PART IV A SUDDEN DEATH #5
As she spoke, I glanced at the Hammer.
He glared, unblinking, at me.
So did Mary Beth.
‘What exactly did happen?’ I asked.
Mr Kingman answered. ‘Some kids joyriding in a pickup came speedin’ round a bend, lost control and ploughed right into your little foreign car. Knocked you tushy over teakettle, they did.’
‘Some kids hit me?’ I said, looking at the Hammer.
He didn’t move a muscle.
‘What happened to them?’ I added.
‘Oh, they took off,’ Mrs Clara Kingman said.
‘Our man, Mr Hammonds here, happened to be driving along the same road shortly after and saw your car tipped over on its side just as those kids skedaddled. He brought you inside and called us. You’ve been asleep for over eighteen hours.
It’s just after seven in the morning on Sunday. ’
She smiled.
‘Dr Speedman. I remember you from when we met a week ago at our home in Victorville. You were investigating a dead baby. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but as I understand it, you found that baby’s missing mama.’
‘We did, ma’am.’
‘In the face of great danger, I’m told. You could dine out on that achievement for the rest of your life, Dr Speedman. Which is why I’m confused now, confused as to why you should still be showing an interest in our family.’
I said nothing.
Just watched her.
She seemed so friendly and mild that when her eyes turned cold, it was unsettling.
‘You seem like a nice young man and I’m informed that you’re very smart, too. Be smart, Dr Speedman . . . Dr Samuel Speedman, proprietor of “The Detective” on Kirby Drive, Houston, and resident of 1907 Colquitt Street. Just as you know a lot about us, we know much about you.
‘But let me tell you something about us that you might not be aware of.
‘We come from a society that is not like your modern, urban world. It exists alongside that world. It is one of refinement, grace, manners and values, of prayer to the Lord and obedience to His commandments, not gratuitous pleasure, drugs, violent video games, abortion and homosexual marriage. Our way of life derives from an older time, a more godly time.’
She gazed out at the statues on the perfectly manicured lawn.
‘You’re talking about the Confederacy?’ I said. ‘The Southern states that waged war to preserve slavery?’
She smiled a wan, almost indulgent, smile. Kept looking at the statues outside.
‘Our ancestors fought with honour and courage to defend a certain way of life, one that speaks of things like respect, -decorum, and of showing kindnesses.’
She turned back to face me . . .
. . . and her eyes became cold again.
‘Know this, Dr Speedman: our family has shown you a kindness today, one that will not be shown again if you continue to appear in our world.
‘You found your little negro girl. It made you a hero, which I’m sure will be good for your business. Be that hero and let the matter die. Move on with your life. You wouldn’t want more . . . -accidents . . . like yesterday’s to befall you again.’
Mrs Kingman stood and took her husband’s arm.
They strode to the door. Mary Beth followed.
‘I mean, goodness gracious me’—Mrs Kingman paused on the threshold—‘the next accident might be one you won’t walk away from. Lord, the authorities might not even find your body.’
I digested this.
As threats went, it was a pretty good one.
‘Ma’am,’ I said.
‘Yes?’
‘If your way of life is so honourable and noble, with all its values and godliness, why do you and your people have to do it in the middle of the night wearing masks?’
She stared at me blankly.
‘You may not have experienced real power in your life, Dr Speedman, so let me tell you what real power is. Our family owns the state of Louisiana: from its senators to its courts, its legislature and police. We could have you tarred, feathered and crucified to the statehouse doors in Shreveport and fear no retribution. If you continue to live, know that you do so at our pleasure.’
She and her husband left without another word, trailed by Mary Beth.
The Hammer remained, glaring at me.
I jerked my chin at him. ‘Just tell me, you used two cars to tail me yesterday, right?’
‘We used three, actually.’
That made me feel better, to know I hadn’t missed a lone car following me.
The Hammer snarled, ‘Now, get dressed and get out of here, you little four-eyed fuck.’ (117.) ‘I see you again, I will gut you from neck to navel with my fishing knife and feed you to some of the local gators.’
Exhausted and hungry, with my backpack on my shoulders, I walked three miles to the nearest town.
(I’d never woken up in a strange mansion in the middle of nowhere before. But I was famished and with my car wrecked, I figured I’d find a town, eat something, and then work out a way to get home.)
As soon as I left the mansion, I checked my backpack: everything was still in it, including my Sig Sauer, but I could tell that it had been thoroughly examined.
As I walked along the back roads, I called Heidi, but it rang out. She was probably in the swamp near New Orleans, the one with the old Catholic property in it.
I also checked Uber.
It would cost me 460 bucks to get back to Houston.
Maybe there was a bus I could catch.
After a while, I came to a little town and found a diner.
After navigating the diner’s strange and unfamiliar menu—the food choices were a little more exotic than I was used to at Hooters—I ordered a regular omelette, and as I waited for it to come, I checked the alert I’d received earlier.
Someone named William Winston had purchased three -bottles of Weller 114-proof wheated bourbon and four junior-sized Adidas Champions League soccer balls.
William Winston . . . Bill Winston . . .
Could be Bill Brewster . . .
It was the same first name again.
The address for this singular purchase was in Morgan City, Louisiana.
Morgan City was an oil and shrimp-boating town on the Gulf Coast about an hour southwest of New Orleans. With a constantly changing population of itinerant fishermen and oil rig workers, it was the perfect place to live for a guy who didn’t want to be found.
Weary and tired, and with the mother of all headaches, I decided I’d check it out later. I just wanted to lie down.
My food arrived and I had just started cutting my omelette when my phone rang.
It was Heidi.
‘Heya, boss. You try to call me?’ The connection was staticky and weak.
‘Yeah.’
‘I’m just leaving your swamp down here near New Orleans. Cell signal’s shit. You okay?’
‘Relatively speaking.’
‘Yeah, well, I got news.’
‘Shoot.’
‘I found something.’
After my lecture from Mrs Kingman, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what she’d found.
Heidi said, ‘Took a little longer than I planned to find your abandoned Catholic estate and its priests’ graveyard, but I found ’em.
Ended up camping overnight on the airboat with Brenda.
Cell phone signals are non-existent there, so I had to come out here to the edge of the swamp to call you.
I found your mausoleum marked “LaSalle” in that priests’ graveyard. ’
‘And?’
‘There was something inside it.’
‘What?’
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the line. This was concerning since Heidi wasn’t one for theatrics.
‘I found bodies. Dead bodies.’
‘How many?’
‘Fourteen.’
They say there are moments in your life when you cross a Rubicon. Moments after which there is no going back.
I’d been warned.
Clearly and unambiguously.
If I kept poking my nose in the Kingman clan’s world, I was going to end up at the wrong end of the Hammer’s fishing knife or tarred, feathered and crucified to a public building.
And yet . . .
In her speech to me Mrs Clara Kingman had said many objectionable things—not least of which was her affection for the days of the antebellum South—but there was one reference in there that had, quite frankly, pissed me off.
You found your little negro girl, she’d said.
Little negro girl.
LaToya Martyn had been more than that.
She’d been someone’s daughter.
She’d been a young woman with dreams and friends and a future that had been cut short.
I didn’t care if her skin was black or white or green.
All I knew was I hadn’t solved the circumstances of her death yet.
And if I accepted the Eli Gage story—and lived as a hero from it—then I was just as bad as Clara Kingman and whoever else had had a hand in it.
‘Stay there, Heidi,’ I said into the phone. ‘I’m coming to you. I want to see those bodies.’