Burning with curiosity, I double-checked the security system, made myself a cup of tea, and took everything to my study. After collecting notebook and pen, I opened the journal, removed and upended an envelope I found stuck between the pages.
Neatly trimmed clippings fluttered to my desk, some without identification, others from the Charlotte Observer, the Raleigh News & Observer, the Winston-Salem Journal, the Asheville Citizen-Times,also known as “the Voice of the Mountains,” and the Charleston Post and Courier. Most were obituaries. A few were feature stories. Each reported the death of a prominent man.
The poet Kendall Rollins succumbed to leukemia on May 12, 1986. Among those surviving Rollins was his son, Paul Hardin Rollins.
The small hairs on my neck reached for the ceiling. P. H. Rollins was on the list of H&F officers. I made note.
Roger Lee Fairley died when his small plane went down in Alabama eight months back. O.K., that's what Mrs. Veckhoff said. I jotted the name and date. February 13.
The oldest item described the 1959 highway accident that killed Anthony Allen Birkby.
The other names meant nothing. I added them to my list, along with their dates of death, laid the clippings aside, and turned to the diary.
The first entry was made on June 17, 1935, the last in November 2000. Flipping through the pages, I could see that the handwriting changed several times, suggesting multiple authors. The final three decades were chronicled in a taut, cramped script almost too small to read.
Martin Patrick Veckhoff was tightly wrapped, indeed, I thought, returning to the first page. For the next two hours I plowed through faded script, now and then glancing at my watch, distracted by thoughts of Lucy Crowe.
The journal contained not a single proper name. Codes or nick-names were used throughout. Omega. Ilus. Khaffre. Chac. Itzmana.
I recognized an Egyptian pharaoh here, a Greek letter there. Some handles sounded vaguely familiar, others not at all.
There were financial accounts: money in, money out. Repairs. Purchases. Awards. Demerits. There were descriptions of events. A dinner. A business meeting. A literary discussion.
Beginning in the forties another type of entry began to appear. Lists of code names, followed by sets of strange symbols. I flipped through several. The same players reappeared year after year, then disappeared, never to be seen again. When one went out, a new one came in.
I counted. There were never more than eighteen names on any of these rosters.
When I finally leaned back, my tea was cold, and my neck felt as though it had been hung from a line and allowed to dry in the wind. Birdie was asleep on the love seat.
“All right. Let's go at it the other way round.”
The cat stretched but didn't open an eye.
Using the dates I'd taken from Mrs. Veckhoff 's clippings, I fast-forwarded through the journal. A list of code names was entered four days after Birkby's car crash. Sinuhe appeared for the first time, but Omega was missing. I scanned subsequent lists. Omega was never mentioned again.
Had Anthony Birkby been Omega?
Using this hypothesis, I flashed ahead to 1986.
Within days of Kendall Rollins's death, a list appeared. Mani replaced Piankhy.
Heart beating slightly faster, I continued with the clipping dates.
John Morgan died in 1972. Three days later, a list. Arrigatore checked in. Itzmana vanished.
William Glenn Sherman died in 1979. Five days later Veckhoff recorded a list. Ometeotl debuted. Rho was history.
Every death notice clipped by Mrs. Veckhoff was followed within days by a code name list. In each instance, a regular disappeared, and a newcomer joined the roster. Matching clippings with journal entries, I correlated code names with real names for everyone dead since 1959.
A. A. Birkby: Omega; John Morgan: Itzmana; William Glenn Sherman: Rho; Kendall Rollins: Piankhy.
“But what about the early years?”
Bird had no idea.
“O.K., back the other way.”
I flipped to a clean page in my notebook. Every time an entry showed the replacement of one code name with another, I noted the date. It didn't take long.
In 1943, Ilus was replaced by Omega. Could that have been the year Birkby joined H&F?
In 1949, Narmer took over for Khaffre.
Pharaoh in, pharaoh out. Was it some sort of Masonic group?
I moved forward, added the year for each list.
Nineteen fifty-nine, 1972, 1979, 1986.
I stared at the years. Then I flew to my briefcase, pulled out other notes, and checked.
“Sonofabitch!”
I looked at my watch: 3:20 A.M. Where the hell was Lucy Crowe?
To say I rested poorly would be like saying Quasimodo had a bad back. I tossed and turned, hovering on the edge but never moving into real sleep.
When the phone rang I was already up, sorting laundry, sweeping the patio, snipping dead leaves, drinking cup after cup of coffee.
“Did you get it?” I almost shrieked.
“Repeat the punch line.”
“I can't tie up the line, Pete.”
“You have call waiting.”
“Why are you phoning at seven in the morning?”
“I have to return to Indiana to reinterview Itchy and Scratchy.”
It took me a moment to connect.
“The Bobbsey twins?”
“I've downgraded them. I'm calling to tell you that Boyd will be furloughed to the Granbar Kennel.”
“What? The towels were too rough here?”
“He didn't want to impose.”
“Isn't Granbar awfully expensive?”
“Knowing I'm in Big Law, Boyd has come to expect a certain lifestyle.”
“I could work him in.”
“You like that dog,” he wheedled.
“That dog is a moron. But there's no reason to lay out bucks when I'm still stuck with five pounds of Alpo.”
“The Granbar staff will be crushed.”
“They'll work through it.”
“I'll bring him by in an hour.”
I was spray-cleaning the inside of the trash can when the phone rang again. Lucy Crowe's voice was taut with frustration.
“It's still no go with the magistrate. I don't get it. Frank's usually reasonable, but he got so angry this morning I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I backed off because I was afraid I'd kill the weasel.”
I told her what I'd found in the Veckhoff diary.
“Can you check on MPs from seventy-two and seventy-nine?”
“Yeah.”
A long silence rolled down from the highlands. Finally, “I noticed a metal bar when we were out at that place, lying in the dirt by the front porch.”
“Oh?” My burglary tool.
Another pause.
“If wreckage is discovered on property within reasonable proximity of an airplane crash, my office has jurisdiction during the period of active recovery.”
“I see.”
“Only for matters relating directly to the crash. To check for survivors who might have crawled off, for example. Maybe died under the house.”
“Or inside the courtyard.”
“Anything suspicious found while inside, I'd need a regular warrant.”
“Of course.”
“There are still two passengers unaccounted for.”
“Yes.”
“Did that bar look like wreckage to you?”
“Could have been a piece from the cabin floor.”
“That was my impression. Guess I'd better take a look.”
“I can be there by two.”
“I'll wait.”
By three, Boyd and I were in the backseat of a Jeep, Crowe at the wheel, a deputy riding shotgun. Two others were behind us in a second vehicle.
The chow was as pumped as I was, though for different reasons. He rode with his head out the window, nose twisting like a weather vane in a tropical storm. Now and then I'd push down on his haunches. He'd sit, rise immediately.
The radio sputtered as we raced along the county road. Passing the Alarka Fire Department, I noted that only one reefer truck and a few cars were parked in the lot. A Bryson City cruiser guarded the entrance, its driver bent over a magazine spread across the steering wheel.