Death at China Rose (Sunshine State Murders), page 21
As guesses went, it wasn’t bad. “But suppose the person who sold the chalice had lied about where he’d found it—he might have wanted to keep the other chalices for himself.”
“No,” Jon said, pale with shock. “Ancy’s too good a con man to fall for that. The chalice was found at the Ridge—that means the others are there. I just have to keep looking!”
“That’s a dangerous game, for a lot of reasons. Somebody murdered Harry Pitts and I believe it’s connected to that chalice of yours. Take my warning and stay the hell away from the Ridge.” We went around for a few turns, but it was hopeless—the man refused to listen.
Driving away, I kept thinking about Jon. I liked the guy, but I knew obsession when I saw it. All he saw was gold and emeralds—his belief in the golden chalice was unshakeable.
People liked to talk about the power of faith and the virtue of intangibles, but in the end we’re all doubting Thomases. We believe in a thing only after we’ve seen and felt it for ourselves. When we’ve stuck our fingers in all the holes.
I was certain: Jon Monroe had seen the golden chalice.
Chapter Nineteen:
Brown Eyes Blue
At six o’clock sharp Charlie and I met in the same interview room as before, only this time the guard stayed with us. The haunted man was a wraith inside an orange jumpsuit that was two sizes too big.
I leaned close. “We have a lot to discuss, but first I have a question about the pickax.”
Charlie’s eyes skittered to the guard. “Should we be talking about that?”
I waved him to silence. “What did you do with the ax after you threatened Ancy with it?”
“I was still holding it when I got the ATV. I...I threw it on the passenger’s seat, and that’s the last I seen of it. I swear.”
“So you left in the ATV?”
Charlie nodded. I studied his face but it was a useless effort—he had told so many lies that I doubted he knew what the truth was.
“Did you talk to Bambi about my bail?” he asked.
“No.”
“I guess the girl’s turned her back on me.”
“Maybe she’s just returning the favor.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Eleven years ago you turned your back on Bambi.”
Charlie fidgeted. “Ancient history—the girl’s over that.”
“Being abandoned into foster care is not something you get over.”
His mouth worked, a perfect imitation of a largemouth bass “I...I wasn’t able to take care of her. I did what was best for the girl.”
“The girl,” I said derisively. “You always call her the girl or Bambi. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you refer to her as your daughter.”
He looked away, but not before something flashed in those Gollum eyes.
“Does Bambi know?” I asked in a low whisper.
Charlie made a move to leave, but the guard raised a hand. He gaped at the guard for a beat, and then sat his skinny ass down.
“You’re not Bambi’s father,” I continued, “and I don’t even need a DNA test to prove it. It’s all in your eyes, Charlie.”
Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but all that came out was a soft moan.
“When did you find out?”
“A little after Rose left.”
“After?” I didn’t hide my skepticism. I was pretty sure the truth of Bambi’s paternity was revealed before Rose went missing. But I’d let that slide for a while. “How’d you find out?”
“I suppose the same way you did.” Charlie made a V with his fingers and pointed at his eyes.
“Anyone help you in that deduction?”
“No,” he said quickly. “It’s true I was never much of a thinker, but after Rose left all I could do was think. I just couldn’t understand how everything turned to shit.” He pressed his hands on either side of his skull. “One day I noticed Bambi’s eyes. Oh, I’d seen them brown eyes all my life, but never thought about ‘em. I looked it up on the internet and it was pretty definite—two blue-eyed parents can have a child with green eyes, but never, ever brown. It was—” his face puckered, “—genetically impossible.”
“Is that why you sent Bambi away?”
His eyebrows rose. “She wasn’t my responsibility. She never was.”
I took a deep breath—getting pissed wouldn’t get me anywhere.
“I’ve been decent to the girl,” Charlie continued. “I never told her the truth ’cause I knew it would hurt her.”
“And you’re sure she doesn’t know.”
He shrugged. “I guess she could have sorted it out, but I don’t think so. She sees what she wants to see.”
Charlie was right—we were all blind. And Bambi had wanted to see a father, even a sorry-ass father like Charlie Ware.
“I just couldn’t be a father to her. I’m not that good of a man—I wish I was.”
Was that regret I heard, or just fear? “There’s still time to work on that, if you wanted.”
“I think I’ve run out of time, Addie,” Charlie said in a dull voice.
It was time for round two—I started with a quick punch. “Why’d you go to the courthouse last Friday?”
“Wh...what?”
As I’d hoped, the question had knocked him off balance. I repeated the question.
“I...I was worried about Harry. He was under that Ancy’s powers.”
“Jesus, Ancy’s not fucking Rasputin! Give me a straight answer for once.”
“I only wanted Harry put away for a little while, just a little while so I could figure out what to do. All I wanted was to fix things so everything would be like it was before.”
“Why didn’t you follow through with the ex parte order on Monday?”
Charlie exhaled, like a deep-sea diver up for air. He hung his head and mumbled. “Monday was too late.”
“Too late for what?” It was hard to keep my face impassive.
“They would have started digging by then, and I couldn’t have that. People always said there’s gold at China Rose, but they’re just old fools dreaming empty dreams.”
“Tell me what’s buried on the Ridge.”
“There’s no treasure,” he said dully.
“So why not let Ancy dig, let him go on his fool’s errand?”
“Ancy,” he whispered, his hands fisted.
A mistake—was it a fatal one? By mentioning Ancy, I’d inadvertently stirred the embers of Charlie’s hatred. I had to get him back on point. “It’s all about the Ridge, isn’t it?”
Charlie hugged his arms and rocked slightly to and fro.
“Charlie?”
He stopped rocking and put his hands on the table. He pushed a tuft of greasy gray hair from his face. “You’re smart—do you know why Ancy thought there was treasure at the Ridge?”
“No,” I said, irritated at the change in direction. He’d gotten closer to the truth, but only dipped his big toe in the icy water. I needed him to jump.
“Somebody had to put Ancy up to it—right?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. Charlie had a point, but I wanted to get the conversation back to Rose. “I suppose so, but—”
“Harry told me hisself that Ancy had gotten hold of an old treasure map that proved Lafitte had buried his treasure at the Ridge. I told Harry it was bunk, but he wouldn’t hear it.”
“Before you said you didn’t like change. Is that why...Rose had to go away?”
The pale blue eyes widened, whether with understanding or idiocy, I couldn’t tell. “Rose had changed. When we got hitched all she wanted was a house with a white picket fence and a dozen kids. Turned out she didn’t want neither of those things—at least not from me.”
“What was she—all of eighteen when you married?”
“Seventeen. Harry had to give his permission.”
“She was a kid. She didn’t know what she wanted.”
“Why not? I knew! I always knew all I ever wanted was her. If she’d given me half a chance, maybe...”
The silence between us stretched, Charlie frozen at the precipice.
“Maybe what?” I dared ask.
For a moment I thought he’d tell me. His wiry body was tense with hidden emotion. This man felt deeply, but his feelings had betrayed him, leading him to this place, this time, this moment.
“Did you see the house I built on the Ridge? Not a bad job, huh?”
I deflated. Charlie had pulled back from the edge. “The house is still holding its own, but in a few more years...” I opened my hands in a gesture of regret.
Charlie smiled. “Yeah, things rot quick in the Florida sun.”
* * *
I was headed for the exit when I noticed a familiar form in the waiting room.
“Bambi?” I asked. The afternoon rain had started. The girl looked like a drowned mouse. “Are you here to see your father?”
“No—it’s you I need—I knew you’d come here.” She spoke in sharp bursts, like a telegraph machine in old movies.
I started to take the seat next to her, but she said she wasn’t comfortable talking in the jail. I couldn’t blame her. I suggested the Dixie Diner.
“No, I don’t want to see anybody. We’ll talk in my car.”
The rain had eased up, taking a breath between deluges. Bambi’s car turned out to be Harry’s SUV. Once inside, Bambi drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, obviously working up courage. I stayed silent—this was her show. At last she nodded toward the jail.
“I guess you talked to Charlie.” Bambi spoke in an odd monotone.
“Yes.”
“What did he tell you?” She looked out the window, chin cupped in her hand. The rain pounded down.
“That’s between us.”
She twisted toward me, leaning over the console so we were face-to-face. “I wish I was dead!”
“Bambi, you’re young. Your whole life is ahead of you.” I stopped short, hearing myself. I sounded like the assholes from my own past, the teachers and relatives who told me to calm down, that it wasn’t so bad, that they knew what I was feeling. How I’d hated them for their impertinence, but then the young were merciless. “I know it’s hard, Bambi.”
She let out a breath and collapsed into the seat. “When I heard that somebody saw Charlie at the Exxon, I...I had doubts about him.”
“Just doubts?” I noticed that everyone else whom I’d spoken to about Matt Stone had referred to him by name or as the boy. Only Bambi used an indefinite pronoun.
“I was so sure he killed Gramps, all right!”
I winced at the bitterness in her young voice. “And now?”
“Now I’m not sure.”
“What changed your mind?” I asked.
She looked at me, amazed. “I heard you proved that the witness was wrong.”
How did she know about that? Then the truth hit home with a punch. GCSO was looking for Stone for questioning. Ford had passed this information on to Bambi and she’d somehow deduced that Stone’s story was now in question.
“Nothing’s proven yet. Go back to China Rose and get some rest.”
“I need to know if my father is a murderer.” She beat her small fists on the steering wheel, her voice at fever pitch. “Is that so fucking hard?”
“Stop it,” I said, grabbing her arms. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“Lemme go!” She squirmed like a toddler in the throes of a temper tantrum. Figuring I was making it worse, I let her go. She hugged herself close, taking ragged breaths and rocking to and fro. Jesus, she was on the edge of something.
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
She made a disgusted sound.
“Have you considered getting in touch with your aunt Etta?” This was the first time I’d mentioned Bambi’s great-aunt, my secret client.
“Aunt Etta?” She stared at me in seeming horror.
“I could get in touch with her for you, if you like.”
This horrified her even more. “How...how did you find out about her?”
“Charlie happened to mention an aunt in Newnansville. Maybe you should talk to her—she is family.”
Bambi started shaking. “No, I don’t want to see her and you can’t make me!”
“Of course not,” I said quickly, hearing the unmistakable hysteria in the young girl’s voice. “You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to. No one can make you. I only thought...”
“I’m done with family. What good have they done me? She better stay away!” She hid her face in her hands, the same gesture she’d made when she’d learned of her grandfather’s death.
“She’s no danger to you. From what Charlie said she’s an old, frail woman who can barely see.”
“Maybe I should take off and disappear, like Mama.” Bambi’s words were wild, but she sounded calmer.
“Running away isn’t an answer.”
“What is the answer?” Bambi slumped in the seat, her eyes staring at the rain, which had started up again.
“I don’t know, but I do know you shouldn’t be alone in this.”
She tried to smile, but it came out a grimace. “I promise I’ll think about calling Aunt Etta, but not tonight—I got a lot of thinking to do tonight.”
I didn’t want to leave her alone, but she insisted she was all right. I got out of the SUV and watched her drive away, then started on my own dark road.
* * *
I had just gone inside my apartment when the landline started ringing.
“Hello?” I asked, a little nervous. No one had called on this line in months.
“Adelajda, I have to—” Pop began, then I heard a female voice in the background, “—I’m worried about Angela. It wasn’t her. Use the razor. I...”
“What’s wrong?” I heard the panic in my voice. Pop sounded so lost and confused, and why had he called his old number and not my cell?
“It’s not your sister—use the razor, Adelajda.” He was still brooding on that stupid email of Angie’s. I wished I’d never told him about it.
“He’s just a little tired,” said a female voice that I recognized as Nurse Cherry’s. “He keeps talking about some coded message, or something. I thought if he talked with you, he’d calm down.”
“Should I come over?”
“No, his pain meds are kicking in—he’ll be asleep soon.”
I blamed myself. I shouldn’t have told Pop about Angie’s odd email. It had bothered him to the point of distraction. And what had he meant by razor? I picked apart yesterday’s conversation, searching for clues.
Pop had laughed about Ang and me talking Pig Latin and the foolish secrets of little girls. I even read through the email again. Pop was right about one thing—this rambling, confused tirade wasn’t my logical sister whose head was almost as hard as mine. Then I recalled that the nurse had said that Pop was worried about a code—no, a coded message. That reminded me that as kids Angie and I hadn’t stopped at a secret language. We also devised a secret writing code—several, in fact. Was it possible?
I reread Angie’s email once again. This time the final paragraph held a special meaning: I hope you understand. Our childish codes were all variations on a simple theme. Sometimes we’d count every third word, though for shorter messages we’d use the first letter of every third word.
I tried out one of the old codes, filling a sheet of scratch paper with nonsense. The code was too complicated. Then I heard Pop’s voice: Use the razor, Adelajda. Of course, Pop meant Occam’s razor—seek the simplest solution first.
This time I picked out the first words of each of the three paragraphs, which read, For but I. Oddly poetic, but just a word salad. I sharpened the razor once more, choosing just the initial letters.
“Jesus,” I muttered, staring at the letters on the paper. Three simple letters that explained so much.
FBI.
In hindsight, it was obvious. Jon had complained that Ancy’s illegal activities had been flying under the radar. Well, something had blipped somewhere, and the feds were now very interested in the self-styled amateur archaeologist. So interested that they were willing to impede the search for a killer rather than risk their precious investigation.
When I’d asked Ang to look into Ancy Prince, the FBI had noticed—though how they’d found out so quickly was a murky area. Thinking to cut off my investigation at the root, they contacted Angie and told her not to assist me in any way. I supposed she didn’t have much choice—Angie’s contacts at the Bureau would have dried up if she’d balked—but at least Ang managed to clue in her clueless sister with the hidden message.
I remembered the sedan—every instinct had told me it was a tail, and my instincts had been proven right. That I only spotted it once was irrelevant—after the feds realized I’d made the car they either switched vehicles or planted a fancy GPS gizmo on the Vic.
I laughed out loud—this even explained the Princes’ chumminess with Jeb Richt, who was obviously a valued customer in stolen artifacts. But more important, I now understood the strange behavior I’d witnessed at GCSO. The Bureau played hardball, all stick and no carrot. They’d made it clear to Brad that Ancy Prince was off-limits, which explained their velvet-glove approach to the crooked archaeologist.
I idly wondered if Brad was operating under FBI directive when he warned me off the case. If true, the joke was on the feds. Brad knew that telling me to back off would have the opposite effect. I would run forward, as hard and fast as I could—usually straight into the nearest brick wall.
Which was exactly what I’d done.
But now that I knew about the Bureau’s meddling, it was a whole new ball game. And I was ready to play.
I called Brad.
