‘Dang it all, why’d this have to land on me?’ Roque muttered. Maybe he should have retired years ago, came the nagging thought. Quit while the going was good.
In his frustration he slipped the old Colt revolver from his holster rig, thumbed it to half-cock and flipped open the reloading gate and dumped out each big .45 shell in turn from the cylinder. The cartridges rolled about his desktop and he sat them up on end in a row, then wiped the weapon down with an oily rag before reloading it again. It was a needless operation he’d repeated maybe thirty times in the last hour, like an obsessive compulsion. But tinkering with his trusty sidearm helped to alleviate his sense of helplessness and make him forget that he was really just some hick sheriff totally out of his depth, past retirement age and ready to hang up his gunbelt and go tend to his flower garden.
There was a knock at the door and in walked Mason Redbone. The deputy was out of hospital and reassigned to duty, by sheriff’s orders, as all hands were needed on deck.
‘Holy crap, Mason, that face of yours’d frighten a buzzard off of a gut pile.’
Mason’s features were a mass of bruising that radiated out from his nose and upper lip and was as floridly multi-hued as a mandrill’s backside. He wore his injury as a badge of honour, as the first responder to the killing and the only cop to have heroically come up against Ben Hope in deadly combat, as reported in the lengthy statement he’d given from his hospital bed.
‘Thanks, Sheriff,’ Mason said in his nasal voice. ‘Came to say, everyone’s ready for you.’
‘On my way,’ Roque answered, downing the last of his tea and getting up. He was due to address his underlings in the War Room, which was a spare office brought into service for this special occasion. He swept out of the office, straightening his hat and tie. Mason had to trot down the hallway to keep up. ‘I don’t suppose y’all got anythin’ new to update me on?’
‘Wish I had, Sheriff. Still no hair nor hide of the sumbitch anywhere.’
‘Damn it. Where’d he up and disappear to like this? You’d think, if he was hidin’ in someone’s barn or outhouse, they’d’ve spotted him by now and called it in.’
Mason replied optimistically, ‘Hell, he could be layin’ dead in a ditch someplace, for all we know. Sure done lost a lot of blood at the scene.’
The fugitive’s injury had been the subject of much discussion. The blood trail began just steps away from where the victim lay dead, led upstairs and across the roof of the guesthouse to the neighbouring property. Forensic examiners had found more blood on the branches of the tree Hope had used to make his escape from next door’s rooftop. From there they’d tracked his route across gardens into the street, where it eventually petered out quarter of a mile away at the exact spot where a Mr Chuck Buhler had reported his truck stolen. No sign had been found of the missing vehicle either.
The one clear deduction was that the fugitive was badly hurt, even though nobody knew how. Deputy Redbone had been unable to shed any light on the matter. Nor had any of the cops who had pursued him through the house claimed to have wounded him. The current theory, which seemed good enough, was that Lottie Landreneau had put up a fight and managed to inflict some hurt on her killer before she succumbed.
Roque shook his head. ‘I agree, he’s gotta be layin’ up someplace. But he ain’t dead. This guy’s a goddamn ninja warrior. Seems he don’t kill too easy.’
‘He ain’t so tough,’ Mason muttered, gingerly rubbing his aching face.
Roque grunted, ‘Looks like you missed your chance, then, huh, Deputy?’
‘Next time.’
Roque pushed through into the War Room, which was crowded with bodies and filled with the hum of chatter. All eyes were on him as he strode up to a desk that served as his podium.
‘All right, all right, quieten down now.’ He waited for the buzz to diminish, then launched into his announcement that the manhunt was being widened to take in all four parishes that bordered theirs. Sheriff Roque would remain in overall command, with the cooperation of Sheriffs Gradley, Chatelain, Juneau and Wiltz, who were all present at the meeting and none too happy to be relegated to second fiddle.
Roque spent a few moments detailing the logistics of the operation, which were on an unprecedented scale for the local area. ‘Questions?’
There were none.
Roque cast a hard, frigid gaze over the sea of faces all watching him with rapt attention. ‘Good. Now listen, people. I want this murdering psychopath found and his hide nailed to the wall. And if it turns out somebody’s harbourin’ him, they’re gonna be awful sorry. But remember,’ he growled, raising a warning finger, ‘this man isn’t some local redneck junkie delinquent or gas station holdup artist. He’s a stone cold professional killer and he ain’t gonna come quietly. You see him, you shoot first and ask questions later, and order your officers to do the same.’
‘We’ll get this bastard, Waylon,’ Sheriff Juneau said, possibly hoping they’d catch him on his turf so he’d get the credit.
‘We damn well better,’ Roque grated. ‘Because there ain’t a man or woman here who’ll get rest, sleep or food until he’s dead or behind bars. Let’s get to work.’
Chapter 26
As Keisha had explained to Ben the night before, Professor Reuben Cantius Abellard was one of the private tutors brought in to help with young Caleb Hebert’s home-schooling. Or had been, until his unreliability had compelled the Heberts to dispense with his services.
In former times, Abellard had done a twenty-five-year spell as a history professor at Louisiana State University. Finally booted off the LSU faculty after many warnings concerning his overfondness for sour mash whiskey, he had returned to the decaying grandeur of his old family seat in Clovis Parish with the sole intention of slowly – he was in no hurry – drinking himself to death on his front porch.
Abellard was, Keisha informed Ben, what was generally referred to in the South as ‘old money’, an aristocratic label dating back several generations to when the Abellards had owned substantial acreages of timber land and sugarcane across the parish and been one of the wealthiest dynasties in the state. The fortunes made by his venerable ancestors were long since squandered and most of the land sold off, with just enough left in the bank to keep the sole remaining Abellard in liquor until the inevitable day when he’d be found dead in his rocking chair.
‘Real shame to see such a brilliant man go to waste like that,’ Keisha sighed. ‘Fine teacher, too, when he ain’t fallin’ about and incapable of speech.’
She described how much Caleb had loved his lessons with the batty old professor, until his ‘groggy spells’ had just become too much. Thereafter it had been Tyler who’d taken over the role of tutoring his son in history, his knowledge of which was pretty decent though utterly eclipsed by Abellard’s. ‘That man has a brain like an encyclopaedia,’ Keisha said.
‘If he ain’t reduced it to pickled cauliflower by now,’ Tyler warned. ‘It’s been two years since we last saw him. Lord only knows what kind of a state he’s in these days.’
It had been late in the evening by the time they’d got back from the trip to see Sallie Mambo. Tyler and Keisha had dropped their secret visitor off at the homestead before driving over to pick up the kids from their neighbours, the Tanners. Once again, they had to ask Vernon and Ivy if they wouldn’t mind having Noah and Trinity for a while the following morning; once again, the retirees were happy to babysit.
Then it had been back home for a late dinner of Gumbo à la Hebert and rice, followed by bed. Ben hadn’t slept a wink all night as he’d lain restlessly thinking about slipping away. He couldn’t go on endangering the Heberts with his presence. And yet, if there was a chance that a boozy old historian could fill in the gaps left by Sallie Mambo, Ben knew he had no choice but to hang on just a little longer.
Next morning, after Noah and Trinity had been left in the care of the Tanners, they set off again, this time in Keisha’s little Mazda. It had been her idea to bring Caleb along,
in the hope that the sight of his former pupil might stir the professor and incite him to keep off the whiskey, at least for the duration of their visit.
Tyler frowned as he saw the teenager clamber into the back of the car clutching his compound bow and a quiverful of arrows. ‘What in hell, son?’
‘I figured, in case we run into the police or somethin’,’ Caleb replied. He said it po-leece.
‘There’s no need for that,’ Ben said. But the kid wouldn’t be persuaded.
‘Stubborn,’ Tyler said with a grin. ‘Gets it from his old man.’
The Abellard House, as it was called, was only a dozen or so miles east of Kadohadacho Creek, which made it practically next door. But it was still a dangerous journey, in case they came upon a roadblock or got pulled over for the slightest reason. Ben felt deeply uncomfortable, and not only for his own sake if anything bad should happen.
Nothing bad happened, but it was just a matter of luck that Keisha hadn’t needed to take any major roads to get there. Just before 10 a.m. they rounded a sharp bend in the country lane, entered a gateway, and the once grand old mansion came into view at the top of a long, weed-strewn drive. It was immediately obvious that the Abellard House had suffered from decades of neglect. The paint was flaking, the grounds were a jungle, and the place was generally in a sorry state. Ben could only hope that its owner was in better condition.
Keisha pulled up in front of the house and they all got out. ‘There he is,’ Caleb said, pointing up at the shambolic figure that had suddenly appeared in the open doorway.
Abellard was a wasted sixty-year-old who looked eighty. His hair and beard were long and grey, and the shirt he was wearing might have been used to scrub the floor with. In one hand he clutched a near-empty bottle, in the other a near-full glass. He was staring wild-eyed at his unexpected visitors and appeared to be having some trouble staying upright.
Ben thought, wonderful.
‘Looks like someone got started early this mornin’,’ Tyler grumbled. ‘If he even went to bed at all.’
‘Shush,’ Keisha said irritably, then put on a broad smile and waved cheerily. ‘Hey there, Professor. Ain’t it a beautiful mornin’? Brought you some eggs.’
Abellard stumbled out onto the dilapidated front porch to greet them, blinking in the sunshine as though he’d spent the last week in darkness. Three steps from his door he collapsed on his face, went straight through the rotten planking and disappeared, glass, bottle and all, into the porch foundations.
It took a few minutes for Ben and Tyler to drag him out, watched by a horrified Keisha and a highly amused Caleb. Abellard was quite unhurt, sharing the propensity of many chronic drunks to walk away unscathed from all kinds of accidents. If anything the fall had had the effect of sobering him up a little. He dusted himself off, picked bits of rotten splinter out of his hair and beard, and thanked them very graciously for coming to his aid.
‘Hope you don’t mind our landin’ on you like this,’ Keisha said.
‘Not at all, not at all. I seldom receive visits from anyone and it’s so nice to see you. Oh, what fine-looking eggs. Thank you. Please, please, come inside. Mind the, uh, hole there. My, Caleb, haven’t you grown.’
Amid all the chatter, Abellard seemed unaware that the Heberts had brought a stranger along. Noticing at last, he squinted at Ben and said, ‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you before, Mister—?’
‘West,’ Ben said. ‘Bruce West.’
‘You’re British.’
‘Bruce’s a friend of the family, visitin’ from London, England,’ Tyler said.
‘Delighted,’ Abellard replied, shaking Ben’s hand. ‘I must apologise for my appearance. I wasn’t expecting company.’ Any concern Ben might have had about being recognised from the TV was soon allayed. Professor Abellard was obviously not in the habit of keeping up to date with current affairs, local or otherwise.
They followed Abellard through the rambling old mansion to a disordered kitchen that seemed to be mainly used as a lair for at least a dozen pet cats. Boxes of empty whiskey bottles filled an entire corner and every horizontal surface was thick with dust and cat hair. There was a markedly peculiar smell about the place. Keisha insisted on making coffee. Ben thought that was a very good idea.
As she hunted through cupboards for the necessary items, Abellard invited the rest of them to sit at the long, dusty table. Ben pulled out a chair to find it already occupied by a large moggy, which hissed at him as he discreetly ejected it from his seat.
‘So to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?’ Abellard asked.
‘Bruce here’s a writer,’ Tyler explained, following the narrative Ben had decided on earlier.
‘A writer!’ Abellard’s bloodshot eyes crinkled as he smiled.
‘Historical non-fiction,’ Ben said. ‘Actually I’m just starting out.’
Tyler said, ‘Your name sort of came up in conversation, and he’s kind of hopin’ you might be able to give him a couple of pointers for this book he’s workin’ on.’
Abellard replied, ‘Why, certainly, if I can. Welcome to the brotherhood, Mr West. I happen to have authored one or two modest tomes in that line myself.’
In fact it was more like twenty, and the modest tomes were weighty volumes that together could have sunk a boat. All of them were long since out of print, dating back to the glory days of Abellard’s academic career. Tyler had shown Ben a couple of them he’d purchased second-hand from the junk shop in Villeneuve. One was a densely researched work on the French and Indian War of 1754–63, the other an incredibly dry, stuffy thousand-page study of the battles of Lexington and Concord during the American Revolution. The author bibliography on the inside cover page was not unimpressive, but Ben wondered how many of Reuben Abellard’s books had ever been read outside of research libraries.
‘And your reputation precedes you,’ Ben said. ‘It’s an honour, Professor.’
If there was one thing that studying at Oxford University had taught Ben all those years ago, it was that all academic types had in common a love of flattery. By the time Keisha brought the steaming pot of strong black coffee to the table, Professor Abellard had a new best friend and was eager to please. ‘How can I be of help, young man?’
Ben outlined his book project, whose subject was to be the activities of lesser-known African-American female intelligence agents during the Civil War.
‘I mean, everyone’s heard of the famous names like Harriet Tubman and Mary Elizabeth Bowser,’ he said offhandedly, just like a real historian. ‘I’m more interested in shining a light on some of the obscure players. Like Peggy Eyumba, for instance.’
As a trained military sniper and counter-sniper who had taken down targets at over a thousand metres, Ben knew all about long shots. But this casual reference to Peggy Eyumba, in the hope that it might yield up useful information, was one of the longest shots he’d taken in his life. If he drew a blank – if Abellard replied, ‘Sorry, son, I never heard of a Peggy Eyumba in my life’ – then it was over.
Ben would soon find out which way it would go.
There was silence at the table. Abellard’s expression remained perfectly blank for so long that Ben, tensely waiting for a response, became convinced that his long shot had missed by a mile. Caleb sat gazing deferentially at his former tutor. Tyler and Keisha exchanged uncertain glances.
After what seemed like a full minute of silence, Abellard picked up his coffee mug with long, skinny fingers, brought it up to his nose to sniff it as though searching for the scent of whiskey, then took a sip.
Ben couldn’t stand it any more. He said, ‘Well, Professor?’
Abellard smacked his lips and put down his mug. ‘Well, Mr West, it seems you’ve already come a long way with your research. It’s rare to come across anyone these days who’s familiar with the history of Peggy Iron Bar, and the role she played in the War Between the States.’
‘Not as familiar as I’m hoping you are,’ Ben said.
‘It would be difficult for any keen historian to resist learning about such dramatic events that took place so close by. If you have some time, it’s certainly a tale worth hearing. You see, Peggy might be virtually forgotten now, but if it hadn’t been for her, the outcome of that war might have been very different.’
As ravaged by the decades of boozing as his body and soul might be, Professor Reuben C. Abellard’s brain was still far from being pickled. Now he began to talk, Ben listened, and the amazing story unfolded.
Chapter 27
Abellard said, ‘You see, Mr West, it’s easy to forget that the breakaway Southern Confederacy started the war with a great many advantages over their enemies in the North. The young men and boys of the rebel army were mainly poor country folks, who knew the land, had learned to hunt and shoot from an early age for their very survival, and excelled as guerrilla troops. Meanwhile the quality of their leadership, generals like Stonewall Jackson, Nathan Bedford Forrest and Robert E. Lee, far surpassed the pedestrian likes of George McClelland, to whom President Lincoln at first foolishly entrusted the command of the Union army. The Confederacy scored so many initial successes, such as the stunning victory at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, that throughout the early years of the war it often seemed as though the Union would be defeated.’
Abellard paused, furrowing his brow. ‘It behoves us to remember that this was no ordinary war. As much as any other moment in our history, arguably even more than gaining independence from the British Empire, it defined and shaped what we were to become. Had the South succeeded in holding on to its sovereignty as an independent nation, modern-day America would have been a very different place. The land would have remained split into two opposing countries that may well have entered into war against one another repeatedly throughout the remainder of the nineteenth century and perhaps all through the twentieth, serving only to weaken both sides. America might never have become the leading world power that it did. The course of global politics and economics would have been radically altered.’
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