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Thursday, December 26th
Shamus was going crazy, no surprise after she had been gone since the afternoon of the day before.
“Sorry about that, kitty cat.” Charlotte was still floating on air, a woman in love, a woman well-loved. She didn’t mind a little extra cleaning up after the cat, putting half the ornaments back on the Christmas tree, filling his kibble bowl a little extra high—and throwing open the windows for half an hour to air the place out while she changed his litter box. Once things were put to order and Shamus had calmed down and allowed himself to be cuddled again, she had a long hot shower and changed into fresh clothes.
She looked at the collection of small packages for Ellis under her tree, the sack of presents intended for Aspen, then at the extra food and wine on the shelves in the kitchen.
Charlotte felt a need growing by the second to do something cathartic about anything that had gone wrong of late, since so much had gone right. She’d send Ellis’ presents to Paris, but take back the others. The weather was cloudy but good enough for walking back to the stores and returning her purchases. As several hundred dollars made their way back into her bank account, she felt a huge sense of relief.
The stores were also having after-Christmas markdowns, but she resisted the temptations until she came to Ramona’s Resale Shop, where there was a display of vintage evening dresses and strappy shoes. Jimmy’s New Year’s Eve party was coming up. She was planning to wear the one little black dress she had, which was perfectly suitable, but she was feeling everything but perfectly suitable at the moment. Everyone was going to be at Jimmy’s party, and no doubt dressed to the nines. And Donovan would be there. She smiled because she could count on him to notice, and take pleasure in this way of flirting with him. One dress in particular called to her, and she went in to take a closer look.
It was black, but unlike her simple sheath it was a just-above-the-knee length halter dress with a sweetheart neckline. Sweetheart, he always called her. She looked at the dress but was seeing earlier that morning, awakening just past dawn and gazing at Donovan’s sleeping face, soft and relaxed, the skin smoothed out and making him look twenty years younger, a faint sheen of stubble hinting at what he would look like in a beard, the sensuous lips she—
Snap out of it!
She went in to try on the dress, which was like new, fit beautifully, and the price tag said ten dollars. She took advantage of a holiday special, three dollars for a pair of strappy stilettos with the purchase of a dress. Charlotte laughed to herself when she thought of the horrified reactions the Aspen contingency would have had to such economies.
At the checkout, Benny Ramona called down irritably from the top of the stairs, something about lowering the thermostat. Aslan, his mannish-looking partner, rolled her eyes and smoothed back her lion’s mane hair. “He’s not in good shape.”
“He doesn’t seem himself. What’s the matter?”
“We have to get rid of our stock of books in order to make room for more kids’ clothes, furniture, and baby stuff. That’s what makes us money. But the books are what he likes the best. He’s bummed.”
Charlotte thought about Benny Ramona’s predicament as she walked back to her apartment. There was no doubt he loved old and second-hand books, and they covered half of the second floor of the building. He had purchased the resale shop from the previous owners, including their old stock, and doubled the supply of second-hand books.
Donovan’s mother Olivia was one of Benny’s first regular customers. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, she had purchased the incredibly rare first French edition of Seamus O’Dair’s novel Least Objects, which translated from the French as An Uncollected Death, from the original stock. Most of the books that formed her collection were from Ramona’s Resale, the ones Donovan spent so much time reading and enjoying now.
Charlotte’s phone rang, and she shuffled her shopping bag and purse contents until she found it and answered in the nick of time.
“Oh good.” It was Donovan, and he sounded worried. “Charlotte, are you at home?”
“On my way, walking back from Ramona’s Resale. Why, what’s up?”
“I was doing some searches on the kind of cross that we saw burning. And I found something that scares the hell out of me. It’s a set of pictures from that night on a white supremacist blog. Somebody sympathetic to the cause was there.”
Charlotte had come to a standstill as he said this, then started walking again, this time very quickly. “I’m almost home.”
“I’ll send you the link. Call me when you get situated.”
As soon as she got home and online, she opened his email with the link to the blog, and felt cold inside as she saw what he was talking about.
There were a dozen photos from that night, including the burning X, the police and firemen, the barn, the house—and a close-up of Gani on the porch when Charlotte was standing next to him—and it showed her hand touching his shoulder. None showed Janice or Alexa, or Donovan. There was only one of Hewey Sawyer, but it was blurry. There were no captions, just a blog post that said, “We acquired these photos of the recent cross lighting in Elm Grove, Indiana. Sympathizers to the cause of White American Freedom sent a message, but took no credit. It is clear that this household contained or supported a possible Indonesian terrorist. Would the group or individuals shining the truth on it come forward and identify themselves with pride?”
She called back Donovan. “What does this mean? That one of the cops or firemen is a secret Klansman or something?”
“Maybe, unless it was somebody who was hiding out of sight and had a decent camera.”
“How did you find this?”
“Did a search for White Ghost Riders. You know how fragments of memory crop up at odd times, like in the middle of the night, or taking a shower? I had a memory of people talking about a cross like that being burned when I was first working at the mill, not long after high school. But when I searched saltires and St. Andrew’s crosses, I didn’t find anything useful, same as when you tried. Then I searched for White Ghost Riders, and that’s what came up, right at the top. Getting a lot of hits, evidently. And then there are the comments—as of right now, a hundred and eighty-seven, and still coming in.”
They read over the comments together, with special attention to the ones that claimed to know what group was responsible. Several said it was “The Riders,” but most of them were cussed at for believing in a myth, others saying The Riders, if they ever did exist, had probably all died out by now. One claimed it couldn’t be The Riders because the X wasn’t enclosed in a circle. All too many seemed to know who Barnes was, and recommended sabotaging him and “the whores” harboring the terrorist, especially the one “caressing the dark one’s arm,” who was probably “his favorite.”
“The Riders might be the White Ghost Riders, the Sawyer brothers’ biker outfit, but I’m going to need to do some calling around about that.”
“I gotta tell Barnes about this. And Gani, Alexa and Janice need to know, too.”
Donovan was in full agreement. “Yeah, Barnes is a good guy. Most reasonable cop I’ve ever dealt with, although that’s a pretty low bar. He might be able to get them to take down those pictures. But I’m worried about your safety, Charlotte.”
She stared at the computer in dismay. “It is pretty scary.”
“Damn my stupid legs, anyway!” He muttered more curses. “I hate the idea of not being able to protect you. Almost makes me wish Norwich was around to do it.”
“Well, I don’t. I’m calling Barnes right now, and I’ll keep you updated, okay?”
“I appreciate that, Charlotte. Good luck.”
She called Barnes, and, as she expected to do, left him a voice mail message. She also emailed him the link to the hate group blog. He called back five minutes later.
“Hi, Detective! You got my message?”
“Yeah, and I found the website with the pictures. If it wasn’t for the fact it involves you and the Garibaldi women, I’d be glad, because it means somebody is showing their hand. I’d like to come by for a minute and go over some personal safety issues. I’m at the county courthouse at the moment, but should wrap up here in a few minutes.”
“You really think I’m in personal danger?”
“Hard to say, as a lot of these guys are all bark and no bite—but let’s err on the side of caution.”
Half an hour later, Barnes followed her up the stairs. “How do you like living here, after Lake Parkerton?”
“Believe it or not, I love it. See?” They had reached the top of the stairs and she swept her hand across to present the room.
“Not bad at all.” He walked over to the windows, then pulled his notebook out of his jacket and began writing. “I want to find out who’s got a good view of this place, which is about a third of the block across the street. Probably all okay, but make sure these blinds are closed after dark.” He accepted a cup of coffee from her, with the milk and sugar she knew he liked, and sat down on the other end of the sofa from her. “Nice little place, though. You alone? Got anyone special?”
She was surprised by the question, but he laughed and shook his head. “I beg your pardon, that came out wrong. I’m still asking about personal security, if you have a boyfriend or a trusted male in your life, preferably the size of The Hulk.”
She burst out laughing. “No Hulks, I’m afraid. I have someone, but he’s more wiry than hulky.”
“Donovan Targman?”
She nodded.
A satisfied smile slowly spread across the big man’s face. “Ahhhh.”
“Ahh what?”
“I wondered if anything would come of it. I like being right.”
“You gotta tell me, now. What gave you the idea?”
“I saw something there a few months ago when we were talking to him in the hospital about the events surrounding his mother’s death, the day I took his statement, remember that?”
She nodded. She had shown Donovan a notebook she found that he’d written when he was a kid, and he had held on to her hand as he explained to her and Barnes what had really gone on that led to two people dying and his being beaten nearly to death.
“It was the way he looked at you, and then it dawned on me how extraordinary it was that he managed to maneuver himself, despite a broken leg and massive internal injuries, to keep you from getting pistol-whipped or worse. Like you say, he’s not The Hulk. Something powerful had to give him the will to do that.”
She said nothing, but felt warmth both inside—and on her cheeks. Once again, she thought, I give myself away.
Barnes smiled, but kindly. “You’re good for him, and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for you. I like those odds. I noticed his cane the other night. How’s he doing these days?”
She explained about his recovery process, that he was living in his mother’s house for the time being, and that he spent most of his time reading books and getting back into writing. She also admitted that she talked with Donovan about the Garibaldi case, shared what he knew about Hewey Sawyer’s family, and said that he was the one who discovered the photos online.
“I’m glad you told me. I like knowing there’s someone who at least knows what you’re up to, and even if he can’t get around easily, he knows to call me if something is amiss.”
“Yeah. He’s been a great friend, and a great comfort.”
Barnes wrote a phone number down on a blank page and handed it to her. “From now on, I want you to call me at this number. It goes directly to the phone I always have on me. For that matter, give the number to Donovan, too, and tell him I’d like to re-establish contact. That way you know you’ve got a couple of guys who have your back, hmm?”
She appreciated the offer, and told him so.
After Barnes left, Charlotte looked over the research notes she had shared with him, about cross burnings, the Klan’s attempt to buy Corton University, E. M. Corton’s bootlegging and tunnel-building, and the origins of Elm Grove itself. Barnes asked if she could email any future research notes to him as she came up with facts and questions. He also said that he had already spoken to Gani about the pictures on the blog, and was about to visit Janice and Alexa to warn them, as well.
“This is one of those cases,” he said, “where the clues are likely to be found in the relationships between people and in their personal histories, made difficult because none of them have criminal records on file.” He trusted her to look into everyone equally, even her friends, because what she turned up might well exonerate them.
One of the newspaper articles she had come across at the public library was an interview with Professor Emerita of Fine Arts Honorine Clarkson Grady, who knew more than anyone else alive about the Elmhurst Normal School and the early days of Corton University. After a couple of phone calls, Charlotte learned that Professor Grady was still alive, if not overly well, and living in Golden Grove, an assisted care facility at the edge of town. It was, she decided, a good day to visit the elderly and infirm.
First she called Donovan, to bring him up to date and to give him Barnes’ number.
“Huh,” he said, “imagine that, going from one-time prime suspect to private line access.”
“You’ll call him, won’t you? I get the definite impression he thinks highly of you.”
“If he does, that’s because of you. I think you have the golden touch with the good detective.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I’m glad to help him out, and maybe I can help out Alexa and Gani, too.”
“That’s you all over, sweetheart. Just don’t pay too high a price.”
Honorine Grady shifted her oxygen tank to her right hand and grasped the arm of the sofa with her left hand as she eased into a comfortable sitting position. She let out a big sigh, and smiled. Charlotte brought over a carafe of coffee from the dining room service line and poured a cup for her old professor. Except for the tank and the location, it could just as well have been coffee in the Student Union twenty-seven years ago. Well, that and Honorine’s now-absent cigarettes and ashtray.
“So Archie Wallace finally met a donut that didn’t like him!” Honorine referred to the ailing Art Department chairman. Her thin, bright-red lips curled into a wicked smile. Charlotte always thought she looked a bit like Shirley MacLaine. “If you see him, tell him for me, will you, that the room right next to mine is available. The old geezer in there kicked off a couple nights ago.”
“Really?” asked Charlotte.
Honorine shrugged, still the star of her own show. “Of course not, but he’d expect me to tease. Can’t let ‘im down.”
They conversed some more about old times and mutual friends, in particular Hannah Verhagen. Charlotte expressed her frustration and regret that she hadn’t heard from Hannah in such a long time, and was unable to let her know that she had moved. This, in turn, led to Charlotte answering questions about recent events in her own life.
Honorine was, if nothing else, unsentimental. “So, now that you’re shut of the whole child-rearing thing, not to mention the regular paycheck, you could take up your brushes again, hmm?”
Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t have a calling, Honorine. I like it, but there’s something missing in me.”
“I think it was harder for you and some of the others having a modern-day Georgia O’Keefe for a peer. Then again, if you had a calling, it wouldn’t have stopped you, even if it killed you.”
“That’s exactly how I see it,” Charlotte replied.
“Nonetheless,” said Honorine, finishing her coffee and handing the cup to Charlotte for more. “You didn’t come here to chit-chat. Spill it. What’dya wanna know?”
“I need some information about the really old days at Corton, back when it was first a university and about the buildings on the original old campus.”
“Ah, you’re here to talk to the oldest surviving widow of the Normal School faculty!”
One of the more remarkable things about Honorine, who was born in 1929 (or, as she put it, “the year the whole country went to hell in a handbag”), was that she married a man thirty-nine years her senior, which meant, here in the 21st century, Charlotte was talking to the widow of a man born in the 19th. Horace Grady was a professor of the Elmhurst Normal School, and later served as an early Dean of the Corton University College of Arts and Sciences.
“And that’s fine,” continued Honorine. “Except I want to know why. I love finding out if what I know is relevant to something I haven’t thought of before. Keeps me alive.”
“Okaaaaay,” Charlotte said, trying to decide where to begin. “This relates to the murder of Alonzo Garibaldi. I assume—”
“I heard about that! Shocking! So Janice finally grew a set and did him in?”
Charlotte coughed as a laugh collided with swallowing coffee. “Not as far as I know. Nobody knows who did it yet.”
“What’s your part in all this?”
“I’m friends with their daughter, Alexa, and with Dr. Garibaldi’s lab assistant, Gani Serapio.”
“Why you and not the cops? What’s wrong?”
“Actually, I’m working with the lead detective in an unofficial capacity. My research helped to solve a previous case of his, and this looks like another one I might be able to help out with, to find the patterns in what has been going on.”
“Okay, now I’m satisfied about your motive. Just as long as you tell me the truth, I won’t feel you’re wasting my time, and I won’t waste yours by telling you a thousand details that aren’t relevant to what you’re looking for.” She sipped more coffee, then held up a pointy red-enameled fingernail. “Now, I may be wrong, but shouldn’t we be starting with the Garibaldis themselves? I’ve got more dirt on those two than they could ever wash off.”
Who could resist? thought Charlotte. Honorine was even more outspoken than Charlotte remembered her, but she didn’t seem mentally wobbly. “Why not? What do you know?”
“Well, just remember, when it comes to Corton and Garibaldi, you gotta keep an open mind, alright?” Charlotte nodded, and Honorine continued. “Since he is the one who bought it, I’ll start by telling you what I know about him, and what a lot of people knew about him at one time, a different time.”
She shifted sideways to curl her feet up on the sofa. “Did you know Alonzo at all? You know how good-looking he was, in a Latin leading man way? And did you know he batted for both teams?”
“That I did not know, at least not for certain. But it fits with what I know.”
Honorine said nothing for a moment, and then lost patience, gesturing for Charlotte to go on with her hand. “This is the part where you tell me what you know! We gotta keep it relevant, Charlie!” She used the nickname Charlotte went by in her student days.
Charlotte laughed. “Of course, fair enough, a deal’s a deal, and I don’t think I’m breaking a confidence. Dr. Garibaldi’s assistant, Gani, who is himself a professor at Corton, is gay, and was very much in love with him. In fact, he’s the only one who seems at all broken up over the man’s death.”
“Perfect! I take it, then, Janice isn’t too shook up?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But I don’t know her well. I think she might be in shock, and she admitted it doesn’t seem real.”
“Hmm. Before you feel sorry for Janice, you need to know that she and Alonzo were the biggest swingers on campus during the whole seventies, and even beyond. Wife swapping, LSD, orgies, if it was happening, they were there.”
“That went on here at Corton? Wow. I always had a feeling he considered himself god’s gift to women, but I never got anything other than an ethereal vibe off of her.”
“Alonzo was a stallion that would mount anything in his line of sight. Where he got the energy to do all that plus teach, research, and build a decent Science Department was the subject of general amazement, though most of us really knew it was coke. But even he settled down a bit, maybe got bored with it, maybe it was getting older, maybe he was scared of AIDS, but he was always known to suddenly decide to have a sexual encounter with someone, then suddenly not know them anymore. Very detached. Janice was a wild one, too, until she got pregnant.”
“I think Alexa was born in 1980.”
“People were stunned that the baby looked just like Alonzo—what were the odds? Janice still partied now and then, after that, but eventually she seemed to have faded out of the scene, much as Alonzo had. Some said it was antidepressants—they kill the sex drive, you know.”
“So Janice was just as much of a swinger as Alonzo before Alexa was born. Wasn’t this before her grandfather died?”
“You bet your life it was. Eddie Corton didn’t kick off until seventy-nine. Was alive for the worst of it, and I’m sure he knew damned well what was going on.”
“You knew President Corton, then?”
Honorine smiled. “Of course. Horace, my husband, you know, was about Eddie’s age, so they went way back. Both of them were on the Normal School faculty. Both of ‘em liked young skirts after their wives died—that’s how I got Horace. It wasn’t hard to get him to tell me what old Eddie was up to.”
“I know the standard story about how he came up with the idea to raise funds with bootlegging in order to buy the school out from under the Klan.”
Honorine rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, all the old farts with money liked their drink and the plan was a logical one, even though it also had a lot of potential pitfalls. The real problem was keeping the miners in line, ‘cause they were all Southerners, and at least some of them were sympathetic to the Klan. By bringing in outsiders to do secret work, Eddie set himself up to be vulnerable. But if those tunnels were going to be useful, they had to get done fast, and done by people who knew what they were doing.
“At first Eddie would personally look to their needs—did they need extra food, or a doctor? Did their kids need shoes? But they started taking advantage of him. Finally, Horace and the other conspirators told him to set up a promise of a new car for every miner if the whole project got done by such-and-such a date—but no cars to anyone if word got out about what they were doing. That worked. Those miners already preferred to keep to themselves, but the need to keep a secret from the rest of the community really made them not mix with the townies.
“The miners had foremen, the guys who would actually report to Eddie, and he got pretty thick with them. They all stayed on during the Great Depression.”
“What about Corton’s wife and his children?”
“Winifred was a gentlewoman. Very proper, very gracious, and yet a truly warm woman. Everybody loved her. I only met her a few times, after Horace and I married in forty-eight. They just had the one boy, Alexander, who was killed in Korea. He was a war correspondent. Alexander married money, a Vanderburgh. Joan was her name, and they had a boy, Jonathan. Joan was pregnant with Janice when Alexander was killed, so Janice never knew her daddy.”
Here Honorine leaned forward, eyes sparkling with extra-juicy gossip. “But the strange thing is, no one ever saw Joan pregnant, and Alexander was hardly home at all that whole year before he was killed. And no other Corton, male or female, is blond, nor are the Vanderburghs. That little platinum blond girl couldn’t have stuck out more in that family if she was black.”
“So Janice was left by the fairies, after all?”
“She does look it, doesn’t she? No, but I have my own theory. Winifred died young, couldn’t have been more than fifty, just a couple years before Janice was born. Horace said that Eddie was nearly inconsolable—he drank constantly with his miner friends and took up with young women that they knew to distract himself. And it wouldn’t have been hard for him to get the women, even if they didn’t know who he was, because he was still a good-looking fella at the time in a distinguished, gray-haired way.
“But here’s the thing. He was too well-known in both the town and the campus to get away with dallying with the girls there, but the girls from the mining families were a different story, because they always kept to themselves anyway, you understand? We suspected he got one of them pregnant, and took the child to replace Alexander. Of course back then that meant he probably would have asked Joan to pretend that Janice was her child.”
Charlotte took this in carefully, trying to line it up with what she already knew. “Janice told me she was closer to her grandfather than to her mother.”
Honorine nodded quickly, eyes wide and knowing. “Eddie took that little girl with him everywhere. His secretary used to complain that she was turning into the kid’s nanny, and threatened to quit. I even babysat her a couple of times myself when Horace and Eddie had a board meeting. She was a quiet child, but restless. I told Eddie right out that the girl needed her mother and the company of other little children, and he shouldn’t be dragging her around like a human Scottie dog. Oh, he was ticked off at me.” She shook her head at the memory. “But it had to be said.”