“You need a statement from me?”
“Not tonight. I’ll let Nakayla take you home. We’ll talk in the morning. That is after I chew your ass out for your boneheaded solo operation.”
“Love you, too.”
Newly disappeared back into the house. A few minutes later I heard gurney wheels squeaking as EMTs rolled Dustin Henry out the front door. Nakayla helped me stand. I caught his eye and he told the responders to stop.
“Sorry to have dropped out on you,” he rasped.
“If you hadn’t thrown that elbow, neither of us would be here.”
“Is it true we were saved by a ninety-year-old woman?”
“And her raccoon. In rhinestones.”
He grinned and then grimaced as the bruised facial muscles pained him. “And we gave our story a good try.”
“Yeah, until I went one sentence too long.”
He reached up from the gurney and grabbed my arm. The grip was strong. “They were going to kill us anyway, Sam. But an actor never gives up on a good scene. As for talking too long, sometimes an actor’s best lines are the ones never spoken.”
Nakayla and I watched as they loaded Dustin into the rear of an ambulance. We didn’t speak until the siren’s echo faded from the hills.
“Let’s go to the office,” Nakayla said.
“The office?”
“Yes. I left Blue in charge and we don’t have money to pay our dog overtime.”
“Our dog?”
“Yes. Either that or I find a new boyfriend.”
“A good woman, a good dog. What else do I need?”
She stepped back and looked at me. “A bath would be a start.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Roland Cassidy insisted that Nakayla and I ride with him and Dustin Henry in his rented stretch limousine. Although Asheville’s downtown Fine Arts movie theater was only half a block from our office, Cassidy said there was no one else he’d rather arrive with than the three of us.
The Friday night world premiere was a sellout with all proceeds going to a local charity that worked with disabled veterans. I couldn’t say no.
As the chauffeur drove us up Biltmore Avenue, where shops and restaurants were adorned with Christmas decorations, I thought back over what had transpired in the eight months since that bloody Friday night. Raymond Braxton had pled guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for his testimony. Osteen had promised him a hundred grand for his role in falsifying checks and invoices. Osteen and the Secretary of Commerce would have split two-point-four million dollars in rebates, plus Osteen created real overages paid to companies he controlled, overages like those caused by the building supplies theft. A full audit showed him on track to clear more than three million dollars by the time the movie wrapped.
Secretary of Commerce Lanier Hudson had been found guilty of being a co-conspirator in two capital murders and was awaiting sentencing. The North Carolina Legislature had rewritten its film incentive program to be more transparent and competitive with other states’ rebate plans.
The investigation after the shootout revealed that Mick Ritchie had been the electrician who had installed the alarm system in the Black Mountain College Museum. He’d set up the security code. Braxton had testified that Ritchie learned Beale was going to tell me what he suspected about the lumber theft. Ritchie warned Osteen who told him to take care of Beale. Ritchie had come up with the museum idea on his own, murdered Beale in his front yard, and staged the museum scene to look like Beale had broken in. He’d driven Beale’s truck and body to the museum and then phoned Osteen to pick him up a few blocks away and drive him back to his truck. Osteen was angry with Ritchie for what he saw as an unnecessary and foolish action, but now the die was cast and he had to play it out.
But instead of throwing the police off the trail, it brought Nakayla and me in. That was why Osteen offered to hire us—so that he could monitor our investigation.
The movie had been set up as a limited liability corporation that allowed the funds for filming to flow unimpeded. As Osteen’s only heir, Roland Cassidy became executive producer. He and newly promoted Camille Brooks both rose to the occasion and, under Marty Kolsrud’s direction, the film was completed on time and on budget. Colvertson Filmworks, a major producer and distributor of independent films, snatched up the rights, and the Hollywood buzz mentioned potential Oscar nominations for Grayson Beckner and Nicole Madison. The money that Osteen and Hudson killed for was likely to pale in comparison to the profits the film would generate.
As for Cassidy, he was finishing up the first draft of a book based on the case, including the connection to Paul Weaver’s death so many years ago. Lindsay Boyce had been given permission from the FBI powers-that-be to speak on the record and Violet Baker had not objected.
The limo slowed as we neared the theater. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk where a red carpet had been spread. It wasn’t exactly Hollywood, but for Asheville, it was damned impressive. Nakayla wore a stunning azure dress, and Cassidy, Dustin, and I were three mismatched penguins in tuxedos. Mine had to be returned to the rental shop by ten the next morning.
A doorman opened the passenger door and Nakayla stepped out onto the carpet and into the flashes of phone cameras. Grayson and Nicole looked up from where they stood signing autographs and waved. I followed and took Nakayla by the arm. The prospect of arriving by limo that had seemed so ridiculously over the top was suddenly the coolest thing in the world. I walked proudly beside my beautiful partner, walked proudly on my new prosthesis since Mick Ritchie’s bullet had ruined my old one. A bullet that ballistics proved came from the same gun that killed Nancy Pellegatti.
“Hold up, Sam.” Roland Cassidy caught me by the arm.
I turned to find him giddy with excitement.
“I have a little surprise.” He pointed to a limousine pulling into the space vacated by our own.
I looked at Dustin Henry who only shrugged. He was as clueless as I was.
“We know there was more behind the stories Harlan told me than I realized,” Cassidy said. “I think it only fitting that all my characters be here.”
The limo stopped, the doorman went into action, and Leah Rosen and Eleanor Johnson exited arm in arm. Behind them came Ellie’s granddaughter, Mercy.
I felt a lump in my throat and regretted that I hadn’t suggested it. But they weren’t alone. Violet Baker emerged with a spry old gentleman in his ancient Army dress uniform.
Captain was making his move.
We stepped aside, letting the real stars enter the theater first. Then, before Nakayla and I followed, I looked up at the marquee. Chaser lights circled the words “World Premiere” written above the film’s title. A title that had journeyed from Love Among the Ridges to Battle Scars to a new title suggested by Cassidy. A title that reflected what often can’t be seen, yet is carried by combat veterans of all wars, by all refugees, by all who’ve lived in the camps and confines of executioners from Hitler to ISIS. Those who bear the wounds we cannot see but who need healing all the same. The film bore witness to their stories, and so Cassidy’s title had struck a chord with me.
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” I left some of my own anxiety from the past on that red carpet and walked forward with Nakayla to see Hidden Scars.
Author’s Note
Although this book is a work of fiction, many of its elements are based on historical facts. Black Mountain College was an innovative school founded by revolutionary educators and its fine arts-centered approach to learning attracted students and faculty whose names represent some of the leading luminaries of the twentieth century. A trip to the Black Mountain College Museum in Asheville will provide a fuller appreciation of the school’s impact.
The Venona Project was a closely guarded secret that allowed the United States to decode Soviet cables a
nd led to the discovery of numerous spies working within the country. I have no evidence that any of those cables mentioned Black Mountain College or specific students or faculty members, however, declassified FBI documents as recently as 2015 prove that the school was on the FBI’s watchlist for Communist sympathizers, and students were often approached by FBI agents. The closing of the school in 1957 has been attributed in part to the efforts of the government to disqualify the college’s students from receiving tuition funds through the G.I. Bill. I find it encouraging that a renewed interest in the “Black Mountain Experiment” is growing at a time when education budgets are being slashed, arts programs face elimination, and liberal arts degrees promoting imagination are discouraged as “not marketable job skills.”
References to the North Carolina Film Incentives are taken directly from their guidelines. The “improvements” in the program claimed by the state legislature have succeeded in drying up film production and sent millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs to Georgia.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to my friends Woody and Mickey Farmer who not only let me house one of my characters with them, but also were good sports to play a role in the story.
I’m grateful to Poisoned Pen Press, Robert Rosenwald, Barbara Peters, and the staff for making this adventure of Sam and Nakayla possible. Also to my family members Linda, Melissa, Pete, Lindsay, Jordan, and Charlie for being in my life.
In the age of The Art of the Deal, the art of being—being loved, being compassionate, being welcoming—is an art I hope all the heroes of my stories personify, and an art we can practice and defend with the assurance that we, readers and writers alike, are on the right side of history.
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