me about some of your cases? For my novel, I mean.”
“I can’t talk about specific cases.”
“No, I know that. I just mean some general things.”
“Let me think about it.”
Graham looked put out by this but didn’t respond.
Pine rose. “Well, it’s been a long day. Think I’ll hit the hay.”
“What else did you and Jack talk about?” Graham asked in a casual tone, but Pine observed her to be anything but relaxed.
“That was about it.”
“Really?”
“Really. If you’ll excuse me.”
Pine walked off.
Chapter 24
IT WAS A RESTLESS NIGHT of scattered dreams with Pine’s chasing various iterations of Daniel James Tor and Clifford Rogers around in the darkness until she awoke at around six in the morning.
There were no gym facilities at the B&B, but Pine had a workout app on her phone, with the only necessary equipment being her body and willingness to sweat. Which she did in her room for forty-five intense minutes. As she sat on the floor afterward breathing hard, she had to admit that the release of endorphins was always a good way to start the day.
She showered, dressed, and headed out into an awakening day. There was no one else walking along the pavement and no car or trucks driving down the road.
She steered her rental across Highway 49 to the Andersonville National Historic Site.
The area mainly consisted of the old prison site, some impressive statuary, the vast cemetery of Union dead, and the National Prisoner of War Museum.
The place didn’t open until eight, so Pine parked and walked along the perimeter of the area. The Prisoner of War Museum hadn’t been here when she lived in the Andersonville area. She learned it had opened in the late 1990s.
Pine entered the grounds right when they opened. A National Park Service Ranger greeted her, and since there were no other visitors at the moment he offered to show her around. He introduced himself as Barry Lamb. He was around forty, about six feet tall and muscular, with a clean-shaven face and large green eyes. His Ranger uniform fit him well.
“FBI?” he said, noting the shield on her belt.
Pine nodded. “I’m assigned to the Grand Canyon. Just visiting out here.”
“The Grand Canyon?” Lamb said in a wistful tone. “I’d love to have a shot at going out there to work.”
“Popular destination for park rangers. But you should give it a try. It’s pretty unique. How long have you worked here?”
“Six years. It’s interesting for sure. But after a while you know every square inch of it. It’s not that big. And the theme is sort of depressing. All those Union soldiers died for really no good reason.”
“But they helped end slavery. That was momentous.”
“You’re right about that. Just a damn shame it took a war.”
He showed her the old prison site, which was represented by a replica of a portion of the prison’s stockade. Lamb pointed out a spot set back from the wooden wall, something he called the “Deadline.”
“You passed that line, you got shot dead,” said Lamb. “Hence the name. I think some prisoners did so just to end their misery. They were starving to death and disease ridden.”
“I could see someone in such a situation doing that,” said Pine.
“Until 1864 the Confederates would just carry their prisoners around with them. When that became unmanageable, this prison was constructed as a solution. It was built to hold ten thousand men. Problem was, in the single year it was in operation, it would hold over four times that many.”
She looked around at the sheets of cloth strung over wooden stakes in the middle of the stockade. “So where were the prisoners housed?”
“There were no shelters built, no cells, no buildings. They’d have a dozen prisoners under two gum blankets strung over sticks, like that one over there. When a prisoner died, the survivors would fight over his clothes and shoes. When the prison was liberated in 1865 the remaining prisoners looked like something you would have seen in a German concentration camp. Henry Wirz, the commandant, was later executed for war crimes.”
“Yeah, I knew about that. He has the big statue in town. Did anyone ever try to escape?”
“Some men escaped in transit or while on work details. A few others did so by tunnels. There are still remnants of some tunnels around. Like this one over here.”
He led her to a spot some distance from the edge of the replica. There were warning signs around it and a steel grate in the earth. “It begins here, which would