I hurried to his side and bent down to look. The light wasn’t good, but there was enough for me to see the simple-looking box, about a foot square, with some wires and a cheap, battery-powered digital clock attached to it. The readout on the clock said 7:35.
Two minutes left.
I reached for the box. Mark grabbed my wrist, stopping me. “What if it’s rigged to go off instantly if anybody disturbs it?”
“It’s not,” I said, trying to put some conviction in my voice. “Vince didn’t think anybody would find it. It’s just a simple device, the kind the insurgents in Iraq used. Vince probably saw a lot of ’em over there.”
“You can’t know that,” Mark said.
The last number in the display switched from 5 to 6.
“It’s gonna blow up in another minute anyway,” I said.
Mark said, “Yeah,” and reached past me. Before I could stop him, he picked up the bomb.
It didn’t go off. He turned and ran for the rail and when he got there he heaved that box as hard as he could. I lost sight of it in the dark, but I heard the splash as it hit the water.
“Noooo!” Vince screamed behind us.
We turned and saw him standing there looking horrified and grief stricken, and then somebody kicked his knee from behind and brought him down. Detective Charlotte Travis landed on top of him, planting a knee in the small of his back to pin him to the deck as she grabbed his arms and brought them behind him. He didn’t fight her as she slipped plastic restraints around his wrists. He had failed to avenge his lost love, and nothing else mattered to him.
Travis looked up at Mark and me and said, “Does somebody want to tell me what in the world—”
That was when the bomb went off.
I had hoped that being dumped in the Mississippi would deactivate it, or whatever you call it, but clearly, that wasn’t the case. The Southern Belle literally jumped as the force of the explosion shot through the river. Water flew a hundred feet or more in the air and came back down like a sudden thunderstorm. The explosion had sounded like thunder, muffled as it was by the river. The current increased suddenly like a tsunami, and for a second it felt like we were flying.
But the vast waters of the Mississippi also acted to spread out the power of the blast, and as the water flung high into the air pattered back down, the effects began to subside. We had all been jolted off our feet by the initial concussion, but now we were able to sit up.
“Was that a bomb?” Travis asked.
That seemed like a pretty dumb question to me. It must have to her, too, once she thought about it, because she glared at me and said, “I hope you can explain all of this, Ms. Dickinson.”
“Why me?” I asked.
“Well, it’s either you or Mark Twain,” she said as she got to her feet, nodding toward Mark.
“‘Every man is a moon and has a dark side,’” Mark quoted.
Travis frowned. “What?”
I pointed to Vince Mallory. “He showed his dark side. We’ll tell you all about it, but first you’d better go on up to the pilothouse. I reckon you’ll find another killer up there.”
Rafferty was still in the pilothouse, all right. He wasn’t going anywhere, not with the fractured skull Vince had given him. He died in a St. Louis hospital two days later without regaining consciousness.
Captain L. B. Williams was already dead when the police reached the pilothouse. Vince’s bullet had nicked his heart, and he’d bled to death.
Clyde Garvey spilled everything about the crooked gambling in the casino, though, and was quick to implicate Rafferty in Hannah Kramer’s murder. He and Williams had both known what Rafferty had done to cover up their scheme.
I was the only one who could testify as to what Vince had said about killing Ben Webster, but he never denied it in court. The trial six months later resulted in him being convicted on one count of murder, two counts of voluntary manslaughter, and multiple counts of attempted murder since he’d tried to blow up the Southern Belle with everybody on it. His attorney tried to argue the insanity defense, using testimony from army psychiatrists who said that Vince had been dishonorably discharged for the mental problems he had exhibited when he was in the service, but the jury found him guilty anyway. He had enough life sentences stacked consecutively that he’d never see the outside of a prison again. Of course, he would probably spend that time in a prison mental ward, since he went catatonic following his conviction and showed no signs of coming out of it.
I didn’t think it really mattered much, one way or the other. Vincent Meadows—his real name—was in a prison of his own making and would never get out of it.
Ben Webster’s real name, by the way, was Todd Shepherd. From what I learned later, they had indeed been best friends while serving in Iraq. Shepherd had tried to rein in Meadows’s violent, obsessive tendencies, according to other soldiers who knew them. Unfortunately, he had failed.
As far as Detective Travis was ever able to find out, Vince had dated Hannah Kramer exactly twice. From those two dates, he had spun out the whole fantasy about them having a future together. Evidently he had lived in a world of his own, and had for quite a while. That was one reason he was able to adopt different identities so easily and convincingly. To Vince, nothing was real except his own fantasies.
Learning all that came later, though. That night, once the riverboat was docked at Hannibal again and everything had settled down, what I wanted to know was where those extra Mark Twains had come from.
“They perform as Twain in dinner theaters here in town,” Mark explained with a smile as we sat on the observation deck with Louise and Eddie Kramer. He had taken off the wig and mustache and make-up but still wore the white suit. “They’re all friends, so they decided to come over here between their shows and take in my performance. Checking out the competition, as it were. The cops let them come on board, since Detective Travis just said to keep the passengers and crew from getting off.”
Louise said, “I heard that one of them was wounded. Not badly, I hope?”
Mark shook his head. “Grazed his arm, that’s all. I’m sure it hurt like blazes, but it’s not a serious injury.”
“How’d you all show up on the third deck like that, at just the right time?” I asked.
“Everybody knew something was wrong when the boat left the dock like that, without any announcement or anything,” Mark explained. “I just had a hunch you were mixed up in it somehow, Delilah, and went looking for you. The other guys came with me. I was going to start by asking Captain Williams if he’d seen you, as well as trying to find out why we were headed downriver.” He smiled. “Luck was on our side, I guess.”
Eddie said, “I don’t think we can ever thank you enough for finding out what happened to our little girl, Mark.”
Again, Mark shook his head. He pointed at me. “Delilah did that. She kept poking around until Rafferty finally made a move against her, just like he did with Hannah. Thank God it didn’t end up the same.”
“I wish it hadn’t ended like that with Hannah,” I said.
Eddie sighed. “We can’t change the past. Lord knows, I sometimes wish we could.”
Louise slid both of her arms around his right arm as she sat beside him. “But we’ll hold the good memories in our hearts forever,” she said. “Nobody can take those away from us.”
We sat there in silence for a while longer, and then Eddie and Louise went back to their cabin, leaving Mark and me alone on one of the benches. The police had already gone over the observation deck, since this was where Vince had hidden the bomb, but there really wasn’t anything to find. They had taken down the crime scene tape.
“It seems strange that right where we’re sittin’, there was a bomb that nearly blew us all sky-high,” I said.
“‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.’”
“Mark Twain?”
“Yep. It’s from Pudd’nhead Wilson. Most of his rea
lly famous sayings are. I like this one, too: ‘Let us endeavor so to live that when we die, even the undertaker will be sorry.’”
“Well, the undertaker’s gonna have to wait a while for me,” I said. “I’ve got to get this tour group back to St. Louis and then head home to Atlanta.”
“Think you might ever want to cruise the Mississippi again?”
“You don’t plan to stay on as Mark Twain, do you?”
He shook his head. “No. I sort of enjoyed it, but I’m a detective, not an actor. I thought I might take this cruise again as a passenger, though, one of these days. You think I could book it through your agency?”
“Nothing stoppin’ you,” I told him. I didn’t stop him when he slipped an arm around my shoulders, either.
The mighty Mississippi kept rolling, and I figured that for a while, I would just roll right along with it.
HANNIBAL, MISSOURI
Sometimes known as America’s hometown, Hannibal is thoroughly modern while retaining its historic charm. Most of the attractions in the area, appropriately enough, center around Mark Twain and his life and work.
The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum complex includes eight buildings in Hannibal, six of historical significance and two serving as interactive museums. Featured in the museum collections are fifteen original paintings by another master of Americana, Norman Rockwell. Self-guided tours of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum properties are available and give tourists and literary buffs a chance to explore the Hannibal of Samuel Clemens’s childhood and experience the beloved stories he created as Mark Twain through the power of his imagination. To discover how a young boy growing up in the small village of Hannibal became one of the world’s most beloved authors, start by visiting www.marktwainmuseum.org.
Numerous riverboats stop at Hannibal on excursion cruises up and down the Mississippi River, and the Mark Twain Riverboat, with its home port in Hannibal, offers one-hour sightseeing tours of the river, two-hour dinner cruises, and special jazz cruises. More information is available at http://marktwainriverboat.com.
The caves that served as the inspiration for scenes in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are located near Hannibal. Now known as Mark Twain Cave and Campground, this natural attraction was first opened to the public in 1886 and is a registered natural landmark. The cave is cool and comfortable and the tours are easy to walk, but because of the narrowness of the passages it is not wheelchair accessible. A visitor’s center, gift shop, fudge shop, and rock shop are also located at the cave complex. In Cave Hollow Center, noted actor and Mark Twain impersonator Jim Waddell performs in “The Life and Times of Mark Twain.” Check out http://marktwaincave.com and www.MarkTwainLives.com for more information.
Dinner theaters in Hannibal include the Planters Barn Theater, featuring performances of “Mark Twain Himself” (http://marktwainhimself.com) and the Spratt Family Theater (http://sprattfamilyjubilee.com). All the attractions in Hannibal can be visited by hopping on one of the sightseeing tours conducted by the Hannibal Trolley Company, the Twainland Express, or the Mark Twain Clopper (a horse-drawn trolley).
The Web site of the Hannibal Convention & Visitors Bureau is located at http://visithannibal.com. Visitors are advised to check with the bureau for the current status of Hannibal’s various attractions when planning a trip to the area.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, New York 10018
Copyright © 2009 by Livia J. Washburn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009931241
ISBN: 0-7582-4982-9
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
HANNIBAL, MISSOURI
Huckleberry Finished Page 21