by Cal Moriarty
From the depths of her bag, she pulled out a couple of books. Small ones. One slimmer than the other. She opened up the tiny address book, with barely visible tabs.
‘Clark. Clark. Pager. Here.’
She pointed the number out to Al and handed the book to him to copy it out. Marty was looking at the other book she still had in the clutch of stuff in her other hand. He put his hand on the book in his own pocket.
‘That’s a cute little book you have there, Mrs Houseman. Is that a Bible?’
Al looked up. He hadn’t realised ‘cute’ was in Marty’s vocab.
She smiled. ‘Yes, it is. The Old Testament. My husband gave it to me.’ She flicked it open so they could see. ‘It’s in Hebrew.’
‘That’s a lovely gift. Was that for an anniversary?’ said Marty.
He could feel Al still looking at him, intrigued where this was going.
‘Yes. It was. Last month. It was our fifth wedding anniversary.’
‘Isn’t that traditionally wood, for the gift?’ said Al.
Trust him to know that.
‘That’s what Clark said. I wouldn’t have known. But he said wood became paper. He said it had once belonged to Edgar Allan Poe.’
‘Poe. That must be worth something.’
‘Oh, I’d never sell it. It was a gift.’
Was it just a coincidence? Houseman had the identical Bible to Gudsen. Did they know the same dealer? Or was Houseman the dealer? If so, why did the widow Gudsen not know Houseman’s name if the gift to Marion Rose was from her and her husband? Wouldn’t her husband have at least mentioned it? And if not, why not? Something was not adding up about Houseman and Gudsen. And where did Bobbi Lomax fit into all this? Marty didn’t know. But what he did know was that there’s no such thing as coincidence.
‘Did your husband know Brother Gudsen?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Not a client of your husband’s?’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t know that. Like I said, it’s a very confidential business. Clark knows a lot of people. He’s always very busy.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Houseman. Keep it safe. Thank you for your time,’ said Marty, nodding in her direction.
He tapped Al on the shoulder. Their cue to leave.
‘Good day, ma’am. We’ll let ourselves out.’
‘Good day, Officers.’
Jack echoed her. ‘Good day. Good day.’
‘Wave goodbye, Jack.’
Jack waved. So did Al.
*
Stood out on the snowy path they looked at one another. Al spoke first: ‘What was all the cute Bible stuff? You going all Hallmark on me?’
Marty took Marion’s Bible out of his jacket pocket.
‘You took that out of her handbag? You’re good.’
‘It was a present. From Marion Rose.’
‘That neighbor lady. Of the Gudsens? The looker?’
‘One and the same.’
‘You don’t waste any time.’
‘Do you know where she got it?’
Al shrugged. ‘I give up.’
‘From Peter Gudsen. Supposedly from him and Mrs Gudsen.’
‘And you believed her?’
‘I believe that’s what she believes.’
‘Just a trinket from Mr Gudsen?’
‘Hardly a trinket, but yes from Peter Gudsen. Question is: where’d Gudsen get it? Because if he got it from Houseman, we have our first link.’
‘Ha, so me and Big Tex might be right about Houseman?’
‘It’s a bit of a leap. But maybe.’
‘I knew I should have taken the odds.’
‘Maybe it’s a possibility. Maybe.’
Marty felt his beeper go off and then saw Al pull his off his waistband, his taco-filled belly too big to read it.
Marty got to his first.
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22
New Year’s Eve, 1982
Reno, Nevada
They had driven. Passed on both sides of the highway by cars packed full of families or high-school kids; almost every car had ski-gear strapped to the roof. Ski and party. It was the day for it. He was hoping to do a little partying himself later. Clark loved skiing but he couldn’t risk injuring his fingers, his hands, even an elbow or a shoulder. They were his means to everything. He had read that in the war Betty Grable had insured her legs for a million bucks. He had thought of insuring his hands, but figured if he needed to claim it would be tough explaining why his career was so dependent on them.
In the rear mirror he could see Edie as she breastfed Lori, staring out the window. Not that there was much to see, hundreds of miles of unbroken desert and mountains. Clark knew from his regular buying trips out to Reno and beyond that it would take ten hours driving, with a couple of stops scheduled in. It was a long way, especially with the baby. Flying would have been a lot faster and easier. But they had a new way of booking everything, on a computer. And Clark didn’t trust those computers. Who knew where your information ended up? Often you’d have to quote your credit card number over the phone, even just as a deposit.
Clark hardly ever used credit, he thought it was an ingenious way of keeping track of you. Where you went, what you did and with whom. It would take a lot of collating all those little greaseproof carbon receipts, but where there’s a will there’s a way. It was just the kind of information the Faith would kill for. They loved information, especially if they were acquiring it, not providing it. It was just like the cable company, all the Faith needed was one insider in the bank or credit companies with access to the head office computer and you wouldn’t even need to collate anything.
Sure, you could pay cash at the desk, out at the airport, give a false name and then disappear into the skies. But when you were trying to convince people you were a devoted Follower, being discovered by one of the Faithful buying a plane ticket for an illicit gambling den like Reno wasn’t the smartest move.
Clark knew that if this trip to Reno didn’t elicit the response he needed, there would have to be another mark, another destination and so on and so forth until he got it. He knew somebody, somewhere, would give it to him, eventually. He just had to ensure he left no paper trail in the process.
Clark had located Rebecca Bright’s descendants easily enough. Back in November, long before the Rooks or Peter Gudsen clapped eyes on his Testament of Faith. But he had waited until they had before he made contact. Rebecca’s great-granddaughter was living in the house she had bought with her share of the cash she and Robert had made from their followers. So, after a light nap and a freshen-up at the Riverside Hotel, both parents and baby found themselves sat as a family unit, on a small couch in a modest living room on the outer reaches of Reno with Clark’s mark, the eighty-one-year-old Mrs Ruth Davidson.
They had made small talk over the apple and rhubarb pie and English tea she’d prepared for them, mostly about the baby, family and life in the Faith. She wasn’t a Follower. Her husband had died of an undiagnosed heart murmur aged just twenty-two, a few months after their wedding, and her belief in the Faith had died with him. She had never remarried. She showed them her wedding picture. They all agreed he was handsome and, gently, she put the picture back on the mantelshelf where it took pride of place.
‘I have a surprise for you,’ said Mrs Davidson.
‘You do? How kind.’ Clark hated surprises. One person’s surprise is another’s heart attack.
‘Yes, but first let me see that Bible that’s brought you all the way to Reno.’
Clark wanted to say, well, that depends on what the surprise is. But instead he took the Bible wrapped round with layer after layer of muslin out of his attaché case and started unfurling it.
‘It’s like Christmas all over again, and so soon.’
‘Yes, isn’t it,’ said Edie. ‘I’ve always loved Christmas, do you?’
Clark guessed from the delay in her response th
at Mrs Davidson didn’t much love Christmas.
‘I had my cousin Bertha staying here. We went to Cutler’s restaurant down by the river. We couldn’t be doing with all that plucking and fixings.’
Cousin Bertha. Who was she? Clark hadn’t seen a cousin Bertha when he’d researched the Bright family tree. He stood, passed Mrs Davidson the Bible. He sat back down, hand in hand with Edie now, as Mrs Davidson opened it. That way if Edie spoke he could squeeze her hand and impose silence. If the baby started playing up, he would beckon Edie out of the room. Not out onto the snowy verandah, but just to a back room. He didn’t want Mrs Davidson thinking he was a cruel, mean husband. He wasn’t his father.
‘Oh, my. Here they all are. It wasn’t commonly spoken of in my day.’
Clark knew that. It was barely spoken of today.
‘But you knew?’
‘Yes. I overheard an argument once. My mother and father. It was what she had on him. The only thing, really.’
Clark could sympathize with that predicament.
‘But it was never discussed in company. Ours or strangers’.’
‘Robert Bright. Our Prophet. Your great-grandfather. It must be like being related to Jesus!’ said Edie.
Clark squeezed Edie’s hand. She looked questioningly back at him, blissfully unaware of any social misdemeanor.
‘If Jesus had three wives,’ said Mrs Davidson, smiling politely. She stood up and passed the Bible back to Clark. ‘I have something for you. It may help you in verifying the provenance, isn’t that what they call it?’
‘It is, ma’am, yes.’
Peter Gudsen had told Clark under no circumstances to even hint to anyone who might verify the Bible what they had discovered secreted inside it. Peter didn’t want to influence their opinion either way: Faithful or not. Clark had absolutely no intention of telling anyone, particularly Rebecca Bright’s family in case they laid legal claim to the Bible and its contents. He had worked long and hard to get this far and he wasn’t about to do anything that would jeopardize this deal and his plans.
She was over at a bureau now. Reproduction. A nice copy though, in the French style. She took out a handful of what looked like envelopes, handed them to him. He saw the stamps, immediately recognized them. He also recognized the writing on the top envelope.
Rebecca Bright’s.
‘The writing on the Bible would seem to match this, Mr Houseman. Even with my bad eyesight. Some of these are Rebecca’s. My cousin found them when her father passed.’
‘Cousin Bertha?’ Not such a bad surprise after all.
‘No, my cousin Lily, over the other side of Lake Tahoe. Her father, Rebecca’s grandchild, had been the family’s unofficial archivist until he passed a decade or so ago. She passed herself last year, left me those in her will.’
‘How kind of her,’ said Edie.
This time Clark didn’t squeeze her hand. Instead he nodded in agreement.
‘We don’t like publicity, Mr Houseman. We are a family of bastards, born of a man and woman with dubious morals.’
Clark tried not to look shocked at her use of language, or her unexpected honesty.
‘So, please. You may take these, use them for your research, but please don’t attach this generation’s family name to the discovery should you be able to prove that this Bible did indeed belong to my great-grandmother. For myself, I hope it never sees the light of day again. Sometimes truth isn’t a desirable commodity.’
Before Clark could second that, there was a ring at the doorbell and Mrs Davidson was wriggling up and out of her chair, mumbling about how her cousin never remembered her spare key.
He heard Bertha before he saw her. She appeared in the doorway all bundled up like an Eskimo, all that was missing were the huskies. She marched over and shook their hands, Edie’s first. She didn’t coo over the baby, just looked at it a bit quizzically before grabbing Clark’s hand and almost shaking it off its joint.
‘I’m Ruth’s cousin. Bertha. Glad you folks made it, in this.’
‘Bertha’s from Florida,’ said Mrs Davidson by way of explanation.
God’s waiting room, thought Clark.
‘Next year, Ruth, you’ll come to me: it’s not called the Sunshine State for nothing. I hate the darn cold. Did you tell ’em about the surprise, Ruthie?’
‘About the letters?’ Clark held up the letters. ‘Thank you.’
‘No, not those,’ said Bertha, throwing the letters the same look she’d given the baby.
‘No, Bertha, I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.’
‘Oh, Mr Houseman, we’ve got a treat for you. Oh, you haven’t seen it either, have you, Ruthie?’
‘No. Not that I recall. Maybe when I was a baby.’
‘Well, Mr Houseman. I just trekked over to cousin Erica’s. She got it from cousin Lily when she passed, with a few other little trinkets. But this one’s the only photograph we have of Rebecca. And she’s got a Bible on her knee. A family Bible. The picture must be ninety years old. Right before she passed.’
Picture. What picture?
Pinpricks of sweat popped on Clark’s hands. He stared at the corner of the table, trying to focus on a fixed point in an attempt to ward off the nausea that was creeping around the back of his throat. He had been so close. So. Close. Signatures were one thing and easily forged. But the physical dimensions of a book were solid, intransigent. What would its cover be like? Black leather like this one, or lighter? Perhaps tan, which was very popular with ladies of the era. Would the cover be embossed or plain? Perhaps it was smaller, taller, thicker, thinner. Perhaps the page ends weren’t as rough-cut as these? The possibilities made him almost vomit.
‘Here it is. It’s not a great picture. Not bad for a Victorian box Brownie or whatever they were using, with those old plates and a ten-second exposure. See how it’s all blurred here and here.’ She had taken the photo out of her oversized handbag and was holding it out for Clark to take. He didn’t. Cousin Bertha shoved it closer still. ‘What do you think of that, young man?’ He took it from her.
The picture had been taken in this room. Right there the table had been, drawn much nearer to the fireplace than now. The fire must have burned all day then, thought Clark. In the winters that is. In the summer the heat up here would have been suffocating.
‘Is this it, then? Our family Bible? Can’t say as I ever recall seeing it in person before,’ said Bertha, picking the Bible up off the table.
‘Me neither,’ said Mrs Davidson.
‘Not a great shot,’ he heard Bertha say.
Reluctantly, frightened of what he might find there, Clark focused his eyes on the blurry seated woman in the picture. Her hands clasped as if in prayer on top of a book.
Clark stared in disbelief at the photograph.
There it was. The Bible. Or one that looked just like it.
Clark couldn’t have done any better unless he’d stepped back through time and put it there himself.
It wasn’t a great shot, but it was a great picture. A really, really great picture.
23
November 2nd 1983, 10.07 am
Abraham City
Marty looked down at the already clotting pool of blood. A dog lay next to it, bled out. The falling snow formed a white crust on its body. Al crouched over it. ‘I’m really starting to hate this son of a bitch.’
‘Beagle. Good dog,’ said Marty.
‘Loyal.’
‘Damn good dog.’ It was Tex. ‘Had one of those back in the army. Great detection dog.’
‘Do you think the dog could have sniffed out the bomb, got too close? Set it off?’
‘Sure. Although it would have probably taken a lot more damage. It looks pretty intact. It’s got all of its limbs. But yeah, it’s a possibility, depends where the bomb was in relation to the dog’s height, and proximity, of course. Your guy Whittaker will be able to give you more on that. But maybe there was another dog? There’s a couple of shredded leads just over there.’ Their eyes fol
lowed his finger to outside a men’s outfitters, its front window blown out, male mannequins strewn onto the pavement, suits ripped and charred.
‘The other dogs got taken by a vet and a couple of the guys, down the block. To his practice.’ Hobbs was beside them now. He’d been the first on the scene with Carvell. By the time Marty and Al had hauled ass across town it was all over bar the shouting.
‘So there were other dogs?’ said Tex, puffing his chest up.
‘Yeah, three,’ said Hobbs.
‘What other dogs?’
‘The dogs the guy had.’
‘What guy?’
‘They dead or alive, the dogs?’ said Tex.
‘Alive, sir,’ said Hobbs. He looked down at his notes. ‘Sorry, Marty, Trevor Angel, a dog walker.’
‘Angel?’
‘Trevor Angel. Angelic Dog Walking Service.’
Marty exhaled loudly. ‘Is Angel alive?’
‘Dog walker? Where are we, the Upper East Side?’ said Big Tex.
‘There’s a lot of expensive houses up there at the top of the canyon, Tex,’ said Marty.
‘Yeah, higher up they get, the pricier they are,’ said Al.
‘Closer to heaven,’ said Marty and felt Hobbs bristle at the hint of blasphemy.
‘Amazes me how they cling to the side of the cliff, like they’re gonna fall off if the breeze hits.’
‘I guess a lot of rich folks figure they got too much money to be picking up dog shit.’ Marty wouldn’t want to clean up steaming piles of crap either. Rich or poor.
‘Can’t be bothered to even walk their own dog. What’s with that?’ said Al.
‘Where’s Angel?’ said Marty.
‘County. His arm’s a mess. Shrapnel in his face. Third-degree burns. He might lose his eye. They got him out of here about ten minutes ago.’
‘He a suspect, you reckon, Hobbs?’ said Al.
‘Everyone’s a suspect in this case, Al, remember? What are we now? Still three thousand plus? And now our guy’s a dog killer.’
‘Poor dog.’
‘I got more . . .’ said Hobbs.