Darkest Journey (Krewe of Hunters #20)(63)
“It definitely wasn’t the same man he’d argued with earlier. I wasn’t out on the deck at the time, but we all heard about it. No, it wasn’t the same man he’d argued with before the reenactment.”
“How can you be so sure when you didn’t witness either argument?” Ethan asked.
“Because I was on deck for the reenactment, and when it ended the other man had to leave right away. People were talking about the argument, and someone pointed him out. Later I saw him saying goodbye to people. You can ask Jonathan Moreau and Captain Banks, because he talked to both of them before he left. Our entertainment director, Ricky Simpson, said the guy had put off some kind of business to be there for the event and had to leave right away to take care of it. So it couldn’t have been him. He was gone.”
“But the other reenactors were still around, right?” Ethan asked.
“Yes. Most of them, anyway. I can’t swear they all hung around.”
“If I showed you pictures of them, do you think you could tell us who stuck around?”
Amerind sighed. “I could try. A lot of them had beards and mustaches I don’t think belonged to them. Naturally, that is. Beards may be in these days, but not with the sideburns a lot of them had. One of the women was still here, too.”
“Pretty, blonde, petite?” Charlie asked.
“Yes! She played a nurse.”
“Jennie McPherson,” Charlie said. She knew, of course, that Jennie had been involved in the reenactment.
“I don’t know her name,” Amerind said. “But if you have pictures, I’m happy to look at them and try to identify those who were still aboard, if you think it would help.”
“Thank you. I’ll drop by the infirmary with the pictures later,” Ethan said.
“Just let us know when you’ll be in,” Thor added politely.
“I’m in any time someone needs me. I have a small cabin behind the infirmary. There’s a red bell, so if one of the nurses isn’t on duty, just ring it. As it happens, I should be in now. We’re out on the water. Anyone prone to seasickness will be turning green soon. They call her the Mighty Mississippi for a reason. And this old girl can rock and roll quite a bit. Excuse me, gentlemen. Ladies.”
With a broad smile, he left them.
“So Corley argued with someone else,” Thor said thoughtfully, looking at Ethan.
“A man, so it can’t have been Jennie. But she could’ve been somewhere nearby. I mean, we’ve heard about a couple. Jennie’s the makeup artist on our film,” Charlie explained quickly to Thor. “Not that she could kill anyone anyway. She’s as tiny as a flea.”
“It does seem unlikely that she shoved a bayonet into anyone,” Ethan admitted.
“And it wasn’t my father,” Charlie said, looking him straight in the eye. “Dr. Amerind knows my father, so he would have recognized his voice.”
Charlie was right, though; knowing Jonathan, Ethan had never suspected him, even when circumstantial evidence had pointed in his direction.
Even so, Ethan didn’t think Charlie was going to be happy anyway once they finally discovered the truth.
They had grown up in a small world, and he was very afraid that someone in that small world would prove to be their killer.
*
The Journey was beautiful. There was something truly magical about taking a riverboat up the Mississippi, Charlie thought. The coastline filled with views of bayou country, sweeping landscapes, homes large and small, high bluffs and low shores, was stunning. The tremendous power of the river made itself felt beneath them and seemed to hum in time to the Journey’s engines.
The main dining room didn’t open until eleven, for lunch, and then it closed at three before opening again at five for dinner. Breakfast was available in-room or could be enjoyed on the Sun Deck.
At four thirty the Southern Belles were in the dining room, getting ready for the diners who’d chosen the early seating.
They had enough material to cover seven nights with very little repetition, since they would be playing to the same diners every night, though when they were in port many of the passengers would choose to dine on shore. By land it was just a little over two hundred miles from New Orleans to Vicksburg, the farthest point in their journey, so they spent a fair amount of time in each port. But the Eagle View was open every night, since some passengers preferred to dine aboard ship, so there was entertainment every night, too.
The first sitting brought in most of the older diners and families, which included children of varying ages. Jonathan had alerted them to the age range before they started and supplied them with a number of Civil War–era toys, such as cup-and-ball games—getting the damned ball in the cup was a lot harder than it looked, Charlie had discovered—metal “detangle” puzzles, cloth dolls, tin soldiers and more. As Jonathan helped them prepare, Charlie found her heart swelling with love for her father.
“I’ll be here,” he promised them. “Shout if you need help. But you won’t.”
They opened with one of their medleys—the only songs they would repeat to open their show each night. After three songs, Charlie spoke, explaining the importance of the Mississippi River during the war. “Counting everything from major battles to skirmishes to small confrontations, there were nearly ten thousand engagements during the four years of the war. The loss of life on the battlefield was only a part of the tragedy our greatest internal conflict created. There was pain on the home front, as well,” Charlie said, introducing their next song. “Sometimes brother was forced to fight against brother when they chose to enlist on different sides.” While most of their songs were from the period, one had been written by Irving Gordon in the twentieth century. “Two Brothers,” often known as “One Wore Blue and One Wore Gray,” was heartbreakingly beautiful and often thought to have been taken from an old folk song.