Last Words Read online

  “Who else is a suspect?”

  “Go read your own damn archives,” Mark said. “You’ll find some names. Then go call all of them and let them speak for themselves. Barnes, Borders, whoever you’d like. But do not put words in my mouth.”

  “Is it correct that you haven’t attempted to locate any surviving family members but have already spoken with Ridley Barnes?”

  “No, that is not correct,” Mark said. “I’ve met with Diane Martin, and she’s aware of the possibility of the investigation and supportive of it if we choose to move forward, and right now that’s unlikely. So you don’t need to waste your ink on me.”

  There was a pause, and when the reporter spoke again, his words were slow and careful. “You met with Diane Martin?”

  “I certainly did. And she’s—” Mark caught himself, grimaced, and shook his head. Gary Clay was pretty good. He’d turned Mark’s refusal to speak into a back-and-forth session in a few smooth moves by making bold statements that were designed to provoke an emotional response and, thus, a quotable response. Mark should have been smarter.

  “That’s it,” he said. “That’s all I’ve got for you.”

  “I understand that perspective,” Clay said, “but I actually think I might be able to help your reputation, not harm it. If you could—”

  “I’m not going to let this go on any longer. If you write anything that says I’m working to clear Ridley Barnes, you’ll have some trouble over it. That’s not a threat. Just the truth of the matter.”

  “In all honesty, I don’t think you can afford—”

  “To continue this conversation,” Mark said. “You’re right. Good-bye.”

  He hung up and closed his eyes for a minute. It would be better to fly back, sit before the board of directors, and tell them what had happened inside the prison than to linger here.

  “Time to go,” he said aloud. “I’m sorry, Sarah. But this isn’t the right place for me.”

  7

  He’d meant it when he’d said it. He really had. He’d packed his bags and checked out of the hotel and was in the rental car headed out of town when he pulled over and used his phone to find the address of Trapdoor Caverns. The old web page was still active, boasting of boat and walking tours, of unmatched underground grandeur, fun for the whole family!

  He thought then of the request, not Ridley’s but Diane Martin’s—You should go there. To Trapdoor. To the place where she died. I think you should see it for yourself—and he told himself that it was a bad idea and he needed to just keep driving. Then he thought, You’ve got the time, and if Diane Martin calls, you can tell her you did that much. You can tell her that you did what she asked. He turned off the highway and headed to Trapdoor Caverns.

  Just for a look.

  The place deserved a look, at least. It was the crime scene, after all, and even if he was just checking off boxes on his way to turning this one down, he needed to—

  Sit down there in the dark

  —visit the crime scene. That was obvious; it was fundamental.

  There was a locked gate blocking the entrance to the property, and he left the rental car parked outside and walked around the gate and down the drive, his feet crunching on the snow. Not much of it covered the ground, only a couple of inches, and today the sun was brilliant and the snow crystals sparkled like white sand.

  When he was about a tenth of a mile past the gate, two buildings came into view: a log home with wide windows and multiple decks and, about fifty yards from that, a large garage. Just below was a creek, the water iced over and shining. An ornate iron footbridge crossed the water, going from the house and the garage to a wall of stone that wouldn’t have drawn Mark’s eye if not for the part of it that didn’t belong—a set of iron bars like an ancient prison door. When he got closer, he saw that it actually was a door. Padlocked.

  That would be the cave entrance.

  He walked as far as the footbridge but didn’t cross it. Just stood there and looked at the cave waiting beyond it.

  You should go down there and think about your wife, and then make up your mind.

  As he looked at the creek he found himself wincing. The glare of the sun on the snow-covered ice was too bright. Across from it and beyond those iron bars, the darkness looked welcoming. Above, the stone faded into a steep slope lined with saplings, and up on top, the ground flattened out and ran off into open fields. He could see horses, their heads surrounded by fogs of warm breath that sat in the still air. One of them whinnied, a soft sound across the distance, but it still made Mark’s eyes close involuntarily.

  He’d grown up around that sound. Different towns, different states, but always horses. Traveling with his uncles and his mother, staying in a place until one or the other of them got into enough trouble that they had to move on. There were always jobs to be found if you were good with horses, though, and his uncles had been good. There was a time, long ago, that he had been too.

  People thought that his uncles were plagued by alcoholism and anger, but Mark believed they were really plagued by family. Their sister, his mother, in particular. They kept looking out for her when they shouldn’t have, refusing to give up on her. While his uncles had their faults, his mother was the only real con in the family. She had not a trace of Native American blood, but she’d tan her already dark complexion, dye her hair raven black, and braid it, weaving feathers into the braids. Then she’d announce herself as a great-great-granddaughter of either Looking Glass or White Bird, Nez Perce chiefs who had participated in the epic flight through the Rockies, struggling to reach Canada, only to be stopped, exhausted and starving, twenty miles from the border. She’d learned early on that Chief Joseph was a touch too famous, and there was the chance that a tourist might know more about him than she did, so she’d given up being his imaginary relation and chosen the lesser-known chiefs. Broadcasting her heritage as a spiritualist with great medicine powers, she would sell dream catchers and offer psychic readings and faith healings.

  What money she made—and some summers she did quite well—went to bottles or, in the worst of times, needles. Mark and his uncles would have to track her down and bring her back to whatever was currently home. As Mark grew older, he began to dream of running away. Running south, to the land of palm trees and blue water.

  He’d been seventeen when he finally left, even though one uncle was dead and one was in jail and there was nobody else to watch over Snow Creek Maiden, but it was a while before he made it to the palms and beaches of his dreams. For some years, he kicked around the West in the same tired circles he’d always known, taking jobs as a rafting guide, a stable hand, doing grunt labor for a hunting outfitter, tending bar for snowmobilers, whatever paid. Eventually he saved enough to head south with a small cushion. He’d been working night shifts at gas stations around Sarasota for a year before he got a job as a deckhand on a diving boat. He was fascinated by the idea of diving but couldn’t afford the lessons and was hesitant to ask his boss for a discounted rate. It was his boss’s daughter, Lauren, who offered him that first lesson. She had a small build and looked overmatched by the scuba gear but moved in the water as if she belonged to it. The first time he’d seen her, she’d been working her way up to the surface, graceful and gorgeous, her blond hair fanned out in the turquoise depths.

  He put his hand in his pocket now and found the plastic disk that had been Lauren’s permit on that first trip together, the sentimental touch he’d never been able to show her on that deck on Siesta Key. There were moments when he could close his eyes and see the stern of the boat from Saba National Marine Park at sunset, the two of them sitting close but not quite touching, not yet. But soon. And by the end of that year, he’d gotten into what was then St. Petersburg Junior College, just a few hours away from where she was studying in Gainesville. Two years later he was in Gainesville too. Lauren had an internship with Jeff London. Mark had never heard anyone talk about his work with the passion Jeff demonstrated, and the idea of it, of cell door
s opening for people who’d never belonged behind bars, was compelling. Truth be told, though, Mark hadn’t joined up because of Jeff’s passion. He’d joined because of Lauren’s. Because he wanted to catch some of the glow that radiated from her when she talked about Innocence Incorporated.

  He was good at it too. Better than anyone had expected, certainly better than he’d expected. The investigative work came naturally. He could be both patient and instinctive, Jeff said, a magical blend. Mark didn’t know about that, but he knew he enjoyed the work. The idea that someone was waiting to die for the sins of another and that one piece of undiscovered evidence might free him was not a job you could tire of. It had seemed righteous to him. Back then.

  The land of palm trees and blue water had treated him well indeed. It had been the paradise he’d known it would be, full of warm welcomes and soft edges, a place where cold pain and shame would never find him. He’d almost come to believe that before Lauren made the drive to Cassadaga.

  “Hey! Closed property, pal! Can you not read the signs or do you just not give a shit what they say?”

  The Florida memories were gone then and ice-covered Indiana was back and Mark turned and saw a tall black man in a knit hat and an untucked, half-buttoned shirt rushing toward him from the garage.

  “Signs hang on that gate for a reason, you know. Hell, the gate is there for a reason! But you folks don’t care, the world’s your damned oyster, you just do as you please…”

  He was walking nearly as fast as he was bitching, but it was a tight race. Mark waited until the man pulled up close and then he said, “I walked down for a look. I’m sorry.”

  “That’s just the thing! That is just the thing that I mean. The signs and the gate are supposed to tell you that you can’t have a look! But people just do whatever the hell it is they please anymore. I don’t know when it became that way, I honest to God don’t. But there was a shift. There was a change.”

  “Manners are lacking,” Mark said. “Common courtesy is a thing of the past.”

  “You are f’ing-A right about that,” the man said. He seemed to be softening now that Mark had agreed with him that the world was in social decline, and he paused to finish buttoning his shirt. He was knotted with muscle and had thick wrists and a mechanic’s forearms. His face was hawkish and angular, like it had been built for cutting through the wind, and a perpetual squint added to the effect.

  “F’ing A,” Mark echoed. “I apologize. I shouldn’t have trespassed. You the owner?”

  “One worse or one better, depending on your perspective. I’m the caretaker. Cecil Buckner.”

  “Were you around when the cave was in operation?”

  “I’m the only caretaker she’s ever had. Was here then, and I’m here now.”

  Mark nodded. “You’ve always lived in the castle.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. My name’s Mark Novak. I came up from Florida.”

  He held his hand out and Buckner looked at it suspiciously and then chose to ignore it. “Came up for what?”

  “To have a look around.”

  “Well, that was ignorant. Cave’s closed.”

  “How long?”

  “Indefinitely. A damn shame, you ask me. If you aren’t going to use it, then why in the hell not sell it, right? I can tell you for a fact there was two million dollars on the table from the state for this place. Had eyes on turning it into a park. That’s from the government, mister, and you’d have to be a damn fool if you didn’t realize they don’t tend to pay top dollar. But instead, it sits empty, with those bars over the entrance and more locks than a prison ward. If you’re hoping to make an offer, good luck and good-bye. Because Pershing ain’t selling.”

  “He has no plans for it at all?”

  “If he does, he hasn’t shared them with me.” Cecil Buckner pointed at the big log home above the creek. “That house was built in 2002 as a summer home for Pershing when the cave was about to open for tours. You ought to see the place; it’s a gem. Now it just sits empty. Am I allowed to stay in it? Hell, no. I get the apartment above the garage. ’Course, I’m allowed to go in there and clean now and then. That’s it.” He shook his head. “Waste. All this place is now is a waste.”

  Mark looked at the huge house that Cecil was allowed to enter only to clean or repair, and he felt a surge of distaste for the owners. Cecil’s was the first black face Mark had seen in town, and Cecil felt too much like a servant for comfort.

  “How big is the cave?” Mark said, just to move the conversation away from Cecil’s living quarters.

  “Ask Ridley Barnes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s the only one who knows for sure. Most new caves, they have exploration teams. Trapdoor had Ridley Barnes.”

  “Why just him?”

  “Because Pershing MacAlister, bless his kindly soul for my employment, did not and does not understand caves. In his business world, the fewer partners you had, the better. So he said the hell with safety, the hell with experience, the hell with everyone, and he brought in Ridley to map what wasn’t obvious. That didn’t go so well. Cave was discovered in 2000, opened for tours in 2003, and closed for good by the end of 2004. Ridley Barnes was hired in the spring of 2004. No, that didn’t go so well at all.” Cecil’s face wrinkled with distaste. “What’s your interest in the cave anyhow?”

  “I have no interest in the cave. I’m an investigator. Here for the Sarah Martin case.”

  Buckner looked away from Mark and out over the fields as if in search of an oasis in a vast desert. “You have got to be shittin’ me.”

  “Afraid not.”

  Buckner shook his head, overcome by disgust. “Don’t go botherin’ folks with that. What’s the gain? If they could have convicted him back then, they would have.”

  “There are some people who disagree.”

  “Those people can go to hell. They have no stake in what happened here or what will happen here. They just like to gossip.”

  “I’d argue that Sarah Martin’s mother does have some stake in what happened here. An emotional one but still worthy of respect.”

  For the first time, Cecil Buckner seemed knocked off his stride. He blinked at Mark as if trying to clear clouded vision. “What?”

  “Her mother thinks it’s worthwhile. Her mother is the one who told me to come down here and look around.”

  “When was that?”

  “Yesterday.”

  Buckner looked at him in disbelief.

  “Does that surprise you for some reason?” Mark said. “You think she’d have lost interest in finding her daughter’s killer just because so much time has passed?”

  “I thought she’d lost interest in most earthly pursuits.”

  “What in the hell does that mean?”

  “Let me be real clear here: You say you spoke to Diane yesterday?”

  “Last night.”

  “Then you’re a very special man.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I certainly do, and I’m not going to be alone in that assessment, trust me. Not if you believe that you coaxed any thoughts or feelings out of Diane Martin.”

  “She’s usually that tight-lipped?”

  “To most of us,” Cecil Buckner said, “the dead are mighty tight-lipped, yes.”

  8

  Mark stared at him, waiting on a punch line that he was sure would be delivered, just had to be. Cecil Buckner took a shuffling step back. You never wanted to be too close to a lunatic.

  “You believe Diane Martin is dead?” Mark said.

  “It ain’t a matter of opinion!”

  Mark parted his lips but then closed them. His mind was swirling with images of the previous night: the woman’s relentless stare, the way she’d put her hand on his arm and told him that he needed to go to Trapdoor Caverns.

  “Someone played quite a trick on you, brother,” Cecil said.

  Quite a trick. Sure. It was one hell of a trick. Mark could see the in
tensity of those eyes, could hear her near-musical voice answering questions with such deep emotion.

  “Sarah Martin’s mother is dead,” Mark repeated. His voice was numb. “The only mother she had? I mean, there were no stepparents, nobody who might have—”

  “I’m quite sure of it. Can you hang tight for a minute? Ah, what the hell, follow me.”

  Cecil Buckner led Mark back up the drive and to the garage. As soon as Cecil opened the door, smells of gasoline and diesel fuel and sawdust filled the air. They went up a narrow flight of unfinished wooden steps and entered a small apartment with a galley kitchen, a living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom. A gun cabinet was squeezed in a tight space between a television and the wall, two shotguns and a small-caliber rifle inside. There was soft blues music coming from the bedroom, something with mournful horns and subtle drums.

  Cecil stepped away from him, said, “Hang on a minute,” and then walked down the hall. The music was silenced and replaced by the sound of drawers opening and closing. When Cecil returned, he held a folder that he was twisting in his hands as if he couldn’t decide what to do with it. “Would you like to make sure?”

  “Make sure? Either she’s dead or she isn’t. You told me there’s no doubt.”

  “Yes, but…well, I don’t know what you saw.”

  “I don’t see things. I’m not having visions, all right? I’m not a crazy man with hallucinations. Someone impersonated her, and—”

  Cecil opened the folder and shoved it at him and said, “Just tell me it didn’t look like her.”

  Inside the folder was a copy of a newspaper story: “Diane Martin Dies with Questions About Her Daughter Still Unanswered.” Tucked below the headline was a picture of the woman. She was tall and broad-shouldered with brown hair and dark eyes. She was nothing like the woman who’d put her hand on Mark’s arm and told him that maybe this was the right case for him.