South of Shiloh (19 page)

Rane kept his face expressionless, but he was leaning forward as if exerting sheer gravitational pull would tug the words from Dalton’s lips.

“Tell him,” Jenny insisted.

Dalton shrugged and said, “There’s a specific rumor we heard. This Confederate contacted me by cell phone and made a point of meeting me at the hospital. He’s a Virginian with the Stonewall Brigade. A reliable guy. We met at Antietam years back and have kept in touch. He was incensed about the incident and thought I should know what the local reenactors were saying…”

“Which was?” Rane asked quietly.

Dalton held up his palm and pursed his lips. “According to the locals, the shooting wasn’t an accident. Beeman, the cop, has a running feud with a family around Corinth. He was standing shoulder to shoulder with Paul in line. The locals think somebody was trying to settle scores with Beeman and hit Paul.”

22

RANE REACHED FOR THE NOTEPAD AND PEN IN
front of Jenny, then pushed them to Dalton. “What did Beeman actually say?” he asked.

Dalton stared at the blank paper, then tongued the inside of his cheek. “We asked him about the rumor. He showed us a text message on his phone, daring him to show his face at Shiloh next weekend.”

Manning screwed up his lips. “He
did
say that could just be harassment piggybacking on the shooting…”

Dalton shook his head. “Nah, he said that strictly CYA, ain’t what his eyes said. Gut read—he thinks somebody tried to kill him. He said, and I quote, ‘a reenactment’s the perfect place to shoot somebody, with all the noise and smoke.’”

Manning nodded and leaned forward. “Beeman sat us down when we identified the body, and he was pissed. First thing he said was they, meaning the local politicos, weren’t real interested in looking too hard at this.”

Dalton said, “Corinth’s a big tourist destination, see? They can damage-control an accident. But if word gets out you have a sniper? There’s half a dozen reenactments in Mississippi and Tennessee over the next three, four months.”

“Show me how it happened,” Rane said, nodding at the notepad.

“Okay,” Dalton said. He picked up the pen and talked quickly as he sketched. “See, like Jenny said, Beeman and Paul got to know each other before the battle. When they got in line Paul was standing on Beeman’s left…” Dalton drew a double line of circles representing men in formation. He X-ed one of the circles in the front rank near the left end of the line. “Beeman’s here.” Then he drew a little counterclockwise arc coming off the circle to the immediate left of the X. “Beeman said Paul stepped to avoid tripping, like this, to his left front when it happened.”

“Like maybe the sudden movement threw off the shot,” Manning speculated.

“What’s the ground like? Where’s the other guys, the Rebels?” Rane asked.

“Open field in front, woods to the left and rear. A Reb formation was about a hundred yards out here.” He scribbled wavy lines to represent tree lines, and some more circles to show the relative position of the Rebel reenactors. He raised his fingers to the left side of his neck, looked at Jenny.

“Go on, I want to know everything,” she said.

Dalton nodded. “Paul was hit here. Beeman figures if there was a deliberate shot it had to come from these trees on the left. He doesn’t think it came from the Reb formation.”

“Too chaotic in the ranks for an aimed shot,” Manning added.

“How far to the trees?” Rane asked.

Dalton and Manning exchanged measured glances. Dalton shrugged. “Depends, anywhere from a hundred to two hundred yards?”

“About that,” Manning agreed. Then he looked at Dalton and gritted his teeth. “We’re kinda breaking a promise here. Beeman asked us for a favor, kind of, seeing’s how he expedited things.”

Jenny spoke up. “I don’t have a lot of faith in Mississippi promises right now.”

Rane gently cautioned Jenny with an upraised hand. “What kind of favor?”

Dalton explained: “He asked us not to discuss the sniper rumors until after Shiloh.”

“Shiloh?” Rane rolled the two syllables on his tongue.

Manning nodded. “The battlefield is just over the state line, half an hour’s drive from Corinth. They have this Living History coming up on the anniversary next weekend. Beeman said cops from Tennessee were going to be all over that event in case this guy shows again.”

Rane cocked his head slightly. “He said that? ‘This guy’?”

Manning nodded again. “Yeah, like he had someone in mind. So they want to stake out Shiloh, quietly.”

“You trust this Beeman?” Jenny asked Dalton.

Dalton shrugged. “Don’t know for sure. Like Davey says, it’s different down there. But he sounded pretty sincere. Like he got to know Paul and was taking it personal.”

“Could you write a number down where I can reach you?” Rane asked.

“Anything I can do to help, let me know,” Dalton said, signing his name and telephone number on the notepad under his diagram. Rane tore off the sheet of paper, folded it, and put it in his pocket.

Jenny reached across the table with both hands and covered Dalton’s and Manning’s hands with her own. “That’s enough. Tom, Davey, thanks, I know this has been hard and you two are really tired.”

Dalton nodded, cued Manning with a sideways look, and the two men rose from the table. “We better get on the road,” Dalton said. They each accepted a last grateful hug from Jenny. Then, after a round of condolences and proffers of help, Dalton and Manning shook good-bye with Rane and left the house.

Rane and Jenny resumed their seats at the table, listening to the muffled sound of a car starting in the driveway, backing out, then seeing the play of lights in the windows.

“Damn it, I’m not going to let a bunch of rednecks sweep Paul’s death under the rug,” Jenny vowed.

“Molly,” Rane said.

She had appeared in front of the table almost magically, pink-faced and steaming, wearing one large yellow towel around her middle, another turbaned around her hair. She trailed distinct wet footprints across the tile kitchen floor.

“Mom,” she said, big-eyed, “are we going to die?”

Jenny stood up fast and wrapped the girl in her arms, “No, honey. No.”

Molly pulled back and Rane watched the thoughts work with blank, innocent logic on her face, as if death was a normal adult mechanism into which she had suddenly stumbled and now needed explained. “I heard what they said. Is the man who shot Dad going to kill us?”

Rane stared at the child and it was all very simple. He stood up, placed one hand on her shoulder, and said, “No one’s going to hurt you anymore. Promise.”

Jenny’s eyes went bright with cracked-diamond grief—as, instinctively, she pulled Molly back from Rane and held her protectively. Vicky came down the hall and Jenny said, “Get Molly dressed for bed, I’ll be there in a minute.” As Vicky led Molly toward the hall, the girl turned to Rane. “Cross your heart?”

Without irony, Rane drew his finger twice across his chest just as the front door opened and Lois came in. She cocked her head. “You again?”

“Not now, Mom,” Jenny said between clenched teeth, her voice sliding like wreckage on a tilted deck. “Do you believe this shit? I don’t believe this shit.”

“Jennifer,” Lois reprimanded, “Molly will…”

“I heard that Mom, you owe me two bucks,” Molly called from the hall.

Jenny turned, plucked a sweater off the back of a chair, pulled it on, walked to the patio door, and pulled it open. Rane immediately followed her onto the deck. Across a grassy dip of lawn, a house loomed in shadow except for a giant TV pulsing color in an upstairs window.

“So, what do you think?” she asked, calmer, looking into the dark.

What he thought was she had trailed the lure of an irresistible story in front of him. What he said was, “Did Beeman tell you anything like Dalton and Manning said, when you talked to him?”

“No. He said it was a terrible accident.”

“Then it’s rumors until somebody goes on the record. I know a lieutenant in St. Paul Homicide. I could ask him to call the Mississippi sheriff’s office…”

Jenny turned and engaged the thing she’d always wondered about, the scary thing behind his quiet eyes. “This isn’t something you figure out on the phone, is it? There’s only one way to find out for sure. Somebody has to go down there and look them in the eye.”

They realized they were standing facing each other. Eyes locked.

Again it was simple. You don’t debate the decisive moments. The puzzle pieces of his life could fit. He just had to put out his hand. “I can do that; it’s a hell of a story,” John Rane said softly.

“And make sure they don’t get away with this,” she said.

From decision to plan in half a blink, he said, “I’ll need those things in the basement, the clothes and gear.”

“Why?” Jenny narrowed her eyes, suddenly catching herself. “What are you going to do?”

“You have to trust me, Jenny,” Rane said.

She stared at him, standing there lean and crisp and coldly determined. But good with Molly. Showing human parts she didn’t think…
Cross my heart.

“I need you to trust me,” Rane repeated.

Jenny couldn’t stop the words that slipped out. “You don’t get it, John. Most of us don’t get what we want or need. We settle…” She bit off the thought and hugged herself. Control, damn it. This is verging on…deranged. “Jesus, what are we doing? My husband’s body is in a funeral home in Mississippi being
fucking embalmed for shipment
.”

“I’ll be in touch,” Rane said. Then she watched him go through the patio door, walk across the kitchen, trail his hand on the table, and pick up the Mississippi cop’s card.

Jenny stood on the deck for a few moments, looking at the dark slumbering shapes of the houses full of young prosperous people who had never done anything wrong in their lives. She turned again when she heard Rane come up from the basement with his arms full, cross the kitchen, and disappear down the hall. Faintly, through the patio glass, she heard the front door shut.

Christ, is this the way I’m going to find out, finally, what makes him tick?

Not quite ready to go back in, she rummaged in her sweater pocket, withdrew the crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She lit one, took one drag, grimaced, and flipped it away. Then she squared her shoulders, went into the warm house, padded down the hall, and opened the door to Molly’s room.

Molly lay facedown in the covers, hugging her dilapidated blue-and-white-striped bunny. Vicky and Lois sat on the edge of the bed, drying and combing Molly’s hair. They rose, gave up their place to Jenny, and tiptoed from the room.

“You smell like smoke,” Molly said, making a face.

“Sorry, I should brush my teeth.”

“It’s okay. Will you rub my back?” Molly asked.

Jenny eased up Molly’s oversized sleep T-shirt and began to knead at the trim muscles of her daughter’s back.

“Mom?” Molly asked.

“What, honey?”

“Can John Rane really stop the bad guy from hurting us?”

Jenny pressed the heels of her palms along Molly’s spine. “If there is a bad guy he’s a long way from here and I don’t know what John Rane can do.”

“I know he promised. But can he do that? I mean, he takes pictures?”

Jenny took a deep breath, held it, bit her lip, and let it out.

“Mom?”

“He didn’t always take pictures for the paper, honey,” Jenny said. Then she noticed the children’s picture book next to Molly under the covers. She eased into the bed, arranged the pillows, picked up the book, and opened it to the first splashy, colorful page. Molly curled in beside her and chanted under her breath as Jenny started to recite the singsong verse that Paul had read as a nightly lullaby for so many safe, happy years.

“Seventeen kings on forty-two elephants

Going on a journey through a wild wet night…”

23

RANE RACED WEST DOWN I-94 WITH THE WINDOWS
open to feel the cold wind on his face, thinking how his old Russian piano instructor made him practice Bach fugues backward. The teacher insisted it was the only way to appreciate their depth.

Now here he was, backing into his life.

He stepped on the gas going past the 3M building, flipped open his cell phone, and punched in a number with a Wisconsin 715 area code. A man answered in a gruff, abrupt voice, “Morse.”

“Mike, it’s John.”

“Johnny, well, well. We read about you in the paper. How you stepped in do-do again and got suspended.”

“Yeah, yeah, look, I need some help.”

“We agreed: I gave up on counseling your sorry lost ass.”

“A special kind of help,” Rane said.

“Hmmm. Not likely,” Mike said, the barest hint of curiosity creeping into his voice. “But run it by me.”

“You still have that Sharps?”

“The one you got me for my big six-oh birthday and took me two years to get so’d shoot right?” Mike said. “Oh yeah. Haven’t fired it for a while…”

“Got any rounds loaded for it?”

“Probably.”

“Maybe you could get me up to speed on it and let me borrow it for a couple weeks?” Rane asked mildly.

“What happened? You get over your aversion to gunpowder?” When Rane didn’t respond, Mike asked, “Borrow it when?”

“Like in the morning,” Rane said.

“This another of your projects?” Mike asked.

“Tell you in the morning, say hi to Aunt Karen,” Rane said, ending the call. Then he thumbed through his directory and selected HC, for Lieutenant Harry Cantrell at St. Paul Homicide.

Cantrell’s cell went to voice mail. “Harry, it’s Rane. I need a favor.” Three minutes later Cantrell called back. “Rane you deviant, what do you want?”

“I need a letter of introduction faxed on police stationery to a cop in Mississippi.”

“Mississippi, huh,” Cantrell drawled. He’d wound up in the Twin Cities out of New Orleans by way of Dee-troit. “After your latest stunt you might get a collection for a one-way ticket with an Al Sharpton button pinned to your forehead.”

“C’mon, I’m jammed up, I need some help. Where are you?”

“You might try Alary’s but I ain’t promising nothing.”

Rane weighed it. Alary’s was a St. Paul cop hangout. “I thought you quit drinking.”

“I did, most people wish I’d start again. The troopies say drinking humanized me. Now I just sip ginger ale and breathe the fumes.”

“Give me ten minutes.”

Rane switched off the phone, gunned the engine, and listened to the Cherokee. Need to get it tuned up, change the oil, and throw on new tires. He rounded a bend, and the lights of the state capitol dome sparkled like a chilly tiara. He swung around the curve coming into town, took the exit at Fifth, and worked the streets, looking for a parking spot near Alary’s. Found one. Don’t think about it. Just keep moving.

He got out, squared his shoulders coming up the street, pushed open the door, and entered the barroom. Waitresses in tight shorts and halters worked the horseshoe counter, serving cops in various states of alcohol-assisted relaxation. The walls were a collage of shoulder patches from police departments from all over the country. Side doors from cop cars were suspended on wires from the ceiling, Fargo-Chicago-Minneapolis PD like a mobile hanging over a steroidal street monster’s crib. Rane preferred Alary’s in the old days, when it was a seedy strip joint.

He didn’t make six steps before he was challenged.

A stout middle-aged man in a bulging gray suit pushed off a stool. “Rane,” the man enunciated with flushed, ornate distaste. “You got some balls showing your face in here.”

“Hiya Frank,” Rane said. “See you’re still keeping Krispy Kreme in business…”

Another guy pushed off the bar, took Frank by the arm. “C’mon, Frank, let it be,” the guy said.

“He’s no fucking good,” Frank pronounced, blinking at Rane.

The second guy interposed himself between Rane and Frank. “What’s up, Johnny?”

“Looking for Cantrell.”

The cop jerked a thumb. “In the back, last booth on the right.”

Rane walked deeper into the bar and saw Harry Cantrell sitting alone in a booth with his back to the wall. Cantrell watched him approach, had seen the minor confrontation with Frank.

“Well, well. The vampire walks among us,” Cantrell said.

“How you doing, Harry?”

“Bloodsucker.”

“Can we talk or you gonna jerk my chain?” Rane said.

Cantrell opened his hand. “Sit.”

Rane sat.

“You walk in this joint I take it as serious. ’Bout three quarters of these guys hate your guts. The rest give you the benefit of the doubt. So what’s up, kid?”

“Mississippi, you been there?”

Cantrell laughed. “I went through, a little while ago on the way home. It ain’t there no more.”

“Say again?”

“You read
Huck Finn
? The part where Huck takes off to escape the Widow Douglas’s efforts to ‘sivilize’ him?”

Rane shook his head. “It’s been a while.”

Cantrell grinned. “That’s Mississippi. It’s been ‘sivilized.’ Wal-Mart, Burger King. Kids growing up listening to homogenized anchor talk on TV. It ain’t there no more.”

Rane fingered the business card out of his pocket and handed it to Cantrell, who read it, looked up at Rane, and raised an eyebrow. “Corinth, huh?”

“I need a favor,” Rane said.

“So you said.”

“Need you to fax a letter of introduction to this copper. Tell him I’m cool, as photographers go. Know my way around law enforcement, that I wasn’t hatched in a ferny Starbucks in Minneapolis. Like that.”

“Lie,” Cantrell said.

“Be creative.”

“You got a good reason, I suppose?” Cantrell asked.

“You know anything about Civil War reenactors?” Rane said.

“Some.”

“That guy from Stillwater who got killed at a battle in Mississippi, couple days ago?”

“Saw it on the news,” Cantrell said.

Rane pointed to the business card. “That cop is investigating it.”

“The report on CNN said it was an accident,” Cantrell said slowly, the drawling banter leaving his voice. His eyes sharpened in the neon-tinted half-light.

“Off the record, I got a tip that cop thinks they might have an active sniper; a guy who likes to shoot people at Civil War battles. There’s this thing on the Shiloh battlefield next week. The local cops are going to stake it out and provide security in case this shooter shows up. I’m hoping to get an in with this Beeman and get on the field.”

“Oh-kay…and how much you want me to include in this letter of introduction? Like you want me to tell him how you fucked up during your pretend-cop blue period?” Cantrell narrowed his eyes. “Fucked up in a way very similar to the stunt you pulled last week?”

Rane gnawed his lower lip. “Nah, maybe skim over that.”

“Look into my eyes, Johnny Rane,” Cantrell said.

“Hey, it’s a hell of a story,” Rane protested.

“Sure it is, and perfect for you, huh?” Harry tapped his finger on the card. “You want me to lie to a brother officer you’ll have to give me more.”

“Not lie, just leave a few things out.” Rane attempted to stare down Cantrell’s agate-brown eyes. Lookit him, still combing his hair in a ducktail, affecting T-shirts and jeans and a leather jacket. Hanging onto sobriety by his fingernails. Old-time lawman: screw the backup, kick in the door.

“So what’s got you so excited about this story?” Cantrell persisted.

“Okay, okay.” Rane dropped his eyes first. “Remember the woman?”

“
The Woman
you were crazy in love with,” Cantrell emphasized. “The Woman you got pregnant…”

“Yeah.”

“And wouldn’t marry…”

“Yeah.”

“Who you left hanging out there to have the kid on her own while you ran off to hide inside a camera,” Cantrell said succinctly.

“Jenny,” Rane said. “Jenny Edin. That’s her married name. The guy who got killed down there was her husband.”

“Well,” Cantrell leaned back and scratched his chin. “For starters, looks like you got a big fucking conflict of interest, don’t it?”

“I gotta do this. If they get this guy I want to be there. I need your help,” Rane said simply.

“Why, Johnny? It’s fuckin’ morbid. Leave it Down South.”

“I can’t leave this one,” Rane said.

Cantrell mulled it. “You’re putting me on the spot here.” He studied Rane for several seconds, weighing it, before removing a small notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket. Squinting, he swiftly jotted some information from the card Rane handed to him. Then he gave the card back.

“Thanks, Harry,” Rane said.

“Go on, get out of here before I think about this too much and change my mind,” Cantrell said. As Rane stood up and turned to walk away, Cantrell called to him: “One thing, Johnny. A little military goes a long way down there. Wouldn’t hurt to drop a hint you did some time on the sand.” Then Cantrell got up, drew close, and said, “Mississippi can get tricky. They’re brought up to be real polite to strangers and all. But there’s a line you shouldn’t cross. Problem is, you don’t always know where that line is.”

BACK IN THE JEEP, RANE PUNCHED PERRY MACNEIL’S HOME NUMBER
into his cell. Yes. Perry picked up on the third ring. “Perry, who on the staff has covered Civil War reenactments? Not local stuff. I mean battles.”

“I think Borck was out to Gettysburg once,” Perry answered quickly. Rane could tell Perry sensed he was on to something.

“Thanks.” Rane ended the call, thumbed into his directory, and punched Borck’s pager number. By the time he was pulling into his driveway, the cell rang.

“This is Craig.”

“Craig, it’s Rane…”

“Enjoying your vacation?”

“Right. Lookit, Perry said you shot a battle at Gettysburg with reenactors.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like access-wise? Getting on the field?”

“Depends if it’s mainstream or authentic. Mainstream’s kinda anything goes, campers and lawn chairs at the edge of the field. The authentic guys are real uptight about period-correct dress and gear. No modern stuff allowed. Usually no spectators, either. I had to borrow a uniform and hide my camera in this food bag they carry, called a haversack, and stay down low and find cover to shoot from, or sneak it from the hip.”

“What’ll fit in one of those bags?”

“Basic load. Camera body, wide angle, an 80–200 maybe…”

“Thanks.” Rane ended the call and made two trips, carrying in the gear he’d taken from Jenny’s house.

Then he put water on to boil, went in the bathroom, and turned on the shower. Waiting for the shower to warm he went back to the kitchen, grabbed an energy bar from the cupboard, and gobbled it. A few minutes later he emerged refreshed by the needles of hot water. He dried off, pulled on a worn pair of sweats, poured boiling water into a cup, dropped in a bag of black Earl Grey, and confronted Paul Edin’s gear strewn across his couch.

Slowly, he began to unpack the clothes Paul had been wearing when he died. Dalton’s remark—“we didn’t get a chance to clean Paul’s things”—prepared him for the blood. One whole side of a brown flannel shirt was cardboard-stiff. A paste of dried blood fouled with adobe-colored soil, bits of brush, and burrs had soaked the collar, shoulder, and front of the blue wool jacket. The clothing was intact, which meant that Paul had died before EMT got to him, otherwise they would have cut off the garments to check for more wounds.

He picked up the blue wool jacket, walked to the bathroom, and started running water in the sink. Fingering through the heavy fabric, he felt a stiff wad inside the lapel. He probed and found an inner pocket, from which he extracted a crumpled, folded manila card spattered with dried blood. Smoothing out the card, he could read a fragment of spidery pen work—
Pvt. Amos
—and beneath it, fairly legible in pencil, was a signature:

Paul Edin.

The rest was blotted out except a fragment:
Co. C.

He turned off the water in the sink, draped the coat over the side of the tub, took the card to the kitchen, and placed it on the table. He went in the bedroom and dug the sheet of notepaper from his pants pocket, picked up his phone, and called the number Tom Dalton had jotted on the bottom.

A woman answered. Rane asked for Dalton. She said he was kind of tired. Rane said it was important.

“Dalton, this is John Rane, we just met at Jenny’s,” Rane said when Dalton picked up.

“Sure.”

“We were going through Paul’s stuff; I found this card in the coat pocket with old-fashioned writing on it? It’s hard to make out because, well, it’s all smeared with blood.”

“Ouch. Definitely not cool. I should have gone through his effects.”

“Why not cool?”

“It’s called a fate card. They hand them out at some well-researched hardcore events. The name on the card represents the identity of a soldier who fought in the real battle. Idea is you open it when the shooting starts and find out if you’re dead, wounded, or a survivor.”

“Fate card,” Rane said.

“Yeah.”

“Thanks, Dalton. Get some sleep.” Rane ended the call and toyed with the gummy edges of the folded card. If he tried to wash the blood off, he’d ruin it. He looked back toward the bathroom. What about the wool coat?

He picked up the phone again and punched in the Wisconsin number. Aunt Karen answered on the third ring. “Why, John,” she said with amused resignation, “I must really be getting old. Have I missed a holiday. The only time we see you anymore is deer season…”

“C’mon, I call on birthdays, too. And the fact is, I called Mike a couple hours ago. How you doing?”

“If you’re looking for Mike, he’s in town at the Legion, drinking 7-Up. What is it you want?”

“Uh, bloodstains…”

“Are you bleeding? Nothing fatal I hope,” she said tartly.

“I need to get bloodstains out of a cotton shirt and a wool jacket.”

“Fresh or old bloodstains?”

“Three days old.”

“Pour hydrogen peroxide directly on them. Blot it out. Then you can wash in cold water with soap. Do not use hot water. Hot water will set blood.”