Jonathon King - Shadow Men

When we pulled down onto the dirt drive to the church, a worn and rusted truck was parked in the grass. I stopped next to Mayes's sedan and got out.

"Can I suggest that you get a hold of Billy as soon as you can?" I said. "He's going to have some things to tell you. There's a forensics team working the spot in the Glades where we found your great-grandfather. Billy can probably arrange to have you taken out there if you want."

He waited a few seconds and then said, "I don't think I'm going to have to, Mr. Freeman." We were still standing next to my truck when a couple came out of the church. He was big and round- shouldered with thick, workingman's hands. The woman was small and angular and sagging at the shoulders with some invisible weight. The man opened the passenger-side door of the truck for her and then got in and drove away.

"I'm going to go inside for a minute if you'd like to join me," Mayes said, and turned away.

I watched him disappear through the church door and then sat back looking at the sun filter down through the leaves and onto my hood. I had been up for nearly forty-eight hours, and my head felt filled with cotton though I couldn't call it sleepiness. I was bone- tired, but my grinding had not stopped. I reached back behind the seats and found the bag I had stuffed there after hosing myself off at Dawkins's dock and took out an evidence bag.

Mayes was in the front pew when I joined him inside. His hands were folded in front of him, but instead of bowing his head he simply stared up at the cross behind the altar. I sat down beside him and tried to match his gaze but couldn't hold it for long. I took the gold watch out of the plastic and held it out in my palm beside his knee and he finally shifted his eyes down and reached out to take it. He held it with the tips of his fingers as though he was afraid of a brittleness that was not there.

"It still opens," I said.

He found the catch and flipped it open, then turned it so he might read the inscription. A single tear rolled down his face, leaving a shining streak. He looked back up at the cross.

"He was a good and pious man, wasn't he, Mr. Freeman?"

"I believe so."

"Then I should forgive him," he said. It was not a question, and I did not feel the need to answer.

When I got back to Billy's penthouse I slept for fourteen hours, the first six or seven in my clothes. I woke late in the evening and took a shower with the full intent of staying up, but when I lay back on the bed I turned my head into the pillow and was gone again for another six or seven. It was still dark when my eyes snapped open, my heart thumping in fear that I didn't know where I was, nor did I have any concept of the correct day or even the year. My fingers went involuntarily to the soft disk of scar at my neck. I reached over and turned on a bedside lamp, and it took me several minutes to calm myself.

I pulled on a pair of shorts and padded out into Billy's kitchen. The only light came from the dimmed recessed spots that glowed above the counter space and at the front entryway. I had a magnificent headache, and my immediate guess was caffeine withdrawal. I had gone without coffee for longer than I had in many years. I set a ten-cup pot to brewing in Billy's machine and stepped out onto the patio to wait. The ocean was black, and against all odds I couldn't see a single light on the ocean. There were no fishermen, no freighters and no way to judge the horizon-or even the era. There was only the sound of the surf on the sand, the way it has moved up onto land for millions of years. For the rest of the night I sat with coffee, waiting out the darkness and watching light come into the world.

Shortly after dawn I heard Billy moving about inside, and he joined me with an obscene concoction of blended fruit and vitamins and a copy of The Wall Street Journal.

"Welcome b-back, Mr. Van Winkle." We clinked mug to crystal and caught up.

The judge in Collier County to whom the PalmCo attorneys had presented their injunction had apparently not been the recipient of enough PalmCo political money, and they squelched their argument. The excavation had already begun. Billy had sent Bill Lott to be his representative. The old CIA man was grumpy as hell over having to spend days in the Glades fighting mosquitoes and the heat, but he was fascinated by the project.

"He c-called last night to tell us they had already f-found an intact skull. They weren't sharing too m-much with him until he convinced them of his experience with l-law enforcement. Then they l-let him have a look," Billy said.

"They can't tell in the field if it w-was one of the b-boys or Cyrus, but there was an obvious shattering hole in the back of the skull. They've already ruled it a h-homicide.

"Lott thinks a lot of the b-bones and fragments will be spread out from the animals that would have g-gotten to the bodies. B-But in that insect-rich environment, he says it t-takes only a few days for a body to be st-stripped to the bone. So they th-think they'll find the others."

"That ought to get PalmCo spinning," I said.

"It already h-has. There are three agencies in on th-this, including someone from the park service. One of them is already l-leaking info to PalmCo. And an acquaintance of m-mine at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel called on a t-tip he got, so the press is onto it, too."

"So there goes our media threat."

"Doesn't m-matter," Billy said, looking a bit pleased with himself. "Their attorneys left a m-message with my office today. They w-want to meet."

I let him enjoy his lawyerly reveling for a couple of minutes before asking him his opinion on what they might do.

"They will p-probably offer some c-compensation to the families. Not b-because they had any direct h-hand in the deaths, but b- because it w-was their project years b-back and they want to show r-respect for the workingm-men who sacrificed their lives to b-build the trail."

"Christ, that's repulsive," I said.

"It's called spin, Max. And due to the fact that w-we don't have anything sp-specific to tie their old company Noren to John William Jefferson, it m-might be the b-best we can do."

"And that's going to be enough for you?" I said, wondering if my friend had gone soft. But I should have known.

"No. We'll d-demand that they continue to f-fund any extra c- costs for the forensics investigation into the other b-burial spots on John William's m-map. And if there is anyw-way to identify them, their f-families will also have t-to be compensated.

"We will also ask that a m-memorial to the men who lost their l-lives d-during the building of the Trail be purchased by them and s- set in a prominent p-place on land that they will provide."

"And that's going to be enough for you?"

I had succeeded in dampening some of his gloating.

"We will m-most likely n-never see their internal documentation from that time. If it even ever existed, they would have sh-shredded it by now.

"They may even h-have the n-names of the other m-men Mayes's letters sp-spoke of. But I doubt that even a h-homicide investigation is g-going to find them."

When Billy mentioned Mayes's letters I thought of the young man. At the church I'd asked him if he would be driving back to the coast. He said he didn't know. When I stood to go, he handed his great-great-grandfather's watch back to me.

"You'll need this for evidence, yes?"

I told him he'd get it back as soon as possible.

"Yes, I know."

When I left he was still sitting in the front pew, his head bent forward in prayer, but I didn't know for whom-his family or the Jefferson's.

"How much is he going to get in compensation?" I asked Billy.

"I'll ask for a m-million, and they'll give it," he said. "But it won't m-matter to him, you know? He c-called to say he'd enrolled in the seminary.