Coyote (40 page)

‘What do you mean they “went there”?'

‘Sorry,' he said. ‘Thackeray was the name of their school in Boston until …' He stopped.

‘Until what?'

‘Hold on, I need to check this.' He was back in under a minute. ‘They were there for only ten months. They were removed and sent to another one.'

I frowned. ‘Why were they removed?'

‘There was a death at the school. A group of students killed a teacher.' I could hear him tsking. ‘They ambushed him in an alley after school and kicked him to death. The Kershaws must've been horrified and removed their two boys for safety.'

Oh, sure they had!

So that's where Hector had started his criminal career? I bet he'd directed that gang of boys like puppets. It was the Thackeray Building after all.

I thanked the librarian and disconnected.

Gilda had said that Prairie Rose would sit in her guard tree and watch Hector's office.

I went round into the wasteland that'd once been a courtyard, to the rear of the Thackeray Building. I stood under the huge Canyon Oak that stood in the centre of the five buildings. If Prairie Rose could see Hector's office from this tree, then it had to be at the back of the building.

The Thackeray Building was three storeys high … I looked up.

The Canyon Oak had a massive trunk and heavy, spreading branches covered in a spiny, holly-like
foliage. It was a whopper — maybe ninety feet tall. I climbed up, looking for Prairie Rose's perch … but it'd been around a century and a half since she'd sat in this tree. It would've grown so much in that time …

I sat in the tree, looking across at the Thackeray Building. Even given the growth, Prairie Rose would've had a perfect view of any of the rooms on the top floor. And — knowing Hector — that's exactly where his office would've been.

I clambered down, got out my tools and broke in.

I climbed the stairs to the top floor.

I had to think like Hector … Every name, every symbol in this building was part of the blueprint of his nasty little mind. Each thing here held a significance that only he could decipher.

I heard a sound and jerked around. A rat scuttled through a doorway to my right. Wait a minute … What was that up there? There was a letter engraved in the moulding over the door. It was a C …

I looked closer … It was part of a name — Clay River.

I remembered Honeycutt mentioning Clay River in connection to Lysander. It was where Lysander had slaughtered the friendly Cheyenne.

Why had Hector named this room after one of his elder brother's atrocities?

I walked in.

Like all the rooms in the Thackeray Building, these walls were covered in an elaborate decorative moulding. In all the others, though, the moulding had been simple botanical images, leaves, flowers etc. But in this one the moulding portrayed a scene from Greek mythology. It looked familiar.

It was a Greek hero slaying a beautiful woman with the winged body of a bird of prey. It was a Harpy.
This was the same image that was on the front of this building!

Close up, I could see the pair were entwined in a weirdly erotic way, almost as though the hero was raping the Harpy. The monstrous woman had one gnarled claw locked tight around the hero's throat and the other reaching up to gouge out his eyes. But the hero leered in triumph; he'd killed the Harpy with a sword downwards through the breast.

Why was this mythological battle so important to Hector Kershaw?

Then I remembered back to Hector's hotel room — that mutilated picture of his fearsome mother. If he hated strong women he must've loathed her with a vengeance.

I looked at the dying Harpy. Maybe vengeance was the right word.

I followed the moulding; it went right around the room.

Then I saw the massive fireplace. There were two life-sized sculptures of the Greek hero and the dying Harpy on either side of the fireplace. I felt their surfaces. The head of the Harpy on the right side twisted …

And the side of the fireplace swung open.

Except for the cobwebs, the room looked like it'd remained unchanged since its owner disappeared into thin air in 1868.

No expense had been spared. The paint was still bright, the one tiny, external window held a stained-glass scene showing the death of the Harpy but in more sexually explicit detail. It was fully furnished, including a desk, a chair and a bed.

The architect had made this secret room a luxurious den.

The furniture was crowded with personal mementos and belongings. And the walls were covered in maps, annotated in red and black ink …

On the wall straight ahead of me was a map of old San Francisco, marked with faded red ink. There were three small crosses at the docks and two big crosses further into the city. Next to each cross was a number. Next to the map was a list with annotations corresponding to each number.

The list was a head count of people killed and how they died …

The three small crosses were the three men, all Boston bankers, that Professor Wauhope had discussed at the Criminology Conference. The ones he'd said had been killed by the Corsairs. The big crosses were the two disasters that Hector'd set up to destroy the Corsairs — Portsmouth Square and the Montgomery Building.

I shivered. The map and the list were yellowed with age … and the oil from Hector Kershaw's fingerprints showed that he'd fondled both. These were his trophies, his most prized possessions.

I glanced around …

This was a mass murderer's private sitting room. Where he could paw over his triumphs …

On the wall to my left was another map dated 1864.

I stepped in, startled at what I saw there.

It was a US army map of the Colorado Indian Wars. The map was also dotted with red crosses. Like the old San Francisco map, next to each cross was a number. Next to the map was a list …

It was a head count of people killed and how they died …

Each cross was a massacre.

I shook my head. This couldn't be Hector the banker's hiding place after all, surely?

Next to the old army map was a coat rack … hanging from it was a US cavalry uniform, hat and sword.

On the floor below sat three pairs of worn cavalry boots.

They looked like the same boots I'd seen in Hector's room in old Santa Fe …

I turned, looking for more clues.

On the wall opposite the cavalry uniform hung a map of Mexico dated 1865 …

I leant in.

It was of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.

I traced the route. Along the El Camino was a series of red crosses, exactly the same sign as on the other maps.

Zacatecas, Caliente …

Each cross had a number and each number corresponded to a detailed list of how many had died and how …

El Chacal …

I swung around the room. These were El Chacal's possessions. They were his trophies …

He'd been a US cavalry officer who'd crossed the border to become a hired assassin, and then finally a bandito in Mexico.

The last map was of New Mexico dated 1867. There were three red crosses on it. Two were north of Santa Fe and one to the northeast.

I checked the list.

The one closest to Santa Fe was the Dry Gulch massacre. The next closest was outside Big Sun Canyon. It was Ernesto, the Native American guide from Fort Marcy.

I slid my finger to the last cross, to the northeast of Santa Fe, then checked the list again.

I gasped.

It said: ‘Hector Quale Kershaw'.

I stared at the list for a moment, all the pieces coming together like iron filings before a magnet.

The mass murderer, a former US cavalry officer and known south of the border as El Chacal, had killed Hector Kershaw and stolen his identity.

El Chacal had come to Santa Fe, in disguise, looking for Isabella's Cross.

It all came together.

I stared over at the desk. The diary I'd seen in Santa Fe was there. It was bound in black leather with a blood-red spine. A vermillion ribbon attached to the spine acted as a bookmark. It was waiting on the desk, a bottle of ink and a sharpened pen next to it … as though the author had just stepped away from it for a moment.

I opened the front cover and read the owner's name, signed with a coldly precise flourish.

Yes, El Chacal had certainly been a US cavalry officer.

But he was supposed to have died a hero's death.

The diary belonged to Lysander Prendergast Kershaw … Hector's elder brother.

 

The diary told the whole story …

In too much detail for my stomach — or my peace of mind.

When Lysander was kicked out of the Thackeray school for arranging the murder of one of his teachers, Mama Kershaw decided sonny boy needed some discipline and to be sent as far away from Boston's high-society gossip mill as was possible. He was given a choice: join the army or the navy.

He chose the army. Lysander was only fifteen, but before he left home he had to be wrestled away from strangling his mother. He never saw her again, but every strong woman he met had her face.

Lysander's vicious nature and keen ability to manipulate groups saw him promoted. But only to a point. Then everything came to a crisis in Colorado. Relishing the freedom the army had given him
to practise his favourite pastime, Lysander finally disgusted even his own commanding officers and was about to be charged with genocide.

Mama Kershaw intervened and greased enough palms to stage her son's heroic death and equally bogus state funeral. Lysander was given money and sent south to Mexico to hide, but instead he continued his killing spree in the guise of a bandito called El Chacal, The Jackal.

And that's where he first heard the alluring tale of Isabella's Cross.

Harried by the Mexican army and about to lose his livelihood, Lysander decided to come north on the trail of the cross. He also wrote to his family, demanding more money. Instead Mama Kershaw sent his younger brother, Hector, with a firm refusal to take any more responsibility for the family black sheep.

So Lysander killed his brother and stole his identity and his clothes. Except for the shoes … Lysander's feet were much bigger and besides, his three pairs of US cavalry boots were much treasured mementos of all the Native Americans he'd ever trampled upon … He'd worn them as El Chacal for the same reason.

Dry Gulch got him access to Spruce Tree Mesa and Isabella's Cross. With the cross firmly in his possession, Lysander decided it was time to lay claim to his own kingdom. The debauched reputation of boom-town San Francisco made it the perfect next stop on his rampage. The prospect of the hauntingly beautiful Prairie Rose finalised his decision. He couldn't resist her sexual challenge …

I flicked through the section on old San Francisco.

Beside Lysander describing how he murdered the three Boston bankers Professor Wauhope had talked about — to stop them from unmasking him — it
didn't tell me much of anything new. It was just pages of Lysander gloating over how clever he was …

How he even wore red snakeskin boots to celebrate his past life as El Chacal and his old intimidation method — The Reaping. How disappointed he was that no one made the connection between his boots and all the rattlesnakes found in the fiery disaster at Portsmouth Square. How there were no challenges left …

But I wanted to know why, after defeating the Corsairs and everyone else who had stood in his way to power, Lysander Kershaw had left? Why did he disappear at the height of his power? Just when he'd won.

And where had Lysander gone?

I turned to the last page but it told me nothing. It merely said he had an appointment with his mistress, Prairie Rose.

I shook my head — there had to be a clue in here somewhere. I went back one week and began reading more closely.

I sat staring at the final diary entry …

I knew why Lysander disappeared.

And where he went …

 

It was lunchtime on a brilliant blue-sky day and the plaza outside de Vivar Library was packed.

I studied the Dry Gulch Memorial.

It was surrounded by the de Vivar Library, the bell tower and the Department of Criminology in South Hall.

The memorial dominated this plaza, the beating heart of the Berkeley university campus. Here the best and the brightest wandered past on their way to the de Vivar Library or classes in South Hall or sat and ate their lunch while listening to the carillon that sounded from the great bells. Above our heads the statues of the five chiefs on the roof of Rodrigo's tower watched and waited for justice.

I nodded to myself. Now the real message of the dramatic cluster of sculptures was so very, very clear …

Lysander's bronze face leered down at Lucretia, the governor's young wife, his malicious intent completely revealed to his terrified victim and his exposed cavalry boot skimming her soft cheek.

This tableau was a clue, a treasure map to the truth, both abstract and material …

I had to do it quickly or I'd be stopped …

I grabbed the lip of the memorial and hoisted myself up and into the group of sculptures.

Students wandering past stopped to watch.

I knelt, mirroring Lysander, and peered into his face. I touched his chin then knocked on it with my knuckle. The sound echoed.

‘Hey, what are you doing?' yelled someone. I ignored him.

I unsheathed the battery-operated angle grinder and, with care to my strapped thumb, started it up. The noise was deafening. The now expanding circle of spectators gasped and moved away.

I could hear running feet; they were going to get security.

I leant the blade into the side of Lysander's cheek. It screamed and whined, sparks flying as I cut down, then proceeded to encircle his entire face …

The bronze mask fell off.

Someone screamed.

A human face was revealed, preserved in its exquisite entirety, down to the dying expression of … surprise.

It was Lysander Kershaw.

I worked on his bronze chest, another revelation close.

The hole revealed the broken shaft of a red arrow … Only one was needed — it was sticking out of his heart.

I turned off the angle grinder.

Lysander had been right, someone
had
penetrated his secret room. Prairie Rose, watching from her guard tree, had found out about Lysander's secret room … and his plans to get her pregnant and kill her and her child. The arrow through Lysander's heart showed how she'd taken her vengeance.

I looked around the plaza.

But why had Rodrigo Juan de Vivar left a trail of oh so very dramatic and detailed breadcrumbs to the truth about Lysander … and even to his body?

Why this elaborate plan — one that scaled centuries?

Was this a public act of contrition for unwittingly helping a mass murderer?

Or was it something very different indeed? Something far more complex … and devious.

I remembered back to the way Lysander described his last sight of Rodrigo de Vivar. ‘He was not my
stupid business partner who I'd manipulated like dough … this de Vivar had a lean and hungry look, like a wild dog waiting for his chance at the carcass.'