Southern Belle (6 page)

Except Drummond had lied — by omission at the very least. Perhaps there was no notebook. Perhaps this was all a ruse so that Drummond could learn if the witch coven had been involved. If that were the case, then Max should simply tell Drummond about Leed and save themselves the risk of breaking into a crime scene. It would also mean that Modesto's research project was authentic which led to other questions Max didn't want to consider at the moment. Questions of Tucker Hull.

Max glanced up to see Sandra and Drummond staring at him with narrowed, fed-up eyes. Sandra's eyes spoke of Leed and danger and how they needed to figure out fact from fiction before taking any rash actions. Drummond's said that they were partners and that's all that mattered, that he had good reason to lie, that Max needed to trust the ghost that had saved his life in the past.

"I think I'll have that drink," Max said and attacked the whiskey flask. As the fiery liquid warmed his belly, a simple idea popped into his brain. He only hoped he could word it right to satisfy everybody. "If we're going to do this, we need to do it smart. Drummond, I want you to go scout ahead. We've got plenty of time until it'll be dark enough to do this. Go now. Go find out the lay of the house, figure out how I'm getting in, every detail you can think of. We need to get the notebook and get out as fast and safe as possible. Sandra, I need you to stay here and do paperwork."

Sandra's face burned red. "If you think —"

Max raised a hand only to have it swatted away. "Listen to me. This is all about appearances. You do the paperwork while I go to the library to start Modesto's research. You know how Modesto and Hull are — they'll be watching us. If we don't start working as usual, they'll get suspicious."

"Listen to him, doll," Drummond said. "We can't afford to tip them off."

Locking eyes with Sandra, Max hoped she would calm enough to catch what he meant by appearances. It wasn't amazingly subtle, but Drummond seemed to have fallen for the whole thing.

With an ugly glare, she rolled her chair back to her desk and started working, slamming pieces of paper into one pile or another, then typing on her laptop hard enough to make Max cringe. He couldn't tell if she was acting or truly mad. His gut told him to bet on the latter.

Avoiding Sandra's gaze, Drummond shifted his hat down at an angle and headed out the wall. "Looks like I've got scouting to do."

Max exited as quickly if not as smoothly. He fumbled with the door and slipped on the stairs. Once he sat in his car, he texted a simple message to Sandra:
Meet me @ Wake Library.
Hopefully, this would make things clear enough that by the time she reached Wake, any real anger would have dissipated. Once more, his gut contradicted his thoughts.

"Okay," he said to the steering wheel, "let's get to the library and have a little time to relax."

Before he could turn the ignition, Max's cellphone rang. The screen read Unknown but the number looked familiar. He was about to press ignore when it hit him — the card in his pocket. Stevenson the FBI agent.

"Hello?" he said, unwilling to check the business card, holding on to the hope that it might be a wrong number or even a telemarketer.

"Max? It's Stevenson."

Max's heart dropped. "What do you want?"

"Things have changed. We need to talk. There's a ballgame at the Dash Stadium this afternoon. Meet me there when you can get away."

"I don't really follow minor league ball."

"If the game hits the seventh inning stretch and you don't show, I'll come find you, and I won't care who sees us together. You associated with anybody you think might not like seeing you talk with an FBI agent?"

Yeah. I can think of too many.
"It's a bit crazy right now. Let's meet tomorrow. I can —"

"Mr. Porter, let me make this quite simple for you. Either you show up at that ballgame, or you'll end up in jail for murder."

Chapter 6

The sanctuary of the library could not ease Max's nerves. What he had hoped would be a quiet research session followed by an intelligent discussion with Sandra, one in which they found a logical and measured response to Drummond's behavior, had become a mass of confusing, pressure-filled worries. In less than twenty-four hours, his calm, pleasant life had cracked open onto a sizzling frying pan of lies, threats, and secrecy.

He sat at a library computer intending to search for some basic information on handbells, but he couldn't muster the willpower to type in his query. Clouds rolled in, darkening the main floor which took in a lot of light from outside, and soon the heavy hits of a Spring downpour followed. It would only last a few minutes, but it reminded Max of how fast things can change. He had mounting problems to juggle and not a single worthwhile lead, but if he didn't find some angle to follow, the situation would change without any control.

He felt fairly confident Drummond was lying. He suspected Leed was lying. He had no idea what angle Modesto and Hull were taking, or if their work truly had anything to do with this. Then there was FBI Agent Peter Stevenson — the most pressing question in his mind.

What could this man possibly have that would tie Max to a murder? Perhaps it was all a bluff to get Max out to the ballfield. If so, it would work. Max had to know how the FBI fit into this.

"Deep breath," Max said and inhaled. He rested his fingers on the keyboard. Sandra would wait at least fifteen or twenty minutes before heading out to the library — just to make appearances should anybody be watching. It would take at least another twenty minutes for her to drive out to Wake. That meant he had time before she would arrive, time in which he could scramble his senses worrying about things he had no control over, or he could at least attempt to get some research done.

Though his fears continued to nudge the back of his neck, he managed to get his fingers typing and quickly had a list of books and websites to check out. All of this information would be the basics on bells, their construction, their history, that kind of thing. He didn't care about the details, he only wanted to leaf through the books and websites to look at the pictures. He knew from Modesto that the handbell had a white handle with a red stripe, that the outer rim bore a geometric design, and the inner rim had a fancy H. Assuming these things were valuable to collectors, especially since Hull had collected them, Max hoped to find a picture of one used as an example for some aspect of bells.

Ten books and twenty-three websites later, Max had nothing. On a whim, he checked out eBay. While numerous bells were for sale, only two approximated the Hull bell, and neither matched the description close enough to be worth investigating further.

He never expected these avenues to be fruitful, but the basic approaches were always worth trying. Sometimes he got lucky. When it came to the Hull family, though, he knew well the difficulty in uncovering even the remotest reference. William Hull, Terrance's father, had worked hard to erase their mark on the history books.

"Maybe Modesto is telling the truth," Max said. Perhaps Terrance wanted to re-establish his family's presence in the world. Or perhaps he wanted to continue his father's efforts. Either approach would make his desire for the handbell somewhat logical. Unless this was really about Tucker. Best not to think about that — Max had enough troubles to consider.

An idea struck, and he began a new query. Most collector's items, especially ones that had been around for a long time, had some type of pricing authority. Comic books, baseball cards, samurai swords, anything that people wanted to buy and trade, somebody else cataloged it all.

From the handbell musicians association website he began a winding journey that ended with the a cluttered site called A Mostly Complete Handbell Buyer's Guide. Once there, he narrowed the search from a starting point of close to a million. Most handbells were not constructed in a baker's dozen, so that cut the list down into the thousands. Adding in the Winston-Salem, North Carolina area as a criteria brought up seven results. Four of those had been constructed in the last three decades — much too recent for it to be a cherished family heirloom when the Hulls reached back to the foundations of the city. Of the remaining three entries, only one set had been constructed in 1723 — a baker's dozen with white handles, red striped, ornate design on the outer rim, and another design on the inner rim. No mention of the letter H, but Max's gut knew this was his target.

While the listing did not bring him any closer to finding the lost bell, he now had a picture of one as well as confirmation that this wasn't a goose chase to keep him away from other matters. The bell was real, and the price tag of only one — $74,000. The complete set was worth far more than the sum of its parts. According to the buyer's guide, a price of two to three million dollars would be appropriate.

Two to three million dollars.

"I didn't need to know that," Max said, his nerves lighting up once again.

Hands covered his eyes, and Max yelped, jumping in his seat. Sandra's sweet voice giggled. "Sorry, hon. Didn't mean to scare you."

As Max hugged his wife, his heart continued to pound away. "Don't do that to me. Not with all that's going on."

"What is going on? Drummond's worrying me."

"Me, too. All of it is. Even this handbell thing. The timing of it is weird. But Drummond lying, or at least withholding the full truth, that's not like him."

"And this whole notebook thing — I didn't believe his story at first, but now he wants to go break in to that house. There's got to be something worth going in there for."

Max scanned the room to make sure nobody paid extra attention to them. In a low whisper, he said, "I think most of his story was true. I think he had met Dr. Ernest and worked with him well before Joshua Leed came into the picture."

"I agree. But then why not tell the full story? Why stop before getting into the witch coven? Worse, he lied about that. He purposely made it sound like that part of the story never existed."

"That's why I agreed to this break in. We've got to keep playing along with him until we know more of what's going on."

"I don't like it. These late-night things never turn out well for us."

"If you've got a better idea, please tell me."

Sandra stuck out her tongue.

"It's those mature responses that make me love you more." Max kissed her tongue.

"Be careful."

"Of course."

"No, you need to be more careful than usual. Drummond is lying to us and he's lying about something that surrounds a murder. That's stressful and confusing. It means he's got pressure building inside him. I may not be able to help much when it comes to witches and curses, but I know ghosts. Pressure like that — the kind that comes from having to face the secrets of your past — that's the kind of thing that can turn a ghost."

"Turn? That doesn't sound good."

"Not all ghosts are sweet and friendly."

"I'd hardly call Drummond sweet or friendly."

"Good ghosts, kind ghosts, can lose themselves, lose whatever made them decent. They turn. Become evil."

"Like what? Haunted houses, poltergeists?"

"Or worse. A ghost like Drummond, one who knows us well, could cause us both serious harm. He would be like an insane psychotic that still remembers the key details of our lives but has no empathy, no morals, nothing that would stop him from abusing that knowledge."

"I get the picture. What do we do to stop this?"

"I don't know for sure. I've never been in a position to try stopping a ghost from turning before. But I know that the worse this pressure builds upon him, the more likely he is to turn."

"Well, you're full of great news." Max rubbed his face. Now he had to worry about Drummond going crazy. And Agent Stevenson expected him soon. He needed to get going.

Sandra dismissed it all with a wave of her hand, but her eyes didn't believe. "I'm probably being paranoid. Don't worry about it unless Drummond starts showing cracks."

"Cracks?"

"Just an expression, hon. Not literal cracks. At least, I don't think real cracks would form." She trembled out a grin and kissed him.

"I know it's boring but please go back to the office and wait for Drummond. If I haven't returned when he gets there, call me. I've got some more research to do."

"Yes, sir," Sandra said with a mock salute.

Once she left, Max gathered his things together and waited at the entrance. He watched her as long as he could, then waited another three minutes after she left his view. The idea that he hid from his wife wriggled under his skin, but until he knew what the FBI wanted, he wouldn't dare give voice to his concerns. They had enough to contend with. No need to get Sandra fired up with more worry, too.

As he walked to his car, he saw no sign of her. He drove off campus onto Silas Creek Parkway, a stretch of road that made a long arc around the city, until he hit Peters Creek Parkway. A left turn towards downtown brought him straight to the BB&T Ballpark.

He had no trouble finding a parking space — mid-week, afternoon, minor league baseball games never packed the seats. The park had been constructed less than ten years ago and still bore the feel of newness about it. Not really good for a ballpark. The seats were too new, the paint too clean. The place lacked the sense of history which was part of a baseball game experience.