Black River

TWENTY-EIGHT

Laura refilled the coffee cups and returned to the couch. She put the cotton gloves back on and lifted the first document, setting it aside, and then holding the second page to read. “This isn’t part of the contract. It’s a letter written by a Civil War soldier — Henry — to his wife. Jack and I thought the wife might have been the woman in the painting. So maybe it’s the connection you’re looking for, too.”

“Was there an addressed envelope in any of the magazines, or did you only find the letter and that contract?” O’Brien asked.

“Just the pages you see here. Anyway, he apparently wrote this and sent the letter and this unknown Civil War contract to his wife when he was about to go into battle again. Here’s what he wrote to her: ‘My dearest Angelina…I miss your sweet smile more than I can ever convey here with pen and paper. During short times away from battle, I remove your photograph from my rucksack just to gaze at your beauty. I want you to know how much I miss you, and how I long to return to your arms, to hold you like we had no promise of tomorrow. That’s what this war does, it promises nothing but the separation and loss of families. The more I am out here, away from you, the more I see the ugliness of war. However, now I have no choices except to follow my fate. Urgent military matters called President Davis away from our appointed rendezvous three times, thus I have had to carry the document with my person far too long. I fear the document will be discovered upon my capture or death by the Union forces. I feel the CSA can no longer sustain any hope. Therefore, I have sealed it in the envelope and asked a kindhearted gentlemen farmer I met to place it in the post. Finally, as I look at your beautiful photograph near the river, close to where the strong box was lost, I remember how we also lost our dear friend, William, in death that horrible night. Considering the circumstances and the ravages and downward spiral of the CSA in this dreadful war, the diamond from the Crown Jewels must be returned to England, if possible. William sacrificed his life trying to bring it ashore. In his name, and following the terms of the agreement between the CSA and England, the diamond must be returned. The strongbox is probably resting in the mud on the belly of the river, not far from where the photograph of you was taken. There is a handle on the strongbox. Perhaps your brother, or your father, using a grappling hook, could search for the box, bring it to the surface, and then return it to Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. God willing, I shall one day come back to your loving arms to restart our lives together. I miss and love you with all my heart. My life and love, always and forever, I dedicate to you. Your loving husband, Henry.’

Laura looked up from the letter to O’Brien, her eyes watering. “The first time I read that I cried. And now I’m doing it again. Maybe the man who wrote this, Henry, is the puzzle piece you’re looking for. I’m sorry, but I so miss Jack.” She reached for a box of tissues on the end table, removing one and drying her eyes.

“Please, don’t apologize. I can’t imagine the pain that you’re going through. That letter did answer the question. So one of the Crown Jewels, on loan from England to the Confederacy, was lost in the river. Maybe not far from where the woman in the photo, or in the painting, was standing. Is that where your husband located it?”

“Yes. Jack was about half way done with his documentary on how the CSA Secretary of War, John Breckinridge, managed to escape, using three boats to sail from Florida to Cuba to England. Jack thought Breckinridge knew about the diamond, but it wasn’t part of the lost Confederate gold from the treasury. That diamond, called the Koh-i-Noor, in the contract, has lots of political history and turmoil behind it. We learned that, at one time, the country of India owned it. Apparently, it had belonged to many dynasties over the years. In 1850, about ten years before the Civil War, the diamond was taken, some argue stolen, from the Shik Empire by the British East Indian Company and secretly ushered from India to Britain where it was grouped in with the rest of the British Crown Jewels. The diamond became the property of the monarch, which, at that time, was headed by Queen Victoria.”

O’Brien finished his coffee. “Do you think the finding of this contract and the connection of the letter to the diamond is the reason your husband may have been murdered?”

“Yes. Jack was a diver, and a darned good one. He got some of his friends, most of them re-enactors, and they used pontoon boats and underwater cameras to search the bottom of the St. Johns River. They weren’t sure where the spot was — the exact place where the woman stood in the painting, but they searched — made quick dives to avoid attracting alligators. And they did it every Saturday morning for more than two months. Most of the search area was near where Dunn’s Creek flows into the river. Finally, Jack and his best friend, Cory Nelson, pulled the strongbox from the river mud and the diamond was inside. He kept it in a safety-deposit box the first month. This is where you really have to understand my husband, the code he lived by, his longtime allegiance to the traditions of the Old South, and what honor is supposed to mean. To honor the intent of the contract and the wishes of the soldier who wrote the letter to his wife, Jack was trying to figure a way to return it quietly to England without creating an international incident.”

“What kind of incident?”

“Many people in India believed at that time, and apparently many still do today, that the diamond was embezzled by the British, taken out of India and given to Queen Victoria without the knowledge or consent of the Indian government. They want it returned.”

“Did Jack get video of the diamond?”

“Yes, but he didn’t want it released until he’d returned it to England and his documentary was done.”

“Did you show the footage to police?”

“I gave it them on a flash drive. I also gave them the names of the three men on Jack’s production crew. Jack has his own camera gear, and he used one of our bedrooms as his office and editing area.”

“Is that where the raw video footage is, here in the home?

“Yes. There are a couple minutes of video. Would you like to see it?”

“I would.”

“Follow me.” Laura led O’Brien to a back bedroom converted to an office. It was filled with Civil War memorabilia, framed vintage photographs of the war, Andersonville Prison, soldiers with the look of lost hope on gaunt faces. Laura pointed to a vacant part of one wall. “That’s where the painting of the woman by the river hung until Jack let the movie company borrow it.” She turned on a computer, found the file, and played the video.

O’Brien watched it carefully. The images opened with one man in a diver’s wetsuit pulling a rope, hand-over-hand. O’Brien could tell they were on a pontoon boat in the center of the river. Within seconds, a wet and rusted strongbox, about the size of a small toolbox, was pulled from the river, water dripping off of it. A diver emerged from the river, lifting his dive mask. He spit out his mouthpiece regulator and shouted. “Yeaaah, baby! We found it!”

“That’s Jack,” said Laura.

Another diver surfaced beside him, removing his mouthpiece and grinning.

Laura pointed to the screen. “That’s Cory Nelson, Jack’s producer and best friend.”

“I met Cory on the movie set.”

“You did?”

“Yes, he mentioned that someone named Silas Jackson, a re-enactor fired from the set, had an interest in the painting.”

Laura said nothing, her thoughts suddenly distant. She looked back at the computer screen.

O’Brien watched the two divers climb up the diver ladder. Jack looked toward the camera and said, “Maybe it’s an old toolbox. Or just maybe it’s a strongbox that’s been resting down there on the river bottom since the Civil War. The only way to find out is to open it.”