I wondered if Callendar was watching this little drama through one of the many curtained windows above the pillars. Then the sheriff got in and shut his door. He turned around in his seat, got himself all glary-eyed, and started yelling at me, letting go with all sorts of fulminations about not trying to escape, how I'd be shot down like a dog, and more ranting along those lines. In the midst of all the noise, to which Hester, watching from the front porch, was listening with fiery-eyed approval, the cuff key came flipping between the seats and landed in my lap. Then we drove off down the driveway.
And I thought I did good Kabuki.
"She had me worried back there for a moment," I said as I got the cuffs off. He turned right onto the two-lane, drove a half mile to one of the farm roads, and then turned left into one of the Glory's End side roads.
"Had to get your interfering ass out of there," he said. "I believe she was serious about taking you downstairs to the basement and doing a Romanov on you. You think he's there?"
"Valeria protested like it was all a figment of my imagination, but Hester went bipolar when I mentioned the will. If he's not there now, he has been."
"Okay," he said. "I guess you've lit the fuse. Now let's go see if we can talk to Brother Cubby."
In the event, Cubby was still in ICU and not available for questioning. Sheriff Walker sat down with Patience and explained the situation while I, her husband's shooter, made myself scarce. He did know them both and confined the discussion to the problem at hand, finessing the real reason why the Lees had been able to force him to help our mystery man. He also set up security precautions in the hospital until we knew we had our guy, because Callendar had threatened both of them. I called Tony to come pick me up at the county hospital, and the sheriff went back to his office. He was going to set up surveillance on the ruined plantation house and have one police boat with night-vision gear out in the river after dark in the vicinity downstream of the railroad bridge. I was to call in at six to brief them on the surveillance system we had set up and to discuss our movements for the night.
Back at the cottage, Pardee was wiring in a single video camera to put surveillance of the lawns between the big house and the road over the millpond dam. The house at Glory's End had cameras set up to cover the back barns, the smokehouse, the springhouse, and the kitchen access to the basement. The central monitor would be set up in the cottage, where Pardee would be on watch tonight. He'd also replaced the batteries on the cell net transponder so we would have our private cell phone network back up. Ms. Hester hadn't actually evicted me yet. She'd need the sheriff to do that in any formal proceedings, and that wasn't going to happen tonight, if ever.
Our plan was based on some assumptions, as most plans are. Hester Lee knew that I was onto the will scam. She was also aware that I, at least, believed she had been helping Callendar do his thing in the area, including gunning down the dog trainer across the way. That would make her an accessory to a homicide. We couldn't prove that yet, nor did the sheriff have sufficient grounds for a search warrant at Laurel Grove, but if we could spook Callendar into moving, we had a shot at catching him. He'd been using two bases that we knew of, but he might have another, like that mythical coal mine.
I called Whatley Lee and asked how things were going with the title search. Slowly, he reported. There were many associated files and books he had to explore to cover the badly confused era right after the war. I decided to take a chance. I asked him about the will, describing the circumstances as best I knew them. I halfway expected him to laugh and say forget about it, but he didn't.
"It would depend," he said. I groaned mentally; my lawyer friends were always saying that.
"There are state and federal reconstruction laws that may have a bearing on such a document, assuming it exists and the Lees can prove the provenance. Many of the ante bellum plantations ultimately were abandoned by their owners because they either no longer had the wherewithal to work them, or because the bulk of the men had been lost in the War. Women, as you know, rarely owned land in those days."
"So if this fella, Callendar, could prove that his ancestor, Abigail, actually owned the land, then he'd have a claim?"
"In my opinion, he would have a basis for bringing an action. Whether or not he could prevail is another issue, but it would make your purchase of the land moot for as long as it was in court."
"What would that be worth to the Lees?" I asked.
"In monetary terms? You yourself have defined that, Mr. Richter."
So I had.
"For that family, Mister Richter," he said, "Control of Glory's End might mean more to them than the monetary value. At least that's my general impression."
"Are you related to them, Whatley?"
"Me? No, sir. My family is descended from the Virginia Lees." His tone of voice made it clear that his ancestry was far superior to the strange crew out there at Laurel Grove. I asked him to keep plugging and hung up.
Lawyer Lee might be onto something with his comment about the money. Hester and company didn't appear to be suffering from a case of genteel poverty. Cubby seemed to think that the name engraved into the kitchen mantel had a bearing on why the Laurel Grove Lees had such an abiding interest in Glory's End.
We sent Tony into town to get some takeout while Pardee and I set about preparing our equipment for the evening's festivities. I tried not to think about the possibility that Callendar had already flown the coop. It would depend on whether or not he knew about Cubby's revelations to me. If he and Hester were in cahoots, and he was there, then she'd probably told him what I'd said about the will. On the other hand, if he ran, then they couldn't put the alleged will in play. Neither Hester nor Callendar seemed shy about removing obstacles. If I wouldn't back out gracefully in deference to my social betters, then I could join the dog trainer woman in the cold, cold ground, just like those contemptible train guards buried up on the hill.
There'd been no sign of anyone leaving or entering Laurel Grove by the time the sheriff checked in with us. He had a surveillance team watching the place across the river, and I described for him the coverage of our video cameras. He told us he was on his way to execute the second phase of our plan, namely to inform Ms. Hester that a judge in town had forced him to release the notorious blackguard Cameron Richter for lack of evidence of any crimes committed. He would amplify that by telling her he had transported said Mr. Richter back to Glory's End, where he had said he was going to conduct a search for something he believed was secreted in or around the house. Mr. Richter had been ordered to stay away from the Lee ladies at Laurel Grove.
"Now you realize," he said, "that none of that makes a whole lot of sense if they think it through."
"Yeah, but consider the context," I said. "That old lady is living somewhere back in the past, and now I've come on the scene and threatened their noble existence."
"I wish we knew what it is she's so exercised about," he said. "Anyway, I'm about to turn into the drive. When we're done here, we'll drive our way over to that quarry area and then walk back to the big house."
"We?"
"Yeah, I brought me along a little help. Case someone gets uppity."
Willard.
We watched the driveway to the big house up the hill light up with the sheriff's headlights. The windows in the mansion were glowing with their usual candlelight, but the big front portico was completely dark. As I watched, the front door opened as the sheriff was coming up the stairs, revealing a figure in the doorway carrying a small hurricane lamp. Then the door closed. I could see Willard sitting in the right front seat; he looked like a tree in there.