Blood, Ash, and Bone

by Tina Whittle

  I was so mad I could have strangled her. “You’ve been pretending to be me!”

  She tossed her head. “You like? I had to pad my rump to get the full effect, but—”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Same thing as you. Business.”

  “Bob Simmons is dead because of you.”

  Her mouth twitched. “Nobody was supposed to die.”

  “But people did. They always do. Then people like you act all surprised.”

  “You’re wrong. People like me expect things to go haywire. We plan for it.” She shoved the hat back on her head without lowering the gun. “But I didn’t expect anybody to die.”

  “It’s still your fault. He was following the map you sold him.”

  “I’m not responsible for other people’s bad choices.” She kept her mouth in a straight hard line. “You want to blame somebody, blame Winston. That map was all his idea, the double-crossing son of a bitch. All I wanted to do was make the sale and split, but no, he decided to complicate things.”

  “How? Why?”

  “Why don’t you ask Winston?”

  “Why don’t I call the cops and let them sort it out?”

  “You could. But they won’t find any evidence he did a damn thing, not yet anyway. But if you wait…”

  “Wait for what?”

  The thunder of hoof beats grew louder, like the edge of an approaching storm. Hope glanced over her shoulder, the gun never wavering.

  She took two steps backward. “Uh oh. Time to go.”

  “The offer’s still on the table. Turn over the materials, including the Bible, you and John split whatever profit comes of it, and he doesn’t file charges.”

  “John should know there’s no profit in a fake Bible.”

  I stared at her. “What? Then why—”

  “I’ll be in contact. Later. Once I’m done with Winston.”

  Behind her, the war cries intensified, and I saw the first smatterings of blue and gray uniforms, the Union Jack and the Stars and Bars rippling like jungle beasts through the undergrowth.

  And then she bolted for the meadow.

  “Don’t!” I screamed. But I was running after her before the words were out of my mouth.

  She hit the tree line and vanished. I plunged in after her. Spanish moss tangled my hair. Palm fronds slapped my face. The interior was all shifting gray light and dappled green, dripping wet, shadow and movement and sogginess. I grabbed a palm tree for support, caught a glimpse of white ducking behind a palmetto. I lunged in that direction…

  But then battle was upon us.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Union horses arrived first—sweaty, dusty, surging—their riders bellowing commands, brandishing curved sabers. I hit the ground at the base of a live oak and scrambled against the trunk, pulling my legs up tight, covering my head with my hands. The cavalry flowed around me in a tide of horseflesh, mud and debris flying from their hooves.

  One of the riders saw me huddled there and pulled his mount to a halt. He threw a hand toward the tents.

  “Get off the field, you idiot!” he yelled. “The artillery’s coming!”

  Too late. The infantry troops charged to meet the riders in the open. The cannons went off with a deafening roar, and a cloud of blue-white smoke rolled over me, opaque and dense. My eyes burned, and I covered my mouth with my shirt, choking on grit and ash.

  The rider snapped the reins and dashed for the field. I hunkered down as the battle raged around me, men in gray massing in the meadow. The Confederates sent up the rebel yell, that infamous unholy whooping cry. It surrounded me, hundreds of men passing it from tongue to tongue, and for a second, I understood the terror of the front line, your own death coming for you with bared teeth.

  The wind whipped the smoke into a column, then as the troops dispersed, thinned it into a haze. I tried to spot Hope, but I knew she was gone. And there was nothing I could do about it except wait until it was safe to move.

  Eventually, the cavalry thundered to the secondary theatre, where a fresh set of cannons and muskets resounded. I waited to make sure everything was clear, then stomped to the sidelines, muttering curses. My phone started ringing as I reached the picnic pavilions.

  I stuck it to my ear, coughing. “Trey! Omigod—”

  “We have the suspect in custody.”

  I coughed some more. “You got her?”

  “Her?”

  “I know she looks like a guy, but—”

  “Who looks like a guy?”

  “Hope!”

  “Hope?”

  I hacked and spit, squinting toward the entrance. Even with my eyes watering, I could see the flicker and spin of blue police lights.

  “I’ll explain in a second. Put her in handcuffs until I get there.”

  A pause. “It’s not Hope.”

  “Of course it is!”

  Another confused pause at his end. “Come to the parking lot.”

  I pushed through the thick fascinated crowd to see Kendrick leading away a handcuffed and protesting figure in bike leathers. Lank black hair fell about the man’s face as he spewed curses.

  Not Hope.

  Trey intercepted me at the orange-ribboned perimeter. “Tai—”

  “Wait a sec, I know that guy. He’s a member of the bike gang that was at Mrs. Simmons’ table. One of her son’s friends.”

  “Earl, I’m told. Dee Lynn caught him stealing the document tube, so she called Sergeant Underwood.”

  “Who?”

  “Your friend Kendrick.” He noticed my disheveled appearance. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  I coughed into my sleeve. “Hope pulled a gun on me and vanished into the woods, and then I almost got trampled by a herd of horses, but other than that, totally fine.”

  Trey looked befuddled. “What?”

  “Hope. Don’t bother sending anyone after her. She’s long gone.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I gave him the condensed version. Earl argued throughout the reading of his rights. I watched as Kendrick shoved him against the side of the cruiser, patting him down quickly and expertly.

  “So Earl’s the thief?”

  “And the killer. He said it was an accident, of course. He admitted he took Simmons to Wassaw, at Simmons’ request. He said there was a fight between them.”

  “And then what? He dumped the old man’s body in the channel, made it look like a drowning?”

  “I don’t know. But that seems probable.”

  I spat out a bug of some kind and wiped my mouth. Earl saw me and started wrestling in his restraints. Spittle flecked his mustache.

  “Arrest that bitch over there!” he yelled. “She’s the one who sold him the map!”

  “I am not!” I yelled back.

  I could hear Earl still bellowing as they shoved him in the police car. The door slammed and the vehicle moved out. Behind us the battle still raged, but it was in its death throes. Soon the doomed would succumb, and the victors would raise their guns in triumph. Soon the trampled grass would straighten and grow toward the sun again.

  Kendrick came over. He looked exhausted and apologetic and way too official.

  “Tai?”

  I sighed. “I know. Time to go downtown. Again.”

  ***

  Trey came with me to the station, but wasn’t allowed into the interview room. Kendrick was polite but firm. Fortunately, as he explained, there was no evidence that I’d done anything illegal. And since I’d been such a good citizen—my connection to Boone notwithstanding—there was no reason to make an arrest or even treat me with anything less than courtesy.

  They had fine coffee at Savannah metro headquarters. I even got a cruller. So far it was better than the Atlanta PD in every way, even if my attempts to convince Kendrick of something nefarious still in the works were not working.

  “The case is done, Tai. He confessed.”

  “To the murder. He’s still accusing me of selling Simmons t
he fake map.”

  “So? I’m not charging you. What’s the big deal?”

  “My reputation is the big deal!”

  “We got the story, and a confession. Case closed.”

  Apparently, once Simmons had figured out the code word and the latitude-longitude markers, he’d decided to head to Wassaw. He didn’t have a boat, however, so he called his son’s friend—that would be Earl—and asked him to take him there and wait on the beach for him to return. Unfortunately, Earl got curious and followed the old man’s trail. When he saw the gold…

  Kendrick scrubbed his face with his hands. “It’s the usual story with the usual protests—didn’t mean to do it, blah blah blah—but he’s sticking to it. Which means we can close this case.”

  “But how did the map get in the tree?”

  “Simmons must’ve heard Earl coming and stashed it there. According to what Earl told us, Simmons swung at him with the shovel. Earl took the shovel away and swung right back—one blow, ka-bang to the side of the head—then panicked when he figured out the old man was dead. So he dragged the body back to the boat, dumped it in the sound on the way back home. He’s claiming self defense.”

  “I’ll bet he is. But this doesn’t explain why Hope—”

  “He says he doesn’t know Hope.”

  “But she and Winston—”

  “—are small potatoes, Tai. Off the radar. That whole mess is a domestic dispute, plain and simple. If your boy John wants to file charges against her, he has to do it in Duval County, Florida, where the crime occurred.”

  I stared at him. “So she’s gonna get away with everything? Creating a forgery? Stealing my identity?”

  Kendrick sat back in his chair. “Identity theft is a crime we can prosecute.”

  “So we can keep chasing Hope?”

  “Chasing her, no. Collecting evidence that she’s the one who stole your identity, yes. And as for trying to link her to the murder, or linking her to this other guy you mentioned—”

  “DiSilva. The original old dead guy. In Florida. The forger.”

  “Yeah. Him. He was a petty criminal, but he died of natural causes. No murder. No crime.”

  “So what about Winston? Hope implied he was up to something. So did this other source of mine.”

  “You mean Skippy who has skipped town?”

  I licked cruller glaze off my fingers. “How’d you know about Skippy?”

  “I’m a cop. I know shit.”

  For a second he reminded me of Garrity, all gruff talk and grumpy professionalism. They were the same kind of cop, that was for sure. Suddenly I missed Garrity. I would have given my whole box of nicotine patches for a chance to sit down with a beer and hash the case out with him.

  I took another sip of coffee. “So haul Winston in here and ask him some tough questions.”

  “We did. He denied everything. And since we’ve got no proof he’s involved in either death, if we keep pestering him, he can sue us for harassment and probably win.”

  “But—”

  “It’s open and shut, Tai. We got a confession. And I like those, very very much.”

  “But—”

  “Go home. Get some rest. Comb the sticks out of your hair and wash your face. Nice to see you again and all, but I mean it. Go home.”

  ***

  Trey took me by Café Gelatohhh on the way back to the hotel. We sat at a tiny table in the City Market courtyard, under the spreading branches of a massive live oak, and he watched while I ate a large helping of panna cotta, slowly and methodically. The sweet coolness salved both my raw throat and my ravaged ego.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  “That’s the third time you’ve asked me that. I’m fine. Here. Eat gelato. It’s organic and locally-sourced.”

  He shook his head. I’d finished explaining everything Kendrick had told me and then dumped my tote bag full of notes on the table for him to read. He was halfway through, already sorting things into piles.

  “I’m not seeing the connection,” he said.

  “But there has to be one! The Bible, the map, the two old dead guys. Something links them together.”

  “Hope and Winston.”

  “I mean motive-wise. There’s a story here that connects all these events, I know there is.”

  Trey paged through the notes, the folders. He got out his pen and drew asterisks in the margins, created flow charts. I ate gelato and watched him draw circles on the notepad. Information maps, one of his tools for organizing data into a spatial perspective.

  I shoved a large spoonful of gelato into my mouth. “I have squeezed every clue I can out of this. John said Winston was involved, so I went to Winston, which got me stalked by parties unknown and you stalked by Hope. And then Reynolds hinted the KKK was involved, so I went to Boone, and he said to watch the Expo, so I did. And sure enough, there was the Klan, but they weren’t doing anything but being obnoxious.”

  Trey turned his yellow pad sideways and frowned at it. Then he reached for his little leather notebook. Didn’t look up, didn’t say one word.

  “But then I learned about the damned map and the missing old guy, so I chased that trail to Wassaw Island. And then Gabriella said it was a fake, and Dee Lynn said it was a fake, so I went back to Winston, which led me to Skip, which led me back to Winston—and Hope—and then to the reenactment—and Hope—and freaking Earl the homicidal biker for crissakes, but I still haven’t seen the damn Bible, which Hope says is fake too, which could be another lie, or which could be the God’s honest truth for all I know. It’s been nothing but dead ends and false leads and—”

  “Tai?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need some quiet, if you don’t mind.”

  I stuck my spoon in my mouth, listened to the clop-clop-clop of the horse-drawn carriages, the babble of tourists, the buzz of traffic. The wind wound through the high green leaves above us, scattering sunlight in dappled pinwheels on the ground. Trey drew more circles, connected them with lines.

  And then he cocked his head. “Tai?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if the sequence of events isn’t linear?”

  I put down the gelato. “What do you mean?”

  “You’re looking at it like this.” He drew three circles, labeled them A and B and C, then drew lines from A to B, and then B to C. “Causal sequencing. One action leading to the next.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “So what if it’s this instead?”

  Then he drew another circle, labeled it A, then below it drew two more circles, one labeled B1 and the other labeled B2.

  “See?” he pronounced. “Branching divergence.”

  He tapped the diagram. All the incidents related to Simmons and the treasure map split onto their own path separate from the main series of events, which started with DiSilva the old forger guy’s death in Florida, proceeded to Hope and John buying the materials from his niece, Hope sneaking off with the Bible, John consulting me, and then…the split.

  Trey tapped the secondary trail. “The inciting incident here is a deliberate attempt to trick Simmons.”

  “Which he fell for.”

  “Yes. But why?”

  “Because he was greedy and foolish?”

  Trey shook his head, tapped the B1 circle again. “No, I’m not asking why Simmons did what he did. I’m asking why Hope did what she did. Why take him the fake map? Why blame you? Why create this entire sequence of events?”

  “Is this you being rhetorical? Because I’m not used to that either.”

  He exhaled in frustration. “It’s not rhetorical. You know motives aren’t my strong point. What possible reason could Hope have for setting this particular sequence of events into play? Because when you discover that, you can extrapolate this second sequence, perhaps predict her next move.”

  I stared at the paper. “She did it for the same reason she came to our hotel—distraction. It’s all a ruse to throw us off the real trail.”

  “The
trail to what?”

  “I don’t know. The real trail is invisible. We only know it exists because of the distraction.”

  “So what could she—”

  “Omigod!” I grabbed Trey’s arm. “That’s why she came to the hotel and got herself on the surveillance camera—long dark hair, slim build—because now she looks like me! Blond and…not slim.”

  Trey’s eyes sharpened. “She was setting up a false description.”

  “And we helped her do it.” I turned the paper around and stabbed at the circle with my finger. “She took the map to Simmons because she knew he’d be at the Expo with me. She knew I’d hear about his treasure hunt because she’d set me up to take the heat for it. And she knew I’d run after that lead like a dog after a squirrel.”

  “All part of the same plan.”

  “Yep. And I fell for it.”

  “We fell for it.”

  I was surprised to hear him use the word “we,” but it applied. She’d outfoxed, outsmarted, and out-connived both of us. Again. Which could only mean one thing—whatever she was trying to distract us from was very very big.

  I spooned up the last bit of gelato. “Winston is the key, I know he is. Hope said as much. And his desk calendar suggests he has something huge and secret happening tonight.”

  “His calendar? How—”

  “Unfortunately, as Kendrick explained, Winston hasn’t done anything illegal. Not yet anyway.”

  Trey didn’t reply. Easy now, I reminded myself. Baiting Trey was a delicate maneuver, hooking him even trickier. One false move, and he’d cut and run.

  “It’s police business, that’s for sure,” I said. “And we should definitely let them handle it.”

  Trey nodded. This was a plan he could support.

  I licked the spoon clean. “But can’t we do both?”

  “Both what?”

  “Let the cops handle it and investigate ourselves? I mean, I can’t actually investigate Winston. I don’t have a security professional’s license. According to the law, I’m just a potential stalker subject to fines and imprisonment.” I tried to sound nonchalant and reasonable. “But you are a licensed security professional, are you not?”

  His expression remained bland. “I am.”

  “So you could see what Winston’s up to tonight, say around seven?”