TWENTY-EIGHT

The next morning I went to the office early and, after wrapping the journals in brown paper, put them in a mailing box. Then I secured the box with plastic tape, addressed it to Dorcas Drew, and drove to the post office, where I sent it by Express Mail. I checked our box and found, to my relief, a brown government envelope of the kind checks come in.

I got back to the office just in time to be at my desk when Marilyn arrived.

Before she could begin I handed her the brown government envelope, like a cat presenting its master with a bird.

Her little face relaxed and she actually smiled.

“I was starting to get my résumé together,” she said.

“So is there anything pressing?” I asked.

“Is that a way of saying you’re taking off again?”

I told her about the murder of Sarah Goforth, leaving out any mention of the journals.

“Oh, God,” she groaned. “Alan, how do you get involved in these things? Do you mean there may be policemen here today? What will I tell them?”

“Tell them I’m out on business but I’ll be back.”

“And if the murderer comes instead?”

“Keep the doors locked.”

“Thanks.”

I reached into my pocket for my keys. None of the lab crew had shown up yet, but I saw Rosemary Amadie’s projectile point collection arrayed on the sorting table, a small card next to each item, with the type of point, geographical area, and dates.

The Mahatma could do good work when he focused on his current incarnation.

“And if that woman calls?” Marilyn asked.

“Tell Pepper I’m fine and to hurry back,” I said. “But you don’t need to say anything about the murder.”

I left quickly, because I knew that it was only a few minutes before the cops or the media or both came for more details. And I couldn’t make any progress if I was sitting in an interrogation room.

I went home, circling the block to make sure nobody in an unmarked car was waiting for me, and finally parked out front and went inside. I retrieved the little book by Adrian Prescott and checked the phone directory for a listing.

Seventeen Prescotts, but not an A. or an Adrian.

I drove to a shopping center not far from my house, where the publisher had offices. It was a local company that specialized in subsidy works on local themes, and once in a while a really valuable reference work resulted. I went up a narrow set of stairs between a pet store and a pharmacy and found myself in an office overflowing with books of all kinds.

A woman with graying hair and bifocals looked up at me from her desk beside the stairwell and asked if she could help.

“Do you know Adrian Prescott?” I asked, showing her the little book.

She examined the volume carefully, as if she were evaluating its construction, then laid it down on her desk, face up.

“This was published before I came here,” she said. “Mr. Herman may know about it, though. Did you want to order copies?”

I told her I was looking for the author, and she got up without another word and disappeared into the back.

There was a morning paper on her desk, and I wondered if she’d gotten to the part about the body found in Bayou Manchac, or the local man questioned about the crime.

The woman reappeared two minutes later, leading a giant with gray, tousled hair. Wearing blue jeans and a red-checkered shirt with suspenders, the giant reminded me of a clean-shaven Paul Bunyan with rimless glasses.

“Herman Dugas,” the giant said, smiling and sticking out a huge hand. “You’re interested in Adrian Prescott’s book?”

I mumbled my own name quickly, hoping nobody read the paper that closely, and told him I was more interested in the author.

Herman Dugas scratched his chin.

“Mr. Prescott. Nice old gent. Seemed to know his stuff, but what do I know?” He chuckled.

“I wanted to talk to him about one of the plantations he wrote about,” I explained. “But there wasn’t a listing in the phone book.”

The giant nodded.

“He was in bad health. He may have passed away.”

The woman’s head jerked up, as if she’d known the author.

“Then that’s the end of that,” I said, chagrined. I turned to leave.

“Too bad. He was gonna write another book.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. He was having trouble finding the money, though. I think he was trying to get some kind of grant.”

“A grant?”

“That’s what I remember.”

“What was the book going to be about?”

He shook his head. “I don’t remember. It was history, of course. That was his thing. But he wasn’t a professional historian. I remember he was upset about that: He said you practically had to be a university professor to get any kind of research grant, no matter how good you were.”

“And he wasn’t a professor.”

“No. He was retired from the state. Used to be an accountant. He hated it.”

“Do you remember what agency?”

“Nah. He’d been retired five or six years when we did his book. I think he retired when his wife died.”

“Did he have other family?”

“Some kids, I think. But I never met ’em.”

“Could you do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Could you check your records and see what address he left?”

The woman looked offended. “We can’t—”

But the giant was unfazed. “Don’t see why not. Haven’t heard from him for a long time, but we ought to have something.” He folded his big arms across his chest.

“Come back just before four-thirty. I got a few other things to do, but I ought to have time to look it up by then.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

I left the office, got into my Blazer, and headed back down Stanford toward the office.

An idea was taking shape. I didn’t know its full implications or how it would emerge, but my unconscious was telling me to pursue the lead. If Adrian Prescott was working on another book, and if he’d wanted to get a grant for research, then maybe he was the man who’d archived the Fabré papers. And that meant that maybe he was the man behind the fraud.

My chain of thought was shattered by the wail of a siren and I looked into my mirror to see flashing blue lights.

Oh, Christ. What had I done, forgotten to signal when I’d turned onto Morning Glory?

I pulled to the side and fished for my driver’s license, but before I could get it out a voice on a loudspeaker was telling me to get out of my car and keep my hands in sight.

“You could’ve waited for me to get back to my office,” I complained, but the policeman, a black hulk with a beer belly, wasn’t interested in anything I had to say.

Half an hour later, after six other police cars had come speeding up like sharks after blood and half the neighborhood had had the opportunity to see the criminal sitting shackled in the rear of his captor’s unit, I was driven downtown. But instead of going to the police station on Mayflower, I was taken instead to the district attorney’s office on St. Louis. I was shown into a long conference room and the hulk behind me released my handcuffs as four men, seated at chairs near the head of a conference table, looked on, scowling.

“That all, sir?” the cop asked, and the man at the head of the table nodded.

“Thanks.”

The door closed, leaving me with the four men.

“Sit down,” the man at the head of the table ordered.

I pulled out a chair and sat, aware of their eyes on me.

For the first time I noted the camcorder on a tripod in the corner, and the tape recorder on the conference table.

“Mr. Graham,” the man at the head began, “my name is John Kech. This is Chief Deputy Comeaux of West Baton Rouge Parish, Lieutenant DeSoto from Iberville Parish, and Lieutenant Crane from the Baton Rouge Police Department. I’m an assistant district attorney for East Baton Rouge.”

If they were watching for a reaction they may have seen me blush. I didn’t like the looks of this at all.

“Mr. Graham,” Kech went on, “I have a paper here for you to read. I’m going to go over it with you. It explains your rights.”

He slid a piece of paper toward me over the table.

“What the paper says is that you have the right to remain silent …”

I blotted out the rest of the litany, my eyes fixed on the line at the bottom where I was supposed to sign. When Kech had finished he paused for a moment. I looked back at him. His eyes, behind the rimless glasses, were cold gray.

“Do you understand what I’ve just read?”

I pushed the piece of paper away from me as if it were contaminated by a virus.

“I want my lawyer.”

The men at the head of the table heaved a collective sigh.

“Fils putain,” the cop from Iberville mumbled.

“Is there some reason you need a lawyer?” Comeaux asked, but Kech held up a hand.

“Can’t talk to him anymore without his lawyer,” he said.

We stared at one another for another hour until Dogbite came.

He breezed into the room with a briefcase that looked suspiciously light, shook hands with Kech, whom he called Jackie, and asked him how he’d done in the football pool. Then he asked if he’d dumped his shares of some stock I’d never heard of, laughed at one of Kech’s jokes, and finally turned to me and said, “Not again.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I protested.

“He didn’t do anything,” Dogbite cried, wheeling to face the others. “Why is my client here?”

“Big problem for us, Stan,” Kech told him with false concern. “One, your client was on the scene when a man named Flowers was murdered in West Baton Rouge. His only alibi witness is a woman nobody can find.”

“What else?” Dogbite demanded.

“Your client is implicated in a swindle. Forged documents, claims about famous dead people, a real first-rate scam.” He tapped a thick folder I hadn’t noticed before. “A man named Nick DeLage says your client’s been trying to worm his way into the confidence of his poor old aunt. And he thinks your client even sent a woman named Sarah Goforth to steal some documents from him.”

“What else?” Dogbite said, biting a fingernail.

“We talked to Goforth’s supervisor at the TV station. Ex-supervisor, because he fired her a few days ago. Said Goforth made a trip to Tennessee, trying to follow up this story.”

The white car in the parking lot at the Lewis monument …

“Then said Goforth turned up dead in Bayou Manchac, without enough of a face for her nearest and dearest to identify. And your client here admits he was in the immediate area, even went to meet her.”

Dogbite turned to face me. “Sounds like a strong case,” he accused.

“Goddamn it, Stanley, who are you representing?” I yelled.

He blinked and turned back to the accusers. “My client is innocent,” he declared with all the conviction of someone reading a detergent label.

“Then he won’t mind answering some questions,” the Baton Rouge detective said.

“I’m not answering any questions unless I’m charged,” I said, hoping I sounded confident.

“He’s absolutely right,” Dogbite seconded, and then looked over at me. “Are you sure?”

“You’re goddamn right I’m sure,” I said. “Whose side are you on?”

“Yours,” Dogbite said, biting another nail. Then he leaned over and whispered, “You sure you don’t want to cut a deal?”

“Am I under arrest?” I demanded.

“Let’s keep this informal,” Kech said smoothly. “Just answer a few questions. What’s wrong with that?”

The Iberville deputy, DeSoto, jumped in then.

“Do you have any property of Mr. Nicholas DeLage?” he croaked.

“No.”

“What about these journals that were stolen from him?” Kech asked. “Maybe you thought you were doing his aunt a favor by taking them, right?”

His attempt to be personable failed.

“I don’t have any journals,” I said.

“We can get a warrant to search your house and business,” he said pleasantly. “Do you know how much time a business loses when records are subpoenaed? When whole walls are torn out?”

“You’re going too far,” Dogbite said finally. “My client said he doesn’t have the things, and you don’t have probable cause for a warrant. My client has been threatened himself on several occasions. His girlfr—associate has even had her apartment broken into and he’s had his car vandalized.”

Kech shrugged. “Somebody broke into her apartment and somebody trashed his car. But we only have his word it wasn’t him.

“Speaking of this associate,” Kech said, leaning forward, “where is she just now?”

“Out of town,” I said. “In Monroe.”

“Monroe?” The D.A.’s brows went up a fraction. “What’s in Monroe?”

“Her brother,” I said and explained Pepper’s search.

The lawmen exchanged glances and I could see I’d opened a small chink of doubt.

“Look,” I said quickly, trying to exploit the opening, “I think the person who forged the Lewis will is the same person who annotated the Fabré documents when they were given to the library. I don’t know who the person is, but I think finding them is the key to this thing.”

Kech folded his arms. “So this person, whoever he or she is, is killing people because he knows about this colossal scam?”

“Something like that. I think we stumbled on it by accident, as part of our work for the Corps of Engineers, and the killings are to keep us from finding out something incriminating.”

The policemen’s faces showed confusion, boredom, and hostility, but Kech was maintaining a pretense of interest.

“And there isn’t any record of who this annotator is.”

“There probably is somewhere, but it has to be ferreted out.”

“This is crap,” Chief Deputy Comeaux growled. “I say charge him now.”

But Kech held up a hand. “There’s time for that.”

“Plenty of time,” Dogbite chimed in. “Dr. Graham is an upstanding, well-respected archaeologist with an international reputation, a responsible citizen who runs a business vital to the community, who has assets—”

“Yeah, we know all about that,” Kech said. He sighed and looked at his colleagues. “Okay. We’re going to hold off for now. But only for now. You,” the prosecutor declared, spearing me with the cold gray eyes, “stay in this parish. You got that? No playing cops and robbers. And if I find you’ve concealed any evidence or hindered our investigation—”

“You’ll be looking for dinosaurs in Angola,” Lieutenant Crane pronounced.

“Paleontologists look for dinosaurs,” I said. “I’m an archaeologist. We look for—”

But Dogbite was already hurrying me out of the room.

“Right, whatever, thanks, Jackie.” He was shoving me toward the door with one hand and grabbing at his briefcase with the other. “Lemme know if you need tickets for the next Kingfish season. I’ve got a friend who knows the assistant trainer and …”

He didn’t speak again until we were on the street.

“Jesus, Alan, don’t wise off to those guys. It was all I could do to—”

“All you could do? Goddamn it, Stanley, what’s your idea of defending somebody? Giving them the option of suicide?”

“There’s no need to talk that way, Alan,” he huffed. “I left a very important client to come here. You wouldn’t get in these spots if you’d leave law enforcement to the authorities.”

“Oh, sure, like the three stooges and their handler in there.”

“That kind of talk will only get you convicted.”

“Apparently it doesn’t take much.”

“I’ll bill you for my time.”

I called the office on my cell phone, was told there were no emergencies, and no, that woman hadn’t called back. But Rosemary Amadie was coming to pick up her projectile point collection and was bringing a pecan pie.

A pie was just what I needed.

I picked up a hamburger and made my way back to the publisher’s. It was only three-thirty, but what the hell? I needed to see sane people.

This time the woman at the desk scurried into the back when she saw me and a few seconds later Herman the giant lumbered out with a battered manila file under one arm.

“Think I got what you want,” he said, dropping the file on the table. He extracted a piece of paper.

“This is the last letter I got from him. From 1992. Haven’t heard a word since.”

He handed me the letter:

Dear Mr. Dugas:

I am still working on the matter we discussed. My health has not been good lately so has delayed our work. I will talk to you when things improve.

Sincerely,

A. Prescott

But it wasn’t the words that got my attention, it was the print: The letter had been typed on a machine with an almost nonfunctional e, and the o’s and p’s were almost filled in from lack of cleaning.

What had James Fellows, the archivist, said?

… a manual typewriter of some kind. One that needed work. The e’s barely hit the paper and the letters needed cleaning …

Adrian Prescott was the man hired by Charles Fabré to prepare his documents for donation to the university.

I copied the address at the top of the letter. It was in Broad-moor, a subdivision that had developed right after World War II, on the east side of Airline Highway, which at that time had curved along the outskirts of the city.

“Thanks. You’ve been a big help.”

I shook hands with Mr. Dugas and the receptionist and went back out into the sunlight.

The address was six years old. Adrian Prescott might have moved. The house might have been sold. Prescott might even have died.

The house was a one-story brick structure with a carport on the right side and a neatly tended lawn. There were no cars in the drive, but a child’s plastic scooter was on the front walk. I had the feeling that Adrian Prescott hadn’t lived here for several years. Next door, an elderly man was raking leaves and I walked over and introduced myself.

“I hear Adrian Prescott was your neighbor,” I said.

“Adrian?” The old man cleared his throat. “Adrian hasn’t lived there since ’91 or ’92. He was in bad health. Had a stroke while he was hunting. Put an end to that. Pretty much had to stay inside afterward.” He shook his head. “The Newtons live there now.”

“You have any idea where Mr. Prescott went?” I asked.

“He had some kids. Adrian, Junior. Junior, we called him. I think he’s in some kind of investments. Little girl, the youngest, married when she was in high school and moved away. Haven’t read any obituary in the paper, so I expect Adrian’s living with Junior. Anyway, Junior would know where he is.” He leaned on his rake. “But I told all this to that woman.”

“Woman?”

“The one from the TV station. She came by here a couple of days ago. What’s everybody looking for Adrian for?”

“A rich relative died,” I said and thanked him.

I left knowing I was on the right track. Sarah Goforth had come to the same conclusion I had. But how? Had she found out something from Nick DeLage? Or had she just run across the same little book I had and followed up the lead?

But how had she gotten Prescott’s last address? The phone book didn’t list an Adrian or an A. Prescott. Then I told myself to think it through: There were other Prescotts and she may have called all the names listed until she found a relative. Or maybe she’d gone to old phone books in the library, which is what I’d have done if the publisher hadn’t been able to help.

It didn’t matter; the fact was that she’d been looking for Prescott and now she was dead.

And the police in three parishes wanted to charge me with the crime.

When I got back to the office I found Rosemary Amadie admiring the Mahatma’s work. A foil-covered dish was on the table beside her.

“Of course,” the Mahatma was explaining, “I think when you feel the vibes from these points, you can open a channel to the Indian who made ’em. This one in the middle, with the serrated edge, the Palmer point? Touch it and see if you don’t feel something, a kind of energy …”

Rosemary had a hand on it and her eyes were closed.

“It does feel warm …”

“It’s the energy,” the Mahatma said. “It’s a nexus of cosmic forces …”

Rosemary opened her eyes then and blinked in surprise when she saw me standing to the side, a slightly disgusted look on my face.

“Oh, Dr. Graham,” she said. “I didn’t see you there.”

“Rosemary,” I acknowledged, ignoring the Mahatma’s smile.

She put a hand on my arm.

“I hope you’re all right,” she said in a barely audible voice. “I saw that business in the paper. It said they were questioning you. Then I came here and saw a hearse outside …”

“It was all a mistake,” I said.

“I’m glad to hear that. I brought a pie, but I was so scared you’d be in jail …”

“Never happen,” I told her.

That was when footsteps stampeded across the front porch and Lieutenant Crane burst in with three blue-clad SWAT-team members at his back.

“Search warrant,” he sneered. “We have one for your office and one for your house. Want to stand aside?”