Текст книги "Black River"

Автор книги: Tom Lowe

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THREE

Jack Jordan felt as if he’d prepared for this exact moment most of his life. After all of the research, after all of the long weekends of heat and rain – and mosquitoes, after the hundreds of battlefield reenactments, this felt about as real as it gets. He proudly wore a Confederate uniform, authentic from the gray slouch hat down to the black cavalry boots. A week’s worth of burgundy whiskers sprouted from his tanned, lanky face. He felt his pulse quicken, waiting for the director to start the scene.

Jack glanced down at the replica of the Smithfield rifle he held in his hands. He looked up across the landscape of pine trees and scrub oak and took a deep breath. A mockingbird called out from a dead, leafless cypress tree. Jack could smell the wood smoke beyond the pines, hear the snort of the horses behind him, and almost see the Union soldiers slipping through the forest.

A young private looked up at Jack and whispered, “You ready, Sergeant?” the private’s cheekbones smeared with charcoal dust, his Confederate cap pulled down to his blond eyebrows.

“I’ve been ready for this all my life. Feels damn good. Let’s defend the South.”

“Quiet on the set!” came the command through a loud speaker. “And roll cameras.”

“Speeding,” came a voice through a walkie-talkie held by an assistant director standing below a motion picture camera, one of five, mounted on a crane.

“Action!”

Platoons of men, both Union and Confederate soldiers, all wearing sweat-stained Civil War uniforms, charged. Cannons fired. Stuntmen, dressed as soldiers, fell and tumbled near the ground where the earth exploded in dirt, fire, and dust. Men ran through the smoke. Trumpets sounded. Soldiers on horseback cut through the smoldering battlefield, firing pistols.

Jack, and three dozen of his men, ran forward, rifles firing blanks, white smoke billing from the end of the barrels. “Let’s move!” Jack yelled, the troops picking up speed – shooting and reloading. A seventeen-year-old recruit ran behind the first flank, gripping a wooden pole carrying the Confederate flag as the southern forces advanced closer to the Union army.

Jack reloaded, packing the black powder into the barrel of his rifle. His young private looked up and nodded. “This one’s for Shiloh!”

“Atta boy, Johnny. Keep shooting! Advance men!” Jack held his rifle in both his hands, moving stealth-like, stepping around the wounded men, blood capsules oozing red dye through the ragtag uniforms. He fired his rifle and stood to reload powder and paper. He stared through the smoldering battlefield, remembering the instructions the director had given him and the other actors. Jack wondered if he could hear the director yell “cut” over the noise of gunfire.

That was Jack Jordan’s last thought.

A Minié ball slammed through the center of his forehead, the heavy lead bullet blowing the back of his skull off. Blood and brain tissue splattered across the horrified face and chest of the young soldier carrying the Confederate flag. Directly in front of him, Jack Jordan fell dead.

“And cut! Brilliant! Great scene. Let’s reset cameras.”

The young soldier looked up and vomited in the muddy field.

An assistant director stared through the rising smoke. “Oh my God,” he said running around the film crew and actors. “Somebody call nine-one-one!”

FOUR

O’Brien set the bag of groceries on an empty barstool and approached the man. “I understand you’re looking for me.”

“Are you Mr. O’Brien?”

“Sean will work fine.”

“Good, Sean. My name’s Gus Louden.”

“What can I do for you, Gus?”

The old man looked down at the manila file folder on the bar, and he sat straighter, raising his eyes to meet O’Brien. “I saw your face on the TV news a while back. It was after those terrorists were caught. If the news is to be believed, it seems like you, Mr. O’Brien, were the main fella who found the terrorists. They said you had flushed out that spy who thought he got away with what, in my book, is absolute treason.”

O’Brien was silent, closely watching the man’s liquid blue eyes behind the glasses.

Louden cleared his throat. “I spent four years in service to our country. After the Army, I used the GI Bill for college and eventually started my own company. When I sold it, we had more than a thousand employees. Been retired ten years now. I was born in Summerville, South Carolina. But I call Charleston home.”

“What brings you to Florida?”

“You do, Sean. I was watching CNN the other day and they aired a story about an old photograph that had recently been donated to the Confederate War Museum in Virginia. The photograph is in a small frame. It’s a picture of a beautiful woman in the prime of her life. It was taken either before or during the Civil War. The picture was found in an attic as part of an estate sale. It’d been there a long time. The donor said her grandmother had kept it for years, finally giving up trying to identify the woman in the picture. She tried hard because the story of where and how the photograph was found had deeply touched her heart. The picture was originally found in a battlefield near Chickamauga, Georgia. As the story goes, the photograph was found in the mud and blood between a Confederate and Union soldier. There was no ID on the bodies, and no one knew for sure which man had been carrying the photo. The man carrying it probably looked at it as he lay dying.”

O’Brien was silent, letting the old man continue when he was ready.

“I called the museum and told them I thought the picture was my great, great grandmother. The reason I believe this is because I remember my grandmother had an oil painting that was painted from a picture. And the painting looked identical to the woman in the photograph found between the bodies.”

Louden rested his arms on the bar, fingers splayed. O’Brien noticed something different about the man’s fingernails. The crescent moon shaped lunula, at the base of each nail, was the largest he’d ever seen on anyone’s hands. O’Brien cut his eyes up to Louden. “Did you tell the museum you could identify the woman in the photo?”

“They listened and were very kind. But, when they asked me how I knew it was the image of my great, great grandmother, I could only say I remembered the painting hanging in the living room of my grandmother’s house in Jacksonville, Florida. My grandmother told me that the woman in the painting was her mother.”

“What happened to the painting?”

“After about age thirteen, I never saw it again. My grandparents both died in a horrific car accident. Their possessions were sold to cover the cost of the two funerals and the mortgage. My parents are dead, and I have two older sisters and a younger brother. My family has a long heritage in the South. And that’s one of the reasons I’m here.”

Louden reached for the file folder, opened it, and handed O’Brien a picture of a woman wearing a formal dress. She had long brown hair, high cheekbones, dark eyebrows, and she was smiling, something O’Brien rarely saw in photographs from the Civil War era. The woman was photographed standing near a river. Louden nodded. “I think the lady in the picture was my great, great, grandmother. This is a copy made from the original photograph donated to the museum. The story of the finding was in USA Today, too.”

O’Brien looked closely at the woman’s face. “Where was the picture taken?”

“I never knew. Looks to be here in Florida, the palms and river in the background.”

“Why is it so important for you to prove that the woman in the framed photo is related to you?”

“I mentioned that I was raised in the South, in and around Charleston. Families and their reputations go way back. Honor, commitment, bravery…they are all traits we believe in and don’t take lightly. It’s a handed-down heritage.” Louden, his face filled with concealed thoughts, stared at an open space over O’Brien’s shoulder. He exhaled a deep sigh and met O’Brien’s eyes. “My great, great grandfather was said to have been someone General Robert E. Lee had taken under his wing. My father once told me that he’d heard General Lee so trusted my great, great grandfather that the general assigned him a very important mission. We don’t know whether he succeeded or failed.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because no one ever saw him again. He became absent-without-leave. And, if he was killed in action, his body was never identified. The whispers in the South, in Charleston in particular, grew louder, especially the first fifty years after the war ended. For generations of southerners, they believed he was a coward. A man who ran away, someone who hid, retreated rather than face his sworn duties and the enemy. They believe he was one of the biggest cowards to have ever put on a gray uniform. Some of the elders said he ran from the Confederate Army the night before a battle and hid, finally making his way out West, leaving his young wife and children behind. He was never seen again.”

O’Brien nodded. “So, if this copy of a photo currently housed in the Confederate Museum is your great, great grandmother, it will prove that one of the men found dead on the battlefield was carrying it. And the man carrying it was her husband – a soldier who did not run away but was, instead, a brave man because he fought until his death. Most likely, since the photograph was found next to his body, the last thing he saw was the image of his wife, which he probably pulled from his rucksack as he lay dying.”

The old man’s eyes widened, color blossoming in his pallid cheeks. “Yes sir. It would indeed prove that.”

“Why come to me?”

“Because I hear you find things, you find people. If you can find that painting, I remember there was writing on the back, written by my grandfather. Although I was only thirteen, it struck me so profoundly, I memorized what he wrote, and hoped one day I’d find a wife like he had.” The old man closed his eyes briefly searching the archives of his memory, and then he said in a whisper, “He wrote, ‘My Dearest Angelina, I had this painting commissioned from the photograph that I so treasure of you. We shall display the painting prominently in our home for all to see…as your beautiful face is always displayed privately in my heart.’” He turned to O’Brien. “Will you help me? If the painting survived, it will match this photo, more importantly, will correct history and right a terrible wrong, a bad reputation that my great, great grandfather did not deserve, and a stigma his family had to endure.”

O’Brien studied the image closer. The woman in the photograph stood near a river, smiling. Visible in the sepia tone image was a single flower she held in one hand. He cut his eyes up to Kim who was laughing, watching Max, and serving a charter boat captain a beer. O’Brien thought Kim resembled the woman in the picture. He said, “She’s very beautiful. I can understand how your great, great grandfather would have commissioned a portrait of this woman, his wife. I’ve tracked down a lot of things in my life, but I’ve never searched for a 160-year-old ghost.”

“I’ve been blessed, very successful in business. My time is running out. I’m battling pancreatic cancer. Before I die, I’d love to see this solved. I’ll pay all of your expenses, plus ten-thousand to search for the painting. Fifty-thousand if you’re successful. Will you do it, Sean?”

“What was your great, great grandfather’s name?”

“Henry Hopkins.”

FIVE

Kim Davis filled a cold mug with a craft beer, handed it to a customer at the bar, and watched the old man shuffle out the Tiki Bar door into the wash of bright sunlight in the parking lot. She tossed Max a piece of cheddar as Sean O’Brien set the folder on the bar. Kim said, “Well, well, looks like whatever’s in that folder was enough to make you want to keep it.”

O’Brien smiled. “Nothing to keep, really. Just a copy of an article in a newspaper, a photograph, and an address.”

“Okay, I’m curious. If you don’t mind me asking, what did the gentlemen want?”

“He’s looking for something long ago from his past…something, that if found, might change a long-held legend or perception of his family.” O’Brien told her the story the man had left with him.

Kim splayed both of her hands on the top of the bar and leaned closer to O’Brien. “So, are you going to take the job?”

“I don’t know. On first pass, I’d say no. But there’s something in the old man’s eyes, a quiet dignity, a long-distance stare…a last hope. I don’t know if I can help. I said I’d think about it and let him know.”

“Seems innocent. I mean, you’re just looking for a painting, right? Not an old body, a fresh body, or anything threatening. The change might do you some good, Sean. Can I see the picture?”

O’Brien opened the folder and slid the copy of the photograph onto the bar. Kim looked at it, her eyes growing wider. She moistened her bottom lip. “That, woman…she looks familiar…like I’ve seen her somewhere before, at least I’ve seen the image. I just can’t say exactly where. So this woman was that man’s great, great grandmother?”

“That’s what he says.”

“She’s beautiful.”

O’Brien looked up from the picture to Kim. “That’s what I thought. She’s striking. So you really think you’ve seen this before? He said it was on the news, CNN, in this USA Today story, and other news outlets.”

“No, I didn’t see it on TV or online. I believe I saw it somewhere else. I just can’t place it. It’s like trying to recall puzzle pieces from a day-old dream. Oh well, maybe I’ll think of it. You said the man left an address, too. Whose address?”

“The home of the person who donated the photograph to the Confederate Museum.”

“What real use is that if whoever donated it told the museum they didn’t know the identity of the woman in the photo?”

“Because sometimes an old photo is stored with other things that might shine some light into the past.”

“Hey, Kim,” shouted a charter boat captain at the end of the bar. “Turn up the sound on the TV. Looks like some poor bastard got nailed in the Ocala National Forest.”

“Hold your horses, Bobby,” Kim said, reaching for the remote control. She pressed a button and the sound became louder.

On screen, a news reporter stood in the Ocala National Forest, the images quickly cutting to video of flashing blue and red lights from police and emergency vehicles. Police and paramedics worked the scene behind yellow crime tape wrapped around cypress trees laden with Spanish moss. A white sheet was pulled over a body lying on a gurney, a red flower of blood in the head area, detectives in the background questioning men dressed in Civil War uniforms.

The reporter looked into the camera and said, “Police investigators are initially saying the death is most likely an accidental shooting. The victim, a long-time Civil War re-enactor, is described as a man in his late thirties, someone who spent occasional weekends participating in Civil War battle reenactments. Police say the shooting happened when a movie crew was filming a battle scene between re-enactors playing Union and Confederate soldiers in the production of a movie called Black River. The man may have been shot with a Minié ball, which is a bullet used in vintage Civil War era rifles. All of these old rifles are supposed to be firing blanks. However, one was not. I’m told there are more than two hundred extras on the film, evenly divided between actors playing Union and Confederate soldiers. Filming the movie, which is described as a big-budget Hollywood feature, is suspended pending the results of the investigation. Detectives want to know how the Minié ball got in the chamber of one of these old rifles…maybe a horrible oversight that now has resulted in a death. If somehow this death points toward a homicide…detectives will be searching for a motive, and that would make this unfortunate incident like something found in a mystery movie script. The name of the man killed is being withheld pending notification of relatives. Live from the Ocala National Forest, this is Mike Stratton, Channel Seven News.”

The charter boat captain, a barrel-chested man with sunspots the size of dimes on his bald scalp, said, “Doesn’t sound like an accident to me. Lot’s of crazy shit happens out there in the national forest. I know it sounds weird, but I wonder if they were filming exactly the time the fella got shot.”

Kim blew out a deep breath. “Come on, Hank, that’s morbid.” She glanced down at the photo on the bar and then raised her caramel eyes to meet O’Brien. “That’s odd, Sean. Here we are talking about a lost Civil War era painting possibly being connected to the unknown identity of this woman in the photograph, and a Civil War re-enactor dies on a movie set doing a mock battle. I know it’s just coincidental, but I got goose bumps on my arms. Another thing…remember when I told you I did some acting back in college?”

“I remember.”

“I’ve always had the acting bug. Once bitten, I suppose. Anyway, when they had an open casting call, I drove to the production office and auditioned.”

“You didn’t mention that.”

“Probably because I didn’t get the bit part I auditioned for. I was out most of the day. Met a lot of Civil War re-enactors the producers were recruiting. I hope to God that one man I spoke with wasn’t the poor person killed on set. I can’t remember his name, but I do remember one of them kept staring at me. He was weird. I’m actually glad I didn’t get the part if I’d have had spent time on set around that man.”

“Maybe he wasn’t hired.”

“Maybe. But now good old reality comes along in a non-scripted scene in real life where that older man walks in here with a 160-year-old Civil War puzzle, and he’s asked you to solve it for him. That’s the kind of thing that gives me goose bumps.”

O’Brien slid the photo back in the folder, closed it and smiled. “You have an active imagination.”

“Sometimes, but when I first saw the old man guarding that folder on the table waiting for you, I felt it was harmless. Now, I’m not so sure.”

“It’s only an old photo. Come on, Max. Let’s head down the dock to Jupiter. We have some work to do.” O’Brien stood. He looked at Kim. “Don’t worry. I haven’t even taken the job. Finding a 160-year-old painting would be like finding the proverbial needle in the haystack of time. The question is where is the painting today? It might not still exist.”

“But like the old man said, Sean, you have a way of finding things…or they have a way of finding you. Maybe it’s because you have the courage to look under the rocks.”

“I’ve got to fix a bilge pump on Jupiter. See you later.”

Kim watched O’Brien step out the restaurant door facing the marina. She looked through the open window as he walked down the long dock, the sound of laughing gulls in the warm breeze, a flock of the white pelicans sailing over the moored boats.

She glanced down at her tanned upper arms, the warm breeze doing nothing to make her goose bumps go away.

SIX

Nick Cronus stuck his head out of the open window of the wheelhouse and shouted to O’Brien, “Sean, great timing – grab the stern line, and tie it to the white cleat.” Nick reversed the engines of his forty-foot fishing boat and backed into the slip as easily as a New York cabbie parallel parking. He stepped down from the wheelhouse and tossed O’Brien a rope. Max paced the dock, eyes bright, barking twice while Nick quickly climbed back in the captain’s chair and worked the bow-thrusters, inching the boat closer to the dock.

O’Brien tied the stern line and walked to the bow, Nick adjusting the engine on St. Michael, working against the rising tide and wind out of the east. O’Brien grabbed the rope on the bow, rapidly tying it to a cleat. Nick shot his brown arm out the window, killing the engine, giving O’Brien the thumbs-up sign. Max cocked her head, watching Nick climb down from the wheelhouse. “Hot Dog,” he said, scooping Max off the dock with one large hand. “I caught a lot of fish out there. Gonna cook some after I sell some. Sound good? Hell yeah it sounds good ‘cause Uncle Nicky is hungry.”

O’Brien smiled. “Between you and Kim, Max will forever turn her nose up at dog food.”

“That’s because ‘lil Max is the queen of the marina, and she knows it.” Nick laughed and set Max down in St. Michael’s cockpit. The fishing boat had the seafaring look and lineage of Greek boats that sailed and fished the Mediterranean Sea for centuries.

Nick reached inside a large cooler and pulled out two cans of beer. He popped the top on one, taking a long pull, his eyes watering. He used the back of his hand to wipe the beer foam from his bushy moustache, handing the second beer to O’Brien. “Cheers, Sean. I’ve been at sea five days. Didn’t catch nothing the first three days. I say a little prayer and bam! I’m toasting to a damn good catch. Amen, brother.” He touched the gold cross hanging from his neck and knocked back a second long swallow from the can, shaved ice running down the side and splattering on the top of his brown feet.

Born on the Greek island of Mykonos forty-four years ago, Nick Cronus’s accent was still as thick as his mop of curly black hair. He had the shoulders of a pro linebacker, ham-sized forearms, and black eyes that smiled from an olive-skinned face tanned the color of light tea. He had a generous and yet fearless heart. Three years earlier, O’Brien pulled two bikers off Nick, saving his life in a brutal bar fight taken into a parking lot. And since that day, Nick said he and O’Brien were “brothers for life.”

O’Brien nodded. “Good to hear you did well out there. What’d you catch?”

“Got about a hundred pounds of red snapper. Maybe another seventy-five in grouper. A half dozen mackerel. I’ll sell ‘em to Johnson Seafood this afternoon. Old man Johnson prefers to pay me in cash. I don’t have a problem with that.” Nick grinned and finished his can of beer, crushing it with one hand. He gestured with his head toward the dock. “Look who’s here looking for a handout. My buddy, Ol Joe.”

Max growled when a large black and orange cat sauntered down the dock and sat less than ten feet behind St. Michael. Nick said, “Maxie, you may be queen of the marina, but Ol’ Joe is king of the docks. That cat is the Scarface of the harbor.” Nick reached in a fish cooler, searched through ice, pulling out a small yellowtail snapper. He slid the filet knife from the leather sheath on his belt, cut the head off the fish, and tossed it to the cat. Ol’ Joe clamped down on the fish head with one bite, held it in his mouth, and strolled back down the dock, a sea gull squawking from one of the pilings.

“Sean, are you expecting a package?” Dave Collins shouted, standing in the center of his cockpit across the dock and one boat away from St. Michael. He held up a brown box.

“It might be my bilge pump,” O’Brien said, walking toward Dave’s boat, Gibraltar, a 45-foot trawler. Nick set Max back on the dock, and she followed O’Brien, pausing a moment to look in the direction she’d last seen Ol’ Joe disappear.

Nick tossed the fish in the cooler and also followed O’Brien over to Gibraltar. Dave said, “Shipping label indicates it came from Pacific Marine. UPS guy left it with me since you weren’t on Jupiter. I signed for it. Let me know if you need any help installing the pump. Not that you’re challenged in that area.” Dave grinned. “How’d you do, Nick?”

“Real good. Caught enough to pay dockage fees, fuel, beer, food – a few bucks to entertain the ladies. What else is there in life, huh?”

Dave nodded, pushing his glasses on top of his thick white hair. He had a matching beard, wide chest, and inquisitive, sea-blue eyes. For a man in his mid-sixties, he kept in shape, jogging daily on the beach, spending time at the gym. He had a passion for craft beers and scotch. He’d spent most of his career in the Middle East, Germany and England before returning to Washington and a desk job at Langley. After retiring, he moved to Florida with his wife of twenty-eight years, divorcing within eight months. The only times O’Brien ever saw Dave sad was when, after a few martinis, past reflection brought out bits and pieces of the story.

O’Brien moved the file folder under one arm and lifted the package. Dave said, “When did you start carrying your newspaper in a file folder?”

“Since an elderly man asked me to search for a ghost.”

“Ghostbusters,” Nick said, smiling.

Dave nodded. “I have to hear this. Nothing like a good ghost story. Come aboard, gentlemen. I’ve had a pot of chili simmering since the pelican crowed this morning. It ought to be ripe about now.”

They boarded Gibraltar, Max following at the rear, her nose going into overdrive as soon as she trotted inside the salon. A crockpot sat on the bar in the salon. Dave went into the galley and came back with three bowls and a small saucer. He lifted the glass top off the crockpot, steam rising, the salon filling with the smell of rich chili. Max stood on her hind legs and glanced at Nick.

“We gottcha covered, hot dog,” Nick said.

Dave ladled chili into the bowls and cut up some turkey meat for Max. He reached inside a small refrigerator under the bar and brought out three cans of craft beer, The Poet, from a Michigan craft brewery. “Let’s eat,” he said, taking a seat on the leather couch. “Ghost stories are told, or received, better at night, but I’m sure we’ll get the effect, Sean.”

O’Brien went over what he’d heard from Gus Louden, showed them a copy of the old photo and the article in USA Today. Dave pushed back from his empty bowl, sipped his beer thoughtfully and said, “The woman in the picture was certainly striking, enigmatic eyes. So all it would take is for you to hunt down her original image captured in oil paints on a canvas somewhere? It could have been destroyed in a house fire, or maybe sold a few times for ten cents on a dollar in a garage sale.”

Nick chuckled. “That painting might be on the wall of a Cracker Barrel restaurant. You see that kind of period Americana art in those places right up there with the old Coca Cola and Burma-Shave signs.”

O’Brien said, “The last time Gus Louden saw it was when he was a kid…he must be at least sixty-five today.”

Dave nodded. “And, now, after all these years, an old Civil War photo turns up from out of the blue and is donated to the Confederate Museum.” Dave looked down at the picture in the newspaper. “But the woman in the photo, although quite beautiful, is as anonymous as any of the many unknown soldiers buried in Civil War cemeteries.”

“Not to Gus Louden,” O’Brien said. “He’s convinced she was his great, great grandmother. But he can’t prove it.”

Nick ladled a second scoop of chili in his bowl. “Maybe you ought to take the job. You’re done with teaching at the college ‘till the winter semester. Your charter fishing biz…” Nick grinned. “Well, the last time you went out, you caught a submarine on your anchor. Maybe you should do what you’re good at…finding people, finding stuff, not finding fish.”

Dave grunted. “He’s right, Sean. This could be the perfect time to do some PI work. I always said that you’ve got a sixth sense. Might as well be compensated for using it.”

“After years as a detective, I’ve done everything I can to keep from going back there.”

“Indeed,” Dave said. “But, like it or not, you’re often back in that arena. Why not do it professionally, even on a limited scale? Finding an old painting seems innocuous, at least safe.”

O’Brien’s cell phone vibrated. He answered and Kim Davis said, “Sean, I’ve been racking my brain, and now I remember where I saw the painting that looks a lot like the woman in the old photo.”