“An American general,” Pepper declared. “It’s hard to believe.”
“Oh, it’s well proven,” Deeds told her. “And part of the proof is the trouble he went to in order to hide his treason. He insisted that, in his dealings with the Spanish representative, a code name be used. He called himself Number Thirteen. But the Spaniards, among themselves, referred to him by name, so we have the best proof possible.”
“And you think old Louis found out about Wilkinson’s treason?” I asked.
“Found out and may have had the documents to prove it.”
NINE
I thought of the old man’s dying words.
“Yes,” Deeds said. “Whoever the man at Désirée Plantation was, he might have been able to prove something that would have ended Wilkinson’s career and sent him to prison.”
“Then this Louis must have been a spy,” I said. “An Army officer sent to check up on Wilkinson.”
“Right,” Pepper cried, “and the locked box Louis had before he died might tell us.”
“But why,” Esme asked, “is someone trying to keep all this secret so many years later?”
Shelby Deeds shook his head.
“There are always people who don’t want things to come out. You know old families: Some descendant may be afraid something may come to light and embarrass the lineage. It’s happened before.”
“That may be,” Esme said. “But every family has its black sheep. And some families are proud of them.”
“Then look at it from the point of view of our contemporary cutthroat academic world. Who stands to profit?”
“You mean from publishing any papers from the box?” Esme asked. “If they’re genuine, they could make a wonderful little monograph.”
“You mean tenure,” Pepper said.
“Tenure, promotion, academic kudos. You know the game,” Deeds said.
“There’s only one problem,” I said. “Nobody seems to have gotten interested in this before a couple of days ago and they’ve had years to look for the box and publish the papers in it if there’s anything to be found.”
Deeds nodded. “I admit that’s a problem.” He tapped the photocopy of the will with one finger. “About all I can do is follow up some ideas. It’s really quite fascinating and I appreciate your bringing it to me.”
“Shelby, you’re a dear,” Esme said.
I stood up. “You’ve been very helpful, Dr. Deeds. Since we’re using your time, I hope you’ll bill us as a consultant.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t done you any good yet,” he said mournfully. “But any excuse to see Esme is worth it.”
“You’re such a flatterer, Shelby,” Esme cried as we moved toward the door.
“Wait a minute.” Deeds hobbled off into the back of the house and Esme and I looked at each other. She gave a little shrug and then broke into a smile when he reemerged with a bottle of wine.
“Here. It’s an excellent vintage. Cabernet sauvignon. I’ve had it for years, ever since I stopped drinking. I hate to pour out something someone else can enjoy. Take it. You’ll have to share it, of course.”
“Shelby, we couldn’t …” But she was already reaching for it. “You’re such a darling.”
Esme pecked him on the cheek and we moved out of the house and into the yard.
Deeds looked up at the trees, where squirrels were chattering. “Going to be an early winter, I think. The squirrels have been unusually busy lately.”
An hour later Esme dropped me at my office. I made copies of the journals while she waited and asked her to take them to Deeds for further study. And the way things were going, I’d feel better with an extra copy in someone else’s hands.
As the door closed after her, I looked around the empty office. Sorting table, trays of artifacts, bookshelves, everything was frozen as it had been left when the day had ended. The only movement was the little red light blinking on the answering machine by Marilyn’s telephone.
A message. But nothing that couldn’t wait until Monday or they would have called at home. Still …
I went over and, against my better judgment, pressed the playback button.
A mechanical voice gave me the time and date: To my surprise, the message had been logged just half an hour ago.
Probably a wrong number, I thought.
I was wrong.
“Mr. Graham,” a voice rasped, “this is Brady Flowers. You told me to call. So if you hear this, come out here at six o’clock. I won’t wait.”
I stared at the answering machine for a long time and then called Pepper.
“I don’t know what it’s about, but he wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.”
“I’ll pick you up at five.”
“Actually, I was thinking you might lend me your car.”
“And go there by yourself?” she asked. “Not a chance.”
“Look, Flowers is a queer old cuss. There’s no telling what he’s got up his sleeve.”
“And that’s why you can’t go by yourself.”
“Pepper …”
“It’s settled.”
And that was how, just before six, with darkness still an hour away, we found ourselves on the blacktop road between the cane fields, with the brick pillars of Désirée just ahead. Down the street I glimpsed the tenant houses, awash in the evening sun. A car sat motionless at the edge of the cane field like a dark insect, and a boy on a bicycle circled lazily in the street and then pedaled slowly away.
The driveway chain was still on the ground and we drove up to the front of the house and parked.
The great mansion loomed in front of us, its shadows deepened by the failing light.
“Should we try to find Flowers?” Pepper asked.
I nodded. “I’ll go ahead.”
“Not without me.”
We walked around the side of the house and looked out over the pond, but Flowers was nowhere in view.
I was about to suggest we walk back to the bee boxes when I felt Pepper touch my arm. I turned and saw what she was pointing at: The back door of the house was open.
“Maybe he’s inside,” she said.
We started toward the house together.
“Do you smell something?” she asked, halting on the porch steps.
I sniffed. She was right. Mixed with the scent of dust from the house and the reek of river mud that permeated the air was another odor, something pungent. I walked across the porch to the open door and poked my head inside.
“It’s gasoline,” I said.
Before Pepper could answer, a rush of hot air slapped me backward as the fumes ignited.
The flash lasted only a split second, but in that instant an image of the back room etched itself in my mind—cabinets, shelves, counters, an overturned trash can, and the body of a man.
“Alan, get away!”
“It’s Flowers,” I yelled. “He’s inside. I have to get him.”
“You’ll be killed.”
But I wasn’t listening. The flames were coming from the hallway, not the kitchen, and Flowers was half in and half out of the two rooms. With any luck I ought to be able to reach him …
I plunged inside, choking on the suffocating mixture of smoke and fumes. In the gloom I saw his outline just ahead and, out of the corner of my eye, on one wall, just over one of the counters, an extinguisher. But Pepper was already reaching for it.
“Get out of here,” I barked, but she ignored me, jerking the metal canister from its moorings.
The flames were licking up now from a rat’s nest of tinder in the hallway, and once they reached the walls the house would become a bonfire.
I stooped and grabbed the fallen man under the shoulders. I started to pull and he slid across the floor. Then, without warning, a gust of air slammed me in the face and fire scorched my arms. I heard a door slam on the other side of the house and I rocked back, dropping the inert man.
Pepper shoved past me and seconds later the hallway was filled with a whi
te fog. I grabbed Flowers again and dragged him back, into the kitchen, half aware of her form limned in the hallway entrance, extinguisher in hand. I tried to warn her to step back, but the words died as a croak. My lungs craved air and my head was starting to swim. I tugged Flowers to the open doorway, gulped in the saving air, and tried to clear my head.
Pepper was still inside!
I wheeled and plunged back into the house. I felt my way toward the hallway and almost tripped over her, seated on the floor, back against the wall. I reached down and the fire extinguisher rolled away on the floorboards.
I pulled her upward and she managed to stagger to her feet. She looped her arm over my shoulder and I helped her through the kitchen and out the back door. We both collapsed coughing on the grass.
“Fire …” she finally managed, pointing. “I think I got it. The man …”
I shook my head and sucked in more air. Twenty seconds later I got the words out: “It’s Flowers. I think he’s dead.”
I fell back onto the ground, sucking in the air, and it was what seemed an eternity later that I heard her voice.
“Look,” Pepper said, raising herself on one arm. “He’s got something in his hand.”
I removed a crumpled fragment of paper, brittle with age, and stared down at the black, flowing letters, just visible along the undamaged right margin:
We both stared at the letters for a long time and then I carefully replaced the paper in the dead man’s fingers.
What had the last message said?
I WARNED YOU ONCE.
THERE WON’T BE ANY MORE CHANCES.
I felt as if I was going to be very sick.
TEN
The ambulance took us to the emergency room and they stuck us in two curtained cubicles, side by side. After checking our vitals (excellent) and examining us for burns (minor), they gave us oxygen to inhale and then let the West Baton Rouge deputies interview us. Pepper drew a middle-aged Cajun named Sonnier. I got a wiry man with white hair whose name tag said Spano. I told him we’d gone to Désirée to see Flowers about our archaeological investigation and that he needed to call Nick DeLage.
“You friends of his?” the deputy asked.
“Not especially.”
Spano grunted. “Man’s got a bad reputation in our parish. They say he’s into drugs.”
He squinted at me with sky blue eyes, but I tried not to react.
“You know Miss Ouida?” he asked.
“We’ve met.”
“Nice old lady. She didn’t deserve what that bastard did.”
He seemed to be daring me to disagree, but I didn’t.
“You know anything about people digging up the grounds?” he asked then. “DeLage called us the other day to complain.”
“No.”
“But you dig, don’t you? That’s what archaeologists do.”
“I saw the holes. They were round.”
He frowned. “So?”
“Archaeologists make square holes.”
“So you don’t know nothing about this.”
“Somebody sent me an anonymous letter by E-mail,” I told him. “And somebody trashed my car. You can check the Baton Rouge police report. I don’t know if it had anything to do with what happened tonight, though.”
“You got any idea why anybody would kill old Flowers?”
I thought about the lock box. But bringing it up would only lead to a horde of deputies digging up the grounds.
“It must’ve been burglary,” I said. “Somebody opened the front door right after the fire started.”
“But why would they try to burn the place down?”
“Destroy the evidence?” I asked. “Maybe Flowers caught him in the act and the burglar killed him and then decided to try to burn everything up to cover his tracks.”
He stared at me with the ice-cold eyes.
“He had a piece of paper in his hand,” Spano said. “Looks like the killer tried to get it away from him and he ended up holding an edge.” He scratched his chin. “From the looks of it, the paper’s pretty old.”
I tried not to show any reaction, but the blue eyes bored into me.
“What does the paper say?” I asked.
“I thought maybe you’d know.”
“It’s hard to read something while you’re trying to get your breath,” I equivocated.
Spano brought out a pocket notebook and showed me what he’d copied. “It says something about the law. Some kind of threat, maybe?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But you might want to have it looked at by an expert.”
“I thought you were an expert.”
“In archaeology, not documents. You need a forensics document examiner.” I thought for a moment. “There was a dark-colored car up the street. It may have belonged to the killer. And there was a kid on a bike. He may have seen something.”
Spano shook his head. “Nobody saw nothing. The other deputy knocked on some doors and called me while you were waiting for the doctor.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Any other ideas?”
“Yeah,” I told him. “Look for somebody with burns. Whoever splashed that solvent and set fire to it probably got singed.”
He nodded, put away the notebook, and left me to the nurses.
When they let us go it was almost midnight. It was too late to call somebody to pick us up, so we took a cab. Pepper was groggy and I wasn’t much better. When the cab stopped at her apartment I had to help her out.
I told the cabby to wait and gave her my arm as she went up the steps one at a time. When we got to the top she fumbled for her key and I had to take it out of her hand and open the door.
She stared into the dark room for a moment and then turned around.
“Alan, don’t go.”
“I’ll pay off the cab,” I said.
When I got back to the room she was slumped on the couch. Her flowered Mexican blouse was smeared with soot and her hair was an ashen tangle. A black smear striped her forehead like Indian war paint. She looked very small and very vulnerable.
“There’s some wine in the cabinet under the sink,” she said. “Would you get me a glass?”
I came back with two glasses of burgundy. Jealously, I wondered who she drank with when I wasn’t there.
She took the glass and sipped. I collapsed into the armchair, an involuntary groan escaping me.
“Are you hurting?” she asked. “I hardly asked about your burns.”
“They aren’t anything,” I said. “Only my hands got a little singed.”
“You saved me, you know.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re the one who put out the fire.”
“Seemed like a good idea,” she said sleepily.
“You know, I was thinking about that piece of paper Flowers had in his hand,” I said. “I wonder if it could have come from the box.”
But she was already asleep.
I went to the couch, moved the wineglass, and started to cover her with the afghan, but her eyes opened halfway as I touched her.
“I want to go to bed,” she mumbled. “I want to sleep in my room.”
She let me help her up and made her way through the doorway into the dark bedroom, with me just behind in case she stumbled. She fell onto the bed and I lifted her feet the rest of the way.
“Good night.”
“Where are you going?” she asked in a small voice.
“To the couch,” I said.
“I don’t want you to.” Her hand reached up out of the darkness, touched my own. “Please.”
“All right.” I kicked off my shoes, took off my mangled guayabera and settled down onto the bed next to her.
“Ummm,” she mumbled and turned toward me, already falling back into sleep.
I lay beside her, listening to the branches scraping the window in the midnight breeze. My life with Felicia seemed like a distant dream now, something that had happened in my imagination. What was real was tonight, and the woman beside me. I turned
my head to look at her.
Just think of her as your daughter.
Right.
I fell asleep.
When I woke up, sun was streaming through the window and I heard water running nearby.
I turned my head to Pepper’s side.
She was gone.
I raised myself, moaning from the stiffness of my joints, hauled myself to the side of the bed, and fumbled on the bedside table for my glasses.
The running water sound was coming from the bathroom. She was taking a shower. I glanced down at the floor by the closed bathroom door and saw her clothing from last night in an untidy little heap. Then I looked at my arms.
They looked like I’d been playing in a charcoal bin and my jeans weren’t much better. My body reeked of gasoline and wood smoke. When I ran my hand through my hair I felt soot particles.
I had a sudden urge to sneak away before she could see me like this.
Then the running water stopped.
I got up quickly and slipped into the front room. After all, she might come out of the bathroom half dressed, forgetting I was there.
I busied myself looking over the books on her shelf (the standard archaeological works plus an assortment of biographies and, amazingly, romance novels) and the CDs beside the stereo. I was looking through the names of unfamiliar rock bands when I heard the door open behind me and turned.
She was wearing a pair of cutoffs and a T-shirt, sans bra.
“Hi,” she said. “I was scared for a minute you’d taken off.”
“I heard you in the shower,” I said, sliding the book back onto the shelf. “I didn’t know …”
She smiled and then walked over and, quite unexpectedly, reached up for my head, brought it down to her level, and gave me a kiss on the lips.
“You’re so old-fashioned,” she said.
“Sorry, but—”
She touched my lips with her fingers. “Please, Alan. Don’t change.”
The Meriwether Murder Page 7