by John Dunning
They insisted that we take the chairs. Libby sat cross-legged on the floor and Luke leaned against the bookcase. “I’ve been interested in Burton all my life,” she said. “Even when I was a child I thought he was the world’s most romantic figure. It was only by accident that I heard he’d been here.”
“How’d you hear that?” Koko said.
“There’s a Burton club here.”
“You mean like a fan club for a dead man?”
“You could call it that. There are Burton clubs all over the world. That’s one of the first things I did when we got assigned here, I went to the Burton club and we got friendly with some of the people. You know how it is: there are always a few in any group who have offbeat ideas. Most of it’s folklore, theory, hot air. There was one old man in the Burton club named Rulon Whaley who was just like that. Very loud and opinionated, but there was so much energy in him that he made me listen. He’d been fascinated by the Burton myth for years. Rulon not only believed Burton had been here but that he spied on us for England. He was determined to prove it but he never did. He died this year.”
“Do you know where he got that idea?”
“Heard it from another old gent long ago, I think. Once he got something in his head, he was almost impossible to defeat.”
Most of the talk that followed was historical rehash, things we all knew. Koko and Libby talked, the ranger and I watched. I especially watched Libby. A certain tone had come into her voice. A look I had seen many times had come into her eyes. As a cop I called it the knows-more-than-she’s-telling look. Koko had missed it because she had spent her life answering questions and I had spent mine asking them.
I asked one now. “Did you ever learn who the other man was?”
Libby shook her head. “He died years ago, so it always seemed rather hopeless.”
“Maybe he left some papers, or some record.”
“No way of knowing now. If he did, I guess I dropped the football.”
Koko stood and said, “Well, thank you for talking to us.”
I glared at her and my look said, Keep still.
“This is awful,” Libby said. “There’s not even enough time to offer you a cup of coffee. I’d love to sit around with you and kick at it for a while.”
“Maybe we should do that,” I said.
“Like when?” Robinson said. “The boat’s going to leave them, Lib.”
“Maybe they could come back.”
“They’d have the same time problem. And none of us really knows anything.” He looked at me apologetically. “You’re certainly welcome to come back but I’m afraid it would just be a waste of your time.”
“You could come back anyway,” Libby said. “If you wanted to you could stay the night. We’d have plenty of time to talk then.”
“Is that allowed?”
“Oh, sure. You’d have to bring sleeping bags. We’re not exactly the Holiday Inn here.”
I had a hunch and so did Libby: I could feel it, like some energy field growing between us. “What do you think he was doing here?” she said.
“Well, we know he wanted to see the States.”
“Do you really believe he came only as a tourist?”
“No.”
She smiled quixotically and I felt Koko stiffen beside me. Koko had come here for information, not to talk too much, and I knew she wouldn’t like the way this was going. Stiffly, she said, “Of course that’s just conjecture. We don’t know any more than you do.”
But Libby was looking at me, not Koko. I said, “Maybe together we’ll all discover stuff we didn’t know we knew. Sometimes you’ve got to give a little to get a lot.”
“What stuff?” Libby said. “Do you actually know something?”
“He used to be a detective,” Koko said dismissively. “Thinks he still is.”
“Really?” Libby smiled at me as if she liked that idea.
“We think Burton came here with someone,” I said.
“Oh, don’t tell them that,” Koko said. “My God, there’s no proof of that at all.”
“Then it doesn’t hurt to tell them, does it? As an unproved theory.”
“Tell us what?” Libby said.
“We think he met a man in Washington and traveled with him. They came through here in May of 1860 and went to New Orleans together. They became close friends.”
Koko’s face was red with anger. She turned away and looked out over the fort.
Libby said, “Do you know what his friend looked like?”
Now there’s a strange question, I thought. I might have expected her to ask whether we knew his name, but who asks about the appearance of a man from a time when photography was so new that few had ever had their pictures taken?
“Do we know what he looked like, Koko?”
“Don’t ask me. How would I know?”
Again Libby made eye contact. I shrugged and Robinson said, “You’re going to miss your boat.” Mischievously, Libby said, “Then they wouldn’t have to worry about the time.”
“That’s her way of saying she wants you to come back,” Robinson said.
“When?”
“Can’t be tomorrow or the next day,” Libby said. “I’m going to school. I’m writing a paper and I’ve got to study for a wicked test. It all hits at once.”
“What about Tuesday?”
“Tuesday would work. Bring good sleeping gear. The ground here’s hard.”
They walked us down to the dock. At the pier we all shook hands. Again they apologized for the hectic schedule. At the very end Libby asked the question I had expected in the beginning. “Do you know the name of the man who came with Burton?”
Before I could answer, she answered it herself. “It wouldn’t be Charlie, would it?”
CHAPTER 31
On the boat, Koko said, “I wonder what she really knows.”
“She’s clever. She wants you to wonder that. She wants us to come back and she timed her bombshell so we wouldn’t have even a minute to get into it.”
“Right now I don’t need clever. I just wish people would say what they mean.” A moment later she said, “Anyway, you were right, I was wrong.”
“Coulda just as easy been the other way.”
“Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
We were sitting on the enclosed lower deck, out of a wind that had turned the harbor into a basin of choppy water. Koko sat near the glass, staring out at the whitecaps.
“I’ve been an old bear lately. Just want you to know I know that and I’m sorry.”
“You’ve had a lot to think about. I didn’t just lose my house.”
She changed the subject. “What a strange day this is. Goes from rainy to sunny and back to rainy again. God can’t get anything right.”
“He’s got a lot on his mind. It’s got to be tough being God sometimes.”
“What’s that from? I used to know it.”
“The Green Pastures. ‘Bein’ God ain’t no bed o‘ roses either.’”
She smiled but it was a sad smile.
“Hey,” I said, leaning over to look at her face. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. Go away. Jesus, I hate self-pity.”
“They’ll build you a new house, Koko.”
“What good is that if I can’t go back and live there?”
“I think you’ll be able to go back.”
“How?”
“We’ll work on it.”
She didn’t look convinced. “It’s not the house anyway, it’s what I lost inside the house.”
“I know it’s tough,” I said, and felt stupid saying it. She confirmed my stupidity with a frigid look. “You don’t know anything,” she said, carving me into a Mount Rushmore of dunces. “What do you know about my life?”
“Nothing. You’re right, I don’t know anything.”
“Take a guess. Wildest guess you can think of.”
“Jeez, Koko, I don’t know.”
“Old-maid librarian is what you’re th
inking.”
“I never said that.”
“But if someone asked you, that’s what you’d think. Well, I had a husband once. We had two beautiful children. My son would be just about your age now. I was young and happy and not at all bad-looking. I had a very different life then. My husband was an engineer, I was working on a master’s degree in literature, and I played the violin well enough to try out for our symphony orchestra. We had everything then, the whole world ahead of us, and in one crazy minute a drunk driver took it all away.”
“Oh, Koko…”
“No, don’t say anything.” She turned her face to the glass and spoke to my reflection. “I’m not looking for pity. But don’t tell me you know what I lost, because you don’t know. The only pictures I had of my babies were in that house. I had film of their first steps and tape recordings of their voices. It’s like he killed them all over again.”
What can you say at a moment like that? I left her alone, but I thought of Dante and I felt a shimmering wave of real forty-karat hate. Another reason for us to meet again.
Late that afternoon I got in my rental and drove to a place I had looked up last night in the telephone book. It took me less than an hour to buy a good little gun and fire it on their range till it felt natural in my hand. I bought a snug holster for it, slipped it far back under my coat, and left hot but armed and dangerous, fully dressed for the first time in many days.
CHAPTER 32
That night I got them together for the first time. Koko tried to resist, pleading a headache, but I reserved a table at one of the classiest new restaurants in town and threatened to lay siege to her room until she came out. “Want to drive or walk?” I asked. “It’s an easy walk from here.”
“Let’s walk, then. Looks like that silly old guy, God, blew the clouds away again.”
On the way over, she said, “I’ve had the weirdest feeling. Like I’m being watched.”
I asked for specifics but she had none. “It’s just the jitters. When I went out to the store, there seemed to be a man walking along behind me, on the other side of the street.”
“Did you look at him?”
“At one point I did.”
“But you didn’t recognize him.”
“No, but I’m not sure I’d remember any of those guys anyhow. It was night and I never did get a good look at them.”
Erin was waiting in the lobby of her hotel. I had prepared her for Koko: that afternoon I had called and told her the story and she had immediately become cautious and considerate. “She sounds very fragile right now. I don’t know her but she may be on the verge of some kind of nervous breakdown. She’s been putting all her energy into this Burton hunt, and when that didn’t seem to pan out she began to unravel. Now even the hunt may be losing its appeal. Don’t ask me where my psych degree is, it’s just one of those hunches like you seem to have all the time. I think we’ll have to be careful with her, and the sooner we get this business finished with that madman in Baltimore, the better.”
I made the introductions. Erin smiled warmly and said, “Hey, Koko, heard a lot about you.” Koko said, “Hi there.” They shook hands and we were off.
The restaurant was on Exchange Street near East Bay. We walked side by side, the wide sidewalk of Broad Street accommodating all of us. They talked about the charm of Charleston and the weather, the small talk of ordinary people who live out their lives without ever being threatened by violence or murder. I watched the people passing on both sides of the street.
The restaurant was noisy and already crowded, but there was a quieter dining room off to one side. We were seated in a far corner out of the din. Koko excused herself and went to the rest room and the waiter delivered us a wine list.
“So,” I said. “What do you think?”
“I like her. And I revise my opinion. I think she’s solid.”
“She thinks she’s being followed.”
Erin dealt with that for a moment. “Maybe she is. Even if she’s not, she’s entitled to some frayed nerves.”
“Question is, do we want to talk openly about this stuff?”
“Absolutely yes would be my vote. We have some decisions to make, and she’s got a right to be part of that.” She smiled as Koko returned. “I have some news to report.”
Part of her news was about Archer, who had called with a counterproposal. “He may be willing to show me the journal. If he does, I’ll try to browse it for content. Maybe I can pin down some things you’re looking for.”
“There must be something about Charlie in it,” Koko said. “Even a mention would help.”
“I’d give a year’s pay to get Archer’s fanny in court and ask him a few tough questions.”
Erin had called Lee and told him everything. “He’s concerned about us, of course. He thinks we should all get on the first plane for
Denver and coordinate our strategy from there. That’s actually not a bad idea.“
“It’s not a great one, either,” Koko said. “It means giving up on Burton.”
“Only for now. It’s not so bad if you think of it that way. This story’s been there for more than a hundred years, it’s not going away.”
“You two could go to Denver,” I suggested. “I could stay and see what the woman at Fort Sumter has for us. Then I’d come along in a few days.”
Erin closed her eyes and made that praying motion with her hands. “What are we going to do with this man, Koko?”
“We could each carry around a two-by-four. When he tries too hard to protect us, we could just whack the hell out of him without warning.”
“You bash him on that thick forehead, I’ll get him from behind.”
“Would you two like me to leave so you can talk freely?”
“Look, sweetie. If we don’t do anything else tonight, let’s dispense with the John Wayne routine. It’s way out of date—John Wayne is dead—and it annoys me like crazy.”
“You aren’t going anywhere without us,” Koko said.
“Because if anything happens to you, I will take this Dante on alone if I have to,” Erin said. “Just think about that. I know he’s strong, but I am not without resources and I will get him.”
Koko shivered and laughed at the same time. “This is quite a girlfriend you’ve got here, Janeway.”
The waiter came and we ordered our dinners. Koko gravitated toward the vegetarian items but we were now officially living dangerously and she chose the blackened grouper. We talked over wine and made some decisions. We would stay three more days in Charleston, giving Erin another crack at Archer and us a shot at whatever the Robinsons might know. Erin would move out of the Mills House and take a room near us in the Heart of Charleston. On Wednesday we would see where we were and go from there.
We walked back in a warm summer night. But in two blocks the air became heavy, the humidity bore down, and in the distance lightning flashed over the sea. We left Erin where we had found her, in the lobby of her hotel, and she hugged us both.
“We’re gonna be fine,” she said.
“Of course we are,” Koko said. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
Erin vanished into the elevator and Koko and I walked up the street together.
“I like her,” she said. “I was determined not to, but she’s a good girl.”
“She likes you too.”
At the motel a message had arrived from Koko’s friend Janet in Baltimore. The fire department had officially classified her house as arson. Janet had talked to the reporter at the morning paper, who was still digging around. Yesterday he had put it in the paper that Koko had apparently gone to Charleston. “So they know we’re here,” I said.
We had to assume they had known for almost two days.
CHAPTER 33
In the morning the rain finally came, a steamy downpour that billowed across Meeting Street and left the world slick-looking and empty. I talked to Erin soon after daybreak and she was moved over to our motel by nine o’clock. She circumvented the afternoon ch
eck-in by paying for the extra day and was settled into a room near Koko’s with two hours to spare before her meeting with Archer. She had called Lee again and had received instructions to walk out if Archer was abusive or difficult. “Neither of us thinks anybody’s going to go near what Lee’s offering.”
At ten o’clock Erin and Koko sat playing cards at a table in Koko’s room while the rain drummed against the window. I was watching the TV in a stupefied state with the sound turned down. A preacher with larceny in his eyes and lust in his heart was on Channel Five, and on Channel Two I got some kind of political discourse, with the eyes of the senator just like the eyes of the preacher. I could tell from their faces the attitude and vacuous nature of what was being said, and none of it tempted me to turn up the volume. This country is doomed, I thought, not for the first time, and I closed my eyes and sank into boredom.
At ten-thirty I got up and moved to the door. “I’m going out for a little while.”
Erin was immediately suspicious. “Where to?”
“There’s a movie I want to see. Debbie Does the Old Duffers.”
“I heard that doesn’t have much of a plot. Where are you really going?”
“To the store for some male needs.”
They looked at each other and tried not to laugh.
“Hey, I don’t ask about your female needs.”
“Just don’t try anything foolish, like ditching us and going after people on your own.”
“I’ll bet he’s going to buy a gun,” Koko said. “He couldn’t bring the one we had on the airplane, so he’s going to buy another one.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“Jesus, lighten up. You can’t get a gun on Sunday. I need some razor blades.”
“I only ask because as your lawyer I’m the one who’s got to worry if there are laws here against carrying concealed weapons. Just in case I need to defend you or bail you out.”
“It’s Sunday, Mama,” I said again. “You guys play cards and I’ll be back in a while.”
I walked up Meeting Street in the rain, looking at people on both sides of the street. The gun felt snug against my back.
