The Devil in Gray

by Graham Masterton

  “What difference does that make?”

  “You don’t very often see pictures of these fellows, if at all.”

  “These fellows? What do you mean by that?”

  Billy Joe pointed to the man’s hat. “See them feathers, in his hatband? They’re crow feathers.”

  “I didn’t really take too much notice of them, to tell you the truth.”

  “Well, you shoulda, because they tell you a story. And the story is that this fellow is a member of what they called the Devil’s Brigade.”

  “The Devil’s Brigade? Who were they?”

  “It’s one of those Civil War legends, you know. Half truth and half legend. There was supposed to be thirteen men in all, twelve white and one colored, and they was specially recruited by Lieutenant General James Longstreet in April, 1864, just before the Battle of the Wilderness.”

  “Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them.”

  Billy Joe handed the drawing back. “You never heard of them because they was like special forces, you know, the Civil War equivalent of Delta Force, and the whole operation was a close secret. Nobody knows who the individual men was, or what exactly they was assigned to do, but the story goes that they was charged with creating all kinds of hell regardless of the usual rules and conduct of war.”

  He carefully sheathed the saber and hung it up in one of the display cabinets.

  Hicks said, “One of them was colored? That was pretty unusual, wasn’t it, for the Confederate army? I didn’t think they had any colored troops.”

  “Nor did they. The only coloreds who got involved in the war were personal servants that some of the officers took to the front line. I don’t know why they made an exception in this particular case.”

  “Do you have any idea what this Devil’s Brigade actually did?” Decker asked.

  “Only stories and rumors. The situation was that the Confederates was being very hard-pressed by the Federals up by the Rapidan River. The Federals had more men and much more equipment. Grant was on the verge of breaking through the Confederate lines, and I guess Longstreet decided that he needed something to tip the balance back in his favor. I don’t know if he recruited the Devil’s Brigade with Lee’s approval or not, but even if the stories and rumors are only half correct, those thirteen fellows wreaked some terrible havoc up there in the Wilderness. There were tales of men being turned inside out, and men catching fire spontaneous, and men being chopped into so many pieces that nobody could tell which piece belonged to who.

  “On the night of May seven to eight, the honors was supposed to have gotten so dreadful that there was wholesale panic in the Federal forces, and Grant had to order their immediate withdrawal, before it became a rout. Both armies left the Wilderness and eventually wound up at the battle of Spotsylvania.”

  “What happened to the Devil’s Brigade? Didn’t they go to Spotsylvania too?”

  “The Battle of the Wilderness was the first and last time they was heard of. The stories and rumors say that Longstreet himself was so appalled by what they had done that he ordered them disbanded and gave special orders that they wasn’t to be mentioned again. So the only accounts we have are those of eyewitnesses on both sides, and as you probably know the Wilderness was not a place where the common soldier could see much of what was going on, because the woods was so dense, and the underbrush was almost impossible to penetrate.”

  He looked again at Sandra’s drawing. “I only ever saw one other drawing of the Devil’s Brigade, and that was done by an artist lieutenant from Kershaw’s division, who sketched all thirteen of them when they was gathered at Parker’s Store, just before the battle. So I’d very much like to know who did this, and where they got their reference from, especially if they’re in actual possession of the uniform. That would be worth thousands, and I’d be willing to make them an offer.”

  Hicks checked his notebook. “You say the Battle of the Wilderness was in May?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Must have been pretty warm then, in May. So why did the Devil’s Brigade wear greatcoats?”

  “Good question,” Billy Joe said. “By that stage of the war, you wouldn’t have recognized what most of the Southern soldiers was wearing as uniforms at all. They threw away everything that hindered their marching—their greatcoats, their hats, their spare blankets, even their boots, sometimes. They didn’t have much use for their bayonets, either, so they stuck them in the ground for the quartermasters to pick up afterward.

  “All I can say is that the Devil’s Brigade must have been privileged not to march with the main multitude; but why they wore greatcoats I can’t imagine. I’ve got two greatcoats right back here … you try putting one on and see how damn heavy it is.”

  As they drove eastward, back to the city center, Decker said, “This is getting weirder by the minute. Even supposing Sandra didn’t see the So-Scary Man, even if she only imagined him, how come she managed to draw such an accurate picture? If Billy Joe Bennett has only seen one other drawing of the Devil’s Brigade, and he’s an expert in Civil War memorabilia, where the hell did Sandra ever see one?”

  “Maybe you should try asking her,” Hicks suggested.

  “I don’t know. I think we’re looking at this all the wrong way. There’s a key to this somewhere, but it’s like in Alice in Wonderland. It’s way up on top of the table and we’re trying to find it on the floor.”

  He took a left on Belvidere Street and headed toward Monroe Park. Hicks looked up from his notebook and frowned. “Where are we going?”

  “Back to your house, sport. You have a birthday party to go to, remember?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  He dropped off Hicks at his small rented house off Valley Road. There were twenty or thirty small children playing in the front yard, and colored balloons tied to the porch. As Hicks walked up the path, a young, pretty woman in a pink dress came out onto the front steps. Hicks obviously told her who Decker was, and she gave him a smile and a wave. Decker waved back. Very tasty, he thought. Some guys have all the luck.

  His cell phone played Beethoven. “Martin.”

  “It’s Maggie. I just wanted to tell you that I’m thinking of you.”

  “You’re a bad woman, Maggie. Thank God.”

  “Listen, Cab has to go to Charlottesville on Tuesday afternoon. How about calling by for some of that sweet, sweet stuff you’re going to be missing this weekend?”

  “Sounds tempting.”

  “I’ll hold you to it,” she said, with a thick, dirty laugh.

  His shirt was sticking to his back and he felt like going home and taking a shower. He could use a couple of shots of tequila, too. But he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened in the men’s room with Mayzie. He saw it over and over in his mind’s eye, an endless video loop. Instead of Mayzie, Cathy lifting her face and smiling at him, her face as white as clouds and her eyes yellow. Then her head silently exploding, in a welter of blood and bone fragments and flesh. Then lifting her face again, and opening her eyes, and smiling again, and exploding again.

  When he reached the intersection with Franklin Street he hesitated. A driver behind him blasted his horn and Decker mouthed asshole at him and gave him the finger. Then he turned right and drove back to headquarters. He collected a cup of strong black coffee from the vending machine at the end of his corridor, and walked along to his office, sipping it. He switched on his computer and hung his coat over the back of his chair while it booted up.

  And she lifted her face, and smiled at him. And then her head slowly burst apart like a pumpkin, so that he was lacerated by flying teeth and splattered in blood.

  He had looked up this file so many times before, but it still baffled him and it still hurt. Case number CZS/448/3251, Catherine Meredith Meade, aged twenty-nine years and two months. Right at the top of the report were several color photographs of the crime scene. That familiar bedroom at 318 West Broad Street, with its pale duck-egg walls. The dark blue woven throw, dragged to one si
de, and the cream-colored pillows that looked as if somebody had splashed a bucket of dark red dye all over them. Cathy’s body, on the floor, one leg twisted behind her, her white nightshirt speckled all over.

  It had happened at 1:30 on the morning of February 7. Decker had been called out to a suspicious drowning on Brown’s Island. While he was away, somebody had entered his apartment either by picking the lock or using a passkey. There was no sign of any forced entry. The perpetrator had gone directly to the bedroom, approached the bed, and fired three soft-nosed slugs that blew Cathy’s head to pieces.

  Cathy had been all smiles and sunshine. Even her previous boyfriend—although he had been desperately upset to lose her—still adored her. The only possible explanation for the killing had been that somebody had been gunning for Decker, and had mistakenly shot Cathy in the darkness—or else they had shot her to teach him a lesson that he would never forget.

  The time that it happened, Decker had been involved in a complicated series of homicide investigations in the Jackson Ward. He had suspected that the murders were connected with a vicious power struggle between two of the ward’s most ruthless criminal organizations, the Strutters and the Egun. He had persuaded three witnesses to give material evidence against Queen Aché the leader of the Egun. But when Cathy was killed, Decker had been so grief-stricken that he had been forced to take six months’ sick leave, and his witnesses had all contracted irreversible amnesia.

  So why were all these thoughts of Cathy coming back to him now? He couldn’t understand what they meant—the nightmares, the waking hallucinations, that bizarre business of the fruit-and-chicken face on the chopping board? He scrolled down through the incident report. Maybe he had been reminded of Cathy’s death because Cathy’s killer had left absolutely no evidence—just like the killer of Alison Maitland and George Drewry. Cathy’s killer had even avoided detection on the video monitors in the lobby, in the elevators, and in the corridor right outside their apartment door. No suspects were ever arrested, and the case was still open, though inactive.

  Decker was almost ready to leave when Cab came in. “How’s it going?” Cab asked him.

  Decker smeared his hands down his cheeks. “No place, fast. I think I’m going to call it a night.”

  Cab walked around his desk and looked at his computer screen. “You should let that lie. No point in picking your scabs.”

  “I don’t know. I keep having these weird thoughts about Cathy and I’m wondering if my brain’s trying to tell me something. Like, maybe there’s some kind of connection between what happened to her and what happened to Alison Maitland and George Drewry.”

  Cab laid a hand on his shoulder. “You’re a good cop, Martin, but don’t start getting all inspirational on me. Don’t lose sight of what matters, and that’s the evidence.”

  “Maybe you’re right. It’s just that, in this case, I think the most important evidence is that there is no evidence.”

  Cab turned his head away and let out a violent sneeze. As he was stentoriously blowing his nose, Decker’s phone rang. He picked it up and said, “Mackenzie?”

  “Hi, Lieutenant. It’s Jimmy Freedman, down in the sound lab. Listen, I cleaned up that 911 call from the Maitland case. Thought you might be interested in hearing it.”

  “Sure. Give me a couple of minutes.”

  From behind his handkerchief, Cab gave him a wave, which indicated that he could go.

  Jimmy was furiously chewing gum. “I went through it with Bill Duggan from the phone company. He’s the Stephen Hawking of line faults. He even talks like Stephen Hawking. He said that Alison Maitland’s 911 call was interrupted by an EMP.”

  “A what?”

  “An EMP—electromagnetic pulse. This induces kilovolt potentials that can burn out integrated circuits, interfere with telephone systems, or randomize computer data.”

  “I get it,” Decker said, trying to sound as if he did. “So what causes it, this EMP?”

  “Usually a flux compression generator, which is an explosive used to compress a magnetic field.”

  “Explosive? Ah, you mean like a bomb?”

  “Exactly. They even call them ‘pulse bombs.’ They’re pretty simple to build if you have a basic knowledge of electronics and demolition. The military have developed even more powerful ones, which use high-power microwaves. They dropped them in Iraq to take out Saddam’s communications systems.”

  Decker said, “That’s very interesting. The only trouble is, there was no explosion that day in the immediate vicinity of the Maitland house. In fact—so far as I know—there was no explosion that day anywhere in the Metro Richmond area.”

  “Well, that’s right.”

  “So what caused this particular EMP, if it wasn’t a bomb?”

  “Bill was puzzled by that, too. But he reckons that it must have been some kind of natural phenomenon. A sunspot, maybe.”

  “So, actually, we’re none the wiser?”

  Jimmy looked upward for a moment, as if there were an answer printed on the ceiling. Then he looked down again and said, “No, you’re quite correct. We’re not.”

  “You said you managed to clean the tape up. Is it any clearer?”

  “Hear it for yourself.”

  He hooked on his earphones and flicked a row of switches. Decker heard the first blurt of noise, and then the emergency operator saying, “Emergency? Which service?” This was immediately followed by a deafening crackle, and a man’s voice screaming, “Help me! Oh, God, help me!”

  Decker looked at Jimmy and Jimmy raised an eyebrow. “You hear that? That sounds distinctly like a fire burning. A bonfire, or brushwood, maybe. Maybe the guy’s screaming because he’s going to be burned.”

  Decker said nothing, but he felt a deep sense of foreboding, as if the floor were slowly creeping away from him, beneath his feet.

  “Yes, ambulance—” That was Alison Maitland. “Urgent—bleeding so bad!”

  Then more crackling—closer, sharper, and a man’s voice calling, “Muster at the road, boys! Muster at the road!”

  More crackling, more screaming, and then a heavy crunch like a falling tree. Decker raised his hand and said, “Thanks, Jimmy. That’s enough. That’s very helpful.”

  Jimmy blinked at him in surprise. “You don’t want to hear the rest?”

  “That’s okay. I don’t have to.”

  “What? It makes some kind of sense?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Jimmy stared at him. “Are you okay, Lieutenant? You look kind of—”

  “Fine, Jimmy. I’m fine. I’m absolutely fine.”

  As soon as he opened his apartment door, he became aware of a smoky, perfumed aroma, like incense. He hefted his revolver out of its holster, cocked it, and cautiously pushed the door a little wider. The smell could have been coming from the apartment below, where a young married couple regularly burned incense (they were either potheads or Buddhists, or both). But it seemed too intense for that.

  Sliding his back against the wall, he made his way along the corridor to the kitchen. He jabbed his revolver into the open doorway, but the kitchen was empty. He crossed to the other side of the corridor and carried on sliding toward the living area.

  There was nobody there, but three sticks of incense were smoldering in a small sand-filled urn that he usually used as an ashtray. And on the wall behind them, in jagged blood-red letters that were over two feet high, somebody had scrawled SAINT BARBARA.

  Decker slowly approached the lettering and touched it with his fingertips. It was still wet. It had the consistency of blood, but he couldn’t be sure that it actually was, and he certainly wasn’t going to taste it. He walked crabwise across the living area until he reached his bedroom door. It was about two inches ajar. He stopped, and listened, but all he could hear was the muffled sound of traffic outside, and the burbling of a television in the next apartment.

  He took a deep breath and kicked the door wide open. His bedroom appeared to be empty, although he duc
ked down and checked under the bed, and then threw open his closet doors. Nobody there.

  It was then that he heard a trickling sound coming from the bathroom. He edged his way toward the door and pressed his ear against it. It was a small, steady trickle, more like a faucet left running than anybody washing their hands. He carefully grasped the doorknob, and then, when he was ready, he flung the door open.

  The bathroom was empty, too, except for his own reflection in the mirror. But the hot faucet hadn’t been turned off properly, and the washbasin was streaked with scarlet. It looked as if somebody had quickly rinsed their hands and then left.

  But where had this somebody gone? The bathroom window didn’t open, apart from a small louvered skylight, and nobody could have passed him on the way in. He dragged back the shower curtain, just to make sure, but there was nobody there, either.

  He turned off the faucet, holding it with only two fingers, in case there were fingerprints on it. He put the plug in, too, to prevent any more of the gory-looking contents of the basin from draining away.

  He looked at himself in the mirror. You’re not losing it, Martin. You’re as sane as everybody else, and you can prove it. But apart from the incense and the scrawling on the wall, there was an almost palpable sense that somebody had been here, going from room to room, disturbing the air.

  He went back to the living area and snuffed out the incense. Then he stood and stared at the lettering. SAINT BARBARA. What the hell was the significance of Saint Barbara? Cathy had whispered her name in his nightmare, and now here it was again, in letters that could have been blood.

  He searched the room again, prodding his revolver into the drapes, even though he knew that he wouldn’t find anybody. Then he locked his front door, fastened the security chain, and holstered his Anaconda. He picked up the phone and dialed directly through to Lieutenant Bryce in forensics.

  “Helen?”

  “Lieutenant Bryce went home about an hour ago. Can I help?”

  “I hope so. This is Lieutenant Martin. Do you have anybody free to take some fluid samples at Nineteenth and Main?”