Blood, Ash, and Bone

by Tina Whittle

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s time for you to see him.”

  “But they won’t—”

  “They will for this badge.”

  I followed him across the room. It wasn’t until he stood in front of Trey that his composure crumbled.

  “Damn, my friend, you look like you stepped into a meat grinder.” Garrity shook his head, his eyes bright again. “Heard you got one of them with a golf club.”

  “The seven iron, yes. Good concentrated force, excellent reach.”

  “Tai told me you had a sword.”

  “A very dull flimsy one that stuck in the scabbard. Utterly useless.” He looked my way. “Is Boone okay?”

  “That old fox?” I managed a laugh. “When he saw that one of Jasper’s guys had a broken arm, he figured out what had happened and locked himself in the safe room with Jefferson.” I shook my head. “I didn’t even know he had a safe room.”

  Trey nodded in approval. “That’s how safe rooms are supposed to work.”

  “He bolted it tight, then called Kendrick. I think it’s the first time in his life he ever voluntarily called a cop.” I stepped closer to Trey. “Are you okay? For real?”

  I watched him do a quick evaluation. Blood pressure, pulse, respiration—check. Vision and hearing—check. All bloodthirsty impulses smoothed and tamed—check.

  “I’m fine,” he said.

  But I remembered watching him step on Jasper’s wrist, the fine bones shattering beneath his heel. I remembered him on the boat—brutal, efficient, powerful. He’d never been more dangerous, or more virile. My response was pure chemistry, the ruthless surge of hormones, all tangled up in flight and fight and…other f-words. I knew it worked that way for him too, that the twin currents of violence and arousal ran parallel, so close they opened into each other at the slightest rendering, flowing in a single artery.

  But now? Now he was calm. He’d sublimated it again, like a trick of the light. I moved closer to him and took his hands. He turned mine palm-up and examined the damage, my fingertips pocked with splinters, bandages covering the nail gouges.

  I reached for him, and he stiffened, the muscles hardening against my touch. I wrapped my arms around him anyway. Maybe his dangerous part was more dangerous than most people’s. I didn’t care.

  “I’d have done anything to get you back,” I whispered against his neck. “Anything.”

  I held him even tighter then. I knew it had to hurt, but he let me anyway. And we stayed that way until Marisa tapped me on the arm. She’d changed back into her black power suit, white-bloused, hair and make-up once again impeccable.

  “You have a visitor,” she said. “Two actually.”

  I looked behind her to see Kendrick standing in the doorway in beat-up jeans and a t-shirt, his badge pinned to his waistband. He held Hope tightly by the elbow. She was wet and dirty and handcuffed, and she looked both resigned and combative, like a polecat in a cage.

  “Found somebody trying to steal your uncle’s boat,” Kendrick said. “ID says Tai Randolph. I’m thinking it’s fake.”

  Chapter Forty-six

  Hope glared at Kendrick. “I told you, I wasn’t stealing the damn boat! Tai told me to get on it!”

  “I suppose she told you to rip off the top of the console and try to hotwire it too.”

  “That wasn’t me!”

  “Right.”

  I stepped forward. “She’s telling the truth, Kendrick. I told her to go there. And I hot-wired the boat.”

  Hope turned the glare on me. I saw no more glimpses of the smooth operator. Her hair was a clump of tangles, and blood streaked her sweatshirt. I realized with a start it was Jasper’s, the spray from Trey’s bullets.

  Kendrick pulled something from under his jacket. “I suppose you can explain this too?”

  He handed me a roll of papers the color of watery parchment. I took them to the counter and unrolled them gingerly. They were old, rain-dappled, the writing penned in looping old-fashioned lines.

  I read the first few words, then stared at Hope. “Is it real?”

  She stared back. “Winston went behind my back to get a bidding war started between Fitzhugh and the KKK for it. So yeah, I’d say it’s real.”

  “You set him up.”

  “He deserved it.” She wiped her cheek on her shoulder, leaving a stripe of mud on the sweatshirt. “When I found out he was trying to cheat me, I took that from his briefcase and left the Bible in there. I moved the forger’s kit back under the counter where the cops could find it. And then I went to watch Winston try to explain himself to the Klan. But I didn’t kill him. I had nothing to do with that.”

  I ran my finger along the powdery surface of the papers. They looked too decrepit to have inspired such mayhem and blood, and not just Winston’s. Centuries of blood.

  Trey rose, steadying himself with a hand on the counter. He examined the papers. “It’s letterhead stationery. From the Marshall House.”

  “Yep. Exactly the same paper the police found in the forger’s kit, which was the same paper used to make the fake treasure map, only that particular piece had its letterhead lopped off.”

  He tilted his head and peered closer. “It looks like notes for an essay.”

  “For a speech, actually, an infamous one. One that wasn’t supposed to exist in any written form.”

  Marisa popped her hands on her hips. “Enough with the drawing room nonsense, what the hell is it?”

  “It’s the Cornerstone Speech.”

  “The what?”

  I took a deep breath. “A speech presented by the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, in 1861. He delivered it a few blocks from here, on Wright Square, declaring clearly and specifically that the foundation of the Confederate nation was the superiority of the white race and its divine right to subjugate lesser races.”

  I’d lapsed easily into the smooth patter of the tour guide, the details drawn verbatim from my memory banks. I saw Wright Square in my head, green with spring. During Stephen’s speech, it had been thronged with cheering white people, too many to fit in the building, all of them delighted to hear their superior nature championed by this officer of the Confederacy.

  I stared at the paper, so genteel and innocent in appearance, so vile in its declarations. “Afterwards Stephens recanted most of it, said the press misquoted him. He said this from a Federal prison. During his visit to Savannah, he stayed at a private residence, but apparently, he spent some time at the Marshall House too, hanging out with other well-heeled rebels. And he made these notes while he was there.”

  Marisa shook her head. “But where have they been all this time?”

  “Probably stuck in storage with other old papers when the Union converted the hotel to a hospital, eventually offered as a lot to anyone willing to haul them away. I’m betting our forger down in Florida picked everything up for cheap. It was only a bunch of old paper, after all. Except that to a forger, it was a gold mine of raw materials.”

  Marisa joined Trey and me at the counter. “That’s it? Two people dead, multiple felonies on the tab, for…that?”

  Every eye in the room went to the document. Not gold, not jewels. Four crumbling pieces of paper, hardly worth a second glance.

  I handed the papers back to Kendrick. “Jasper was right about one thing—it wasn’t about money.”

  Trey frowned. “What possible motive could he have had for stealing this from his own organization except to sell it and make money?”

  “He thought it was his duty. He knew the Klan didn’t want to honor the speech—they wanted to hide it.”

  The silence in the room thickened. Everybody stared at me, baffled. Except for Hope. She knew the score as well as I did.

  I sat on the edge of the counter. “We’re talking about the new Klan, a bunch of pamphlet-pushing revisionists. They’ve put a spin job on the entire Confederacy—it wasn’t about slavery, they say, it was about state’s rights, and they’re not anti-black, they’re pro-whi
te.” I pointed. “That piece of paper? It undoes every bit of propaganda they’ve created. Jasper started his own militia group within the KKK, remember? Something like the Cornerstone Speech may be inconvenient for the new Klan, but for people like Jasper? It’s holy writ.”

  I remembered his words on the dock, the glow of the fanatic. He believed in the words on the old paper, had been willing to kill for them. By any means necessary, he’d said.

  “Jasper was on the selectmen council,” I said. “He was one of the few who knew the Grand Wizard was purchasing the Cornerstone Speech from Winston, and he knew what would happen to it if they did. So he and his militia buddies killed Winston and stole the briefcase before he could make the exchange.”

  I pointed to Hope. “Only the document wasn’t in there, thanks to Hope here. So they started looking for it, thinking that if Winston didn’t have it, Fitzhugh probably did. But Fitzhugh didn’t—he was too busy trying to cover his own lying, thieving tracks. Next, they decided Phoenix had it. So they broke into Trey’s hotel room. Hope saw them, in uniform, headed into the hotel from the dock. She thought I’d squealed on her and ran.”

  Hope didn’t argue. A lot of the spit and vinegar had gone out of her, but her cunning remained. I could sense her juggling her options, trying to find an escape clause.

  I moved to stand in front of her. “I still don’t get it. You’re smart. You knew what kind of evil bastards you were dealing with. Why didn’t you drop this a long time ago?”

  “I told you, I needed the money. The business is going under because John’s an idiot, so the IRS is coming after me. Winston told me the Bible was a forgery, but insisted we could probably still find a buyer.” Her eyes hardened. “He didn’t mention the real document he’d found, oh no, he didn’t breathe a word about that.”

  So that was the story—greed, revenge, stubbornness. Nothing new under the sun. I turned to Kendrick. “So now what?”

  He shrugged. “Now we take her in.”

  “What?” Hope struggled in his grasp. “You can’t stick me in jail! What if Jasper’s got men in there?”

  I folded my arms. “I have a hard time caring.”

  She was panting now, desperate. We’d been friends once. She’d been exactly this person then—charismatic and adventurous, selfish and devious—and she’d be this person forever. John too. Neither of them had changed one bit.

  I looked over at Trey. Stalwart, patient, honest. Again and again he showed up for me, and again and again he would. John really was an idiot, but he had one thing right—my taste in men really had changed.

  Hope noticed me looking in Trey’s direction. “You can’t put me in jail. You need me to testify.” She licked her lips. “You help me, I’ll say Trey saved my life.”

  My temper finally snapped its leash. “Damn straight you will. It’s the only hope you have for a shred of leniency.” I stepped closer, right in her face. “But we don’t need you, we’ve got real-time footage. So let me put this in terms you’ll understand. It’s your neck on the line if you don’t cooperate, not Trey’s, so you’d best spill the truth, sister, every drop of it. You hear me?”

  She froze, the reality of her situation finally knocking the perverse hard-headedness right out of her. She nodded, and Kendrick pulled her uncomplaining into the hall. I felt a surge of relief. Finally, somebody besides me was getting hauled downtown.

  Trey watched them leave. “Marisa says I have to go to the ER now.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you come with me?”

  I knew I’d spend hours in the waiting room chewing my nails, that I’d end up bumming a cigarette from some orderly before it was over, sucking it down behind some dumpster. I knew I’d drink too much bad coffee and fill out paperwork while the real action played out here with Marisa and Sergeant Kendrick and Federal Agent Garrity.

  I patted his shoulder. “Of course, Trey. Whatever you need.”

  Chapter Forty-seven

  I didn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed beside Trey until Marisa came for him at nine to fly back to Atlanta. I helped him dress, biting my lip every time he sucked in a breath. He’d insisted on doing his job, however, on seeing it through until the end, and I couldn’t deny him that.

  I stayed behind to pack. I ignored my phone—most of the calls were from John, and I’d had enough of him. The hotel room became a revolving door of concerned friends and relatives and hotel staff. First Billie, who cried and hugged me, then Dee Lynn, who cussed and hugged me, followed by housekeeping with some complimentary room service and a delivery person with a pot of flowers.

  Marigolds. No card.

  So when I heard knocking yet again, I answered the door with a mite more attitude than I should have. “What now?”

  Trey stood there. “I’m sorry. I turned my key in when I left.”

  “What the…get in here.” I took his hand and pulled him inside. “I thought you were on a plane to Atlanta.”

  “I was. But then Garrity and his new partner showed up to handle things from there.”

  “Officially?”

  Trey nodded. He was moving even more stiffly than when he’d left, and his eyes were glazed with pain. I led him to the sofa, and he sat.

  “Garrity met me on the tarmac and told me he’d escort the flight back to the city limits. He told me I wasn’t to argue.” Trey leaned back gingerly. “He also said there are APD and FBI officers waiting to interview Reynolds.”

  “About the sword? Really?”

  “Not about the sword. The fire.”

  I did a doubletake. “What fire?”

  “The one in Audrina Harrington’s collection room.”

  “Reynolds is an arsonist?”

  “No, not Reynolds. Fitzhugh.”

  My memory flashed—Fitzhugh getting on the elevator, head high, saying that he’d take care of his problem himself. “Are you telling me Fitzhugh set her safe room on fire?”

  Trey shot me a sharp look. “He tried to. But that room is protected by a liquid-to-gas fire suppression system. He panicked when the alarm tripped, inhaled the fluorochemical spray and went into shock. Audrina called 911. The EMTs called the police.”

  Trey related this story with an edge of satisfaction in his voice and the tiniest hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. I suppressed my own grin.

  “Is he okay?”

  “Of course. The gas has a no-effect level of ten percent. Practically non-toxic.”

  “And the Harrington’s collection?”

  “Unharmed.”

  “Also full of fakes, isn’t it?”

  He considered how much he could tell me. “That’s being determined by the Harrington’s insurance adjustor. Which is why Reynolds is being interviewed, not because he’s being charged with a crime.”

  “And Fitzhugh?”

  “No charges filed, not yet. But Garrity says there will be, probably with RICO statutes since it’s a multi-state investigation.”

  “So this is his first case as Agent Garrity?”

  Trey nodded.

  “You don’t seem happy about this.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “In the past decade, there have been three Major Crime Liaisons with the FBI. The first went to prison for extortion. The second was gunned down in his driveway. The third resigned and moved to Los Angeles.”

  I winced. “Oh. That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s not. Garrity will be good. But the job is…”

  “Problematic?”

  He nodded. “Very problematic.”

  As was Garrity’s first case, this stew of pride and greed and domestic terrorism. “So what will happen to the Cornerstone Speech?”

  “It will stay in evidence until its rightful owner is decided.”

  “Which will most likely be the state of Georgia.”

  “Most likely, yes.”

  I felt a twinge of regret. So much for my fifteen percent finder’s fee.

  Trey pulled out his phone. “I’m officially on duty un
til the plane lands. Garrity said he’d let me know when that happened.” The phone chirped at him, a text coming in. “Which should be about now.”

  Sure enough, it was Garrity, reporting that everyone was safely back on Fulton County turf. Trey loosened his tie and pulled it off. Another text came in. He cocked one eye at it and then stuck the phone in his pocket without response.

  “Marisa?” I said.

  He nodded.

  “You’re not taking it?”

  “I’m off duty now.” He shrugged out of his jacket, wincing as he did so. The shoulder holster went next, then the Phoenix ID. “Where did you put the codeine?”

  I finished untucking his shirt. “You rest. I’ll get it.”

  ***

  We set out a little past noon, after some time on the couch for Trey and more sorting and packing for me. I’d run some quick numbers, and it looked like my hand-sewn underwear had fetched me a tiny profit, a fact I put in the win column. I’d tried to get Trey to go to sleep while I loaded the car, but he refused. Instead he’d watched the river. Quiet, deep in thought.

  Now, he stretched out in the Camaro and tilted his head back against the passenger seat. I slammed the trunk and slid behind the wheel, noticing once again his little leather notebook open in his lap, a mechanical pencil stuck behind his ear.

  “You’re off duty, remember?”

  “This isn’t work.”

  “What is it then?”

  “Not work.”

  He offered no further explanation. As I cranked up the Camaro, I slid a surreptitious glance at the pages. A list of some kind, neatly lettered. Trey saw me looking and closed the book, but he didn’t put it away.

  “Better not be work,” I said.

  Trey shook his head. I pulled out of the parking space, the morning-after sunshine as clean and shiny as a new penny. Trey faced the window, but I thought I saw that almost-smile at the corner of his mouth.

  Instead of taking the interstate back to Atlanta, I crested the bridge and took Highway 80 instead, passing liquor stores and cotton fields and farms with giant Confederate flags as big as swimming pools. Trey watched the landscape pass. We had the windows down. His hair blew and tousled, but he didn’t seem to mind. He closed his eyes and turned his face into the breeze.