‘I’ve got everything,’ he said, but she didn’t respond or even bother to look up. ‘Can we talk? The least you owe me is an explanation?’
‘And give you an opportunity to talk your way out of it? I don’t think so. I don’t owe you anything. Just go. Please.’
‘Honey, I really haven’t done anything wrong. I love you. I would never do anything to hurt you or the kids. I promise you that.’
‘You already have. Just go back to your girlfriend,’ Jasmine replied. And so he left.
*
Patrick Burns sat listening to the news on a small portable stereo. He smiled as he considered his influence on current affairs as now the theft of Lincoln’s body had been exposed to the world, just in time to take the shine off Obama’s win.
A girl in her twenties walked into the room and took a seat opposite him. She appeared flustered; it was a long day. She wasn’t usually the type he would hang around with; she was young and quirky. But they had a mutual interest, particularly when it came to Abraham Lincoln.
‘Rough day?’ asked Patrick.
‘You could say that. I sometimes wonder if I’m cut out for this.’
‘And Detective Jackson?’
‘I’ve got him exactly where I want him.’ She smiled and brushed her hands. ‘I don’t need to worry about him. You need to take care of yourself though. It won’t be long before they connect the dots.’
‘They haven’t got shit on me. Besides you can talk, he’s been sniffing around you for a few days now.’
‘Like most people, he’s put me in a box. Shouldn’t you be getting out of here?’
‘I’ve got things to put in place first,’ Burns replied.
‘You have Jackson for that.’
‘That I do. He’s a little goldmine. I can’t wait to see that detective’s face when he finds out his own son was involved.’
*
Vanessa spent the morning on the phone to Lincoln sites across the country attempting to gain a list of both current and previous employees of the places which they hadn’t had the opportunity to visit yet on their investigation. If the former president had trodden their paths, she wanted to know who else had. She knew she was onto something with this Patrick Burns, who appeared on all the sites’ books, even as a contractor at a family-run Lincoln site in Kentucky for a summer while they renovated. The only site he hadn’t appeared to have worked at was Oak Ridge Cemetery where Lincoln’s body was exhumed and stolen.
What she couldn’t find was any information on Patrick. There was nothing in the police files, so he kept his hands clean. His employment at Lincoln sites across America might be nothing, a pure coincidence, but it was too much of one for Vanessa to simply ignore. She raised his name with Interpol and to the Criminal Intelligence Agency to get a rounded profile on him. If he so much as missed a credit card payment, she wanted to know about it.
As a grumbling in her tummy reminded her it was lunchtime, the phone rang forcing her away from the hundreds of papers which now surrounded her on the rug of her living room.
‘I think I’ve got something,’ Vanessa said as soon as she answered the phone to Darnell. She filled him in on Patrick Burns and where her limitations were.
‘Do you think we’ve got enough to question him?’ Darnell asked with an unusual caution after recent events.
‘Well if we could find him we could. The address doesn’t even exist which he gave to his employers. In his employee file he’s listed as sixty-one Lincoln Drive, Jefferson, Kentucky. But that road only goes up to fifty-nine.’
‘Lincoln Drive, the irony!’
‘Or a clue,’ Vanessa replied. ‘He couldn’t have done this alone anyway. There has to be more to this. What did Hill want with you anyway?’
‘Oh, nothing I guess. I got my fingers burnt again. There will be nothing left of them soon.’ He nervously giggled. ‘But let’s just say I can’t get into trouble again. And even if Poppy Shipman did carry Lincoln personally on her back out of Oak Ridge and is hiding him under her bed at home, it’s tough luck, we can’t touch her.’
‘Shit,’ Vanessa said, although in her heart she didn’t believe this young anarchist was involved. Darnell had a vendetta against her and she was keen not to get dragged into his obsessions. ‘Well if she is caught up in it, we can also offer a plea bargain for her name once we have a suspect… if we ever get one!’
‘I’m not handing out any plea bargains for these scumbags. I don’t care if the current president had a hand in this scheme… no one is getting out of this without punishment.’
What if it was your son? Vanessa thought but didn’t dare say aloud. She still hadn’t brought Darnell up to speed on that particular suspicion. Instead she considered how they could progress their investigation. ‘Why don’t we go back to Lincoln’s childhood home in Indiana? It’s the last place this Patrick Burns worked before the Oak Ridge break-in. Maybe they could offer us some insight into this elusive guy?’
Darnell picked up his colleague and they made the four-hour drive to Indiana. Along the journey, they began to feel the fatigue from the task at hand. Vanessa dozed in and out of consciousness as mile after mile of flat plains became almost hypnotic to the detective who had spent the previous days digesting Lincoln’s story day and night.
‘I wish I hadn’t been dragged into this,’ Darnell groaned. He turned to a sleeping Vanessa, who opened her eyes and adjusted to the light. She at first appeared confused that she was in a car rather than tucked up in her bed at home but she shook
