by C J Baty
Marcus pointed at the ground around the single door. Loose pieces of rust and broken metal from the hinges rested on the ground. The lock was broken off as well.
“Looks like someone beat us here,” Marcus said quietly as he reached behind his back and pulled his revolver from its holster. He released the safety as he glanced at Justin.
“Is that necessary?” Justin asked.
“Yes,” he assured Justin. Marcus stepped in front of him and pushed the door open slowly.
The musty smell of sawdust and old motor oil was intense. Justin covered his mouth and nose with this hand. It was nearly overwhelming, taking the air out of his lungs and irritating his nose.
“It’ll air out sooner if we open the large door,” Justin suggested, his words mumbled behind his hand.
Marcus nodded his agreement.
They pulled and pushed on the larger door, even banged on the hinges with the flashlights to no avail. The rust on the hinges was just not going to budge.
“We can’t go back without taking a look.” Justin moved toward the open single door and stepped through.
He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and placed it over his nose and mouth. Turning on the flashlight, he let the beam of light slice through the darkness inside the building. It came to rest on a row of what he assumed were automobiles underneath heavy tarps covered in dust.
“Damn,” Marcus muttered as he joined him inside.
“I know.”
“How many do you think there are?”
Justin and Marcus swept their flashlight through the wide expanse of the barn trying to get an idea of how many vehicles were parked inside.
“I’d say twenty that I can see for sure.” Justin stepped farther into the barn.
“That’s quite a few more than Michaels thought.”
Justin pointed his light at the floor around the vehicles. There was sawdust everywhere.
A moment later, Marcus moved the light from his flashlight to climb beams centered in the room seemingly holding up the roof of the barn.
“Look there,” Marcus said as the light came to rest on the ceiling above them.
Old-fashioned filament light bulbs hung from wires suspended through the barn from beam to beam. They crisscrossed the entire structure.
“There were no electric poles outside, so how—” Justin stopped Marcus.
“Probably a gas powered generator behind the building somewhere would be my guess.”
Turning back to the door, Justin noticed a switch plate on the wall. He walked over to it and flipped the switch, nothing happened.
“I’ll go look for the generator. Let’s hope it isn’t rusted shut and there is still some fuel for it.” Marcus kissed Justin. “Don’t do anything stupid. Watch out for oil on the ground around the vehicles. The straw on the ground has probably soaked up a lot of it, but still, you don’t want to take a fall.” Marcus left through the small door. His body blocked the light coming in for a moment, then he was gone.
Maneuvering his way carefully between the cars, Justin nearly slipped when he stepped close to one of them. Luckily he was able to catch himself on the car before he hit the floor. His hands came away covered in dirt and grime.
It occurred to Justin, as he stood upright again, that his father had cared more about these things than he had his own family.
He tugged at the tarp on the car he was standing by. Dust filled the air and choked him as he breathed it in. Coughing, he threw the tarp on the floor and stood in awe. It was a freaking Bentley. Justin didn’t know a lot about cars but this was a 1930s Derby Bentley. He remembered it because his father had pictures on the wall in his study. This green convertible coupe was one of them.
The next tarp he removed uncovered a 1952 Mercury Monterey Coupe. The soft pale yellow exterior looked like the paint had just been done yesterday.
Another picture from the wall of his father’s study.
On it went, as he removed tarp after tarp. He had uncovered ten of the cars when a crackling sound overhead drew him to look up. Light flickered in the antique light bulbs several times. Two of them broke, shooting tiny sparks as they shattered in a tiny spray of glass. Now, the barn was illuminated
enough for Justin to see the whole expanse of the building. It was even larger than he had expected.
Justin had uncovered all but one car, which was set off to the front of the building, closest to the double door. Though a tarp covered it, Justin was sure it was a convertible with the top down. It was then that he realized someone else was in the barn. The hair on the nape of his neck bristled with electricity. It wasn’t the feeling he got when Marcus was near. This felt like his body was warning him of danger.
Moses Lee stood in the doorway of the barn aiming a gun in his direction.
Justin couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Moses not in uniform. He stood there in a pair of faded jeans and an old Star Wars T-shirt. Justin’s attention was drawn down to a pair of well-worn boots. Covered in mud and scuffed, he recognized them. The shoes he’d seen just before he blacked out in the attic. He was as sure as he had ever been of anything. Moses Lee had been his attacker. He took a step back.
“Don’t move, Justin . . . unless I tell you to.”
“What are you doing here?” Justin’s thoughts jumped to Marcus. Where was he? Did Moses — ?
“I think you probably have some idea why I’m here.” Moses stepped farther into the barn. He looked around at the antique vehicles Justin had uncovered but he never dropped the hand that held the gun.
“Damn, there’s a fortune in here,” he uttered as he ran his free hand over the bumper of the Bentley. “He knew how to pick ’em. This one alone would probably sell for a couple hundred thousand.” His look was appreciative but cold. “Too bad he didn’t care for the people in his life. He was a bastard, you know?”
Justin nodded but words didn’t seem to want to come. Where the hell was Marcus? He looked around Moses at the open door.
“Don’t bother hoping your boyfriend will come to your rescue. He was out cold when I left him.” Moses grinned.
Justin lunged but stilled when Moses lifted the gun and growled.
“Don’t fucking move, Justin. I mean it.”
“What do you want, Moses?” Justin stayed where he was, clenching his fists to his side.
“I think we’re both here looking for the same thing, though I doubt for the same reason.” Moses waved the revolver toward the car in the corner yet uncovered. “Bradley fucking Warfield’s journal. The one that hasn’t been found yet. The one that will answer all the questions. Uncover it. Move.”
Justin stepped carefully, dodging several lose wires hanging from the beam beside him. Over the years they had worked lose or the nails holding them in place had crumbled and let them hang. He grabbed the tarp and almost
flicked it in Moses direction. If he could get the dust on the tarp in Moses eyes, he could make a break for the door. Just as began to pull, he heard the sound of a gun being cocked. It was like the clanging of a bell in his ears.
“I wouldn’t do that, Justin.”
Justin tossed the tarp in the opposite direction and dust covered the far wall of the barn. He stepped back, his foot slipping on a heaped pile of sawdust next to the car. His bad shoulder hit the back side panel and a shooting pain seared through his body.
“I remember sitting in this one,” Moses muttered, not paying any attention to Justin. He stepped closer to the bright red 1964 Mustang convertible.
Running the tip of the gun along the now yellowed, white leather interior of the doorframe.
“What?” Justin was bewildered by the statement.
“Celia and I were here in this barn, and I sat right there listening to him break her heart.” He pointed at the backseat of the car with his gun.
“I think that’s when she lost her mind,” he said mostly to himself.
Justin remembered the passages from the other journals that they had discove
red. Bradley had been in love with Celia but had been kept away from her by his own father.
“He loved her,” Justin said.
“No, he didn’t. He used her, just like he’s used everyone else in his life,”
Moses shouted and directed the gun back at Justin. “Where’s the damned journal?”
“What are you looking for, Moses? What has my father . . . Bradley got to do with you?” Justin inched away from the car while Moses seemed to be lost in the past somewhere.
“I told you and I won’t tell you again. Don’t move.” The last two words were said slowly and clearly expressed his meaning.
They stood staring at each other for what seemed like a lifetime. It was only a few moments, but still the air in the barn felt stifling.
“You don’t want to kill me, Moses. People know that Marcus and I came here. Someone will come looking for us.” Justin hoped against hope that he could reason with the man in front of him.
“And when they call, the Chief of Police will be glad to investigate and be terribly sad that it will be an unsolved case. After all, my first plan to have Caroline kill you went bust when she couldn’t go through with it. I should have taken care of it myself then.” The grin on Moses face was the most evil thing Justin had ever seen.
“Caroline . . .” Justin hesitated and swallowed a huge lump that had formed in his throat. “You and Caroline.” It wasn’t a question, merely an acknowledgement.
“She was a good fuck and very controllable after she stopped taking the meds. And it didn’t hurt that she really believed that if we killed all the ex-faggots from your past, she could get you back into her bed. Women aren’t good for anything but one thing, but then you probably wouldn’t agree with that since you like to take it up the ass.” Moses laugh grated on Justin’s nerves.
“Did you manipulate Joe Thompson as well?”
“Joe! Oh hell yes. He was even easier than Caroline. He really loved his kid, unlike Caroline.” Moses laughed before he continued. “He found that journal with the information about his kid. He was so fucking afraid that he’d lose Alexander it was easy to get him to help me with a few things. Like purchasing the parts for the bomb. Then the idiot tried to back out on me at the last minute, and I had to kill him. Stupid bastard.”
“Why?” Justin snarled.
“Because the son of a bitch knew who my real father was? He wrote everything that happened in this damned town in those journals. I suspect he was blackmailing whoever it was for a long time. He made an awful lot of money doing that to other upstanding folks in Beaufort.” Another burst of laughter from Moses caused Justin’s blood to run cold.
“Look he’s left the keys for this one. How kind of him,” Moses said as he leaned over the door and withdrew the keys from the ignition of the car. He tossed them to Justin where he stood and motioned the gun that was still aimed at Justin’s toward the trunk.
“Open it.”
Justin moved to the back of the car. His hands shook, making it difficult to get the key in the lock. He heard Moses move closer to where he stood.
Finally, getting the key in the lock, he turned the key. The click of the mechanism broke the silence in the barn. The trunk lid was stiff, and Justin had to use force to push it up.
“Well, well. Look at what we have there.” Justin stared down at a single journal. He had hoped that there would be several and it would take hours to read them all. Reaching in he picked up the book that it seemed everyone had been looking for.
23
––––––––
HIS HEAD HURT like a motherfucker. The cut had stopped bleeding, but he was pretty sure he was going to have a major headache for a while. Stepping
quietly to where he could hear the two men in the barn, Marcus moved slowly.
“Read it!” Moses shouted at Justin.
The son of a bitch had surprised Marcus right after he got the generator primed and kicked on. It had taken a couple of tries to get the thing going but that last crank had done the trick. That was when Moses had surprised him. The butt of his gun had come down in one swift swing while Marcus still knelt by the generator. He hadn’t had a chance to stand and defend himself.
Justin’s voice came through the open door. It sounded shaky.
“It’s a boy,” Justin’s voice wavered then continued. “Marta said Celia was doing okay but he was a big baby. The bitch was only worried because Celia would be a little longer healing so she wouldn’t be working again for a while.”
There was silence for a moment. Marcus was sure the other two men were thinking the same as he was. The baby was Moses. Marcus was pretty sure he knew what the rest of the entries would say. As sure as he knew it was going to be a shock to Justin. The thought had never even occurred to him.
“Go on.”
“There’s nothing more about Celia or the baby,” Justin said.
“Keep looking.”
More silence filled the room.
“Damn!” Astonishment sounded in Justin’s voice.
“What?” Moses yelled.
“That time you were here with your mother—” Moses interrupted Justin.
“Celia!” he shouted.
Justin started again.
“That time you were here with Celia, he wrote about it. Described it just the way you said. You in the back seat. Her crying. Except . . .”
“Except what?”
“Except he also says ‘I never wanted to hurt her. But there’s nothing.
Nothing . I can do. My hands are tied. I’d lose everything, and I just can’t take the chance. The kid was something. Big. Tall. So much taller than Justin. More like me . . .’” Justin’s voice trailed off when he read that last line.
Marcus ached for him.
Moses’s laughter bellowed through the barn.
“This is just too good to be true. The son of a bitch was my old man! Did you hear that, Justin, we’re goddamned brothers!”
“There’s no proof,” Justin muttered.
“That’s right, no fucking proof that I have been able to find until now. Give me that book.”
Marcus could hear the shuffle of feet and Justin’s grunt. It sounded like he had hit the ground.
“Stay there and don’t move.”
From where he was with his back against the wall of the barn on the right side of the door, Marcus could tell they were in the far left corner of the barn. Getting inside would be tricky if the door was in Moses’s line of sight.
The good thing was that Moses hadn’t searched him, so he still had his revolver, and he held it tightly in both hands as he tried to lean forward enough to get a look inside the barn.
He could see Justin on the floor beside the Mustang looking up at Moses.
Luck was with him. Moses’s back was to the door. He was busily flipping pages in the journal he had taken from Justin. He needed a distraction.
Marcus watched as first one of the light bulbs hanging over the convertible flickered off then back on, then another did the same thing. It was only a minute before the first light flickered again then exploded. The second light bulb did the same as shards of breaking glass and embers rained down on the car. The wiring was old and worn. This was what Marcus was waiting for.
Moving as quietly as possible, while Moses and Justin focused on the commotion above them, Marcus stepped over the threshold into the barn.
He slipped into the darkness the broken bulbs had caused. Neither Moses or Justin had seen him enter.
When the light had exploded, Moses had unwittingly dropped the journal.
Shaking off some small glass shards, Justin reached down to pick it up and the back of the book pulled away from the binding. Pieces of paper fluttered to the ground.
Justin picked up one of the pieces and when he read it, he sucked in a deep breath. His hands shook as he handed the paper to Moses.
“I believe this is what you’ve been looking for.” He read the words on the paper out loud before he handed Moses
the paper. “Name . . . Moses Cotton.
Nine pounds. Thirteen ounces. Twenty-four inches long. Mother . . . Celia Cotton.” Justin stopped and looked up at Moses. “Father . . . Bradley Warfield.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. Looks like I have my proof.” Moses ripped the birth certificate out of Justin’s hands. He held the document in both hands, the gun no longer aimed at Justin.
“Is this why? Why you killed Ian, Tony, and Roger? Why you used Caroline and killed her as well? Why you were trying to destroy the Warfield? Are you totally insane?” Justin shouted as he lunged at Moses. “All because you wanted to prove that one bastard was the father of another?”
Moses lifted the gun and aimed very carefully at Justin. His face was devoid of emotion. His voice was icy when he spoke. His action stopped Justin from his forward momentum.
“No.” Moses walked toward Justin, cocking the trigger of the gun. “I did all those things because I hated you that much. You had everything. I had nothing. Caroline loved you. Loved you enough to throw away my child, not yours, mine! Finding this,” he gloated, pushing the paper into Justin’s face,
“was the icing on the cake. I’m a Warfield.”
Justin stumbled backward, coming to rest against one of the center beams.
“So what do we do now?” Justin asked—his voice didn’t quiver, and he showed no fear.
“You get to die.”
Marcus ran from the darkness where he had been watching the movements of the two men. Moses swung around and aimed the gun at him, but before he could pull the trigger, Justin lunged at Moses, grabbing the hand with the gun and pointing it up into the air. Moses pulled the trigger.
The bullet severed one of the hanging electrical wires on the beam. Sparks and flames ran in both directions of the wire, some going up the beam and spreading to the bulbs that were attached to it. They shattered, raining down more sparks upon all three men. The wire that ran to the floor burned brightly and ignited the old straw that lay around the base of the beam. In no time, huge flames were moving through the fuel soaked straw and along the electrical wiring.