“I already talked to you. Nothing’s changed.”

“Murder changes everything.”

“You got the wrong guy.”

“We want to speak with you about the death of Jack Jordan.”

“I didn’t shoot him.”

“Let’s step outside the office.” Grant motioned to the door and waited for Jackson to exit. The detectives followed him outside, actors and production crew moving about the lot. Grant said, “Over here, in the shade.”

They stepped to the shade under a lofty live oak. Detective Rollins leaned in and asked, “Where were you Sunday night ago? Around four in the morning?”

“Home in bed.”

“Anybody with you?”

“I ain’t married.”

“Got a girlfriend?”

“No.”

Dan Grant said, “Well, we know where you were two weeks before Jack Jordan’s death. You were on a secluded part of the St. Johns River, and you were watching Jordan and his film crew pull a diamond out of the river. Not only were you watching, you were watching through a riflescope. What kept you from shooting Jordan in the river? Too many people? Figured you’d better not kill them all. So you’d bide your time until there was a better opportunity.”

Silas Jackson said nothing. He ran his tongue inside one cheek, glancing at the actors standing near a craft services food truck.

Grant half smiled. “Sort of ironic — as you were pointing a rifle at Jack Jordan, the film crew on the pontoon boat captured you in its lens. And you know what gave it away? Your Confederate uniform. We had a video company enlarge a few single frames and guess what we found. We found you, Jackson.” He held up a sheet of photographs. “The uniform you were wearing when you auditioned to be part of the cast for the movie matched these shots the wardrobe department took of you.”

“Plenty of men around here, especially now, have access to a Confederate uniform.”

“But they don’t have access to your boots. Take off your left boot, Silas, and hand it to me.”

Jackson raised his right eyebrow, his face contorted, looking hard at Grant. “Why?”

“Because we said so,” snapped Detective Rollins. “You got a choice. You either do it here, or we take you downtown to check your hoof. What’s it going to be, pal?”

Jackson sat in one of three folding chairs in the shade, lifted his left boot, removed it and handed the boot to Grant. He looked at the sole and the bottom of the heel. He gave the boot back to Jackson and said, “I’m betting this chink in the heel matches one of the boot prints found on the ground where you stood by the big cypress tree that day down by the river. The same place where we found some loose change on the ground next to a musket …a .58 caliber. And that’s the rifle you used on the movie set.”

“Ya’ll boys are makin’ a big mistake.”

“You made the big mistake when you shot Jack Jordan, then you killed a history professor who was examining the old contract from the Civil War. And you took out a hotel clerk who just happened to be there when you were about to commit murder.” Grant studied Jackson’s eyes. “How the hell is an old contract, something that is useless today, worth killing to get it? Civil War’s been over for a long damn time, Silas.”

“The first war one, maybe. The second one is just beginning. You got no evidence tying me to shootin’ some history professor. And I didn’t shoot Jack Jordan or anybody else.”

Grant smiled. “I didn’t say the history professor was shot. He could have been knifed, or strangled, or pushed in front of a train. How’d you know he was shot?”

Jackson said nothing, white cottonwood blossoms floating the breeze behind him, a blue heron calling out as it flew to the top of a pine tree. He watched a mosquito alight on his forearm, sticking its snout into the center of two six-shooter pistols tattooed on his arm, fire coming out of the barrels. Jackson scrutinized the mosquito drinking, then he slapped it, blood smearing over tattoos. He wiped his palm on his jeans, then cut his eyes up to the detectives. “Ya’ll are bloodsuckers, too.”

Grant leaned in closer to Jackson and said, “I don’t believe you give a crap about some dusty Civil War contract. I believe you stole the diamond. It’s the one thing that can finance your little army and your big cause. Or maybe trade it for arms. Where’s the diamond?”

“I didn’t steal it. But if I had, I’d damn sure hock it to finance a cause that’s spelled out in the U.S. Constitution. Maybe you ought to read it sometime.”

Grant pointed to a twenty-year-old green Ford pickup truck parked near a semi-truck loaded with production lights and equipment. “That Ford 150 yours?”

“Yeah.”

Grant looked at Rollins. “Tell him what you have, Larry.”

Detective Rollins nodded. “We have video of your truck rolling through a red light at the intersection of Seaside and Atlantic Avenue at 4:17 in the morning Ike Kirby was killed. The Hampton Inn is less than a half-mile away from that intersection. Wanna tell us what you were doing at that location at that time?”

“No law, at least not yet, against a morning drive.”

“But there is a law against murder.”

“You’re trying to railroad this shit on me because of all the publicity. The government’s most likely behind this bullshit game. I want a lawyer.”

“You’ll get one,” said Detective Rollins. “The very best legal minds Confederate money can buy.”

O’Brien was driving to Laura Jordan’s home when he received the call. He looked at Max, her head out the open window on the passenger side of the Jeep. She snorted and wagged her tail as O’Brien pulled in behind a dozen cars parked in front of the home, the smell of a barbecue in the air. It was Paula’s fifth Birthday, and Laura had invited friends and family to her home to help make the little girl’s birthday as customary and special as possible.

“Looks like we got the perp,” Detective Dan Grant began. He told O’Brien about the questioning of Silas Jackson and added, “He didn’t bat an eye when we informed Jackson it was him on the video holding a rifle and aiming it at a man who was shot a few weeks later.”

“Did you find the Civil War contract or the diamond?”

“Not yet. We’ve resorted to satellite images to try to locate his trailer somewhere out in the national forest. We’ll find it. There was nothing in his truck.”

“You think Jackson killed Ike Kirby and the hotel clerk?”

“Probably. We have traffic video of him easing through a red light in the wee hours of the morning not far from where the professor and clerk were killed. That’s enough to keep Jackson here for rounds of questioning. He’s trying to lawyer up. I don’t think he has the money. He’s nothing more than a radical white supremacist. A hate monger. He’s simply an internal terrorist living a Gone with the Wind warped fantasy.”

“Thanks for letting me know you picked him up.”

“Professional courtesy. You tipped us off to that stuff under the cypress tree near the river, including Jackson on the video. We missed seeing him first time the video was viewed. It was definitely Jackson standing there…right down to the small crack on the heel of his left Civil-War-era boot. Later, Sean.”

O’Brien followed Max as she trotted from the street up to the house, the smell of barbecue chicken in the air, laughter from children playing in the back yard. Laura greeted O’Brien at the door and said, “Thank you for coming. I thought about cancelling the birthday party for Paula, considering all that’s happened, but right now I think it’s the best thing I can do for her. I’m delighted you could bring your dog. My grandmother had a dachshund. I pictured you with something like a German shepherd.”

“Max is nothing like a German shepherd. She’s…she’s just Max. All ten pounds of swagger and personality. A few months before my wife, Sherrie, died, she found Max. After Sherrie passed, Max and I sort of found each other.”