P Deutermann - Nightwalkers

"Well," I said, "he might be. He might not be. He can't present a will to the court without exposing himself to local law, and after last night, they've got a fair laundry list of charges."

"Except they can't prove it was Callendar who was shooting at them. Like you said, they never saw his face."

"True," I said. "That's why it may not be over yet. Either way, I can't stay here, and I at least have some surveillance gear over there. Plus these three fuzz balls here."

"I've got three bedrooms in my house," she said. "You're welcome to hole up there if you'd prefer. It might be safer."

I smiled at her. She'd tended to her powder and paint this morning and looked very nice. She'd been doing that a lot lately. "I'd like that," I said, "but it would also put you in the line of fire. This mess has been between him and me since the beginning. I still don't entirely understand it, but if he's alive, he'll be back."

"John Wayne to the very end, hunh?"

"Remember, Carol, his specialty is a long gun through the window. Me first, then anyone who happens to be with me."

"Well, at least let me make you dinner on your moving night," she said, getting back in her car. "You remember how to get there?"

"I think so."

"Oh, good," she said. "I was afraid you'd forgotten."

"Not likely."

"So?"

"I've been busy," I said. It sounded weak, even to me.

"That busy," she said, in fake amazement, as she smoothed the fabric of her jeans around her hips.

I made a bleating noise. It was all I could muster.

"I get home at five thirty." Then she drove off.

I watched her go. The shepherds watched her go.

"She's pretty nice," I told them.

Frick barked at me, which I took as an invitation to provide early chow.

I got back to the stone cottage at ten thirty, pulled into the parking space, and only then did I realize I was at the wrong place. As I was turning around, the sheriff called on my cell, so I stopped in the driveway.

"Went to the hospital this afternoon," he said.

"Worth the trip?"

"In a manner of sorts," he said. "I saw Hester. She was there in Valeria's room, along with the pastor's wife. She's going to stay with them in town until Valeria can come home."

"So you didn't try to get a statement?"

"I'll let the detectives handle that when she's better able to focus," he said. "Besides, they weren't exactly friendly. Then I checked in on Cubby Johnson."

"How'd that go?"

"He's not doing all that well. They got the first infection under control, then moved him to a room, and now he's got something else going, one of those damned hospital bugs. C-something. They're hitting it pretty hard. But Patience ran into Hester in the cafeteria, and she told her she had to get back to Laurel Grove to take care of the major."

"That must have been a relief for Patience."

"Indeed. Visible relief. I did talk to Cubby, but mostly to tell him everything was going to be okay. He's been babbling about having no choice, they made him do it, stuff like that."

"He was out of it?"

"I couldn't use it even if he gave it up," he said. "Again, I'll let the system work, let my D's do their thing. That's how it works when you're the high shareef: You stay above the details and let your people do it, legal-like."

"I knew that."

"Of course you did. But if your buddy the major goes walkabout tonight…"

"That house will be empty."

"I didn't say that."

"Right. I'm at the cottage now. I've moved my stuff over to Glory's End, drove back here out of habit. Maybe I'll hang around, see what happens."

"Good a place as any, Lieutenant. Watch yourself, now."

I took all the mutts into the cottage. I mostly wanted to make sure I'd not left anything behind. I'd had to call Pardee to find out how to take down and then reassemble the TV monitor system over in the other house and where to place the extra camera. He volunteered to come back out, but I told him to hang loose, that I expected a waiting game. He said he'd be up on his cell all night, and he'd get Tony alerted to do the same. Then I sat down in one of the big living room chairs, turned out the lights, and wished I hadn't taken the Scotch next door.

I woke up and looked at my watch. It was a little past midnight. The shepherds were at the windows. I reached for my SIG and then remembered I'd left it in the Suburban. I went to a window and looked out in the direction of the big house. Here came the major, his horse at a slow walk, going down the drive toward the millpond. I decided to go out and talk to him.

"Evening, Major," I said. I was standing next to the Suburban just in case I did need that SIG. The major pulled up and touched the brim of his hat.

"Overseer," he said.

"What's the situation, sir?"

"Tenuous in the extreme," he said. "We've had to send some of the womenfolk south to the city. Many slaves have run away."

I had an idea. "I saw the guards at the bridge firing at a spy last night," I said. "Someone was returning fire from the Virginia side."

"Did you, now," he said.

"I couldn't tell if he was swimming or on horseback," I said. "He may have been trying for the secret ford."

"The ford's not near the bridge," he said. "It's further downstream, near the quarry. They took the tailings from the quarry at Oak Grove at the beginning of the war to fill in the bottom holes."

"Well, there certainly was a bit of shooting," I said. "Right around the bridge."

"Perhaps I'll go scout that out tonight, then," he said. "You are to remain on the grounds here, overseer, in case more spies appear."

"Yes, sir," I said. "I'll do it."

"Very well, then," he said and rode off across the dam.

Now the house should be empty.

I gave the major twenty minutes to clear the plantation and also to make sure he didn't change his mind. Then I grabbed my SIG, called the dogs, and went up to the back door of Laurel Grove. There was no light in the house, as one didn't leave candles burning in an unattended house. I had my small Maglite, which I switched onto its red lens. I took the shepherds in with me, and we prowled that house like any good cat burglar.

It was spooky, just as the sheriff had said. The chairs and sofas were enormous compared to contemporary furniture. The rooms smelled of beeswax, wood ash, and the stale odors of sachets left here and there. The floorboards creaked when I stepped off the carpets. I felt for the shepherds-their sensitive noses must be overwhelmed by all the different scents. I spent some time in the rear kitchen areas looking for a basement access but didn't find one.

Upstairs there were four rooms, almost identical in size. I didn't go into the rooms, just examined them from the hallway. I figured out that one was for Hester and the major, a second for family visitors, since it had personal items on the vanity, and a third for Valeria, although that one had two large beds. The fourth appeared to be a sewing room with no beds but lots of fabrics, dresses, a mannequin, and a foot-pedal-operated Singer sewing machine that had to be from the early 1900s. There was one spacious bathroom, which had obviously been added to the house at the end of what had been the long upstairs hall. It contained a single commode, a large freestanding bathtub, a vanity with a washbasin, and three armoires.

There were no light fixtures nor electrical switches in any of the rooms upstairs except the bathroom, where there was an electric heater. Apparently the nineteenth century had its limitations. There was also electricity in the kitchen, which ran a single large refrigerator. The stove, however, was one of those British Aga cast-iron wood burners, complete with a wood box next to it. The fireplace in the kitchen resembled the one in Glory's End, big enough for a man my size to walk into and turn around, but with a wooden mantel instead of one made from a single enormous slab of granite. There was a bed of ashes in the fireplace and a second wood box, complete with logs and splinters of hardened pine sap. I hadn't seen any telephones anywhere. There was a maid's room off to one side and a large pantry that gave access to the adjacent dining room through a swinging door.