Black River (20 page)

Jackson lifted his cup up from the campfire rock and tossed the remaining black coffee into the fire. He watched the steam rise into the morning air for a moment, and then his mouth turned down. He spit out the tobacco plug like it was a hairball, a bitter taste suddenly in his mouth, his face pinched. “Did the news indicate the whereabouts of the diamond or this supposed contract?”

Bobby shook his head. “The news is saying that Jack’s wife said the diamond was stolen from him, taken from the film set. She’s calling his death a murder. And she said she has the original copy of the contract between England and the South in a safe deposit box. Hell, I feel pretty good believing that England was backing what the South stood for during the war. I wonder why England didn’t bring over the big guns and help us beat back the yanks? What’d you think, Captain?”

Jackson stoked the fire with a branch he’d broken off a pine tree, the flames bristling, yellow pinpoints of light locked in his hard, black irises. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think everything the South fought for during the war is coming to realization right now. Country’s gone to hell. I can’t recognize it no more. Jack Jordan might have been good at re-enacting battles, but he talked too much. Boys, some folks call me a doomsday prepper—a feller who’s preparing for mayhem and civil bedlam. It’s gonna happen. That’s why I got thousands of rounds in my trailer, a fully stocked underground bunker. Plenty of canned food and water for a country boy like me to survive. We’ll
take the nation back. That diamond is property of the Confederacy, part of the Confederate treasury during the war. And the contract Jack Jordan found was between England and CSA President Jefferson Davis—nobody else. A confidential document like that has no business winding up on the fuckin’ Internet.”

The men nodded as Jackson stood. He stepped closer to the moss-stained trailer, reaching in his pants pocket for birdseed. He tossed seed on the ground, the three chickens trotting to the food. Jackson squatted, “C’mere Gladys,” he said, easing closer to a ruddy colored hen. Jackson grabbed the chicken, holding it to the ground, squawking, feathers flying. He pulled a serrated knife from his belt and sliced off the bird’s head. He stood, the chicken ran twenty feet and collapsed.

Jackson turned to the men and said, “Most people in this country are just like that chicken. Running around with no head. No direction. Ya’ll boys want to stay for lunch? I make a damned good fried chicken.”

“I’m fine with coffee,” said Bobby.

Doug nodded. “Me, too.”

Jackson grinned and walked to the fire pit. He tossed the chicken head into the flames and watched it burn, the beak popping like tinder, the smell of feathers broiling. He squatted, pulled a thin cigar from his coat pocket, bit off one end, spit it out, and stuck a small branch into the fire. He waited for it to catch, and then used the flaming stick to light his cigar. Jackson blew smoke out the corner of his mouth, holding the burning limb between him and the men. He looked over the flames and said, “Somebody needs to put a match to that contract. Burn it. President Davis earned that much respect.”

O
’Brien could tell Detective Dan Grant would rather have been somewhere else than entering the Boston Coffee Shop in downtown DeLand. O’Brien sat at a table in the back of the shop, ordered a mug of coffee, waiting with his laptop open and ready. The shop smelled of fresh-ground coffees and croissants just from the oven. Two college students sat near the front, one girl studying from a textbook, the other online with her tablet.

Detective Grant, early forties, skin the color of light tea, square shoulders, wide chest, walked through the restaurant, making eye contact with no one—his eyes locked on O’Brien. The detective’s large wingtip shoes hammered across the hardwood floor. Grant pulled out a chair, exhaled like he’d just walked up a long flight of steps. He sat, and O’Brien said, “Thanks for coming, Dan.”

“Sean, I don’t have a lot of time. I have to be in court in a half hour.”

“This won’t take a lot of time, two minutes.” O’Brien adjusted his computer so Grant could easily see the screen. “The video I’m going to show you is the full length.”

“And it’s two minutes?”

“Yes. The version on YouTube has been edited, but only slightly.”

“How?”

“Let me show you.” O’Brien hit the play button, stopping ten seconds into the opening. “The guy in the pontoon boat, look over the guy’s
shoulder…right here.” O’Brien used the tip of a coffee stirrer to point to the screen. “See the man standing on the riverbank, next to the tree?”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s sighting down on the man in the boat. The reflection is off a rifle scope.”

“Who’s the man in the boat?”

“Jack Jordan.”

“The guy killed on the movie set?”

“The same.”

“Where’d you get the video?”

“From his widow. I wanted to give you this version. The rest of it, all one-minute-and forty-nine seconds is climbing the YouTube charts. Probably viral by now.”

“I heard something about that. What the hell’s going on, Sean.”

“Who’s investigating the death on the movie set?”

“I believe Larry Rollins was on that one. He’s a good detective, aggressive, been with the department almost twenty years. His daughter actually got a small part in that movie.”

“Then maybe Rollins should write himself out of the investigation script.”

“Why?”

“Because his daughter’s on the movie company’s payroll for one. Most importantly, with someone sighting down on Jack Jordan here on the river’s edge, a few weeks before his death on the film set, it shows he was in somebody’s crosshairs. His wife believes he was murdered. I’ll show you the video and you’ll see why.” O’Brien hit the play button.

Grant watched the video intently, to the point where it faded to black at the end. He asked, “Why didn’t she show this to Detective Rollins?”

“She did. She gave him a copy on a flash drive.”

“Well, the video definitely proves the existence of the diamond, assuming it’s real and not planted for some reason. The guy behind the tree, though, is very hard to spot. Maybe Larry missed it. If you hadn’t pointed it out, I’m not sure I would have seen it.”

“Did you see the uniform?”

“Beyond the hat, I couldn’t make out his clothes.”

“Looks like a Confederate uniform. Re-enactor maybe. I’m sure your team can enlarge the images.”

Detective Grand shook his head. “So we may be looking at the murderer…a few weeks later, he pulled the button for real.”

“See if your guy, Larry Rollins, spotted it. Laura Jordan told investigators that her husband had been carrying that diamond; at least it was locked in his van the day he was killed. She said the detective, maybe Larry Rollins, told her there was no physical or forensics evidence of a break-in found on or around the van. He added that the case wasn’t closed, pending autopsy results, although the investigation, thus far, has failed to produce an indication her husband’s death was anything but a tragic accident.”

“Larry’s a bull dog. Prior to what you’ve shown me, everything I’ve heard about the death pointed to a really bad accident. It looked like some Civil War re-enactor got so caught up in the movie stuff he forgot it’s all make believe and that he was supposed to be firing blanks.”

“Maybe that’s the way someone designed it to look. But now, on this video, you have physical and visible proof that Jack Jordan was being stalked by somebody.” O’Brien reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a flash drive. “The entire video is on here. This is your copy.”

“Why is the rest of the video, the stuff Jack Jordan says about the Civil War contract and the diamond, now on YouTube? Did you do it?”

“It’s on the Internet because Laura Jordan, the widow, thought it would validate her husband’s death as a murder because of his find in the river. Pulling up a diamond in the real rough—the river mud, and putting it on camera as part of his Civil War documentary is an astonishing find. He was producing a documentary about the last days of the Civil War and how some of the Confederate brass exited in the eleventh hour and escaped to Cuba and then England.”

“But why kill the guy? If somebody broke into his van, and he wasn’t in it, why shoot him on the movie set?”

“Maybe it wasn’t just about the diamond.”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe it was about something else. It could have something to do with the discovery of the contract between England and the Confederacy. What
if someone didn’t want that to become public? What if they didn’t want that information to become part of Civil War history…and were willing to kill to hide the secret?”

“Who the hell would do something like that?”

“Dan, a lot of Civil War re-enactors live and breathe this stuff, the heritage and legacy of the Old South…or the North, for that matter. Maybe one of these guys wanted to keep the history books from being rewritten in terms of the Civil War and England’s collusion with the South.”

Grant looked at his watch. “How the hell did you get involved in this thing, Sean? How’d the widow, Laura Jordan, find you?”

“She didn’t. Another widow did.” O’Brien reached in his folder and removed the photo of the painting. He slid it across the table to Grant.

“Who’s that?”

“I think her first name was Angelina. And I think her husband’s name was Henry. That spot she’s standing next to is on the St, Johns River, very near the same place where you saw the sniper with the rifle following Jack Jordan.”

“Where’d you get that photo?”

“From an elderly man who believes the woman in the picture was his great, great grandmother. You see, Dan, her husband was killed, too. Just like Jack Jordan—on a battlefield. But Jack didn’t know he was fighting a war, because someone he knew, maybe trusted, killed him. And now, after lying in the river mud, the finding of the diamond and its mention in the contract between England and the CSA will open more than spirited historical debates. It’ll open old war wounds, and the battle for ownership of that diamond could cross international borders.”

Detective Grant let out a long breath. “Anything else?”

“Yes.” O’Brien slid the photo closer to Grant. “I found that spot on the river. I found it because I was trying to locate the place where the woman in the photo stood at the time of the Civil War. I’ll give you directions. In that picture, the cypress tree is small. On the video it’s huge. The spot where this woman stood is almost the same place where the stalker on the video was standing.”

Grant grinned. “So is this some kind of providence? Was a ghost from the Civil War directing you to a place where a potential shooter was tracking
a man who would be shot by a Civil War rifle 160 years later? Sean, is this a crazy, ironic coincidence?”

“When it comes to crime, I never believe in anything being coincidental.”

“And I’ve never believed in ghosts.”

“No ghosts. Just an old photo. Near the tree, on the ground, you’ll find a cigar stub, some change, and a Civil War Minié ball. I’m assuming all of it fell out of the guy’s pocket.”

Grant nodded. “I know you, and I’m betting you’re also assuming the bullet is probably identical to the one that killed Jack Jordan.”

O’Brien said nothing.

“All right.” Grant pushed back his chair to stand. “I think there’s room in my caseload to work with Larry Rollins. I’ll see what I can arrange internally. If all this is what you think it is, this investigation just shot way beyond my pay grade and jurisdiction. We could be talking about intercontinental diamond theft and sales. Much as I dislike working with the feds, looks like I’ll be putting in a call to them.”

“You won’t have to. The diamond’s appearance on a viral video, coupled with the information about its history and original ownership, will cross international borders and agencies with the speed of light. You’ve got a head start on the investigation…but not for long.”

L
aura Jordan poured a cup of coffee, sipped, glanced out her kitchen window and almost dropped the coffee cup. It was Saturday morning, 7:37, three days since she uploaded the video of her husband finding the diamond and talking on camera about the Civil War contract between England and the Confederacy.