A Shred of Truth

  With only one day of class left, I was more confused than ever.

  Diesel, though, might be able to clarify a few things about Mr. Hillcrest.

  My study partners acted surprised to see me.

  “Who are you again?” Diesel gibed. “Didn’t think you’d show.”

  “He’s alive!” Sara called out, playing the part of Dr. Frankenstein. In her Dolly Parton twang, it sounded more goofy than anything.

  “You make me sound like a monster.”

  “If the shoe fits,” Diesel quipped.

  Sara slapped at his knee. “Y’all better be civil.”

  “He looks even worse than when I saw him this morning,” he tossed in. “Though he’d probably look worse if he’d been stranded at the airport all day, like my parents.”

  “Your dad’s still in Nashville?”

  “If you can believe that. Southwest Airlines has canceled all flights to Ohio due to the storm warnings. And he must be livid by now, demanding answers from the ticket-counter staff.”

  “Your poor mom,” Sara said.

  “She’s learned to live with it.”

  “Diesel. You been out partying with my brother recently?”

  “He invited me out to Chigger’s place a couple times. Is that a bad thing?”

  The strands of this web kept getting more complex.

  I said, “Your parents seem to think so. Your father even threatened me.”

  “He’s just a control freak.” Diesel shifted in his seat. “Here’s a pop quiz for you. True or false: John Denver, that folk-singer guy, served in Vietnam as a trained army sniper?”

  “Think that one’s true,” I played along. Best to keep the conversation casual. “Over seventy kills, from what I heard.”

  “You heard? There’s your first clue. Denver was never even in ’Nam.”

  “Silly me. Denver’s in Colorado.”

  Sara groaned, then gestured at a beanbag chair. “You gonna join us or not?”

  “Sure.”

  Course syllabi, research journals, and varied refreshments covered the wicker-and-glass coffee table. Diesel was stretched out on the carpet with a rolled issue of Psychology Today, while Sara’s ample frame filled the cushions of another wicker contraption. She cradled an iMac on her lap, probably surfing the Net.

  “How’re things looking? Is our urban legend spreading?”

  “I just Googled the keywords and came up with some fresh links.”

  “Show him that one you showed me.” From the floor, Diesel arched a piece of popcorn toward a soda can, watched it miss the opening and land on the carpet.

  “I know you’re not leaving that there,” Sara whined.

  I picked it up.

  “Thank you, Aramis.”

  I tossed it in my mouth. “Five-second rule.”

  “Ugggh. You know, studies show that bacteria transfers as quickly in two seconds as it does in five.”

  I spit the popcorn into my hand and shook it back onto the carpet.

  Before she could protest, Diesel swiped it up into his own mouth.

  “Oh no you didn’t. Y’all are disgusting. Go. Shoo.”

  Diesel was enjoying her discomfort. In class I’d wondered about his feelings for her, and now I was convinced. Typical playground antics. All very amusing, but deeper concerns were stirring in my skull.

  “Boys, how can I concentrate?” Her glossed fingernails tapped the keys of her computer. “Am I the only one who wants to ace this final?”

  “I know Diesel does.”

  “Then why is he so … distracting?”

  “I’m a man,” he spoke up. “We can be pretty immature.”

  “At least you admit it.”

  “Makes me sound more intelligent, doesn’t it?” Diesel crossed his legs on the floor and pulled a syllabus onto his lap. There was something boyish and vulnerable in his icy eyes, something “distracting” that Sara seemed to recognize.

  “Ladies and gentlemen.”

  No response.

  “Hey,” I said louder. “Let’s get cracking here.”

  Diesel broke away from her gaze. “Sure thing, boss. Time to focus.”

  “And,” Sara said with a grin, “it’s time to take a vote. I move that Aramis do the oral presentation.”

  “No. C’mon.”

  Diesel seconded the motion. “You’re the best speaker in our group.”

  “Every time I get up there, Newmann tears into me.”

  “Professor Bones? He does that to everyone.”

  “He’s tough,” Sara agreed. “But he gives mercy where mercy’s due.”

  “You make him sound like a saint.”

  “Maybe that’s who he was named after, Saint Boniface.”

  “Yep.” Sitting ramrod straight, Diesel hitched up imaginary jacket lapels and spectacles. “Patron saint of turtles and tweed.”

  “You two. Tell him to stop, Aramis. Don’t they teach y’all manners up north?”

  Diesel’s eyes narrowed. “Shoot, people around here are so polite they can’t figure out who should go first at a four-way stop or how to merge onto the freeway.”

  “The interstate,” Sara and I said in unison.

  “Don’t they ever teach you to form your own opinion, down south?”

  “Ohhh! When it comes to you, mister, I have formed my opinion.”

  “Time.” I made a T with my hands. “Time out.”

  “No,” said Diesel. “Let’s hear it. What’s this opinion of yours, Sara?”

  “You … you’re rude, self-centered, and … and you’re an uncultured carpetbagger. Why I ever wanted to be your study partner is beyond me. Now, if you’ll excuse me …” She lifted her chin and marched off to her bedroom.

  “Smooth,” I said.

  “Why’d I open my big mouth?”

  “Least we know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dude. She likes you.”

  Diesel seemed surprised. “Then why’d she just run from the room?”

  Love really is blind.

  “I’ll tell you,” I offered. “But first you need to answer a few questions for me.”

  “Pop quiz. I’m ready.”

  “This has nothing to do with social psych. It’s about your father.”

  “What about him?”

  “It’s nothing really. He made some comments this morning at Black’s. I just wanna be sure I wasn’t reading too much into them.”

  After rehearsing my presentation, with Sara and Diesel acting as hecklers, I swung by Centennial Park. I had the dirt on Mr. Hillcrest—including his involvement at his local lodge—and now I needed answers from Freddy C.

  But he was nowhere.

  The streets funneled me from Broadway to Eighth Avenue to Lafayette. I was headed toward the hotel on Murfreesboro Road. Along the way, I dialed the number for my father, Kenneth Black.

  His low drawl greeted me through my cell. “Kenny here.”

  Though this man had raised me in the years after Mom’s disappearance, his own moods often had turned hostile, and he had used me as a whipping post. He faded from the picture as I got older, and eventually he settled in Bowling Green, Kentucky, around the time my brother started playing smoke-filled Nashville honky-tonks.

  Now that I’m here, there’s no excuse for any of us to stay apart. On occasion Kenny does visit, and he calls when he feels like it—which isn’t often apparently. In the last few months, however, we’d talked more than ever, building a new foundation where old walls had rotted and crumbled. Working on it, at least.

  “Dad.” I call him that, despite everything. “How’s it going?”

  “Just fine. Had a rash of storms this weekend.”

  “Went around us here, I guess. It’s been warm and humid.”

  “Count yourselves lucky. Got me a shed roof that’s all kindsa tore up.”

  “You need help?”

  “With what?”

  “The roof, Dad. I could drive up and help pound nails.” br />
  “No reason to go outta your way, boy. But I appreciate that, I do.” His voice changed. “Get down offa that sofa! You don’t belong up there.”

  I tried to sound cheery. “Is that Bruiser?”

  “Stupidest dog I ever did see.” Another shout: “Now look whatchu done, knockin’ over my beer. Out! Out ya go.”

  “I’ll just call back later.”

  “No need for that. What was it you wanted?”

  “It’s about Mom.”

  “Dianne.” He made a smacking noise with his mouth. “Dianne Lewis Black.”

  “I know you’ve had to sort through a lot, with last year’s revelations and all, but I need to know something. Did she really die that day? Did they ever find her? I mean, could she have ended up in a hospital with amnesia or something?” When he remained silent, I pressed on. “Or maybe those guys who were after the treasure found her and, I don’t know, held her captive. Tried to get more information.”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Now you listen here. We’ve already had this family’s laundry aired for all the world to see on that TV show. I’m not blamin’ you or your brother, even your uncle, but it’s gotta end. Is that clear? I done you wrong as a child. I know that, and there ain’t no excuse. But you gotta let it go.”

  “Just like that, huh?”

  “Your mother. Me. All of it.”

  “You sound bitter.” Where had I heard those words before?

  “She was unfaithful,” he snapped. “You don’t know what that does to a man.”

  “I’ve got some idea.”

  “What she did—that tore me up. No use wallowin’ in it, though, is there?”

  “You … Do you know if she really died?”

  “Aramis.” He sighed. “There’s some things just don’t gotta be talked out.”

  “Did they ever find her? Tell me that much at least … Hello?”

  “These storms are somethin’ fierce,” he said at last. “We’re losin’ the connection.”

  Just like that, the phone went dead.

  27

  I stared up at room 212 from the hotel lot. Less than twenty-four hours ago, I’d been parked here in the dark. Seen Felicia arrive. And then the Hillcrests. In Felicia’s room, I’d found a red wig and taken matters into my own hands, dragging her down those metal stairs to this very car, playing right into my enemy’s hands.

  What had I been thinking?

  The crisscrossed wound on my cheek throbbed. Gripping the steering wheel, I studied my blue and green tattoos. Twin swords. One on each arm. My credo.

  And now it was my fault.

  By choosing to live by the sword, I’d led Felicia to die by the sword.

  Where was God in the midst of all this? Couldn’t he have intervened somehow, sent a cop along Oak Street at that moment? Where was any sense of purpose or a master plan? Sure, I’d exercised my free will—which God gives each of us, right?—and walked into the trap. But didn’t the New Testament talk about how “God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God”?

  Three words materialized through my cloudy thoughts.

  I nodded. Jammed my palms against my eye sockets. Threw my head back and exhaled into the warm cockpit of my old Honda.

  “Mom is alive.”

  Kenny and Johnny Ray could avoid the notion all they wanted, but for me there was no going back. Everything had changed last night with the locking of our eyes and the spark of recognition. Time to stop feeling sorry for myself. If I went stumbling through this gauntlet, it might provoke another killing.

  Thursday. At Bicentennial Mall Park.

  I had to operate under the belief that Mom’s abductor would safeguard her until she could be traded for the alleged Masonic ring.

  Four days and counting. In Nashville’s cool, dew-drenched dawn, we would have a resolution.

  If not sooner.

  I climbed from the car and faced the rusty stairway, hoping to coax a few answers from the New Orleans woman in the corner unit. She’d seen me tow Felicia down the steps, and she might’ve spotted the person who sneaked into my car.

  “Sorry, she’s checked out. Her and that little boy, the poor thing.”

  “There must be a reason.”

  “A reason?” The hotel desk clerk gave me an incredulous look, then spoke with sensual lips that stood out against otherwise homely features. “Have you ever stayed in one of our units? Not that I should be talking this way, but the place has seen better days. We’re lucky to get the extermination people out here once a year.”

  “Bugs, huh?”

  “Roaches, Japanese beetles. But you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Any idea where she went, Miss—”

  “Leake, with an E. But you can call me Geraldine.”

  “Okay. Do you know where she went?”

  “I know the police were here, snooping around, asking questions, and they must’ve hooked her up with … Sorry. Wrong word.”

  “She was working outta that room, wasn’t she?”

  “You didn’t hear it from me.”

  “So the cops relocated her?”

  “That’s what I was told. They hooked, I mean, set her up with one of those charity organizations, found her a place with a real sink and stove.”

  “Glad to hear it. Especially for the kid’s sake.”

  “Little cutie pie, isn’t he?”

  “Did the cops ever tell you what they were looking for?”

  “Not straight out, no. Are you with Metro?”

  “I had lunch with a plain-clothes detective today.” I tugged at my black T-shirt and toggled my eyebrows. “And he was picking my brain for clues. But if they’ve already been here, I guess I’m wasting your time.”

  I started to turn. The clerk seemed to be enjoying the excitement this day had brought her way—anything to break the tedium—and I was counting on her desire for a larger role in the drama.

  “Sir,” said Geraldine, “they didn’t get to hear much of what I had to say.”

  “Really? Seems negligent on their part.”

  “They were mostly interested in the owners’ thoughts. And they brought in a warrant to search one of the units.”

  “Number 212.”

  Her eyes widened. “Didn’t need to tell you, did I?”

  “Never hurts.”

  “Well, I put it all together this afternoon. Saw a news update about that woman they found dead downtown”—the clerk pointed at a small-screen TV mounted on the wall—“and her name rang a bell.”

  “Felicia Daly.”

  “Sad thing too. Just horrible. She seemed so nice when she checked in.”

  “She checked in alone?”

  The clerk nodded.

  “Tell me this. Are there security cameras on the premises or in the parking lot?”

  “Not that work. Your buddies asked the same thing.”

  “So Miss Daly never checked out. Did she leave payment information?”

  “A credit-card number, I think. But it’s a family-owned hotel, sir. They won’t worry about collecting a one-night fee—after a tragedy like this.”

  “You do see, though, how that info could be key, Geraldine.”

  The clerk’s eyes brightened, and she began rummaging through an indexcard file. “Ahh, I’m with you now. You could trace her using the number, maybe even link her activities to the person who killed her.”

  “Very good. Lemme guess. A fan of CSI?”

  “No, 24. Got the entire DVD set.” She pulled out a registration card. “Here it is. That’s her writing.”

  “I’m surprised the cops didn’t take this.”

  “They pulled information off the owners’ database. We use these cards to get the guests checked in without fuss. Later we back up the info on the office computer.”

  “I’d like to take this.”

  She shrugged. “We toss them anyway after the payment’s been processed.”

  “Do you have the card for Mr. and Mrs. Drexel Hil
lcrest?”

  “Middle-aged couple? They checked out today.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Hallaway, Hicks …” Her fingers came to a stop. “Hillcrest.”

  “What was your impression of Mr. Hillcrest?”

  She paused. “You think he had something to do with this?”

  “Just covering all the bases.”

  “Now that you mention it …” She leaned forward. “He did come in here late last night. I’d noticed his roving eyes earlier when they checked in. Made me uncomfortable, a married man looking at me like that. He had champagne in an ice bucket.”

  “Brought it in here? Why?”

  “Said the missus had taken some meds, fallen dead asleep.”

  “Meds, huh? Did he say what kind?”

  “He rattled off some name, but I wasn’t listening.”

  “How’d he explain the champagne? Seems a little obvious.”

  “Exactly. He waited. Didn’t say anything. Dangling the bait, I suppose. I didn’t want to think anything about it, so I told him it was late and I needed to lock the lobby door. He apologized, said he was just looking to dump the ice somewhere. Didn’t want to wake up his wife.”

  “Interesting excuse.”

  “Yeah. I suppose it was a little odd.”

  “And that’s his registration card?”

  “Here.” She shoved it across the desk. “It’s all yours, sir.”

  “Thanks for your help, Geraldine. I won’t take any more of your time.”

  “Just catch the person who’s responsible, to put our minds at ease.”

  “Believe me, that’s the plan.”

  My appetite is a fickle beast. More than once I’ve worked a fourteen-hour shift at the espresso shop, pouring nothing but triple lattes down the hatch. Other times I’ve missed breakfast and felt like smashing things by ten o’clock.

  Right now I had an appetite for something more stable.

  An evening with Sammie Rosewood.

  I had just under two hours before our meeting at J. Alexander’s in West End, no more than twenty minutes from here. So far my “escapades” hadn’t derailed our supper plans.

  Sitting in the hotel parking lot, I pulled out my cell. Tapped in a message using the alphanumeric mode. Hit Send. I was hoping to goad my foe. Any reply might bear a clue and, more important, maintain the tenuous link to my mom. If AX was there, I could cling to the belief that she was too.