Flesh And Blood
My fingers were working the last button when I heard the knock on the door. No one had a key to the gates, and I couldn’t imagine who might be on the premises. I ran down the stairs and peeked through the curtains in the kitchen door.
Nathan Cates was standing on the doorstep with a bulging grocery bag. Frisco stood patiently tied to a tree beside a buckskin mare. My mind blanked at the sight. I didn’t know what to do. Nathan was dressed in his uniform, undoubtedly on the way to work at the reenactment. He’d taken me up on my request for a ride.
He knocked again, and I couldn’t hesitate any longer. I’d thank him and tell him I didn’t feel like riding. I didn’t feel like living, if the truth were known. I opened the door. “Nathan.”
“Good morning, Emma Devlin.” He brushed through the door and took the grocery bag to the kitchen table. “I wasn’t sure if you’d brought provisions, so I picked up a few things for you. Then I thought I couldn’t take you out for a morning ride without breakfast. I hear that Southern girls are given to fits of fainting, and I suspect it might be because they don’t start the day with a healthy meal. So I brought some bacon, eggs, grits and the makings of biscuits.”
“Biscuits?” I was overwhelmed. In the morning light his eyes were sky blue against the gray of his uniform. The mustache I’d seen hints of the night before was full and blond, and there was a curved scar on his right cheek.
“Don’t you like biscuits?” he asked.
“I like biscuits from the breakfast buffet at a number of places. But I don’t make them.” I didn’t feel like company. I couldn’t eat if my life depended on it. Yet there was something about Nathan that soothed me. I needed to be alone, to think. But I didn’t want him to go.
“I make excellent biscuits. My grandmother taught me.” With a quickness and skill I’d never seen in a man before, Nathan made breakfast. As he worked, he talked about Ravenwood and the peculiarities of the house. He knew much more about it than I did. His voice was deep, reliable. It seemed only a few minutes before he put a plate of bacon, eggs, grits and biscuits before me. He took a seat opposite.
Although I thought food would choke me, I ate with surprising appetite. Nathan kept up the conversation with cheerful ease. It wasn’t until he’d cleared the table and poured us both another cup of coffee that he stopped talking for a long moment.
“Would you like to tell me why you’ve been crying this morning?” he asked finally.
I did not want to tell him. I had no intention of doing so, but the words poured out. I told him everything. Every single detail of my madness. And he listened. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t question me. At some point, he reached across the table and picked up my hand. When I finished, he gave it a long squeeze.
“I know the first thing that’s crossed your mind is that you’re going insane. Well, you aren’t.”
For the first time that morning, I smiled. “How can you be so certain?”
“As a historian, I guess you could say that I believe in ghosts, or at least messages and inspirations from the spirit world. And having known you for all of two hours, at the maximum, I get the impression that you aren’t the least bit unhinged.”
I suppose it was his confidence—in himself and in me—that was so comforting. I needed a vote of confidence, even from a stranger. “Thanks, Nathan. Thanks for listening, and thanks for not treating me like a budding lunatic.”
“Since you came to Ravenwood to see Mary Quinn, have you seen her?”
I shook my head. “I was hoping today might be the day.”
For the first time worry crossed Nathan’s face. “It’s none of my business, you know.” He stood and paced the kitchen. “I probably shouldn’t say this at all.”
“Say what?”
“Emma, is it possible that your husband’s death wasn’t completely accidental?”
The idea shocked any response from me. Frank, deliberately murdered? “Absolutely not. Frank didn’t have any real enemies. He was a man of integrity, of honor. People respected him. They looked up to him.”
Nathan crossed the room and stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders in a gentling motion. “Easy, Emma, easy. I didn’t mean to imply that he was murdered because he was a bad man. Don’t you know that sometimes people are killed because they’re good? Especially men of integrity and honor. They can gum up the works for dishonest people.”
“Who would want Frank dead?”
He squeezed my tense shoulders and then released me. “I’m afraid that’s a question only you can answer. But the way I’m looking at this is that Frank feels wronged. He’s defied the odds and returned to tell you, the woman he trusts, that he’s been betrayed. If he isn’t accusing you…”
“Then he’s looking to me to help him.” A distinct chill touched my back and rolled down my entire body.
“If not to help him, then at least to understand.”
I was captured by the idea. I had not betrayed Frank. Not in any word or gesture during our marriage or since his death. Was it possible that he was seeking my help to find someone who had?
“What should I do?” I looked across the room to the sink where Nathan had begun to wash the dishes. He wiped his hands on a dish towel as he took my measure.
“It depends. Remember, this is just a theory.”
“It makes more sense than anything I’ve thought up. Unless, of course, I want to believe I’m going crazy.”
“Did you examine the police report of Frank’s death?”
I shook my head. “There didn’t seem to be a reason to. I mean, it was a robbery attempt and Frank tried to help a woman they were abusing. The robbers were crazy, and when Frank gave them trouble, they killed him.”
“It sounds logical, but it may not be. If there’s anything to my theory, then the police reports are the place to start. Did they identify the killers?”
“No.” I sighed. “I don’t even know that they tried all that hard. After the first few weeks, I didn’t push it. Frank was dead and there was nothing that would bring him back. Revenge, or justice, if that’s a better word, was my last thought. I guess I just wanted to survive.”
“Enough time has passed now, Emma. Maybe justice is necessary. For Frank.”
I looked up into the blue eyes of a man who was virtually a stranger. “I loved him so much. I still do.”
Nathan smiled. “I know. And I’ll bet Frank knows that, too.” Dropping the dish towel on the table, he took his seat opposite me again. “Promise me that you’ll heed this warning, Emma. If we’re on to something here, if there’s something to be found about Frank’s death, it could be very dangerous. If someone had good enough reason to kill your husband, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill you.”
Chapter Three
If Nathan’s unexpected theory gave me a rope to cling to in the free-fall of my life, then the morning ride we shared gave me the energy to pursue his idea. The buckskin mare, Lucinda, was as good and solid as any horse could be. My rusty horsemanship improved after a few miles, and when we returned to Ravenwood, I actually felt as if I wanted to live.
Nathan left on Frisco, with Lucinda following behind. Duty called, and his reenactment forces were awaiting his command. My own duties called me, and I took a cross-stitch hoop to Mary Quinn’s bedroom to see if she might honor me with a visit.
The cross-stitch was an attempt to learn patience, never a strong suit in my character. In one of her often-repeated lectures my mother warned that if I went to hell I’d harangue Satan to light the fires faster. There was some truth to what she said. After the first three minutes I’d pricked my finger twice. Blood had gotten on the pristine whiteness of the cloth and I was ready to pitch the entire thing out the window. So much for demurely conjuring up Mary Quinn. What I did accomplish was a lot of thinking. And I made a decision. Jackson was only an hour away, at the most. I’d drive over there and look at the police reports.
By one o’clock, I was standing at Sergeant Benjamin Vesley’s desk. Once again my brother the lawyer had pulled some strings for me. Sergeant Vesley hadn’t handled the original case, but he said he’d look up the reports for me and go over them. He talked about unsolved crimes and the shame of it and how the human race was going to hell. He was a man who would have made a wonderful grandfather, but constant exposure to the worst of human nature had made him tired and weary. He was not hopeful that the police report would yield anything.
He left me alone at his desk with the papers. I think he sensed the difficulty I was experiencing. I read the statements of the officers, the evidence of the fingerprints, the procedural reports. The words “died instantly” had once brought me some comfort. Now they were cold and meant only a permanent separation.
The statements of the two investigating officers were exactly as I’d expected. The woman Frank had tried to assist was incoherent. She didn’t see or remember anything except that the robbers were hurting her and a man had tried to help and they had killed him.
There were photos of the store that showed the outline of Frank’s body. The blood had not been removed. The eyewitness account of the other customer in the store was also filled with shock and horror and no specifics.
Robert Mason’s report was the longest. I saved it for last. I had been in the liquor store once since the shooting. I’d gone to show Robert I didn’t blame him. We had both stood there and cried like babies in front of several customers. Emotionally, it was too hard on us both, so I stopped going there.
Robert’s report was clear and detailed. He described the men. He heard the one in the leather jacket referred to as Diamond. I found a scratch pad on Sergeant Vesley’s desk and began to make notes. Diamond had dark hair pulled back at the nape of his neck in a ponytail. Though he wore a ski mask, his eyes were visible. They were an intense blue. The other robber was younger, with a smaller frame. Diamond had shot Frank. It was Robert’s feeling that they might have been under the influence of some type of drug.
After he covered the details of what was said and done, Robert made a special point about the gun. It was a .357 revolver. I had to read this part of the report twice because I didn’t fully understand. “No robber in his right mind comes in with a piece like that. It was an antique. These guys acted like professionals, but the killer had this cowboy six-shooter.”
Robert had been in the army and knew a lot about guns. He’d tried to get me to take shooting lessons and buy one for protection in the house. Since the information about the gun was the only thing I’d learned new, I wrote it all down verbatim. The ballistics report was beyond my comprehension, and I didn’t need to read the autopsy to determine the cause of death. I stacked up the reports and went to thank Sergeant Vesley. He was waiting for me with a cup of coffee and a kindly smile.
“It’s been two years,” he said. “Why now?”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t tell him I was being haunted. “Maybe it’s the last step in putting it all behind me.”
“I hope so, Mrs. Devlin. I’d hate to see you turn into one of those people who avoid life by burying themselves in the details of death.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
Since I was downtown, I decided to stop by the liquor store and talk with Robert. The store had changed. Burglar bars had been installed over the windows and doors, and there was a buzzer system to announce the arrival of customers. Even through the bars and glass I could see that Robert had changed as much as I. Threads of gray ran through his hair. He was older, more cautious. He buzzed me in with a wary look.
“Emma!”
Before I knew what had happened, I was engulfed in a bear hug. “I’ve been thinking about you for the past month. I’d just wake up in the middle of the night with this uneasy feeling. Martha said I should call and check on you, but I didn’t want to resurrect any bad memories.”
“You wouldn’t have, Robert. I’ve been thinking about you, too. I wanted to talk to you.”
He went to the front door, locked it, flipped the sign to Closed and pulled the shade. “What can I do for you?” He signaled me into the storage room where he kept a small office complete with an extra chair.
“I just read the police report on Frank’s death. You were adamant about the type of gun the killer used.”
Robert’s dark gaze locked with mine. He twisted the right side of his mustache. “What are you up to, Emma?”
“There are things about Frank’s death that trouble me. I wanted to check them out, to draw my own conclusions. Then, maybe…”
“You can get on with your life.” He nodded. “There are things that trouble me, too.”
“What was it about the gun?”
“Wait a minute and I’ll show you.” He left the room and returned in a moment with a pistol. He snapped a piece from the handle and held it out. “This is a clip. Automatic. Shoots very fast. The night Frank was killed, the killer had a revolver. You know, the gun with a round cylinder that rotates to put the bullet in the chamber. Reloading with a revolver is much harder than with an automatic. In an automatic, the bullet is already in position and it moves up through spring action. Most criminals just carry pre-loaded clips. When one is empty, they pop it out and put in another clip.”
What he said made sense, to an extent. “Maybe that was the only gun he had.”
“I just don’t understand it. It was a really fine gun. A Smith & Wesson, blue steel, hand-carved grip. An antique. Killers like those punks wouldn’t carry a piece because of its aesthetic value or the history of it. He could have sold that piece and made enough to buy several automatics. Most times killers drop the piece anyway. They want something cheap.”
He had a point. “Was there anything else? What about the man with the gun? Did he have a diamond in his ear, or any type of jewelry that might tell why he was called Diamond?”
“He was wearing that mask. I couldn’t see anything.” Robert took a breath. “Emma, I’ve thought about it over and over again. I should have been able to stop it. I should have…”
I went to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “Stop it, Robert. There wasn’t anything that you or I could have done. Frank, either. I’ve thought about it, too. I wondered why he couldn’t let them take the woman, why he had to try to step in. And the answer is, that was the kind of man he was. Neither of us would have cared for him as much had he been any different.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Keep thinking this through.”
“What are you looking for, Emma? The police said they never got any kind of lead. I called them every day for almost a year.”
“I’m thinking that there may have been more here than just a simple robbery-murder. I don’t know how or why, but maybe those robbers were in this store on that night for a specific reason. You could help me by thinking along those lines.”
“You’re saying it was a setup, specifically to kill Frank?”
Robert’s eyes were wide with shock. It did sound preposterous. Robberies happened all the time. People got killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. That was easier to believe than deliberate murder.
“I’m not saying that it’s true. I’m just saying that I’m thinking about the possibilities.”
“Why, Emma? Why? Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t have a clue. As I said, I’m just looking and thinking. Maybe you could talk to the other store owners in this neighborhood. See what kind of robberies they’ve had. See how many turned violent. That kind of thing. Frank was on the floor. He was defenseless. They could have knocked him unconscious or wounded him. They didn’t have to kill him.”
Robert nodded. “I’ll canvass the neighborhood. Want me to call you?”
“No, I’ll call you. I’m going to be hard to catch these next few days.”
“Emma, have you uncovered something?”
Robert’s hand on my shoulder was strong, supportive. “No. Nothing like that. It’s just a feeling.”
“I know what you mean. For the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking more and more about it.”
“I’ll be in touch, Robert.”
I pulled up the shade and flipped the sign to Open as I went out. Although I’d learned nothing, I felt a kernel of hope growing larger and larger. Robert was feeling something, too.
On the spur of the moment I decided to check out the woman who’d been in the liquor store that night. I had her address from her statement, and I thought Laree Emrick might have some new details to add.
The neighborhood was off Northside Drive, a good distance from downtown. I couldn’t help but wonder what she was doing in Robert’s store when she could have shopped in her own neighborhood. I knew I had no right to blame her for anything, yet my entire life might be different if she’d gone to another store that night. Might be different. If Frank was deliberately murdered, then Laree Emrick had not even really played a role in the sequence of events.
The house was freshly painted and the yard immaculate. I could hear dogs barking inside when I rang the bell. Laree Emrick was a petite woman with curly brown hair. She opened the door with a smile and an order for two cocker spaniels to quit barking.
“I’m Emma Devlin, Mrs. Emrick. You were in the liquor store the night my husband was killed.”
There was no way to soften the words. She blanched and stepped back, but she opened the door for me.
“I’ve always felt it was my fault,” she said slowly as she led the way to the living room. “If I hadn’t cried…I’ll bet you hate me, don’t you?”
“No. Not at all.” And I didn’t. I had thought at one time that I might, but it was ridiculous. She was as much a victim as Frank, or me. “Please don’t think that I’ve come here to start any kind of trouble. It’s just that I have to settle this in my own mind. I want to be sure that Frank’s death was…the worst kind of accident.”
“I don’t remember much.” She motioned me onto the sofa and she took a seat in a wing chair. “To be honest, I’ve tried very hard to forget it all.”
“Maybe we could both forget if we finally examine that night.”
“You sound like my husband.” She sighed and began to talk. Her story was much the same as the statement she’d given the police. She was downtown at an antique store and decided to buy a bottle of wine for dinner. It was happenstance that she went into Robert’s store. The men came in. She did as they said and they started to abuse her. Frank intervened and they killed him. She remembered none of the conversation, none of the details.
“Did it ever cross your mind that those men would have killed my husband no matter what he did?”
She looked up at me. “I don’t know.” She rubbed her hand across her forehead. “You know, there was another customer in the store. The robbers ignored him completely. Now that you mention it, maybe they did seem to watch your husband more.”
“Are you certain, Mrs. Emrick?” I felt a thrill of hope growing.
“I told my husband it was like a train racing downhill. There wasn’t any stopping it once the killers walked in the door.” She hesitated. “Yes, I’m certain. They paid more attention to your husband than anyone else, or anything. Even the money. You know, they never demanded more money. They just took what was in the cash register.”
“Thank you, Laree.” I took my leave. My visit had upset her, but I had another tiny straw of evidence. If it was not real evidence, then at least it was mortar to help build the wall of my new theory.
I thought about going to my home, but as soon as I had the idea I gave it up. I wanted to discuss my ideas with someone. I could have called my brothers or my mother, but it wasn’t them I wanted to see. My brothers would be skeptical, to say the least. Mom would hover and worry. She was already concerned about me, and I didn’t want her to know I was spending my time playing amateur detective. No one could have hated what happened to Frank more than my family. But they’d gone on. For them, it was over. And like most survivors of tragedy, they didn’t want to be dragged back to the abyss.
I took the interstate to Vicksburg. Nathan Cates was the man I wanted to talk to. He’d share my sense of accomplishment. I didn’t examine my feelings in this, I simply accepted them. It seemed that I’d done nothing but probe at myself for the past five weeks. Nathan Cates’s interest in my problems was a luxury I was simply going to enjoy.
Ravenwood seemed too empty when I drove through the gates. It was silly, but I was disappointed when I didn’t see Frisco tied to the camellia near the drive. I hadn’t invited Nathan to return, so I shouldn’t have expected him. I had a sudden inspiration and got back in the van and drove to the battlefield.
Instead of the activities I’d expected, the Vicksburg National Military Park was quiet. I had to remember that it was April, still a month before the siege of Vicksburg actually began. The height of reenactment fever would come in the later months, along with the tropical heat. There was a cluster of young soldiers near some roughly constructed shelters. They carried old rifles and pistols and wore their Johnny Reb caps at jaunty angles. At first glance, they might have stepped out of the pages of history. Of course I knew them for what they were, hired actors who played the role of Confederate soldiers to entertain tourists.
“How are you boys today?” I asked.
“Just fine, ma’am,” one of them answered in a long drawl. “The Yanks are giving us a little peace and quiet for a change. We’re hoping our replacements will be in soon.” He looked at me and grinned. “I haven’t been home in over a year. My wife’s gonna forget what I look like.”
He looked hardly old enough to be out of school, and I smiled back at him. He was a wonderful actor. “I’m looking for a Lt. Col. Nathan Cates, of the Seventh Cavalry. Where might he be?”
The boy took off his hat and scratched his head. “No cavalry around here, that I know. That’ll come later in the summer when we reenact—” He blushed to the roots of his hair at his slip.
Ignoring his faux pas, I continued. “I met Colonel Cates yesterday. I’m sure he was in this area. May I look around?”
“Just watch out for stray bullets,” he said, recovered. “Hate to see a pretty woman like you get wounded.”
“I’ll use great care,” I assured him as I headed back for my van.
A paved road, a favorite of bicyclers and joggers, curves around the park and provides challenging hills and some of the most beautiful scenery in the Hill City. The scars of the Civil War have healed, at least the evidence of metal and fire that once devastated the earth. Green grass covers the hillsides where thousands of men died. The remaining weapons of war have been silenced and are now polished and painted for display.
The entire park is filled with monuments, some enormous and grand, others small and austere. These are the reminders of the high cost of that bloody conflict. Although I’d lived in Mississippi all of my life, I’d never visited the memorial. War and death, there was plenty of it in today’s world. I had no curiosity to probe the wounds of the past. As I drove around the park, I found myself stopping to read the monuments. The cost of taking Vicksburg was high. Thousands of men, gray and blue. Most of the deaths were not easy ones.
What I hadn’t expected was the beauty and the solitude of the park. Fragments of history courses I’d taken in high school and college came back to me. The siege of Vicksburg was one of the most gruesome ordeals of the war. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River on high bluffs, the city was crucial for the South’s survival, and just as necessary for the North to take. Once the siege began, one side had to lose. Some six weeks later, Vicksburg surrendered, after the civilians had been driven into caves dug into the bluffs. They ate rats, and many died of starvation and disease.
As I drove along the scenic parkway, I came upon Shirley House, the only structure that had managed to survive the battle. At one time it was used as a Union headquarters, surrounded by trenches—called saps—where soldiers lived, digging their way to wherever they had to go.