But by posing as his jilted wife and enlisting the help of the citizenry, Adams found people who pointed her in the right direction. They put her onto the road to the Spotsylvania. One family with a husband, wife and three daughters even gave her a ride in their humble wagon.
By the time the sun began to set, the courthouse came into view, and a light still burned in the window.
THE CLERK RUBBED THE WHISKERS on his chin and studied Grigg.
“Do you love the lord?”
“Do I what?”
Grigg reached behind his back for the brass doorknob, while still looking at the clerk.
“I said, do you love the lord?”
“Of course.”
“And have you squared your account with him?”
“Say again?”
Grigg dared not turn his back on the clerk, but he couldn’t find the knob with his hand.
The clerk’s tone turned stern.
“You have a troubled heart, friend. I can tell.”
ADAMS BID ADIEU to the family who’d given her a ride to the courthouse.
The youngest daughter said, “We can wait here if you need a ride somewhere else.”
“That’s very kind of you, but I’ll be on my way.”
The little girl said, “Well, then, good night.”
Adams felt for the ivory handle of the .45 and headed toward the courthouse.
A BEAD OF SWEAT ROLLED down Grigg’s cheek.
“I’ll be going now.”
Grigg was dimly aware he’d dropped the regional accent and was speaking in his own voice.
The clerk said, “You stay right there,” and he reached under the counter.
Grigg spun, reached for the doorknob and twisted it. Locked. His heart slapped against his ribs as he waited for the blast.
THE MAN STOOD DOUBLED OVER, head down and panting.
Between breaths, he said, “My wife needs your help. She’s having a baby. Something’s wrong.”
Kamp studied the man, whom he didn’t recognize. He wore a frock coat with a velour collar in the Victorian style and black leather brogans.
“Take her to the hospital. Lots of doctors there.”
“Christ, Kamp.”
The man stood up and looked at Kamp. “We don’t have any money.”
Kamp said, “Don’t do it, Emma.”
Wyles put on her coat, turned to the man and said, “Where is she?”
Kamp hustled after Wyles, who chased the man down the dark alley, before turning onto Third Street and running toward the stacks of Native Iron.
When they ducked down another side street, Kamp wished he’d brought a pistol. He rounded the corner and saw a wooden carriage, a caravan with the back doors open, and a figure lying inside. A candle illuminated the scene.
The man crawled into the caravan and threw his arms around the figure there.
He wailed, “No!”
Wyles knelt beside the body and then turned to Kamp and shook her head. When Kamp got close enough, he saw a woman’s body naked from the waist down and covered in blood.
The man rose up and said to Wyles, “If you’d gotten here sooner, she’d have been saved. They both would have.” Then he fixed his gaze on Kamp and said, “This is your fault. Yours.” The man jabbed the air in front of him as he said it, then threw himself across the bodies of his wife and dead child.
Wyles climbed down from the caravan, closed the doors and started down the street. Kamp waited a moment longer and looked at the gold lettering painted on the black doors.
It read, “Royal Traveling Show. Performances Nightly.”
He caught up to Wyles three blocks later, grabbing her by the elbow and forcing her to stop running. She pulled away hard, but he kept his grip.
“Where are you going?”
“The coroner needs to be informed.”
“We didn’t see anything, Emma. We weren’t there. You tell Oehler, and he’ll know you tried to help them. You’ll be arrested. And by the time he gets there, the bodies, the carriage. It’ll all be gone.”
“Stop it, Kamp. Once and for all, stop it.”
“Some guy shows up at your back door and you just want to help—”
“People show up at my door all the time. You did.”
“It’s not what it looks like, Emma.”
“That woman was dead. That baby was dead. That was real.”
“But you don’t know why they put them there.”
“They?”
“Black Feather. And the Order. They’re controlling—”
“Jesus Christ. You’re out of your mind.”
She shook his hand off her arm.
“That man saw me, Emma. And he saw you with me. You realize—”
Her eyes blazed.
“Don’t you dare hurt him.”
“My point is that since he saw us together, you’re not safe. No one who cares about you is safe.”
Wyles turned on her heel, put her head down and started walking toward the pharmacy.
“Emma, think about it.”
“I’m not listening. I need to stop at the store and then I’ll—”
Wyles stopped talking as she turned onto Third Street and saw the flames spewing from the door of her pharmacy.
She ran to the front window and was repulsed when the heat blew it out.
Kamp grabbed her hard by the elbow.
“It’s finished,” he said.
They turned and ran to the alley, where Wyles’ horse was tied. Wyles climbed into the saddle and reached for his hand.
“I can’t. Just go.”
“Get on.”
In the distance they heard the bells of the fire brigade and the clatter of hooves.
Kamp took her hand and hauled himself onto the horse. His head began to spin immediately, so he shut his eyes hard and pressed his cheek against her back. Wyles shouted, “Ya,” snapped the reins, and took off down the alley.
“THAT’S RIGHT, DOOR’S LOCKED. That’s so you can’t leave.”
Grigg turned to look at the clerk, expecting to see the barrel of a gun. Instead, there was a bible opened on the counter.
“Please unlock this door. I need to go.”
The clerk shook his head gently. “Brother, you said you’s from Wildcat Corner, ain’t that right?”
Grigg couldn’t remember where he’d said he was from.
“Yes, Wildcat Corner.”
“So you know Pastor.”
“Who?”
“Pastor Fosdick? Eustachius Fosdick over at Mount Hor Baptist Meeting House. You go up there, don’tcha?”
“Of course.”
“So you know him.”
“He’s a good man. Now, if you’ll permit me to leave.”
Grigg scanned the counter for a set of keys and didn’t see them. The clerk rubbed the whiskers on his chin.
“Yes, sir, a good, good man. Courageous, too. ’Specially for what he done.”
“Yep. Would you be so kind as to—”
“You know he was a surgeon.”
“Who?”
“Pastor.”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Well, that’s because he don’t like to bring it up no more. Never did, actually. But pastor was a sawbones in the war. Tried to fix ’em all, too. Rebel, Yankee, didn’t make no distinctions. Some folks didn’t like that. But I respect it immeasurable. To pastor, it was just the lord’s work. Blood an’ guts t’ain’t neither blue nor grey.”
“No, they’re not.”
“They’re all red.” The clerk chuckled and shook his head.
“True enough.”
Then the clerk stopped laughing, turned sober and said, “That man has the divine hands, you know that.”
Grigg thought he caught the sound of boot heels outside the front door. He looked at the door knob and saw it jiggling.
In a quiet voice, he said, “I think we might want to—”
“Say, let’s us share a word from the good book, an’
then you can be on your way.”
Grigg stepped to the side of the room. “Really, I think we should—”
The clerk cleared his throat, looked down at the bible and started to read.
“From Paul’s letter to the good people at Philippi. ‘Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding shall keep—’ ”
The first bullet split the lock, and the second blew it clean away. Adams kicked the door open and shot the clerk in the chest. He clutched the wound with both hands and gasped for breath as blood poured onto the bible.
Adams crossed the floor and put the gun to the clerk’s forehead.
She said, “Where is he?”
The clerk let out a gurgle and motioned to the front door. Adams spun on her heel and saw nothing but Grigg’s coattails disappearing into the darkness. She turned back and put the fourth bullet in the clerk’s head.
TWENTY-NINE
NYX WENT BACK TO THE ROOM at the bottom of the mine, the one she’d shared with him for six months, where they’d lain side by side, hacking away, dreaming of each other. The room had been their only sanctuary. Now it was contaminated and bereft of all but darkness and dust.
She fought the urge to shut down, to lie there in surrender. Nyx willed herself to pick up the coal axe and start hewing. Soon, she’d drifted out of her consciousness so that all that remained was muscle and bone.
Short Pinky took his place alongside Nyx. There was none of the fire she’d felt with Aodh, of course, but she made room for him all the same.
Nyx filled five cars by herself, and she felt no fatigue. Sweat spilled from her chin as she hacked and shoveled. Only when Short Pinky took her by the elbow did Nyx snap from her trance.
“What?”
He waited until she came back to consciousness, then said, “That’s it.”
“What is?”
“We hit the seven. Let’s go.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Done!”
Soon, the hurrier and the thruster, Irish girls, appeared. The hurrier wore a leather belt with a heavy chain she attached to the front of the car. The thruster took her place behind the car and pushed. When the car began to roll, Nyx and Short Pinky fell in behind it.
Short Pinky gave Nyx a gentle elbow to the ribs and said in a low voice, “Never seen these two before. They’re replacing us, ya know.”
“Who is?”
“Germans out, Irish in. One by one. Now that your man is gone, someone’ll take his place soon enough. And mine. And yours.”
Nyx grabbed Short Pinky’s jacket and stopped him in the dark tunnel. “Who’s replacing us?”
“Ach, you know who it is. That guy with the blond hair, the boss.”
“Thaler.”
“Yah, that guy. And Padgett. Padgett says he wants what’s best for the miners, but who knows what he really wants? He’s in bed with that Thaler.”
GRIGG DIDN’T KNOW ADAMS, but he’d heard a few things, murmurs and veiled side comments about who she was and the role she played. They never used her name.
He wasn’t privy to full explanations of their sordid dealings, because they never trusted him and didn’t want him to interfere.
Nevertheless, Grigg had discerned that they trusted Adams and her ability to make their problems vanish. And considering that she’d followed him this far, he had no doubt she was relentless. But she’d also made a mistake. She’d shot the clerk before questioning him.
It was possible that the clerk had given her the surgeon’s name before he died, but Grigg doubted it. She’d find him again, that was certain. But for now, he’d performed another death-defying escape, and he set his sights on the humble village of Wildcat Corner and the steeple that rose from its center.
He brushed the dirt and dust from his jacket, tucked in his shirt and straightened his back as he headed for the front steps of the church. He paused to look up at the wooden sign above the door.
It read, “Mount Hor Baptist Church. Souls saved.”
He went around the back and knocked at the door. When no one answered, he let himself in. Grigg stepped lightly into the hallway and paused to listen. Somewhere in the building, a floorboard creaked, but that was all. He waited another long moment, heard nothing and then started down the hallway. He dared not call out for fear of meeting another hostile pursuer, another antagonist, another gun.
But when he reached the office at the end of the hallway and peered in, he saw a man in shirtsleeves hunched over an open bible on the desk before him. When Grigg knocked at the door, the man didn’t startle. Instead, he remained motionless for another full minute, then said “amen” softly and turned to greet his visitor.
The man stood up, extended his hand and said, “Brother, I don’t believe we’ve met. Eustachius Fosdick, servant of the lord.”
Grigg removed his hat with his left hand, shook the pastor’s hand with his right and said, “B.H. Grigg, District Attorney, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.”
OFFICER FALKO STIER STARED down at the sign at his feet. He knew it used to read, “Pure Drugs & Chemicals.” Now all that was left was the charred remnant and the wrought iron bracket that had held it up.
Stier saw city firemen inside, hosing down the embers. The shelves had burned along with the wooden counter where the pharmacist had plied her trade. Shattered glass covered the floor. He didn’t see the remains of any inventory.
He walked to the back of the pharmacy, a storage area that the fire hadn’t consumed. He found a kitchen table and on it, two ceramic coffee mugs. Wyles been there recently, and someone was with her.
Stier called out, “Anyone seen her?”
The fireman closest to him mumbled, “I’m working here” and tossed a shovelful of ashes toward the door.
Stier talked a little louder. “Did anyone see her?”
The man stopped shoveling. “Her who?”
“The pharmacist. Wyles.”
The fireman stood up and tilted his helmet back on his head.
“Not that I know.”
“She didn’t die in the fire?”
Irritation flashed across the fireman’s face. “Unfortunately, no.”
“You’re certain?”
He turned to look at Stier. “Ach, I don’t see no bones. Do you?”
Stier felt the first flame of rage tickling the base of his skull. He stood up straight, spine stiffening.
“You don’t hafta be so ugly,” he said.
The weary, soot-smudged fireman leaned on the handle of his spade. “Yah, well you don’t hafta ask so many goddamned questions.”
Stier felt the anger spread through his chest, as he stepped to within an inch of the fireman.
“How’d it start?” The fireman looked past him and said nothing. Stier took a handful of the fireman’s coat. “How did the fire start?”
The fireman muttered something under his breath.
“What did you say?”
The fireman met Stier’s gaze. “I said you can go fu—”
Stier slammed his elbow into the fireman’s jaw. The man doubled over, and Stier stepped past him to the back door.
His mind flashed to the scene of Kamp lying in that very spot, soaked in kerosene. Stier saw the lit match in his own hand, hovering inches above Kamp’s face.
Why did I think I was right then? What if I’m wrong now?
GRIGG KNEW he’d found his man. He pulled the photograph, creased and nearly falling to pieces, from his pocket and laid it on the table.
“Pastor, if you’ll allow me to get straight to the point.”
“By all means.”
Grigg pointed to the man standing next to the table in the picture.
“I believe that’s you.”
Fosdick slid the photograph closer to inspect it.
“I believe you’re right.”
“What about the man on the table? Do you remember him
?”
“Where was this?”
“Fredericksburg.”
Fosdick looked again, then stared up at the ceiling. “Son, I can’t say I remember. There were so many.”
Grigg gently turned the photograph over and pointed to the scrawl on the back. “Is the writing yours?”
“Appears to be.”
“You wrote, ‘Captain W.W. Kamp, deceased.’ ”
Fosdick leaned in and scrutinized the handwriting, then looked back up at Grigg.
“Why’d you say you need to know?”
“He needs my help.”
“Not if he’s dead, he don’t.”
“Pastor, Kamp is alive. I know he’s alive. You wrote ‘deceased.’ Why?”
Fosdick sighed and then reached under his desk and produced a bottle and two shot glasses.
“Son, this is between you, me an’ the lord. Understand?”
He poured two shots, slid one across the desk and raised the other.
“To Jesus.”
Fosdick savored the whiskey for a moment, then said, “Fredericksburg. Last day. This fella come in shot up, like you see there. I removed the bullet, fixed him up best I could but knew he wouldn’t make it. That man went cold dead right at the end.”
“And then?”
“Well, I said the prayer I always say at the moment I give one of his children back to him. And right when I finished praying, his eyes opened. He come back.”
“But you said he was deceased.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“While I was working on him, they come over with a camera, big camera on long legs. They set it up and took photographs. Appears they took it right before he come back to life. Then they left. A week later they come see me with that very photograph. They insisted that I put my name to it an’ verify the death.”
“Who were they?”
“By that point, he’d been shipped back. Philadelphia, I b’lieve.”
“Who took the photograph? What were their names?”
“They didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. They told me they was reporters out of Richmond. Didn’t believe that, though.”
Kill the Raven: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 3) Page 16
