The Dark Farewell (9 page)
proof that he did.”
Flynn opened his mouth to argue the obvious, but McFadden said, “Either he’s a fake or he’s a killer, but I don’t believe in magic and I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits talking to the living. You want to turn this huckster into a big story for your newspaper like that sacrilegious conman Edgar Cayce, you go right ahead, but you’re not making a laughingstock out of me and my boys.”
“What’s going on here?” Julian’s grandfather stood in the doorway, glowering at them all. “What is
this? What has he done now?”
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The Dark Farewell
The sheriff turned to him with something like relief. “I understand you have in your possession ticket stubs that will prove you and your grandson were in the town of Cairo last week.”
“Yes?” Mr. Devereux’s eyes moved uneasily from Julian to Flynn. “What of it? Why are you
interrogating him?”
“I need to see those tickets.”
“Very well.” Devereux’s suspicious gaze rested on Julian’s pale face. He turned away reluctantly.
The sheriff followed him. He stopped in the doorway and threw back to Flynn, “If you do learn
something in this séance of yours, you let me know.”
When their footsteps had died away, Flynn seated himself facing the sofa and Julian. He wanted to sit next to Julian, put his arm around him—Julian looked sorely in need of comfort—but that was, of course, out of the question.
He said, “What happened last night?”
Julian’s face worked. “David, I’ve told you everything.”
“What about Mrs. Hoyt?”
Julian’s mouth opened. No sound came out.
“You knew she was dead, didn’t you?”
He closed his mouth and shuddered. He nodded.
Flynn stared at him for a long time. “So it’s true,” he said at last. “The dead speak to you.”
“Through me. I’m only the messenger.” He tried to smile, but it was a sad, unsteady effort. “And not a very good messenger. It’s true what I said. When I turned sixteen it stopped. And I was glad. But
Grandpère
…”
“What?”
Julian shook his head.
Flynn said shrewdly, “The show must go on—and you’re the meal ticket. This is the family stock and
trade.” He considered this. “But now the phone line to the spirit world is working again and you’re starting to get calls.”
Julian said nothing. He looked all at once much older, older than his age. He met Flynn’s gaze and
said quietly, “Please. I can’t bear it from you.”
“Can’t bear what?”
“Don’t…ask.”
“What?” But Flynn already knew what he was going to hear. Yet the idea had not occurred to him
until the second Julian spoke, so how could Julian—
“You want me to contact Paul for you.”
It took him a moment to command his voice. “You could do it?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded anguished. “Perhaps.”
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Josh Lanyon
“Well?”
Julian shook his head.
“Why not?” And even Flynn was surprised by the anger in his voice.
Julian studied him and the wounded expression in those doe-like eyes troubled Flynn, disturbed him.
“Do you never think of anyone but yourself, David?”
“Me?” Flynn was astonished. “What do you think I came in here for a few minutes ago if it wasn’t to
help you?”
Julian’s eyes glittered with quick, angry tears. “I think you thought it would make a good story to
write about a medium working with the police to capture a killer.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I wish that was true.” Julian wiped hastily at the tears. His smile was bitter. He rose and left the room before Flynn could decide on an answer.
Listening to the fading footsteps, Flynn realized that Julian
was
wrong—although not entirely.
Amy was in the kitchen when he wandered in a short while later. Water boiled on the stovetop. She
was greasing a heavy skillet. Death or disaster, people still had to eat.
“There’s cold buttermilk in the icebox,” she told Flynn, looking up at his entrance. Her smile was
tired.
Flynn got a glass and the bottle of milk out. “How’s Joan doing?”
“That little girl is heartbroken.”
Flynn couldn’t think of anything to say. Mrs. Hoyt had seemed a foolish and tiresome woman who
would probably become more so the longer you knew her, but even newspapermen tried not to speak ill of the dead.
“How’s the story coming?” Amy asked and he realized he’d barely had a chance to talk to her since
he’d arrived. Or had he arranged it that way?
The buttermilk was refreshing. As he drank, he considered her question. She would be viewing this
situation from whatever angle Gus had, and Gus had always been pro-Labor and pro-Union and pro-
Miners. But how would a man as conscientious and civilized as Gus have viewed a massacre?
“I don’t know,” he answered. “For all the complaining folks are doing about lawlessness and
godlessness, I can’t find anyone who thinks Lester didn’t deserve what he got or who wants to see those miners prosecuted.”
Amy didn’t answer for so long he thought she wasn’t going to. “It’s a mighty shocking thing. I think most people still…”
She didn’t complete the thought. Flynn gave a short laugh. “I guess so.”
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The Dark Farewell
She looked up then and there was an odd glint in her green-blue eyes. “I’ll tell you this, no charge.
W.J. Lester was and is a fool. An arrogant, greedy, college-educated fool.”
As fond as he was of her, Flynn couldn’t let that pass. “Amy, my God. They murdered those men.
They tortured them and then they murdered them—after promising them safe passage.”
Her face tightened. “I don’t have to tell you I don’t approve of murder. I know that’s what it was.
Everyone knows that’s what it was, plain and simple. People are angry and ashamed and frightened.
Frightened about what they learned was inside them.” She folded her lips and stared down at the pan on the stove. After a brief struggle, she said, “But you want to hear the truth? The truth is that bunch of thugs Lester imported from Chicago had already stirred up enough hate to get someone killed before the
massacre. They’d been harassing farm people and berry pickers for using roads they’d been using for fifty years. Pushing them around, cursing them, shoving guns in their ribs, even robbing a few of them—and threatening to kill them if they went to the sheriff.”
She added shortly, “Not that the sheriff cared to get mixed up in it.”
“I’ve heard a few of them were thugs and gangsters. But that mob killed twenty men that day. And
even if every single one of them was—”
“You killed men in the war, didn’t you? It was them or you, wasn’t it?”
Flynn stared at her. “Is that what Gus thought?”
Her face quivered. She turned back to the stove. “No.” He could hear that she was close to tears. It seemed to be his day for making people cry. “Gus said ‘Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.’”
Hearing Amy quote John Donne in that flat, plain, unvarnished way struck Flynn absolutely silent.
Maybe it was as he’d said to Casey Lee the night before. Maybe the war
did
have to do with it. A few of those miners had been in France the same time he had, and had seen and done the things he had. If they were like Flynn, they’d come back changed men. Harder and rougher than when they waved farewell to
peacetime.
He’d been so sure of the answers when he had arrived on Wednesday morning. He’d planned to write
a simple article about the aftermath of violence. He’d wanted to set it straight in his own mind, see it in black and white, saints and sinners, but the reality was many shades of gray. It wasn’t anything that was going to be fixed anytime soon and writing more about it wouldn’t change that. Plenty of people were already writing and speech-making about it.
Flynn found himself wanting to do something. Something…
“Where’s Julian?” he asked.
“Out. He don’t like funerals,” Amy said cryptically.
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Josh Lanyon
Flynn walked down to the courthouse to poke around, but he’d already lost whatever enthusiasm for
the story on the massacre that he had started out with. The truth was, he was looking for Julian. He told himself that he wanted to take another shot at convincing him to try a séance; that this would make a better story than his original idea of writing about the massacre. Instead, he would write about these murders—
and Julian.
But if he was honest, he wanted to find Julian.
He wasn’t sure how or why his feelings had changed, but he felt a singular mix of pity and fascination for that strange young man. And, well, a certain amount of lust.
So he walked along the streets, nodding politely to folks, lost in his own thoughts.
It was hot, but there were lots of cloth awnings and shady roofs along the storefronts so it wasn’t bad that time of day. He passed the corner park where he and Casey had stopped the evening before. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
In front of the courthouse the old timers were enjoying the latest gossip over their cigars and chewing tobacco, probably exactly what they’d been doing since the Civil War.
He paused for a shine at the old shoe-shine stand. The grizzled old colored man made pleasant
conversation while he swiftly polished Flynn’s shoes till they shone like glass.
He went into Skeltcher’s and had a “root beer” and then walked back to the boarding house. He was
walking up the sunny street when he spotted Julian coming from the opposite direction. He raised his hand in greeting, and Julian paused at the house walkway, waiting for him.
“What time is your show tonight?” Flynn asked.
“There’s no show tonight.” Julian looked weary. “And before you ask again, no, I won’t hold a séance for the police.”
“It’s clear you’re not a mind reader,” Flynn remarked. “I wasn’t going to ask you to give a séance. I was thinking you might like to drive out and have supper at a roadhouse this evening.”
Julian’s astonishment was almost comical. “Why?”
“Wouldn’t you like to?”
“Yes.”
The naked—though fleeting—vulnerability of the other man’s face made Flynn’s chest hurt. What the
hell was Julian’s life like that the idea of dinner with a friendly stranger should mean so much? But then he probably didn’t have friends. He had that crazy old coot of a grandfather driving him from town to town like a gypsy with his dancing bear.
“All right then,” he said gruffly. “We’ll tell them we’re going out to the roadhouse dance.”
Julian said hesitantly, “There’ll be a viewing for Mrs. Hoyt, won’t there?”
“You don’t want to have anything to do with that, do you?”
He shook his head, but his eyes were unhappy. “It might seem disrespectful, though.”
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The Dark Farewell
“I didn’t realize you were so worried about appearances.”
The slender brown column of Julian’s throat moved as he swallowed. “My grandfather isn’t…very
happy with me.”
He hadn’t sounded particularly concerned about what the old man had thought the night before. Flynn
wondered what had changed. “It’s moot in any case. The viewing is tomorrow night at the funeral parlor.
You’ll have a show to perform.”
He knew he didn’t misread the relief on Julian’s face. Yes, getting Julian out of that house tonight was a good idea for everyone. And there was no denying how much Flynn liked the idea.
Much more, as it turned out, than old man Devereux did. He could hear them down the hall when he
went to use the washroom after he and Julian went upstairs. He couldn’t make out the words—the
Devereuxs were used to conducting their quarrels under other people’s roofs—but the tone was most
definitely unhappy on the part of both parties.
He was heading back to his own bedroom when he heard Julian say clearly, “I’m neither a child nor a
half-wit however much you wish it might be true.”
The old man’s response was muffled, but the tone was venomous, and Flynn felt a stab of alarm for
Julian. That was not a tone to use on someone you loved, and he had an idea that Julian had fewer defenses than some.
When they met downstairs twenty minutes later, Julian was neatly, even dapperly dressed, hat, coat
and tie all present and correct. His eyes were shining and he was so obviously happy that Flynn couldn’t help an inward flinch at the responsibility.
Mr. Devereux was downstairs as well.
“Going to a dance, eh?” he inquired acidly, his midnight eyes raking Flynn up and down. “Planning to meet a couple of gals and Charleston the night away?”
It was instantly clear to Flynn that the old man knew about his grandson’s proclivities—which meant
he now knew about Flynn. He said evenly, “That’s right.”
Devereux opened his mouth, but closed it as Amy came into sight.
“Now don’t go picking up any flappers,” she warned them as she went around picking up stray items
in the hall and parlor. She was holding one of Joan’s books on Cleopatra and crocheting that had belonged to Mrs. Hoyt.
“You’re the only gal for me, Mrs. Gulling,” Julian said charmingly, and Amy laughed.
They met Casey on their way out the door, and he looked plainly taken aback to see Flynn and Julian
together. The surprise on his face gave way to an unfriendly expression, but Flynn tipped his hat and kept Julian moving with an unobtrusive hand on his back.
The sun was setting as they backed the old Model T out of the garage and were on their way at last.
Flynn glanced over at Julian and said, “I don’t think Grandpapa likes me.”