The Fitzgerald Ruse (23 page)
Todd Creek Baptist Church had been erected on a hill a few miles west of Asheville. The brick building consisted of a sanctuary and an el-wing for offices and Sunday School classes. After getting only three hours of sleep, Nakayla and I arrived twenty minutes before the eleven o’clock service. The gravel parking lot was filling quickly as a community came together on a Saturday morning to remember someone they loved. Amanda Whitfield had obviously touched many during her brief life.
We found seats in a pew near the rear. Across the aisle I saw Detective Newland flanked by his twin nephews in their uniforms. He nodded a greeting and then cocked his head with a question in his eyes. I shook mine to tell him there would be no new revelations for his case file. His lips tightened and I knew he was disappointed. I could only hope he trusted my judgment.
I looked down at my bulletin. A single cross projecting rays of ascending light graced the cover. Beneath it were the words “Celebrating the Life of Amanda Whitfield—September 15, 2007.”
The service was short and sad, although the minister and music focused on joy in the hereafter. I heard Nakayla sniffle a few times, and I took her hand. In some ways, the heritage of her African-American homegoing funerals like the one I’d attended for her sister let emotions break out with greater freedom and cathartic release.
At the end of the service, we were told that the family would greet people in the Fellowship Hall in the basement, and that the women of the church had prepared light food. Nakayla and I had expected a small country congregation would have a covered-dish reception, and we stopped by my car before joining the throng. Downstairs, I approached one of the ladies behind a long table and handed her the box of fresh-baked blueberry muffins we’d picked up from City Bakery Café.
At the head of the receiving line sat a good-looking young man in a wheelchair, his arms and legs useless appendages and his head cushioned into a fixed position on the backrest. The soreness in my stump seemed but a faint echo of the physical and mental pain that young widower endured. For all the courage required of me the previous night, I couldn’t muster enough to speak to him.
“When can we catch up?”
I turned to find Nathan Armitage behind us. He shook my hand and hugged Nakayla.
“God, that was close,” he said, and his voice choked.
“We’re okay,” I said. “Sorry to abandon you, but I had no choice.”
He shrugged. “You two are a helluva team. My friends were very impressed.”
“I assume the black water flowed back to its source. Let me know what I owe you.”
“Nothing. They were glad to assist. No one likes to think they’ve trained criminals.”
“Seems to be our national pastime,” I said, and then regretted voicing something so petty as politics at Amanda Whitfield’s funeral.
Nathan had more class and let my comment slide. “Maybe tomorrow afternoon you’d drop by the house. The Panthers are playing and we could sort through things.”
“Sure,” Nakayla said. “We’d like that.”
The residents of Golden Oaks entered the assembly hall in a parade interspersed with walkers and wheelchairs. Nakayla and I made sure all the seniors had seats before finding our own. The afternoon service came right after the dining hall closed and we’d had to hurry from Amanda’s to be on time for Ethel’s.
Here were the professional funeral attendees who’d lost so many friends and family that mixing solemnity with gregariousness had been perfected into a fine art. The chaplain of the retirement center led an informal ceremony. Hewitt Donaldson spoke on behalf of the family, thanking Ethel’s friends and the Golden Oaks’ staff for their kindness toward his aunt.
A number of the old timers stood at their seats as the chaplain brought a wireless mike for them to use for sharing memories. The P.A. system blared so that even the deaf could hear.
Harry Young got a round of applause for his story about Ethel reading his palm. That triggered a number of Ethel’s palm reading stories, and I noticed how many of the fading generation looked down at their hands, seeming to marvel that such lined and wrinkled things were attached to their bodies.
Afterwards, I greeted Hewitt Donaldson and his cousin Terry Barkley. We said nothing of our early morning search through the lockbox, but Barkley shook my hand vigorously and thanked us for our help. I doubted Donaldson had told him much other than we’d safeguarded his inheritance. He didn’t need or want to hear any more.
I left Nakayla with them and went to find Captain. He was speaking to the chaplain and when he saw me, he came as fast as he could push his walker. He stopped about a yard away.
“You got them, boy. You told me you would, and you got them.”
I gave him our customary salute, but instead of returning it, he slung his walker aside and closed the distance between us on his frail legs, not stopping till he’d embraced me. I felt his tears on my cheek.
Old soldiers never die, but the good ones are man enough to cry.
“There’s plenty of beer and guacamole.” Nathan Armitage handed each of us a bottle of Heineken and then set a plate of corn chips and dip on the coffee table. A widescreen TV on the wall tuned in the game between the Carolina Panthers and Houston Texans. “Now eat up, or Helen will think I was a bad host.”
“She’s not a football fan?” Nakayla asked.
Nathan popped the cap from his beer and sat in a leather lounge chair. “She gets into it when the Panthers make the playoffs. She’s at some church committee meeting this afternoon. If I heard her correctly, it’s a committee studying committees. I increase my pledge just to stay off the damn things.”
“You want a rundown before she comes home?” I asked.
“If you’re up to telling the story.”
Nathan was well aware of our financial picture so Nakayla and I told him everything including our raid on Calvin’s secret account.
When we’d finished, he sat quietly for a few minutes, twirling his empty bottle between his palms. He looked worried. “You sure there’s no way anyone left in Ali Baba will discover what happened?”
“I can’t be completely sure, but I think anyone else would be local Iraqis who wouldn’t have been privy to anything other than their immediate tasks. And even Hernandez and Lucas didn’t know Calvin had siphoned off their funds, so the account’s untraceable.”
“You got a way to get that money to the families of your buddies?”
“That might be trickier than I thought. It’s one thing for Nakayla and me to keep money offshore and bring it in through the detective agency and another thing to get money into someone’s personal U.S. bank account with a plausible explanation.”
Nathan stood and held the empty bottle by his side. “I’d say you ought to learn more about the families and what they need. That could lead you to the best way to help them.” He thought a second. “And you might feed Hewitt Donaldson enough information to get his take. He’s a crafty bastard and he owes you more than a book.”
Nakayla and I laughed.
“What?” he asked.
“The book’s a first edition,” I said.
“So, what’s it worth? A couple grand?”
“Pretty close,” I said. “Maybe even four.”
“Not too shabby,” he conceded.
“But the cover. Tell him, Nakayla.”
Her face lit up. “I did a little Internet search this morning. Seems there are only about twenty known dust jackets for that first edition still in existence and most of them are in poor shape. At a recent auction, a copy of
The Great Gatsby
with its dust jacket went for near $50,000.”
“And ours is signed to Fitzgerald by his lover,” I added.
“What are you going to do?” Nathan asked me.
“I thought maybe I’d read it.”
Although this book is a work of fiction, certain real events and locations provided inspiration for the story.
F. Scott Fitzgerald stayed in Asheville, North Carolina, during the summers of 1935 and 1936. His favorite room in The Grove Park Inn was 441, and I’m indebted to Derrick Swing, Bill Kelley, and the staff and management of The Grove Park Inn and Spa for their assistance and cooperation. Special thanks to Derrick for making an appearance in the novel.
Laura Guthrie Hearne was a palm reader and the part-time secretary of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Her account of that relationship appeared in the December 1964 issue of
Esquire
as an article entitled “A Summer with F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Tony Buttitta’s book,
The Lost Summer: A Personal Memoir of F. Scott Fitzgerald
, is a fascinating look at Fitzgerald in 1935. Fitzgerald introduced Buttitta to his “dollar woman,” Laura Guthrie Hearne, and had her read his palm.
In 1933, William Dudley Pelley founded the Silver Legion of America, headquartered in Asheville, and at one point the fascist organization had more than fifteen thousand Silver Shirt members in chapters across twenty-two states. Pelley was indicted and convicted on two stock fraud charges in 1934 and on sedition charges in 1942. Fitzgerald and Pelley never met, although Buttitta describes Fitzgerald as being scornfully curious about the man.
The poem “The Silver Shirts Are Marching!” is from a 1936 bound and hand-typed manuscript,
The Door to Revelation: An Intimate Biography by William Dudley Pelley
. I’m grateful to the Pack Library of Asheville for research assistance with Pelley materials. The character of Hugh Donaldson was not Pelley’s attorney and is my creation.
The Kenilworth Inn opened in 1891 as a grand hotel and for many years was a military hospital and mental health facility. Developer Frank Howington rescued the Kenilworth from demolition, and the renovated and restored building is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Thanks to Frank and Mikell Howington, Pete Parham, and Allie Broman-Fulks for making Sam Blackman and me feel at home.
Blackwater Worldwide is a security services corporation headquartered in Moyock, North Carolina. Its relationship with the U.S. government has generated controversy that led to an examination of contracts involving the outsourcing of paramilitary and security operations, particularly in Iraq. No Blackwater employees or former employees have any connection to the fictional events of this story. However, on September 16, 2007, seventeen Iraqi civilians died during an altercation in Nisour Square, Baghdad, involving Blackwater guards escorting a convoy of U.S. State Department vehicles. As of February 2009, five guards have been indicted on federal manslaughter and weapon charges and a sixth entered into a plea-bargain agreement. Defense attorneys say newly released Blackwater radio logs lend credence to claims that the convoy was under fire. One can only hope that justice will prevail for all involved, Iraqis and Americans.
Getting this novel to readers has been a collaborative effort. Keys to that process are my editor Barbara Peters who keeps the story focused; my wife Linda, daughters Lindsay and Melissa, and son-in-law Pete who review the manuscript and offer ample criticism; my brother Archie for his life insurance expertise; my agent Linda Allen; publisher Robert Rosenwald and his staff; and the many librarians, booksellers, and mystery lovers whose kind response encourages me to continue thinking “what if?”
Mark de Castrique
The Kenilworth Inn
Asheville, North Carolina
February 7, 2009
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