Past Dying (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “I thought that was a job for the State Police Lab.”

  “If I could trust ’em. But they worked with Chaney Reilly for twelve years. Take the damn thing, Alan. Please.”

  I shrugged again. “If you want.”

  “Good,” Scully said, handing me the silver piece. “If you can find out who owned it, we may have a chance in hell.”

  I took the piece gingerly, got a small polyethylene artifact bag from the porch, and dropped the coin fragment inside.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I told him.

  Scully took his drink in one gulp and rose. “Thanks then. Tell everybody in Baton Rouge hello. Goddamn, why did I ever come back here when I could’ve got nine dollars an hour working for you and having fun?”

  “Sheer greed,” I said and watched him head for the door.

  I reached Baton Rouge just after noon. I checked in at the office and found, to my relief, that there were no disasters, no crises. Marilyn, my tiny office manager, who had come as a student ten years ago and never left, actually informed me that a check had arrived and we were solvent, although, she pointed out, it would only allow us to pay off a small part of our overextended credit line, and we badly needed more work to materialize. I nodded, thanked her, and said it would, because somehow, magically, it always did, though the wait was always excruciating.

  A couple of students were sorting artifacts in the lab, which was in reality the living room of what had once been an old house. A red-haired, muscular graduate student, who gave us twenty hours a week, was busy writing at one of the computers. I tapped him on the shoulder and went back into my office, which was a bedroom that had been partitioned.

  He stood in front of me, waiting, a smirk on his face. I wondered if I was unzipped or whether the smirk meant Blackie Rector had scored the night before.

  I set the paper bag with the silver piece on my desk.

  “I have here a valuable artifact,” I told him. “I want you to guard it with your life.”

  “What is it?” he asked, still smirking.

  “Two silver bits,” I said. “It comes from a murder scene. Sheriff Jeff Scully wants us to clean it up and tell him whatever we can about it.”

  “Business must be bad,” Blackie said, brown eyes twinkling behind his glasses. “Couldn’t he at least have given you fifty cents?”

  “Jeff’s a friend,” I said. “He worked here as a student. He used to do your job, back when we could afford skilled help.”

  “So what do you want me to do with it?” he asked.

  I got up and went to the wood cabinet in one corner of my office. “I’m going to lock it up in here. Make sure nobody tries to open this.”

  “Will do.”

  “By the way, seen Dr. Courtney lately?”

  “So that’s why you called me in here. Don’t you have her phone number?”

  “Don’t be a wise-ass.”

  “Haven’t seen her,” he said. “Since last night, anyway.”

  “Last night?”

  “She was at the Chimes when I stopped by for a modest libation about seven-ish, after an afternoon of mental calisthenics connected with the statistics portion of my comprehensives.”

  I felt my muscles tense. “I take it she wasn’t alone.”

  “It seems to me she was holding a colloquy with a male member of the anthropology faculty.”

  “Who?”

  “Do I have to answer?”

  “Yes, damn it.”

  “I fear it was Captain Hook.”

  “She was with Ellsworth Hooker?”

  “Alas. But it was a public house. There was nothing untoward going on. And he didn’t have his hand in her blouse.”

  “How long were you there?”

  “Not long. Seven or eight beers.”

  “So they were there half the night?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t remember much after seven or eight beers.”

  I gave him a withering look. “Go back to your computer.”

  For the next few minutes I applied myself to the paperwork in my plastic in box. There was a request for a speaker from a small museum in one of the Florida parishes, and I’d probably agree to come out of a sense of duty. There was a copy of a letter from the IRS threatening to levy if we didn’t pay withholding taxes that Marilyn had already deposited. Her handwriting at the top told me what she thought of the IRS and said she’d handle it. And there was a note from Sam MacGregor, my old professor who’d gotten me started in this game, advising me that he and Libby were back from a trip to China and would be happy to see me. I’d call him later on. Finally, there was a trio of résumés from out-of-town archaeologists whose projects had ended and now needed work. One was from California and had done all her work in the Southwest. I put her letter in the “not likely” file. The second was from a recent graduate of a small college in Georgia who had extensive field experience in the Southeast. I put his résumé back in the box, making a mental note to give him a call. Finally, there was one from a graduate student at Louisiana State University, advising that she would be free this summer, had experience, and could produce a recommendation from the noted expert on the French Paleolithic, Dr. Ellsworth Hooker.

  Hooker. My hand started to crumple the résumé and then I caught myself. No reason she should suffer because of my aversion to the man. She was probably too young to know his sordid reputation—the two ex-wives, the alleged affair with the wife of someone at the Geological Survey, rumors of wife swapping.

  But, damn it, Pepper wasn’t too young. The man’s reputation was an open book.

  I called my house and her apartment. No answer. Then I called the Department of Geography and Anthropology, but the secretary hadn’t seen her since her class this morning. She tried her office but there was no response.

  Maybe, I thought, I should try Hooker’s archaeology lab. It had nice big double doors that could be locked and flat lab tables where…

  Stop being a paranoid fool.

  I dawdled for the rest of the day and then, suddenly aware that I hadn’t eaten, left early and walked up to the Chimes Bar. It had become the standard watering hole for the archaeology crowd since the Library Bar had shut down, to my infinite regret. The Chimes made good hamburgers and also specialized in imported beers, and maybe if I took my time she’d come in, because it was Friday afternoon.

  But half an hour and most of a hamburger later she still hadn’t appeared. I was on my way to the bar for a third beer when the door opened, spilling daylight into the dingy interior.

  “Alan, what are you doing here?”

  It was Esmerelda LaFleur, our historian, who taught part-time at the university and did research for us on the side. Her red hair blazed in the sunlight, and in the instant before the door closed I had the impression of a gangly scarecrow.

  “Why shouldn’t I be here?” I asked.

  She gave an exaggerated shrug. “You’ve been out of town. I’d have thought you’d head straight to Pepper when you got back.”

  “I have to find her first,” I said dryly.

  “Oh, no, has she disappeared?”

  “I can’t find her,” I said.

  “Maybe,” she said, rolling her eyes, “you ought to try your house. That’s where she was heading when I asked her to come here with me ten minutes ago. She wouldn’t hear of it. Something about a homecoming for you.”

  I planted a kiss on her cheek and was out the door before she could say another word.

  I’d ask about Captain Hook later.

  FIVE

  It was much later and we were lying upstairs in the big bed when I told her what Blackie had said.

  “Of course, he was drinking,” I said and waited.

  Pepper turned over to face me, her skin ivory in the dimness.

  “I have to confess, Alan: Ellsworth’s leaving his mistress and we’re running away together.”

  My heart stopped momentarily, and then she started laughing.

  “You should see the look on
your face.” She put a hand on my cheek. “You’re priceless.”

  “I don’t think it’s funny,” I mumbled.

  “Look, dummy, I happen to teach in that department. It’s a temporary position. But they’re making noises about my staying on.”

  “You want to work with that bunch of philandering, spiteful, petty—”

  “Just like any other group of human beings,” she said softly. “And the answer is, why not? It keeps everybody happy: David doesn’t feel like I’m crowding him and Marilyn can have you all to herself.”

  “There’s nothing between Marilyn and me, never has been.”

  “I know that, but she’s always been jealous of having your attention. She simply doesn’t want to share power with another woman.”

  I couldn’t argue that.

  “As far as Ellsworth Hooker, he wanted to talk to me about writing an article together on theory for American Antiquity.”

  “And he thought your thought processes would loosen up with a little beer.”

  “Hey, he’s a full professor …”

  “Only because he’s been there forever. He got chased away from a good department. This one picked him up on the rebound.”

  “But he is here and now he’s in a position to help me or hurt me. Alan, I have to be polite to the man. Even if he is a creep.”

  “You really think he’s a creep?”

  “Of course.”

  I exhaled. “You know, I tried to call you for two nights in a row.”

  “I was at the library the night before last. And I went there again last night after I got away from Hooker. I saw Blackie at the Chimes, by the way: It’s a wonder he could do any work today. He was pretty stoked.”

  “Blackie can hold his own,” I said.

  “Yeah. It’s just poor Alan I have to worry about.” She touched my lips with a finger. “Poor thing, up there in Lords-port, chasing UFOs.”

  That’s when I told her about Jacko Reilly and the Spanish coin.

  She sat up suddenly, the sheet falling to reveal the soft globes of her breasts.

  “Where is it?”

  “Locked up in the office.”

  She was already putting on her clothes.

  “Let’s go see what we have.”

  “Right now?”

  The bedside light went on and she must have seen my disappointment.

  “Hey, we’ve got all night,” she said, fastening her jeans. “But this sounds really interesting.”

  “Interesting,” I repeated, watching her breasts disappear as she slipped a T-shirt over her torso.

  “Let’s go. The sooner we start the cleaning process the sooner we can get back.”

  It was just after nine, a Friday night, and a loud student party was going on in the old house next to the office. Our tiny parking lot, which had once been a backyard, was filled with cars I didn’t recognize and I double-parked, blocking a couple of them in. Not that they were likely to move before morning, anyway.

  We went into the office and I got the bag with the silver piece out of my cabinet. I handed it to Pepper and followed her out to the lab, where she turned on one of the high-intensity lamps clamped to one of the lab tables. She placed the piece on a sheet of white paper and picked up a magnifying glass. Bending low, she studied the design and then, with a pair of tweezers, turned the fragment over.

  “You’re right. It’s a quarter of a Spanish peso. See the design here?”

  I bent over and squinted.

  “It’s incomplete,” she explained, “but it looks like part of a pillar next to the coat of arms. It’s called the pillar design and it came in early in the eighteenth century, if I remember right. In fact, I think we have part of the date here: Seventeen something or other.” She stood up.

  “Value?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Hard to say, but my guess is not all that much. Silver isn’t worth what it used to be and this is only a fragment of a coin, so the coin isn’t valuable to a collector.”

  She reached into her bag and took out a camera. “I’ll take some photos for documentation.” She went to the light table and placed a small ruler below the artifact, to give an idea of its size. She clicked off several shots from each side and then turned off the lamp.

  She recorded her photos in a small note pad.

  “Let’s weigh it,” she said and placed it on a laboratory balance. She wrote the weight in her notebook and then put the notebook away.

  “I’ll have to check it out in the coin books I have in my office at school. It may be possible to find out more from one of them.”

  “It can wait till tomorrow,” I said, moving behind her to put my hands on her hips.

  “But now I’m curious,” she said. “Don’t you want to drive over and get them? Won’t take but a minute and—”

  “No.”

  She let herself relax back against me and gave a deep-throated chuckle. She turned around and looped her arms around my neck: “I guess mere silver really can wait.”

  “Yes,” I agreed smugly, replacing the coin in the cabinet.

  The next day, Saturday, I slept late. When I awoke Pepper was downstairs, already dressed and seated in my study. She held up a catalog.

  “I went out and got this while you were still asleep. They list all kinds of coins. I think this was a Mexican mint Spanish real or peso. They were minted between 1772 and 1821.” She pointed to an illustration and I studied it.

  “It does look like it,” I said.

  “Yup. What we got here is a real pirate coin.”

  “You mean ‘avast there’ and all that?”

  “Sure enough. Although these coins were used all throughout Louisiana at one time. It’s not odd to find one but it would be nice to know where your late friend got it.” She closed the book. “Do you think he dug it up somewhere?”

  “From what I’ve heard, digging would be a lot of work for him. But somebody may have dug it up. I wonder who collects Spanish coins in that area?”

  “I don’t know but I can find out.”

  I nodded, suddenly restless. “You know, you may have to testify if they catch whoever did this.”

  “No problem.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “I don’t like having a piece of evidence from a crime scene in my possession. If something happens to it, Jeff Scully’ll be up the creek.”

  “Why should anything happen?”

  “Because Lordsport’s a funny place. It’s got a strange mix of people. I’ve never been in any place like it except—”

  “—a small peasant village in Mexico, were you going to say?”

  “Something like that. Jeff was one of the best field assistants I ever hired. You never had to tell him anything twice. And he was completely at home in the woods. I thought for a while he was going to change his major and become an archaeologist.”

  “But he became a sheriff instead,” she said.

  “Yeah. His father had been the sheriff for years and died when Jeff was in his teens. I think he felt like he’d be letting down the old man not to follow in his father’s footsteps. So, even though he was a horse doctor and not a lawman, he somehow got talked into running for office.”

  “Well, he got elected, so he can’t be a total failure.”

  “No. But, from what he told me before I left, that wasn’t something he’d planned. He said it was Judge Gait’s doing.”

  “Judge Galt?”

  “The local political power. He said the old sheriff was a Reilly, and one of the Reillys, the late unlamented Jacko, was running wild, terrorizing the parish. So Galt very quietly decided to move his support to somebody new, who could put a lid on Jacko and his pals.”

  “And that’s where your friend Jeff comes in,” she said.

  “Yeah. He told me he tried to get out of it, said he didn’t have any law enforcement experience, but the judge was insistent. All the folks in the parish knew him because of his vet work and they remembe
red his dad. So what do you do when your neighbors and colleagues say they need you and you’re the only one who can help?”

  “You’re saying he’s in over his head.”

  “It’s true he doesn’t have any law enforcement background, but you don’t need that to be a sheriff these days, so long as you have a good chief deputy. It’s more like there’s something eating at him.”

  “Why is he running again, then, if he’s unhappy in the job?”

  “Same reason he ran to begin with, I imagine: The Galt crowd’s telling him they need him and his father’s ghost is out there on the battlement telling him he can’t quit.”

  “You make him sound like Hamlet with a badge.”

  “He may be.”

  I fed Digger, my mixed shepherd, and I was changing for my morning run around the lakes when Pepper caught me.

  “You may want to call Sam,” she said.

  “Yeah, I mean to. I heard he’s back.”

  “I wouldn’t put it off.”

  “Oh?”

  She was wearing a worried expression I seldom saw.

  “I dropped by yesterday to say hello, and he wasn’t looking good.”

  Now my senses were on the alert. “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn’t just that he was tired. There was a grayness in his face I haven’t seen before. He tried to be his old self but he just didn’t seem to have the same zest.”

  “Well, he’s close to eighty. They’ve been gone for a month. The card I got from China said he’d been riding yaks.”

  “You may want to drop in,” she said.

  I nodded. “I will.”

  Sam MacGregor lived on the River Road, in neighboring Iberville Parish, in a restored antebellum plantation house. When I pulled into his drive just after eleven everything looked normal, no ambulances or accumulations of cars. Just the Olds that Sam drove and Libby’s Toyota minivan.

  I knocked on the door and Libby let me in.

  “I’m so glad you came. He needs somebody to perk him up. I think he brought some kind of bug back from China. He just hasn’t been himself.”

  Sam was seated in the parlor in his big stuffed chair, fully dressed, a magazine on his lap. He turned his head when he saw me and started to get up but I gestured for him to stay put.