Assassin's Blood (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  “How could you do it?” he was asking in that same hurt tone he used when I’d trespassed in some childish way. “After all these years, with somebody I work with, a client …”

  And she was half apologizing, half accusing, through tears. “Do you have any idea how it is every day, the boredom, never seeing you because you’re always at work? I felt like I was suffocating.”

  “So you picked somebody who was a client, somebody I knew? To make me look like a fool. Don’t you realize by now everybody knows about the two of you?”

  “I wasn’t thinking. It just happened.”

  And I heard the word Ernie Slagle was yelling on the playground that day as we fought.

  “Bitch.”

  They had never alluded to my mother’s adultery in my presence, and a month later there had been another tragedy, in the streets of Dallas, and that was what my mind had picked up and molded into my own personal grief.

  My mother had died first, and he had grieved. Then, years later, I had come back to care for him in his final days, and he had never mentioned it, not even as he lay gasping, and so I never knew how it had happened, how this ideal little world I had lived in for ten years had suddenly crashed one day. I had never known who was at fault or why and how they had ultimately resolved it.

  And because it had never been resolved, I left their house as it had been when they had lived there, waiting for the day when it would reappear, the crisis, and I would have to confront it and deal, at last, with the ghosts.

  I went inside and looked around.

  Meg had been right: It really did resemble a museum.

  I went up the steps slowly, the way I had that day thirty-odd years ago, almost as if I expected to hear their voices when I got to the top, arguing behind the closed bedroom door.

  I stood outside the door and then slowly opened it and looked in.

  And because it was a museum and the place of every item had been stamped indelibly on my mind over the years, it took only one glance to know.

  My mother’s picture on the dresser had been moved slightly, and the closet door that I had left cracked open was closed. Whoever it was had been very good, but the evidence was in front of my eyes: Someone had been here while I was gone and they had searched the place.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The next morning, Monday, I showed up early at Sheriff Cooney’s office and got a growling lecture from him on obstruction of justice. He’d gone easy on me during that Tunica business, but, by God, there was a limit. I apologized and asked him if any progress had been made in the case. He gave me a fishy eye and shoved the statement in front of me to sign. He asked if I knew where Cyn Devlin could be found, and I suggested he try her at home.

  I headed east then, passed through Jackson, and pulled in at the asylum. I asked for Dr. Childe and once more was sent down the hall.

  This time he was in his office, and when I said my name, his secretary called him and told me to go right in.

  When I entered, the psychiatrist was standing by the window, his lab coat open.

  “Mr. Graham,” he said as we shook hands. “I was hoping I’d see you again.”

  “Oh?”

  He shrugged. “Everybody knows you found Clyde’s body. I was curious about what was going on out there. I got a few details from the coroner—professional gossip, you know—but I was wondering about the rest of it. Especially since you came by the other day. You mentioned Clyde, you know.” He leaned toward me like a conspirator. “Tell me, does this have anything to do with our chat?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. What does the coroner say about Fontenot’s death?”

  “Gunshot wound to the head. I won’t bore you with the medical terms. It went all the way through and came out at the base of the neck. He’d been dead about ten hours when you found him. So somebody shot him before breakfast.”

  “Was anything found with him? Any kind of equipment?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that. What would old Clyde have had, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure. Just a notion.” I sat down and waited for him to do the same. Then I told him what was on my mind.

  “Doctor, what’s the status of hysteria these days?”

  “Hysteria? You mean what they used to call conversion neurosis?”

  “Whatever they call it. I seem to remember from when I took abnormal psych years ago there were cases of people who lost some physical ability—say, the ability to walk—because of a psychological trauma.”

  “That’s true. You don’t see that much of it anymore, but there are cases. Why?”

  “Just a personal experience I had that got me wondering.”

  I was thinking of the upstairs bedroom and the anguished voices from a third of a century ago. I had shoved them into a hole called forgetfulness, but at what cost?

  “I see. Well, educated people tend to be aware of such things, so they don’t use that particular type of psychic defense. But any kind of trauma that makes a person have to confront some unacceptable fact—well, I’d say the potential is there.”

  “In other words, if a person saw something that he or she couldn’t accept, this person might imagine they were blind.”

  “Yes, only it’s more than just imagining. It’s an actual inability to see. There are cases of neurotic deafness, paralysis, amnesia …”

  Amnesia. I knew about that one.

  “All to protect the person from something too terrible to face?”

  “In a word, yes.” He leaned back in his chair and peered down the length of his face at me. “Are we talking about a specific case?”

  “Somebody I heard about.”

  “You’re not thinking about Oswald, are you? There wasn’t anything like that about him. There are lots of labels you could give him, but it wasn’t conversion neurosis.”

  “No.”

  I thanked him for his time and drove over to the Fontenot place. It wasn’t something I looked forward to, but I had to find out what Clyde had wanted with me the night before he was killed.

  There were cars in the drive, and I wondered if the funeral was set for today. When I came to the front door, the screen opened and a man I didn’t recognize invited me in. He said he was a relative of Clyde’s wife and showed me into the living room, where a few neighbors sat quietly. The only one I recognized was Dewey, from the post office.

  “Aline is lying down,” the relative said. “Mister …”

  I told them my name and shook hands all around.

  Dewey said, “It was Mr. Graham here found Clyde.”

  Six shocked faces stared at me, and I gritted my teeth.

  “I’m sorry,” I told them.

  “Aline’s taking it pretty hard,” the relative said. “Pills and all.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Well, please tell her—”

  The door into the hall opened then, and a woman in a bathrobe stood wavering in the doorway. Her hair was a brown tangle, and her eyes were ringed by dark circles.

  “I had to get up,” she said. “There are so many things to do. Has anybody gone down to the bank? Somebody has to look in the deposit box. And there’s the insurance company. They have to—”

  The man who’d let me in took her arm.

  “That can wait until after the funeral. You don’t have to worry. Go get some rest.”

  She brushed his hand away and shuffled toward me.

  “Are you from the insurance company?”

  “No, ma’am. My name is Alan Graham. Your husband called me the night before he died. I wondered if you knew what about?”

  “I’m sure it was about whatever he was doing, that craziness about the ghost. He said he was going to make us rich.” She frowned. “I remember you. You were here the other day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She turned to the people on the sofa.

  “Well, where is the insurance man? Did anybody call them?”

  I mumbled my regrets and stepped back out onto the porch. I heard footsteps
behind me and turned. It was Dewey, mopping his face with a handkerchief.

  “I was looking for an excuse to leave,” he said. “Poor Aline. But between you and me, she’ll be better off. Clyde was crazy as a hoot owl.”

  “You mean the Oswald business.”

  “Sure. The man come here, sure. I seen him. But his ghost ain’t hanging around.”

  “What about Timothy Devlin’s?”

  “Timothy’s?” Dewey snorted. “I hope not. He was as mean a bastard as ever walked the earth.”

  “Sounds like you have some personal experience.”

  “He threw me off his land once. Said I hadn’t no business being there. I told him I had Doug’s permission, and he said wasn’t Doug owned the land. Just about accused me of poaching, and me a deputy sheriff. When he died, I didn’t cry.”

  “Why did you leave the sheriff’s department?”

  “Politics. It’s all politics. The old sheriff retired when they indicted him, and this new one, Staples, come in. Put his own friends in the deputy jobs. Threw me out without a second thought after all those years. I was lucky the assistant postmaster job was open then. But I’m still just a glorified mailman. I deliver three days a week and stay in the office the other three. Well, at least it’s got government protection.” He spat. “That beats the hell out of being a sheriff’s flunky.”

  “I hear Mrs. Devlin doesn’t like Staples much, either.”

  “Who the hell does? He couldn’t catch a cold.” He squinted up at me. “I hear they want to talk to Cyn. I haven’t seen her lately. When I left the mail this morning, Friday and Saturday’s mail was still there.”

  “Maybe she’s visiting relatives,” I said.

  “Relatives? I always heard she was a orphan.”

  I drove home, arriving at the office just before noon. I telephoned Bertha, but I was told she’d called in sick. Something about a shock. Marilyn appeared from her cubbyhole with a printout I knew was bad news and told me we only had funds for two more weeks. “After that, we won’t be able to pay the mortgage on this place, much less pay people.”

  I tried to soothe her. Maybe Clarence down at the bank would extend our line of credit. She gave me a disbelieving look and vanished into her cubicle. She knew as well as I did that Clarence Maloney had a heart that was all dollar signs.

  My phone rang and I picked it up. Maybe it was another job.

  Instead, it was a voice it took me a second to place. “Mr. Alan Graham?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is Gene McNair. I was calling to ask if you were free for lunch.”

  McNair, the chubby little glad-hander who’d introduced me to this mess.

  “Probably. What’s up?”

  He laughed nervously. “Well, I’d just like to sit down with you, that’s all. You free?”

  “I’m free,” I said.

  “Good. Meet me at the Nineteenth Hole at the Baton Rouge Country Club in an hour and a half?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He’d heard about the murder, of course, and wanted to know what was going on. Well, there was nothing to do but meet with him and tell him what I knew. What I might suspect, of course, was something I’d keep to myself.

  I pulled into the parking area at twelve-thirty. When the country club had been built back in the fifties, it had been in the country, and the golf course had been surrounded by trees. Now it was an easy-off from the Interstate and there were apartments and businesses on all sides. In the eighties, another country club had been built at the very edge of the parish as part of an exclusive residential development. The old money stayed at the earlier establishment, however, and I heard even some of the founders of the later development were drifting back.

  I went into the men-only dining room to the left and found McNair seated at a corner table, with the golf course visible over his shoulder through the big windows. There was another man with him who looked vaguely familiar. I walked across the room, noting a few bankers and an indecently large scattering of lawyers as I went. When I reached the table, both men were standing.

  “Mr. Graham, thanks for coming.” McNair shook my hand warmly and indicated the other man. “This is my brother, Senator Buell McNair.”

  Buell was heavier than his brother and didn’t bubble quite as much, but he had the same facial features and the same receding hairline.

  “Senator.”

  “Call me Buell, please.”

  We took our seats, and a waiter appeared from nowhere to take our orders. I had soup and a sandwich. The senator had iced tea and blackened fish. Gene McNair ordered a cheeseburger.

  “It was a hell of a thing about Clyde Fontenot,” Gene said.

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “I hear you found him,” Buell said, his little eyes watching my face.

  “That’s true.”

  Buell took one of the small cracker packages from the basket in the middle of the table and started to unwrap it.

  “Got any idea what he was doing there?”

  “He told me he was looking for Lee Harvey Oswald’s ghost.”

  Both men laughed a little too much, I thought.

  “Well, I guess he found him,” Gene said. “Clyde always was a strange bird.”

  “I hear you discovered some kind of Indian site out there,” the senator said.

  “That’s true. Lots of flint tools, no pottery. May date to four or five thousand years ago.”

  “You reckon Clyde was looking for that?”

  “I doubt it.”

  The men exchanged a glance, and Buell leaned across the table.

  “Mr. Graham, I heard the Corps of Engineers has pulled the plug on your project.”

  “You hear right. The Corps’ representative was with me when we found the body, and it scared her. She feels like it would be a big liability to the government to keep going with this unsolved.”

  “And if it isn’t ever solved?”

  “Then I guess no work gets done.”

  Senator Buell McNair exhaled.

  “Mr. Graham, we need this project to go through. We’ve put a lot of money into it. And,” he added as an afterthought, “it’s good for the people of the area.”

  “Talk to the Corps,” I said. “I need the job, too, but I’m just a contractor.”

  “I know. Your company’s on pretty thin ice, from what I hear.”

  “Senator, any credit-reporting agency can tell you that. I’d have told you that.”

  He raised a hand. “Don’t get your back up. I was just saying we’ve got a mutual interest.”

  “And?”

  He chewed on the cracker, and little crumbs fell down out of his mouth.

  “I may be able to get the Corps to change its mind. The governor is interested in this project. That colonel down there in New Orleans that runs the Corps district will piss in his hard hat if a congressman calls him.”

  “Then I wish you well.”

  “You’re willing to go back out there?”

  “With reasonable protection.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  My soup came, and the conversation changed to archaeology. Both men pretended to be interested in my field, but I could tell they’d already had the only part of the conversation they cared about.

  At the end of the meal I got up, shook hands with them, and went back out into the heat. The Blazer was parked under a tree, and once I got in, I just sat quietly and ran the air-conditioning for a few seconds until the inside was cold. Then I edged out across Jefferson Highway and onto the Interstate. It was only four miles later, when I slipped off at the Dalrymple exit, that I realized I was being followed.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was a gray Plymouth, hanging a hundred yards back all the way, but weaving in and out of the traffic to keep me in sight. By the time I got to the office, it was gone. I told myself it was my imagination. Nobody had been following me. I fiddled with paperwork for an hour or so, but my mind was far away. The McNairs had invited me
to lunch to find out what I knew. Buell McNair was old enough to have been a young man when Oswald had come to town. Had he known Timothy Devlin? Did he have something to hide, something that was buried on the property?

  Then I remembered that Gene McNair had only bought his land a short while ago.

  Suppose the entire dam project was a ploy to let them buy the land without suspicion? What if the dam deal was meant to fall through, to give them a chance to keep searching for the money Oswald had buried there?

  But it didn’t make sense. If Oswald had buried his loot, it could as easily be on the Devlin side, in which case the McNairs would have wasted their money. Besides, they stood to make far more selling the land to the state than by finding a few hundred thousand dollars in 1960-vintage bills.

  But what if it wasn’t money?

  I sat back in my chair and tried to picture it: Oswald writing a list of the names of the conspirators and burying it somewhere on the property.

  Were dead men’s names worth killing for?

  I gave up trying to read the report on my desk and got up. It was three o’clock, enough time for me to make it to Clinton. I probably wouldn’t get anything out of the man I wanted to see, but it gave the illusion of action.

  It was ten to four when I walked into the sheriff’s office and asked to see Staples. He came out promptly, almost as if he’d been expecting me, looking more like a Madison Avenue account executive than a lawman.

  “Mr. Graham,” he said.

  We shook hands, and I told him I was interested in what progress he’d made on the case. He gave me an appraising look and invited me into his inner sanctum.

  The walls were plastered with framed photographs of him with different dignitaries, and I recognized a senator, a famous television anchor, and the vice-president of the United States.

  “Sit down,” he said.

  I obliged and watched him settle into a swivel chair behind an almost obsessively neat desk.

  “Hot day,” he said pleasantly, like he had all the time in the world.

  “Sheriff, what’s the progress on the Fontenot murder case?”

  “We’re working on it,” he said. “It’s only been a couple of days.”