Deeper Than the Grave

by Tina Whittle

  I sat on the counter next to him. “Does it happen a lot? Olfactory triggers?”

  “Somewhat. But usually not so…violent.”

  I slid an inch closer to him, catching the mingled scent of starched cotton and soap and his evergreen aftershave. Yes, I knew about olfactory triggers. I exhaled softly, ran my foot along his calf…

  He didn’t look up from the computer. “Tai—”

  “I know, I know.” I snatched my foot back. “You have a strategy.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, you’d best speed it up. I am officially love-starved, boyfriend, and it sucks.”

  He raised his head and regarded me with fresh curiosity. “Love-starved? Really?”

  I froze. There it was. The L-word. And there was Trey—patient, polite, but not backing down one bit.

  I felt a blush rising. “I meant to say sex-starved.”

  “Oh.”

  “Because I’m not…I mean, it’s not like…you know.”

  The words hung in mid-air, but the universe was swinging like a metronome, back and forth. Tick tock. He crossed his arms, then deliberately uncrossed them. Shifted his weight to neutral stance and then back to natural, as if he couldn’t figure out what he wanted to do next.

  “Yes,” he said. “I know. I think I do anyway. Do I?”

  I could feel the blood draining from my head, raging in my chest. He was waiting, I was waiting, each of us waiting for the other to do…what? And I knew that one move from either of us would tip the balance, and we’d both tumble, head over heels, into something vast and maybe endless, like the expanding edge of the universe.

  And then my damn phone rang. It buzzed and vibrated and shrilled, insistent and impossible to ignore.

  Trey didn’t even blink. “That’s yours.”

  “I know.”

  He glanced at the readout. “It’s Richard.”

  I cursed under my breath. Now he decided to call me back.

  The phone rang again.

  I sighed. “Can we put a bookmark here? At this exact moment? And come back to it later, when the freaking phone isn’t ringing off the freaking hook?”

  Trey nodded. “Of course.”

  But he was wrong. It was gone. Whatever he’d been about to do, whatever I’d been about to say, it had crumbled. The moment dissolving. There was no use snatching at it. It was like ashes blowing on the wind.

  I cursed again and picked up my phone. “Hey, Richard, thanks for returning my call.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Trey wore the suit and jacket despite my warnings that we would be in-field, and that with reenactors, that meant literally. This particular field lay in a private stretch of woods next to the park, one of the oddly shaped properties with boundaries like a snake trail, sometimes bordering the battlefield, sometimes bumping up against subdivisions or commercial parking lots. Despite the patchwork landscape, once we got past the parking area, the aura of civilization crumbled. The moonlight covered the ground like a wet spiderweb, and the cold seeped into my pores with a bone-chilling potency.

  We tromped in silence, following the trail markers. This far off the beaten path, I could almost believe we really had gone back in time, to the place these mountains had been before the railroads and highways had cut it up into lines of travel and trade.

  Trey shoved his hands in the pockets of the black trench and turned the collar up. I tried to imagine him on assignment here—lying on the wet ground for hours, one eye pressed to the scope of a sniper rifle—but the image would not take hold. I could only conjure up the Trey walking beside me, skeeved out and uncomfortable and grumpy as hell. But still there, nonetheless.

  “Did you bring some more of those little pills?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe you should—”

  “I already have.”

  “Oh. So this is as mellow as you’re going to get tonight?”

  He huddled deeper into his coat. “Yes.”

  Great, I thought. I’d have to talk to Gabriella about preparing a nuclear-strength concoction, maybe something with an IV.

  “Hang tight,” I said, “we’re almost there, just over the next—damn it!”

  My ankle wrenched sideways, and I started to topple. Trey caught me around the shoulders and held me upright.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Stepped in a hole. I’m good.”

  I put my weight on my foot gingerly. The tendon complained a little, but held. And in that moment, my back against his chest, his arm around my shoulders, I felt the unsettling but definite shift in his stance—left foot one step behind, spine straightened, shoulders back.

  “Trey?”

  “Did you hear something?”

  “Something like what?”

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

  The soldier materialized from the fog as if he were stepping from the shrouded mists of time. He was grizzled, gray, in the worn butternut of an infantryman. And he held a bayonetted musket pointed right at us.

  “Halt!” he yelled. “Who goes there?”

  Trey’s hand slid between the buttons of his coat, heading for the holster. I grabbed his wrist. “No! No! No! He’s in character.”

  Trey remained on red alert. “He’s pointing a rifle at us.”

  “It’s not loaded.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s in character. Which means we have to be too.”

  “No, we do not. I—”

  “Trey, I deal with these people all the time, let me handle this.” I cleared my throat and stepped forward, putting on my best aristocratic drawl. “Sir, we are lost in these woods, victims of a Yankee rampage. I am ashamed that those heinous villains left me only these men’s clothes to wear, and my husband here only his evening dress.”

  Trey shot me a look. What are you doing? he mouthed.

  Trust me, I mouthed back.

  I addressed the soldier. “If you could take us to your captain, we would be most grateful.”

  He gave us a studied look, then lowered the musket. I felt Trey’s muscles relax. He was still on alert, and I hoped to whatever deity was listening that there were no other surprises waiting for us in the deep woods. I’d hate to see one of the rebels get Krav Maga all over him. Or worse.

  The soldier spat tobacco juice into the shrubbery. “This way. Hands up. And don’t be trying no funny business.”

  ***

  Trey did not like having a bayonet at his back. Not one bit. So I broke character for thirty seconds to explain to our “captor” that he was dealing with a bad-tempered, well-armed ex-cop, and that he should probably dial down the menace a teensy hair. He took a good look at Trey’s jacket, noted the well-concealed but telltale lines of a shoulder holster. And then he immediately dropped the weapon. He also kept quiet until we got to the clearing.

  “Thank you,” I said to Trey.

  “For what?”

  “For being a good sport about this.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Well, thank you for not beating that guy with his own musket. Hopefully this won’t take long, and then we can be on our way back to the city. I want to ask Richard some questions, that’s all, especially about Lucius.”

  “That might prove to be a sensitive subject, especially considering that Richard was there the night Lucius most likely died, which makes him a suspect.”

  “Yeah but…I mean, Richard would never kill anybody.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure enough to come tromping out in the woods to talk to him.”

  Trey didn’t argue. He looked miserable, shivering despite multiple layers of wool and cotton. I stepped carefully in the crunchy wet leaves. An owl hooted above us, and Trey flinched.

  “Fine. But be quick about it,
please.”

  I smelled the campsite before I saw it. The odors of cooking fires and meat stews and tobacco smoke wafted over, and my whole body panged with hunger and longing. I reached into my pocket for a sucker, but found only a crumpled wrapper. I gritted my teeth and rubbed the nicotine patch.

  “I’ll be quick. Don’t worry.”

  The sentry led us to the officer’s tent, a rectangular unit set up away from the foot soldiers’ A-frames, which in war times would have housed men stacked head to foot like cord wood. But the boys tonight had made a small concession to comfort—each tent housed only two men. Still, I didn’t envy them the cold soppy ground and steely night air.

  The sentinel stood at the tent flap. “Sir! I apprehended two strangers in the woods, sir!”

  Richard stuck his head out, and I did a double take. He looked like a daguerreotype come to life. The neatly trimmed beard now bristled over an officer’s frock coat, and he carried a pipe instead of the ever-present cigarettes. I suppressed the shiver that we really had stumbled into a rebel regiment, that our lives really were on the line.

  And then Richard smiled. “Hey, you two. You’re late.”

  The sentinel looked confused. “Sir?”

  Richard composed his expression. “I’d received advance word that two civilians would be arriving, on the run from Sherman and his damned flank attacks. At ease, soldier. These are good people from a good family, and on my honor and in the name of our just cause, it is my duty to protect them.”

  The sentinel executed a sharp salute. “Yes, sir!”

  “As you were, private. Tell the others that we don’t want to be disturbed.” Richard held open the tent flap. “Welcome to the headquarters of the 41st Infantry, Company B. Make yourselves at home.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Richard sat in a rickety wooden folding chair next to the kerosene lantern, his shadow a flicker on the white canvas walls. “I’m sorry I didn’t get your messages until an hour ago. I have a strict “no technology” rule on my site—no cells phones, no computers, no music—so it wasn’t until I made a check-in that I saw you’d called.” He gestured toward a stack of matching chairs. “Drag up a seat.”

  I unfolded a chair and eased my butt into it. “Your men must respect you an awful lot to stick to those rules.”

  “That’s true, yes. But I have ways of making sure they follow orders.”

  Trey closed the tent flap behind himself. He refused to sit, preferring to stand, as always, with a clear line to the exit. Outside I heard the crackle and hiss as damp logs hit the campfire.

  Richard clapped his hands to his thighs. “So tell me what you need. We’re thirty minutes from lights out.”

  “I need to ask you some questions.”

  “About what?”

  “I suppose you heard it was Lucius Dufrene’s bones that tornado scattered all round.”

  “I heard. The cops told me. Of course I figured it out when they showed me that coffin.” He leveled a look at me under his eyebrows. “One look and I knew something besides dry bones had been in there.”

  I put that image out of my head. “How well did you know him?”

  “Well enough. He was a member of our unit, plus he worked odd jobs for me at the Amberdeckers’—landscaping, construction. He built that flagstone path at the chapel, planted the rosebushes, helped get things in order for the reburial.”

  “Did he help with the stained-glass windows?”

  “Oh no. Evie wouldn’t let anybody but the restoration team near them. Lucius only did outside work.” Richard picked up an ash-stained percolator, sloshing it a little to test how much coffee it contained. “I suppose you’ve figured out about the windows by now.”

  “I have—I saw the real ones at the History Center. But I don’t blame you for keeping that secret, not one bit.”

  “Rose’ll find out Saturday. There will be hell to pay then. But it’s for the best.”

  Hell to pay. Evie had used the exact words. I wiggled in my chair, which creaked in protest, so I gave up trying to be comfortable.

  “Did Lucius have contact with any other family members?”

  “Rose? No. She keeps to herself.” Richard’s eyes narrowed. “But you don’t mean Rose. You mean Chelsea.”

  “Since you mentioned it.”

  He shrugged. “I think those two had a little something going on for a while, sure. Not that either of them told me. I’d have put a stop to it.”

  “But you knew.”

  “I suspected. I gave him a stern warning about the dangers of such, pointed out that Rose had a mantel full of marksmanship trophies and wasn’t slow on the pull. Either he got the hint or Chelsea got bored and that was that. I never had any problems with him.” He gestured with the percolator. “Coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  “Got no cream or sugar, of course.” Richard filled two tin cups with the dark brew. “Lucius was the one with me the day I found Braxton’s remains over by the ravine. He was a good worker. Strong, fast, didn’t complain. A little mouthy, but he was learning. That’s why I let him be a part of the honor guard.”

  I accepted the coffee Richard handed me. “The what?”

  “The night before the reburial, our unit formed a four-man honor guard to keep watch at the cemetery, each one of us taking a turn watching the chapel. Lucius had the three-to-six shift. But when Dexter showed up to relieve him, he was gone.” He tapped the spoon on the edge of the cup. “We didn’t think it was a disappearance, though. We thought he’d abandoned his post. And then we thought he’d skipped town. Nobody thought he was…”

  Richard’s voice trailed off. Outside around the campfire, raucous laughter erupted. No doubt a tin flask of moonshine was being passed hand to hand. A circle of men, connected by booze and bravado, a rough-and-tumble camaraderie very much like the one shared a hundred and fifty years ago.

  “Only one person at a time watched the chapel?”

  “Right.”

  “Where were the rest of you?”

  “We pitched camp in the clearing next to the greenhouse and sent one guard to the chapel in three-hour shifts. Evie wouldn’t let us set up in the cemetery. She was worried about the campfires messing up the graves. When Dexter got to the chapel that morning, Lucius was gone, but the chapel door was still padlocked. Nothing disturbed. So we went ahead and held the dedication ceremony at nine.”

  “You didn’t open the casket and check?”

  He shot me an angry look. “Why would we? We’d closed it sacred and solemn the night before, with the minister’s blessing, and we had no reason to disturb those remains, so don’t try to blame—”

  “I’m not trying to blame you. I’m just trying to figure out what happened, and not only for me. For Dexter. He’s looking pretty bad right now.”

  Richard cursed under his breath. “Fine. Go ahead then. Let’s get this over with.”

  I tried to keep my tone non-accusatory. “Who had keys to the chapel’s padlock?”

  “There was a key in the house, so anybody in the family had access. Rose, Evie, Chelsea. And your uncle had one, of course.” Richard frowned, suddenly remembering. “Except that all his keys went missing. He blamed himself for dropping them in the field, but…you think Lucius took them?”

  I remembered the afternoon Detective Perez had shown me the key ring with my uncle’s initials and the keys that did not fit. I remembered especially the short jagged one, like a padlock key. And I remembered the other thing I’d learned about Lucius from multiple sources—he was a gifted pickpocket.

  “I think that’s exactly what Lucius did. That would explain how Dexter’s key ring ended up on Lucius’ body.”

  “Damn.” Richard stirred his coffee with a flat tin spoon. “I hate being wrong. I knew the boy had a wild streak, but I thought all he needed was a firm hand.”

 
“I’ve also heard he had a mean streak.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Does it matter?”

  His eyes narrowed in annoyance. “Of course it matters. Some people don’t understand. You smell that stew? That’s squirrel we got ourselves, this morning. We’re crack shots, every single one of us, even on these old rifled muskets. But we eat what we kill, and we kill it clean. No point messing up an animal just for target practice.” Richard lowered his eyes to his coffee mug. “But Lucius didn’t always mind the mess.”

  I glanced at Trey and saw the muscle in his jaw tighten. He didn’t approve of messes.

  Richard stared at his coffee. “Lucius was smart. He’d egg the new guys on. Now boys will be boys, but not everybody came through college, you know? Ain’t no cause to go making a man feel stupid.”

  I bit my tongue on that one. I knew some of the kinds of stupid that flourished around these parts. Some of it needed flushing into the open and taking down. But sometimes people like Lucius bit off more than they could chew.

  “Any of those boys have reason to shatter his skull and stuff him in a coffin?”

  Richard shook his head. “Being an asshole’s not a killing offense. Pardon my French.”

  At that moment, a young man stuck his head inside the tent. He wore oval glasses rimmed in blue steel—period perfect—and pulled his slouch hat down low over his pale forehead. When he saw us, he blushed and ducked his head.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Richard, I didn’t know you had company.”

  Richard waved a hand at him. “Come on in, Kenny. I want you to meet somebody.”

  The young man came inside the tent, removing his hat as he did. He wore the worn butternut of an infantryman, a wood-handled revolver holstered at his hip. The lamplight revealed a teenager’s cheeks, rough with a smattering of acne, and fawn-brown hair cut military-short. Richard introduced me as Dexter’s niece, and the young man’s eyes flared with recognition.

  “Mr. Dexter was a fine man. I’m so sorry for your loss, ma’am.”