Past Dying (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “Jacko Reilly,” he said.

  I looked down and saw a broad face, close-set eyes, and a thin mouth with what almost seemed to be a smile twisting the lips, as if this were all part of some practical joke. A sign across the chest said CANE RIVER PARISH PRISON, and there was a number. I gave the picture back to the judge.

  “Alan’s got a problem with Luther Dupree,” Jeff said. The other two men listened as he explained the situation. The judge stretched, yawning, and the D.A. shook his head.

  “So you’d like to solve this ex parte” Galt said. He raised his brows and looked at the D.A., who shrugged.

  “This is a state charge,” Galt went on. “Shouldn’t Wildlife and Fisheries have something to say about it?”

  “We’re only asking for recognizance,” Jeff explained. “The charge stands.”

  “Seems like Luther’s had a lot of recognizances,” the judge said.

  “But he’s always showed up,” Jeff said. “And he’s employed by Dr. Graham here as a cook.”

  “Employed?” Flynn’s eyebrows arced. “That’s a new one for Luther.”

  “What you think, Ross?” Galt asked. Flynn shrugged.

  “Done, then,” Galt declared. “But since Dr. Graham is his employer, I’m going to make him responsible that Luther doesn’t commit any other crimes and shows up for his court date tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said meekly.

  The judge smiled. “You know, I recall a man down at Frog-more, Homer Potter was his name. Old Homer tried to rope a bull once. Folks warned him he wouldn’t be able to hold on, but old Homer knew better. Looped the other end of the rope around his neck. It worked. More or less. Poor Homer. Hope that doesn’t happen to anybody here.” He squinted at Jeff.

  I felt an invisible noose tighten around my neck.

  “Any progress on the Reilly case?” the judge asked.

  Jeff shook his head. “No, sir. We’re still investigating.”

  “And Ethel Crawford?”

  “No word.”

  “Strange business,” Galt said. “I’m hearing a lot of talk.”

  The D.A. nodded. “People are talking about space aliens or some bullshit.”

  “Space aliens don’t stab people in the chest,” Jeff said. “Whoever did this was as human as we are.”

  “That worries me more,” said the judge. “People won’t blame you for not finding a space man. But if they think there’s a killer in this town …”

  “I’m doing the best I can,” Jeff said.

  “That’s all a man can do,” the judge agreed. “Reminds me of the time, after I first come on the bench, when I sentenced Beau Bedgood to forty years for armed robbery. He looked at me and said, ’For God’s sake, Judge, I’m already forty. That’ll make me eighty when I get out.’ And I told him, ’Just do the best you can.’ And you know what?” He squinted at Jeff: “Old Beau’s still up there, doing the best he can. Good luck, gentlemen.”

  EIGHT

  Half an hour later I stood in front of the courthouse with Luther, the cold wind stabbing my face.

  “Mr. Alan, I don’t know how to thank you. If there’s anything I can do …”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  We started across the street, the little man half running after me.

  “I heard Jacko had some silver with him.”

  “Oh?” I turned to look at my companion.

  Luther gave a toothless grin. “It’s all over the courthouse. Ain’t nothing secret there.”

  “Any idea where Jacko would’ve gotten silver?” I asked.

  Luther shrugged. “A silver mine, maybe?”

  “Around here?”

  “Well, not a mine, really, a hoard.”

  I stopped next to my Blazer. “What are you talking about, Luther?”

  He squinted. “You ain’t never heard of the lost Bowie silver?”

  “Can’t say I have. You talking about Jim Bowie?”

  “That’s right. They say he was big around here. Folks say he came back from Texas with some Spanish silver, buried it up in the hills somewhere.”

  “And Jacko found it?”

  “Dunno. But Jacko sold a map to it once.” Luther giggled. “Fella from Jena, over in LaSalle Parish. Fella dug a big hole until he was run off on account of it turned out to be land owned by International Paper.”

  “Imagine that.” I opened the passenger door and then went around to the driver’s side. “You think Jacko was carrying silver to lure suckers?”

  “Could be. Or he may’ve really found it, Mr. Alan. Course, he wouldn’t sell the real location to nobody, but where else would he get silver from?”

  I started the engine. “You tell me.”

  Luther looked around and then leaned close, as if someone might hear. “There’s another possibility, Mr. Alan: I knowed Jacko, knowed how his mind worked. Didn’t go straight from A to Z like other folks; he always took the crookedest path.”

  “What are you getting at, Luther?”

  “If there really was a hoard up there and Jacko figured where it was, he was too lazy to want to dig it up hisself. He’d make some other poor bastard pay him to dig it up.”

  “But what would stop the other fellow from keeping it when he found it?”

  “Jacko. He was mean enough to break somebody’s head and leave ’em up there for the buzzards.”

  I started the engine and eased out into the street.

  “Mr. Alan, I know where that hole is. I could take you.”

  “Luther, I don’t know what good it would do to trek around in the hills looking for a hole in the ground.”

  “It ain’t that far. But if you ain’t interested …”

  The image of the empty display case flashed into my mind: What was it Jeff had said was missing? A plat map of the town and a Bowie knife?

  Bowie …

  “How long would it take?”

  “It’s just off 621, outside Stanton, maybe fifteen minutes to drive, another half hour to walk.”

  “I don’t want to go on a wild goose chase.”

  “No way, Mr. Alan. I can take you straight there. You can see for yourself. You’re an archaeologist: You can tell if it looks like there’s something really buried there or not.”

  “Sure I can.”

  I made the circuit around the courthouse.

  “Can you go by my place?” Luther asked. “I need to get my jacket. It’s gonna be cold in the hills.”

  I waited outside the old double-wide on the outskirts of town while Luther went inside.

  I told myself I was doing something crazy.

  But the thought of discovering where the silver piece had come from was too tantalizing to give up. And besides, I needed to get out into the open air and work off my feelings about what had happened between Pepper and me.

  A minute later Luther came hurrying out of the house, clad in an old army field jacket and a hat with ear flaps. He climbed in, and a minute later we were headed up over the bridge.

  “So this is where it happened,” he said, gazing out through the girders.

  “That’s right.”

  “Damn.”

  “You were friends with him?”

  “Jacko?” He snorted. “He was one of the meanest bastards ever lived. He even tried to get his hands on Alice Mae, sweet and simple like she is, if you can believe that. I could’ve killed the son-of-a-bitch myself.”

  “But you didn’t, right?”

  “Couldn’t. He disappeared around Thanksgiving. I was locked up in jail for most of November, ever since that state trooper stopped me.” He shook his head. “Two drinks I had, and that bastard said I was driving drunk. Now I ask you, Mr. Alan, is two drinks of vodka enough to get any man drunk?”

  “Depends on the size of the drinks and the size of the man,” I said.

  The little man chortled. “Goddamn, Mr. Alan, if you ain’t the funniest fella I ever met.”

  Ten minutes later we reached Highway 621, which headed north ar
ound the corner edge of the hills that formed the wildlife preserve. We passed a scatter of houses, and three miles later I saw a gravel road on the left.

  “Go there,” Luther ordered. “That takes us into the hills.”

  I slowed and went left onto the gravel. Ahead, the road rose up, with the steep hillsides closing on either side of us.

  “I think this is the right one,” Luther said, as we reached the top of the hill and started down. “I recognize the trees.”

  “Christ, Luther, they’re all pines. You mean to tell me you aren’t sure?”

  “Course I’m sure,” Luther declared, indignant. “I remember that tree right there.”

  I glanced over but I couldn’t tell what tree he was talking about and wondered if he wasn’t making it up, anyway.

  “If you get us lost …” I started.

  “Mr. Alan, now, that hurts me. I know these woods like I know my own face in the mirror. If you think …”

  A mile and a half later we came to a fork in the road.

  “Which way?” I asked.

  “Left. No, right.”

  “Damn it, Luther …”

  “No, I’m telling you, the right one’s the way to go. Half a mile and the gravel gives out to a dirt track.”

  I crept forward, aware that the road had narrowed and that there were ditches on either side of the gravel track.

  “Luther, listen …”

  “Half a mile, Mr. Alan, you’ll see.”

  And to my surprise, he was right. At exactly half a mile the gravel ceased and the road became dirt, and a quarter mile after that, water filled ruts.

  “Here’s where we get out and walk,” Luther proclaimed.

  I cut the engine and reached into the back for my boots. I slid them on and then rummaged in my pack for my compass, trowel, camera, a roll of bright pink surveyor’s flagging tape, and GPS. With the GPS, the Global Positioning System, I could use satellites to give me a reading on my location anywhere in the world. The trouble was that without a topographic map, which I’d neglected to bring, I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint where I’d been until I got back to town. Finally, I reached into the glove compartment and took out my notebook and cell phone.

  Luther opened his door and got out, and I felt a cold blast. I put on a baseball cap and then got out, taking my quilted jacket with me. It was cold, with a strong smell of ozone from the pines.

  “Damn, but don’t this smell good,” Luther declared. “Especially after the stink in that jail. Place ain’t fit for humans. Give me the pine woods any day.”

  “Which way, Luther?”

  He scratched his grizzled jaw. “Well, let’s see … Straight ahead.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Trust me, Mr. Alan.” And with that he was bounding away down the trail.

  Graham, you really are a fool, I told myself. But there’s nothing to do now but follow.

  I trailed behind him for a quarter of a mile, the sound of him always ahead of me on the trail, and then the sounds died away.

  “Luther?”

  No answer.

  “Luther, where the hell are you?”

  Then I saw him, just off the trail, standing under a big loblolly, furtively trying to stuff something back into his jacket.

  “Luther, what are you doing?”

  “Nothing, Mr. Alan, just …”

  I walked over to him and halted as the fumes enveloped me.

  “What are you drinking?”

  He shrugged and tapped his jacket pocket. “Just a little something to keep the chill out.” He squinted up at me. “Want some?”

  “No, thanks. Now put that stuff away and let’s find this place, if you remember where it is.”

  “Remember?” His face took on a hurt look. “Mr. Alan, you think I’m some kinda numb brain? Course I remember. It’s right …” There was the barest hesitation and then his finger shot out like an arrow: “Right through there.”

  I followed him off the trail and realized, as I started to slip and slide with him down a slope, that we’d been on a ridge. I caught small bushes to slow my descent and, puffing, reached the bottom.

  A thread of water trickled along the bottom of the valley, between ridges, and I hopped over, careful not to slip.

  “Up there now,” my guide said, nodding at the steep incline above us.

  I gritted my teeth.

  “It’s the onliest way,” Luther said.

  I flagged a tree at the bottom and started after him, my feet sliding on the slick pine needle surface of the slope, and dragged myself up with the help of small trees until I reached the top, where Luther stood grinning down at me.

  “Kinda steep, ain’t it?”

  I started to answer and noticed that Luther was standing in a dirt rut.

  “Luther, there’s a road. We could have driven here.”

  “Not from where we were, Mr. Alan, trust me.”

  He was pulling at the whiskey bottle again.

  “Hot damn but there ain’t nothing like a little gut burner for a cold day.”

  It seemed to me the temperature had dropped ten degrees since we’d been out here, despite my sweating under the jacket.

  “Where now?” I asked and Luther’s grin widened.

  Down the other side, of course. Why had I even asked?

  I watched him pick his way down the slope like a goat and took out my compass for reference. We were heading roughly north, for all the good knowing that did. I flagged another tree and followed him once more.

  This time, at the bottom, he followed the valley, where a trickle of water ran between quartzitic rocks and when the ridges on both sides died away, we followed the larger valley in a direction my compass said was east. There was a larger stream here, fed by the runoff from the ridges, and we kept to the banks, following the twists and turns. When I looked back over my shoulder, I saw a monotony of brown forest. How many ridges back to get to the vehicle? Two? Or was it three?

  I was glad I’d brought the flagging with me because backtracking using the flagged trees would be the only way to guide us back if, as seemed increasingly probable, Luther turned out to be incompetent.

  A half mile later we came to a place where the water rushed between boulders and I watched Luther tiptoe across the wet rocks. I followed, aware that a slip would make me a candidate for frostbite.

  “Now let’s see …” Luther began. “Yeah, it’s right up there.”

  I gazed upward and saw a ridge whose top seemed to melt into the sky.

  “Jesus,” I groaned.

  “Ain’t far now,” Luther declared and, after a quick swig of whiskey, started upward. I flagged another tree and then, taking a deep breath, began to edge up the slope, pulling myself a few more feet with every sapling I came to. Midway up I paused and looked down.

  Not a good idea: If I slipped now it would be a long slide and I wouldn’t be able to stop before I ended up in the water.

  “Just a little more,” Luther called back down to me “It’s right up here.”

  I started again, panting, and clawed myself up the rest of the way, until I was able to stand, wavering, on the vast pine-covered plateau that was the top of the ridge.

  I leaned against a slash pine, breathing hard.

  “Luther …”

  “Just about there,” Luther pronounced, grinning.

  I flagged the tree and started after him as he headed back along the ridge. I checked my watch: We’d been slipping and sliding for an hour and a half. The thought of having to retrace our steps to get back to my vehicle was not a reassuring one.

  I was counting my paces now, flagging at hundred-foot intervals, but the little roll of tape I’d started with had grown alarmingly small.

  Suddenly I saw what appeared to be a clearing ahead.

  Luther was standing at the edge of the open space, pointing.

  “Just like I told you,” he said, nodding at a hole in the ground.

  I stood on the edge of the pit and looked dow
n. Maybe ten feet deep, the cavity was at least thirty across, and resembled a volcanic crater, with back dirt and rocks thrown up along the sides. I bent over the back dirt and picked up a stone.

  Quartzite, a common rock in these hills. Below I could see bits of sandstone and the brown subsoil of the area.

  “Pretty good hole, ain’t it?” Luther asked, as if proud of what the poachers had accomplished.

  “How many people dug this?” I asked. “It took more than one man.”

  “Four or five, I hear. Till they got run off by the sheriff.”

  I took out my trowel and scraped at the back dirt. More gravel and quartzite, with no indications of anything worth digging for, not even a salted coin or piece of gold.

  “Course, after they got run off, other folks come up here and went through the dirt to see if there was anything they missed.”

  “Of course.” I stood up finally. It had been idiotic to let Luther talk me into coming here. There was nothing that could have anything to do with Jacko Reilly’s death. Unless …

  “Luther, who was this man from Jena that Jacko sold the map to?”

  “Fella named Berry Capshaw. Always looking for a way to make money easy.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Last summer a man in Urania told him he’d pay him a hundred dollars to haul his chipping machine up to Little Rock. Berry got drunk and run his truck into Bayou D’Arbonne. Chipper ended up on top of him.” Luther spat. “I can show you his grave in the cemetery back in town.”

  “I thought you said he was from Jena.”

  “Was. But his parents are from here and they had a space in the cemetery. You gotta take what you can git, Mr. Alan.”

  I looked back at the hole and thought about the four or five treasure-crazed men who’d come up here to dig it.

  “Luther, there’s got to be an easier way to get to this place than the way we came.”

  “Oh, sure, but it ain’t the best way.”

  “The best?”

  “You got to cross other folks’ land, and I ain’t about to trespass.”

  “Of course not.”

  I started around the hole. If getting back to the Blazer meant slipping under a couple of fences when nobody was around to see us, I wasn’t going to be picky at this point.