Black River (19 page)

“What’s the second reason?”

“Time. Time is crucial. The people who can afford a rock like that would prefer to buy it without the stain of stolen merchandise or the label of blood diamond attached to the transaction. For a few others, it’s an adrenaline rush to buy a legendary diamond, although stolen, to keep in a safe on a yacht or mansion and show it to friends when fifty-year-old scotch seduces the swagger. But the common knowledge that the diamond is stolen in connection with a murder can make it more difficult to move. And, third, for your and Paula’s safety. As long as you’re secretly holding the contract and have proof of the diamond on video, you’re at risk of being taken out in an effort to conceal the truth by destroying any witnesses and existing evidence.”

“What are you suggesting, Sean?”

“Let’s upload the video to YouTube, send a link to key international media, such as the BBC. If it goes viral, the investigation into Jack’s death becomes top priority because its will be part of a worldwide consciousness. There’ll be lots of global media interests, cable news shows will keep it from going stagnant, and prosecutors will be quick to take it to trial if an arrest is made. Laura, it’s going to thrust you into the public eye. So the question is…do you want to do it?”

“I have to do it.”

D
ave Collins was almost speechless. On his way back to his river cabin, O’Brien called Dave and filled him in on his conversation with Laura Jordan. Dave asked, “So are you telling me you actually saw, what appears to be, an authentic contract between Britain and the Confederate States of America and a diamond the size of a goose egg pulled out of the river?”

“I saw the diamond on video. I saw the contract in person…it was signed by Jefferson Davis and the British Prime Minister who, at that time, was Lord Palmertson. I snapped a picture of it.”

“Sean, this little Cliff Note from the past was indeed missed by historians. Imagine what Ike Kirby will say. It’ll create some big buzz across the pond.”

“It was missed because it was supposed to have been missed. Covert. Confidential. At least it was until that painting and a stack of old magazines made their way into an antique store.”

“But uncovered when an elderly man with a Civil War photo approached you out of the blue.”

“It was partially revealed when Jack Jordan was killed on the movie set. At least the window into the past was cracked. The video of his discovery on the river could send it into the stratosphere. I’m putting in a call to a friend of mine at the Volusia County Sheriff’s Department, Detective Dan Grant. I’ll point him to what I have, the shadowy video of the man with the rifle aimed at Jack Jordan when he pulled the strongbox with the diamond out of the river. And there’s the cigar stogie lying next to a dropped Minié
ball and twelve cents in change. Could be prints, DNA, maybe even a ballistics match with the round that killed Jack Jordan.”

“Even if you never recover the painting, Sean, you’ve earned your compensation. Is his widow, Laura, uploading the video of her husband opening the strongbox and finding the diamond?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think she should wait until police have finished their investigation?”

“She’s convinced they’re all but finished. She gave them a flash drive of the video.”

“Did they spot the stalker with a rifle?”

“If they did, no one told her. The investigation continues, but at what pace and what price?”

Dave exhaled into the phone. “Well, your discovery on the bluff overlooking the river, and on the video, definitely shows motive and probable cause in the death of her husband. The video will, no doubt, light a fire under the DA’s butt. The question is…who did it? Who knew about this fabled diamond and its connection to India, Britain, the Confederate States of America, and the Royal Family?”

“Jack Jordan’s documentary production crew. There was a cameraman, a sound guy, and Jack’s dive buddy who was working as his producer. According to Laura, her husband has worked with this team for years and all are trustworthy.”

Dave grunted. “That, of course, means nothing when a priceless diamond is found.”

“There was apparently one person outside of Jack Jordan’s inner circle.”

“Who?”

“Frank Sheldon. Sheldon is the software billionaire who’s building an exact replica of the schooner that beat the English in what became known as the America’s Cup Race. That sailboat was sunk during the Civil War in a deep tributary to the St. Johns River.”

“I never heard that story. Is this the Frank Sheldon who won the last America’s Cup?”

“That’s the guy. According to Laura, he’s an investor in the movie,
Black River
. Jack was hired two years ago as an historical consultant when Sheldon
began designing plans for building the replica of that fabled schooner. Sheldon is a Civil War buff, someone who spends money on collectable relics. She said he’s planning to sail the yacht to England soon, covering the same route as the original schooner did when she was sailed from England to America to be used as a Civil War blockade-runner. Laura says that Jack told Sheldon about the documentary he was making and his quest to find a rumored legendary diamond, and he wanted to know if Sheldon might make a donation to the project due to its educational value.”

“Did he invest?”

“Laura wasn’t sure.”

Dave was silent a moment and then said, “There’s always some kind of puzzle piece, mosaic irony, in these things, even things that have been sleeping quietly in the gut of the old river for a century and a half. As the puzzle pieces come together, we get insight into how greed causes some men to crawl into the muck where it breeds. When you first mentioned the diamond, Koh-i-Noor, since I’m sitting at my computer, I pulled up a history of this rock.”

“What’d you find?”

“Well, let me scan and surmise at the same time. It’s the only multi tasking I find that I can do with some decorum of efficiency anymore. If it’s the real one, the Koh-i-Noor…it’s, no doubt, priceless. At one time, it was the largest known diamond in the world. It was cut down to 106 carats. Koh-i-Noor means
Mountain of Light
. It gives a whole new definition to the words blood diamond. The diamond was mined out of India in the eleventh century and has changed hands in a bloody history within Indian dynasties. A half dozen leaders of these dynasties have owned the Koh-i-Noor, including the Sikh Empire where it was taken when the British raised their flag over the citadel of Lahore in India. After the diamond was smuggled to England, Prince Albert personally supervised the cutting. When finished, it was kept in Windsor Castle, not in the Tower of London, until after Queen Victoria’s death.”

O’Brien said nothing.

Dave grunted. “Sean, I can almost hear you thinking through your phone.”

“I’m thinking about that picture puzzle you mentioned. The pieces, at least the edges, are aligning and an image is beginning to form. And the woman in the painting by the river will be somewhere in the center.”

“Maybe it’s a good time to contact your client and call it a day, because now the trail of the painting you’ve been following has led to a movie set where it was stolen—a painting owned by a couple who found it in an antique store. One half of the couple is dead. Yeah, I’d say it’s gone far beyond a simple case of locating a missing painting. Add apparent murder to the mix along with the unearthing and theft of the world’s most valuable diamond, and toss in the exhuming of a contract between the Confederacy and Great Britain, you’ve got an international stage. The question is, Sean, when that video goes viral—and it will—when that curtain opens on this global stage, will you be there…or will you exit before all hell breaks loose?”

S
ilas Jackson opened the door to his weather-beaten trailer and stepped outside under a canopy of cypress trees deep in the Ocala National Forest. He carried a metal coffee pot, dented and stained from years of use. Three chickens pecked at the hard, barren ground, scattering as Jackson walked to a circle of rocks, the trace of smoke from last night’s fire a ghost in the morning air. Roosters and a dozen fighting cocks paced in A-frame coops built under a large live oak tree. A leaden dawn hung over the forest like a gray shawl, thick and humid as the dew-stained Spanish moss sagging from the trees in the still morning.

He wore his Confederate slouch hat pulled low, just above his thick, dark eyebrows, tufts of dark hair sprouting and curling up from under the hat. His sideburns were long and heavy. Black eyes hard as polished stones. His uniform unkempt, worn ragged from the elements and hundreds of Civil War reenactments.

Jackson threw kindling pieces and split wood into the pit, unscrewed the top from a mason jar, tossing gas on the timber. He lit a wooden match on the side of his boot and lobbed it into the pile. Orange flames erupted. He sat on his haunches in front of the crackling fire, white smoke swirling up through the cypress limbs. He set the coffee pot on top of the flames and waited for the water to boil.

Jackson watched the chickens, yellow flames reflecting off his eyes, the call of a mourning dove coming from somewhere deep in the Ocala National Forest. He poured coffee into a tin cup, steam rising off the black
coffee. He pursed his lips and blew across the open cup. Jackson sipped and thought about the events of the last few days.

Beyond the perimeter thicket came the sounds of horses snorting, hooves in the mud, and a whinny from one horse. Jackson set his cup on a rock bordering the fire and stood. He reached in his pocket, removing a pouch of tobacco leaves, biting off a plug and chewing, his mouth small, lips tightened, hawk nose scarred from too many battles to count. As two men rode horses into camp, he spit tobacco juice in the center of the fire, a drop of dark saliva clinging to his lip.

“Mornin’ Captain,” said the tallest man. Both were dressed in Confederate uniforms. They dismounted and tied their horse’s reins to low hanging tree branches. They were in their early thirties, unshaven, lean, wearing scuffed boots. Jackson turned toward them as the men approached. He said, “Ya’ll boys keep on eating food on that movie set and you gonna be too big for your mounts.” He grinned, teeth brown from tobacco stains.

“Yes sir, Captain Jackson,” said the shorter man, smiling through a full ruddy beard. “It’s just that they got food from the crack of dawn to late in the evening. We wish you were still on the movie set. Nobody knows the Confederate cause like you, right Bobby?”

“That’s the damn truth,” said the man called Bobby, a toothpick in one corner of his mouth, his bloodhound eyes lethargic. “I hope they don’t cut out the scenes you were in, Captain?”

Jackson snorted. “Do you think I give a flyin’ shit about that? The only reason I agreed to be an extra in the movie in the first place is on account that I want Hollywood to get it right when it comes to tellin’ the story of the South and how things played out realistically in the war.”

Bobby nodded and said, “Well, Captain, things are playing out all over the Internet that seem to be giving an unrealistic image of the Civil War, at least as far as the South is concerned.”

Jackson’s chewed the tobacco and raised his head, morning sunlight falling on one side of his face under the hat. “Whadda you mean?”

“Jack Jordan, you knew him better than Doug and me, anyway it looks like a few weeks before he died on set from that stray Minié ball, he’d found something in the St. Johns River, and what he found has set the damn Internet on fire.”

Jackson spit out of one side of his mouth. “What’d he find?”

The short man called Doug said, “A diamond, Captain. Big as a goose egg.”

Bobby said, “Somebody uploaded a video to the Internet, and it shows Jack on video in a pontoon boat finding this huge friggin’ diamond in a strongbox that he brought up from the bottom of the river. In the video, you can hear Jack talkin’ about how the diamond belonged to England at the time of the war, how it was tied to a contract signed by Jefferson Davis that says England was backing the South in the war and the diamond was part of all that. Anyway, the video is exploding online. Getting millions of views all over the world, especially England and even India. On CNN last night, they were saying that if the diamond is the real deal, it’s got a long history that goes way back to some emperor in India and to the Queen of England.”