A different nurse appeared. The room became an angel-free zone that resounded with the words "absolutely not," but the sheriff was a big guy and I was more than just a little determined. Once I swung my legs out from under the covers, however, I realized that Nurse Ratched might have a point. The room moved around for a minute, and I found out that there is a limit to what painkillers can do for you. Then she gave me one of those I-told-you-so looks, and I stood up. Fortunately the sheriff caught me before I fell right on my keester.
"Get a chair," he told the nurse.
"I don't work for you," she retorted.
"Get a fucking chair and do it now!" he thundered, and she just about flew out of the room. A moment later, magically, there was a wheelchair. I tried to sit down with as much dignity as I could muster and damned near missed the chair entirely. That had been some really spiffy lightning. God's halo indeed.
The sheriff pushed me down the hallway while rolling the IV stand alongside. "You're good at this," I said.
"Had lots of practice," he mumbled, and then I remembered what had happened to his wife. Good going, dipshit, I told myself.
He rolled me and my IV stand into another room, and there was Carol Pollard, or at least her face. Her very white face. The rest of her looked much diminished under the covers. My heart jumped a little when I saw her. Then she opened her eyes.
"Hey," I said, taking refuge in the universal southern greeting.
"Well, hello, handsome," she said. "Who might you be?"
The next day they discharged me into the custody of my loyal buddies from Hide and Seek Investigations. Once outside in the sunlight they proposed that I let them check me into a really nice hotel down in Triboro, where they would ensure that I had the best of care. I told them I wanted to go back out to Glory's End.
"You're shitting me, right?" Tony said. "You're not still going through with that, are you?"
"I am."
"Take him back inside," Horace said. "He's still out of it."
"What happened to the mutts?" I asked.
There was some hemming and hawing, and then Pardee said that they had a little surprise for me.
"Where is it?"
"Glory's End," they said in unison. I was glad to see that they knew defeat when it looked them in the eye.
"What is this surprise-they're not hurt, are they?" I couldn't remember why I thought they might be hurt.
"They're okay," Horace said, "and you like German dogs, right?"
"They're German shepherds, last time I checked."
"Great," he said. "Let's roll."
The surprise was real when we got to the house. The sheriff was there, along with the county animal control lady. Sitting on the front lawn were five dogs instead of three. Two shepherds flanking two Dobes, and then Kitty sitting out in front of the pack in the place of boss dog. Frick and Kitty were sporting the stains of veterinary antiseptic spray, as were the two Dobes. It was obvious, however, that they were now all the best of friends. Peace in the valley.
"I give up," I said from the passenger seat in Tony's ride. "How the hell did this happen?"
"The cops down at the river that night were focused on getting you and Carol out of the storm. These guys showed up here the next morning when Horace came to get all the video gear."
"Last I heard it was a war to the death out there," I said.
"Well, they've all got holes in 'em, but there they are. They've been to the vet."
I knew what had happened. It had been war to the death until that lightning bolt, and then instinct had taken over and all four of them had decided to depart the county. My guys came back to get me, and the Dobes had probably discovered their human's remains out there on the track bed. No more orders, no more fight. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
"The question is," the sheriff said, walking up with his animal control deputy, "whether you want them or you want us to take them."
"They seem to have joined forces," I said. The animal control deputy looked disappointed.
"I assume that little formation indicates the pecking order?" he asked.
I nodded. "I'll try it," I said, getting out of the car. "As long as they're not still mad."
My guys were all over me, even Frack, who got knocked down a couple of times in the commotion. The Dobes never moved. I finally put my shepherds on a down and then walked over to the Dobermans. They were both impressively muscled females, and thankfully, they were immediately submissive. We made our introductions, and then the sheriff said we needed to talk.
I yelled, "Find it!" at the shepherds, who took off in all directions, followed by the Dobermans. It would take them a while to realize that they didn't know what they were looking for.
We settled into the porch chairs while all the mutts spiraled around the yard looking for God knows what and the squirrels worried. There were some cardboard boxes with the electronics gear piled to one side, but otherwise the house looked just about the same.
"So," I said. "Does anyone know what this was all about?"
The sheriff put up a hand. "I conducted an extensive interview with Hester and Valeria Lee," he said. "Had the ADA with me, and they had a lawyer from Chapel Hill with them."
"Mexican standoff?"
"No, actually. Once I laid out the details of what had happened that night, Valeria broke down, and Hester just seemed to melt into the floor like that wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. It seems that this was really all about two important secrets."
"I'm all ears," I said, even though I was still having trouble hearing anyone over the ringing.
"The first was that the original Callendar Lee's son was in fact the inside man of the train robbery that night. He'd been a clerk in the Richmond treasury, and he'd learned something important about that train. Which brings us to the second secret."
"Gold," I said.
"No," the Sheriff said. "Something actually more useful. Bearer bonds."
"What's a bearer bond?" Tony asked. Horace put a hand up; he was the financial guru at H amp;S.
"A piece of paper," he said, "usually in certificate form, that tells any bank to pay the bearer, hence the name, the sum of money or, commonly, stock, denominated on the face of the bond."
"Correct," said the sheriff. "It seems that in the final year or so of the Confederacy, Jeff Davis's secretary of the treasury was concerned about the safety of their gold hoard. He made an arrangement with the companies who bought whatever cotton could be smuggled out across the blockade to pay for it in bearer bonds on the Bank of England. That way, if they ever had to move the capital, which became increasingly likely once U. S. Grant started down through Virginia, a trunk full of bonds was a whole lot simpler than several tons of gold bars."
"The bonds were on that train?"
"Apparently so," he said. "Buried among all the government documents were one or two trunks of bearer bonds."
"And Callendar Jr., the clerk, knew which ones they were," I said.
"That's what she told us. There was also some gold, but not very much. The original Callendar Lee hired the roughnecks to come in and hold up the train. They got the gold. They were never told about the bonds."
"So the Lees got the bonds."
"What good were they?" Tony asked. "The government was defeated."
"That's the beauty and, of course, the vulnerability of bearer bonds. They might have been issued to the Confederate government, but a bearer bond doesn't say anything about who owns it. The bearer, the guy who has the piece of paper in his hot little hands, he owns it. If he or she shows up at the Bank of England's teller window and requests payment, he or she gets the money. Which is what the Lees did for the next several decades."
"Wow."
"That's why they became illegal in most states here," Horace said. "Especially once the states started imposing income taxes. A bearer bond was a great way to make money with no paper trail whatsoever."