This time, Byrne felt the footstep as much as heard it. The water and mud around him seemed to move with the nearby compression. Byrne reached into his pocket with his right hand and withdrew the baton. He found purchase against a root and dared to peek around the edge of the opening of the hole in time to see the barrel of a rifle slide into view, then a hand on the stock, then a booted foot stepping forward.
Byrne’s swing was as pure and strong as an ax-man’s. The baton extended with a snap from its own momentum and the hard metal struck solid on the man’s kneecap, shattering bone and causing an ungodly scream. Byrne watched the man pitch forward, burying the barrel of his rifle deep into the muck in front of him. The gator behind him burrowed deeper into the hole at the sound of another species in horrific agony.
Byrne scrambled out with a fierceness that defied the bullet wound in his side and was quickly on Ashton’s blue-shirted back, riding the man with a knee on his spine and slipping the baton across his throat in a choke hold. Byrne took a deep breath and blew the anger out, then shifted the baton up under Ashton’s chin and pulled his face up.
“You may be the best guide they have in these parts, sir. But you aren’t much of a shot,” Byrne said, letting the words seep through his clenched teeth.
Ashton gurgled.
“At any rate, you aren’t going to be doing much wilderness work with that split kneecap for awhile, so how about telling me who it was that hired you to kill me?”
Aston still didn’t attempt an answer. Byrne moved his knee between the man’s shoulder blades and forced his face down into the standing water. After a good count to twenty he let him back up for air.
“You might as well tell me, Ashton. The money won’t do you any good dead. Tell me and you might crawl out of here to spend your fee on a good hickory cane.”
Ashton blew out his breath, drooling water and phlegm.
“It was them,” Ashton said. “McAdams and them. They wanted a huntin’ accident.”
“Why? What the hell threat am I to them? I’m a Pinkerton. Did they tell you I was a Pinkerton?”
“Didn’t tell me shit. Just said you was gettin’ too nosey.”
“Nosey about what? The Negro woman?”
Ashton took another breath, wheezing through the pinched throat space Byrne was allowing him.
“Hell no. Nobody in these parts cares about some Negro. It’s the real estate. That’s all they ever care about is the land.”
Byrne withdrew his baton and flipped the man over. He pulled the rifle out of the muck and ejected the load, then searched Ashton’s belt and pockets and collected the ammunition.
“Wouldn’t want you trying to shoot me in the back again,” he said. He did a sweep of the jungle around him. The others might show up any minute, reacting to the single shot Ashton had taken or even the man’s scream when his kneecap exploded. Or maybe they’d just hide like the gator and wait until they figured it was safe to come out. At any rate, Byrne wasn’t staying around to discover if any of them had the balls to shoot him themselves. He knew there was a rock road near the coast similar to the one that he, Marjory and Santos had walked two nights previous that was used by carriages and wagons traveling between West Palm and the new town of Miami. If he could get to that road, help might run into him. While Ashton lay on his back holding his knee, Byrne examined his own wound. It was a through and through. The bullet had gone in just below his ribcage and he found the exit wound when his index finger slipped into the hole in his back. He took his shirt off, spun it into a rope and tied it around his waist, pulling the knot tight at the point of entry near his gut. He was bleeding heavily. He picked up Ashton’s canteen, took a drink for good measure and began moving carefully to the east. The guide did not beg not to left alone. All he managed was to get up on one elbow, spit once in Byrne’s direction and then watch the Pinkerton disappear.
CHAPTER 20
AMADEUS Faustus was not unknown to the sheriff. Although the lawman was distrustful when word began to travel that there was a sharply dressed Mason in town who appeared to be of wealth and southern breeding, he simply watched Faustus carefully at first, and then dismissed him. The man did speak a high-falutin’ English, which made Cox nervous. But the rich men of the island did the same, and Cox had learned to put away his initial feelings of inadequacy. Instead he dealt with them identically: he would be deferential to a point, bend to their wishes if there was something in it for him, and always be suspicious of their motivations. He knew they were all after the same thing: more. More land, more money, more champagne, more unearned respect.
His allegiance, if one could call it that, could only be to Flagler and by proxy some of his lieutenants. Flagler and his railroad were vehicles for money, and Cox did not even try to conceal that he too was lustful of large gobs of the stuff. Thus, this man Faustus got only the most basic from Cox: a building permit for his church or whatever it was to be, an occasional word of warning when the rail workers where due to invade his favorite tavern on Clematis, and a tip of the hat and a good morning greeting when they passed on the street.
So on Friday morning when Faustus showed up at the jail on Poinsettia Street announcing that he was there to represent the negra prostitute in the matter of killing the vagabond hustler, Cox was taken aback.
“Is that right, Mr. Faustus?” Cox said when the old man, in the company of that mouthy little bitch daughter of McAdams, met him in his upstairs office and asked to interview the prisoner. The bulbous sheriff took his time answering. His eyes worked deep inside his thick face, the pupils rolling across the puffed under lids like twin black marbles, first at Faustus, then over to the McAdams woman. It was, after all, the girl’s father who had telegraphed him about the killing of that scumbag Bingham and had asked him to take care of it with as little impact on the island as possible. The fact that the dead man was found in the back yard of the whore made it simple. She shived him. End of story.
So why was McAdams’ daughter showing up now? He’d been pondering the answer since the night she’d confronted his deputies outside the jail. Playing the soft-hearted slave lover. Did her old man know about that episode as well? There was something going on, and Cox came to the conclusion that he’d watch it play out and decide as things went along whether there was something in it for him.
“Well, Mr. Faustus, sir. If you are the negra’s legal attorney, you know that you are by law afforded an opportunity to speak with your client,” the sheriff said, standing up behind his desk and making a show of searching for the keys.
“I thank you, sir,” Faustus said. “And I would like Miss McAdams to accompany me as she is, as one says, footing the bill.”
Cox smiled his greasiest smile, the one meant to charm all the gussied up rich bitches over on the island.
“Why of course, anything to accommodate the McAdams family.”
It wasn’t much of a jail. When the sheriff unlocked the door and pushed it open, a dank, sour air rolled into their faces. The tiny woman was curled up against the far wall, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the sun. Faustus had seen worse prison cells in the war and even in the modern cities of Atlanta and Memphis and New York. It was actually no more than a bare wood room with four slats for windows on each side. No iron bars, no cages, no chains. There was a simple wooden chair in one corner, a stained mattress on the floor in another, a chamber pot in yet another. Marjory followed him in, hurried to the woman’s side.
“Oh you poor dear thing,” she said, going down on one knee and placing her palms on either side of Shantice Carver’s face. The woman’s eyes looked nervous and confused to Faustus, but he hesitated to put any meaning to the observation. Two well-dressed white people had just entered her jail room, and the sheriff who had arrested her closed the door behind them. If I were a young Negro housemaid with a murder charge hanging over my head, he thought, I too would be confused.
“Hello, Mizz Carver. Please don’t be afraid, ma’am,” Faustus said, with the kindlies
t voice he could muster. “My name is Amadeus Faustus. I am a lawyer and have been asked by Miss McAdams, who you know, to try and get you out of this mess.”
The woman got to her feet and looked from one to the other, completely lost.
“Where’s Mizz Ida?” she asked Marjory. “She got to help me, ma’am. Ya’ll know she the only one can help me.”
Marjory looked up at Faustus. “Miss Ida May Fluery is the head housekeeper at the Breakers where Shantice worked. She’s kind of the stepmother to all the girls.”
“An’ where is Mizz Abby? You got to talk to Mizz Abby, ma’am. We was together when that man got hisself kilt,” Shantice said, the rush of words coming at a high, desperate pitch. “We seen him down the Styx, but when we hightailed it out of there he was standin’ straight up and healthy like a high-steppin’ mule and wasn’t no more dead than this fella here.”
Faustus raised his eyebrows at the sudden flow of information.
“OK, OK, now Shantice. It’s all right,” Marjory said. “You know Mizz Ida and I tried our best to get you to safety? Right? You know that? So we’ll do our best to help you now. OK? We are here to help you.
“Mr. Faustus here knows the law. He needs to ask you some questions so he can take care of this business with the sheriff and with the judge when he gets here. So just calm down now.”
“Please, young lady,” Faustus said, pulling the lone chair to her side. “Please sit down and take a few breaths.”
Carver sat before Faustus as if a child before the schoolmaster.
“Miss McAdams,” he said, and the authoritarian in his voice was obvious. “I will have to ask you to leave us along at this point, ma’am. It is simply against all legal convention for a second party to be witness to an attorney/client discussion. There are things this woman may say only to me as her legal representative, things that are privileged between us.”
McAdams reacted as if she had been slapped. This was not the way she had intended, not the plan, not the play she needed to make. Yet here they were. Information that she desperately needed was at hand, and an outsider was telling her only he would be privy to it. She could squelch the entire situation right now, tell Faustus the deal was off. Would such an action bring her more scrutiny? Would the Carver woman tell him who and what she saw that night, even as McAdams stood outside the door? And what would Faustus do with that information if indeed this woman had seen everything? She had employed him, wouldn’t he be beholden to her as well with his attorney/client argument? McAdams saw no immediate way out. She had gone too far to turn back now.
“Very well, Mr. Faustus. I leave it to your professional wisdom,” she simply said and turned and slipped out the door.
The housemaid had not changed her demeanor, an underling, awaiting some form of scolding or punishment.
Faustus started in a comforting tone: “I need only for you to tell me your story, ma’am. Tell me your story, as clearly and honestly as you can. Start where you think all of this business with the dead man and the night of his undoing, the night of the carnival, began.”
Carver took the few breaths as directed and balled her hands into fists in her lap as if a decision had been made. The truth was coming and damned be those whom the light would not be kind to.
“It was all Mizz Abby’s idea,” she began. “I ain’t sayin’ I didn’t go along with it, but it wasn’t me that come up with it.”
“And who, exactly, is this Mizz Abby?” Faustus said.
“She Mizz Birch’s housemaid. We been knowin’ each other for a long time, since we was girls growin’ up and workin’ and such. She’s my friend and don’t pass no judgment on me because of what I do to get along.”
“You mean the prostitution?”
“Tha’s right,” Carver said, her chin high. It was not pride, but any shame or need for justification had long been reconciled in her.
“We is friends an’ we talk a lot together cause she on the inside of the hotel and I mostly worked outside, at the laundry and cleaning the kitchens and such. She mostly is with the rich folks and she knows things.”
“OK,” Faustus said, only needing to prime the pump at this point, keep the woman talking, the story would come in her own way.
“Well, I got customers, you know, men from the hotel that come out to my place for their needs. Sometimes Mizz Abby would tell them ’bout me if they asked, you know.”
Faustus simply waited.
“So at the beginnin’ of this season, it was her own boss that did the askin’ and Mr. Birch himself come out for my company,” she continued.
“You saw this Mr. Birch regularly?” he said.
“Couple times a week.”
“And what changed?”
“Well, I done tol’ Abby and she and me, we laughed about it and all. But then awhile ago Abby said that the Birches was thinkin’ on getting’ rid of her. She been workin’ for them for three seasons and they treated her good and she was mad.
“Abby knowed that Mizz Birch would rip the roof off if she knew her husband was off the porch with some nigger girl like me so she come up with this plan to get her share of money offen’ him by sayin’ she gonna tell the missus.”
“Blackmail?”
“If’n that’s what you call it.”
“So did this Miss Abby confront Mr. Birch?”
“No, she too damn scairt to do it her own self so she asked me to do it an’ I say uh-uh. I ain’t gone mess up my business on doin’ somethin’ like that.”
Faustus broke one of his own rules by skipping ahead.
“So you needed a go-between, someone to handle the negotiations?”
Carver stared at him for a moment, deciphering the words.
“We needed a man to do the threat, yeah. So’s I knew this white man who, was, uh, well, I know he did things like that with white folks and we done set it up. He was going to tell Mr. Birch that he knew what was what and he would tell his wife unless he paid him not to. Then this white man was going to give the money to Abby.”
“And the man was Mr. Bingham?”
“I ain’t knowed his real name, but he the one dead for sure.”
Faustus began to pace, an unconscious habit he undertook when trying to formulate questions or weigh information. The idea that a prostitute and a housemaid might concoct such a scheme was not inconceivable, but his experience with such folks in the past made him doubt that the women would shoot the man dead, and for what?
“On the night that this Mr. Bingham was killed, the night of the fire, my understanding is that you were not on the island.”
The woman bowed her head.
“No, sir. That’s not exactly right.”
“No?”
“We was at the fair over this side, but then we went back cause Abby didn’t want that man cheatin’ us out our money.”
“You knew when Mr. Bingham was to meet with Mr. Birch?”
“Yeah. An’ we was there. Only hidin’ round by Mr. Pott’s boardin’ house in the dark just watchin’.”
“And what, pray tell, did you see?” Faustus’ voice ratcheted up.
“The man, what you call Bingham, was at my place, back by the wood pile where Abby had tole’ him.”
“He was alone?”
“Yes, sir. All dressed up like some swell. Like some bidness man an all.”
“And did Mr. Birch arrive while you were watching?”
“No, sir,” Shantice said, but the quivering in her hands told Faustus there was more so he stood silently, waiting.
“But Mizz Birch did,” she said.
“Mrs. Birch?” Faustus said, giving away his surprise.
“Yes, sir. We done heard someone walkin’ up the road and walking hard. Then we seen Mizz Birch astridin’ like a mad bull.”
“And did she meet with Mr. Bingham?” Faustus asked.
“If’n she did, sir, we didn’t see it. When we seen Mizz Birch come up we was scared and hid ourselves back in the bushes behind the boardin’ house a
nd then hightailed it back to the lake, sir.”
“Before the fire?
“Yes, sir.”
“And you never heard a gunshot?”
“No, sir.”
Faustus took a second, assessing and processing the information and how it skewed his original hypothesis. Simplicity, he reminded himself. Rules of human behavior.
“Did you see anyone else there that night who might vouch for you, Mizz Carver, anyone at all?”
“No, sir. Wasn’t anybody else. They was all over at the carnival.”
Faustus had stopped his pacing. He had no reason not to believe her account, was in fact duty sworn to accept it as her attorney. At that point he went to the door and summoned McAdams. Marjory hesitated at first, searching the attorney’s eyes for some clue. Now she had taken on the look of the student before the headmaster.
“I thank you for your candor, Miss Carver,” Faustus said, turning to the house woman. “And we shall be in touch before the magistrate arrives.”
“You gone get me free?” Carver asked in a voice touched with only the smallest tinge of hope.
“I will do my best, young lady,” Faustus said, moving to leave. A thought, a recollection of a piece of information that Byrne had shared from his friends the binder boys, entered his head. He turned back to Carver.
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