Artifacts (21 page)

Faye brooded over the small cluster of graves in the grove beside the inlet on Joyeuse Island. Mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, great-great-grandmother, but no fathers or grandfathers. Somewhere on the island were Courtney Stanton, Mariah Whitehall LaFourche, Andrew LaFourche, even William and Susan Whitehall, but their graves had been lost when the two great Apalachicola hurricanes of 1886 reconfigured the island.

Joyeuse and the Last Isles were peppered with lost graves. Native Americans had occupied these islands since they had risen out of the sea. In the intervening years, all of them had died and some of them had been buried. Beside them were buried dead conquistadors who didn’t survive the European invasion. Next to them were the unmarked graves of her ancestors, slave and free. And somewhere lay the unconsecrated bones of Abigail Williford.

When she got home from her dinner with Cyril, she had checked Cedrick’s yearbook picture. There was something hanging around his neck that could only be the religious medal she had found buried with Abby. The presence of his necklace and Douglass’ watch and the absence of other evidence made them equally likely to have murdered Abby, but human nature made her far more inclined to believe that Cedrick did it than to pronounce her friend Douglass a killer. But must she broadcast Cedrick’s guilt to the world and ruin her new friend Cyril’s life?

What would Cally and Mariah and William and Susan and all the others think of her for protecting Douglass and Cyril by keeping the evidence to herself? The law had been no friend to any of them—not to Mariah, a rich woman with nothing to call her own, and not to Susan, whose fellow Creek had been forcibly relocated to an inhospitable country. Cally could certainly have no respect for the law, not when she had quite legally been held captive for a quarter-century.

She wondered what her ancestors would have thought of her budding relationship with Cyril? They could not object to his race or hers. Each of them had carried some impossible-to-pinpoint mixture of blood, but they had lived and died in this world on their own merits. In the end, it just didn’t amount to a hill of beans. Maybe it was time to bring Cyril home to meet the folks.

Because Faye had moved away from civilization and the need to wear makeup every day, she actually enjoyed the ritual of removing it at bedtime. Tonight, mindlessly rinsing off goopy mascara remover had the flavor of spiritual cleansing. No more guilt over Abby Williford. No more worries over whether Cyril was right for her.

“Things generally work out for the best,” her mama had always said. “You just gotta trust in the Lord.”

“Okay, Mama,” Faye muttered through lips that still bore traces of the evening’s cherry-red lipstick. “I’m doing the trusting. You and God better start working things out.”

Faye generally washed her face in her beloved cistern-fed shower, but when she succumbed to the siren song of cosmetics that weren’t water-based, the need for other equipment proliferated. She had an antique pitcher to carry the water in and a matching basin to hold it while she washed. Her battery-powered camping lantern provided the necessary light and a mirror provided the necessary assistance. If the sun hadn’t heated her washing water so delightfully, she would have needed to warm a pot of water on the camp stove, too. Such labor-intensive toiletries were too much work for every day, but paying attention to her looks now and then made her feel like a girl.

She slipped out of girl mode only long enough to clean the wounds on her thigh. The purple-green bruises were hideous. The control-top support hose she’d started wearing upon turning thirty had acted like a compression bandage—her leg had hardly hurt at all during dinner—but she was paying for it now.

Faye wrapped her battered but very feminine carcass in a cotton nightgown and soft slippers and shuffled to bed, casting an affectionate glance at the red dress hanging in her armoire. Fresh-scrubbed and damp-haired, she pulled out William Whitehall’s old journal, one more time.

The fact that Mariah had closed the journal for the last time when her granddaughter Cally was born made Faye mad enough to spit. Finally, she had found the link between Mariah, her great-great-grandmother’s grandmother and Cally, whose legends had been passed down to her through her own grandmother. Mariah was forever silent on the subject, but the journal’s remaining pages were cluttered with several decades’ worth of scrawled notes and recipes and planting schedules. Even if there were no more personal entries, surely there was a little more information to be gleaned.

Slips of paper poked from between the journal pages and she plucked them, one by one. A tiny drawing of a man in a powdered wig fascinated her. Could this be the miniature sent by Henri LaFourche to Mariah all those years ago? Could it really be her great-great-great-great-grandfather? It was unsigned. She would never know.

Obituaries of people Faye didn’t know fell from between the leaves of the old book. Yellowed quilt patterns joined the pile. As the paper artifacts stored in the journal dwindled, she held onto twenty or thirty sheets of onionskin typing paper, folded and stapled. The bundle looked like her best bet for retrieving family history, so she superstitiously saved it until last.

Faye unfolded the papers and saw that they were a smeared carbon copy of a document produced by a bad typist. She skimmed the first few lines. Realizing what she held, she paused to offer up a history lover’s prayer of thanksgiving. Then she added a few words of blessing for
FDR
and his inspired plan to keep unemployed writers busy. Somebody that the Federal Writer’s Project sent out to locate and interview former slaves had found one here on remote Joyeuse. Cally was going to tell her whole story, in her own words, after all.

***

Excerpt from oral history of Cally Stanton, recorded by the Federal Writer’s Project, 1935

Chapter 19

Faye knew she should be working. She should be looking for artifacts to sell to bolster her failing fortunes. She should be restoring Joyeuse, giving her the attention she deserved. Instead, she was sitting on the ground, watching Joe do target practice with his bow and arrow. Their conversation was punctuated with the pronounced
thwump
of stone arrows striking a rotten pine stump.

Instead of doing something constructive, she was talking to a man who had very little to say. “So, I had a nice time with Cyril last night. I think I’m going to tell him how to get in touch with me through Wally. Maybe even bring him out for a visit.”

“You trust him that much? You could lose all this.” Joe gestured at the wild beauty of Joyeuse. “I don’t understand what you want with him.” He let another arrow fly.

She could understand Joe’s position. Living in a peaceful, beautiful place, untouched by the conflict that went hand-in-hand with human society, was seductive. She’d enjoyed that peace for years. Maybe someday Joe would get lonely and understand why she wanted something more.

“Cyril makes me feel good. Not just because he’s some hotshot politician. He looks at me and listens to me as if I’m important, maybe even special.”

“
Thwump
,” said the arrow.

“This is why people vote for him,” Joe said, showing marvelous political insight for someone who had never cast a vote.

“He seems to enjoy our time together,” Faye babbled on. “He must, because there’s nothing in it for him. He hasn’t pressed me for my phone number or my address. He hasn’t asked for sex. He hasn’t even kissed me yet, though it’s way past time. I wish he would.” A “thwump” and silence. “He’s older than me, but it’s okay. I’ve never dated a grown-up before, Joe. Yet he still has the smile of a thirteen-year-old boy.”

“He spends too much time at the tanning salon.”

Joe turned and launched an arrow into the underbrush. Faye flinched at the ensuing squeal.

Joe stomped through the undergrowth to collect his kill. “No fish tonight,” he said. “Rabbit.”

It was Friday morning and public servants everywhere were trying to tidy up their work for the weekend. The sheriff knew Kelly had been at her lab since the sun had finished whiting out the stars. He knew she worked conscientiously, every day, trying to generate the kind of forensics data that solved crimes. He thought of calling her, but there was nothing to say. The data were all in and they told him nothing.

His investigators had uncovered nothing, no fingerprints and no witnesses. The few material clues to the murderer’s identity were investigative victories for his staff and Kelly’s, but they signified nothing. The shoe print, the hairs, the fibers, the bullet that had destroyed the boy’s right ear before plowing into a pine tree. He could match it to a gun, if he had one, but in his gut, he knew that the gun, the cheap shoes, the rubber gloves, were all resting with the stolen equipment on the bottom of the Gulf.

His technicians had found the other bullet deep in another pine tree, where it had burrowed after passing through the base of the girl’s skull. From its trajectory, they’d estimated where she had been standing at the time she was shot and the location of the shooter. Big deal. It was just another piece of data that told him nothing about why she was killed or who did it.

Nothing. He had no suspect. No one who wanted the two kids dead. No motive other than theft or drugs, which he personally found weak. And surely not even the biggest environmental nut would kill two innocent kids to stop the development of an island, no matter how pretty that island.

He himself hated the thought of constructing a winter playground for Yankees too dumb to move out of the cold. In his opinion, the Last Isles were some of the prettiest places left on Earth, but the resort people thought they could be improved by the addition of a couple of man-made beaches. He and his investigation had slowed that inevitable process, but he couldn’t stop it. Nobody could. It was time to let the project go forward. There was no reason to let a couple of unsolved murders slow the progress of humanity.

Faye had been told she didn’t have sense enough to know when to quit. She’d been told that more than once, and here she was demonstrating it again. It was a crystal-clear morning and she had a frenzied need for money, but had she done anything that might raise that money?

No. She had spent gasoline money by driving her car to Sopchoppy.

She wanted to find Cedrick Kirby, wanted it bad. What would she do if she found him? She didn’t know. Turn him in and ruin Cyril? No. Hold his location in reserve in case she ever needed to protect Douglass? Maybe. Probably. Yes. That was what she would do.

Nobody could hide from the World Wide Web, not even Cedrick the murderer. Given a computer and time, he could be found, or at least that’s what Faye had thought. Even now, she could hear the click-whirr-beep of a computer mating with the Internet and, Lord, she loved the Internet with all the passion of a lonely island dweller. If she could hook up with the Web from the comfort of her bedroom, she’d hardly want to come ashore at all.

Faye had learned a lot at the Sopchoppy Public Library’s free Internet terminal. She’d learned that “skip trace” referred to a search for loan defaulters, deadbeat dads, and other missing persons. She’d learned that some missing persons searches could be accomplished for free.

Free was good. She’d perused the no-cost databases, but the result of her searches was cyberquick and brutal. No one in the United States had a telephone listed under Cedrick Kirby. No one in the United States had died while admitting to be Cedrick Kirby.

She’d never thought about how hard it would be to hide if your given name was as eccentric as Cedrick. Telephone records listed only three Cedric Kirbys living in the whole U.S. and not one Cedrick.

Having come to the end of her investigative ability fairly quickly, she steeled herself to spend some dollars. A low-rent private investigator located at wefindem.com offered only one service she could afford. It was titled simply “Real-time Name Search.” Its cost, only $35, was probably a good estimate of its value in finding missing folk.

Faye pulled her credit card out of her wallet, the one on which she kept the annual fee paid but never actually used, the one that represented her final line of security. Nothing but insanity would explain her willingness to put thirty-five dollars on it for no good reason.

Wefindem certainly worked efficiently. After a quarter hour, the first message came through. “Got his SSN. I can’t tell it to you, but he was born in 1946.”

Faye nodded. This was her Cedrick.

Five minutes later. “No current telephone number. No current address.”

Was he dead? Faye sorta hoped he was dead so she could let Abby rest and forget her. She leaned back and waited.

“No previous telephone or address,” said the next message. “He’s never had a magazine subscription, ordered anything by mail, or received a catalog.”

After a twenty-minute wait, the detective gave the final report. “I’ve got no record of him living anywhere under his own name. And he hasn’t renewed his driver’s license since he got it in 1961. Dead end.”

Faye was thirty-five dollars poorer, but she understood the value of negative information. Either Cedrick had changed his name or he had died about the time he left home, which was when Abby died. Suicide? Remorse? Who knew? Or maybe he’d been living in the woods since then, subsisting on roots and acorns. The notion reminded Faye of the Wild Man story, a tall tale passed down for decades to the gullible young of each generation.

The Wild Man was said to live in Micco County’s abundant wetlands. The tale said that he’d gotten lost in the swamps as a young child, surviving only through the kindness of the native bears. If Cedrick was the Wild Man, Faye would eat her copy of
Beloved Southern Folk Tales
.

She signed off and headed home.

Her mind was fully engaged with the Cedrick problem during the drive from Sopchoppy to Wally’s. She didn’t feel like talking to Wally or Liz, so she skirted around the grill and walked directly to her skiff. She hadn’t been underway five minutes when Wally’s voice emanated from her radio, sounding remarkably unsullied for late afternoon. Maybe he’d taken a nap, giving his liver time to catch up with his morning six-pack.

“I see you out there, Faye,” he bellowed. “Where in hell have you been?”

“I don’t sit by my radio all the time. I don’t even have it on all the time. The racket makes me nervous, especially when I’m working. Want me to spell it for you?
W-O-R
—”

“Shut up, dear. Magda’s been calling me. All day. The phone is ringing off the hook and I really hate that.”

“Disturbs your sleep?”

“Bitch. But yeah, I got things to do besides answer the phone when Dr. Famous Archaeologist wants to make it ring.”

Intellectual jousting with Wally was a one-sided venture, so Faye got to the point. “So what did Magda want?”

“She has some paying work for you. Want me to spell that?
P-A-Y
—”

“Doing what?”

“The sheriff said they could dig on Seagreen Island again.”

Faye cut the engine so she could sit in the quiet and take a deep breath before asking, “Does that mean he’s found the killer?”

“No, it means he’s giving up.”

Wally’s words made her feel heavy all over, despite her relief at being employed again. Krista and Sam had been dead for ten days. All that time, she’d been worrying about money and snooping around in a murder older than she was. Sheriff McKenzie had a good track record. She’d assumed he’d find the students’ murderer just like he had so many others, but as far as Faye could tell, he’d never even had a real suspect. What had made her assume she and Joe could safely remain at Joyeuse?

Faye changed course, steering her skiff back to Wally’s. She needed to return Magda’s call.

Wally waved at Faye as she hung up the phone, waiting for her to leave before he went back into his office and closed the door. Nguyen sat in the chair where Wally had left him fifteen minutes before.

Nguyen waited better than most people—alert, ready for anything, but giving no sign of impatience. He worked with the same deliberation. Working with Nguyen was often a frustrating endeavor; sometimes Wally regretted going into business with him. Wally’s usually flaccid body was capable of great bursts of activity. When he dug for artifacts alongside Nguyen, Wally always felt that he was working harder, moving more dirt, hurrying more to box up his finds and load them on the boat.

Yet at the end of the day, the pile of dirt Nguyen had shoveled out of the ground was always bigger than his. Nguyen’s finds were more numerous and more valuable. His crates were more efficiently packed. His work was carefully thought out to minimize effort and so were his words.

“So what’s happened to the cash flow?” Nguyen asked.

Wally squirmed. “I’ve sold everything we uncovered this summer. We’ve still got a warehouse full of things I stored on my friend’s island east of here last year while we were looking for buyers, but I’m having some trouble this week, er—I can’t get our goods out of storage right now.” Nguyen drummed a single finger on Wally’s desk.