The Evidence Room: A Mystery

by Cameron Harvey

  “I know you’re right,” he said finally.

  James turned back to the window. The Gentry place was miles from here, where the bayou stretched into two arms of a coffee-colored river, its bleak beauty stripped bare at the foot of green hillsides dotted with collapsing sugar plantations, where people peered at the water around heavy curtains. This was where Ash Gentry had shut herself away from Cooper’s Bayou and the past. What would she say when Aurora Atchison appeared on her doorstep? Captain Rush’s words echoed in James’s memory. Leave this one alone. It was a warning, and they had all ignored it. Someone was going to pay the price for stirring up the past.

  He prayed it would not be Aurora.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Soon.

  Someone had used a finger to carve the words in the dew that spread across the back windshield of Aurora’s rental car. She’d stood there in the driveway, momentarily rendered immobile by the precise, clean letters and their ominous meaning. A week ago she probably would have wilted right there in front of the house, sat underneath the peeling limbs of the crape myrtle in the front yard and wished for home.

  But not today.

  She remembered Josh’s face, the curve of his split lip as he smiled up at her, pointing at the picture of Niney Crumpler. He was right; they were on the right track. They were getting closer to the truth. Aurora felt her senses sharpening, the way they did when the trauma calls came in at work and she had to shed every anxiety, any distraction that might interfere with the work at hand. She had a job to do. She was going to see Ash Gentry. They’d talked about the different ruses she could use; she could give a fake name, pretend to have just moved to town. In the end, Aurora had told Josh and Samba she was going to be honest, lay her cards on the table for Ash Gentry, pray that the woman would tell her what she knew. It was the only way to find the truth. And she wanted the truth.

  She twisted the key in the ignition, and her cell phone lit up. Ruby.

  “Aurora. I’m glad I caught you. You all set?”

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  “And Doc wanted me to remind you again to be careful.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Ruby.” Aurora pulled onto the tangle of back roads that would eventually lead her to the interstate. “Tell him I’m fine.”

  “You know what you’re gonna take from her?”

  Aurora hadn’t thought this far ahead. “Tissues? Something from the trash in the restroom?”

  Ruby humphed, a disapproving noise. “Toothbrush or hairbrush would be the best.” How did she know this stuff? Had she done this before?

  “Got it.” Have you heard anything from Josh, Ruby?” She tried to sound casual. He hadn’t been picking up his cell. She imagined him melting into the shadows in some dark alley somewhere, asking questions about Liana, heedless with grief about Jesse.

  “Nada,” Ruby answered. “I’m sure he’s fine. You just be careful and you let us know when you’re on your way back.”

  “I will,” Aurora said, and ended the call.

  All around her the landscape was changing, the bayou receding, dun-colored housing developments appearing in its place. Soon. It was amazing how one word could be so ominous. The shuttered gas stations, the rusting water towers, the cars on cinder blocks in front yards—all of these ordinary things suddenly seemed threatening.

  She almost missed the turnoff. AMARANTH. The name was written in fading script across two scalloped metal gates pressed together like palms. A green pickup truck with a Confederate flag front license plate, the truck bed laden with paint cans and machinery, was parked where the road met the gravel.

  Aurora put the rental car in park and was still searching for an intercom button when the gates began to fold open. The ancient limbs of the oak trees that lined the driveway reached across her path and drew their leaves across the roof of the car. At the end of the long driveway, the house came into view, a stark brick structure half hidden by the Spanish moss that hung from surrounding trees, its windows unencumbered by shutters so that they appeared to Aurora like unblinking eyes. A lone figure stood in the half-open doorway, watching Aurora’s approach.

  She pulled the car half onto the grass and stepped outside. There was no trace of the swampy air from Cooper’s Bayou, just a delicate breeze.

  “Good afternoon,” said the woman on the steps. She descended slowly. “Welcome to Amaranth.”

  This had to be Esma, the housekeeper Aurora had spoken with on the phone. I’m new in town, and I think she might remember my family. Aurora Atchison. Her name had meant something to Ash; Esma had come back to the phone quickly, something urgent in her voice. Miss Ash would like you to come to the house this afternoon, if possible.

  “Thank you so much for having me.” Aurora held out the bottle of white wine she’d purchased the previous evening at the supermarket, even though they didn’t have much to choose from. Nana had taught her never to show up anywhere empty-handed.

  “How nice. I’ll just put it in the refrigerator to chill. Please follow me.”

  Esma led her into a large living room. The interior of the house was dark, and all of the heavy brocade curtains had been pulled across the windows. Garlands of flowers that spilled from disembodied hands were scored into the walls surrounding the fireplace. Aurora bent down to read what looked like handwriting scribbled on the door frame.

  “Isn’t it marvelous?”

  Ash Gentry’s voice startled her. Like the house, she seemed to be sheathed in half darkness. She crossed the room in a few strides and stood at Aurora’s side, pointing to the markings on the wall. Even in velvet flats, she towered over Aurora.

  “Heights of the children who lived in the house,” she explained, drawing a pink varnished nail down the edge of the door frame. “How could I paint over it? All that family history. There’s a difference between renovating and restoring, you know. I never let my workmen forget it. It’s important to me that things stay the same.” In the light from the nearby antique lamp, Aurora could make out the years. Kitty, age 5, 1906. James Edward, age 8, 1910.

  “Your family?”

  “Yes,” Ash said. “I used to spend summer vacations here. My great-great-great-granddaddy built this place for his bride. Restoring it to its original glory has become my life’s work. I mean, it’s not like I do anything useful otherwise.” She laughed. “Aurora Atchison.” There was something clenched in her face when she spoke Aurora’s name. “I must admit, when Esma told me you were calling, I was caught very much by surprise. Please, come sit down.”

  Aurora perched on the edge of a raspberry-colored chaise. All of the furniture looked antique, as though it might crumble under your fingertips. Across from her, Ash sat on a high-backed mahogany chair.

  “You remembered me.”

  “Oh, yes. Nobody could ever forget what happened to you. It’s all anyone talked about for years! A body in the bayou, a murderer running free, an abandoned child. It shook everyone up.” She leaned forward and pressed her hand into Aurora’s. “I think it’s wonderful that you came back. But tell me, why did you?”

  Aurora stared at the woman’s pale hand in her own. “My grandfather passed away. I came to settle his estate.”

  Ash appeared pleased by this answer. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m sure being back here must be difficult.”

  Aurora hesitated. There was no easy way to ask the questions she needed answers to, but she had to try.

  “Miss Ash,” she began, “since I arrived here, I discovered some things about my mother’s murder. I think the story that I’ve heard all my life has been untrue.”

  To Aurora’s surprise, Ash nodded. “I think you’re right,” she said. “It never made sense to me either.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Wade.”

  Something softened in Ash’s tone when she spoke Aurora’s father’s name.

  “You knew him?”

  Ash smiled. “It was so long ago,” she said. “I was a young politician’s wife, still
naive enough to think that I could be happy with Davis. This was before he put me out to pasture and took up with some waitress from Kervick County. Back then, I made it my mission to be the picture of a Southern lady.”

  “It seems to me that you are,” Aurora said before she could stop herself.

  Ash chuckled. “It does seem that way, doesn’t it. But there was only one thing that fulfilled me, one thing that could take me away from planting flowers and organizing luncheons. I found it at St. Simeon’s.”

  “Christ?”

  “Oh, Lord mercy, no.” Ash’s eyes gleamed. “It was men. The pastor at St. Simeon’s was always trying to better the men of the community. He gave them jobs, put together men’s groups where they could talk about their problems. Rooms full of men, shrimpers with their tan muscles, sitting around talking about their problems.” She laughed again.

  Aurora wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the end of the story. “And that’s where you met my dad?”

  “Yes. But he wasn’t there to flirt with me, Aurora. Your dad was trying to turn his life around. He had made mistakes, but he was fixing them. He had big plans to get you and your family a better life.”

  “What do you think happened?”

  Her face darkened. “I don’t know. I think he was involved in something bad, something he couldn’t get away from.”

  “Do you think your husband was involved in any way?”

  To Aurora’s surprise, Ash did not flinch at the question. “I thought about it,” she said quietly. “Davis is the kind of man who won’t let anything stand in his way. I just can’t imagine what your daddy would be standing in the way of.”

  “I know.” A politician and a shrimper. How had their paths crossed? It was the part of the story she could not seem to uncover.

  “Miss Ash?” Esma appeared in the doorway. “I’m so sorry to interrupt. The Bayou Living photographer is here.”

  “I forgot that was today! Thank you, Esma.”

  Ash sprang up and grasped Aurora’s hands. “I don’t know what I’d do without Esma keeping all my appointments. When Davis and I got divorced, I told Royce Beaumont, who handled the whole mess, Esma has to come with me. Anyway, Aurora, I hope you’ll come by again. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.”

  “No, no. Thank you for seeing me. You have a beautiful home.”

  “Thank you.” Ash appeared genuinely touched by the compliment. Together they stood at the top of the steps. For the first time, Aurora saw a smaller structure, tucked far behind the house on the lip of the river.

  Ash followed her gaze. “Yellow fever,” she said. “My great-great-great-grandfather built a house for the family doctor after his daughter died of yellow fever. For protection, you know. To keep his other daughter safe from disease. But then she ended up drowning farther down the bayou.”

  “That’s so tragic.”

  “I guess the world finds all of us,” Ash said. “I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of your visit in Cooper’s Bayou, Aurora. I’m so glad you came to Amaranth.”

  “I am too.” And she was.

  To hear someone speak kindly about Wade had rejuvenated her. They were on the right track. He had been trying to improve his life. He was innocent.

  Aurora pulled the car back onto the oak-lined drive. The drive to see Ash had been longer than she thought; the afternoon was fading into twilight and had begun to wrap the road in darkness.

  She reached for her cell phone. No service. Of course, she was in the middle of nowhere. Telling Josh and Samba about Ash Gentry would have to wait. She fiddled with the radio until the lumbering drawl of a country song filled the car. The world finds all of us, Ash Gentry had said, something despondent in her tone, as though she had tried to hide from something in the ruined hulk of her family plantation.

  High-beam headlights illuminated the interior of the car. Someone was behind her. A truck, one of those ones with the custom wheels that lifted them far off the ground. Aurora smiled. She and Josh would laugh about it. She slowed down to let the truck pass, but it moved closer behind her so that it was right on her bumper. All she could see was that it was a dark color; and then she saw the front plate.

  A Confederate flag.

  The truck from Amaranth.

  Had he been watching her the whole time he was at Ash Gentry’s? Aurora pressed the gas pedal, and the rental car stuttered, then shot forward, the truck close behind. Aurora felt the adrenaline rising in her throat. From his vantage point, he could see into the car. He could see she was alone. The turnoff for Cooper’s Bayou wasn’t for miles. She peered into the growing darkness. The only houses around here were miles from the road, behind gates. There was no time. She was going to have to outrun him.

  The first hit to her bumper jolted her. She kept her hands firmly on the wheel, praying that the rental would hold the road. In the rearview mirror, half-blinded by the lights, he was just a featureless shadow behind the wheel. He was just trying to scare her, but after what she’d seen in Cooper’s Bayou, she didn’t scare that easy.

  Aurora floored it at the same time he hit the bumper again. The rental car skidded and then she felt the wheels leaving the road for the soft earth of the marsh, the headlights illuminating the trees all around her, until the car finally came to a stop in a thicket of reeds.

  She pushed open the door and stepped into ankle-deep brown water. Above her, the pickup idled at the edge of the road. She could not see the driver.

  “Hey,” she shouted, the adrenaline coursing through her, an uncharacteristic boldness in her voice. Let this man, whoever he was, come at her face-to-face, not hiding in his truck. She was not going to run.

  Behind her, another truck appeared around the bend and began to slow. The driver had probably seen the lights, seen Aurora’s car in the ditch. The driver of the green pickup revved the engine one last time and sped away into the darkness.

  “Is anyone down there? Hello? Do you need some help?”

  An imposing man in a checkered shirt began to shuffle down the hillside towards her, his flashlight finding her where she leaned against the half-sunk car, the bayou glowing incandescent all around her in the headlights.

  “Ma’am? Are you okay?”

  Aurora held up her hands. Someone was trying to hurt her, or worse, but she felt strangely alive, how she imagined Josh might feel when he was on the verge of solving a case, as though everything was right at her fingertips.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I just need a ride home.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Aurora was in danger. Maybe Wade Atchison wasn’t pulling the strings.

  But somebody was.

  Josh sat at the center table of the evidence room, elbow deep in Aurora’s case file. The dust-furred lights above had sizzled and burned out one by one, so that only two remained, casting a patchwork luminescence on the space where he and Samba worked across from each other. He struggled to focus on the file; instead, Aurora’s description of the previous evening’s events played over and over in his mind. He imagined the person following her, her car leaving the road, the bayou below waiting to swallow them. She had stopped the car, he reminded himself. She wasn’t hurt. Someone had happened upon the scene. She had gotten lucky. But whoever was in the truck wasn’t giving up.

  Samba had not questioned Josh’s absence the past two days or his sudden reappearance, and had swooped down on The Bayou Bumblebee the second it was delivered to their doorstep, almost quickly enough for Josh to avoid seeing the headline, Bayou John Doe ID’d as Jesse Hudson: Tragedy of Henry Lee Cates’s Third Victim. He never thought about the Shadow Man by name, because a name implied that he was a person, had once been a baby that somebody loved, had feelings and friends and internal organs. These things could not possibly be true of the man who had killed his brother. He wondered if somewhere Liana was reading the headline, if the identification of Jesse’s body would draw her out somehow.

  “Well, Josh? You wanna know the good thing about criminals?”

/>   Samba’s hovering catapulted Josh back into the present. “Absolutely,” he said. “Please tell me the good thing about criminals.”

  “They’re human.”

  “Okay.” Josh wasn’t sure where this was going, but he was willing to give Samba as much leeway as he needed.

  “See, the thing about us humans is, we think we control everything. We plan things to go a certain way, and they never do, because we can never account for everything.” His eyes glittered with the excitement of a charismatic preacher midsermon. “So, we just have to find out what Raylene’s—or Wade’s—killer didn’t account for. It’s got to be in here. The truth isn’t out there, in what people are saying. It’s in here, it’s in something that was left behind.”

  Josh agreed. Detectives were supposed to talk to people, solve fresh cases by hoofing it out on the street, tracking down leads. But cold cases were a different animal altogether. Wade Atchison had no remaining relatives, other than Aurora; Pearline Suggs was in the wind. Everyone else was dead or had left town. This case was cold for a reason. There was a moment on the cases he’d worked before when everything slid into place, but in Josh’s head, the images from this case swam together with those of his own; Jesse’s bones beside Raylene on the shores of the bayou; the Shadow Man accelerating towards Aurora in a green pickup.

  Aurora appeared in the doorway. She smiled, but there was something drawn in her expression. Josh felt a dull pang in his chest. He hadn’t kept her safe. Doc was right; she shouldn’t have gone to Ash Gentry’s alone.

  “Hey! Josh told me what happened.” Samba ushered her to a chair. “You okay?”

  She pulled out a chair between them. “I’m fine. I just wish I’d gotten his license plate. I asked Roger, but—”

  “Roger?” Josh asked.

  “He’s a plumber from Hambone,” Aurora explained. “He’s the guy who pulled over when he saw my car go off the road.”