But all that was nothing as compared with the upturned crosses in the barn house. They had really bothered the shit out of him and he was struggling to understand why. After all, he was Jewish, his mother belonging to a tiny group of Somalis who had ended up in Mobile. His father had been a drifter, a bluesman who showed up every few months to yell at them and drink away his meager earnings from the road. He’d been a Southern Baptist and he wasn’t marrying no Jew woman, not that his mother wanted a ring. She was the mystical type and she’d instilled in her son a high regard for things with symbolic value. He wasn’t the kind of Jew that went to synagogue often, but he stood up for his religion when he had to-often enough when he was a kid and before he got his stripes. He had one big problem. Because he was both black and a Jew, he hated racists twice as much as other people. That made him the perfect person to take part in the hunt for Hitler’s Hitman and the Nazi piece of shit who had messed with Matt’s brain, even if Matt and the cold-eyed FBI man didn’t know it-or maybe Sebastian had read his service file.
Being Jewish also made him careful. His mother had taught him that. He never admitted to his faith unless it was necessary. And he never gave out his real name, which was a lot weirder than Quincy Jerome. He’d cobbled that together from a high-school football player and the maiden name of Winston Churchill’s mother, a woman his mother admired for her spirit. The downside of his background was that he knew more than was healthy about evil-and those upturned crosses had breathed malevolence to him even before the human remains had turned up.
‘How about this?’ Quincy heard Matt Wells say. ‘It’s not a person’s name, it’s a place name.’
That prompted a clatter of fingertips on keyboards.
Eighteen
There wasn’t anywhere called Fred Warren in the U.S. Or Warren Fred. There were, however, numerous places named Warren and even a few named Fred. The clincher was the number.
Major Hexton wondered if 1943 referred to a road. It only took a few seconds for him to find a farm to market road in Texas. It ran between two towns called Fred and Warren, about seventy miles northeast of Houston.
‘You’re kidding,’ said Quincy Jerome.
I pointed to the map that had appeared on Hexton’s laptop. ‘In the Big Thicket National Preserve.’
‘The Big Thicket?’ Peter Sebastian repeated. ‘What exactly is that?’
‘I know,’ Quincy said, raising his hand. ‘We went on a school trip. It’s part of the Piney Woods that take up a lot of East Texas. As far as I remember, the Big Thicket’s about 80,000 acres. It’s got everything a nature lover could want-wetlands, pine uplands, sandy lands. There are carnivorous plants, hickory, tupelo and all kinds of animals-deer, bobcats, armadillos, alligators, some real nasty hogs…’
‘Oh, great,’ I said. ‘Southern Gothic in spades.’
Quincy grinned. ‘You got that right, my man. Some of the locals are straight outta Deliverance.’
‘It gets better by the minute,’ I said.
Sebastian dropped his pen onto the yellow pad in front of him. ‘Obviously because the Antichurch has got some kind of presence there.’ Major Hexton kept his eyes down, no doubt hoping that the cult had a minimal following in Maine. Nothing attracts undesired attention like murderous Satanists.
‘Well,’ I began, ‘where the Antichurch goes…’
‘Heinz Rothmann and his acolytes are bound to follow,’ Arthur Bimsdale completed. ‘It’s pretty thin.’
‘You got a better idea?’ Sebastian demanded. ‘I didn’t think so. Get on to the field office in Houston and find out about the area. In particular, if anything unusual there has attracted their attention of late.’
Bimsdale went out, his cheeks red. Sebastian might have been a good investigator, but his management sucked.
The major stood up. ‘I’m going to see how things are progressing,’ he said, then left at speed. He didn’t want the senior FBI man to lay into him.
That left the three of us.
I glanced at Quincy. ‘Fancy a trip to Texas?’
‘Why not? It isn’t too hot at this time of year. Still need your bug spray though, especially in those woods.’
‘If I could interrupt your vacation planning,’ Sebastian put in, ‘nobody’s going anywhere without my sayso.’
I gave him a tight smile. ‘To coin a phrase, have you got a better idea? I take it there still haven’t been any sightings of Nora Jacobsen.’
He glanced at his laptop, then shook his head.
‘No more Hitler’s Hitman killings?’
Another shake, this one abrupt.
‘You know the state police here aren’t going to find anything.’
This time he reacted with words. ‘Let’s wait and see what the major comes back with. In the meantime, what exactly do you two superheroes think you’re going to do down in Texas? For all you know, Nora Jacobsen might have a boy toy in the Big Thicket.’
‘And I might be Jimi Hendrix’s long lost twin brother,’ I said, raising a smile from Quincy. ‘Come on, Peter, this is all we’ve got.’
Mary Upson looked up as Matt came back into the interview room. Although the rings beneath his eyes were still pronounced, there was a glint in them that hadn’t been there before.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
He sat down opposite her. ‘We think we know what your mother was saying. Was she planning a trip?’
‘Can’t you leave my mother alone?’
‘Just answer the question, Mary.’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact she was. On Friday. She has a friend in Indianapolis. She goes about this time every year.’
‘Did you see any tickets?’
‘What? No…’
‘Has she seemed different to you lately?’
Mary frowned. ‘If you must know, yes, she has. Ever since we were dragged over the coals by the FBI, she’s kept herself even more to herself. She was never very open, but she’s gotten more secretive. I think she’s going senile. That’s why I gave up my job and moved back down here with her.’
‘And you?’ Matt asked, his tone more tender.
She ran her tongue over her lips. ‘Oh, I’m all right. Out of work, bored, unhappy in love…’
He reached across and took her hand. ‘You’ll be okay.’
‘Will I? Will you, Matt? I’m so sorry about your…your…child. It must be awful.’ She paused. ‘I could help.’
He tugged his hand away. ‘No, you couldn’t,’ he said, in little more than a whisper. ‘Nobody can.’
Mary Upson watched as he left the room. She had never seen anyone bearing such a weight. His shoulders were sloped and it seemed to take a great effort for him just to move his body. They could have been so good together, but fate had driven them apart. She would happily have given him a child, she still could-if only he would look at her like a woman rather than a pawn in the mad game he was playing.
‘All right,’ Peter Sebastian said, running a hand over his unwashed hair, ‘let’s go through this again.’
I was at the table with him, Arthur Bimsdale and Quincy Jerome.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Mary Upson has confirmed that there’s some kind of Antichurch gathering at this time of year.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Bimsdale said, peering at his notes. ‘That’s not how you reported it. She said that her mother visited a friend in Indianapolis every December.’
‘Use your imagination, Arthur,’ I said. ‘That’s what she told Mary. I’m willing to bet your salary several times over that the old woman hasn’t got any friends except Antichurch members.’