Skeleton's Key (Delta Crossroads Trilogy, Book 2) (27 page)

“Because he was a neighbor?”

“Sure. When he was a kid, he’d come to church, telling me how he’d explored the grounds looking for the secret passage. I chalked it up to a curious child and warned him not to get hurt. But when he was a teenager and he knew I was handling the upkeep of the house, he talked quite a bit about the secret room. Wondered if there were passages, that sort of thing. I never thought anything of it until that summer when there were a couple of break-ins. Nothing was stolen or damaged. I asked Ben about it. Of course he denied, but I always got the feeling he was lying. I think he broke in trying to find the room and the supposed Laurent cache.”

“Well, he may be a snake, but Cage thinks he could be a suspect in the murders.”

“I don’t know about that. But like I said, be careful. Ben Moore is a great manipulator.”

A hollow pit formed in her stomach. “Noted. Let’s get to these documents.” Dani slipped on the gloves, took the sleeve, and carefully pulled out the yellowed pages. The first was unique, valuable, and sickening. Written in fountain ink and blurred with age, a bill of sale for two slave children, ages ten and eight, dated 1841 and signed by Grayson Laurent, John James’s father. The children had been purchased for five hundred and seventy-five dollars from a fellow planter in Natchez.

“It’s obviously not signed by John James,” Lee said. “He was just a year old. But I thought you’d like to see it.”

“Thank you.” Dani tried to imagine what life must have been like for those two unnamed children. She simply couldn’t.

“The Laurents were known for treating their slaves well,” said Lee. “In fact, John James was said to abhor the institution. He only fought for the Confederacy as a matter of Southern pride and for the state of Mississippi. His loyalty was to her.”

The next document was a second bill of sale, this time for various property items. Like most letters of the age, the penmanship was small in order to not waste paper. Between the tiny letters and discolored ink, Dani couldn’t make out all the items. But she did see the purchaser’s signature: John James Laurent. He signed his ‘J’s’ with a sweeping loop, his ‘L’ with a flourish.

Dani carefully took her letter out of its envelope and placed the two documents side by side. “Looks the same. Those J’s stand out.”

Lee peered over her shoulder to read the letter. “Exquisite. And yes, while I’m not a handwriting expert, they look the same to me.”

“Did you find anything about John James’s wound?”

“I did.” Lee handed her another sleeve. “On May 4, 1863, John James wrote to his father. He told him about the attack on Jackson, his own wound, and warned this might be his last communication.”

“This is a photocopy,” Dani said.

“It was found in her room, in the night stand, inside her Bible.” Lee handed her the type of storage box Dani had often seen used to archive photos. She carefully opened the lid, excitement careening through her at the sight of the Bible. The cover had faded to washed-out black, the binding was falling apart, and the gold lettering was chipped almost completely off.

“If CaryAnne made it, it’s probably a Xerox. They introduced their first copier around 1949, which means this had to have been copied shortly before CaryAnne’s death in 1951.” With trembling fingers, Dani opened the delicate cover. A barely legible inscription was written on the brittle paper.

“
To CaryAnne, from Mother
.”

“Did you find anything else inside the Bible? Pictures? Other letters?”

“Unfortunately no. CaryAnne did fill out her immediate family tree, and there are various passages underlined, but there’s nothing else of value.”

“And the letter is Xeroxed.”

Where the hell was the original? If CaryAnne actually made the copy, then she obviously had the original, at least until sometime after the Xerox machine’s invention. Was the real letter stored somewhere in the house, or had it been lost after surviving more than fifty years?

Dani turned her attention to the letter.

Dear Father,

I write to you now from a poorly constructed field hospital near Chancellorsville, Virginia. Two days ago, as we were returning to camp, myself and the rest of General Jackson’s staff were mistaken for Union Calvary soldiers. The great general the men call Stonewall was badly injured and has already lost an arm. He is recovering, but I am told he is very ill.

Father, I myself was shot in the left leg. The bullet has wedged itself against a bone, and I fought with all my will against the surgeons demanding to remove the leg. Had General Lee himself not stepped in, I fear I would have lost the limb. As I informed the doctors, I’d rather die than live the rest of my days crippled and unable to perform my duties as a landowner and Mississippi gentleman.

The doctors are worried about infection, and rightly so. The redness and horrific seepage is setting in. One nurse, a fine Creole from New Orleans, is applying a remedy we both pray will stop the spread.

Pray for me, father. Tell mother and dear sister Charlotte I love them. Bless our dear Ironwood and care for her as we planned.

I sincerely hope this will not be my last communication, but if it is, know that I am proud to have fought for such a noble cause.

Your loving son,

John James Laurent

John James had instructed his father to care for Ironwood as they’d planned. Was he referring to the secret cache?

“So it’s all true,” Dani said. “And not a story an aging war vet made up to entertain a little boy. You’re lucky to have this. Who thought to keep the Bible?”

“When CaryAnne died, the bank seized the documents found throughout the house and stored them. They took the Bible as well. I’m sure there were more documents that weren’t found, but when the historical foundation was created, the bank was generous enough to donate them to us.”

“Stroke of luck,” Dani said. “I’m surprised anyone remembered them.”

Lee smiled. “You’re in the South, dear. We don’t forget.”

“Right.” She read the letter a second time. “The coroner recovered a femur from Ironwood’s basement before the bodies were found. I need to find out if it’s a left femur, and if it’s got any sort of bullet fragments in it.”

“That would be a true stroke of luck. You really think the skeleton might belong to John James?”

“Why not? I’m pretty sure the legends about the house having a secret room–if not a damned passage–are true, so why couldn’t this be?”

Lee narrowed his eyes. “You found something at Ironwood?”

Damn. She wasn’t supposed to say anything. But she could trust Lee. Couldn’t she?

Cage’s words from last night rang through her head. If Ben Moore was a suspect, why wouldn’t Lee be one, too? He loved Ironwood. He would have known how to restore the upstairs room. And he had the access.

“Not yet,” she backtracked. “I just have a gut feeling.”

And a brooch she wasn’t supposed to know about.

Lee looked as though he didn’t believe her, and Dani quickly changed the subject.

“The blueprints you gave me, they’re copies of the originals, right?”

“No. They’re copies of what the bank had drawn up after CaryAnne’s death.”

“What about the ones Grayson Laurent would have had created when he was building the house?”

“Long gone, I suppose. As far as I know, they weren’t recovered after CaryAnne died. Of course, another family owned the house after she died for a few years before going bankrupt. Who knows what all they threw away?”

“Or sold. Like valuables and furniture.”

“Most likely. Bank records stated there wasn’t much of value when CaryAnne passed, and certainly less after the next family went into foreclosure.”

“By the way,” Dani kept her tone casual, “are there any other keys for the house? Any older versions that may have been kept?”

Lee snapped the top button of his dress shirt open and then reached for the Laurent papers. “Not a single one. Shall we finish this up?”

“Absolutely.”

They sifted through the rest of the Laurent family documents. There were marriage certificates for both Grayson and John James Laurent as well as death certificates for the men and their wives. A notice of CaryAnne’s birth. More property purchases.

“Are there any bank statements? What about John James’s military records? Or any medals? What happened to his gun? His uniform? What did CaryAnne do with those things?”

Lee shrugged. “Again, who knows? They were never found. She may have sold them. Or thrown them away after he passed.”

“No. Family history–and that house–meant everything to her.” And so did her father. CaryAnne wouldn’t have kept either the letter Dani had been given or the one she held now if it didn’t.

Still, objects disappeared over time, especially papers. But the lack of John James’s personal effects truly bothered Dani. She knew in her gut his daughter would never have gotten rid of things her father held as valuable.

So where were they?

Carefully protected by a soft liner and special packaging, the few family photos of the Ironwood Laurents were tucked away behind the documents. A picture of a stern looking man with a heavy wool suit, his white beard trimmed neatly. This was Grayson Laurent, John James’s father. Another picture of a grand white plantation home with a smartly dressed staff of black servants lining the porch: Ironwood in its glory. A tall man with blond hair that curled at the edges, light eyes glowing with fierce pride, perhaps at the Confederate uniform he wore.

“John James.” A lump lodged inside Dani’s throat. It was something she couldn’t explain but often happened when she was looking back at the families who’d created the homes she was trying to save. So much life, so much pride, lost to the years.

“That was taken before he left for the war,” Lee said. He handed her another picture. “This is several years after.”

This version of John James was thicker around the middle, supported by a cane and one of the pillars of Ironwood’s front porch. His aging was clear, but his eyes still held the same strength.

“And CaryAnne? Are there any pictures of her?” Dani knew the answer, but she didn’t want to tip Lee about the brooch.

“Two or three, I believe.”

CaryAnne as a small child, with a dark haired woman Dani learned was her mother. And then as a teenager, tall and slight, her small nose and bow shaped lips marking her as a standout beauty. But her eyes were the same as her father’s, burning with an intensity that chilled Dani.

“This is lovely.” Dani tried to keep her hands steady as she examined the picture of CaryAnne wearing the brooch. “Is that Ironwood on her cameo?”

“It is,” Lee said, obviously impressed with Dani’s attention to detail. “This was taken around 1894, I believe. She would have been 22 but already very involved in helping her father run Ironwood.”

“And the cameo, do you know who made it? Do we have it by chance?”

“Unfortunately, no. The cameo wasn’t among the meager items recovered after her death. Given its age and uniqueness, she may have sold it at some point.”

Or hidden it with the cache. Unless someone stole it before she died. But given the Laurents’ ferocity over protecting family heirlooms and wealth, Dani doubted it. Somewhere inside Ironwood was a secret area containing at least a few of CaryAnne’s and possibly other Laurent family possessions. One of the men discovered it, and one or both were killed for it.

Before she left,
Lee showed Dani her new office, which sat across the hall from his own. The room was about half the size of the one she had in Indianapolis, but it had an eastern window that would allow plenty of light. It would do just fine, and she was too busy thinking about the items Lee had shown her to notice any details.

She had more questions now than when she’d arrived at the foundation. She couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was missing–or being hidden from her. And she was certain Lee knew more about the house and the missing keys than he was letting on.

But it was the damned Xeroxed letter that really bugged her. The original most likely existed, and CaryAnne had put it somewhere for safekeeping. The family had no safe at the bank, and there were no safes inside Ironwood. But there was a damned secret passage, and Dani would bet her life the original letter was in there.

Outside, braving the soaring temperature once again and lost in her tangled thoughts, she didn’t see Cage until he fell into step beside her. Her already overheated temperature ratcheted up a notch.

“What’s wrong?” She tried to keep up with his long strides. His tanned face was flushed, and his eyes bright as they searched hers.

They reached her car. Her scalp had already started to sweat, and her skin burned. Freaking Mississippi heat. “By the way, Lee told me some interesting stuff about Ben.”

“Like what?”

“Like he knows Ironwood damned well and had a bit of an obsession with the supposed treasure as a kid.”

She waited for Cage to start in, but he only nodded. “Good, good. Listen, when you were at Ironwood yesterday, did you notice anything strange?”

“You mean other than the cops and the magically restored room?”

“Yeah, other than that. Specifically, outside. Maybe around the carriage house?”

“No. It was pouring down rain, and the mud tried to eat my shoe.”

“What about when you left? Were the police at the carriage house then?”

“I don’t remember. It was the last thing on my mind.” She looked closely at Cage. His eyes were anxious, his teeth worrying his lower lip. He stood with his hands on his hips, the skin around his collarbone glistening with sweat and a thick lock of hair drifting across his wrinkled forehead.

“Cage, what’s going on?”

He dragged his hands over the back of his neck and looked over her head instead of meeting her eyes. “One of the victims, Martin Robertson, had a set of dog tags. The chain was broken, like it had been ripped off. They were pretty messed up from decomp, but the techs managed to clean them up enough to figure out who they belonged to.”

“And?”

“They were my father’s. From Vietnam. He gave them to me a few years ago, and I thought I’d lost them. Even worse, I hauled Martin in for drunk and disorderly last spring, and we got into a verbal spat.”