Maxwell Carter, a criminal justice fingerprint analyst in West Virginia, has a lucrative racket going. When he finds a positive match for an old crime, he conveniently ignores it in return for a modest retainer from the alleged perp. But his latest mark isn’t keen on being blackmailed. When FBI Agent Johnny Harrison finds Carter’s body, bound and sliced in cheese wire, it isn’t hard to connect the murder to Carter’s unwilling patsy—a suspected child-killer living in the Louisiana bayou and working in Mississippi.
Going undercover on an old trawler, Harrison wades into the sordid fantasy-world of a twisted mind. But what he discovers is even more dangerous: a century-old secret from New Orleans’s troubled history . . . one that has yet to claim its last victim.
The Procession marks the return of FBI Agent Johnny Harrison, who teamed up with Scotland Yard’s Jack Swann in The Covenant, Nom de Guerre, and Storm Crow, which Jack Higgins praised as “absolutely marvelous.”
Maxwell Carter, a criminal justice fingerprint analyst in West Virginia, has a lucrative racket going. When he finds a positive match for an old crime, he conveniently ignores it in return for a modest retainer from the alleged perp. But his latest mark isn’t keen on being blackmailed. When FBI Agent Johnny Harrison finds Carter’s body, bound and sliced in cheese wire, it isn’t hard to connect the murder to Carter’s unwilling patsy—a suspected child-killer living in the Louisiana bayou and working in Mississippi.
Going undercover on an old trawler, Harrison wades into the sordid fantasy-world of a twisted mind. But what he discovers is even more dangerous: a century-old secret from New Orleans’s troubled history . . . one that has yet to claim its last victim.
The Procession marks the return of FBI Agent Johnny Harrison, who teamed up with Scotland Yard’s Jack Swann in The Covenant, Nom de Guerre, and Storm Crow, which Jack Higgins praised as “absolutely marvelous.”
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Overview
Maxwell Carter, a criminal justice fingerprint analyst in West Virginia, has a lucrative racket going. When he finds a positive match for an old crime, he conveniently ignores it in return for a modest retainer from the alleged perp. But his latest mark isn’t keen on being blackmailed. When FBI Agent Johnny Harrison finds Carter’s body, bound and sliced in cheese wire, it isn’t hard to connect the murder to Carter’s unwilling patsy—a suspected child-killer living in the Louisiana bayou and working in Mississippi.
Going undercover on an old trawler, Harrison wades into the sordid fantasy-world of a twisted mind. But what he discovers is even more dangerous: a century-old secret from New Orleans’s troubled history . . . one that has yet to claim its last victim.
The Procession marks the return of FBI Agent Johnny Harrison, who teamed up with Scotland Yard’s Jack Swann in The Covenant, Nom de Guerre, and Storm Crow, which Jack Higgins praised as “absolutely marvelous.”
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781480418387 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 05/14/2013 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 423 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Jeff Gulvin is the author of nine novels and is currently producing a new series set in the American West. His previous titles include three books starring maverick detective Aden Vanner and another three featuring FBI agent Harrison, as well as two novels originally published under the pseudonym Adam Armstrong, his great-grandfather’s name. He received acclaim for ghostwriting Long Way Down, the prize-winning account of a motorcycle trip from Scotland to the southern tip of Africa by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. The breadth of Gulvin’s fiction is vast, and his style has been described as commercial with just the right amount of literary polish. His stories range from hard-boiled crime to big-picture thriller to sweeping romance. Half English and half Scottish, Gulvin has always held a deep affection for the United States. He and his wife spend as much time in America as possible, particularly southern Idaho, their starting point for road-trip research missions to Nevada, Texas, or Louisiana, depending on where the next story takes them.
Read an Excerpt
The Procession
A Harrison & Swann Thriller
By Jeff Gulvin
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2002 Jeff GulvinAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-1838-7
CHAPTER 1
Christmas Eve
Snow lay crusted and brown, bloody almost in places.
Maxwell Carter stared out of his bedroom window with a sense of unease in his gut. During the night he had been disturbed by the sound of a truck idling right outside his house: it was only there for a matter of seconds before driving away.
Fresh snow had fallen yesterday morning but nothing since; the front lawn was still a bed of virgin white, but Carter had beaten a path to the door and the driveway was mussed and muddy. He stared at the end of the driveway where it dipped into the camber of the road and he could see a set of tyre tracks that hadn't been there yesterday.
He sat on the edge of his bed, naked still, the mass of white flesh crumpled at his belly and thighs. He got up, rubbing the small of his back, and waddled along the landing to his computer room. His mother's Christmas card lay on the filing cabinet: he traced a forefinger over the padded velveteen front and read the message he had written.
Outside he crunched across the snow, still flecked with slivers of ice in places where yesterday's sun hadn't been able to penetrate. He could see the tyre tracks plainly now, wide and deeply treaded, much fuller than those made by his own car. It was as if the driver of the truck had half pulled in, wanting to turn. But he hadn't turned: he had just backed out again and carried on in the same direction.
Why would somebody do that?
The sense of unease grew now. It became a finger of fear as he stood, his massive booted feet sinking into the snow. He bent, wheezing slightly with his weight, dragging the air into his lungs, his hair untied and hanging low over his face. Somebody had half pulled into his yard then backed out again.
His breath came in short clouds of steam as he stared at the tracks. Stupid, he told himself. You're being stupid: they made a mistake is all. Whoever they were, they just made a mistake.
Back inside he kicked the snow off his boots. The furnace was going full blast and the house sweated with the heat. Carter opened the door to the basement and looked down into the darkness. He switched on the light, listening for any irregularities in the humming of the furnace. It was old and he always feared it might break down on him at this time of year. Right before Christmas, that would be just too bad.
Coffee bubbled in the pot on the worktop behind him. Carter swept dank hair from his face and was about to close the basement door again when something caught his eye. Gooseflesh prickled his skin. He stared at the bottom step. Half a bootprint marked the yellow wood.
Carter's heart was pounding now. He stared at the print then reached into the closet for his baseball bat. He started down into the basement, moving slowly, each step creaking under his weight. At the bottom he bent and inspected the footprint more closely. A set of tyre tracks and now a footprint. His mind was turning cartwheels. For the first time he began to regret starting all this. He scanned the basement for any sign of an intruder, but the tiny window had not been forced and the only other way in was through the kitchen. He looked at the print once more, then he frowned and with one hand on the rail he upturned his right foot. The relief was tangible as he realized the print was his own.
Upstairs he poured coffee into his big mug, his hand a meaty paw with overlong nails like claws that scratched the plastic. The steam played over his face and he closed his eyes, took a noisy sip and sat down at the kitchen table. There was nothing to worry about, just a little paranoia setting in. With what was at stake he was entitled to feel a little paranoid. But the sound of that engine rattled in his head still. Why would somebody half pull into his yard in the middle of the night then drive away again? There could be any number of innocent reasons and he went through them mentally while he straightened his bed, his coffee cup on the nightstand. He puffed up the pillows like his mother had always done, pulled the comforter up and tucked it in at the sides. He liked a neat bed: with his massive bulk he didn't want the bottom sheet to crease because the ridges got stuck in the folds of his flesh and rubbed him raw. It was the same when he dried after bathing, he was always careful to leave no damp places and used copious quantities of baby powder. He really ought to lose some weight, but he had been telling himself that since he first ballooned in his twenties. That was twenty years ago—what chance did he stand now?
Satisfied with the bedroom, he went into the computer room where the monitor sat silently on the desk. Later he would talk to Jeannie-Anne. Jeannie-Anne Rae, whom he'd first met in a chat room and now talked to every night. It was a gradual relationship, neither of them very good at this sort of thing, neither of them very able emotionally: physical appearance counted for so much in society. They had no confidence, it was one of the things they had in common. But the internet enabled them to talk, to begin to build something before they met. They were not at the meeting stage yet and it was a long way to Tallahassee. Carter wouldn't go until they were both ready.
He stood musing for a moment, staring out the window at the tyre tracks, clearly visible now the sun was up and bathing the yard in a white light, refracted through icicles that clung to the trees. His inner silence was complete, oblivious to the sounds from outside; his own silence where he could sit and think and contemplate all that he was doing, what it might mean for the future.
His CJIS identity card was lying beside the computer and he allowed himself a wry smile as he inspected his picture. He was big, way too big. His mother had told him. His two older sisters told him every time he saw them, which was infrequently now they had moved to the Shenandoah Valley. His hair was matted and long, matching the black of his beard so when he went to work he looked like a biker in sports jacket and tie.
He sipped more coffee then set the mug down while he took a shower. The water was hot and he had cleaned the showerhead with lime-scale remover only the other day, so the needles rattled his flesh. He soaped himself down, paying attention to the great fatty creases in his flesh, his genitals and his bottom. He liked to be clean and he always had fresh towels and bathrobe.
He powdered himself and slipped on a robe then padded through to the computer room for his coffee.
It wasn't where he'd left it.
There was a mark from the bottom of the cup on the desk, but it wasn't there now. His heart began to beat a fraction faster. Sweat gathered in pinpricks at his hairline. He looked round the room, stepped on to the landing and listened. No sound, he could hear nothing except the hum of the furnace and his own heart beating.
His coffee mug was sitting on the vanity unit in the bathroom. He stared at it. He hadn't put it there. Had he? He thought he'd left it in the computer room. Again he moved on to the landing and listened, but he heard no sound, sensed no presence other than his own.
Paranoia, he told himself. It was bound to set in sooner or later. Suddenly the stakes had risen, he was in a new game altogether and was still finding his feet. But everything was OK: all the necessary precautions had been taken, this was just absent-mindedness brought on by waking in the night. Sleep disturbance—his head was always in a fug when his sleep was interrupted.
Downstairs the phone rang. A glance at the caller ID told him it was from out of the area and he looked at the black receiver with the hairs prickling the back of his neck. This was stupid, all because of a set of tyre tracks in the yard. He lifted the receiver from the cradle.
'Hello?'
Silence. Yet somebody was there: he could sense the rhythm of breath without actually hearing anything.
'Hello.' A sharper edge to his voice now, a hint of agitation.
Nothing. Nobody said anything and nobody hung up.
Carter put the phone down, feeling the sweat damp against his skin. No voice, no sound of breathing, just the density of silence.
Upstairs again he dried his hair and told himself he was being foolish. He thought about making a call to Charleston but decided against it. Charleston knew nothing about this so what would be the point? He was paranoid; there was nothing more to it than that. A truck and a wrong number. Get a grip, Max.
He whistled as he made French toast, the sound fracturing the heaviness of the atmosphere. He had no work today, which was just as well given it was Christmas Eve and he had promised his mother he would be at her house for lunch tomorrow. He still hadn't bought her a present. He'd meant to do it last Saturday, but had never got round to it. He was bowling in the league now, had been on a roll of late and the guys on the team had elevated him to mini superstar status. It had taken up all his thoughts, bowling like that: he had never bowled like that.
That was before CJIS, however. Everything was before CJIS. BC-JIS. He laughed at his own joke then heard a truck on the road outside and went to the window. Lifting back the drapes, he peered at the black Chevy that rumbled down the street. The windows were tinted so he couldn't see the driver. He felt the knot of unease in his stomach, the movement of hair on his arm.
It was time he went out: if today went by and he hadn't bought his mother a Christmas present the hurt in her face would haunt him the rest of his life. Taking his coat and his car keys, he locked the door behind him then set about scraping the packed ice from where it crusted the windshield of his Dodge. The car was new, white with leather seats, one of the luxuries he had allowed himself since things started getting better. He was a single guy, nobody would raise any eyebrows: single guys could afford decent cars. He loved the smooth lines of the Dodge. He found it a little hard getting in and out, the seat never seemed to go back far enough, and he swore he would lose some of the three hundred pounds he was packing around these days.
Still, he was over six feet tall and with his hair, his beard and the darkness of his eyes he never had any trouble from the kids that hung out in the mall. His eyebrows were thick and shaggy and the set of his mouth twisted his beard in such a way that people looked away when he stared. He liked that, gave him the kind of rush that had been missing from his life since childhood.
He backed the car out, bumping over the packed brown snow, erasing the tyre tracks in a moment. Skirting the northern end of the park, he headed south on James to Philadelphia Avenue, before crossing Simpson Creek. Main Street was busy and he had to wait at the intersection before he could pull out.
Mrs Annabel Carter gazed across the frozen surface of Maple Lake beyond the children's playground to the ice-clad diving platform, cast grey all at once with the sun passing behind a cloud. The sky promised more snow although none had been forecast on the weather channel. She liked the weather channel: in a way it kept her abreast of what was going on better than the news did. She gauged the world by the weather. The clouds seemed somehow ominous and she saw again the expression in Madame Josephine's eyes, that quick and darting movement before looking away.
That had been Friday, her fortnightly visit. Today was Sunday and she had been to church already. Tomorrow was Christmas Day and she had prepared the bird and all the trimmings and would make the thick brown gravy her son liked so much. She had dressed the tree and the lights still worked, and that nice boy from the printers on Main Street had fixed up a set on the front of her house.
Everything should be wonderful: this was her favourite time of year. It was a pity the girls and her grandchildren couldn't make it over from Virginia but she planned to see them for New Year. Everything was fine, Maxwell was coming and she would look forward to that. Why then did she have this terrible sense of foreboding?
She had been going to Madame Josephine for years now. The reader had a little salon just a block up on the highway, and ever since her husband Larry died, Mrs Carter had sought some solace in her readings. The girls were long since married and busy with their lives, but she still had Maxwell living close by. That had been a comfort to her when death came so suddenly but now she wished Maxwell would get married. He was almost forty-three and he should be settled with someone by now. She had suggested Weight-Watchers but he had just laughed at the idea. He was a strange man and didn't make friends very easily, not really the kind of son that her husband had hoped for after the two girls—introverted and preferring his indoor games to going hunting or fishing.
That had been the only bugbear between them in fifty years of marriage, that and Maxwell's apparent lack of direction. She had told Larry countless times that it wasn't a lack as such, just that some people didn't find their feet till later in their lives. That had been how it was with Maxwell, leaving high school with less than adequate grades, flunking out in college then drifting from one job to the next till they built the new FBI facility just off the interstate. Larry had lived to see his son get a job with the FBI and that had thrilled him: it was Annabel's one consolation when he died. She would phone Maxwell now, he wasn't working today. She hadn't spoken to him since she met with Madame Josephine and she had been meaning to call him. She picked up the phone and dialled, but he wasn't there. She hesitated when his answer machine clicked in but she didn't leave a message.
Carter drove through Bridgeport on Highway 50, past the gas station and the hair-replacement centre, up towards the intersection with I79. He pulled up in the parking lot of the giant K-Mart store and as he locked his car he had the feeling that somebody was watching him. The hairs lifted on his neck and he stood with the key in the lock of the Dodge. He glanced quickly behind him. Rows and rows of vehicles, men and women with shopping carts and children, but nobody looking at him, nobody taking any notice of him at all. His breathing came a little easier, but he was sweating and his hair matted against his scalp. He stuffed the keys in his pocket and glanced across the roof of his car. Right at the end of the lot he saw a black Chevy pickup with tinted windows, exhaust fumes rising from the tailpipe.
Carter moved between the shelves, picking up a massive bag of peanut brownies and another of starburst candy. He dropped them in his cart and paused at the refrigerated section before selecting a case of Samuel Adams beer. He preferred the imported Newcastle brand but it was more expensive.
Lingering briefly in the hunting section, he thought of his father and his passion for the sport. A video was running, some Virginian kid who'd shot his first white-tailed deer at the age of five, holed up in a tree, waiting for another deer he could bring down, probably from miles away given the nature of his rifle.
Carter felt a sudden presence. Slowly he turned. The aisle was empty, and he took a moment to calm himself. This was ridiculous: he was jumpy as hell and for no good reason. So somebody thought about turning round in his driveway, so what? He exhaled heavily and pushed his cart into the next aisle, saw a friend of his mother's from Maple Lake and nodded to her. His mother. That was why he was here. Tomorrow was Christmas Day and he'd better not show up without a present. But he had no idea what to buy her, he never did. Come to think of it, he'd missed her birthday completely. He'd never once given it a thought. Not so much as a card. He thought about the card he had for her now. She would treasure it all the more: she never threw cards or letters away. All the more reason to get a good present, though, make some kind of effort given it was Christmas and all.
He shambled between the aisles, half thinking about his mother's present and half about later tonight when he would be talking to Jeannie-Anne. She was his girlfriend: that was how it felt even though they hadn't actually met. It was a delicious feeling, like he was wanted, and he had never been wanted before—never in high school and not since high school. Idly he picked up a table lamp sculptured from cheap glass in the shape of a turtle: $16.99. He put it in his cart.
Jeannie-Anne Rae was working Christmas Eve: Tallahassee was hot as hell, which it shouldn't be at this time of year. It should be warm, sure, but not this hot. Maybe there was something to global warming after all. She was a checkout girl at the Winn Dixie supermarket and the stool they gave her to sit on was uncomfortable, with her buttocks splaying out on both sides. Her armpits were already soaking, and she could feel the stickiness in her groin. All day she punched numbers on the cash register, ran barcodes over the scanner, dreaming of cool showers and talking to Max Carter.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Procession by Jeff Gulvin. Copyright © 2002 Jeff Gulvin. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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