20

Brady awoke with the sun in his face. He shifted in the chair and his joints complained. He had gone to sleep at his desk, afraid to go home, afraid of the emptiness, afraid of the one friend that would be waiting for him in the cabinet when he returned. He stretched, trying to shake off the half-formed dreams that had haunted his sleep. He had dreamed of Kelly and she had been calling out for help, but from what or why he could not remember. He put his hand on the telephone and stopped. It was seven-thirty Saturday morning. If he called now and she had not come in yet, what would he do?

He fought back the fear and got up. There was what felt like sand under his eyelids, and he knew he had not gotten more than a few hours sleep all night. He went out and stood in the parking lot. It would be another beautiful March day, but he hardly felt up to enjoying it.

Garitty. It couldn’t be coincidence, could it?

He went home, showered, shaved, and changed clothes. He was not hungry, but forced himself to eat at a country kitchen on the main highway and then drove over the hospital.

He was in luck. Addie Forbes was in Rowena’s room when he arrived.

Addie was holding her daughter’s hand, but Rowena’s eyes were still closed. “She woke up last night,” Addie whispered. “But she went back to sleep an hour ago.”

Brady nodded. “Miss Addie, could I talk to you for a minute in the hall?”

The old woman frowned slightly, then carefully released Rowena’s hand and placed it on the sheet, over the sleeping woman’s midsection.

He shut the door softly behind them and turned to face the old woman. “Miss Addie, there’s something else I need to ask you. Was Sheriff Garitty’s father the city constable in the early 1940’s?”

“Yes, that’s true,” Addie said without hesitation. “For about five years. Until he got shot and had to retire.”

“They never solved the shooting?”

She shook her head contemptuously. “How could they? The same ones that were investigating it were the ones that did it. Sheriff Thomas, the Judge, and the courthouse crowd.”

“So Constable Garitty was politically opposed to Judge Troy and the sheriff.”

“Absolutely. And that was why they tried to kill him. After Huey Long got shot, all his henchmen fell to fighting over the spoils, and the decent citizens realized that was their best chance to get rid of them. They elected a new slate for the city and set Will Garitty investigating. But nobody ever knew just what he was working on when he was shot, because they scared him so bad he never would say. Well, he was a young man, with a family. He never was able to hold a job after that. He only got part of his eyesight back. He was at their mercy.”

“I see. I don’t guess he’s still alive.”

Miss Addie shook her head. “Land, no. His health was so bad, it’s a wonder he lived as long as he did. I recall he died in the late fifties.”

“But why should Garitty still be afraid twenty years later?”

The old woman pursed her lips knowingly. “The Machine wasn’t dead. Not by a long shot.”

“Of course.”

He went back to the office. Garitty had the opportunity. And now Brady was beginning to see a possible motive.

Revenge. Garitty’s father had been shot by Frieda’s father. Was that sufficient reason to kill the succeeding generations? Was Troy that isolated from the real world that feuds developed and spread down the years like genetic defects, infecting every successive member of the family chain? Garitty did not seem to be that kind of a man. There was a little about him of the unpolished rustic. But underneath the college-bred smoothness, was there really a core of anger, burning at those who had tried to destroy his family, destroy him before he was born?

There was also the matter of the courthouse fire and the evidence. Turner Ward had known that the fire had left the sheriff’s Office unscathed, but Garitty had insisted that the evidence had been destroyed, anyway. What link did that give him to the man buried in the old churchyard? What was it that Garitty had to suppress? How could a cheap wristwatch be so important? Or maybe, Brady thought, it was not the wristwatch at all. Maybe there had been notes from the case, records left by the old sheriff. It had still been Thomas then, hadn’t it? And Thomas had covered up a lot of things.

Brady pounded his fist on the desk in frustration. It still didn’t fit. If Thomas had been implicated, enough to bury evidence, then why would Garitty, the son of his enemy, hide it as well? And if the crime had been committed by Thomas or his cronies, then what motive did young Garitty have to keep records of the case out of Brady’s hands? Unless.… He stopped pacing suddenly. Unless there were something that Thomas had not understood, but that Brady would understand.

The question was what?

He started to pace again. It still wouldn’t work. Why would Garitty or his father have anything to fear from the unknown dead man, unless the elder Garitty had killed him? There were strong objections to that scenario, however. For one thing, if Brady was right about the identity of the dead man, then there was no apparent motive. Just as difficult to accept was the idea of a man who was almost legally blind carrying out the deed.

Brady sat down at the desk again and reached for the telephone. It was nearly nine o’clock now; ten in New York. He found his note pad and dialed Milford Stokes.

The phone was answered on the third ring. “Yes?”

The voice was slightly nasal and Brady detected a note of impatience.

“Mr. Stokes? Mr. Milford Stokes III?”

“That’s right. Who’s speaking, please?”

Brady gave his name. “Mr. Stokes, I’m calling about the Milford Stokes who published Frederick Love Cantrell, in the thirties and forties.”

“That’s my father, Milford, Jr.,” the other man said briskly. “What is it you wanted?”

“I need to talk to him, if he’s available.”

“Available?” The voice snorted out the word. “He’s in a rest home, so I’d hardly call him available, Mr.… What did you say your name was?”

“Brady, Peter Brady.”

“And you said you were some kind of a reporter?”

“I used to be with the Times-Picayune in New Orleans. Now I’m the publisher of the Troy Parish Express. We’re doing a special on Frederick Cantrell and I wanted to check out some things with your father.”

“Well, look, why don’t you talk to that professor, what’s his name, who’s writing the book? I sent him copies of most of my father’s files on Frederick Cantrell for that endowment committee. If you ask me, it was a great deal of ado about very little. Cantrell was never more than a minor writer in the first place. Though I suppose that down there they might consider him important.”

“You sent Whiteside your father’s files?”

“That’s correct. Now, really—Mr. Brady, is it? I have an engagement.”

“Mr. Stokes, I’m sorry to have bothered you. Just one more thing. Is your father—well, has his memory been affected?”

“You mean is he senile?” Stokes asked. “The answer is not usually.”

“Then could I ask you to do just one thing for me?”

“Mr. Brady, as I’ve said, I really have to go.”

“Could you ask him one question. Just one question, Mr. Stokes? It’s about Cantrell and it will solve a lot of uncertainty. If you’ll do that, I’ll leave you alone forever, I promise.”

Stokes sighed. “All right, what is it?”

Brady asked his question, and added, “And I’ll call you back in a day or so.”

“Fine.” There was a silence and then; “Your name. I seem to have heard it somewhere. Were you in the news recently? National Book Awards?”

This time it was Brady’s turn to sigh. “Last year’s Pulitzers. I wrote an investigative piece.”

“Ahh. Last year’s, aye? Still, it’s something. You aren’t working on a book are you?”

“Not right now.”

“Pity.”

Brady disconnected and pressed his fingers against his eyelids. He was tired; he ought to go home and get a few hours of decent sleep, but this business was eating at him. Cantrell … Garitty … Judge Troy …

He heard the door creak and opened his eyes again. Kelly was standing framed in the sunlight, as if she had left only a few minutes ago, her hair tied back in a ponytail and an Irish-green scarf around her neck.

“Well, I passed by your house. I figured this was where you’d be.” She took a couple of steps forward and then halted. “My God, Brady, you haven’t been to another cemetery working, have you? You look terrible.”

“Great joke,” he said. “So how was last night?”

“Fine. We went to Natchez, to one of the Under-the-Hill restaurants. Didn’t get back till late.” She yawned.

“Natchez? I hope it was worth it.”

“It was. Dick is a fascinating person. And his study of Frederick Cantrell is going to make his reputation as a Southern scholar.”

Brady folded his arms. “It’s liable to ruin his reputation, if he isn’t careful,” he said finally.

She gave him a strange little smile. “I don’t understand.”

“Sit down and you will,” he said and proceeded to tell her about MacBride’s return and then about his discovery of the Garitty connection.

“Interesting,” she admitted. “But I don’t know what it all means. Why in the world would Matt Garitty lie about the body in the Indian Creek cemetery? And who is the man in the cemetery, anyway?”

Brady took a deep breath and then spoke.

“I think the man in the cemetery is Frederick Love Cantrell.”

It took a moment for her to react. “What?”

“I know, it’s a weird notion, and I haven’t got more than a few pieces of evidence … yet. But I think Cantrell didn’t die in the Battle of the Bulge. I think he may have survived and came back. I don’t know. Maybe he had amnesia and reverted to his previous life as a bum. But at some time around 1950, I think he came back here, maybe not even aware of what he was doing; maybe driven by some unconscious need. I think he came back and his presence threatened somebody and they killed him. And if that’s the explanation, then your friend Whiteside will be missing something if he writes the conventional view of Cantrell’s life.”

Kelly shook her head, disbelieving. “But how could his coming back threaten anybody?”

“Well, he got out of here fairly quickly, as soon as Frieda returned from her bogus marriage. I suspect the Judge used a little leverage.”

“Do you think his returning could have the Judge kill him?”

“People have been killed for a lot less.”

“But what was Sheriff Garitty’s part?”

“I don’t know yet, but I intend to find out.”

“I have to admit,” she said, “it’d make a hell of a story.”

He nodded. “I think so. Now what about Whiteside? Is he ready to tell about what he’s working on? Or maybe he has tumbled to the same idea.”

She shook her head. “No. He isn’t focusing on Cantrell’s life so much as the development of his work.”

“I thought he was a history professor.”

“He has a number of talents,” she said obliquely and Brady flinched. “But he says he’s come up with something interesting, and he promised to show it to me if I came over this afternoon.”

“And you’re going.”

“The story, Brady. It’s all for the story.”

“I hate to see you suffer.”

“Oh, I won’t suffer until I see my first paycheck. When do I start officially, Monday?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

“Fine. We can work out the salary then,” she said. “Not that I expect too much. I used to help Dad with the books.”

“Kelly …”

“Yes?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” He watched her go out, angry with himself. He’d let another chance go by.

He forced his mind to the problem at hand. There was nothing left to do, he decided, but confront Sheriff Garitty.