The Meriwether Murder

by Malcolm Shuman

  Well, why should they? Most murders are simple. Dogbite had told me that a thousand times. Somebody gets shot in a crap game, a husband wants his wife’s insurance money, a robber sees someone with a big roll and kills them to keep the victim quiet.

  No history, no Sherlockian reasoning, no research. Grab the closest person and if he doesn’t confess in the first three hours, sit by the phone and wait for somebody who hates him to call. Twentieth century detection at work.

  Not quite so simple this time. A famous American was dead, but it had never been clear how he died. Two hundred years later somebody had decided to capitalize on his death.

  The lockbox had to be the key. I’d hoped that Adrian Prescott would have some idea where it might be hidden, but now I realized that if he did, he would have taken it himself. Provided he was the killer. No, there was a good chance it was still out there.

  I thought of the big holes Pepper and I had seen when we’d been at the plantation when Flowers had found us down at the river. Somebody else had been looking, too. Flowers had let us know that.

  What if it had been Flowers?

  What if Brady Flowers had been an accomplice of the killer, and they’d had a falling out?

  What if Flowers had already found the box?

  I went to the pay phone and called Esme.

  “Are you alone?” I asked her.

  “Yes. Is everything all right?”

  “You don’t read the papers?”

  “I just got back from Abita. I was with Shelby. We were, er, doing some research.”

  “You were with him all day and …”

  “He came over yesterday evening. We met for dinner at Juban’s. After that is none of your business.”

  “Right.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  I told her about Sarah Goforth’s murder. “Naturally, the cops would love to hang it around my neck. They’ve already torn up the office.”

  “Oh, Alan …”

  I didn’t want to tell her about Prescott. If, for some reason, Shelby was involved, and she mentioned the name, it could only put her in danger.

  “Look, Esme, do you have any maps on historical land use at Désirée?”

  “Of course. There are a couple of very good ones.”

  “Can I come to your place and look at them?”

  “Right now?”

  “If I can.”

  “I suppose so.”

  I was already parking in her drive when I realized how unenthusiastic her offer to see me had been. Well, too late now.

  I went up the steps to her door and knocked.

  When she opened the door her face wore a distracted expression.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting you,” I said and then … then I saw Shelby Deeds seated on the couch.

  “It’s all right, Alan,” Shelby said, rising to give me a hand. “I hear you’ve had a bad time in the last day or so.”

  “You might say that,” I agreed.

  He shook his head. “This business gets curioser and curioser, doesn’t it?”

  “It does.” I nodded at some rolled-up papers on the coffee table. “Are these the maps?”

  “Those are the ones,” Esme said, spreading them out. “This is an 1858 surveyor’s plat. It shows the big house, where the Hardin family lived, the sugar house, the slave quarters, the overseer’s house, the blacksmith’s, and the commissary.”

  I turned my head to orient myself to the map and read the numbers the surveyor had placed by his drawings of the buildings, and the legend at the bottom of the chart.

  “Mind saying what you’re looking for?” Shelby asked.

  “Land use,” I said. “I’m looking for land use.”

  A plot just behind the big house and slightly to the south was labeled Garden. Near it was another building, not much larger than one of the slave cabins. The label said simply, Mechanic’s house.

  I’d found the hut where Louis had lived.

  “Here’s a Mississippi River Commission map from 1878,” Esme said, unrolling a blue sheet. “But it’s hard to make out. The best map after the 1858 one is another plat that the first Fabré had made when he sold a piece of land on the south.”

  This time the garden was gone, as was the mechanic’s house. And where the mechanic’s dwelling had been there was now another rectangle, that read Chapel.

  “Oh, I see …” Shelby intoned. “They tore down the mechanic’s house and put the chapel on top of it.”

  Esme frowned. “Alan, where is all this going? If the papers are forgeries …”

  “I’m not sure,” I said.

  “Nor am I,” Shelby declared, taking out a cigarette. “Or do you have a notion, Alan?”

  I tried to laugh. “Notions aren’t evidence.”

  Shelby snorted and lit a match. “We aren’t policemen here, Alan. You can try your ideas on us. We won’t call you crazy.”

  “Okay, what if only part of the journal was forged?” I said. “The last part? What if there’s really a box and it has something really valuable?”

  Shelby sat up straight, the match burning toward his fingers.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying maybe there’s something at Désirée after all.”

  “But what?”

  I shrugged. “There really was a man named Louis who lived there. We know that much from the gravestone. If most of the journal is genuine, then this Louis, whoever he was, did have something valuable in his possession when he died.”

  Esme frowned. “So you think that, even though Louis wasn’t the famous explorer, he might have been somebody else with a secret of some kind.”

  “It makes sense,” I said. “Or why would somebody be so determined to keep that secret from being found out?”

  Shelby coughed and shook his head. “I don’t know. A week ago I thought we were about to rewrite history. Then I find out somebody else has been trying to do it for us. Now we’re back to rewriting history, but with a footnote.”

  “Something like that,” I confirmed.

  “But what could be in the box?” Esme asked.

  “There’s only one way to know,” I said. “We have to find it.”

  Shelby got up slowly and exhaled a puff of gray smoke.

  “Do you have any idea where it is, Alan?”

  “I’m not sure,” I told him. “But when I am, I’ll call you.”

  I still didn’t want to go home to the disaster zone. For a long time I drove around the city, finally ending up downtown, at the river. I parked on one of the side streets, walked to the levee, and watched the lights from the casino boat, moored just upstream.

  It had been almost three hundred years since a Canadian named Iberville had come upriver from the Gulf and named this place after a red pole the Indians had stuck on the east bank. Almost two hundred years since another man had washed ashore a few miles upstream. Not half a century since a kid named Alan had raced along this very levee, between his parents, after Sunday mass at St. Joseph’s. The Canadian was dead, the man who had washed ashore was dead, and little Alan was well into middle age. A feeling of helplessness descended over me and my limbs felt like lead.

  Why did any of it matter? It was just a game historians played, and if it weren’t for the game, two people would still be alive now. What I was turning over in my mind could only make things worse, even get someone else killed.

  If I was smart I’d let it go.

  If I was smart I’d never have decided to shovel dirt for a living.

  I went home at last, as the sun began its western meltdown and darkness started to reach out of the east. I didn’t want to confront what the law had done to my home, but Digger didn’t deserve to go hungry.

  The scene at home was even worse than I expected. Books were scattered on the floor and files of papers were strewn in every direction. File cabinets had been left open and pictures were crooked on the walls. About the only thing they hadn’t done was break down the door; apparently they�
�d called a locksmith, as well as the alarm company.

  I let Digger in and instead of jumping up on me he wagged his tail, head down, as if to say he was sorry he hadn’t been able to do anything. I patted his head and opened a can of food for him, then called Dogbite again.

  “Those bastards wrecked my office and my house,” I complained.

  “I know.”

  “And you didn’t warn me?”

  “I didn’t find out about it until late this afternoon. I was with Judge Dear.”

  “How’s his chip shot?”

  “If you’re going to be sarcastic, Alan, I’m going back to my supper.”

  “They wrecked the frigging place!”

  “Of course they did.” He was lecturing a backward child. “It’s a good sign.”

  “What?”

  “It’s their way of trying to scare you into doing something stupid. If they had any evidence they wouldn’t have done any of this.”

  “Stanley, that makes me feel really great.”

  I hung up and started for the refrigerator, but walking around all the books on the floor was too much effort.

  Maybe I’d spend the night in a hotel.

  Sure, and let those bastards run me out of my own house. No way.

  I was still staring at it when the doorbell rang.

  Oh, Jesus. Maybe they’ve come back …

  I stood rooted, waiting to see if they’d go away.

  But they didn’t.

  I wasn’t in a mood for company, but I might as well see who it was.

  I jerked the door open and saw her standing there, looking small and fragile.

  “You probably hate me,” she said.

  I reached out and folded my arms around her.

  “No,” I said. “Not exactly.”

  “I know I left you at a terrible time. I don’t deserve you.” Her face was buried against my chest now and I felt her tears wet against my skin.

  I brought her inside and closed the door behind us.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said and all of a sudden I began to tremble.

  “Alan, what’s wrong? You’re shaking.” She gave a little gasp. “My God, what happened in here?”

  “The police,” I said. “It’s their way of scaring me. I guess they succeeded.”

  Now I was shivering like someone with a fever, ashamed of my weakness and yet unable to will my limbs to be still.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I’ll fix you a drink.”

  “That would be good.”

  I watched her disappear into the kitchen, making her way around the heaps that were my possessions.

  I’d been okay up to now, plotting how to deal with things. All it had taken was seeing her again to trigger this reaction. Now I felt like I was falling apart.

  Much later we lay in the bed upstairs, with her, still dressed, snuggled against me under the blanket. The shaking had stopped and a warmth brought on partly by a stiff glass of whiskey and partly by her body had chased away the shivers.

  “I thought I was going to find him this time,” she said. “It was so close. There was a motel where he’d stayed. He told the man he was coming back this week. I waited for two days. It was a real dump. I didn’t feel safe. But I didn’t care.”

  I let her talk, knowing she needed the release.

  “He never came. I don’t even think they ever saw him. It was some kind of setup.”

  “A setup?”

  “A scam. This man came on the last day and said he could find him if I’d give him some money. He claimed to be with some kind of truck licensing company. It sounded bogus. I left in the middle of the night.”

  I ran my hand through her hair.

  “They figured they’d get me up there and then build up my hopes. Then, the longer they let me wait, the more willing I’d be to pay.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “And meanwhile, you were down here, almost getting killed, because I was chasing ghosts …”

  “He isn’t a ghost. You’ll find him.”

  “Yeah.”

  She nestled against me and slept.

  The next day, after I checked in at the office, I made a call to Ivy Dupuy. Ivy was an artifact collector I’d met four years before, on a pipeline survey in Ascension Parish. Like many collectors, he was suspicious of professional archaeologists, but he’d trusted me enough to show me some sites that no one had ever reported. In return, I’d sent him some books on archaeology. I hadn’t seen him for a year and a half, but he had an impish sense of humor and I thought what I was proposing would appeal.

  It did, and once settled, he agreed to await my confirming call.

  I drove home for lunch, gritting my teeth at the thought of the mess I was about to see.

  Pepper, barefoot, with sleeves rolled up, turned around from where she was shelving books.

  “Hi. It’s almost back to normal.”

  I looked around at the restored room. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I already did the upstairs and the study. I know I got a few things out of order, but—”

  “But nothing,” I said, sweeping her into my arms. “It looks great.”

  “It’s the least I could do after what I put you through.”

  “You didn’t put me through anything. It was important to you.”

  For a second she looked anguished and I thought she was going to crack, but the mood vanished as quickly as it had come.

  “So what now?” she asked. “Have you thought of anything?”

  “Sort of,” I said and told her my plan.

  “This is crazy,” she said. “You could end up in even worse trouble.”

  “What are they going to do?” I asked. “Trash my house and office?”

  Dogbite scowled at me from across his desk.

  “What is this, Agatha Christie? You get everybody together in a room and then go around the circle one by one?”

  “Not quite,” I said.

  He turned to Pepper. “Is he holding out on me?”

  “I’ve never known Alan to lie,” she said primly.

  “Humor me, Stanley,” I pleaded. “Just round up the usual suspects.”

  “It’ll take some doing,” he groused. “I don’t know if I can arrange things like you want.”

  “You won’t know if you don’t try,” I said.

  Dogbite shook his head. “Get out of here.” As I reached the door his voice followed me: “And remember, I don’t work for nothing.”

  THIRTY

  It was just after seven when I tried Dorcas.

  “I’m sorry I’m so early—”

  “I’ve been up for two hours,” she snapped. “Besides, I was going to call you this morning anyway.”

  “You got the journals.”

  “I got them,” she said, “and my associate is looking them over now.”

  “Good.”

  “But he’s sure about the letter.”

  “He is,” I repeated, my pulse accelerating.

  “Oh, yes. I know he thought I was crazy. But I told him it was your insistence.”

  “What does he think?”

  “That it’s genuine, of course. There are some additional tests, if you want to pay for them. But he did a microscopic examination and there are no reasons at this stage to doubt the age of it. The paper is old enough and the ink seems to be, too. There are no erasures or alterations.”

  Pepper was staring at me. “What is it?” she whispered.

  “So there really was a white man living with the Indians in the years after Meriwether Lewis was supposed to have been killed.”

  “There were many,” Dorcas corrected. “But this particular one was apparently special, if you recall.”

  I did recall.

  “Of course,” Dorcas went on, “this could have been almost any white man. There’s no proof whatsoever that it was Governor Lewis. Except that the letter mentions that this white man was red-haired.”

  “Like Lewis.”

  “Hi
s nickname was the Red Stork. Of course, with so many Scots-Irish settlers, red hair wasn’t that unusual.”

  “When will your friend finish with the journals?”

  “A few days. But from his first glance, and this is admittedly superficial …”

  “Yes?”

  “He doesn’t see anything that strikes him as false.”

  I thanked her and replaced the phone slowly. I was only vaguely aware of Pepper’s tugging my arm.

  “Alan, what is it? What’s going on?”

  I told her about the letter of Isaiah King.

  “We assumed that since the will was forged, the letter and the journals must be phony, too.”

  “It’s a reasonable assumption,” she said. “But if they aren’t …”

  “Then either Shelby’s expert was wrong about the will, or somebody forged the will only.”

  “But why?”

  “I’m not sure. Except …”

  “Yes?”

  “The will is the only document that spells the old man’s name as Lewis.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I guess it’s time for me to wake up a certain lawyer.”

  It took until that afternoon, of course. Pepper and I picked up Dogbite and drove over under a heavy sky. Esme and Shelby Deeds arrived five minutes later. The crime scene tape was still up, but by now it was faded and bedraggled, like the plantation house itself.

  I was crazy. They were all humoring me. It would be a miracle if everything came together.

  The October wind chased the leaves across the once stately lawn, riffling the maps under my arm, and Dogbite consulted his watch.

  “I’ll give it fifteen more minutes,” he said.

  A white Porsche wheeled into the drive then, spraying rocks behind it, and skidded to a halt on the grass, as if to accentuate its owner’s claims.

  Nick DeLage got out and homed on us like a torpedo.

  “You’re Kirby?” he asked Dogbite, ignoring me.

  “That’s right,” Dogbite said, fishing out a business card. “Thanks for coming, Mr. DeLage.”

  “I came here because I want to see what this man”—he jerked his head at me—“is trying to pull.”

  He turned to face me. “Bud, I’m about to bury your ass under a ton of lawsuits.”

  Dogbite bit a fingernail.

  “Now, Mr. DeLage,” he began, but was interrupted by a blue Ford Crown Victoria, followed by a marked West Baton Rouge sheriff’s car.