“Marshall?” Nadine says. “What are you doing?”
“This is why there were no guards out there the night Buck was killed. They replaced the human guards with automated trail cameras. Somebody saw Buck on a picture like this, taken on a game camera. And they knew they could go out there and kill him.”
“In real time, you mean?”
“I’m pretty sure some of those cameras can send images to your cell phone. The newer, more expensive ones.”
“Are you saying someone lured him out there?”
“Removing the security guards would have given Buck a false sense of security. When he didn’t see any guards, he felt secure enough to trespass and dig again. But they still had live surveillance. The early trail cameras, you had to go out and physically remove the SD card and then view the pictures at home. But the new ones have SIM cards. If that’s what happened, the killer could have been sitting in a bar, gotten a JPEG over his phone, and had plenty of time to drive out there and kill him.”
“So . . . there might be pictures of the murder?”
“If I’m right, there could be. These cameras are triggered by motion. Maybe heat as well, I don’t know. It all depends on whether Buck was killed within view of one of those cameras.”
“How many pictures would the camera have shot?”
“As few as one, but maybe dozens. I don’t know enough about them. I’ll have to do some research. The question is, who broke into the Flex and left it for me? I was thinking it must be the person who cracked your safe. But . . . it can’t be. This person is trying to help me.”
Nadine bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “Maybe the whole town’s not against you.”
“I wish my secret ally would come out of the closet.”
“How do you know it’s a he?”
“I don’t. I suppose I just associate game cameras with men.”
As we stand hypnotized by the image, my iPhone rings. Taking it from my pocket, I see the caller is my mother. She doesn’t usually call at this time of day.
“What’s up, Mom? Everything okay?”
“I don’t know, Marshall.”
My stomach does a slow roll. Mom doesn’t get excited over trivial problems. “Tell me.”
“Dr. Kirby called a few minutes ago. He did some tests on your father last Friday, and he’s gotten some of the results back. Liver tests, mostly. He wants to talk to us about them. He asked if you could be here when he comes by this afternoon.”
Jack Kirby has been my father’s physician for more than fifty years, so house calls are not unusual. But asking that I be present for one is.
“What time’s he coming over?”
“Four thirty.”
“I’ll be there, Mom.”
“Thank you. I hate to interrupt your work. I know how much you have to do to hold everything together down there.”
“It’s no problem, Mom. Really.”
“I saw the story about Buck Ferris,” she says. “People are bound to be upset about that.”
“No bricks through the front window yet.”
“I’m glad to hear it!”
Normally, she would have tacked a chuckle on to that statement. But not today. She’s deeply concerned about Dr. Kirby’s visit.
“Are you where Dad can hear you?” I ask.
“No, I’m in the kitchen.”
“What are you most worried about?”
“His liver and his heart. The Parkinson’s symptoms are worsening, but apart from the hallucinations and the panic that follows, I can handle them. But he’s still drinking. Jack told Duncan six months ago that his liver couldn’t keep taking it. Plus, his heart’s been on the verge of congestive failure for a while.”
“All right. We’ll see what Dr. Kirby says.”
“I’ll see you this afternoon, son.”
When I hang up, I notice Nadine watching me with empathy.
“I feel like I’m looking at myself two years ago,” she says.
“Yeah.”
“Bad news?”
“Don’t know yet. Doctor’s coming by this afternoon. Wants me there.”
She gives me a “Hang tough, it’ll be okay” smile, but mercifully, she doesn’t say anything more about it. She knows all too well what this kind of visit can mean.
“Do you want anything from the café?” she asks.
“No, thanks. I’d better duck out before anybody sees me. Did you talk to your friend about staying with her tonight?”
“Who said it’s a her?”
This stops me. “It’s a guy?”
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
I shrug, fighting the urge to ask who it is. “No, it’s fine. It’s none of my business. I just assumed—”
“One kiss and we’re exclusive?” Nadine looks indignant for a couple of seconds, then gives me her gamine smile. “You’re better off not assuming anything with me.”
I pull the flash drive out of the computer and slip it into my pocket, then take out my wallet.
“Coffee’s on the house, moron. Call it rent for last night.”
“Thanks.” I walk to the back door and push it open.
“Hey,” Nadine calls.
“Yeah?” I ask, turning.
“My friend’s gay.”
For a couple of seconds I don’t know what to say. When I do speak, I sound like an idiot. “Uh . . . okay. I just wanted to make sure, you know . . . you had somewhere safe.”
She nods once, still smiling.
And then I’m out the door.
Chapter 24
I’m sitting quietly in the kitchen of the house where I grew up, waiting for Dr. Kirby. My mother’s in the den with my father, who might sense an ominous portent in the coincidence of my visit with that of his physician. The house smells different than it did when I was a boy. The sweet scent of Maker’s Mark is familiar, but the tang of rubbing alcohol is new, as is the odor of liniment and the melted wax Dad uses to soothe his arthritis. But below these smells lives a sour stink of fermented urine that no disinfectant will quite eradicate, no matter how many times Mom scrubs the furniture and floors. Dad keeps blue plastic urinals beside his chair and bed now, so that he won’t have to make the risky journey to the bathroom every hour, which I certainly understand and will probably do myself someday. But the cumulative result of all this alters the house so fundamentally that it doesn’t feel like the same one I ran hell-for-leather through with my big brother when he was still with us.
The hours since I left Nadine’s this morning have been full. Just after midday, Byron Ellis called to let me know that the locum tenens pathologist had declared Buck’s murder to be death by misadventure—an accident. Most likely a fall, precipitated by digging above a cave mouth. Worse, Sheriff Joe Iverson claims to have found the very brick that Buck’s head impacted when he fell, a brick that Iverson’s deputies supposedly discovered near the river at Lafitte’s Den. This brick supposedly lay directly under the drop from the sandstone shelf above the cave. This scenario is preposterous, of course, and most townspeople will realize that. Few will believe that Buck cracked his skull wide open in a fall, then crawled into the Mississippi River to drown himself.
But no one will protest.
The coroner also informed me that he’d found bone fragments in the soil samples I brought him from the mill site—specifically from the dirt scraped from the wall of the trench beside the factory pier. Better still, he’d detected blood on one of the brick fragments from the other area where Buck had been digging. This discovery left Byron Ellis with a dilemma: Should he make these further findings public and try to weather the political fury that will result? Or keep his head down and let the locum tenens pathologist push the party line?
“The county supervisors are already talking about trying to unseat me,” he told me on the phone. “That’s not easy, because I was elected by the people. But if the past is any guide, they’ll find a way. That damn Arthur Pine can twist the law inside out to screw anybody who bucks them.”
I assured Byron that I understood the danger and admired him for what he’d been willing to do so far.