“Oh, God, no! I made a point not to get involved,” Barry had said.
“Did you see who started it? And was anyone passionately opposed to one man or the other?”
“I think Hickory started it,” Barry had answered. “And I think he was being an ass. I mean really, who the hell cared? It was all about whether a black man had really been there, but Jonathan said there’s no real proof either way. And in New Orleans these days, we’re such a mixed bag, no one notices anyone’s skin color any more than they notice hair color. I know we’re talking history, but...” He’d shrugged. “It just wasn’t worth fighting about, you know?”
“Cut!” Brad called, jerking Ethan abruptly back to the present.
He had been kneeling, head bowed, as he contemplated the earth he’d risen from and to which, he assumed—he hadn’t read the whole script—he would return when his protective presence was no longer needed.
“Damn, but you look the part,” Mike said.
“Thanks,” Ethan said.
“Too bad you’re a Fed,” Brad told him. “You look great on film. You could make a career of this, if you wanted.”
“Thanks. I have to admit it’s fun,” Ethan said, keeping his eye on Charlie. He could see the catering tent from his vantage point. She’d looked a little lost when she went in and found herself alone, but she was now speaking with Jennie and Jimmy. Something about her body language seemed off, though, as if she were trying too hard to act casual.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I’d just like to make sure Charlie is doing okay, seeing as you’re filming so close to where she found the body and all.”
“Yeah, this is kind of awkward for all of us,” Mike said. “I feel like we should do more to respect the dead, but at the same time, we paid for permits. And we’ve all got our lives and finances wrapped up in this thing, so we’ve pretty much got to keep going.”
“You moved the filming as far away from the burial site as you could. Nothing else you can do,” Ethan said.
He’d known both Thornton brothers forever, though he was older, so they hadn’t been close friends.
“You know,” Brad said, suddenly passionate, “we’d never let anything happen to Charlie.”
“We’d die for her,” Mike added softly.
Brad nodded.
“Yeah. I believe you,” Ethan said, nodding, then walked away, anxious to get to Charlie. It was already late afternoon. Where the hell had the day gone?
She spotted him as he entered the catering tent, and smiled broadly—too broadly.
“I’m done for the day,” she said. “I’m going to go change clothes. What about you?”
“I’m done, too, though I think I need a bath,” he said.
“I think we all need baths. Even those of us who didn’t roll around in the dirt,” Jennie said. She raised her voice and asked the larger group, “Anyone want to meet for dinner?”
A round of “okay” and “sure” answered her.
Ethan looked at Charlie and found her looking at him.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like to walk over to the graveyard first, though.”
“Charlie, you’re obsessed with that place,” Luke said. “If you ask me, you should stay away.”
“Hey, my mom is buried there,” she reminded them.
“Leave her alone,” Jennie said. “How does two hours sound? That gives everyone time to clean up, and hopefully, the café will still be open.”
“They serve until ten,” Luke offered. “We should be fine.”
The group began to split up, actors heading over to the “dressing rooms” to change or down the road to their cars, crew gathering equipment. Ethan and Charlie both left to change. He asked her not to head out to the graveyard without him.
“Nope. Don’t intend to,” she assured him.
She looked almost wild, he thought, her chestnut hair tousled, her eyes so dark they were almost indigo.
He was ready before her, his Glock tucked into the back of his jeans.
She appeared a few minutes later, and they headed for the graveyard. In place of her stilettos, Charlie now wore sneakers as they moved through the tangle of high grass, brush and weeds.
She still didn’t seem like herself, so when she didn’t say anything he demanded, “What happened?”
He’d expected her to dodge the question, but instead she answered honestly right away.
“Someone threw a knife at me,” she said.
He paused, staring at her. “What? Who?”
“I don’t know—if I knew, I would tell you.”
“You’re sure? Where did it happen? When?”
She inhaled deeply, then let her breath out in a rush. “No, I’m not sure, but... I went to Anson McKee’s grave. And then he appeared and kept telling me to go. I tried to ask him what he was talking about, but he just kept telling me to go, so I went. I ran. And then I could swear I saw a knife go flying past my head.”
“What kind of a knife?”
“I don’t know! I was running. I barely saw it,” Charlie said.
“Okay, so where were you exactly when it happened?”
“That’s where I’m trying to take you now,” she said, exasperated.
“All right, all right, let’s retrace your footsteps.”
“I think I know almost exactly where it happened,” Charlie murmured, walking ahead of him.
He followed closely, unwilling to let her get too far away.
She paused. “I was right about there,” she said. “I’d left the grave, which is over there.” She pointed. “Whoever threw the knife had to have been standing in the trees, those oaks right there.”
“So the knife would have landed in the unhallowed section of the graveyard, right?”
She nodded. “I think so.”
They headed that way and started examining the ground, looking for the weapon. Ethan could tell from Charlie’s tense expression that she was uncomfortably reminded of the night she’d found a body while searching for a missing prop.
“Hey!” called a friendly masculine voice from behind them.
Ethan turned and saw Jimmy Smith heading toward them, a broad grin on his face. Ethan was used to sizing up suspects, and the first thing he noticed was that Jimmy wasn’t particularly tall or well built, not that those were requirements for knife throwing, nor was he particularly handsome. On the other hand, his thatch of brown hair, hazel eyes, freckles and lopsided grin added up to the kind of cheerful manner that probably helped him deal with the vicissitudes of an actor’s life.
“Hey, there. What are you doing over here?” Charlie asked him.
“It looked like you two were searching for something, and I thought maybe I could help. We always seem to be missing stuff. Charlie, you didn’t lose one of your ‘fuck me’ shoes, did you?”
“No, I didn’t lose a shoe,” she said.
“I hope to hell you don’t find another body.” Jimmy turned to Ethan. “You haven’t gotten any further on figuring out who the killer is, have you? I sure hope you catch him soon. It’s spooking everyone out, knowing a murderer was so close.”
“I think we’re all handling it just fine,” Charlie said.
“Yeah? Well, I’m sure as hell spooked out,” Jimmy said. “I look at everyone—some of them friends I’ve known practically forever—and can’t help wondering if one of them has blood on their hands.”
“We’re following every lead,” Ethan said.
Jimmy looked worried, but he nodded. “I hope one of them leads somewhere soon. Anyway, sorry—I thought I could help, but to tell you the truth, I don’t really like being out here when it’s getting dark. Catch y’all at dinner.”
He waved and left them.
“Are you following every lead?” Charli
e asked Ethan.
“At the moment we don’t really have any leads,” he admitted.
“Except that the cops think my father might be involved,” Charlie said.
“Let’s see if we can find that knife, okay?” Ethan said.
“What if Jimmy’s right and we are all spooked, and I just imagined the knife?” Charlie whispered.
“I don’t think you imagined anything. And I’m not sure you should be around here right now. Aren’t you done filming your scenes?” he asked.
She made a point of looking down at the grass.
“Charlie?”
“Mostly,” she said.
Ethan turned suddenly, a shiver running up his spine, and saw that they weren’t alone. Two people were standing near them on the bluff.
Barry Seymour and Luke Mayfield.
“Are we missing another prop?” Charlie asked as soon as she noticed them, too.
“Yeah, but, don’t worry, we’ll find it,” Barry called back.
Ethan grabbed Charlie by the hand and led her over to the others. “We’ll help,” he said.
“It’s all right,” Luke said. He glanced uneasily at Barry.
“What is it?” Ethan demanded.
Luke let out a sigh.
Barry spoke. “An Enfield rifle. With a bayonet. And we didn’t lose it today,” he added in a rush. “Luke and I were just helping some of the others—Brad and Mike, Jennie—go through the props. But...when we counted the Enfield rifles—reproductions, not collector’s items—we realized we were missing one.”
“How long has it been missing?” Ethan asked sharply.
Barry and Luke looked at each other again.
“We’re not sure,” Barry said.
“The last time we had a record of anyone using it was a couple of weeks back—first day of filming some retro shots.” Luke hesitated again. “It was before...before the whole special programming thing we did on the Journey. And it was just one of a bunch of props we signed out, so there’s no record of who, specifically, was using it.”
“Brad’s calling that cop, Detective Laurent, right now,” Barry said. “But Luke and I thought we should search the field one more time. We were thinking that maybe it got lost on the field.”
“We were just hoping against hope that we could find it before we had to tell you about it, too,” Luke said.
“We’ll help you look,” Ethan said.
He created a grid, scratching lines into the ground with a tree branch, and then all four of them went to work.
It was a lot of ground to cover, so it was a relief when Brad and Mike arrived, looking embarrassed and upset, and joined the search.
To no avail.
An hour later, there was no sign of the rifle and bayonet.
And no sign of a knife, either.
“It’s too dark to keep going,” Brad said. “We can try again in the morning.” He cleared his throat. “I told Laurent, so—”
“So we can get the police out here to help once it gets light,” Ethan finished for him.
Now, though, it was time to head back. Clean up. Have dinner.
And put in a call to Jackson Crow.
They were a glum group as they headed for their cars.
Still, Brad tried to be cheerful. “See you at the café,” he said, forcing a smile.
They waved to one another, and then, at last, he was alone with Charlie in his rented SUV. He met her eyes. “You should know there’s a leak somewhere. The media have the information that the medical examiner thinks both men were killed with a bayonet.”
“And you think that the missing bayonet is the bayonet. The murder weapon,” she added softly.
“Well, on the plus side, the fact that it’s missing will make the local authorities think that the movie crew are as suspicious as your father,” he said.
“Great,” Charlie murmured. “I’m supposed to suspect my father or my friends.”
“You’ve really got to stay away from that whole area now,” Ethan told her. “Someone threw that knife for a reason, and until we know what that reason is, what someone—probably the killer—thinks you know, I don’t want you out in the open that way.”
She didn’t reply. She was looking out the window.
“Charlie?”
“I hear you,” she said, turning to look at him, serious at first, and then she smiled.
When they reached her place, she looked at him and flushed slightly. “You’re not just going to drop me here, are you?”
“Nope. I’m like a Boy Scout. Always prepared. I brought some things with me last night.”
“Good planning. Thank you.”
“Charlie, I don’t like the idea that someone was snooping around here.”
“I really might have imagined the knife, though. We didn’t find it.”
“No, we didn’t.” Whoever had thrown it might have gone back for it before they went back to search, but he didn’t want to tell her that. She was worried enough as it was.
He stopped her just as she was about to slip the key into the lock, stepped forward and examined the door. Satisfied that no one had tried to pry it open, he nodded at her.
“We’re going to be late to the café,” she said, leading the way inside.
“Not that late. I’ll see you back down here in twenty minutes—if you can be ready that fast, that is,” he teased, trying to lighten the mood.
“Hey, you may be FBI, but I majored in theater. I can be ready to go in about fifteen minutes,” she said, then turned and raced up the stairs.
He followed more slowly.
As he showered, he thought about the fact that they were both naked. Wet. Slathered in soap bubbles. And mere feet away from each other.
And he wondered...
If it didn’t seem imperative that they actually make it to the café that night, so he could have a chance to study the whole group in one place, he might have been tempted to make his way to her shower.
What was the worst that could happen? She could demand that he get away from her. She could be indignant and incredulous. Admittedly, she’d had a schoolgirl crush on him a decade ago. But that was all over now.
Or was it?
Maybe she would feel even better about him, like him more, once she’d had her chance to turn the tables but, he hoped, decided not to take it.
No, he couldn’t take that chance, because something could happen that would be much worse than her simply telling him she was no longer interested. She could ask him to leave, and then someone out there, someone watching, might think that she knew more than she did.
He twisted the knob and made the water cold. Very cold.
7
Cold showers were good. They didn’t tempt a man to stay beneath the steaming hot water and think equally steaming hot thoughts.
Ethan quickly got out and dressed and was ready to go. He grabbed his phone and dialed Jackson Crow before he headed downstairs.
As soon as Jackson answered, Ethan gave him a quick rundown of the case. The fact that a replica bayonet was missing from the film set was the best new information they had.
“That does seem to point toward someone working on the film being our killer. Still, I wish we had some idea of motive,” Jackson said.
“There is a motive, there always is, and I’ll figure it out,” Ethan promised.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. You’ve only just begun your investigation. We’ve spent months—years—working some cases,” Jackson reminded him.
And some cases, as Ethan knew, were never solved.
“We’re working out some things here,” Jackson said, “but more of us will join you by the day after tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve got Angela digging up more detailed informat
ion on the key players from the Journey and everyone involved with the film. Yes, there was some kind of an argument about history. We can’t figure a motive for the murders based on that. The men didn’t kill one another. Someone killed them. And though they might have worked together—and argued—on the ship, that’s not the only place where their lives collided. They both belonged to the local Masonic lodge, and they were both Shriners, as well. They contributed to and worked for a number of the same charities. But we’re still considering the riverboat, of course, and Charlene Moreau’s conviction that something connected to the riverboat can lead us to the truth. We’re also still considering the plan to have her and the others work aboard the ship.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“I guess she hasn’t spoken to you about it, then. At the moment, it’s only on the drawing board here. When Charlene contacted us to ask for you to be assigned to the case, she went through her friends Clara Avery and Alexi Cromwell. The three of them were talking again recently, and Charlene seemed to feel strongly that the answer can be found aboard the Journey. The three of them have proposed a plan to work aboard the boat as part of the entertainment staff. Clara and Alexi have an in, having worked other cruises for Celtic American.”
“I see,” Ethan said. “No, Charlie hasn’t mentioned this to me. Just what exactly is the plan?”
“They can accept a week’s contract and go aboard as a trio of singing Southern belles performing Civil War–era songs. They proposed it as a test run to see whether the line would like to hire them for future cruises, not that the details really matter. Adam could have gotten them on board if necessary. Anyway, they’ll probably join the staff for the Journey’s next cruise. And with the situation as it is, I’ll come down and probably take over in St. Francisville while you tackle the riverboat.”
“The murders happened on land,” Ethan reminded him.
“Yes, I know. But from what Charlene told Clara and Alexi when she asked them to intercede, there’s a local ghost who’s appeared to her several times.”
“Captain Anson McKee,” Ethan said.
Darkest Journey Page 12
