Tin God; Skeleton's Key; Ashes and Bone

by Stacy Green

  “Do you mean Norton’s expanding their business, or former Senator Wyatt Booth is expanding his reach and his pockets?” Gina asked. “Because I’ve heard some really interesting things about his side business.”

  Dylan swallowed, his mouth opening just enough Cage thought he was going to spill.

  “I’ve also heard Norton’s had some problem projects,” Gina said. “Right down to a dead project manager. Whose business just happens to have been purchased by Norton right after his death. Ben Moore made a monthly payment to them for more than a year. But the business didn’t file taxes. What do you suppose Booth—I’m sorry, Norton—uses that account for?”

  Dylan blinked. Bit his lip, rubbing his hands on his knees. He was going to talk. Cage knew the look, had seen it a hundred times before.

  “He’s told you what you need to know,” Mayor Asher cut in. “We know Wyatt Booth only through our business dealings. He’s a former senator, old money, and as he told you, a descendant of John Wilkes Booth. A powerful man who’s treated us well.”

  “How powerful?” Gina asked.

  “He’s a successful businessman. Use your common sense.” He crossed his arms in a way that clearly stated he wasn’t saying any more. The moment lost, Dylan had clammed up too, his mouth tight and his eyes tired. Cage needed to get him alone. Appeal to him as a friend.

  “One last thing before we go.” Gina reached into her jacket pocket for the bagged item she’d brought along. She sat the cartridge box on the desk. “Do you know anything about this? We found it hidden in Nick’s abandoned car.”

  Dylan’s expression changed from defeated man to excited kid. His eyes gleamed, his mouth falling open. He reminded Cage of Dani when she saw a new artifact. “Wow. That looks like the real deal. Where’d you get it?”

  “It is authentic,” Cage said. “Dani confirmed it. Ben’s Memory Lane Antiques had both real and fake items. This was in one of the pictures Ben sent to Nick.”

  Gina rested her hands on the mayor’s desk and lowered her voice like she was about to share a big secret. “We think Ben got himself mixed up in the Dixie Mafia. They were getting a cut of his antiques money. And Nick figured it out, thanks to Ben’s tip. So the logical thought is that this sucker,” she tapped on the protective plastic, “given the way Nick hid it in his car, can tell us something about who took him. Or had him taken, since I’d guess the Dixie Mafia has goons for that sort of thing.”

  “And the FBI is telling us that the Dixie Mafia has been infiltrating this area for the last few years,” Cage said. “The head boss has political ties and family money. They hide behind several different legit businesses. Construction is one of them. Resorts, that sort of thing. Sounds a lot like Booth’s line of work.”

  A muscle in Dylan’s cheek twitched, but he didn’t break. “Well, if that’s what Nick got himself involved in, I’ll be praying for him. I’ve heard the only way out from those guys is death.”

  “Nick had a note stashed inside the cartridge box,” Gina said. “Says ‘Matt and cousins.’ You know anything about that, Mayor?”

  Mayor Asher stilled. His cheeks puffed out like he was holding his breath. “No, I surely don’t. I’ll ask you both to leave now.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Gina said.

  Cage followed her out, giving Dylan a final nod. He waited until they were back in the saturated air to speak. “So Dylan wants to talk. I need to get him alone.”

  “Make it happen.” Gina’s grim expression deepened the lines around her eyes. “I’ve got to call my contact at the Bureau and let him know about his boy’s involvement down here. And I’m going to see if I can find out any more about this note and the mayor’s contacts. He looked like a pufferfish ready to explode.”

  24

  They’d barely made it back to the station when an urgent call from Jeb Riley came in. He told Gina he couldn’t talk over the phone, he needed to show them something. In the morgue, of all the damned places. This has all the stench of something big going down.

  “When’s Ben’s body going to be taken to Jackson for the autopsy?” Cage followed Gina through the bowels of the hospital, the shimmering white walls giving him the creeps. Why did the place have to look like every scary-ass horror movie he’d ever seen?

  “Soon as Jeb takes it.”

  “Did he tell you why he wanted us to meet him here?” Cage hated the morgue. Last time he’d been inside one, he’d been looking at his sister’s doppelganger, murdered in almost exactly the same way Lana had been. The sterile smell washed over him, triggering his sense memory. He nearly gagged. He’d rather smell actual death than the antiseptic, chemically enhanced odor that accompanied the unnatural part of dying.

  “He just said we needed to see something. And the body should have been on its way by now.” Gina opened the door, grimacing at the sight of Ben laid out on the steel table. Local autopsies were rare; Jackson did most of them, but the table was available if needed, along with basic and equally gut-twisting equipment. Cage kept his eyes on Ben instead of on the built-in coolers lining the wall. After his first visit to the morgue years ago, he’d had nightmares of the steel doors opening and a rotting corpse sliding one foot and then the other onto the cold tile. My very own horror movie.

  “What’s this all about, Jeb?” Gina asked. She and Cage stood on opposite sides of the table, Ben’s body between them. Still in the black bag, with only his face and torso visible, he looked worse than he had hanging from the rafter. The broken bone in his neck protruded through torn flesh, his eyes open and spotted with blood. The tip of his purple tongue peeked out of his mouth. Cage swallowed back the rising bile and tried to ignore the encroaching smell of decomposition.

  Jeb’s eyes were bright, and he bounced on his heels. “I kept thinking if Ben didn’t do this to himself, how’d someone force him into it? He’s a healthy, strong man. Smart, even if he made dumb decisions. So how in the hell did someone lure him into the hayloft and into that noose? Bugged the hell out of me. So I brought him in here to have a closer look.”

  “And?” Gina waited.

  Cage looked at Ben’s blank eyes again. It seemed they stared back somehow. But the accusatory look was gone. He just looked dead. And far from peaceful.

  Jeb slid up the sleeve of the t-shirt Ben wore. “Look closely at his bicep, and tell me what you see.”

  Wrinkling her nose, Gina moved closer. After a moment, she released a hard breath. “Shit.”

  Cage followed suit. He couldn’t see anything but freckles, the festering smell of rotting flesh distracting him. And then he saw it. “That’s a needle mark.”

  “Exactly,” Jeb said. “At first I thought maybe Ben was a closet diabetic. But he’s healthy. My niece is a nurse, and I had her do me a favor. She ran a tox screen.”

  “That’s against protocol,” Gina said. “You’re not a doctor. We can’t use it in court.”

  Cage didn’t care. His heart hammered against his ribcage, blood beating at his temples the same way it did every time he sensed a major break in a case.

  “So what,” Jeb snapped back. “Get him to the Jackson medical examiner and order another. The findings will be the same.”

  “And what are the findings?” Cage tried not to let his nerves show.

  “Fentanyl.”

  The sterile cold of the room seeped into Cage’s veins and shot down his spine. He turned to Gina, who had a triumphant smile on her face.

  “Sounds like something we’ve heard before, doesn’t it?” she said. “Isn’t the prescription given in patches?”

  Jeb nodded. “Yes, but it’s a growing product on the drug market. You put the gel from the patch onto a hard surface and let it dry. Takes a few hours. It turns into crystals, which are then injected with the right solution. It’s dangerous because the patch releases the fentanyl at an hourly rate. But used this way, you’re getting a lot more of the drug than used in surgery. It could easily cause death, and if not, can certainly incapacitate someone.”
>
  Patch. The word dropped over Cage like a bucket of ice water. “Wyatt Booth has a patch. He’s got chronic knee pain. Between the pictures and this, I’d say we’ve got enough to bring him in.”

  “It’s risky,” Gina said. “He’s got a lot of connections, and he’s going to put every one of them to use. We need to play this very carefully.”

  “So we wait?” Cage said. Nick didn’t have the time for them to wait, if he was even still alive. They needed to move now, shake Booth or Stanley. Make someone talk.

  “No. We go to the one person who was presumably around all day and probably knows a lot more than she wants to admit. Or even realizes. Margaret Asher.”

  Getting Margaret alone wasn’t going to be easy. Judging by the number of vehicles in the driveway—none of which were blue or damaged—the mayor, Booth, and Stanley were in residence, as well as Dylan. Cage prayed Margaret would answer the door, which would allow Gina to speak to the men while he questioned her.

  Instead, a wary-looking Dylan answered the door. He’d showered, but the stench of smoke still lingered. He glanced over his shoulder with something like fear in his eyes. “Now isn’t a good time.”

  “It’s going to have to be,” Gina said. “We need to talk to your mother.”

  He blanched and quickly closed the door, ushering them toward the porch steps. “Why? She’s got nothing to do with anything my father or I told you.” He lowered his voice. “Please don’t bring her into this.”

  “Your father already did when he used her position on the financial board to push the Semple land into foreclosure,” Gina said.

  “Dylan, come on,” Cage said. “I don’t want to bring your mom into this either. I’m sure she’s not involved. But we’ve got to get some answers.”

  Dylan glanced behind him toward the imposing house. Ashland was so big Cage figured the rest of the inhabitants might not even know they’d arrived. Might at least buy them a few minutes. “She doesn’t know about Dad using her position on the board. And she doesn’t need to.”

  “Then you need to help us out,” Cage said. “We found evidence of a fentanyl injection on Ben’s arm. Know how that happens? The fentanyl is taken from a prescription patch. He was murdered. Now who do you know that’s got access to a drug like that, and who was around the house all day with your mother?”

  Dylan blinked, his face turning hard as stone. “You think Booth did this?”

  “Ben sent those pictures to Nick, clued him to what Booth was up to. Nick’s a hell of a reporter. I guarantee you if there was a whisper of Booth being connected to the Dixie Mafia or anything shady, Nick heard about it. And this isn’t the first fentanyl-related death Booth has been close to.”

  “So you think Booth killed Ben as a punishment?” Dylan looked dazed.

  “And to silence him,” Gina said. “Look, Carl Gilbert sucked you into all of this, right? He’s the one who told Booth about the Semple property. Guess where he’s at now? Delta Correctional for cooking and selling meth. He probably funneled that money to the Dixie Mafia.” She stepped closer, pointing her finger at Dylan and looking like she was ready to charge him. “Now you and your family are pulled into this mess because Gilbert tattled to his boss, and what Booth wants, he gets. These men have done nothing but use you and your family. What’s on that property that’s so special? What’s he really after, Dylan?”

  “Give us something we can use to bring him in.” Cage took over. They were going to get to Dylan this time. His lips were open, ready to spill. They just needed to get him away from the house. “The FBI is after the Dixie Mafia. Booth’s one of their suspects. If we get enough, they’ll come in. But that means you or your father are going to have to grow a pair and tell the truth. Something tells me it’s not going to be the mayor. We can protect you, I promise. But you’ve got to help us. Help us solve Ben’s murder. He didn’t deserve this. And Nick doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “It’s all my fault.” Dylan’s voice cracked, and his body slumped forward. Cage had been a cop long enough to know when to let a man think, give him time to mull getting the weight off his shoulders. Dylan hugged himself, gave a hard nod. “All right. Let me take you somewhere.”

  25

  For the next fifteen minutes, Dylan only spoke to give them directions. He led them down Van Dorne road, past the spot where Nick’s shoe was found, to the dirt road leading to the Semple property. A dusty drive led them to the foundation of the old house. Here in the quiet afternoon, with the whispers of the smoke hanging in the shadows, the area seemed like the perfect place to hide a body. Or for an ambush.

  “We’ve got to go on foot from here.”

  Cage glanced at his boss, but she only nodded. Keeping his hand on his gun, Cage followed Dylan into the overgrown brush, toward White Creek, and Ironwood.

  “You ever heard of Luke Brennan?” Dylan walked steadily in front of them following a worn path.

  “No,” Gina said.

  “Name sounds familiar.” Cage tapped Gina, pointing to the ground. They were walking in red dirt. A quick jerk of her head told him she’d noticed.

  “In the 1870s, he started the local branch of the Mississippi Rifle Club, which quickly became a paramilitary group. They intimidated freed blacks and anyone who supported them. Brennan’s followers grew to a small gang of men from all over Adams and Claiborne County, and they joined the insurgents to help push the Mississippi Plan.”

  “The Democrats planned to unseat the Republicans and their pro-black laws.” Cage remembered his high school history. Their teacher had been semi-proud of the Plan.

  “Right,” Dylan said. “Brennan and his guys attacked several Union soldiers stationed to keep the peace as well as several black homes. Legend is he showed up at Ironwood to punish them for supporting the blacks, and John James put a bullet in Brennan’s shoulder. Several of the freed blacks had stayed on to work at Ironwood—paid very little, but it was something, and they didn’t know anything else. John James was good to them, kept them safe.” Dylan pushed his way through a thicket of dry, tangled milkweed. “Anyway, the free blacks came to John James’s defense and ambushed the Brennan gang. The gang took off, but Brennan vowed revenge.”

  “He never got it,” Gina said. “John James lived to be an old man.”

  Dylan paused for a moment, gazing through the brush. “That’s where the story gets really interesting. The Brennan gang started looting too. Had the attitude they were the law and could do whatever they wanted. They’d attack and disappear. No one could find their hideout.” Dylan wiped the sweat off his brow and then plodded forward. “During the 1876 elections, Brennan and his three main guys attacked a group of Republican supporters during a rally in Claiborne County. One of the Brennan men was injured, and the group took off. Disappeared like always. But they’d killed a Union soldier this time, and so the hunt was on. The area was searched for weeks, and no sign of the men. In fact, they never showed up again.”

  “What do you mean?” Cage narrowly avoided a thorn tree. This part of the woods was loaded with them, along with thick batches of tangled weeds just waiting to trip a man. “They stopped raiding? Moved their families out?”

  “Nope. Never went back to their families. Vanished.”

  “Abandoned them and went further south, most likely,” Gina said.

  “That’s what I used to think. But then I found some stuff in my great-grandfather’s ledger. He was one of the searchers, and he talked about all the land they covered. Seems Isaiah Semple refused to let the whites onto his land. Didn’t trust anyone. John James spoke up for him, and so the Semple property was never searched. I decided to look myself.” The trail dipped, and Dylan grabbed onto a low-hanging branch of a hickory tree to steady himself. Cage and Gina followed suit.

  They’d nearly reached the creek and the border of the property. Water trickled over the rocks, echoing in the trees. Dylan veered to the right, away from the creek, and stopped at a thatch of trees covering a grassy hill. “I found thi
s cave.”

  “I don’t see a cave.” Gina peered around his shoulder. Cage looked over the top of her head and saw what he thought might be an opening behind the milkweed and prickly ash.

  “It’s well hidden.” Dylan pushed back the overgrown plants and Spanish moss dangling like tears to reveal a hole barely big enough to fit a man. “This is what I brought Carl Gilbert to see.”

  Cage knew his own smile must look like a little boy’s. He and his dad used to go caving before his dad got fat and Cage too cool to hang out with him. Good times. “How big is it?”

  “A lot bigger than it looks. It goes fairly deep underground. Between the gunpowder and scattered weapons, I’m pretty sure it was used as a Confederate munitions stash. Which isn’t uncommon. But there are human bones in there, and I think they are the Brennan gang. I think they died here.”

  “Why?” Gina hung back.

  Dylan leaned against the rocky hill. Whatever excitement he’d mustered over showing them the cave dribbled away. “This is where I really screwed up. I never should have brought Gilbert here.”

  “When did you two meet?” Edging closer to the entrance, Cage nearly lost his footing.

  “About three years ago, in Jackson. I didn’t know he was a criminal when I started seeing him. He wanted to visit, and this was the perfect meeting spot.” Dylan squinted against the gleaming sunlight. “I was too much of a coward to let my father find out. Everything went fine the first time we met here, but the second time, I was running late.

  “When I got here, I found Gilbert sick inside the cave. I pulled him out in the fresh air, and he gradually got better. We did some research, started looking around.”

  “So what made him sick?” Gina said.

  “Natural gas. There’s a leak inside the cave. It’s odorless in its natural form, so no one knew it. I think that’s what killed Brennan’s men,” Dylan said. He stared at the cave, seemingly lost in the memory.