury poured black seeds into a long tube, re-hung it in the magnolia. “One thing stood out. Doesn’t it seem little Marsden bloomed in a hurry? One day he’s a hotshot student at a hoity-toity Parisian art academy, the next he’s leading a tribe of nutcases through south Alabama, killing people and behaving in a woefully inappropriate manner. I’d like to know if Marsden left anything behind him on the fields of France.”
Harry snorted. “It’s hard enough to find out anything that happened in Mobile thirty years ago. Tracking events ten thousand miles away’d be almost impossible.”
“More like five thousand miles,” Danbury said.
Harry shut his eyes and shook his head. “What’s it matter? It’s still a major hassle; in case you ain’t heard, Danbury, they speak French in France.”
Danbury looked surprised. “Really? Where do they speak Italian?”
Harry glared at her. She said, “Don’t shoot those eyes at me, Nautilus. If you’d like a look at the French connection, pass the hassle my way.”
“What are you talking about?”
She said, “You’ve got other things to do, right? Let me do what I do damned good - research.”
“You’d do it anyway, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course. But I’d prefer to do it for us and not me.”
Harry went to the car, got copies of a few files we’d gathered on Hexcamp, enough to get her started. He said, “Count us, Danbury.”
“What?”
“How many people in the yard?”
“Three.”
“Which is exactly how far this information goes, got it?”
He handed her the files. She looked at him, cocked an ear toward his belly.
“You’re getting that gassy sound again, Nautilus. You sure you don’t want a Di-Gel?”
Chapter 26
Harry and I went to HQ to fill out paperwork. It was closing in on nine p.m. in a day that started before four a.m., taking us to Florida, Chunchula, and back to Mobile. We were too beat to speak, communicating via grunt. He grunted he was getting coffee, I grunted I didn’t want any. My phone rang and I grunted at it. It kept ringing so I picked it up.
“Hunh?”
“That you, Carson? This is Taylor Maybry.”
Maybry was CAP, Crimes Against Property, theft mainly, an empty-the-ocean-with-a-spoon kind of job, given there were people who considered theft a legitimate job category.
I staunched a yawn. “Hey, Taylor. What can I do for you?”
“I been away a few days, fishing up in Tennessee. Striped bass. I was up three days and we nailed over a dozen stripers. You been fishing lately? Last I heard you’d been out in that kayak, but I think that was last year…”
With Maybry you waited for a split-second hesitation, jumped in. “Something get stolen, Taylor?”
He paused, trying to remember why he’d called. “Oh yeah. Got back yesterday and heard about the woman in the motel, the candles and all, y’know? Freaky piece of action. Good thing you and Harry are on it…”
Mabry hesitated a millisecond. I said, “Candles?”
“Last Tuesday I got a call to a boutiquey place in the Azalea Center, little strip mall. Store called Karmic Revolution. Like where hippies go when they get old.”
“Candles, Taylor. Candles.”
“A woman, fifty-four, calls herself Freedom Sunshine, real name’s Esther Gargletta, was closing up. She steps outside to haul in a display of books and CDs - whales yodeling, that kind of thing - when bam! someone knocks her cold. Call came in at nine oh-six. I rolled up, paramedics are there. She’s woozy, but wants to check things out. Nothing seems missing. Cash in the drawer, plain sight, untouched. We figured maybe someone’s got a grudge against Lady Sunshine. She’d run some skateboard punks off the lot the day before, maybe they wanted revenge, bonked her with a board, y’know…”
“Candles, Tay?”
“She got around to taking inventory today, Carson. What’s missing? Two cases of candles from the FlameBrite Waxworks in Lexington, Kentucky. An assortment - different colors and smells and sizes, but more of what they call their Jumbo Brites than anything. Can you believe they make a cantaloupe-scented candle, Carson? What you think they do, chop cantaloupe into the wax?”
“Not a clue who did it, Taylor. Am I right?” I was beginning to associate this perp with extreme caution.
“Bonk, y’know? M
iz Sunshine goes lights out with not a witness around. Or how about a celery-scented candle? Can you believe that? Who’d want their whole house smelling like celery? It’s a strange world out there, Carson. Scary, you think about it, celery candles…”
The night was sliding from dark blue to black when we turned onto the street holding the Karmic Revolution. It was in a small strip mall holding a dry cleaners, an H&R Block outlet and a defunct pizzeria. Everything around it was dark.
Harry pointed to the store-wide front window of Karmic Revolution, a good twenty feet of glass. Painted across the window in footwide brush strokes was CANDLE SALE - 50% OFF! The red words were backlit by the light in the store.
“Letters big enough a bat could see them from Birmingham,” Harry said. “That’s kind of interesting.”
A bell tinkled as we walked into a cloud of sandalwood incense. The store was half devoted to contemporary versions of bell, book and candle, the other to clothing. I had thought tiedye dead. A heavyset woman with a haystack of frizzy gray hair studied us from behind a counter, probably guessing we wouldn’t buy a lot of celery candles. Harry buzzed the woman with his badge. Madam Freedom Sunshine herself.
“I knew you’d find them,” she said. “The cards told me.”
“Cards, ma’am?” Harry said.
I looked at the counter and saw an array of Tarot cards. She tapped one with a blue fingernail. “Justice. That’s you. You’ve found who knocked me out, stole the candles.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” Harry said. “The candles might be evidence in another crime. We just need you to run through it again, if you’d be so kind.”
She frowned at the cards, then pushed them into a drawer like they were being punished for lying. “I was closing up Tuesday night, bringing in the outside sales racks. I bent to pick up a crate of CDs when everything went black. I woke up a few minutes later and called 911. Then I made a headache tea of betony, marjoram and cloves.”
“You’d been in an altercation with some skateboarders recently?” I asked.
“A couple days before. They’re always racing through here, jumping from the steps or hopping up on the railings. I went out and chased them off. They were shooting the finger, laughing.”
“Did you feel threatened?” Harry asked.
“No. It’s almost like a ritual, been going on for months. They sweep in, do their hops and whatever, until me or Ben from H&R Block run them off. But I can’t think of anyone else angry at me. And to steal some candles seems so juvenile…”
While Harry re-interviewed Sunshine, I inspected the latest in healing crystals, moonprint gowns, scented balms, and body adornments. I was in an aisle of Close-Out Specials when I froze at the sight of a basketful of rings, a sign above them proclaiming ALL RINGS $5.99.
I ran my hand through the basket and plucked out models worn by Marie Gilbeaux. I yelled “Heads-up” and tossed a startled Harry a Celtic cross ring followed by a pentacle ring.
He stared at them. “Someone did a lot of last-minute shopping here, Cars.”
“Were any of these taken the night you were assaulted?” I asked Sunshine.
“They’re just cheapies. Someone could have grabbed half of them and I wouldn’t have noticed. Did you hear that a dress was wadded by the back door? Like the kid grabbed it, decided at the last minute he didn’t want it.”
“Dress?” Harry said. “It still around?”
“It was filthy and torn. I threw it away.”
Harry studied where the dress had lain, then walked quickly to the front of the store, checking displays. He walked to the basket of rings, then looked at the rear door.
“Come on, Cars. Let’s take a ride.”
Harry fired up the engine and we screeched from the lot. He blew through a red light, setting off a blare of horns, then drove a block north on Highway 31. He swung into a restaurant lot and 360’d back to the street, heading back toward Karmic Revolution.
“Harry? There lyrics to this tune?”
“Pretend it’s last Tuesday night,” Harry said. “I’m the perp. I’m heading into town from somewhere north. There’s a body in my trunk or wherever. For some reason I just dug her up. For some reason I’m taking her to the Cozy Cabins.”
I started to twit him, but held my tongue when I realized he was riding an intuition rush, something singing from his gut. He said, “It’s like now, dark. This street shoots me straight across town to Cozy Cabins. I’m driving along…then BANG!” He slammed on the brakes and squealed to the curb. I jammed my hand against the dashboard.
“Jesus, Harry - what?”
“I look over there and see…” he aimed his finger and my eyes followed: CANDLE SALE - 50% OFF!
Harry motored into the strip mall’s lot and slid behind the building, stopping in back of Karmic Revolution. We got out. He checked the steel rear door of the store; locked. Harry did stealthy, flattening himself against the side of the building, peering around the corner.
“OK, our perp sees Freeshine Sundown outside, taking the items inside, her back to him.”
Harry three-stepped to the door, made a swinging motion. “The killer slips around the corner, coldcocks Miz Sunfree, drags her inside. Five seconds total, it’s a slam-dunk. C’mon.”
He thundered into the store. Ms Sunshine looked up, surprised. “Won’t be but a moment, ma’am,” Harry said, striding to a rebuilt display of candles. “The candles were out here in front or in the stockroom?”
“In front. I used full cases to build up the display.”
Harry jogged to the stockroom, looked inside, nodded at the back door.
“Was the back-door alarm armed, ma’am?”
“I’d taken out the trash and hadn’t reset the alarm.”
Harry pushed the door open. A large trash bin was in back. Harry rooted through it until he found a torn yellow drapery, probably from the dry cleaners.
“What the hell’s that?” I asked.
“A dress,” he said over his shoulder, running back inside. Ms Sunshine shot me an is-he-sane? glance.
“Method detecting,” I whispered. “Stanislavsky.”
We followed Harry to the display of candles in the front. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you’re now unconscious on the floor. I see the display of candles, maybe look in back, find the location of the door. I want a couple boxes of candles for later. They’re heavy. So I…” He reached to the nearby dress rack, mimed pulling a dress from a hanger. “So I grab a dress and lay it on the floor.”
Harry laid the drapery down and put two crates of candles on it. He picked up the edge of the fabric and backed toward the storeroom, the candles following easily on the waxed floor. He passed the basket of rings.
“I’m pulling the candles out when I see the basket of rings. So I pick up a handful.”
We followed back into the storeroom as he bumped open the back door, laid the boxes in the alley, kicked the drapery to the side.
“That about where you found the dress, Ms Sunshine?”
“Exactly.”
It all fit. It may have been wrong, but in theory it was elegant. “That’s incredible, Harry.”
“This trip’s not done yet.”
We bade farewell to a bemused Sunshine and rejoined the Crown Vic, roaring back onto 31.
“What else was in the room, Cars?”
“Flowers. Some OK, some worn and wilted.”
Harry drove for six more blocks, looking side
to side. He pointed and grinned and pulled into a small cemetery. Graves surrounded us, many decorated with flowers. Harry leaned against the fender, gestured at the graves, some with bright bouquets, others topped with faded flowers.
“Folks set out fresh posies on weekends, Sunday, mainly. The killer could grab up a few sprays easy. Fresh ones, old ones. Toss ’em in the vehicle with the candles and cheesy rings.”
He smiled and crossed his arms, his foot tapping like there was music in his head.
“It’s possible our perp was making
up a lot of stuff as he went along, Carson. I think that’s real interesting. How ’bout you?”
Chapter 27
“Carrol Ransburg.”
I recited my alter ego’s name to the face in the mirror while pasting down my hair with goo. It was Friday, and I had an eight a.m. date with Marcella Baines. I studied my face: suntanned from fishing, the beard line no razor could completely erase, brown eyes that occasionally scared me with their intensity, as when captured on film by the Mobile Register’s photographer.
What had compelled Trey Forrier to see kindness in such a face?
It didn’t matter; he was mad down to his marrow. Probably saw the world in reverse. The man had a harsh and ugly face, made hideous masks before killing people.
“Carrol Ransburg.”
Yet Ava had found something in my face, or seemed to. Her fingers often trailed delicate patterns across my brow and cheek as we made slow and gentle love in my box in the air above an island, the surf rolling against the sand a hundred yards away.
I’d thought those moments but a foretaste of the magic to come, making our way into and through one another’s lives. Jeremy was right in one respect: I believed the feeling to be Love, as I had never known such a potent feeling before. Women had come and gone in my life, delights laid easy and often into my memory, but I had never lost my breath when any other woman walked through the door, had never stared at the phone waiting for a call, had never felt myself one of the chosen.
And then - just like that - she was gone.
“Carrol Ransburg.”
I called out my false name one more time, tightened my tie, and turned from the mirror. I slipped on my suit coat, and headed for Pensacola and my encore visit to Mme Baines’s chamber of horrors.
“I could have been Marsden’s queen, you know,” Marcella Baines whispered. “The Queen of the Final Moment…”
This time Marcella had opened her door not in a pantsuit but a high-slit sheath of white silk, the décolletage cut to her sternum, her low, hard-tipped breasts shivering against the fabric.