Blackman's Coffin (5 page)
Peters must have challenged the claim because Nakayla whirled around, her eyes locking on me like twin lasers. “I’m not imagining things. Chief Warrant Officer Sam Blackman found it. He’s with the military police and he’s done more in five minutes than the Asheville police did in five days.”
My stomach knotted as Nakayla’s temper boiled over. I didn’t relish being on the bad side of some cop.
“Ask him yourself.” She thrust out her arm, nearly hitting my face with the phone.
I touched the receiver like it was radioactive. “Sam Blackman.”
“Since when does the military move in on a case without the courtesy of a call to the officer in charge?” Peters’ words were clipped and curt.
“I’m not moving in on anybody.”
“You got that right, buddy boy.”
He got that wrong. I’m nobody’s buddy boy. Peters was starting to piss me off. “I can’t move in on someone who’s not even there. You’ve left a hole in your investigation a car length wide. If you’re more interested in covering your ass than in finding Tikima’s killer, then fine. I’ll hang up and let my commanding officer call your police chief. But remember, we telephoned you as soon as we found what you missed.”
Nakayla gave me a thumbs up. I kept the phone to my ear hoping I wouldn’t have to make good on my toothless threat.
Peters sighed. “Are you at the asylum?”
I remembered Nakayla’s story about the history of the apartment building. “Yes.”
“Stay by the car. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
I looked up at the sprawling complex. There I stood, on the lam from one hospital passing myself off as an investigator in a case I knew nothing about. The asylum. How appropriate. I had to be crazy.
“Twenty minutes?” Nakayla took back her cell phone, snapping it shut as an exclamation point to her question. “You and I aren’t standing out in this hot sun for no twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be all right,” I said.
“Get in the car,” she ordered. “We’ll wait in Tikima’s apartment. I can see the parking lot from her window and you can read more of the journal.”
She drove her Hyundai to the front entrance of the old hotel and then stood by the front door while I hobbled up the short flight of stairs. When I reached the landing, she punched a code in the electronic keypad and the door clicked open.
“Sit down inside. I’ll be back in a moment.”
I stepped into a shadow created not only by the lack of light but a shadow cast by the past. The lobby of the once grand hotel—hospital—mental institution looked barren and skeletal. The high ceiling and rich wood echoed the grandeur that had greeted the posh patrons of another age. Now scattered pieces of furniture made vain attempts to resemble areas of conversation. The back of the lobby appeared to be the original registration counter but sometime over the years it had been walled in as a separate room. A hallway divided it from a single elevator in the corner. To my right an open arch led into a lounge or reading room. Bookshelves held patches of aging paperbacks in a “take one—leave one” approach to a library.
A wooden bench to the left of the archway caught my eye. As I took unsteady steps toward it, the elevator opened and a blonde in a turquoise sports bra and black running shorts jogged out. She had the lean body of a runner and must have been jogging in place during the elevator’s descent. With a nod of acknowledgment and a reflexive glance at my wobbling leg, she floated by me on legs that a thoroughbred might envy. Watching her sexy figure disappear into the bright sunlight, I thought how I’d never again be able to run stride for stride with a beautiful gazelle like her. Instead of descending in my own elevator of depression, I laughed out loud. Who was I kidding? I never had nor never would run with a woman like her. Regardless of the changes Iraq had wrought upon my body, the words “eye candy” or “trophy husband” just weren’t part of my résumé.
The front door opened again and the lithe silhouette reappeared. Maybe I’d sold myself short. Miss Marathon knew a good thing when she saw it. The figure walked closer but remained dark. Nakayla winked at me.
“I see you met Jenny.”
“What do you mean?”
“Cut the act and put your tongue back in your mouth. The good news is she lives down the hall from Tikima, the bad news is she has a girlfriend.”
“Her loss.”
“Yeah. And Jamie Foxx is picking me up for dinner.” Nakayla walked past me and pushed the elevator button.
We stepped out on the fourth floor and the guise of a hospital replaced that of the grand hotel. Long narrow hallways spread out along three wings. Brown doors broke the white walls like a computer-generated repetition and I thought of the veterans who had lived and died behind them. These corridors held ghosts in search of both mind and body.
“We’re all the way at the end,” Nakayla said. “You’ll get your exercise.”
She unlocked the apartment door and I left the bare bones hospital behind. The first thing that caught my eye was the granite surface on the kitchen counters. They separated the open room into two areas—the compact, efficient kitchen and an ell-shaped living/dining area that wrapped around it. To my left was a small leather sofa, a green upholstered reading chair with a stack of books beside it, and a sensibly sized flat-screen television sitting on a middle shelf in a stack of filled bookshelves. Farther in the room to the right, the dining space held a circular table with four hard-backed chairs. The top of the table was covered with files, notebooks, and envelopes. I noticed two books in the center: the disguised journal and a book about Thomas Wolfe. A hallway led down to what I expected to be a bath and bedroom.
The apartment was cozy with a mix of folk art from Africa and Appalachia. An intricately carved djembe drum sat in a corner by the bookshelf. Above it, a dulcimer hung on the wall. The place was more laid-back than I would have expected Tikima’s home to be.
“You cleaned up the mess left by the burglars?” I asked.
Nakayla looked around the apartment as if seeing it for the first time. “I couldn’t bear to see her things thrown about. They also dumped out all her drawers in the bedroom and pulled the mattress off the box springs.”
I walked to the table and picked up the journal in Elmore Leonard’s dust jacket. “And you think this is what they wanted?”
“Nothing else she has is new or unusual.” Nakayla stepped behind the kitchen counter. “You want something to drink? Coffee? There’s root beer in the fridge.”
“Root beer sounds good. Haven’t had it since I was a kid.” I glanced over the files and note cards. “What about these papers?”
“Tikima had left them on the table. She’d spread out work from the office there. I didn’t see anything to connect with the journal.”
“Does she have a computer here?”
Nakayla bent over to retrieve a bottle of root beer from the refrigerator’s inside door. “Back in the bedroom. I let the police go through it when she first disappeared. No unusual emails or websites.” She set a brown bottle on the counter. “You want a glass with ice?”
“No. Just pop the cap.” I thought for a second. “Did you check the computer after yesterday’s break-in?”
“I didn’t think about it. The computer was about the only thing left undisturbed.” She slid the root beer across the counter.
“There’s the possibility the ransacking of the apartment was a decoy,” I said. “The real object could have been to delete something incriminating from the computer’s hard drive.”
Nakayla bit her lower lip. “Damn. I didn’t even turn it on.” She looked like she was about to cry.
“Probably nothing. I’ll read the journal while you see if you notice anything different on her computer.”
“Okay and I can watch for Peters from the bedroom window.”
I nodded, and then took a gulp of the root beer. The taste was sweet and strong, the heavy carbonation burning my throat like a shot of whiskey. I took the bottle and the journal to Tikima’s reading chair. Maybe I was doing exactly what she had done a short time before someone killed her.
Saturday, May 10th: I came home from the hospital two weeks after the attack by the bear. Father brought me in our hearse. The Model-T had not been Father’s first choice. He’d wanted to buy a new REO, a very fancy vehicle with designs carved into the wood panels and plush red velvet curtains drawn across the interior of the side windows. Heavy springs softened the ride, which Mother thought foolishness since the passenger couldn’t feel anything. Father said those same family members who worried about the thickness of the cushions in the casket would be impressed.
But last fall while Father was still saving for the REO, he received a letter from a funeral home in Spartanburg, South Carolina, asking if he’d be interested in buying their hearse. The price was only two hundred dollars—far less than the REO. They were selling it because they were merging with a competitor—a marriage had united rivals into one happy funeral family. Mother insisted Father at least look at it, so we’d taken the train down the steep Saluda grade and been met at the depot by a strange looking contraption. A Sayers and Scovill horse-drawn hearse had been mounted to the chassis of a Model-T. The cab of the car had been cut to leave only the driver and front passenger seats. The carved wood of the hearse’s paneling had been fitted over the metal of the cab’s roof and sides. The black enamel finish of the car blended with the color of the wood and at first glance the vehicle appeared to be of one piece.
The man from the Spartanburg funeral home said the craftsmanship of the woodwork couldn’t be matched by the REO or any other motor coach. Then he kicked the tires and said how the Sayers and Scovill elegance was matched by Mr. Henry Ford’s mechanical simplicity. The engine had been treated like a baby, and if we ever had a problem, any garage would know how to fix it.
All Mother could think about was the money we would save. We already had a Model-T passenger car so my father liked the idea of having backup parts handy. We bought the hearse on the spot and I rode in the back as we journeyed up the mountain through Tryon, Saluda, and Hendersonville. The ride was rough, the carriage top heavy causing the vehicle to sway as we went around the switchbacks lifting us above the flatlands of South Carolina. Through the wooden wall, I heard my father laugh and say we’d never be going but a few miles to the cemetery once we got home and mother was right, the passengers wouldn’t complain.
But on the way home from the hospital Mother felt differently. I was the passenger. She laid a heavy winter quilt across the hearse’s hardwood floor. She brought a down-filled pillow to support the bandaged stub of my leg, and she continually told my father to slow down and stay clear of the ruts.
I don’t know who was happier when I limped into bed—me, Mother, or Father.
Sunday, May 11
th
: I slept till early afternoon and might have slept the entire day had Mother not come bursting into the room, throwing back the window sash so that my eyes filled with sunlight.
“Henderson, you must wake up.” She bent over my bed, her face pale and her breath coming in short gasps.
“What’s wrong?” I scooted to a seated position against the headboard and looked at the open door behind her.
“Mrs. Edith Vanderbilt. She’s outside. She and Miss Cornelia. They’ve come straight from All Souls.”
Mother scurried around my room, tidying as she moved. I’d never seen her so anxious. The ache in my leg was forgotten as my own panic swelled. I had been on the Vanderbilt land. Could they be angry? All Souls was the Episcopal church Mr. Vanderbilt had constructed in Biltmore Village. I knew Episcopalians prayed about trespasses in The Lord’s Prayer. We were Presbyterians and prayed about debts. The Vanderbilts didn’t have any debts and they didn’t have any trespasses because they owned all the property they could possibly need.
“Your father’s talking to them, giving me a little time to get you ready.”
Even though the room was warm, a cold shudder ran through me. “Are they taking me to jail?”
Mother stopped in the middle of folding a handkerchief on my nightstand. Her worried expression changed into a smile. “Now whatever put that in your head?”
“I was on the Biltmore Estate. Mr. Galloway told me the Vanderbilts don’t like trespassing.”
“That colored man who found you—”
“Elijah.”
Mother nodded. “Elijah told Mrs. Vanderbilt the bear chased you onto their land.”
I had enough wits about me not to argue against Elijah’s fib.
“Mrs. Vanderbilt insists on paying all your medical expenses since the bear trap had been set by one of her men.”
“And she’s coming to see me?”
“She wants to say hello and have Dr. Lynch take a look at your leg.”
“Dr. Lynch?”
“Dr. James Madison Lynch, although everyone calls him Mike. He’s the surgeon for the estate. He saved Miss Cornelia when she had appendicitis and all the other doctors were afraid to operate. I’ve heard Dr. Lynch say he was too new in Asheville to know any better.”
“But Mr. Vanderbilt died of appendicitis.” Even though I’d been only seven, I remembered how shocked everyone had been at Mr. Vanderbilt’s death.
“That was in Washington, D.C. Folks round here say if Mr. George Vanderbilt had been tended by Dr. Lynch, he’d be alive today.” Mother fluffed up the pillow behind me. “Now perk up and mind your manners.”
She glided out the door and then I heard her say, “Mrs. Vanderbilt, Miss Vanderbilt, please come in. Henderson was awake so it’s no trouble.”
Mother returned followed by a slender woman in a deep blue dress that had to be store bought—maybe even out of the Sears Roebuck catalogue. Her dark brown hair was pulled up under a cream colored hat with a mesh veil folded onto its narrow brim. She clutched a matching purse under her left arm and extended her right hand, palm up, more for me to lay my hand atop rather than grip.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Henderson.” Her voice sounded pleasant and light, each word crystal clear and formed by book learning.
“Thank you, ma’am,” I said, briefly meeting her eyes and then dropping my gaze to the bedspread so as not to rudely stare.
“And this is my daughter, Cornelia.”
Mrs. Vanderbilt turned sideways and I saw the prettiest young woman step into my room. She seemed to float before me, her body adorned in light green fabric that shimmered like new spring grass in the sun. She had to be in her late teens, but not so much older that I couldn’t dream of walking by her side and hearing of all the marvelous places she’d been and people she’d met.
“Henderson, my mother and I hope you are feeling better.” She gave a nod of her head and the waves of her brown tresses rippled against her smooth porcelain neck.
“Henderson?” My mother’s thinly masked admonition broke through. “They want to know how you are feeling.”
“Much better, thank you.” I looked at Mrs. Vanderbilt but couldn’t keep my eyes from constantly returning to Miss Cornelia.
“That’s good to hear,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “But I’m not surprised. Elijah told me how brave you were.”
I know pride is a sin, but I puffed my chest out a little.
Miss Cornelia stepped closer. “Elijah said you didn’t even cry when he pulled your leg from the trap, and with the rabid bear lying right beside you.”
Elijah had carried me to the stream before releasing the steel jaws, but Cornelia’s eyes had widened as she spoke, and I thought the drama of Elijah’s version shouldn’t be corrected.
“Elijah was the one who was brave, Miss Cornelia. I hope to be able to thank him personally when I’m able to walk again.” The lump in my throat came with unexpected suddenness. Walk again. Would that ever be possible? I could already hear the boys at school calling me Tiny Tim after Mr. Dickens’ Christmas Carol.
“We want Dr. Lynch to take a look at your leg,” Mrs. Vanderbilt said. “With so many of our young men coming home from the front with shattered limbs, he tells me progress is being made on artificial devices. We will do what we can to have you fitted with one.”
According to Elijah’s story, I didn’t cry from the pain of the trap, but the kindness of Mrs. Vanderbilt and her daughter sent tears flowing down my cheeks.