Chase Baker and the Lincoln Curse: (A Chase Baker Thriller Series Book No. 4) (10 page)

Ten minutes later, the Girvin threat has been officially
neutralized now that Balkis and I have hogtied the two of them with black
electrical tape from a roll we found in the backhoe cockpit. Off on the eastern
horizon, over the blue mountains of Massachusetts, the dawn is breaking.

“We don’t have much time,” Balkis says. “The maintenance
crew will be back soon.”

I glance at my watch. Six fifteen in the morning. Time flies
when your life is on the line. Coming from out of the distance, the crack of
gunfire. Then a series of thunderous booms that resonates across the valley and
that can only come from cannon fire. It’s all followed by screams and a
collective roar of voices.

“That’s the Rebel yell,” Balkis says, his eyes aglow like
he’s been touched by an angel. “They’ve started without me.”

Pulse picks up. “They’ve begun their reenactment down in the
valley. It must begin at dawn. Just like the real thing.”

“Yes,” Balkis slowly nods. “A dawn charge. Oh, how I wish I
were with my boys.” Then, “Let’s open that box, Baker.”

“Roger that,” I say. “And get this place cleaned up.”

The crowbar back in hand, I approach the open casket and
take a knee. The strongbox is made of metal and the padlock that secures it
looks formidable enough. But what I’m banking on is that the non-alloy metal
has weakened over the decades, making it possible for me to snap the clasp in
two. Shoving the straight end of the bar into the U-shaped clasp, I grip the
bar with both hands and heave upwards.

The clasp snaps in two like a stale pretzel.

Removing the padlock, I then place my hands on the strongbox
cover. With Balkis watching wide-eyed over my shoulder, I open it. What we both
discover steals our breath away.

They’re neatly placed on top of the dress. The true Derringer
and fighting knife that were used to kill Lincoln and wound Major Rathbone. As
for the dress itself, it’s tightly folded like a funeral flag, like it was
placed inside the box only yesterday by Clara Harris’s son. The blood stains
have darkened over the years. They appear almost black, rather than red or
auburn. The cloth is a fine smooth linen with satin frills that are visible
even in its folded state.

Balkis reaches in. But I grab hold of his hand.

“Not now,” I say. “Bad enough we’ve exposed these relics to
the air. But to unfold that dress out here in the elements will immediately
begin the process of its rapid disintegration. These artifacts need to be
examined in a laboratory.”

I release his hand and he pulls it back.

Closing the box, I lift it out of the casket and set it
aside. Pressing both hands against the casket, shove it into the open grave.
That’s also when Balkis presses his hands against my back and pushes me into
the hole along with it.

The back of my head bounces off the old coffin, knocking me
silly for maybe a full minute before I realize what’s happened. Another round
of cannon fire reverberates throughout the cemetery followed by a cavalcade of
small arms fire. More screams follow that. I also make out the sound of the
backhoe engine. My blurred vision focuses on something hovering over the open
grave.

It’s the backhoe bucket.

The bucket swings downwards fast, and a pile of dirt and mud
splash down over me, covering my face and body. I breathe in and choke on the
dirt. Balkis is attempting to bury me alive so he can get rid of my body of
evidence along with Clara’s empty casket. Then, he can keep the Lincoln dress
for himself. Why the hell didn’t I see this coming earlier? How stupid of me to
assume Balkis didn’t know how to operate a backhoe? What a fucking rookie
mistake turning my back on him in the first place.

I roll over, try and steal a breath of fresh air. Try and
pick myself up. But my head is still ringing and I’m too weak to lift the
weight of my upper body. I hear, and feel, the presence of the backhoe bucket
only a few feet overhead. Another load of dirt falls onto my back. The weight
of the earth causes me to drop onto the casket. For a second or two, I just lie
there, knowing that if I don’t work up the strength necessary to pull myself
out of this hole, I’m already a dead man.

But I’m so exhausted, so dizzy, that I want to lie still,
allow the dirt to bury my body. Maybe I was destined to become a permanent part
of this excavation. The true occupant of Clara Harris’s grave.

But I can’t give up. Can’t allow that to happen. Can’t allow
Balkis to get away with the dress. Get away with murder.

In my spinning brain, I see my dad. See him inside that open
casket laid up against the wall in the maintenance shed. I see him come alive,
his sewn together eyelids opening, his face regaining its original shape and
color. His mouth opening.

“Come on, Chase!”
he shouts.
“Get the hell up. Get
yourself out of that hole and put this thing right.”

The bucket is raised over the hole once more. It’s about to
drop and dump a third load onto my head. A third load which is sure to finish
me off. Pulling myself up through the weight of that much dirt will be
impossible.

“Come on, Chase!”
Dad insists.
“Save yourself
already!”

Sucking in one last breath, I assume push-up position and
lift, breaking myself out of the dirt. Bounding up onto my knees and then my
feet, I reach up, plant my hands on the ground and heave my body out of the
grave.

I shoot a glance up at the backhoe cockpit, see Balkis’ eyes
go wide as if he fully expects me to be dead already. Dead and buried.

He shifts the bucket over my prone body. The bucket falls.
But at the last split second, I roll out from under it, the heavy steel weight
pounding the earth beneath me.

More cannon fire erupts from down in the valley.

I jump up to my feet, run to the backhoe. But Balkis has
already lifted himself out of the seat. He jumps off the backhoe and begins
sprinting downhill in the direction of the battle reenactment.

True to my name, I make chase.

He’s faster than a man of that weight and physical condition
should be. Or maybe I’m still suffering from the effects of being buried alive.
As we run, the sounds of war fill the senses. Rifles firing. Cannon rounds
exploding. Sabers rattling. Men screaming as though their legs and arms are
being blasted off for real.

After a few seconds, I can make out the battlefield that
occupies the acres of unutilized Albany Rural Cemetery green field. A flat plain
that exists at the bottom of the cemetery hill that’s now filled with a blue
army colliding with a ragtag army dressed all in gray and black—the former
holding up the Union Stars and Stripes, the latter waving the Stainless Banner
of the Confederate States of America. The morning air is thick with black and
white smoke from the cannon and musket fire, the earth no doubt trembling
beneath the reenactment soldier’s booted feet.

As I gain ground on Balkis, I’m not thinking about
apprehending him in order to hand him over to Detective Miller. I’m thinking
about how absurd it is to find enjoyment in replaying a battle in which
hundreds or thousands of young men were either killed outright or horribly
wounded.

“Balkis!” I shout after a time. “You can’t escape!”

He turns.

“That dress is mine!” he shouts. “Lincoln crowned himself
the king of America and he made the Union the tool to wipe out slavery. The
blood of the tyrant is on my hands and my hands only.
Sic Semper Tyrannis
…Thus
always to tyrants.”

Oh, Christ, John Wilkes Booth is back again…

All that shouting has winded him even if we are running
downhill. He’s only about twenty feet ahead of me when he reaches the bottom
and enters into the battle, maybe hoping he can disappear in the smoke and the
confusion. But I follow anyway, knowing all it will take is one last sprint on
my part and I will be on the son of a bitch like flies on open wounds.

I’m dodging a column of Union soldiers when I catch sight of
one soldier who breaks formation, shoulders his musket and, his thickly
black-bearded face filled with a smile, plants a bead directly on Balkis.

“Bradly!” Balkis barks. Raising up his hands in surrender,
“However in the world can we work this out?”

“We don’t, cheater,” Bradly says with all the coldness of a
corpse, before triggering his weapon.

Ten minutes later I find myself shaking my head at the
battlefield scene.

It looks silly, if not absurd.

A fully modern EMT van, its LED flashers lit up, its engine
idling, its radio spewing forth tinny messages, parked in the middle of a Civil
War-era battlefield. It’s like an alien craft has descended upon the place,
breaking up the battle for good.

But the ambulance isn’t really necessary since the steel
ball that entered Balkis’ chest and exited his back blew out about a third of
his torso, killing him instantly. Making a surreal situation even more bizarre,
are the Albany PD cruisers that dot the open field. One of the vehicle’s back
seats occupied with a handcuffed Union soldier named Bradly who went just a little
too far in his zeal to recreate the Civil War battle by loading his rifle with
a real musket ball. But then, that’s not entirely accurate since the man
already confessed to Miller about his long-time affair with Professor Balkis
who recently ditched him for a far younger model. What occurred on the
battlefield had little to do with zeal, but instead premeditated murder.

Standing there looking into the car at the man’s
black-bearded face, I’m reminded of my initial thoughts regarding the lunacy of
war reenactments. As if the real thing hadn’t been looney enough. I’m also
reminded that love, no matter what form it takes, can truly stink sometimes.

A tap on the shoulder.

I turn to see the gray-haired Detective Miller standing tall
and stone-faced.

“You wanna explain to me the idiocy of all this, Baker?” he
says as if truly disturbed at men spending their weekend shooting at one
another. Even if the guns were loaded only with blanks. All but one gun that
is.

“I was just thinking the same thing, Detective.”

He clears his throat. “Ummm, you realize, I could bust you
right now for digging up that grave without an authorization.”

“Ummm,” I mumble, “you didn’t tell me not to do it either,
Detective.”

He smiles, breaking the stone hardness of his face. “Good
point. But then, if I fail to tell you not to burn down city hall, will you get
the matches out?”

“The dress and the weapons,” I say. “They’re in a safe
place?”

“Presently being delivered to university officials who will
place everything under lock and key in the university archeological museum
laboratory. They plan on inviting you to the formal unveiling as soon as they
can set a date the experts can all agree upon. That is, you’re not off
gallivanting in some remote corner of the world.”

“I don’t gallivant, Detective. I explore…You know, like
Dora
the Explorer
.”

He laughs.

“What about the Girvin’s?” I add. “What will happen to
them?”

He rolls his eyes.

“Who knows,” he says. “They’ve been delivered to the Albany
Medical Center to undergo observations in the wake of their, let’s call it,
graveside altercation. After that, I’m not sure I have a reason to hold them
other than for faking their own disappearance and/or deaths. I suppose I could
get them on assault with a deadly weapon. That is, you press charges and send a
pair of nutty ninety-year-olds to prison.”

Making a smirk, I shake my head. “You’re right, they’re old
and living on another planet. They just wanted to uncover that dress before
they died, curses be damned. When they heard I was coming to town, they cooked
up the stupid plot along with Balkis to fake their disappearance. That
Derringer and the blood was a nice touch because it looked to me like it
connected them directly to the Professor. Naturally, I assumed he was the one
responsible for their unfortunate demise.

“But when they showed up graveside pointing those old
pistols at us, I thought Balkis was off the hook
and
off his rocker. But
that was a part of their plan, too. In the end, we all wanted the dress for our
own reasons. The Girvins, because they felt they were entitled to it as owner
and caretaker of Clara Harris’s and Henry Rathbone’s Cherry Tree house…Balkis,
so that his alter ego, John Wilkes Booth, could somehow own and control the
ghost of Abraham Lincoln…and finally, myself, because the Lincoln dress is a
part of history, and therefore a part of who we are as free and equal
Americans.”

“Wow, Baker, that just about brought a tear to my eye,” he
says. “But the good folks at the Ford’s Theater National Historic site have no
idea that the Derringer and knife they have hanging on display are as fictional
as one of your novels. I’m sure they’ll be happy to obtain the real McCoy’s
along with Clara’s dress.”

“If I write a book about this adventure, I’ll dedicate it to
you since I could not have written it without you.” Then, “I trust you won’t
forget my payment.”

Out the corner of my eye, part way up the cemetery hill, I
spot the old backhoe I used for digging up Clara’s grave. There’s a flatbed
truck parked beside it. The bed contains a casket. My gut tells me that Dad has
finally found a new home.

“My heart swells with joy,” Miller says sarcastically. “I
might even read it. And yeah, just forward your bill to me care of the Albany
Police Department, South Pearl Street Division.”

The EMT van pulls away, it’s siren off, but the flashers
shining brightly even on a sun-drenched summer morning.

“Think he knew what hit him?” I say.

“I think Balkis died exactly the way he would have wanted to
go. Just like John Wilkes Booth one hundred and fifty years ago when he was
slain by a Union soldier’s round. Too bad Balkis’ bullet had to come from his
jilted lover. I guess sometimes truth is far stranger than fiction. You
couldn’t have written it any better, Baker.”

Out the corner of my eye, I catch sight of the abandoned
Confederate flag that now sits on the torn-up ground like a discarded dish
towel.

“The final shot has officially been fired in the war between
the states. Balkis is the final casualty. May the Union and its free men and
women live on forever and ever.” My eyes, shifting towards the hill. “If you’ll
excuse me, Detective, I need to bid a special person a final goodbye.”

Reaching into my pockets, I pull out Balkis’ phone and his
wad of cash.

“The professor’s personal effects,” I say, handing them over
to the detective.

“Keep the cash,” he says. “You earned it and from what I’m
detecting, you could use it. At the very least, buy yourself a steak dinner.”

“No thanks,” I say. “It’s probably cursed.”

I start walking away from the battlefield, towards the cemetery
hill.

“I’ll be in touch, Baker,” Miller says. “There’s still the
issue of those skeletons down in the Cherry Tree basement.”

Glancing at the cop over my shoulder.

“Leave them be,” I say. “Close up the opening for good. Fill
it in with concrete. Sometimes a skeleton in the closet should remain a
skeleton in the closet.”

“Maybe you’re right, Baker. Maybe, in this case, the right
thing to do is to leave history to the worms.”