Assassin's Blood (The Alan Graham Mysteries)

by Malcolm Shuman

  I entered the shadow of the boulevard, with its live oaks along the median, and dodged a couple of kids on bikes. They called this the Garden District now, but it had been forty years since the elite had fled to the suburbs. A few years back the old homes had been renovated by younger couples with big dreams. But now they were turning middle-aged, and a stream of fairly constant burglaries dimmed what liberal notions they had once harbored and focused their attention on holding the line against the denizens of the ghettos to the north and west.

  I parked in front of the old two-story, went in, and ran the dust rag over the mantel and the sofa arm. Digger barked for his walk, and after I obliged him, I came back, refilled his water bowl, and turned on the television. The Giants were playing the Pirates, and I got a TV tray from the kitchen and washed the hamburger down with a malt while I watched.

  The chimes of the doorbell interrupted, and I gathered the malt container and wrappings, took them back to the kitchen, folded the tray, and went to the door.

  The girl on the doorstep was even smaller than I remembered, with a bright, round, pixie face surrounded by black hair in a pageboy cut.

  “Hi. I hope I’m not being a pain.”

  “Of course not. Come in.” I held the door open.

  “Jeez,” she said, fingering the door. “Leaded glass. This reminds me of a church. Was this here when you rented it?”

  “I own it,” I said. “In fact, I grew up here. This house is pretty much the way my parents left it.”

  Her eyes widened as we passed through the living room, with its antique furniture, Queen Anne desk, and big oval mirror.

  “Nice,” she said. “You mean you lived here all your life?”

  “My first eighteen years or so. I was away at different colleges after that, but I came back a few years ago and inherited the place.”

  “You live here by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowned. “Isn’t that lonely?”

  I turned to look at her. From some people the questions might have been offensive, but there was an ingenuousness about her that kept me from being angry.

  “Everybody gets lonely.”

  “I guess. No brothers and sisters?”

  “No.”

  She stared at one of the paintings. It was of a shady country lane and it had been in the house as long as I could remember.

  “I like that.”

  “I’m used to it, too.” I turned down the television, which was the only piece of modern furniture in the room. “Can I offer you something? A Coke? A beer?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, thanks.”

  I went down the hallway to the study, where I had my desk and computer. I sensed her behind me, and when I turned to go into the room, she was still there. I went in and took the book from my desk.

  “I think this is what you wanted.”

  She was looking around her at the bookcases made of boards and bricks and wooden crates, and the stack of books on the floor.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “It’s just this room.” She shrugged as I handed her the book. “It’s like an island in the rest of the house, as if this room is you, the way you are, and the rest of the house is a museum of the way things used to be.”

  I crossed my arms. “I guess that’s pretty much so.”

  She gave another look around and then another little headshake.

  “I talk too much. I know I make a lot of people nervous, because I say whatever pops into my head. I’m sorry.”

  I walked her back to the front.

  “It’s all right.”

  “Can I ask a favor? If you say no I won’t be mad.”

  “What is it?” I asked, not sure whether to be alarmed or amused.

  “I’d like to learn some of the local pottery types. If I had a key to the lab, I could spend some time there at night …”

  I considered for a moment and then went back into my study and got a spare office key out of the drawer.

  “The alarm combination is 5532. Punch it in within thirty seconds and hit the Off button. When you leave, do the same thing but hit On. Make sure you lock yourself in.”

  “Thanks, Alan.”

  “No problem,” I said, and watched her go. I’d thought it was just her energy that made people wary. Now I understood better. She was like a strange little woodsprite with a view of a person’s soul. I closed the door and turned back to the room.

  The next day I had dinner with Sam MacGregor and his wife, Libby, in their home on the River Road, south of town. Sam had retired from the university in the early eighties, and now he and Libby enjoyed a comfortable existence, traveling and puttering about with the grandkids on both sides. Sam was still working on his manuscript about the Tchefuncte culture, but I had the feeling he would never complete it lest it leave him without a purpose.

  Sam had taught me my first archaeology course when I was an undergraduate at the state university. He was father figure to a generation of archaeologists in the Southeast and evidently enjoyed the role, with his mane of white hair and Colonel Sanders goatee. After dinner we sat on the veranda, and I told him about the project in the Felicianas and then about the strange ideas of Clyde Fontenot.

  Sam laughed and reached for his bourbon and water. “Clyde hasn’t changed any.”

  “You know him?”

  “Sure. He even took a few courses while I was still teaching. Bright fellow, but he went off on tangents. Once he was into science, and then it was true crime, and then I can’t remember what. Finally he had some kind of breakdown and spent some time in the asylum. Isn’t the first man his students drove crazy.”

  “You didn’t know the Devlin family, did you?”

  He shook his head. “Never met any of ’em. I do know Senator Buell McNair, though. Biggest crook in the state. If he’s in on this thing, it isn’t to drown ghosts, it’s to make money.”

  The next morning I slept later than usual. I’d dreamed about my parents, crazy dreams in which we’d been on the way to Biloxi in the old ’59 Chevy with the fins. My father was driving, his face set like he was performing an audit for one of his clients, and my mother was in the back seat with me, talking. But I wasn’t sure if she was talking to him or to me or both of us, and that was when I knew there was somebody else in the car. I realized then we weren’t in Biloxi, that instead we were on a freeway into a big city, one I didn’t recognize, and cars were whipping past us on all sides, and I wondered who the other passenger was. He was seated next to my father, a slight man with slicked-back dark hair, and when I asked my father where we were headed, my mother just laughed and said, “Dallas.”

  And I knew who the man next to my father was and cringed.

  I screamed, but no sound came as the car hurtled on toward destiny, and the louder I yelled the less sound came out until at last I woke up in the darkness staring at the ceiling.

  When I got into work, everyone else was there, and David came into my office with something in his hand.

  “I went by the mailbox,” he said, laying it before me. “Bombast must’ve walked it through. It’s our notice to proceed.”

  NINE

  We started the project two days later. We went up in two vehicles and set up our base on the McNair property near where my tires had been cut. The field crew would operate in teams of three. David and Frank Hill each took two crew members and started by crossing over to the Devlin property on the west side of the creek, hoping to get that half done before any questions could be raised. Then I took one of the vehicles, the red Blazer, and drove to the courthouse in Clinton with Esmerelda so she could begin the title work. I checked at the sheriff’s office about my tires and was told there was nothing to report. I asked if the sheriff was in and was told he was.

  When he came out to the counter, I was surprised. He was a youngish man in a business suit, a far cry from the cowboy type I expected. I introduced myself and he nodded.

  “Pat Staples,” he sai
d, shaking my hand. “I hear you had a little trouble over on the McNair property the other day.” He smiled, blue eyes never wavering from my face, and I nodded.

  “I have my crew out there now,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know. It seems like that tract has some bad history.” The sheriff picked up a paperweight of the Lincoln Memorial and balanced it on his hand. I noticed he had thin, delicate fingers, more like a pianist than a lawman.

  “You mean the Doug Devlin business.”

  “That’s right.”

  “These things happen. You expecting something like that to happen again?”

  “You tell me.”

  He shrugged. “I’ll send a deputy to check on your people every couple of hours, how’s that?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Now, when you’re across the creek, on the Devlin land, you’ll have to talk to Sheriff Cooney in St. Francisville. That’s his parish.”

  “I hear that was a problem with the original investigation.”

  “Things like that never help. Cooney’s a fixture, been in there forever, has his own way of handling things. I came from the DEA and I have another way. But I don’t know it would’ve made any difference.”

  “You think it was a poacher?”

  He sighed. “It’s as good a theory as any. You’ve got to understand, Mr. Graham, if a killing isn’t solved inside of forty-eight hours, it gets cold pretty quick. Investigations generally aren’t Sherlock Holmes and fingerprints. You talk to everybody that knew the victim to see who had a motive. Then you sit by the phone and wait for somebody that doesn’t like the perpetrator to call you. If that doesn’t happen, your odds of solving it are nil.” He held up the paperweight. “Now, in this case, nobody called and there wasn’t any motive for anybody close to the man to do it, unless you count his brother. But his brother was stationed out of the country then. What was left?”

  “I’m sure you looked into Doug Devlin’s financial affairs.”

  “Doug Devlin wasn’t a resident of this parish. He was just killed here. But from what I heard, he was doing okay. His farm wasn’t bringing in much, but he was making it. He was a pretty good businessman, I guess.”

  “And his widow? Is she making it?”

  “I hear it’s tough. But then, it generally is for folks in these parts.”

  “Not for the McNair brothers.”

  “Some people do better than others.”

  “Does that worry you?” I asked.

  “Everything about life worries me. There isn’t anything I can do about most of it. Anything else?”

  “One thing: Your deputy told me to watch out for a fellow named Blake Curtin. That your advice, too?”

  The lawman shook his head.

  “Blake’s a funny cuss, but I’ve never known him to hurt anybody. What else can I say?”

  Esmerelda told me she’d be busy in the courthouse most of the day, so I left her to her work and drove back to the survey area. Things seemed to be going well. The field crews were well along, and every so often I heard someone yell in the distance, though the wooded nature of the terrain made it impossible to see anyone. I checked the sky: There were some white, fleecy clouds, and I wondered if we might get a storm in the afternoon. If so, we’d have to pull out until the lightning was over. I knew it would complicate matters for me to grab a shovel and hand screen and try to catch up with the crew. Maybe there was something else I could take care of.

  Going to St. Francisville to talk to Sheriff Cooney was out: I’d dealt with him two years earlier in connection with some Tunica burials and a murder, and he’d told me not to interfere again.

  Then I remembered my dream and the sinister figure of Lee Oswald in the front seat of the car. I knew then what I was going to do.

  Maybe I could claim I was helping Esmerelda.

  The mental hospital was set back from the road along a tree-shaded drive. I told the guard at the gate I was there to see Dr. Childe. He took my plate number and told me to go to the three-story white building with the dome.

  I parked at the side of the structure and went up the marble steps and inside to the reception office. There I handed a dour-faced woman at the desk my card and asked if Dr. Childe was available.

  She asked if I had an appointment, and when I said I didn’t, she frowned to let me know I was presuming on her good nature.

  “I’m sorry,” I said meekly, and she gave a little head-shake, as if to let me know that they all said that. She lifted the phone and told someone that a Mr. Graham was here without an appointment and wanted to see the doctor. She emphasized the mister, as if to let me know the Ph.D. on my card didn’t fool her a bit.

  She directed me down the hallway to an office on the right, where I found a blond young woman whose smile compensated for that of the first receptionist.

  “Would you like to wait?” she asked. “He’s at a staff meeting, but he ought to be out in a few minutes.”

  I thanked her and picked up a copy of the latest Archives of Psychiatry. A few minutes into an article on bi-polar affective disorder I heard footsteps in the hall outside. A man in a white lab coat came in and handed the secretary a folder.

  “Dr. Childe, this gentleman is waiting to see you,” she said.

  The psychiatrist turned slowly in my direction, and I saw a big man with a brown, curly beard and a belly that crept over his belt.

  “Alvin Childe.” The doctor held out a big hand. “How can I help you?”

  I rose, noticing as I did that I still had to look up at him.

  “Is there someplace we could talk?”

  “Surely.” He led me past the desk to a door at the rear.

  “Oh,” he said, turning back to the woman. “Call Gene McNair and tell him I’ll be a few minutes late for lunch.”

  We entered an office that contained a big oak desk and some bookshelves. A couple of chairs looked like refugees from state surplus, and there was, to my surprise, no couch.

  “You’re the archaeologist,” the physician began, settling behind his desk. I noticed a stack of files in the plastic in-basket and a legal pad open in front of him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Gene McNair told me. We hunt together. He told me you were doing the historical research on the Devlin and McNair tracts. Find anything interesting?”

  “Just a ghost,” I said.

  “Well, that ought to make the newspapers.” He took off his bifocals and leaned back. I judged his age at fifty, but he could have been five years either way.

  “Lee Oswald,” I said. “Everybody in town seems to think he haunts that land.”

  The psychiatrist nodded. “I’ve heard the story. But you didn’t come to me about that. I’m not a parapsychologist.”

  “No, but you’re an expert on human behavior. Why would people keep a story like that current?”

  “People have psychic needs. They need to be able to make sense of the incomprehensible. Not only the philosophical unknown, like the afterlife, but things that happen in our own world, like the killing of a president. How could one little man with a rifle have so much of an influence on our world? So they invent their own explanations.”

  “You think Oswald acted alone.”

  “That’s my impression. You see, with all the talk about him coming here, I did a little reading not long after I took over as director. That was four years ago. Everybody was saying he came here to apply for a job, for instance, and I wondered if maybe he had. If so, if Lee Harvey Oswald had submitted an application here and been turned down, it was one of those ironic things. Because if he’d been accepted, then maybe he’d have been working here instead of in Dallas when President Kennedy went there that day.”

  “And was there an application on file?”

  “No. The records from that long ago had been thrown out. But he may have applied. And it might have been a good place for him. If he’d worked here, maybe one of the staff would have realized how disturbed he was and gotten him some help.”
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  “Do you think he was psychotic?”

  “He certainly had delusions of grandeur and a persecution complex. But it was more like a character disorder than what we’d label a psychosis. He was a very isolated, alienated individual. He had an overbearing mother and no father. His whole short life was dedicated to showing people he was really somebody.” The doctor shook his head. “I don’t know if it matters what label we use, but he was unstable, that much is sure.”

  “And you think he could have been helped here?”

  “It’s possible. Depending on him, of course. To be helped a person has to realize there’s a problem to begin with. From what I remember, his behavior was getting more and more disorganized that year. He lost jobs, was having periods of depression, his wife was pregnant a second time, he was even trying to get back to Russia again because nothing was working for him over here. It’s possible, if he’d have met the right therapist, something could have been done. It would have been worth a try.”

  “Maybe that’s why he came to the hospital to begin with,” I said. “Maybe getting the job was just an excuse.”

  “I’ve thought about that. People often use a pretense to look for help.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I’ve told myself it would have been an interesting case to have treated,” said the big man. “Except that most of the interest in him derives from what he ended up doing. If he’d been caught before that happened, he’d have been just like any of a few million other cases.”

  “You mean the existential angst.”

  “Sure. It’s easy to feel isolated, adrift in the world we live in, especially if you don’t have close relations or the ones you do have are estranged.”

  I shifted in my chair. “Most of us feel alone sometimes. But we don’t take a gun and shoot somebody.”

  “No. But which one of us knows what we’re capable of? Until after we do it, I mean.”