The Meriwether Murder

by Malcolm Shuman

  John Kech got out of the Ford and I recognized my old friend Deputy Spano as he shut the door of the marked cruiser.

  “Stanley,” Kech said, shaking Dogbite’s hand. He turned to me. “Lieutenant Crane wanted to be here but he has a stomach virus. I told him he wasn’t missing a thing.”

  Dogbite shot me a nervous glance. “Just waiting for a couple more,” he said, licking his lips. “Should be any second now.”

  “I hope so,” Kech said. “I’m only here because it’s you, Stan. I stopped going on field trips in the Boy Scouts.”

  “I know, and I appreciate it,” Dogbite assured him. “I owe you big-time.”

  He gave me a meaningful glare, which, translated, meant my bill had just gone up an order of magnitude.

  “So who else are we waiting for?” Kech asked.

  “Yeah,” DeLage said. “I don’t have all day. And who are these people?” He nodded at Esme and Shelby.

  “These are two professional historians,” I said. “They’ve been involved in this from the beginning and I thought they should be available to answer any questions.”

  “Involved from the beginning?” Kech said. “And this is the first time I’ve heard about them? Graham, why don’t you tell us a little about what’s going on here.”

  I held up a hand. “I think Dr. Deeds is better qualified,” I said. “Shelby?”

  Kech snorted, but Shelby rose to the occasion. He was almost finished with a colorful account of Désirée, the Natchez Trace, and the adventures of Meriwether Lewis when a muddy gray Dakota pickup turned into the drive and crept toward us, a blue Jeep Cherokee following just behind.

  I exhaled relief.

  The last two players in the drama had arrived.

  Ivy Dupuy dismounted from the truck and ambled toward us, while a thin, sandy-haired man with glasses and a bow tie got out of the Cherokee.

  “Alan,” Ivy declared, spitting tobacco juice onto the ground. “You got a hell of a little crowd here.”

  “What is this?” DeLage demanded.

  “Mr. Dupuy is a friend,” I said. “And this …”

  The sandy-haired man in the bow tie was already handing around his card.

  “Stafford Oates,” he said earnestly. “I represent Miss Ouida Fabré. How are you, Mr. DeLage?”

  “Did you call him?” DeLage rounded on me. “I’ll have your ass—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. DeLage, but you don’t have any standing here,” Oates said pleasantly. “I represent your aunt, and she is the legal owner of this property.”

  “You …” DeLage’s face flushed red.

  “He’s right,” Dogbite said.

  “Maybe,” I said, “we need to walk over to the Indian mound so I can explain what this is all about.”

  I started forward and the others trailed after me, with the exception of Ivy Dupuy.

  Pepper leaned toward me as we walked. “Alan, you never did tell me exactly what you’re planning.”

  “Cross your fingers,” I said.

  I skirted the pond, with the old chapel on the right, and something clutched inside my chest. What if I was wrong? What if this turned into a waste of everybody’s time? What if I was miles off base?

  I trudged up the mound and stopped, panting, at the top.

  Everything was as it had been a few weeks ago, when I’d first come here. I opened the iron gate and went through the enclosure to stand by the brick vault with the single name.

  When everyone had reached the summit I pointed down at the tomb.

  “This is the man who started all this,” I said. “Shelby has given you the background. Briefly, the question is whether this is the grave of an unknown person, or whether this is the grave of Meriwether Lewis.”

  “We know all that,” DeLage snarled. “And we know all those documents backing up your claim are a fraud.”

  “We know,” I corrected calmly, “that the will in the university library is probably a fraud. But there are three other documents that I believe are perfectly genuine. The first is the journal, or three journals, actually, which Shelby’s mentioned; the second is a fragment of paper found in Brady Flowers’s hand when he was killed; and the last is a letter in the Tennessee State Archives.”

  There was sudden silence, except for Shelby clearing his throat.

  “Tennessee Archives?” he asked.

  “That’s right.” I explained then about the Isaiah King letter.

  “So you see,” I said, “there is a possibility that the Lewis theory was right from the beginning.”

  “But if that’s so, why the forged will?” Esme asked.

  “I’m not sure. But let’s leave that for right now and consider the possibility that the theory really is correct.”

  DeLage’s face had gone pale.

  “The journals mention a metal box that the old man had and this box contained documents that the journal writer, John Clay Hardin, couldn’t make anything of.”

  “A code?” Shelby asked.

  “Or a cipher,” I said. “With information that may have some bearing on this whole thing. The killer must already have at least one of the papers, because Flowers was holding the edge of a handwritten document when he died. But there must be other papers the killer didn’t get, papers that may still be in the box where Flowers left them.”

  “Lost documents from the Lewis and Clark expedition!” Shelby cried. “That would be fantastic. Some of Lewis’s journals are incomplete. A secret page from one of those journals would be incredible.”

  “And worth money,” I said. “Quite a lot.”

  The prosecutor, Kech, stepped forward. “So you brought us here because you know where the box is. I have to warn you, hiding evidence is obstruction of justice, and there may be misprision of felony if—”

  “Hold on,” Dogbite said. “Let’s hear him out.” His look warned me my story had better be good.

  “I don’t know where the box is,” I said. “So I’m not hiding anything.”

  “You don’t know where it is and you brought us all here?” DeLage exploded. He turned on Kech. “You ought to arrest him anyway.”

  “I said I didn’t know,” I said. “But I may have an idea and I thought that if I was right, it would be a good idea if everybody concerned was here to witness its discovery.”

  Kech gave a short little nod.

  “All right, so where do you think it is?”

  From the right corner of my vision, down by the pond and out of view of the little gathering, a ghostly figure in white was making its way toward us.

  “When the old man died,” I said, “he was rambling about artichokes. He had a garden, right about where the pond is now, and we all assumed that he must have buried the box in his garden. If that were the case, the box would have been destroyed long ago when the area was excavated for the pond.”

  “So you’re saying it was buried somewhere else,” Esme asked.

  “I think so, because when Pepper—Dr. Courtney—and I came out here just before Flowers was killed, somebody had dug holes in different parts of the grounds. My guess is they were using a metal detector and digging wherever it gave them a reading.”

  “And they found the box,” DeLage said.

  “Not with the metal detector,” I said. “Because if I’m right, the box wasn’t buried in any of those places.”

  I dropped the maps on the ground then and spread them across the grave. Stafford Oates leaned down to hold one edge and Pepper held the other.

  “This is a surveyor’s plat of the plantation just before the Civil War,” I said. “It shows most of the important features and all the structures. It even shows the Indian mound we’re standing on.”

  “So?” Kech asked.

  “The area marked Garden corresponds approximately to the area that was excavated for the pond,” I said and waited for them to crane their heads and satisfy themselves that this was so. “You’ll note that the plantation house is right where it is now, but the workers’ houses, the mech
anic’s house, and the commissary are all gone.”

  “Interesting,” Oates said.

  I placed the later map over the first one.

  “This dates to just after the Civil War, when the plantation was bought by Pierre Fabré, the husband of Eleanor Hardin. Note the things that are the same: the big house, the workers’ houses, the commissary—”

  “The garden’s gone,” Stafford Oates said.

  “But there wasn’t any pond there then,” Nick DeLage said. “That pond wasn’t put in until this century.”

  “Right on both counts,” I said. “Anything else?”

  “Oh, I see,” Oates said. “The chapel is where the other house was.”

  “The mechanic’s house,” I said. “You’re right. And since the old man, Louis, was a fix-it type, it stands to reason that the mechanic’s house was where he lived.”

  Oates looked up at me. “You’re saying the chapel was built where his house used to be.”

  “That’s what I believe,” I said.

  Below us, the white figure had passed the mound, was heading toward the river …

  “Well, let’s go dig the damn thing up,” DeLage snorted, but before he could turn I stopped him.

  “It isn’t there anymore,” I said. “Brady Flowers found it.”

  “Flowers?” Spano said then. “The man who was killed?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I think it was Flowers who dug all the holes. I think he was involved with whoever killed him and forged the will.”

  “Why did the person kill him?” Spano asked.

  “Where’s the damned box?” DeLage demanded. “Where did that old bastard hide it?”

  Where, indeed? I thought. Time to produce. Time to be David Copperfield. Time to materialize a box …

  “I think the box never left these grounds,” I said.

  “Talk plain,” the deputy said.

  I saw movement to the left, below the mound. The figure in white was moving among the bee boxes.

  “Well,” I stalled, “where would you have put it if you were Brady Flowers and you didn’t trust your partner?”

  “Goddamn it, he’s just leading us on!” DeLage cried. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “Hey …” Kech had turned to his right, toward the river. “What’s that buzzing?”

  “Bees,” Shelby said. “Something’s stirring them up.”

  “There’s somebody down there,” Esme said. “It looks like he’s collecting honey.”

  “Are those Flowers’s bees?” Kech asked, and I saw that he was beginning to make the connection.

  DeLage shrugged. “I told him he could keep his bees here.”

  “Then who’s that?” Kech asked.

  DeLage shrugged again. “Hell if I know. He’s all wrapped up.”

  The figure left the boxes as we watched and trudged toward the mound. As it neared, we could make out the black veil hanging from the wide-brimmed hat, and the heavy gloves that covered the hands. It was carrying something in one hand, wrapped in a white cloth. A few bees still swirled around the white, long-sleeved torso, and when the figure halted at the top of the mound, DeLage jumped back.

  “Keep those little bastards away from me,” he cried. “I’m allergic.”

  “Lots of people are,” I said. “But I think you’re safe.”

  The figure reached up and jerked off the protective hat, revealing the round face of Ivy Dupuy.

  “Hot in this suit,” he said. “Even in October.”

  “Mr. Dupuy isn’t just my friend,” I said. “He’s also a beekeeper.”

  Dupuy set the hat down on the mound, beside the white bag, and then delved in the bag for a second.

  “This what you was after?” he asked and produced a metal box, covered with sticky honey.

  “Holy Christ,” DeLage said. “You mean it was there.”

  I nodded as if I’d never had any doubt, trying to hide my butterflies.

  “Open it,” DeLage cried. “Let’s see what’s inside.”

  But even from three feet away I could see it had already been opened.

  Before I could say anything DeLage lunged forward and grabbed the box from Ivy’s gloved hands. He snatched out a piece of paper and was about to open it when Spano’s hand clamped his wrist.

  “Not so fast, cuzin.” He pried the paper from the other man’s grip and then released DeLage’s hand like he was dropping a dead mackerel.

  We crowded around as he opened the yellowed piece of foolscap and laid it on top of one of the crypts.

  “Careful,” Shelby warned. “The paper may crumble.”

  I looked down, not sure what I expected to see.

  “What the hell?” Kech muttered.

  The paper was crossed with lines, some kind of sketch. I saw a square with smaller squares set inside, and, in the now familiar ancient script, I made out the words palisade and commissary.

  “It’s a map,” Oates said softly.

  Shelby reached down then and carefully lifted the paper by one edge.

  “Yes. A sketch, probably by Lewis himself. But of what? Fort Mandan, where they spent the winter that first year of the expedition? One of the enclaves along the way?”

  “How about Fort Clatsop, on the Pacific Coast?” Esme suggested. “That’s where they stayed until they were ready to come back.”

  Deeds nodded. “It could be any one of those places. There’s no way to know which one.”

  “Yes, there is,” I said. “I suspect the explanation is in the piece of paper that was torn out of Flowers’s hand by his killer.”

  “The one that talked about the law?” Spano asked.

  “The one that had those letters, L-A-W,” I said. “But I think it was in some kind of code.”

  “Why? Is it a treasure map?” Spano asked.

  “To a historian,” Shelby declared. “It may be a document that will help rewrite American history.”

  “And the murderer has it,” Kech said. “Great. What do we do now?”

  “Put the map in a safe place,” I told him, “and wait.”

  I shook hands with Ivy and tried to pay him, but he refused any money. As he drove off, I watched DeLage talking earnestly to Kech and Spano in a low voice.

  “He’s trying like hell to find a way to make money out of this,” Stafford Oates said, smiling. “But somehow I think he’s going to fail.”

  I looked hard at Oates. He was the same thin young man I’d been introduced to earlier, but I saw now there was an undergirding of steel.

  My turn to smile. “You know, Mr. Oates, I think you’re right.”

  He nodded, started for his Cherokee, and then turned.

  “Nice meeting you, Dr. Graham. I’m sure if you have anything else to contribute I’ll hear from you.”

  Dogbite gnawed another fingernail. “Alan, what’s he mean?”

  I shrugged. “Ask him.”

  Pepper touched my arm.

  “Let’s go home,” she said.

  We drove back in silence. I pulled up in my driveway but when we got out she made no effort to walk toward her car, parked at the curb. We looked at each other for a long second and then I led the way in and closed the door behind us.

  “I thought …” I began but she put a finger across my lips.

  “Shhh. Do you have to explain everything?”

  She came against me then, hugging me tightly, and when I bent down, her face was tilted up to mine and our lips met.

  “Pepper—” I began, but she cut me off.

  “Why don’t we go upstairs?”

  Afterward, exhausted by our passion, I lay beside her in the bed and stared at the ceiling. It really had happened. And it was better than I’d imagined.

  I heard her deep breathing next to me and reached out to touch her hair. She turned her head toward me and cooed in her sleep.

  I didn’t want this moment to end.

  After a time I, too, drifted into sleep.

  Pepper was laughing, holding up an
ancient scroll filled with letters in an antique script. As I watched, the letters danced, shifted, and rearranged themselves into names.

  Adrian Prescott, Shelby Deeds, Nick DeLage, Dorcas Drew …

  Major James Neelly, Captain Gilbert Russell, John Pernier, Robert Grinder …

  General James Wilkinson, President Thomas Jefferson, General William Clark, Governor Meriwether Lewis …

  John Clay Hardin, Dr. Charles Franklin Hardin, Louis …

  They were at a ball, held under the Désirée oaks—Wilkinson, plump and smiling in his uniform, with shifty, cunning eyes; Jefferson, awkward and slightly remote; the servant Pernier in the background, holding the bridle of a horse; Dr. Charles Franklin Hardin, greeting guests; and dismounting, a tired, pale man in a blue-striped duster with a leather saddlebag and two pistols in his belt …

  The fiddler suddenly stopped and the eyes of everyone turned to the stranger as if he were a ghost. And I realized as I watched that it was because the man in the duster had no face. They watched him come on, but with every step he took, his figure became less distinct, until, just before he reached the president, he faded away entirely.

  The fiddler started up again, playing “Possum in the Gum Tree.” And General Wilkinson was grinning in his Boy Scout uniform.

  I shot upright in bed.

  I should have known. But it had taken a dream to hit me in the face with it.

  Wilkinson. Damn.

  THIRTY-ONE

  I got up early, careful not to wake Pepper, and went downstairs to my office, where I found the telephone directory.

  The address I wanted was there.

  Maybe I should have called Kech. Or at least Dogbite. But I had a feeling Kech would be coming to see me quickly enough. Something about tampering with evidence. I had to get to the address first.

  I fed Digger and consulted my watch. Six-thirty. There should be time. I hoped Pepper would forgive me.

  I took North 19th out of the Garden District, driving into a neighborhood inhabited by poor blacks. I passed the decaying Dufroque school and half a mile later crossed over the freeway. I curved down onto it then, and a quarter of a mile later exited at the governor’s mansion. On my left was the old powder magazine, built in the 1830s when Baton Rouge still had a military garrison, and on my right was the polluted capitol lake, which had once been a bayou that fed the Mississippi. A thin, gray mist clung to the old Indian mound on my left and half hid the capital building, which loomed in front of me as a thirty-four-story monument to Huey Long. I turned left before reaching the capital and entered Spanish Town, an ancient part of the city that had thrived in the 1920s and early 1930s when the university was still located downtown.