by Tina Whittle
“Trey has a copy. It’s an excellent primer, lots of practical advice. I’m sure he’ll let you borrow it.”
I folded the paper and stuck it in my pocket. “Thank you.”
“Because we’re coming up on the ninth, you know. And anniversaries can trigger—”
“I know. We’ve talked about it.”
“Good.” Eric shouldered his messenger bag and climbed out, pulling his suitcase from the backseat. “I’ll be back Sunday night. We can talk more then.”
“Okay.”
He hesitated, then leaned back in the car. “I don’t know why a skeleton had one of Dexter’s key rings. I don’t think that’s something you ought to be trying to figure out. I do know it would mean a lot to Dexter that you’re still making a go of the shop. Dotty too. And it would mean even more to them—and to me, and to all of us who love you, including Trey—if you can manage to stay alive while you’re doing it.”
I felt my throat constrict. “I’ll do my dead level best.”
He shut the door. I threw him a wave, pulled back into the stream of traffic. He waved back, but didn’t move from his spot in front of the terminal. I watched him as he became a shrinking speck in my rearview mirror. Eventually I couldn’t see him anymore. But I knew he was there.
Chapter Fifteen
From Peachtree Street, the Atlanta History Center looks deceptively urban and bland. Behind its beige exterior, however, lie thirty-three acres of greenness, including several vegetable gardens, a 1928 Classical-style mansion, and a Civil War-era farmhouse that somehow survived Sherman’s torch. Unfortunately, the outdoor exhibits were deserted this morning, including the blacksmith shop.
“We don’t have another blacksmith program scheduled until Saturday,” the docent at the front desk said. She was a slight woman, with jet black hair and red nails and a librarian’s hushed voice.
“Perhaps you can help me. My Uncle Dexter used to volunteer here.”
I pulled out the photograph I’d found of Dexter, delivering his presentation amidst the smoke and hot bellowed air, metal glowing in his tongs like a miniature sun, his face red and cheerful in the firelight.
Her eyes lit up. “I remember him! Big guy, walked with a cane?”
“That’s him.” I showed her my key ring. “Do you remember him making these?”
The docent examined the key ring. “Sorry, no. I can always ask Dr. Amberdecker about it. She’s busy right now, of course, but—”
“Evie Amberdecker? I don’t suppose there’s any chance I could see her?”
The docent pursed her lips. “Oh no, that wouldn’t be possible. Would you like to leave a note?”
“That will do, I guess.”
She sent some paper and a pen my way. I jotted down my contact info with a quick summary of the situation. I handed it back to the docent, who folded it neatly and placed it in a memo box. And then she handed me a map and schedule.
“Enjoy your visit!” she said, beaming.
I walked to the middle of the main atrium, where hallways branched into the separate exhibit areas. Had I been in the mood, I could have explored Atlanta’s role in the Masters Tournament, the Centennial Olympic Games, the Southern Folk Art Revival. But of course I was drawn to the hallway concealed behind thick crimson curtains and a CLOSED sign. The Amberdecker exhibit—“Homecoming: The Life and Death of a Confederate Soldier.”
I looked back at the help desk. The nice lady docent chatted up a new visitor, while her assistant worked the phone. I looked back at the exhibit. No guard, no locked door, nothing between me and the shadowed interior but a red velvet rope. Another quick check down the adjacent hallways, and I stepped over the rope and slipped behind the curtain, letting the drapery close behind me with a heavy exhalation, like the doors of a church.
I eased around a partition, grateful for the recessed overheard lights that warmed and softened and, I hoped, concealed. The space was silent except for my sneakers on the golden hardwood and the thunder of distant cannonade, sound effects from hidden speakers. The exhibit was arranged in a walk-through fashion, each display leading further into the labyrinth. It was probably enormous in that hall, yet it felt close, intimate.
And it started with a life-size replica of the gentleman himself. Private Braxton Percival Amberdecker. Rose Amberdecker’s great-great-grandfather.
His likeness wore the uniform of the Confederate infantryman—a gray shell-jacket and a pair of gray cloth trousers and a sky-blue kepi with a dark blue band. A replica of his .45-caliber Whitworth rifle, a rare and legendary firearm of the finest workmanship, rested in his arms. The bayonet attached to it was genuine, found with his remains—I could barely make out his name engraved on the blade. The figure’s eerily realistic features bore an expression of stoic, blue-eyed acceptance. I could see Rose in those eyes, and in the square chin, but the heartbreaking softness of his freckled cheeks above the mustache was his alone.
I’d looked him up in the second volume of Dexter’s dusty Roster of Confederate Soldiers. The private had served in the 41st Georgia, Company B, seeing action at Vicksburg before returning to Georgia late in the summer of 1863. A fractured arm earned him a thirty-day furlough back on the Amberdecker plantation, after which he returned to his regiment. The summer of 1864, he went missing during the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain, presumed dead. And that was the end of his story until yet another hot summer day two years past, very much like the day he’d disappeared.
A voice startled me. “Excuse me, but this exhibit isn’t open to the public yet.”
I turned. Dr. Evie Amberdecker stood there, no longer in field gear. She wore a smart maroon suit with pantyhose and sensible heels, her brown hair subdued in a bun. In the half-light, the resemblance to her ancestor’s effigy was stunning, right down to the assertive jaw and the freckles spattering the bridge of her nose.
I stuck out my hand. “Hi again, I’m Tai Randolph. From yesterday?”
Recognition bloomed on her features. She took my hand. Her grip was soft but strong, calloused below the thumb, a scholarly hand that also did hard labor. “Evie, please. Despite my performance yesterday, I don’t usually pull the ‘Dr. Amberdecker’ routine.” She winced. “I do apologize. I think I yelled.”
“It was a tough morning. No apology necessary.”
“Richard told me afterward that you were Dexter’s niece. He said you came out to help, and I didn’t appreciate that at the time. But I do now, and so does Mama. Really.”
“You have a sister too, right? Chelsea? Was she there yesterday?”
Evie’s nose wrinkled slightly. “No, she was tied up with yet another dress-fitting.”
“That’s right. Richard said she’s getting married soon.”
Evie’s mouth twitched, but she covered it with a tight smile. “In two weeks. Her bridal luncheon is tomorrow, at the High. As if I didn’t have enough to do with the opening happening the same weekend, and now Braxton’s remains in the wind. Literally.”
There was tension between the sisters, that was clear. A simple big-sis-little-sis squabble? Or something deeper, more entrenched? I tried to gauge Evie’s expression, but she’d made her face as bland as the mannequin’s.
“So they haven’t found the bones yet?” I said.
“Not yet. Which makes this whole homecoming theme rather poignant.” She inhaled briskly. “I’m going back this afternoon, once I can get the reporters out of my hair and these clothes back in the closet.”
“I thought it was still a closed crime scene?”
“Not anymore. The cops did an aerial surveillance, gathered what evidence they could, then called it a day. Which makes it my scene again.”
“So they’ve identified the skull?”
“If they have, they’re not telling me about it. I couldn’t care less, though. Probably some looter tripped and cracked his head open, which serves him
right. I’m tempted to let Mama start shooting them. Or simply shoot them myself. It’s been a while since I took the Winchester out, but pulling a trigger is like riding a bike.”
She had her mother’s remorseless practicality, that was certain, and probably her overprotective streak too. I thought hard about my next move and decided that straight-up honesty was my best bet.
“I’m sorry to sneak behind the rope like that, but I’ve got my own family mystery to unravel.” I showed her the key ring. “My Uncle Dexter made this. He worked as a docent here a few years ago, in the blacksmith shop. Do you remember him?”
She smiled, in genuine delight this time. “Of course I remember!”
“Do you remember if he made these for anyone else?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t.”
I slipped it back in my pocket. “I saw his demonstration only once before he died. But I think he’s connected to your family, and that skull, in some way I haven’t figured out yet, so I’m hoping…I don’t know what I’m hoping. But I look at this exhibit, at the work you’ve done, and I think you understand why I have to find some answers.”
The straight-up approach worked. Evie checked her watch. “I have an hour before the news crew arrives. Would you like to join me on my final walk-through, Ms. Randolph?”
“Call me Tai,” I said. “And absolutely.”
Chapter Sixteen
I moved quietly through the exhibit, Evie at my side. She stopped me at the first display, where a pretend fireplace burned with orange licks of faux flame. A dark-haired female mannequin dressed in black mourning sat in a rocking chair, a notebook in her lap. Another female figure—also in black, her blond hair in an elaborate plait—gazed at the mantel, one slender plastic hand resting there, the other on top of her pregnant belly. Between them stood a matronly figure in a dark slate housedress, hands on hips, gray hair in a netted bun, eyes like blue bullets.
Evie gestured with an upturned palm. “Meet the Amberdecker women. That’s my great-great-great-great-aunt Violet, Braxton’s younger sister, in the rocker. We used her sketches, including her self-portraits, to create the models you’ll see today.”
I examined the three figures. “They’re incredibly lifelike.”
“Part of that is technology—the hyperrealism of silicone skin—but the rest is Violet’s talent. She had a way of capturing not only each person’s distinct features, but also each unique personality. Unfortunately, all we have of her are her sketches. Her diaries and journals were lost in a kitchen fire just after the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain.”
I stepped closer. Violet seemed poised on the verge of springing from the rocker, her blue eyes bright in her pale pixie face. Childlike, but not innocent, an unsettling combination.
“She look a little manic,” I said.
Evie’s expression remained smooth. “Violet eventually went mad and was committed to a mental institution, where she died at the age of twenty. Suicide from an overdose of laudanum.”
Her words hung heavy in the air. “That’s awful,” I said.
“It was. I have a special fondness for Violet, who was the black sheep of my family in many ways. But more about that later. Let me introduce my great-great-great-grandmother now.”
We moved to the left of the tableau, stopping before the pregnant blonde. This figure seemed prissily bored, the slight curl in her tiny rosebud mouth rippling with genteel contempt.
Evie folded her arms. “And this is Evangeline Davenport Amberdecker, Braxton’s wife.”
“She looks annoyed.”
“She was. The daughter of wealthy Northerners, Evangeline was betrothed to Braxton in a marriage that was more business arrangement than love match and which was bitterly unhappy on both sides.”
I pointed at the swollen belly. “They managed to get along for a little while.”
Evie laughed. “Well, that was their duty, of course. She was carrying their first and only child when he went missing in action at the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain. Her parents had moved her back to Maryland by then, however, so that child—my great-great-grandfather—was born in Chesapeake Bay. He didn’t return to Georgia until 1895, when he reclaimed the land that is now the Amberdecker plantation and rebuilt it.”
I stepped to the edge of the display, looked the stern central figure in the eye. “And this is?”
“Augusta Rose Amberdecker, my great-great-great-great-grandmother and the matriarch of the clan. You’ll notice she’s not in mourning. That’s because she refused to acknowledge Braxton’s death. This put her at odds with her other two children, and with her daughter-in-law, who seemed quite eager to be a widow and put her unfortunate marriage, and Georgia, behind her.”
“Augusta Rose. Is she your mother’s namesake?”
Evie nodded. “And not just the name got passed down. Mama also inherited her stubborn streak.”
“Richard told me your mother wasn’t too happy about parting with the family heirlooms for this exhibit.”
“My mother would keep everything in the closet if she had her way. Sometimes I think she expects the Yankees to make another run at us.” She started walking. “There’s only one section of our land that has ever been excavated, and that was back when the greenhouse was built over the ruins of the old slave quarters.”
I stopped abruptly when I reached the next tableau. This shadowy corner explored a darker aspect of plantation life—the labors of the enslaved—and as such contained the artifacts of an everyday, ordinary evil. The ten-pound bucket of nails that was a slave’s required daily output at the forge. The slave ship manifests listing human beings as cargo. Every mundane thing, from the soup ladles to the pottery, felt touched by a sadness so pervasive it would never rub off.
Evie’s voice was calm, however. “These artifacts tell the Amberdecker story as much as the rest. They speak of their participation in an inhuman institution. But they also demonstrate that by all surviving accounts, my ancestors were not brutal people. They provided religious services and health care for the enslaved workers, and Violet often taught the children how to read and draw—”
“But not write,” I said. “Because that was illegal.”
Evie’s eyes widened in mild surprise—she hadn’t expected me to know that—but she recovered smoothly. “Correct. Violet flouted the law, however. She was reprimanded multiple times for bringing free persons of color onto the plantation under the guise of religious instruction, when in reality, they were probably underground educators. It’s one of the reasons I have such a fondness for her.”
Evie started walking again, and I followed, relieved to put that display behind me. I was on a fact-finding mission, I reminded myself, not a soapbox. But I couldn’t help the dull seethe of anger. Or the guilt. Both were part of my Southern baggage, inextricable.
We stopped next at a three-dimensional replica of the Kennesaw Mountain battlefield and surrounding land, including the Amberdecker property. I recognized the area I’d trekked the day before, now rendered in miniature, bordered by the ridge of Kennesaw Mountain. I poked one of the push buttons lining the perimeter, and the terrain lit up where Braxton’s bones had been found. Another button illuminated the chapel and the cemetery, pristine and intact, unlike their real-life counterparts.
I resisted the urge to touch the tiny gravestones. “I’ve heard rumors this land is haunted.”
“You’ve been listening to Joe Ben, haven’t you?”
“He does talk.” I pressed another button and watched the front line of the Confederate defense light up across the mountain, where sharpshooters had hidden in the red clay earthworks, as gray and silent as ghosts themselves. “I used to be a tour guide in Savannah. The supernatural was my specialty. And the War Between the States.”
Evie kept her eyes on the display. “This is a story of a haunting, yes, but not how Joe Ben thinks. Violet had a premo
nition that her brother would never return from battle. She had a dream, she said, her brother dying in the forest, undiscovered. That was a pervasive fear then, even more than dying, so much so that some soldiers pinned their names to their backs, or etched them into their daggers and bayonets, as Braxton did. Indeed, his personalized bayonet was instrumental in identifying the remains as his.”
“You didn’t run DNA?”
She shook her head. “My mother wouldn’t allow it. And really, it wasn’t necessary. We had anecdotal evidence that established his identity—a fracture of the left ulna, documented in his medical papers—plus the bayonet.”
“Richard said the evidence indicated he was trying to get home from the battlefield.”
“All we know is that he was buried prone, arms splayed, the Minié ball that killed him still in his skull.” Evie rubbed the bridge of her nose. “A single shot, right between the eyes.”
I winced. Minié balls were notorious for the damage they inflicted—tearing, lacerating, splintering. Over sixty thousand amputations were performed in the Civil War, most of them due to this deceptively small piece of lead.
“The in situ presentation demonstrated that he wasn’t given a proper Christian burial—that’s usually face up, supine. It suggested that he died where he fell and was covered with dirt, his body eventually becoming entangled in the roots of a tree growing nearly. That’s how he was found, you know. When the tree fell.”
“Richard told me. He said the bones were red.”
“They were, as you can see from the photographs in the program. They were buried in stratified red clay, which created a staining pattern quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Beautiful, actually.” Evie stepped forward, pulling open a set of drapes. “Braxton left us his bones, Violet her art. Augusta Rose’s stubbornness left us these.”
