Ashes and Bone (25 page)

“How dare you treat me this way? You’re nothing but a little leech, living up in Magnolia House like you truly belong to the Gereaus. What a fool Penn was.”

Jaymee’s grip on the gun tightened, but she kept it in front of her hips, muzzle pointed away from everyone. “Go back to Ashland, Mrs. Asher. The police are expecting you.”

“I’m heading to Jackson to visit my cousin. All of this nonsense is taking its toll on me.” She shrank into her coat, transforming from a lumpy witch to an afflicted old lady.

A police cruiser careened into the driveway. Dani’s muscles loosened, but she didn’t let go of the axe handle. She’d been afraid they’d have to stall Margaret until a patrol car showed up. Officer Hendricks, Cage’s old partner, jumped out of the vehicle, hands up.

“Christ, Jaymee, can you put that thing down?”

“Long as you have yours at the ready. This woman’s up to something.”

Hendricks nodded, pulling his revolver out. Jaymee let the rifle drop. “Mrs. Asher,” the officer said, “we asked you to stay at Ashland. Captain Barnes is on her way.”

“Tell Gina to check her purse,” Jaymee said. “She was threatening Dani and reaching into it when I came out.”

“That’s preposterous!” Margaret’s crooked hand clutched her purse tighter. “I needed a tissue. She pulled a gun on me for no reason.”

“I’ll ask you to put the bag on the porch,” Hendricks said.

Margaret’s breath hitched, and she looked between the officer and Dani. Jaymee kept the rifle down, but Dani saw her hands tense. Finally, Margaret’s knobbly body sagged, and she dropped the bag.

A hard breath of air tore out of Dani’s chest. “Tell Gina to check the patch on Margaret’s neck.”

D
ani’s knees were
still shaking when Officer Hendricks drove away with Margaret in the back of the cruiser after taking Dani’s statement. Inside the house, Jaymee put the gun in the cabinet. Mutt hung back, smart enough to stay away.

“Did you see the pain patch?” Dani stumbled into the kitchen and sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs she never should have bought.

“No,” Jaymee said. “Where was it?”

“On her collarbone, kind of to the right. It’s clear. Just like the fentanyl patches are.”

“Booth’s is too, and it’s not fentanyl.”

“I’d bet you Margaret’s is. You should have seen her face when she talked about him. I think she attacked Ben to protect him Booth, but he must have been around to help. No way could she have done that on her own.”

“I figured as much when she basically said her husband was going to be six feet under.”

“She’s been involved in this from the start,” Dani said. “The mayor didn’t go behind her back to get the Semples foreclosed. She did it herself.”

“Do you think she knows where Nick is?”

The axe handle suddenly felt like it was burning Dani’s skin. She reached into the vest and pulled out the dirty piece of wood. “No. Remember I said I needed to show you something?”

Her research for the historical foundation still lay on the table. Grabbing the stack, she motioned for Jaymee to sit. “The foundation is doing a display on the Civil Rights Movement, so I’ve been working up a profile on Emery Lewis.”

“Name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.” Jaymee eased into a chair.

“Nineteen-year-old white kid from the University of Chicago who came to Roselea in the summer of 1964 to spread word about the movement, encourage the blacks to vote.”

Dani handed her a faded newspaper picture of a smiling, dark-haired man. He stood in front of City Hall, his face round and shining with youthful hope. His khaki pants were crisp, as were his white cotton t-shirt and thin tie. Shoulders straight, chin up. He believed he’d make a difference in the segregated south. Instead, he’d polarized the area.

“Same summer the three civil rights workers were killed in Neshoba County,” Jaymee said. “The Mississippi Burning case.”

Dani nodded. “And Lewis is Roselea’s very own shame story. He disappeared that summer. Assumption was that he was murdered by one of the many people he pissed off by supporting equal rights.”

Dani reached for the yellowed newspaper clipping that had fallen behind the trashcan. “There’s only one article about his civil rights work, from just after he arrived. The reporter said Lewis was brash and disrespectful, and bragged he’d been in Georgia the month prior. Said he’d had a confrontation with one of Lester Maddux’s supporters and stole the axe handle he’d used during the confrontation. Lewis said Maddux had even signed the piece. But he never showed it to anyone. So the newspaper painted him as a troublesome braggart.”

“That’s how they saw all the civil rights people back then. Blacks had it much worse.”

“You’re missing the point.” Dani waved the piece of wood around, slicing it through the air. “
This
is the axe handle. Remember I said I couldn’t figure out why Dylan was so sure the cave was the Brennan gang’s hideout just because there were a few bones, especially when three men supposedly disappeared? It’s possible animals got some of them, but if Dylan’s been digging like he claims, why aren’t there more bones? Or any sign of the gang’s belongings? Why aren’t there any clothes?”

Understanding flashed across Jaymee’s face. “Oh my God. That might be blood on the end of that handle. Emery Lewis disappeared, and that handle was stuck there. The bones are his. Except, where are his clothes?”

“I don’t know, but he was murdered. Maybe whoever did it took them to help keep the body from being identified. Either way, I think the cave is where that kid died.”

Rubbing her temples, Jaymee leaned back in the chair. “Okay, so this is a big deal. But what does it have to do with Nick’s kidnapping?”

“The cartridge box.” Dani flipped through the papers until she came to the clipping. Now, the boldface headline screamed at her. She should have seen this right away, but she’d pushed the research aside, worried about the storm and her friends. The damned answer had been sitting on her kitchen table for days.

University of Chicago Student Finds Rare Confederate Artifact

Emery Lewis, political science and history major, was hiking through the Adams County countryside with a metal detector, the latest technological advancement in archeological research, when he discovered a cartridge box with a bullet hole. Experts at the Adams County Historical Foundation confirm the cartridge box is authentic and believe the damage was made by a Minié ball, a typical type of ammunition of the Civil War. The piece is leather and well-preserved, having been found buried in the dirt of a rice field just off Hwy. 84. The field was the site of a Confederate camp and several skirmishes with Union soldiers looking to invade Roselea. The metal roller buckles are intact in the piece, and experts believe they set off the metal detector.

Lewis, an avid Civil War buff, is thrilled with the find. Members of the Adams Country Historical Foundation stated they asked Lewis to donate the piece to their archive, but he refused. Lewis has already caused unrest by his comments regarding the supposed inequality of whites and Negroes, and city officials believe it would be in his best interest to donate the cartridge box as a show of good faith to the town.

“This is a beautiful representation of the segregationist attitude of the southern people. A piece of history like this belongs to all of us, and just because I’m not from around here doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate its value,” Lewis said. “Not unlike the hardworking blacks of this area who aren’t provided the same basic civil liberties because of the color of their skin. We are the same.”

Jaymee snorted. “So he’s basically saying the locals didn’t deserve to have the cartridge box because they couldn’t appreciate it.”

“That’s how most people took it. He disappeared a couple of weeks after he gave that interview.” She should have put on her white gloves but too late now. The papers weren’t that old, anyway. She fished through them until she found the small article on his disappearance. “The paper spends more time lamenting the loss of the box than the kid’s life. It disappeared with him.”

“You’re sure it’s the same box?”

“Absolutely. Even in this crappy picture, you can tell the bullet hole’s in the same place. Not to mention the metal buckles. They’re unmistakable. Which brings us to this point: how did the cartridge case turn up when Lewis never did? He seemed pretty attached.”

“Did the box have any red dirt on it, like what we saw in the cave?”

“No. I don’t think the box was ever there,” Dani said. “I think his killer kept it and somehow, it ended up back on the market. Question is, how?”

“Maybe he sent it back to a family member for safekeeping,” Jaymee said. “He knew people were pissed and was worried they’d take it. Family member sells it later.”

“Maybe. Either way, Nick must have realized what the case meant as soon as he saw the picture.”

Jaymee’s eyes welled with tears. “Of course he did. Civil rights cases are one of his passions. He’s studied all of them, and he always talks about those cases being Pulitzer material. About how there were still people missing from those days, and how uncovering one of them would change a reporter’s life.”

“That’s what happened, Jaymee.” Dani started pacing the kitchen, following the pattern of the linoleum she still needed to replace. “I don’t know if Nick was ever in the cave, but he figured out the Emery Lewis connection when he saw the picture of the cartridge case.” Dani stuck the papers in her bag. “We should call Cage, tell him what we found. But in the meantime, my Internet’s still down thanks to the storm. Hopefully it’s up in town. Let’s head to the library, see what we can find. We’ll go through the microfilms if we have to. Lewis’s disappearance wasn’t as big as Medgar Edgar’s murder or the Mississippi Burning killings, but it had to have made the Jackson news, and certainly his hometown.”

“That’s the trail Nick would have followed,” Jaymee said. “Let’s go.”

T
hankfully, Roselea’s library
was in the older section of town and unaffected by the fire in the subdivision. And the Internet worked. Dani and Jaymee settled in front of one of the computers, shoulder-to-shoulder. Jaymee’s feet constantly moved, every tap of her toes on the threadbare carpet infecting Dani and making her fingers fly over the keyboard.

“Civil rights history is depressing,” Jaymee said. “And embarrassing. Just fifty years ago, we were barely removed from slavery. It was nothing to have ties to the Klan.”

“My great-grandfather was an active member.” Dani said, grinning as Jaymee’s eyes widened in surprise. “On my mother’s side. He grew up in Greenwood, Indiana. Used to be a farming community and is now more of the south side of Indianapolis. I never knew him, but my mother remembered him and her grandmother talking about seeing a man hanged in the woods. She didn’t realize what it all meant until years later.”

“Damn. In Yankee land?”

“Indiana is sort of middle ground. And Indianapolis was the headquarters of the KKK in the 70s. Bet you didn’t know that.”

“Well, I guess you are a true Southerner at heart,” Jaymee said dryly.

“That’s not a part of your history I’d like to be associated with, thanks.” Dani scanned link after link. “Here. The Jackson
Clarion-Ledger
.”

She glanced at Jaymee, but her friend stared stoically ahead. “It has an article about Emery Lewis’s death. He was staying at a boarding house that apparently isn’t here anymore and went for a late evening walk. Took them regularly. Never returned. Police found his wallet in a dumpster on the other side of town, but no fingerprints were lifted. Since he’d pissed off the town, I doubt the locals strongly investigated his disappearance.” She squinted at the screen. It was only a matter of time before she’d have to succumb to reading glasses.

“Let’s see, he’d come down here with four other college kids, all civil rights workers. They all received threats and various taunts, but no actual attacks. Lewis left all of his things in his room—except the cartridge case. He was afraid someone would take it. It never turned up either.”

“So whoever killed him did take the case. Maybe even killed him for it, although the idea is off the wall.”

Dani looked at Jaymee, stillness settling between them. Jaymee’s eyes widened, the creases between her eyes deepening. Dani’s breath was tight.

“You think,” she kept her voice low, “that Nick figured out who killed him? And that person lashed out?”

“I…I don’t know. I’d like to think Lewis wasn’t killed over the cartridge box, but those were angry, angry times. Someone might have been looking for an excuse. So they keep the cartridge box. Somehow, years later, it ends up in Ben Moore’s possession. But it’s real, so why did Ben even send the picture to Nick anyway?”

“He might have assumed it was fake,” Dani said. “Ben wasn’t an antiques expert, and no one’s seen the original email yet. I want to know how Nick tracked the killer down. And how does the killer know Nick’s on his trail? Did Nick approach him? Would he do that?”

Jaymee snorted. “If he thought it meant a break in the story, absolutely.”

“Then we’re on the right track. I can feel it.” Dani turned back to the computer and pulled up an article from an Ohio newspaper. “This one’s a lot more in-depth. There’s a lot of outrage. Lewis had called home and told his family he’d been receiving threats for stealing history and for fraternizing with blacks. He’d been visiting their homes, trying to get them to register to vote. Handing out campaign stickers. A group of young men cornered him the first weekend he was down here and told him to go home. He didn’t give his family any names. Father claims police blew them off. The state and national authorities were busy with bigger cases, riots. And so Lewis just slipped away.”

The Ohio articles kept coming although very little information changed. No witnesses, no suspects. Family insisting the Roselea authorities were uncooperative. Eventually, the frequency of the articles diminished until they disappeared altogether.
Just like Lewis.