Barbara Hambly - Dead water

“It sounds like a key,” said Rose. “But Molloy didn't have a key on him when he was killed, and you didn't find any such thing in his stateroom, did you?”

January shook his head. “That's because he knew La Pécheresse would find some way to search,” he said, and crossed himself at her name, seeing again in his mind the red streak of her blood in the river. “Or maybe he guessed after Weems's murder that Davis would be asking more questions, and would probably search as well. Molloy was a canny bird—he got rid of it as soon as he could, got it off the boat entirely, so that nothing could be proven against him. But I have a good guess where.”

“Even if you do,” said Rose, “a key does us little good unless we know where the gold is actually hidden. If she and Weems left it behind in New Orleans, I'm not sure we'd ever find it.”

January nodded, a wave of weariness passing over him at the thought of the long search yet to come. And in the meantime, what? Payment was due on their house in two months—sixty days—and in summer there wasn't even work as a musician.

They reached the gray and twisted oak-trees, which formed a sort of crescent in whose center sat the two Fulani brothers and Julie. 'Rodus was holding Julie's hand and laughing, pointing out at the smoke-stacks. He'd taken off his shirt, and water glistened over the scars on his naked back, the marks of a lifetime of defiance. Thu, sitting beside them, wore a look of weariness as he gazed at the river, as if already calculating what to do next.

Julie, January saw now, had gotten rid of the plain gray dress she'd worn as Theodora Skippen's servant—probably because it could be easily described in an advertisement for a runaway. Instead she wore a dark green gown, rumpled and wet from her immersion in the river and grubby from the dirt of the hold, but visibly tabbied with clusters of white and rust-colored flowers.

A gown, January realized, that he had seen before.

By lantern-light, he thought.

In the cemetery of St. Louis.

Before a tomb.

“Was that the gown Sophie gave you?” he asked, and Julie, a little startled at the question, nodded.

“It was Mrs. Fischer's,” she said. “She gave it to Sophie, but Sophie's such a little slip of a thing, it didn't fit, so when I said I was going to run, Sophie passed it on to me. You like it?”

“Yes,” said January with a contented smile. “I like it very much.”

TWENTY-ONE

The sheriff of Issaquena County turned out to be an enormously fat Englishman named Lear, who arrived in a broken-down shay shortly after Roberson and Byrne set out along the river road for Mayersville. Lear immediately sent his single deputy back to town to organize men to search the river banks as far down as Hitchins' Point for castaways, and accompanied the main body of them—including January, Davis, and Rose, with Hannibal and Lundy riding in the shay—back to Mayersville's single boarding establishment, the Montague House.

Shortly after dinner Lear returned, and listened to the combined accounts of Davis, Lundy, and January with narrowed eyes, as if he detected such obvious lacunae as, How could someone have thrown Weems overboard—much less overpowered and murdered the man—without the slaves chained on the starboard promenade having heard it, and, how could anyone have stolen and hidden close to six hundred pounds of gold quickly and secretly on a steamboat?

“The bleedin' thing is,” Lear said, mopping the wide brick-red moon of his face with a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth—for even with evening darkening the windows, the parlor of the Montague House was suffocatingly hot—“that the only ones truly on the spot at the time of the murder are hidin' in the woods. They're not like to be found.”

“Surely the patrols in this county . . .” protested Davis.

“The patrols in this county couldn't find their own arses with a survey map and a Chickasaw guide,” responded Lear mildly. “Every one of those darkies disappeared the minute they stepped ashore, and your friend Gleet's like to give birth over it, not that I blame him. . . . That poor chap Cain didn't really give Gleet title to his darkies, to sell 'em in Memphis and send the money on to Cain's family, did he?”

“Good Heavens, no!” said Davis, startled. “As far as I know, the two men couldn't abide one another.”

“Not to mention a man would have to be feeble in the head to give Gleet title to anything he ever wanted to see again,” added Lundy, sunk in the depths of the landlady's best blue plush armchair. “He tell you that?”

“He did indeed.”

“I understand Mr. Tredgold is going on to Memphis with his family with the next northbound boat,” said Lundy, and Lear leaned close and cupped his ear to hear him. The pilot looked like a dead man, draped over the chair like a pillow-case filled with broken stalks of cane, but his eyes burned sharp and green. “Not feeling so pert myself, I was fixed to stay on here a few days, so if you'd like, I'll take responsibility for any of the runaways that your patrols do find, until I can get in touch with Tredgold again and find out who Cain's heirs and assigns were.”

“That was neatly done,” murmured January as he helped the feeble old man up the stairs to the attic room he shared with Hannibal, January, and Thucydides. The Montague House generally had rooms enough for any steamboat's passengers to board ashore if they wished, but with another boat in port—the Wild Heart, down from St. Louis—and with all the Silver Moon 's officers to put up as well, there was a certain amount of doubling up.

Lundy had announced himself quite willing to share quarters with Mr. Sefton and his “valet,” and the steward had offered his services to the pilot. Rose and Cissy shared a room in the basement, Sophie having elected to spend the night with Julie and the rest of the two slave-gangs in the woods. Most of the other white men were doubled up three and four to a bed in the other chambers.

“Hell,” said the pilot as they paused on the landing, “no county sheriff's got more than a man or two at his disposal at the best of times. Lear would have given that job to any white man who asked.” He clung to the bannister, panting, as January tapped at the door of the attic room, a chamber usually reserved for the servants of guests. “Thu an' that brother of his'll have their work cut out for 'em, gettin' those folks past Memphis and on up through Tennessee and Kentucky. 'Specially now, with Gleet's folks to be led, too.”

Thucydides opened the door. Past him, January could see Hannibal propped up in the room's solitary bed with Rose holding a cup of tisane for him. The fiddler looked like he was coming out of his stupor, but his hands were trembling badly—at a guess, out of need for opium as much as anything else.

Seeing the direction of January's glance, the steward said quietly, “He'll be well enough to travel in two or three days. I gather Julie must have told you that whenever my brother and I conduct cargoes north—and this was our fifth—I bring a little snakeroot, or Indian tobacco, in case someone starts getting suspicious and needs to be gotten out of the way. It removes their interference without permanent harm. Most people attribute the effects to sickness, and traveling in summertime. He was never in any danger, you know. We simply couldn't let the boat be held up—which the sheriff would not have done if the most likely suspect were too ill to be questioned anytime soon.”

“No, I understand,” said January. “And I understand your killing Weems. . . . You must have been watching Fischer like a hawk.”