by John Dunning
“I can go up some. Not a lot. Certainly not double.”
“That’s too bad. Double’s where I start.”
“You’re wasting your time. And don’t call me precious again.”
I could almost see him shaking his head when he laughed. “I’ll bet you are one tough cookie in court, cookie.”
“You don’t want to find out.”
“That sounds like a threat. Are you threatening me, Erin?”
“Just agreeing with you.” She sighed suddenly and said, “We’re getting nowhere.”
Abruptly she got up: I heard her walk across the room. “Thanks for the drink. It doesn’t look like we’ll be able to do business but it’s always such a pleasure seeing you.”
“You can’t bluff me.”
Her voice was hard now. “This isn’t a bluff, precious. I’ll negotiate within reason but I haven’t heard anything out of you yet that sounds reasonable. By the way, the offer will only be good through noon Saturday. If I have to go back to Denver without a deal, all bets are off.”
“I’m quaking in my boots.”
“Don’t quake yourself out of a small fortune, Hal.” She moved across the room. “If this doesn’t go well you could lose it all. This way you get your money and nobody’s any wiser.”
“Erin, my goodness, that sounds like you’re talking tax-free money to boot.”
“That’s not what I’d advise if I were your lawyer.”
“But the IRS won’t hear about it from you.”
“No.”
She moved closer to the door. “Sleep on it but don’t forget where I’m staying. Once I’m gone, I’m gone.”
“I want to talk to Lee.”
“I don’t think so, Hal. That’s a bridge you’ve burned pretty badly in recent days.”
“I know him better than you do. He’ll talk to me.”
“Don’t try to take either of those presumptions to the bank. I know Lee pretty well too. He’s angry and he’s wounded. He thought you were his friend. He’s been a friend of yours all his life and this is what he gets for it.”
I could feel the heat of the passing moment. Erin said, “I’m just telling you. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can get too high-handed with us, just because I came all the way out here.”
“We’ll see about that,” Archer said. “Maybe I’ll call you. Maybe
I won’t.“
“Don’t cut it too short. I’m not about to miss my plane for any more games. You’ve got to show me something or this whole deal may fall apart.”
“Somehow I doubt that.”
She moved to the door. I heard him say, “Erin,” buying me just enough time to slip down off the porch.
From the bottom of the stairs I heard her say, “What now?”
“Go fuck yourself,” he said.
I barely made it to the ground before she came out and started down the stairs. I dropped into the sand under the house and lay there. She got into her car and backed out toward the street.
What now, indeed? These are the times when you wish you could split yourself in two.
I abandoned Archer and hustled after her. She was still in sight on the long, straight road, and it was easy to follow her back into town.
CHAPTER 24
She turned south off the bridge onto Meeting Street. For a few moments it looked like we might be staying at the same hotel: she kept going that way and I stayed close on her tail. We reached Cal-houn Street just a few car lengths apart and I stopped behind her at a red light on Wentworth.
The light changed. She went on past the Heart of Charleston and across Queen Street to the Mills House, a classy old-world hotel rebuilt in its antebellum excellence, where, according to Koko’s guidebook, Robert E. Lee had stood on the original balcony and watched the city burn.
She handed her keys to a valet and disappeared inside. I parked on the street and hurried up to the door. She was standing in the marbled surroundings just a few feet inside, reading some brochure on a table. From the street I could see no sign of a front desk; just a small room off to my right and a hint of a lobby around the corner to the left. What now? I knew if I let her disappear I might not see her again till I got back to Denver, but how would I confront her? I made the following decisions, all within seconds. I would speak to her now; act as if I had encountered her here by the most incredible chance. She would know better but that didn’t matter; at the moment I was looking only to break the ice and get us going.
This wasn’t great but in another moment she would go upstairs and the opportunity would be lost. I opened the door and followed her around to the desk. The clerk saw me at once: a street person, he’d be thinking, surely not one of ours. His eye went up, looking for the bellboy or the concierge.
“May I help you, sir?”
“I’m just the ghost of Robert E. Lee. Have you seen my horse?”
His scrutiny turned to alarm: not only was I a street person, I was a crazy one. But Erin had also turned at the sound of my voice. Her face showed a flash of surprise, which she bypassed at once. Deadpan, she said, “I saw a horse outside. What’s his name?”
“Traveller. He’s a big ugly stud with an attitude.”
“Can’t help you. The one I saw was a gentle sweetie named Buttermilk.”
“I scorn such horses! That horse belongs to Dale Evans—only lets herself be ridden sidesaddle. Can you imagine what would happen if I rode sidesaddle into Gettysburg?”
“The North would win in one day instead of three.”
She was quick but I knew that. She was also tense: I couldn’t see that on her but I sensed it. She cocked her head and said in a soft voice, barely audible, “Six thousand lives would be saved.”
The voice of the clerk cut across the room. “Do you know this gentleman, Ms. D’Angelo?” he said, and she smiled with a kind of comic disdain. “I’m afraid so. Don’t throw him out yet, let’s hear what he has to say for himself.” She came toward me but stopped after a couple of steps. “What are you doing here, Janeway? What happened to your face?”
“I break out like this once in a while. Where can we find a place to talk?”
“Our lounge is still open for a while yet.” The clerk looked immediately sorry that he had volunteered that but she thanked him and we settled in the lounge. The game began again.
“So what’re you doing here?” I said.
“I asked you first.”
“I needed a change of scenery after you dumped me and told me that fib about going off into the wilderness. I stuck a pin in a map and this is where I came.”
“I didn’t dump you and I didn’t fib. Something else came up.”
“A better offer,” I sniffed. “So you went to the mountains where there isn’t even a honey bucket to pee in, you planned to be gone at least a week, yet somebody managed to track you down and drop a bunch of new work on you.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
I shook my head. “You really need to quit that job.”
“I won’t argue with you about that. But there’s no way Water-ford, Brownwell or God would’ve lured me down after the agonies of Rock Springs. I’m on a mission for a friend.”
“Anybody I know?”
“Can’t talk about it. The friend is also a client.”
“And you don’t talk about a client’s affairs.”
“Especially not to very strange people who wander in off the street. Besides being ethically shaky, it’s not a good idea for practical reasons.”
“Oh, I do understand. I’m here for a client as well, so I can’t talk about it either.”
“You have clients?”
“Sure. You’re not the only one who knows how to pad an expense account.”
“Well, shucks,” she said. “That doesn’t leave us much to talk about.”
In other words, the ball was in my court. I said, “Maybe we can still find some area of mutual interest. Something that violates everybody’s confidence but nobody knows
where it came from. How about Richard Burton and his trip through here just before the Civil War?”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“Maybe.” I leaned across the table, serious now. “Actually, I’m pretty good at keeping secrets, Erin. When I was a cop I sometimes had life-and-death situations that depended on me being able to keep my mouth shut.”
“Which means what? Just because you’re not the world-class blabbermouth you seem to be, that doesn’t relieve me from the ethical reality of protecting my client’s business.”
“‘Well, shucks’ is right, then. How’s your drink?”
“Gin and tonic is like small talk. It’s pretty much the same all over.”
“So when do you go home?”
“Saturday afternoon. How about you?”
I shrugged. “Can’t say for sure. Might be weeks yet. We may never get to have that date.” I took a sip of my drink and played a card. “It can take a while to track down a killer.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Think about it for a minute.”
She furrowed her brow and said, “Hmmm,” to good comical effect.
“Think hard about who was killed in the last week or two. It’ll come to you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Do you know how to spell Denise?”
That got to her. “You don’t mean Mrs. Ralston?”
“The late Mrs. Ralston.” I was watching her eyes, which never wavered. “It was in the Denver papers.”
“I went to the mountains, didn’t I just tell you that? I haven’t seen a Denver newspaper since before I went to Rock Springs. What happened?”
“Somebody got in there and smothered her.”
“Oh, Jesus. Oh, that elegant woman. Mr. Ralston must be…”
She turned her hands palms up and I said, “Yeah, he is.”
“Oh, Cliff. Why would anyone hurt that lovely lady?”
“The cops think it was Ralston.”
She shook her head, angry now. “The cops think, give me a break. Do they have any evidence against him?”
“Other than the fact that it’s usually the husband, no. They were hoping to sweat a fast confession out of him. If they don’t come up with something, they’ll have to go with the unknown assailant theory.”
“And it’ll never get solved.”
“That’s the way to bet. Unless, by some hail-Mary piece of luck, I manage to do it.” I gave her my miracles-do-happen look and the moment stretched.
“What would you do? Where would you start?”
“I think it might’ve had something to do with the book I left with her that night.”
She weighed this and said, “And that would be why the police are looking at Ralston?”
“That’s how one cop thinks. Unfortunately, he’s the one running the investigation.”
“Can you talk to him?”
I laughed dryly. “I did that.”
“So it’s one of those. Maybe he’d rather talk to me. Does Mr. Ralston have a lawyer?”
“Mr. Ralston went on the lam.”
“It just gets better and better, doesn’t it?” She sipped her drink. “So what happened to the book, did the killer get it?”
“I got it.”
“Then what makes you think the book was behind it?”
“Just a hunch that got started. There’s one problem with it, though. Only five of us knew they had it: the Ralstons, the doctor, me…”
“And me.”
If ever there was a pregnant moment, that was it.
I said, “I didn’t tell anyone.”
“Well, I didn’t. I went up to the mountains early the next day. Like I told you.”
“It’s conceivable that Ralston might’ve told somebody in the neighborhood. Maybe Denise did herself. If Whiteside’s any kind of cop, he’ll be looking at that now.”
“Randy Whiteside?”
I nodded.
“Oh God,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Oh God. God, God, that poor woman.”
She thought a minute, then said, “If Ralston is arrested or contacts you in any way, I need to talk to him. Immediately, before he says something the cops can use against him.”
I knew my friend Moses would be only too happy to step aside on this one. “If you take him on, it’ll have to be pro bono.”
Her look became prickly. “Did you hear me mention anything about money?”
We had another quick drink. There wasn’t much time left: the lounge was closing.
“They’re about to kick us out,” I said. “Last chance for you to tell me your secrets.”
She looked like she actually was giving this some thought. “I’ll be talking with my client again tonight,” she said. “We might be willing to share certain facts in exchange for the same.”
“Okay,” I said nonchalantly. “It might help if I tell you some of what I already know, just so we don’t rake over stale material. For instance, I know you came here to see Archer.”
She didn’t blink at that, so I went on, hoping I was right. “I know you’re representing Judge Huxley in an attempt to buy a book that Archer claims to have.”
This time she did blink. Encouraged, I kept going: “I know Archer’s being his usual enchanting self, I know he and Lee had a falling-out, and I know some other things as well. I tell you this so you’ll know we’ll have to start well beyond these points. No reinventing the wheel.”
“I wonder how you learned all that. Assuming it’s true.”
“I was a pretty good detective, Erin.”
She smiled wanly. “Unauthorized wiretaps are illegal almost everywhere, Janeway.”
“Thank you, Counselor, for clarifying that so that even a poor old dumb-schmuck ex-cop nonlawyer understands it. For your information, I haven’t done an illegal wiretap in at least a week.”
She stared at me and I could almost see the wheels turning in her head.
“So what do we do?” I said. “Have your people call my people, as you lawyers like to say?”
“Let’s just meet for breakfast, wise guy. Be here at eight and we’ll see what happens. And comb your hair before you come over.”
CHAPTER 25
A note from Koko had been shoved under my door. It seemed to be an account of her day in the library. There were also several pages of photocopies, showing, I assumed, what she had found. I still didn’t hold out much hope for her end: it was a very cold trail she was chasing, so I didn’t read the note immediately, just tossed it on the table and sat on my bed for a few minutes, thinking about Erin. Tomorrow, I hoped, would reveal a lot more. I wanted her to be telling the truth and for the moment I believed what I wanted to believe. She had been genuinely surprised about Denise, I thought. Her explanation rang true. Lee Huxley had been closer to her than her father: he would have her cell phone number, and when his chance came up to buy Burton’s journal, she would be a natural as his representative. He couldn’t come to Charleston himself: his docket was always full and he’d be in the middle of a trial. What else had I learned? That Lee’s relationship with Archer had begun to unravel. That this had happened only recently. And whatever piece of the Charlie Warren-Burton library Archer might have, and from whatever sources, he didn’t have it all by any means. But he was ready to sell what he did have. Archer needed money and he wasn’t above asking a highway-robbery price from an old friend. The book was unique—not even rare, the most overused word in the bookman’s lexicon, adequately described it. Archer himself had said so, and I didn’t have to like him to recognize his excellent command of the English language. He would not be one of those idiots who throw very unique at every common happening. Unique would mean to Archer what it meant to me—one of a kind. I thought of Burton’s journal. What else could it be? And how did he get it?
Richard Burton’s notebook. Burton’s version of the Charlie Warren story: the final word in his own hand, the incontrovertible proof that Josephine’s memories o
f her grandfather were true or false. I felt tingly just thinking about it, and Koko…God, she’d be faint with excitement and hope.
And then there was this: Erin had hinted that Archer might face legal action. What could that mean? To me it meant that Archer had somehow obtained whatever he had in a questionable manner and that Erin and Lee knew it. Somewhere he was vulnerable. What that meant I couldn’t guess. I couldn’t imagine Lee buying hot goods: it just didn’t jibe with the man I knew. And I couldn’t picture him in such rabid pursuit of any book that he would allow himself to be yanked around, even to this extent, by a two-bit chiseler like Archer. I thought about that and it still didn’t seem real when I applied it to Lee. I knew better, of course: the bookman’s madness can get us all, even a distinguished judge. Some of us put on stoic faces, like expert poker players whose masks hide the fever, but I had known Lee Huxley for fifteen years and I just didn’t believe it. He was a book collector but a sane one, and I’d bet my bookstore on that.
So where was I? I reached for straws and came up only with wild unlikelihoods. Lee was buying the book back for someone who had lost it, maybe years or decades ago. He was righting an old wrong. He was…what? What the hell was he doing?
It was late by then. I went to the table and looked at Koko’s note. I thought I’d read it in the morning but there was an air of breathless excitement in her opening words that drew me in. She had already found proof of something. One of the inns that Burton and Charlie had stayed in upstate had existed. It had been a notorious story: an old woman and her two sons had run a veritable homicide hotel, murdering and robbing wayfarers for God knew how long before they’d been caught and hanged in 1861. The inn had been just about where Charlie had described it—in the middle of nowhere—and the accounts she had read conformed exactly to Charlie’s memory of it. The woman’s name was Opal Richardson and her sons were named Cloyd and Godie. The only name Charlie had heard that night, huddled with Burton in the dark, was Cloyd, but how many Cloyds could there be in the world? To Koko this was proof that they had been there.
But slowly my own initial excitement was tempered by doubt. The fact that it had been so easy to uncover worked against it. That Koko, even with her long experience in libraries, had found it in one afternoon was not a good sign. It meant anyone set on promoting a fraud could also have found it. The thought that Josephine might have just come through Charleston to get background for some tall story was so unlikely it bordered on the absurd. But what if she had been here years ago, found the story of that old inn then, and saved it for another day? She might even have come to believe it. People do such things. When the stakes are great enough they will sometimes believe their own lies. I had a vision of Josephine at forty, hunting feverishly through old documents and newspapers, building the tale in her mind, then chasing it in vain for the rest of her life. But how did that explain the books? So far we had just two, my Pilgrimage and Jo’s First Footsteps. To me this was strong proof, but for Koko to publish anything serious we would need more than that.
