by Greg Herren
“You’re starting to sound like your brother.” Mom frowned. “And I don’t mean that in a good way, Scotty.”
“Well, he’s not always wrong, Mom,” I said, thinking I cannot believe I just said that. “Storm would go through the roof if he knew…” I let my voice trail off and buried my face in my hands. There was no point in arguing with my mother. She was probably the most loyal person I knew. I usually thought that was one of her better qualities, but it apparently also came with a severe downside. I knew my mother. If the police showed up to arrest Colin, she would fight them with everything she had. She would hide him, she would help him escape, she would give him money and—my head was starting to seriously hurt. Yes, she would most certainly risk jail to protect him.
Okay, yelling would only make her more obstinate, so I decided to try another tack. I knew it was a hopeless fight, but I had to try at least one more time so that when Storm eventually met us at the police station, I could say I tried everything. I took a deep breath and said in my most even, reasonable tone, “Mom, please. I just don’t want you—or me—to be in trouble with the law, Mom. We could be arrested. We could go to jail.”
“I wish you would stop talking about me like I’m not even here,” Colin said.
She didn’t even look at him. She waved her hand dismissively. “Please. We wouldn’t go to jail. If it came to that—and I’m not saying it will, mind you—you know we can afford the best lawyers in the country. And you know as well as I do how heavily weighted our justice system is in favor of people with money.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “And the reason I know that is because you’ve spent your entire life protesting against it and fighting to correct it—and now you’re saying you’re willing to compromise your principles and beliefs to take advantage of that inequity? Isn’t that kind of hypocritical, Mom?”
“What, you think I should stand on principle?” She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “No, Scotty, I don’t think our system is fair. I don’t think the poor—or even the middle class—can afford the same justice the privileged can. But if it were my child—or someone I love—you bet your ass I’m getting them the best lawyer—or lawyers—money can buy. Does it make me a hypocrite? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. That’s not for us to decide. But I would rather be a bad person than a bad mother.” And with that, she folded her arms. The subject was officially closed. We would not be turning Colin over to the police. Not now, not in the future, and probably not ever. For better or worse, we were now accessories after the crime, harboring a fugitive from justice, and whatever else the district attorney decided to throw at us after we were caught.
And we would be caught.
“Now, what happened to your neck?” She had switched from her don’t-argue-with-me tone to concerned mother.
“Why is he here?” I asked, and hated that my voice sounded whinier than I’d intended.
“For God’s sake, I’m sitting right here!” Colin exploded. “Quit talking about me like I’m not here!”
I ignored him. “Is this why you wanted me to come over here? And where’s Dad?”
“Oh, dear.” Mom rubbed her eyes. “That’s right, you don’t know. Oh, Scotty—”
“If you must know, I called your mother because I didn’t know where else to go,” Colin interrupted her. “I’m here on a case—didn’t Angela call you? She was supposed to call you—”
I interrupted him. “She called me.” I still couldn’t bring myself to look at him. “She left a message on my machine. I called her back, but she didn’t answer. I left her a message. She didn’t say what she was calling about.” I smiled at him, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. I certainly wasn’t there yet—and didn’t know if I ever would be. “How do I know she wasn’t calling to warn me that you were in New Orleans?”
“Obviously, since I knew she was going to call you, it stands to reason she was calling to ask you to help me.” Colin sighed. “You have to believe me, Scotty.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” I snapped. “So, you’re saying you do, in fact, work for Angela Blackledge? That isn’t what she said three years ago, as I recall. So which is it, Colin? Or Abram or whatever your name really is? Do you work for her, or do you not?”
“Scotty, you’re being rude. You could listen to what he has to say.” She gave me her I raised you better than this look.
I sighed. “I’m getting a headache.” I rubbed my forehead.
Without saying a word, she walked into the kitchen. I heard the sink come on, and a moment later she was handing me two capsules and a glass of water. I took them and drained the glass. She sat back down on the couch next to him and took one of his hands in hers. He smiled at her before turning back to face me.
“I do work for Angela Blackledge,” Colin said. “I know, I know, after the Mardi Gras case, she denied that I work for her, but she had to. She didn’t have a choice. We couldn’t let the local police get involved. It was just easier to let everyone think I was the killer.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t kill your uncles, Scotty, you have to believe me. I was undercover, yes, deep undercover, and the case was a lot more complicated than you know. Once my cover was blown, I had to get out of here as quickly as possible. There wasn’t time for explanations.” He swallowed. “If I’d stayed, you and everyone I love would have been in danger.” Mom smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “And if anything like that happened—” He choked off a sob.
I rolled my eyes. Mom, of course, was eating this up with a spoon.
He cleared his throat and went on. “And even now, I can’t tell you everything. I wish I could, you know I wish I could.” He looked at me pleadingly. I recognized that expression, all right. It used to melt my heart, make me want to do anything he asked.
Well, it wasn’t going to work on me now.
“Yes.” I smiled thinly. “I suppose if you told me, you’d have to kill me. Like Sasha and Pasha. Remember them? The uncles I never got a chance to know?”
“Scotty!” Mom said warningly, but I ignored her.
“You killed them both.” I went on, worked up into a high state of righteous indignation. “Your thugs kidnapped Frank, and beat him. He could have been killed.” In spite of myself, I felt tears coming to my eyes. I took a deep breath and got hold of myself. I’d be damned if I was going to let him see me cry.
“Scotty.” Mom walked back over and sat on one of the arms of my chair. She put her arm around me. “Trust me, son. I know it’s hard. But do you really think you were wrong about him? Do you really believe he could have done such a thing, lied to us all, kept up a charade like that twenty-four/seven?” She kissed me on the cheek, and squeezed me hard. “I’m sure Colin is good at his job, but no one is that gifted an actor, Scotty. He would have slipped up at some point, or contradicted himself—no one can keep that many lies straight. And none of us are stupid people, Scotty. At least one of us would have caught on at some point, don’t you think?” She started stroking my hair. “At the very least, Frank was in the FBI for twenty years. Do you really think anyone could fool Frank for that long? I mean, it was his job—and he was good at it, remember?”
I hated to admit it, but it was a good point.
On the other hand, she hadn’t held Frank every night until he fell asleep for about three weeks after that fateful Mardi Gras, either.
Let it go, Scotty, just let it go.
So, hoping I wouldn’t regret it later—and suspecting I would—I made a decision. I took a deep breath, and said, “All right. You have until tomorrow morning to convince me to help you.” I looked at my watch. “And then I’m calling the police.”
Colin started to say something, but Mom cut him off. “You never said what happened to your neck, dear.”
“Someone tried to mug me.” I leaned back in my chair. I was so tired. “It was very weird, though, he didn’t want my wallet or anything. He just shoved me up against a wall and put a very sharp knife to my throat. All he said was, ‘Where is th
e eye?’” I shuddered at the memory. “I kneed him in the groin and ran the rest of the way here.”
Colin and Mom exchanged glances.
“What?” I asked crossly. “What the hell is going on around here? And you never told me where Dad is.”
“Oh, honey. I started to tell you before, but—” She bit her lip. “But you just wanted to argue.” She glanced at Colin and got up off the couch. Mom walked back over to me and sat back down on the arm of my chair. “Scotty, I’m afraid I have some terrible news. Your father is at the morgue, making arrangements.”
“The morgue?” My eyes widened. “Papa Bradley? Maman? Not Storm. Please, Mom, tell me it’s not Storm.”
“No, honey, it isn’t a member of the family. Well, sort of.” She patted me on the head. “Honey, I’m afraid Doc is dead.”
My body, which had gone completely tense at the word morgue, relaxed and I blew out a sigh of relief. “Oh, that.” The absurdity of the entire situation hit me at the moment as funny, and I started laughing nervously.
“He must be in shock,” Mom said over her shoulder to Colin. “Scotty, are you okay?”
“I’m not in shock.” I wiped at my eyes. “It’s been a pretty crazy night, I’m sorry. It’s just that—I already knew about Doc, Mom. I kept meaning to call you and Dad and tell you, but the night’s been kind of crazy.” I rubbed my eyes and ran my hands through my hair. “I went out tonight to Tea Dance, met David there, in fact. On my way home from the bars, I walked up Governor Nicholls Street, and right into the crime scene. Venus Casanova and Blaine Tujague were in charge. They had me go look around the apartment, to see if I could tell if anything was missing.” I darted a look back at Colin. “I couldn’t tell, of course. The place was trashed. I told them you’d have a better idea, or his maid.”
“That Blaine Tujague called here, asked your father to come down to the morgue and identify the body—”
“I already did that.” I cut her off. “Venus had me do it at the crime scene.” That was weird; why would they want Dad to go down there and do a second identification?
She shrugged. “Well, I’m just telling you what Detective Tujague said when he called. Your father decided it was better for him to go than me—the sexist.” She sniffed. “Like I can’t handle seeing a dead body?”
“True.” I smiled faintly. Everyone in my family has seen their fair share of corpses.
“And that’s where your father is,” Mom went on. “He’s going to make the arrangements with the funeral home while he’s there. Since there’s apparently no family—”
“I thought he had a sister in Vicksburg.”
Mom shrugged. “Apparently that’s not true, after all. He always told me her name was Blanche Segal, but there’s no Blanche Segal in Vicksburg.”
“That’s weird.”
“Apparently, son, Doc was not who he said he was,” Mom replied. “Do you want to tell the story, Colin?”
“And what happened to your arm, anyway? Who shot you?”
“In good time, Scotty.” Colin got up and started pacing. “Benjamin Garrett wasn’t his real name. He changed his name when he came back from Vietnam back in 1968. His real name was Benjamin Moon.”
“Moonie,” I breathed out. I closed my eyes. I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to like where this was going.
Colin just gave me a brief look, and then continued. “He and two of his best buddies from college all enlisted, in 1965. The other two were Marty Gretsch and Matt Harper. They were all three from Biloxi, students at the University of Mississippi. They grew up together, went to college together, and enlisted together. Some of the other guys in their unit said they were inseparable, like three brothers rather than friends. And they always managed to arrange it so they had leave all at the same time. They traveled all over Southeast Asia. They went to one place more than once.”
“Where was that?” I asked.
“A small independent nation sandwiched between the borders of India and Nepal, called Pleshiwar.”
“Pleshiwar? I’ve never heard of it.” I looked from one face to the other.
Mom inhaled sharply, and we both turned to look at her. She shook her head. “I’ve heard of Pleshiwar.” Her face was grim. “It’s a horrible place, ruled by a theocracy that’s perverted the Hindu religion. Their primary deity is Kali—but not the same Kali the Hindus know. Their version of Kali is, well, evil.” She swallowed. “Their ruler is the high priest, and the ruling class is the priesthood. The people are little better than slaves. It’s a barbaric place, still trapped somewhere in the Dark Ages.”
Colin nodded. “That’s right, Mom.” It rubbed me wrong to hear him call her that. As far as I was concerned, three years ago he’d lost the right to call her anything other than Mrs. Bradley. “Anyway, during one of their visits, a valuable relic disappeared from the Temple of Kali. It was one of the most holy relics, if not the holiest. In the center of the temple is carved ivory statue of Kali. It’s about three feet tall, and is supposed to be an incarnate statue—that means Kali’s spirit lives inside of it. The craftsmanship is unbelievable. This Kali looks so real it’s like she is about to take another breath. This temple, this statue, is the absolute heart of their religion—and therefore their country. It is decorated with incredible jewels. In the center of her forehead was a large blue sapphire with a flaw in the center. The cut of the sapphire, along with the flaw, made it look like an eye.”
“The eye,” I breathed. The man who’d stabbed me—he looked subcontinental Asian. His English had been accented.
“The stone was called the Eye of Kali, and the cult believed the Eye was actually Kali’s eye, and she saw through it into the temporal realm. You have no idea how sacred the stone is to the Pleshiwarians.”
“Think of how much the gold plates mean to the Mormons—well, the idea of the gold plates,” Mom said, “or the tomb of St. Peter means to the Catholics, then multiply it by about a hundred.”
“It was stolen,” Colin continued.
“How is that possible?” I asked. “I would think they would have it guarded. Heavily.”
Colin shook his head. “Mom was right when she said the country is stuck in the Middle Ages. The cult leaders believed that Kali herself protected the temple, and would strike down anyone who defiled her. There were guards, of course, but that night, all the guards went to sleep. When the Eye was stolen, the high priest was torn to pieces by a mob of angry Pleshiwarians. The new high priest claimed Kali had put the guards to sleep and allowed the Eye to be stolen because she was displeased that the former high priest had not allowed modern technology into the country, and the stone would not be returned until the country had proved itself worthy of Kali, to spread her glory throughout the rest of the world.”
I shuddered. “Sounds like a horrible place.”
Colin nodded. “The three GIs, though, were in the country when the Eye disappeared, and left that same night for Vietnam. As Pleshiwar gets very few tourists, the priests figured that it was the Americans who stole the Eye. Shortly thereafter, Matt Hooper was found dead in a back alley of Saigon. He had been butchered, and his eyes were taken as well. Shortly after, the other two mustered out and returned to the United States, and disappeared.”
“So, you’re saying Doc and his friends stole the Eye, and then came back to the U.S. and changed their names and went into hiding.” I pondered that for a moment. I shook my head. “I don’t know if I buy this. Obviously, they couldn’t sell the Eye of Kali, so why did they take it?”
Mom shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t realize when they took it they wouldn’t be able to unload it. Greed makes people do stupid things.”
“And you think all this time, Doc has had the Eye?” It didn’t make sense to me. “If they knew the Pleshiwarians were looking for them, and would kill them to get it back, why didn’t they just return it?”
“They were dead even if they returned it,” Mom replied. “Right, Colin? They had defiled Kali. The Pleshiwarians couldn�
�t let them live. Kali is a vengeful and bloodthirsty goddess. She would want revenge.”
“What doesn’t make sense to me is the how and why of it,” I replied. “I mean, does it make sense to you? Three GIs from Mississippi, serving in Vietnam—how did they even know about this jewel? What did they think they were going to do with it once they stole it?”
Colin shook his head. “We might not ever know the reason. But once I was able to figure out what they changed their names to after they came home from Vietnam, I did find some interesting things.”
“Such as?”
“Well, they came back with a lot more money than they had when they enlisted.” Colin shrugged. “Marty was able to buy a farm, and pay cash for it.”
I remembered the bankbook in Levi’s drawer.
“And Ben Garrett bought property here in New Orleans,” Colin went on. “Several buildings here in the Quarter. No mortgages, just bought them outright. Now, where did they both get the money from?”
“Someone hired them to steal it?” Mom mused. “Paid them some of the money up front, the rest on delivery? And they never delivered it…probably because after Matt was murdered in Vietnam they got scared and went into hiding.”
“So it may not be just the Pleshiwarians who are looking for them.” Colin’s voice was grim. “There’s someone else, an unknown factor.”
“And now all three of them are dead,” I breathed. “And no one knows where the Eye is. They took the secret with them to the grave.”
Colin looked at me, his eyebrows going up. “How did you know Marty Gretsch is dead?”
“I’m psychic, remember?” I replied sarcastically.
He looked at Mom. “I thought you said he didn’t have the gift anymore?”
“Mom!” I glared at her.
She shrugged. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“It’s none of his business,” I said, my teeth clenched. “And besides, it seems to be coming back. I had a vision this afternoon.” I glared at Colin. “And no, I didn’t know Marty Gretsch was dead because of the gift.” I swallowed. “His grandson hired me this afternoon to find Ben Moon, and—”