Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever

by Heather Graham

  He sat on the bed. Mike’s housekeeping staff was good; the cell was immaculate. He wasn’t sure what he thought he’d find in the cell but he began to go through the drawers. They were empty—except for a King James version of the Bible.

  He sat back down on the bed, wondering what Jay Berman could have been up to that had gotten him executed out in the desert.

  It was while he was sitting there that the door to the tiny bathroom suddenly flew open. “So, Hardy, there is something I’m missing, huh?” he asked.

  He figured that one day the ghost would actually make an appearance. He never knew if he imagined the vague image he sometimes saw or if it was real. Longman always appeared as a solid entity to him. He’d never been sure if he was crazy or not; he’d decided he’d consider himself functional, if crazy, and learn to live with what he either did or didn’t see.

  But now, it seemed that whether a ghost or his mind was suggesting it, he needed to investigate the small bathroom that had been built into the cell.

  Shower, sink and toilet were almost on top of one another. The tile floor was clean and the wastebasket under the sink had been emptied. A mirror hung over the sink and a small cabinet, which had been nailed over the toilet, held the usual tiny containers of lotion, shampoo, conditioner and soap.

  And a tissue box.

  Sloan picked up the box. There were remnants of a piece of paper beneath it. Apparently, someone had set a note there to keep it from falling into the sink. Somehow, it had gotten damp and ripped, leaving behind the little corner of paper.

  All that remained were a few blurred words. He frowned as he studied them.

  DES DIA

  It could only mean one place. Desert Diamonds. And it might not mean anything at all; Mike might have told Jay Berman that Desert Diamonds was where he could go to have pizza, coffee or buy souvenirs.

  He looked into the mirror and froze. To his astonishment, he saw more than his own reflection there. For a moment, it was as if someone stood behind him, looking into the mirror, as well, meeting his eyes.

  It was Trey Hardy, his plumed hat set jauntily on his head. He looked at Sloan grimly and nodded.

  He didn’t speak.

  He disappeared, fading away until he was nothing but a memory.

  Or a sure sign of insanity.

  * * *

  It was late in the day when Jane finally returned Kanga to Sloan’s stable and took the patrol car back to the station. Betty was just about to leave.

  “Jane!” she said, pausing to greet her before walking out. “How’s the work going?”

  “The work—oh, it’s going very well.”

  “I wish I knew more about what you do!” Betty said enthusiastically. “It’s science and it’s art!”

  Jane smiled. “I’m lucky. I love my job. The form of the human skull shapes the face, but it’s the soft tissue that really creates the unique appearance of each human being.”

  “How accurate can you be? When did people learn how to do this?” Betty asked.

  “Pretty accurate. A lot is in the hands of the artist, especially where coloring comes into play, though nationality or ethnic background can often be determined by the skull. There was a French anatomist named Paul Broca who was the first to use scientific methods to create images of the living from the dead, showing the relationship between the bone and the soft parts. That was in the late 1800s,” Jane told Betty. “This is probably more than you wanted to know, so stop me if I’m boring you.”

  “No, I’m fascinated. I didn’t know any of this.”

  “Okay, you asked for it! Anyway, Broca defined the differences between different ethnic groups. Then there was a German anatomist, Hermann Welcker, who went on to measure the soft tissue in male cadavers and found nine ‘median points’ from which to work. All this was then enhanced by a Swiss anatomist, Wilhelm His, who worked with cadavers and used the nine median points and six lateral points to further the ability to re-create the appearance of life when nothing’s left but bone. As you can tell, I love it. And thanks to technology, what we can do grows all the time. Scientists and artists have worked together through the years to identify remains when all other hope of identification is gone.”

  “That’s really important,” Betty said. She cocked her head to one side. “So, you’re an artist. Are you an agent, too?”

  “Yes, I’m an agent. Anyone in a Krewe—part of the FBI’s behavioral sciences group—has to go through the academy.”

  “Good!” Betty said. “I love to see other women in law enforcement. Can you shoot?”

  “Fairly decently, yes,” Jane said.

  That made Betty smile. “Well, you’re a wonderful asset to have here. I’m sorry. We’re usually a great place. And you got here for one of our very rare episodes of violence. Murder,” she added softly.

  “Bad things can happen anywhere. But that doesn’t make the town bad.”

  Betty smiled again, obviously pleased at the compliment. “Yeah, you’re right. Bad things—that’s just life, huh? I’m so glad that you’re enjoying your time here.” She gave an easy shrug. “Well, I’m off. The night crew is on.” She winked. “Not as good as the day crew, but they’re okay.”

  Jane laughed, waving as Betty went to her car.

  Jane put Sloan’s keys in his desk, got the keys to the little Kia that had been rented for her use and then spent a few hours working with the soft-tissue markers on the skull. After about two hours, however, she felt she’d have to pick up again the next day. She was just too tired to concentrate and she didn’t want to read a measurement wrong. True, the measurements were averages that had been determined through the years by many different anatomists and scientists. But every face was unique, something artists needed to remember as they worked, always letting the skull itself be the guide.

  The problem now, of course, was that she was pretty sure she was looking at the earthly remains of Sage McCormick. Or part of them, at any rate. She’d seen the painting, and she’d seen her sketch. That was definitely going to influence her. But did that really matter? She’d done the two-dimensional drawing before she’d seen the painting above the bar and learned it was Sage McCormick.

  She surveyed her work so far. Not much. The skull and markers by themselves did very little to form a human face.

  Before leaving, she paused to look at the sketch she’d created the day before. The woman she’d depicted based on the skull had been beautiful. Of course, she’d given her the sparkle in her eyes and the look of friendly mischief that seemed to radiate from her smile.

  Sage McCormick. It was the same expression she had in the painting. Maybe, Jane told herself, she’d been subconsciously aware of the painting when she’d checked in. But she didn’t think so; she hadn’t really seen it until she was sitting there today with Valerie and Henri.

  Sloan Trent had seemed startled by the image—disturbed by it, even. But then, he’d seemed disturbed by Jane herself at the time, so she hadn’t gotten an explanation from him.

  She covered her work with a muslin cloth. She was almost done with it and would start the buildup with clay to produce muscle structure the following day. She left the interrogation room and walked to the front. Now that the sheriff’s office had a murder to deal with, she doubted there’d be much interest in what she was doing.

  Tired, Jane glanced at her watch and saw that it was past nine. When she reached the front office, she was pleasantly greeted by Scotty Carter, who was at the desk. He was the youngest of the crew here, she thought; he appeared to be about twenty-five, with a facial structure that suggested a Native American background.

  “How are you doing, Agent Everett? If you need anything, you let us know, okay? We try not to interrupt you when we know you’re working,” he told her.

  “I’ve been fine, thank you,” she said, equ
ally polite. “Did you hear from the sheriff?” she asked.

  The deputy nodded. “He’s in town now. Sloan won’t be taking any time off now that we’ve had a murder here. Things like that don’t happen in Lily very often. Well, I mean, it used to—the streets ran red with blood, as they say—but that was more than a century ago.”

  “Have you learned anything about the dead man?” she asked.

  Scotty hesitated, looking up at her with dark brown eyes. “It’s an ongoing murder investigation, you know. Although,” he added, frowning, “you are a federal agent....”

  Jane smiled. “Don’t worry. You don’t need to tell me anything. I’ll just ask how things are going when I see the sheriff.”

  “You got your car keys, right? You going to be okay getting around?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assured him.

  Outside, the town seemed exceptionally quiet. The stars overhead had never looked brighter, but she realized that was partly because there was little air pollution. As she pulled onto the road to town, she thought that just as the stars had never looked brighter, the road had never seemed as dark. It wasn’t a long drive, and as she neared town, the darkness seemed to break in a pool of misty light—all the light shimmering from the theater and the saloon and the curio store, Desert Diamonds. She parked behind the theater in the paved lot.

  As she walked around to the dirt road in front, she heard laughter and conversation. Murder in Lily or not, the show, as shows traditionally must, had gone on.

  It had apparently concluded, since there were people spilling out onto the street, on their way to the saloon or to Desert Diamonds for pizza. That afternoon she’d learned that the saloon stayed open until 1:00 a.m., while Desert Diamonds closed at eleven, staying open to catch the late-night snackers and souvenir-shoppers who might be leaving the theater.

  Coming around the Old Jail, Jane paused. A man was standing in the road as people walked past and around him; he was staring at her. He wore a Confederate jacket, old-fashioned cotton trousers and a plumed cavalry hat. He had long curling hair beneath the hat, and she thought he might be an actor who’d come in to work with the theater ensemble.

  But even as she returned his stare, she saw someone brush by without noticing him. Someone else passed by—walking right through him.

  He wasn’t real. Or he was real, just not really there.

  She hurried toward him, sensing that he was curious about her—or curious about the fact that she’d seen him. But when she reached the street, he was gone, as if he’d been absorbed into the crowd.

  Then she saw him enter Desert Diamonds. She followed.

  That afternoon she’d grabbed a cold drink at the little pizza parlor in the front corner of the establishment but she hadn’t taken time to explore because she’d wanted to bring Sloan’s horse back to his stable and get to the sheriff’s office.

  Now she looked around. The coffee shop was to the right, the pizza parlor to the left. The ice cream parlor was in back, and in between, she saw every kind of souvenir that could be imagined in an old frontier town. Kids’ bow-and-arrow sets, badges, tour books, maps, stuffed toy horses, cows, bulls, buffalo, armadillos, snakes and more—filled the many shelves and covered the tables.

  Jane started walking up and down the aisles, trying to figure out where her ghost had gone, but she didn’t see him—just the endless supply of souvenirs. Shot glasses, mugs, cactus juice, hot sauce and kitchen utensils crowded one aisle. T-shirts, towels and spaghetti-strap dresses another. She’d gone down three rows when she was startled to run straight into Sloan.

  He instinctively set his hands on her shoulders to steady her.

  “Looking for a killer in the T-shirt section?” she asked, surprised that she felt a little awkward.

  He raised his eyebrows. “You’re shopping for shot glasses that say ‘Lily, Arizona’?”

  No, I followed a ghost, she thought.

  Jane shook her head. “It’s a curio shop. I was curious. And excuse me, but I was there when you found a corpse this morning. Sorry, two corpses. So, yes—I’m really curious. What are you doing here?”

  “Exploring the possibilities,” he told her.

  “Oh?”

  He studied her face, then shrugged. “Look, it’s late. I haven’t eaten in a while—”

  “Neither have I,” she said flatly.

  He had the grace to smile. “Well, ma’am,” he said, exaggerating his drawl, “I just gotta get outta town for a while. I’m heading to my place. Come on out if you wish and I’ll fill you in.”

  “Sure. I remember how to get there. It’s pretty easy around here with only one road.”

  “I’ll drive,” he insisted.

  “That’s ridiculous! You’d have to come back here to drop me off.”

  “There has been a murder, you know,” he reminded her.

  “I’m a federal agent,” she reminded him.

  “You want to talk?” he asked. “If so, I drive.”

  She sighed. “Fine. Stay up all night driving me around.”

  He shrugged again. She saw that he had two books in his hands and he stopped by the clerk to pay for them before they left, assuring the clerk—who, of course, knew about the desert corpses—that they were on it, and he didn’t believe anyone else was in danger, but that, of course, they should all be careful and stay in groups to be safe.

  “Seriously,” he said when they were in his patrol car, “why were you prowling around the shop at this time of night?”

  “I just finished work for the day.”

  He paused, frowning. “You went in to work on the skull after getting Heidi home, getting Kanga back to the stables and...and after this morning?”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” she said lightly.

  “Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot,” he murmured.

  “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Gazing ahead at the road, he smiled at that.

  “So why were you shopping for tourist books in your own town?” she asked him.

  “Our victim.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yep. I came in to see Grant Winston—the old guy who owns Desert Diamonds. Jay Berman, the victim in the desert, bought the same two books I’ve just purchased. Seems he was big on Lily’s history. All he talked to anyone about was the old legends. Apparently, a few locals, including Caleb Hough, have been in buying the same books. Anyway, right now, I’m trying to learn whether Jay Berman was looking for something out here. Something the history or the old legends might help me figure out.”

  “I’m sure there are lots of legends—and a lot of pretty violent history,” Jane said. “So far, I’ve heard about Sage McCormick. Who disappeared.” She turned to face him. “And I’m also sure you think the sketch I did of our skull suggests it belonged to Sage McCormick.”

  His jaw tensed.

  “Yes,” he said after a moment.

  “I don’t understand. Why does that bother you so much?”

  He let out a sigh. “I guess it shouldn’t.”

  “But it does.”

  He glanced over at her. “Remember, Agent Everett, I’m a man from these here parts,” he said, exaggerating his accent once again. “Sage McCormick was my great-great grandmother. Not that I knew her, or that my parents did. Call me sentimental, but I still don’t like to think she might have been viciously murdered—and that her body is scattered all over the place!”

  He swung his eyes back to the empty road, but he was aware of her shocked reaction. Which quickly turned into a nod of understanding.

  “That explains a great deal,” she murmured.

  He didn’t ask what.

  5

  It was difficult to believe he’d just met Jane Everett, or that it could be this easy to sit at his house with h
er, discussing the case. She’d spent a few minutes stroking Cougar and, naturally, the cat had reveled in the attention.

  Johnny Bearclaw had left pulled pork in the oven and a salad in the refrigerator; there’d been plenty for two. When they’d finished cleaning up, they sat at the table together and he went on to tell her everything he knew about their victim.

  “Jay Berman didn’t have any relatives in New York. He took off from Oklahoma twenty years ago and never looked back. Both parents are dead now and his only family’s estranged. He had no rap sheet in New York, but he didn’t seem to have any friends, either, which makes me think he was lucky—he just never got caught. He worked part-time as a mechanic in a shop and lived in a studio up past Harlem. It’s not possible to support yourself in New York City with only the money from a part-time job. No one that any of the New York authorities managed to track down seemed to know anything about him, so I suspect he moved in the underworld. Petty theft, that kind of thing. He had a legitimate Social Security number and paid taxes. But other than that...”

  “So some guy who didn’t have any friends in New York came on vacation to Lily, Arizona, and wound up being shot in the back of the head,” Jane said thoughtfully. “Why?”

  She was leafing through the books he’d purchased at Desert Diamonds.

  “He was looking for something,” Sloan said. “Okay, that’s speculation on my part, but I’m willing to bet he was. And I’m trying to find out what.”

  “At Desert Diamonds?”

  “These books are replica editions. The Great Gold Heist is actually a compilation by a historian in the 1890s who put together a book composed of newspaper reports on the disappearance of a stagecoach carrying gold—right around the time Sage disappeared. The second is written by Brendan Fogerty, the sheriff in the town when all this was going on. Certain incidents, although they occurred about the same time, weren’t believed to be connected in any way.”

  “Still, it’s interesting. Sage disappears, the gold disappears—and they weren’t connected?”

  “Sage disappeared two weeks before the gold did. And while she was known for her Bohemian lifestyle, she was never suspected of being a gold thief.”