Heart of Evil

Page 22

“Don’t you dare laugh at me—I’m letting the house get to know me. And, Jackson Crow, you know as well as I do that we’re unlikely to come across an entity who just happened to see the whole thing. If the ghosts haunting the cemetery are active, they probably get the hell away when a reenactment takes place because people are everywhere, and if they’re just reliving the fight—well, then they don’t see anything but what was. Some of those entities have been around forever, but still can’t quite reach out and touch anyone, much less a newcomer to the property. Give me time.” She looked at Jake. “And give Jake time. He knows the place. And those who might still haunt this house and these grounds know that Jake is familiar here. And Ashley.”
“Ashley?” Jake said, frowning.
Angela nodded, looking at him. “I think that Ashley has a sense that there is more—and I think it terrifies her. Maybe she’ll come around. You can’t force ghosts—and you can’t force anyone to admit that they might see ghosts.”
“The murderer was alive,” Jackson said. “So let’s concentrate on behavioral analysis of the living for the moment.”
“It’s possible that someone wanted Charles dead—and killed him here,” Angela said.
“Too pat, too hard and too complicated. If someone just wanted Charles dead, there were easier ways to kill him.”
“A narcissist,” Jackson said. “He’s sure of himself. He believes in his intelligence and his ability to carry out the plot.”
“So we’re looking for someone who isn’t stupid,” Ashley said.
“The police will be working hard on the masses and their alibis. I think we have to look at the probable first. So we’ll go with the fact that we believe that it’s someone close to the family. We all thought that from the beginning. Initial instinct is a good place to start. This is someone who, I believe, is a functioning psychopath. He’s living with the belief that he’s been harmed in some way by the people here, or even by the plantation itself.”
“I agree,” Jake said.
“Even then, we have to start narrowing down the suspect pool,” Angela reminded them.
“I’d say we can get it down to a handful soon enough. Prove where people were physically, and we’ll find out answers. Or, at least, get the number down to where we can apply some pressure and perhaps cause this particular person to break. I don’t think that he’s well. This is the kind of murder perpetrated by a person with some kind of mistaken belief in the righteousness of what he’s doing. We just have to figure out who is really a concerned friend—and who is wearing a mask of friendship. I believe that he’ll eventually break.”
“I’m just afraid of what might happen if we don’t find him quickly. He may start to spin out of control before he breaks, and that could be really dangerous,” Angela said.
“That could be fatal,” Jake said. “We need to take care—great care.”
Jackson nodded. “Go work with Ashley now,” he said.
Jake went back downstairs and found Ashley in the study. He sat down in a chair across the desk from her and surveyed her. She handed him a sheet of paper. It was filled with the names of those who had played rebels and those who had played Yankees. There was a little paragraph about each man’s family, employment and character that followed. He smiled, looking down at the sheet.
The first name on it was Cliff Boudreaux. And Ashley had typed, You’ve known him almost as long as I have. Cliff, competent, good-looking, strong, self-assured. Tour guide, jack-of-all-trades. We all know he has family blood and that he loves the family.
Mentally, he added Jackson’s note: because of that very family association, he may have underlying feelings of resentment, as in, he has as much right to the property as Frazier and Ashley.
Following Cliff’s name was Charles Osgood. Not a suicide. Underlined three times. An accountant, always an in-between man, not bad-looking, not a charmer. Thrilled to play Marshall Donegal; change happened at the last minute.
Charles was followed by Ramsay Clayton and then by Hank Trebly, which made sense. Hank was involved with the sugar mill on the cemetery side of the property.
Hank Trebly, Ashley wrote, reminds me just a bit of a hobbit. A little short, a little squat—I know you know Hank. Fortysomething, balding a bit, always chewing his lower lip, concerned with politics, and the environmentalists coming after the sugar mills. I hear he’s a good guy, though, insisting that corners never be cut, and that they follow regulations to a T.
Jake looked up again, smiling as he caught Ashley studying him with serious eyes.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing. This is perfect, actually.”
“You sure?”
“Jackson’s specialty is behavioral science. This is exactly what he’ll need. He hasn’t met these people, and your information is the kind of thing that a behavioral scientist works with. Perfect,” he told her.
She nodded, but her gaze shifted toward the door. He looked around. There was no one there. Was she praying someone would come get them both out of here?
“You okay?” he asked her.
“Fine,” she said, not taking her eyes from his again.
He turned again, feeling as if someone were behind him; no matter where she was looking, it was as if she had seen something.
But there was no one there.
He looked into her eyes questioningly, but she had her hands folded on the desk, and she maintained eye contact. He looked back to the list.
Griffin Grant, affable fellow, think you’ve met him, though his uncle used to do the reenactments. Adores the place and the playing—he’s a CEO, VP (?) at a cable company out of New Orleans. Early thirties, good-looking, sharp and well-dressed, nice sense of humor, especially considering the fact that he’s a total business geek.
Toby Keaton, owns Beaumont, but you know that. Medium height, medium weight, early forties, thinning hair. Our families have always gotten along well—starting from the beginning of the “survival by tourism” days. We do Civil War and reenactments; he works on Creole history, the real day-to-day work involved in such a plantation. He’s always been part of the reenactment.
John Ashton, nice guy, his father did the reenacting in the old days. He’s in his late twenties, bookish, glasses, even has special wire frames just so that they work for the reenactments. He runs a tour company in New Orleans, and has long been a good friend of the plantation.
Jake looked up at Ashley again, seeing her and imagining the reenactments as he had seen them so many times before. He knew the positions the men would take—he could run it in his own mind easily. “So, Charles winds up playing Marshall Donegal. The rebel troops are complete with Cliff, Griffin, Hank, John and Toby. Ramsay goes off to be a Yankee.”
“Yes, Ramsay went off to join the Yankees, and that group included two locals, men you know as well—” Ashley reached over to tap the paper “—Michael Bonaventure, from New Orleans, bar owner, has a place off Royal Street, and Hadley Mason, an engineer from Lafayette. Justin Binder is from Philadelphia, and he was here with his mother-in-law and two children. He’s a widower. The other two Yankees were Tom Dixon, from New York City, and Victor Quibbly, from Chicago, and they both left the morning after the reenactment.”
“They flew out from New Orleans?” Jake asked.
Ashley swung around in the chair, hitting the on button on the computer that sat on a stand next to the desk. She nodded. “We know when everyone is coming in and out from different cities, because we try to arrange rides. Yes, Tom left on American Airlines at noon the following day, and Victor was on Continental fifteen minutes later. Cliff drove them to the airport, I believe.”
“Can you think of anyone else who is closely involved with this property or with the reenactment?” he asked her.
“Dr. Ben Austin—he’s a practicing M.D.—and John Martin, our biggest sutler, or vendor. He was here with his wife, and they were at the party—you know, the wind-down in the house. Every one of those folks was there—except for Charles, of course,” she said.
He nodded. “Change places?” he asked her.
“What?”
“May I get on the computer for a minute?”
She stood up, walking around the desk. As she did so, she looked at the door again, frowning. He followed her line of vision but saw nothing.
Jake sat at the computer and started punching in keys. He could access sites that the average person couldn’t because he had the proper codes.
“What are you doing?” Ashley asked him. She hadn’t taken his chair; she stood at the edge of the desk.
“Simple elimination,” he said. “Two Yankees in the clear—they indeed flew away. Their names are on the manifests for the flights.”
“Wouldn’t the police be checking on that kind of thing, too?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, but in my mind, the more people I know to be eliminated entirely on my own, the easier it will be to home in on what really happened. And Jackson is a stickler. He’s a team man—it’s the way he’s always worked. People make mistakes. We can make mistakes. Anyway, I know we’re down to a few-score people.”
“A few score,” she repeated, wincing.
“Don’t worry. That number will go down quickly,” he assured her.
Once again, she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking behind him. He turned quickly, wondering if he didn’t glimpse a shadow…something. Ashley was definitely acting strangely.
Donegal was known for being haunted. Maybe that was why she had fought all her life against the possibility that ghosts could be real.
And maybe, she was just beginning to feel or see something….
There was a tap at the door. Jake was surprised by the way Ashley seemed to all but jump out of her skin.
Frazier poked his head in. “Lunch is served. An excellent meal, it appears.”