“It’s going to have to be,” Gina said. “We need to talk to your mother.”
He blanched and quickly closed the door, ushering them toward the porch steps. “Why? She’s got nothing to do with anything my father or I told you.” He lowered his voice. “Please don’t bring her into this.”
“Your father already did when he used her position on the financial board to push the Semple land into foreclosure,” Gina said.
“Dylan, come on,” Cage said. “I don’t want to bring your mom into this either. I’m sure she’s not involved. But we’ve got to get some answers.”
Dylan glanced behind him toward the imposing house. Ashland was so big Cage figured the rest of the inhabitants might not even know they’d arrived. Might at least buy them a few minutes. “She doesn’t know about Dad using her position on the board. And she doesn’t need to.”
“Then you need to help us out,” Cage said. “We found evidence of a fentanyl injection on Ben’s arm. Know how that happens? The fentanyl is taken from a prescription patch. He was murdered. Now who do you know that’s got access to a drug like that, and who was around the house all day with your mother?”
Dylan blinked, his face turning hard as stone. “You think Booth did this?”
“Ben sent those pictures to Nick, clued him to what Booth was up to. Nick’s a hell of a reporter. I guarantee you if there was a whisper of Booth being connected to the Dixie Mafia or anything shady, Nick heard about it. And this isn’t the first fentanyl-related death Booth has been close to.”
“So you think Booth killed Ben as a punishment?” Dylan looked dazed.
“And to silence him,” Gina said. “Look, Carl Gilbert sucked you into all of this, right? He’s the one who told Booth about the Semple property. Guess where he’s at now? Delta Correctional for cooking and selling meth. He probably funneled that money to the Dixie Mafia.” She stepped closer, pointing her finger at Dylan and looking like she was ready to charge him. “Now you and your family are pulled into this mess because Gilbert tattled to his boss, and what Booth wants, he gets. These men have done nothing but use you and your family. What’s on that property that’s so special? What’s he really after, Dylan?”
“Give us something we can use to bring him in.” Cage took over. They were going to get to Dylan this time. His lips were open, ready to spill. They just needed to get him away from the house. “The FBI is after the Dixie Mafia. Booth’s one of their suspects. If we get enough, they’ll come in. But that means you or your father are going to have to grow a pair and tell the truth. Something tells me it’s not going to be the mayor. We can protect you, I promise. But you’ve got to help us. Help us solve Ben’s murder. He didn’t deserve this. And Nick doesn’t deserve to die.”
“It’s all my fault.” Dylan’s voice cracked, and his body slumped forward. Cage had been a cop long enough to know when to let a man think, give him time to mull getting the weight off his shoulders. Dylan hugged himself, gave a hard nod. “All right. Let me take you somewhere.”
F
or the next
fifteen minutes, Dylan only spoke to give them directions. He led them down Van Dorne road, past the spot where Nick’s shoe was found, to the dirt road leading to the Semple property. A dusty drive led them to the foundation of the old house. Here in the quiet afternoon, with the whispers of the smoke hanging in the shadows, the area seemed like the perfect place to hide a body. Or for an ambush.
“We’ve got to go on foot from here.”
Cage glanced at his boss, but she only nodded. Keeping his hand on his gun, Cage followed Dylan into the overgrown brush, toward White Creek, and Ironwood.
“You ever heard of Luke Brennan?” Dylan walked steadily in front of them following a worn path.
“No,” Gina said.
“Name sounds familiar.” Cage tapped Gina, pointing to the ground. They were walking in red dirt. A quick jerk of her head told him she’d noticed.
“In the 1870s, he started the local branch of the Mississippi Rifle Club, which quickly became a paramilitary group. They intimidated freed blacks and anyone who supported them. Brennan’s followers grew to a small gang of men from all over Adams and Claiborne County, and they joined the insurgents to help push the Mississippi Plan.”
“The Democrats planned to unseat the Republicans and their pro-black laws.” Cage remembered his high school history. Their teacher had been semi-proud of the Plan.
“Right,” Dylan said. “Brennan and his guys attacked several Union soldiers stationed to keep the peace as well as several black homes. Legend is he showed up at Ironwood to punish them for supporting the blacks, and John James put a bullet in Brennan’s shoulder. Several of the freed blacks had stayed on to work at Ironwood—paid very little, but it was something, and they didn’t know anything else. John James was good to them, kept them safe.” Dylan pushed his way through a thicket of dry, tangled milkweed. “Anyway, the free blacks came to John James’s defense and ambushed the Brennan gang. The gang took off, but Brennan vowed revenge.”
“He never got it,” Gina said. “John James lived to be an old man.”
Dylan paused for a moment, gazing through the brush. “That’s where the story gets really interesting. The Brennan gang started looting too. Had the attitude they were the law and could do whatever they wanted. They’d attack and disappear. No one could find their hideout.” Dylan wiped the sweat off his brow and then plodded forward. “During the 1876 elections, Brennan and his three main guys attacked a group of Republican supporters during a rally in Claiborne County. One of the Brennan men was injured, and the group took off. Disappeared like always. But they’d killed a Union soldier this time, and so the hunt was on. The area was searched for weeks, and no sign of the men. In fact, they never showed up again.”
“What do you mean?” Cage narrowly avoided a thorn tree. This part of the woods was loaded with them, along with thick batches of tangled weeds just waiting to trip a man. “They stopped raiding? Moved their families out?”
“Nope. Never went back to their families. Vanished.”
“Abandoned them and went further south, most likely,” Gina said.
“That’s what I used to think. But then I found some stuff in my great-grandfather’s ledger. He was one of the searchers, and he talked about all the land they covered. Seems Isaiah Semple refused to let the whites onto his land. Didn’t trust anyone. John James spoke up for him, and so the Semple property was never searched. I decided to look myself.” The trail dipped, and Dylan grabbed onto a low-hanging branch of a hickory tree to steady himself. Cage and Gina followed suit.
They’d nearly reached the creek and the border of the property. Water trickled over the rocks, echoing in the trees. Dylan veered to the right, away from the creek, and stopped at a thatch of trees covering a grassy hill. “I found this cave.”
“I don’t see a cave.” Gina peered around his shoulder. Cage looked over the top of her head and saw what he thought might be an opening behind the milkweed and prickly ash.
“It’s well hidden.” Dylan pushed back the overgrown plants and Spanish moss dangling like tears to reveal a hole barely big enough to fit a man. “This is what I brought Carl Gilbert to see.”
Cage knew his own smile must look like a little boy’s. He and his dad used to go caving before his dad got fat and Cage too cool to hang out with him.
Good times.
“How big is it?”
“A lot bigger than it looks. It goes fairly deep underground. Between the gunpowder and scattered weapons, I’m pretty sure it was used as a Confederate munitions stash. Which isn’t uncommon. But there are human bones in there, and I think they are the Brennan gang. I think they died here.”
“Why?” Gina hung back.
Dylan leaned against the rocky hill. Whatever excitement he’d mustered over showing them the cave dribbled away. “This is where I really screwed up. I never should have brought Gilbert here.”
“When did you two meet?” Edging closer to the entrance, Cage nearly lost his footing.
“About three years ago, in Jackson. I didn’t know he was a criminal when I started seeing him. He wanted to visit, and this was the perfect meeting spot.” Dylan squinted against the gleaming sunlight. “I was too much of a coward to let my father find out. Everything went fine the first time we met here, but the second time, I was running late.
“When I got here, I found Gilbert sick inside the cave. I pulled him out in the fresh air, and he gradually got better. We did some research, started looking around.”
“So what made him sick?” Gina said.
“Natural gas. There’s a leak inside the cave. It’s odorless in its natural form, so no one knew it. I think that’s what killed Brennan’s men,” Dylan said. He stared at the cave, seemingly lost in the memory.
Gina looked at Cage triumphantly, the grim set of her mouth edging into a tight smile. She’d been right about the property.
“Gilbert got all excited, started talking about how much money the cave was worth. I told him this was a historical place, and I was going to get permission to excavate. He wasn’t happy, and less than two weeks later, Wyatt Booth shows up at the house to talk to my father.” Dylan looked down at his feet, the tops of his ears red.
Cage wanted to bang his head against the trees. Natural gas. Gina had been right.
Sonofabitch
. “He told him about the cave?”
Dylan shook his head. “No. Somehow, Booth’s people found out the Semple owners weren’t far from foreclosure. My dad’s all about money, and it wasn’t hard to convince him that Norton investing in the land would be great for the local economy. He bought the resort idea hook, line, and sinker.” Dylan snorted. “He had no idea about the natural gas, and since he doesn’t talk to me, by the time I found out, it was too late. He was already in deep with Norton. He’d been promised a cut of the profits to help get the land zoned commercial. I told him about the gas, and he confronted Booth. That’s when Booth showed his true colors.” Dylan’s morose expression turned to anger, his teeth bared like a threatened dog.
“He told Dad he was up to his neck in this, and if he tried to pull out, he’d regret it. ‘Money’s the boss,’ he said, ‘and I control the purse strings. I want a piece of the area, and I get what I want.’”
“Did you ever talk to Gilbert again?” Cage asked.
“He’d been arrested. I went to the prison to visit him once, and he admitted he worked for Booth’s organization. He never said the words Dixie Mafia, but it was obvious the way he talked. He was scared of the man.”
Dylan’s face crumpled. “I went to Ben. We were friends, grew up together. He knew everything by then, and he couldn’t help. See, Booth had his hooks in him too. He found out about Memory Lane and wanted a piece.”
“Why didn’t you tell us any of this sooner?” Gina demanded.
“I’m a coward. And I’ve been trying to clean up my own mess. That’s why I’ve been prospecting. I can’t spend too much time in the cave, but I found more bones just before the fire. I think I’ve got enough to get the City Council to change their minds. I’m just afraid of what Booth will do. So…I thought I’d make my own statement. Let him know I’m not afraid of him anymore.” His words tumbled out. “But God, I swear I thought the house was empty. And that I could control the fire.”
A jolt of shock, followed by the urge to wrap his hands around Dylan’s neck. “What the hell were you thinking?” Cage’s shout scattered the chattering sparrows from a nearby oak tree. “You almost killed Jaymee and destroyed the town! And you’re a firefighter!”
Dylan stepped back, hands in front of him. Shame drained the color from his face. “Stanley threatened to out me, had compromising pictures of me that Gilbert took of us. He was going to post them online, which would have caused a war between my parents and me. I know Gilbert gave them to him.”
His shoulders rounded as though he realized how pathetic he sounded. “The Dixie Mafia is like one big virus, all the pieces working together to form one deadly piece. He told me Booth was coming to talk to me because they knew what I was up to. I needed to have some sense talked into me. Even brought up Mom. So I lost it. But I thought the place was empty, I swear to God.” His shoulders sagged, and he leaned against the exterior of the cave. Cage desperately wanted to clock him in the jaw.
Stupid ass
.
“Why did you set the fire?” Gina demanded.
“I told you, I’d lost it. I was tired of being threatened, being treated like a helpless kid, like their prisoner. I wanted to send Stanley a message. Stand up to them for once.” Dylan’s chin trembled, and he jerked his head high, jaw tight with the effort not to cry. “I didn’t know Jaymee was in there.”
“What about Nick Samuels?” Cage swallowed his anger. “Did Booth or Stanley say anything about him?”
“No,” Dylan said. “I had no idea Nick was missing until Jaymee told me. But when she started talking about the replicas, I wondered. I called Ben, and he acted funny. But he had been with his mother. I looked around Ashland as best as I could, but I didn’t find anything. And then I heard Booth was coming and knew Stanley would be picking him up.” His voice trailed off.
“We’re going to have to arrest you,” Gina said. “But if you’re willing to testify against Booth, there’s a good chance you’ll get leniency.”
Dylan nodded. “As long as my family is safe.”
Cage needed to
check in with Dani and Jaymee, but his cellphone had died, and Wyatt Booth was handcuffed in the interview room. With Dylan’s official statement, Gina had arrested Wyatt Booth on two felony charges: threatening a government official and fraud. Dylan had witnessed multiple threats on his father, and he’d seen money exchange hands at least once. Mayor Asher was also arrested on fraud charges, and Gina and the Adams County Prosecutor were working on him right now. They hoped he’d take the plea deal and start singing. Her contact from the FBI was on his way, but she’d given Cage permission to question Wyatt Booth.
“You’ve established a rapport with him,” Gina said. “But go by the book. Don’t let your temper or personal attachment get in the way.”
He’d try. But if ever there was a case for tripping over the table and his fist accidentally landing on the suspect’s chin, Wyatt Booth was it.