American Ghost (22 page)

“Great.” She held out her hand for another shake and added in a small voice, “And, listen—I really am sorry about the drug-dealer comment. I don't know what came over me. If Hugh finds out,
he
'll go into anaphylactic shock.”

Hollis had not taken the least bit of offense, though he seized this golden opportunity to do a little digging. “Hugh Altman? I
thought
this was the Altman house.” He smiled disarmingly. “How
is
old Hugh?”

“Oh, doing well, last I saw of him. He's long gone to New Orleans—gearing up for Mardi Gras. You know, he lives there part of the year now.”

Hollis smiled indulgently. “Same old Hugh.” He almost let it at that, but couldn't resist asking with a small twinkle of interest, impossible to wholly hide, “And you're a Hoyt? Are you from
Hendrix
?”

“Oh, yeah,” she affirmed drily, with a roll of her eyes to indicate that, yes, she knew it wasn't anything to brag about.

Hollis needed no more explanation than that, understood in an instant why they were so naturally compatible, he and his green-eyed friend, though he didn't press it any further. It was enough, for the moment, to know he was in the right place, with the right people, staying in their very house.

He extended his hand for a firm shake and thanked her for her time, said he'd be back by seven. When he got in the car, he found Charley in the exact position he'd left him: faceup, slightly snoring. Hollis didn't
wake him, but headed to town in search of a drugstore to pick up a few toiletries, maybe some chew toys for Snow so he wouldn't be tempted to gnaw on anyone's antique beadboard walls.

As he drove through the early-winter twilight, back to the strip-mall avenue that led into the old downtown, he pondered the enigma of a Hoyt living in an Altman house. Such a thing was not beyond the pale, and Hollis quickly constructed a probable scenario. One of the sons of the enormously rich Altman clan was sent by the family bank to do business in Hendrix, where he came across one of their famously succulent half-caste women. Before he knows it, old Hugh wakes up one morning with a green-eyed consort, thirty years his junior, which even he can't explain. Being essentially lazy, neutered, and unable to sustain even the shallowest relationship, he'd soon tire of her and move on to rob other cradles, in New Orleans or Savannah or some other bastion of Tired White Men. He'd pay her off emotionally with talk of family obligations and such nonsense and leave her in charge of his dwindling business interests around town, tolerated by his kinsmen as long as she kept a low profile on the exact details of her river-bottom birth.

It was an old story; Hollis didn't write it. To come upon such a woman and actually stay in her house struck him as the most incredible piece of luck. After he parked and let Snow out to pee, he woke Charley and told him the news: that he'd not only found their source, but had secured a room for them and the dog for a whole month.

“Where?” The old man yawned as he righted his glasses and peered around the parking lot with an owl-like blink.

“The old Altman place,” Hollis told him with relish. “And you will not
believe
who is living there now.”

W
hat annoyed Hollis Frazier the most about his brother was that he was a pain in the ass. He was contrary and obstinate, with no conception of the idea of team play. This was never more evident than on their first morning in Cleary, when he was alone with their charming hostess for all of ten minutes and managed to blow their cover
just like that
.

Hollis, who liked to keep his cards close to his chest, found his brother's chattiness especially galling as he'd gone to some lengths the evening before to explain the importance of Charley's keeping his mouth closed and his head up and to let Hollis do the talking. Charley had agreed without argument as they lay on their respective sides of the enormous honeymooners' bed. Hollis explained a simple plan: that he, Hollis, would go to Tallahassee the next morning to seek out Samuel B. Lense and find out the name of his other sources in Hendrix.

With that information in hand, they'd either talk to Ms. Hoyt or head out to Hendrix—it was hard to plan any further than that, Hendrix being what it was. Hollis figured that if Ms. Hoyt had been open enough to talk to a researcher from UF, she could be persuaded by the lure of the almighty dollar to share the same information with him, Hollis Frazier. He'd brought along $10,000 in cash for such a purpose, though he'd kept that small detail from Charley, who was poor as hell
and might scoff at the idea of buying back what was rightfully theirs. Hollis had no such compunction. He had plenty of money, all over the damn place, and was prepared to part with it if it meant an honorable end to this nasty business, and the fulfillment of one of his father's last wishes, albeit more than thirty years too late.

That was the plan, though from the moment he woke up, it began to go awry, as the ten-hour drive had irritated his bursitis, and he'd awoken with a crick in his neck and a numb right arm. After he'd taken Snowflake to the garden to do his business, he couldn't resist a soak in the marble Jacuzzi that was equipped for honeymoon luxury with all manner of bath salts and oils. Hollis had gone about making a bath with the same expertise he created his signature Brunswick stew, with lavish handfuls of lavender and bath salt, and had barely lowered himself into the ecstasy of the hot, steaming bubbles when he heard a knock at the door and a murmur of voices as their breakfast was delivered.

Hollis could smell the coffee in the bathroom, and as he lay there in the tub, luxuriating in the steady pound of the hot jets on his sore back and shoulder, he was washed with a rare affection for the swamps and piney woods of West Florida, and their multicolored, multitalented natives. They were ignorant, lazy, and occasionally savage, but by God they were generous, if need be, with that crazy, green-eyed desire to please that you didn't find anywhere else in the South.

He was actually looking forward to going out to Hendrix. He had taken the phone book to bed with him the night before and scanned the local listings. He found Camp Six long dissolved, of course, and only a handful of familiar names listed: Johnsons and Bryants, Stallings and Hamiltons and Hitts, but no Kites. When he finally climbed out of the Jacuzzi, refreshed and relaxed and starving to death, he knew, sight unseen, that the local sausage would be a thing of beauty, homemade and country, probably the kindly remains of someone's fat-bellied hog. He was so eager to get at it that he didn't bother to dress. He wrapped a big hotel towel around his waist and headed down the hallway, which smelled deliciously of fresh coffee and fried pork. He was almost to the
corner when he clearly heard Charley say, “Naw, it was on Granny's land, not the—”

“No!”
Hollis cried without thinking, but he was too late.

He turned the corner on a chummy, domestic sight. Charley was in his old farmer clothes, sitting at the table calmly sipping coffee, the Hoyt woman sitting across from him with her own coffee, reading the pages Hollis had printed out in Memphis, her face a study in disbelief. “And it was posted online? With my name on it?”

“No!”
Hollis insisted, clutching his towel at the waist and snatching the papers from her hands, his being undressed causing Charley to clamber to his feet and shout, “Hollis? You lost yo mind? Git some clothes on, son!”

Hollis answered in kind, then pointed a warning finger at both of them. “Hush your mouth—both of you. Not another word till I get dressed. You hear me?”

He turned on his heel and went back to the bathroom to throw on some clothes and get back and straighten it out before Charley ruined everything, but found he'd left his clothes in the bedroom. He had to open the door and shout for Charley to
bring
him his
damn
pants. He stood on the old plank floor, dancing with anger, till Charley finally appeared, unruffled and unhurried, and told him the coast was clear: Miz Hoyt had gone to work.

“Well, that's
great,
” Hollis breathed, stalking naked down the hallway and ripping open his suitcase, telling Charley over his shoulder, “That was a nice move, spilling your
guts,
first chance you
got.
What the
hell
were you thanking?”

Charley was old, but unbent, and paid no mind to his brother's nagging. He just returned to his seat and poured another cup of coffee with infuriating mildness. “I never meant to creep back here like a
thief
in the
night
. I ain't got nothing to hide.”

“Good for you,” Hollis snapped, yanking on his pants with fast, angry hands and dressing as quickly as he could.

He didn't bother letting Charley in on his plans, but laced his shoes
and hurried down the drive to his car, knowing that his window of opportunity was rapidly shrinking, and hoping to catch Sam Lense before he'd received any fair warning. He punched his dash phone to voice activation so he could drive and talk at the same time and chatted up a dozen different receptionists as he went east, till he pinpointed the office of Samuel B. Lense.

Apparently Mr. Lense was no longer connected with the archives, but was an officer in Economic Development, high enough on the masthead to have a corner office and a shared secretary who wasn't at her desk. A note taped to her computer screen said she'd be back at two. Hollis was sidetracked, but undeterred, and after a little snooping found Mr. Lense in a glassed-in room across the hall, sitting at a long conference table that was piled high with fee schedules, open manuals, and reams of computer paper. He was dressed in the uniform of the Florida bureaucrat: pressed chinos and a white button-down with sleeves rolled to his elbows. His stockiness made him look more reformer than accountant, and he had a definite hint of urban assertiveness when he saw Hollis at the door. He came briskly to his feet and extended a strong hand, shaking it solidly and asking, “Are you from District Four? You're early. Everyone's at lunch. I'm about to eat at my desk. Can I send for something for you?”

He was obviously expecting someone, and Hollis didn't forfeit the advantage. He was very understanding about the mix-up and agreeable to waiting in Lense's office, though he passed on the food. The office was as jam-packed as the conference room, with an oversize monitor full of numerical gibberish and a printer in a corner, spewing thin sheaves of pale, sickly green paper. Mr. Lense cleared off a space and, between phone calls and quick bites of an enormous club sandwich, conveyed a good bit of personal information, as if they were fellow passengers on a long layover in Atlanta, killing time in the bar. With no prodding at all, Hollis learned that Lense was Miami-born and divorced and had a kid and a brother with cancer, a widower father, and an assumed mortgage Lense was hoping to convert to a low-interest loan.

He offered the insider edition of his life as generously as he did his bag of Kettle chips, and it wasn't difficult for Hollis to maneuver the conversation in a generic direction, bringing up football, and commenting off-hand, “So, you were a Gator? What did you major in? History?”

Lense was finished with his sandwich and gathered up the trash. “Anthropology,” he said, hitting the can with his wadded-up napkin in a perfect three-pointer, then turning back to Hollis and, for no reason he could surmise, suddenly seeming to smell a rat. “How the hell did you know?” Lense asked with what must have been a characteristic bluntness. “That I went to UF?”

Hollis smiled disarmingly. “I read a paper you wrote, on the Creek Indians. A very interesting paper,” he added in a sincere compliment, then dropped his bomb without preamble: “Henry Kite was a neighbor of mine.”

Mr. Lense's reaction was telling in its absence of guilt. He didn't so much as flinch. “Henry
who
?”

“
Kite.
The man who was lynched in '38, in Hendrix. You mentioned him, in yo paper.”

“Oh.”
Lense sat back casually and crossed his arms protectively across his chest. “What about it?”

Hollis understood that he'd shown a few cards by speaking so honestly, but Mr. Lense seemed capable of handling a little unvarnished honesty, and Hollis laid it out plainly: “Well, you mention in yo paper how they cut off Kite's fangers. Kept 'em in a gin bottle, out in Hendrix.”

Mr. Lense listened closely, but his earlier gregariousness was gone, his face speculative as he repeated, “What about it?”

“Well, whoever told you it that way told it wrong. Them fangers weren't Kite's. They belonged to a neighbor of his, name of Buddy Frazier. Men from the mill come on him working his fields and cut off two of 'em trying to make him talk. Kept 'em, too—showed 'em off around town later thet night. I know that for a fact.”

A local man might have argued the point, but Sam Lense was obviously not local, and obviously not connected by bone marrow or raw
nerve to anything in Hendrix. He denied nothing, but unexpectedly confirmed the story. “Yeah, I heard. They terrorized the town after—set the turpentine stills on fire and killed five people, including a pregnant woman.”

“Kite's sister,” Hollis offered equably. “Eight months gone, and namore guilty of murder than the man in the moon. But I ain't here for the Kites. Buddy Frazier was my father.” Hollis unconsciously lifted his chin. “Them fangers are mine—and I want 'em back.”

Sam Lense seemed taken aback for the first time. “Want 'em for
what
?”

Hollis looked at him in wonder. “To bury with the rest of his mortal remains. Whatchu
thank
?”

Lense just blinked at the answer, then shook his head and told him plainly, “Well, I don't have 'em, if that's what you're asking.”