Blood, Ash, and Bone

CHAPTER Thirty

Somewhere behind the crime scene tape and pulsing blue lights, I knew that Winston’s body was being processed. There were no more sirens anymore, no crowds, no honey-colored sunlight. Only the wind remained. It rippled up and down the empty sidewalk, riding across the rocks and the water, colder than before.

Trey and I sat in a booth inside the deserted café, cleared of customers and employees now. Kendrick sat opposite us, in uniform, a wall of official irritation.

“What the hell where you doing stalking Winston Cargill?” he said.

“I tried to tell you—”

“And I told you to drop it.”

“You told me to drop the murder, and I did. This was about figuring out why Winston and Hope set me up so that I could clear my name.”

“Yeah?” His expression was fierce. “How’s that working out for you?”

I shivered and pulled my jacket tighter. “What happened?”

He shook his head. But Trey answered for him.

“The shot came from behind us, probably from Hutchinson Island. That’s a long-range hit, even more difficult with the crosswinds, but possible.” Trey turned to Kendrick. “Head or body shot?”

Kendrick hesitated. He was watching Trey very carefully.

“Head,” he said.

“One bullet?”

“Right in the T-zone.”

“I thought so. Most likely police-trained, although I’m certain he used a suppressor system, which is more of a military strategy.” Trey turned and pointed. “I’d check the undeveloped lot next to the conference center. It’s a good set-up for a hide site—superior concealment in the underbrush, clear angle of sight, easy access to the highway.”

Kendrick examined Trey with new eyes. “Where’d you train?”

“SWAT. Eight years with the APD dignitary protection unit, four of them with the urban tac team.”

Kendrick leaned back. “So you know.”

“Know what?” I said.

Trey took a sip of water and looked out over the river. “That was an expert shot. You and I presented even easier targets. And yet we’re still alive.”

I looked to where we’d been standing by the water. The concrete barrier was only three feet high. We’d had our backs to Hutchinson Island, the soft vulnerable spot at the base of the skull exposed.

Kendrick nodded. “One shot, one kill. Sniper’s creed. If the shooter had been aiming for you…” He shrugged and looked at Trey. That cop thing passed between them.

“We would be dead,” Trey said.

I huddled deeper in my jacket, a sudden chill scraping my spine. Not from the coming night. Not even from my close call with a bullet.

I turned to Trey. “I didn’t know you were a sniper.”

He didn’t look at me or answer the question. His eyes were on Hutchinson Island, across the turgid water, debris floating downriver under the bridge.

His phone rang, and he pulled it out. “It’s Marisa. I have to take it.”

He got up and moved to a secluded spot next to the bar, away from the windows. Despite the workout clothes and running shoes, he carried himself in Armani mode. Precise. Proficient. Cool.

Like a sniper.

Kendrick watched him. “You didn’t know?”

I shook my head. “I knew he was on the SWAT team. The dignitary protection unit. I guess I never really pushed that idea to its logical conclusion.”

“He never told you?”

I shook my head again. I remembered Marisa’s words, her implication of the dark things lying in his psychological profile. His denial of such. I shook off the apprehension and got back to business.

“Did you find the briefcase?”

Kendrick shook his head. “Any idea what was in it?”

“I’d guess our infamous Bible. Except that every piece of evidence I’ve run across suggests it’s a fake.”

“Any idea who might be behind this?”

“The KKK is a good start. So is Hope Lyle. Trey can give you a 302 on her. We saw her on the rooftop right before the shooting, so if Trey’s analysis is correct, that the bullet came from behind us, she wasn’t the shooter. But she’s involved.”

Kendrick sat back, arms folded. I remembered riding home with him in the back of someone’s truck once, both of us young and beer-filled and happy. Now his eyes were black and serious.

“So are you,” he said.

A uniformed officer approached, a quietly authoritative young woman with close-cropped hair and dark eyes. “Excuse me, Sergeant, but they need you in the tour shop.” Then, to my surprise, she looked at me. “You too, Ms. Randolph.”

“Me?”

“They have some questions.”

I got a prickle of apprehension. “About what?”

Kendrick stood. “Let’s go find out.”

***

Winston’s shop was a swarm of uniforms and radio chatter. The officer took us the back way, down the alley and into the storage room. Brightly lit now, stark, the colorful posters lurid. Jezebel the parrot was gone. I wondered who had her, what would happen to the disreputable scrap of feathers.

The officer looked at me. “They say you know something about antiques.”

“Depends what kind.”

“Do you know what this is?”

She showed me the paper box under Winston’s counter. I peered inside and saw dozens of tiny glass bottles. Old books too, probably with the front pages ripped out, an old forger’s trick I’d read about. Stacks of fine ivory paper that I knew better than to touch, but that I recognized instantly. I’d held a piece of that paper in my hands only a few nights before.

“It’s a forger’s kit. See?” I pointed. “That’s the same paper used to make the fake treasure map.”

Kendrick turned to me. “You sure?”

“Reasonably.” But then I looked closer. “Except for one thing. This paper is longer and has a letterhead. It’s from the Marshall House.”

The officer scratched her head. “That’s right up the street, on Broughton.”

“Oldest hotel in Savannah,” I said. “Built in the 1850s. During the Civil War, it was a hangout for rebels of the more genteel stripe, eventually seeing duty as a military hospital. It’s also quite haunted.”

None of the officers were up for a ghost story, however. Kendrick got right to the point.

“So the paper’s valuable?”

“All by itself, yes, but it’s even more valuable as raw material. To a forger, this stuff is gold. Cut off the identifying letterhead, and you’ve got a properly aged piece of blank paper. You could turn it into a letter, a certificate—”

“A treasure map?”

“Absolutely. Old pens, old inks, a little hydrogen peroxide, maybe a few passes with a hot iron to age the thing. That box contains almost everything you need to make an impressive forgery.”

Kendrick caught the word. “Almost?”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “You need a forger to put everything together correctly, otherwise you’ve got a mishmash. And the forger who owned this kit keeled over from a heart attack three weeks ago.”