The Devil in Gray (27 page)

He was only thirty yards away from the assembly of troops when he came across a blackened shape sitting on the edge of the plank road. At first he couldn't think what it was, but as he came closer he realized it was a man, almost completely charred, yet obviously still alive, because he was trembling and uttering grunts of pain. Smoke was still trailing from his hair, and his ears were burned to tiny cinders.

“What's your name, fellow?” Decker asked him.

The figure didn't answer.

“What division are you with? Anderson's? Wofford's?”

At last the figure turned its head and stared at him. “Hancock's,” he croaked. “We were all set afire.”

Decker unscrewed his water bottle and poured some into the palm of his hand, touching it against the man's lips. They felt dry and crisp, like burned bacon rinds. The man managed to suck up a little before he started coughing, and when he coughed he sprayed shreds of bloodied lung into Decker's hand.

“Tell me your name,” Decker repeated. “You may be a Yankee, but I'll get word to your family, if I can.”

The man shook his head. He couldn't stop coughing and he couldn't find the breath to speak.

Decker was still kneeling next to him when he felt the plank road shaking, as if horses were approaching. He turned around and he could see the tall dark figure storming toward him, its coattails flapping like wings. It was less than fifty yards away, and it seemed to
rumble
as it approached, more like a thunderstorm than a man.

Decker stood up and tried to run—an exhausted, sore-footed canter. He knew that it was probably hopeless, trying to escape. If this creature had set fire to whole divisions, God knows what it was going to do to him. But he kept stumbling forward, gasping with effort, waving every now and again to see if he could attract the attention of the troops up ahead of him.

“Hi! Hi there! Help me!”

But then he turned to see how close the creature was, and it was right on top of him. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the curtains of its coat, and again he found himself trapped in a knobbly cage of bones, unable to twist himself free, unable to breathe.

He shouted out, and sat up, and switched on the bedside light.

And Cathy was there.

She was standing beside the bed, quite still. She was dressed in one of her plain white nightdresses, and there were green leaves and purple herbs entwined around her wrists, like bracelets. Her face was intensely white, almost fluorescent, and her eyes were blurry, as if they were filled with tears, or as if she were blinking as fast as a hummingbird's wing.

He started to say, “Cathy—” but then his throat choked up. He simply couldn't find the words. He had tried to talk to her so many times through mediums and clairvoyants. He had searched for any trace that she hadn't left him forever, that her spirit was still somewhere close by. He had heard nothing, felt nothing, found nothing. No perfumes, no whispers, no shadows. But now she was here, unbidden, looking as real as if she were still alive.

“This will be the last time,” she said. Her voice sounded high and resonant, like a tuning fork. “If I try to come again, Saint Barbara will have me trapped by Oyá for all eternity in the split second between life and death—dying and dying and dying forever.”

Decker smeared the tears from his eyes. “I, ah—I know that you have to go, sweetheart. But I know what you've done for me, too. How much you've been protecting me. I know who Saint Barbara really is, too.”

“I can't keep her away from you any longer. She wants her revenge, and it has to be your time next.”

“You don't know how much I miss you. If it's my time next, then maybe that's something I can look forward to. We can be together again.”

Cathy gave him a wan smile. “The afterlife is not what you think it is, my darling. It's lonely and silent. The dead grieve for their loved ones as much as the living. They grieve for their lost lives, too.”

“So this is it, then? The very last good-bye.”

“I've come to tell you more than good-bye. You can still save yourself from Saint Barbara. But you will have to make an ally of the one person you hate more than any other.”

“I don't understand you.”

“I saw who killed me, Decker.”

“What?”

“I saw who shot me. I was asleep and I felt somebody shake my shoulder. I opened my eyes and then she appeared, out of thin air. She was smiling. She had come to kill me, and she was smiling.”

“A
woman
shot you?” Decker said, dumbfounded.

“She was very tall and she had beads in her hair.”

“Jesus. I don't believe this. Queen Aché shot you
herself?
”

“Nobody saw her but me. She said, ‘
Irosun oche
,' and then she fired.”

“I'll kill her. I swear to God I'll tear her head off.”

“You need her help, my darling.”

“Her
help?
All I want to do is blow her brains out, the same she did to you.”

“Saint Barbara wants your blood, Decker, and it's your time next. Queen Aché is the only one who has the power to save you.”

“Why should she? She hates me as much as I hate her. Why do you think she shot you? To warn me off. To keep me from breaking her drug racket. And she was clever, wasn't she? She killed a cop without actually killing a cop.”

“She will help you if she has to.”

“I don't get it.”

“She came close up to me to shoot me, so close that she pressed the gun against my forehead. I seized her hair, and pulled it, and some of her hair and some of her beads came out in my hand. They're still there now, under the bed.

“I was the only witness to my own killing, but those beads will give you proof of who did it. Then there's Junior Abraham. When Queen Aché shot him, there were many witnesses. They don't think that they saw her. They think that they saw somebody else. But they
did
see her, and if you can find a way to open their eyes, you will have all the evidence you need.”

“Cathy—”

“I have to go now, Decker. I can't do any more.”

“Can I touch you?”

“Of course.”

He stood up and cautiously approached her. She looked up at him and he saw in her yellow eyes all of the years they could have had together, all of the summers and the winters and the walks along the waterfront, where the Confederate army lay dead, and where she lay dead, too.

He took her in his arms and closed his eyes and there was nothing there, no substance at all, only the briefest of chills.

“Good-bye,” she whispered, inside his head. He opened his eyes and she was gone.

He knelt down and peered under the bed, but he couldn't see any beads. He knew that the forensic people had gone over the apartment after Cathy was shot, and if there had been any beads there, or pulled-out hair, surely they would have discovered them.

He took the flashlight out of the nightstand and flicked it around, but he still couldn't see anything. In the end, he heaved the bed to the other side of the room.

They really took some finding, but there they were. Three small ivory beads, almost the same color as the carpet, in the gap between the edge of the carpet and the skirting board. Decker went to the kitchen for a polythene food bag, carefully picking up each bead with tweezers and dropping it inside. When he inspected them closely, he saw that two of them had wisps of hair in them.

“Got you, Your Majesty,” he breathed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Back at headquarters, Decker found that Hicks had left a scribbled note for him.

I checked the historical records at City Hall. John Mason's great-great-grandfather was Hiram P. Mason, who was manager out on Cudahy's tobacco plantation out near Tuckahoe. He served as a captain in Heth's division in the First Army Corps during the Civil War, November 1863–May 1864
.

Decker went over to the window and looked down at Grace Street. It was only a few minutes past noon and—unlike him—nobody had a shadow. The street looked bright and unreal, like a scene from
The Bodysnatchers
. For all he knew, the So-Scary Man was down there, too, walking right through the crowds, unseen, unnoticed, on his way to murder another victim. On his way to murder
him
, if Cathy was right.

He was driving slowly along St. James Street when he saw Junior Abraham's brother Treasure walking toward him, with three other young men and a girl with cornrow hair and the tightest white jeans that he had ever seen. She looked as if she were naked and her legs had simply been painted white. He pulled into the curb and put down the window.

“Hi, Treasure,” he said, without taking his eyes off the girl. “How about you and me having a little friendly conversation?”

Treasure sniffed and jerked his head. He was wearing sloppy brown cargo pants and a green T-shirt with
The Big Gig
printed on it in red letters. “Kind of busy right now, Lieutenant.”

“Listen … I'm working my butt off trying to find out who killed your brother. You can spare me a couple of minutes, can't you?”

“I don't know. Maybe it's better if we kind of forget about it, you know? People like that … you don't want to go upsetting people like that.”

“People like what?”

“I don't know, man. People who come up to you when you're eating your lunch and blow your fucking head off.”

Decker reached across and opened the passenger door. “Ten minutes tops. Come on. Junior deserves that much, doesn't he?”

The girl winked at Decker and said, “Go on, Treasure. Go talk to the nice policeman. You can catch up with us later.”

Treasure reluctantly heaved himself into the car. Decker immediately pulled away from the curb with a brisk squeal of tires and headed north.

“Where are we going, man?” Treasure asked, after they had driven six blocks. “I thought you just wanted to talk.”

“I do. But I want you to meet a friend of mine. Somebody who can help you remember what happened.”

“Hey … you're not going to pull out my toenails or nothing?”

“Of course not. We want to have a little relaxing chin music, that's all.”

“I told you … I don't remember what the guy looked like. He was just kind of, like, normal. Not too tall, not too short.”

“We'll see.” He picked up his cell phone and punched out Hicks's home number.

He drove out to Valley Road and parked in front of the Hicks house. As they climbed out, Rhoda opened the front door, wearing a flowery yellow sundress. “Tim not with you?” she asked, looking around.

“No, poor guy. He had a whole heap of paperwork to finish off. This is Treasure, the young man I was telling you about on the phone. Treasure, meet Rhoda.”

Treasure sniffed and wiped his hands on his pants.

“Come along in,” Rhoda said. “Do you want coffee or anything? Maybe a soda?”

“No, we're fine, thanks, Rhoda. I promised not to take up too much of Treasure's time.”

“Treasure, that's an unusual name.”

“My mom always used to call me Mama's Little Treasure. It stuck even when I grew big.”

“That's so sweet.”

“You think so? I think it's wholly embarrassing.”

Rhoda had already spread a neatly pressed white tablecloth on the kitchen table and set up two white candles. She drew the blinds and lit the candles, and then she sat down, her hands pressed together as if she were praying. Treasure looked at Decker and said, “What?”

Rhoda said, “All you have to do is sit down and try to relax.”

“Go on,” Decker urged him, and so he dragged out a chair and sat down, sniffing again and jerking his head.

Rhoda took hold of his hand. “What we're trying to do today, Treasure, is to talk to Junior.”

“Say
what?
Junior had his nut blown off. Junior can't
talk
.”

“Junior's dead, for sure. He doesn't have a physical presence anymore. But his spirit lives on, and always will, just as
all
of our spirits live on. God creates us, Treasure, and you don't think that God would ever allow His precious creations to die?”

“Listen, Lieutenant, I thought you and me was going to talk. I didn't think you was bringing me to no prayer meeting.”

“This isn't a prayer meeting, Treasure. This is to help you remember.”

“I told you. How many times did I told you? I can't exactly remember what the guy looked like. It all happened so fast, it was like I couldn't focus my eyes.”

Rhoda turned her head abruptly to the left and said, “Junior! Junior Abraham! Your brother Treasure's here.”

Treasure bobbed up out of his seat and looked around, wide-eyed. When he realized that Junior wasn't standing right behind him, he blew out his cheeks and said, “Shit, you scared me then. You really scared me.”

Rhoda closed her eyes. “Junior Abraham, your brother's here. Your brother wants you to tell him what happened to you.”

Treasure said, “Come on, this is seriously nuts. I went to Junior's funeral, I laid a rose on top of his casket. He can't
talk
to me.”

Decker pressed his finger to his lips. “Give it a chance, Treasure. I've seen this myself, and it works.”

“Maybe I don't
want
to talk to Junior. I mean, maybe I'm crapping my pants here.”

“Your brother wouldn't do anything to harm you. Besides, he deserves justice, doesn't he?”

“I don't know. I guess.”

Treasure stayed quiet, but he still couldn't stop himself from twitching and flinching. Rhoda took out her
okuele
and dropped it onto the table. She made a note of how the medallions had fallen, and then she said, “Junior, listen to me. Your brother's here. He wants to know who hurt you.”

Treasure looked more and more unhappy, but Rhoda kept on calling Junior, her voice curiously flat, as if she were speaking from another room.