"The Mississippi Mystery" - Part Six

 

Part Six

            Tyler was nervous. Not because he was going to meet with P.T. Barnum again. His nerves were driven more from this plan of Rania’s – a plan that relied heavily on his role in it as the only white man on Team TARDIS. Leeka accompanied him to Barnum’s cabin where the greatest showman himself was getting ready for Kincaid’s auction.

            Well, partially getting ready. He was preoccupied with reading a copy of The Impossible Diary.

            “Ah, Scarlett…and Mr. LeBeau!” He gave a warm welcome whilst holding the book in his hand. “I was just admiring this one chapter from Miss Walker’s book with this hideously fascinating character.” He showed them a page that featured Rania’s illustration of a drooling mad scientist of some kind with bluish gray spiked hair. “Look at this unfortunate. It’s a shame that he’s fictional – I would love to have him in my…”

            “P.T.,” Leeka interrupted. “Mr. LeBeau will be joining you and the other gents in Mr. Kincaid’s private auction.”

            “I’ve arranged it with Monsieur Casey,” Tyler added, putting his Cajun accent back on, applying some Louisiana French to it.

            “That’s splendid!” Barnum joyously exclaimed, shutting his book closed. Unbeknownst to the showman, his response outed Casey, especially when he added, “It is certainly a relief that no more secrets have to be kept around you anymore, my boy.” He walked up to Tyler, offering a hearty pat on his shoulder. “I had a good feeling about you. Of course, I am looking forward to outbidding you for Kincaid’s freak.”

            “So am I, mon ami,” Tyler returned with a smile.

            After a quick friendly handshake, the two men left for the auction.

            Alone in Barnum’s cabin, Leeka tapped the inside of her right ear, activating the earpiece tucked ever so slightly in there. “You were right about Casey,” she told Rania over the comm. “Still, we don’t have a lick of proof that he’s the murderer.”

            “We do, don’t worry,” Rania responded from the other end. “We just have to wait for the right time to present it.”

            Kincaid’s auction was held in the Jefferson’s private gentleman’s cabin, a spacious area with an assortment of wooden folding chairs situated in an orderly fashion before a large stage, upon which the man-sized crate containing the item to be auctioned was situated. As soon as all the bidders (an assembly of well-dressed Caucasian males that included Barnum and Tyler) were seated, Kincaid stood at the auction block and began with a rousing introduction: “Gentlemen! Tonight, you will bear witness to the greatest discovery of mankind ever to be obtained! A monster from the stars! A form of creature only imagined in our nightmares!”

            Barnum smirked, leaning towards Tyler and whispering, “And I thought I could put on a good show.”

            Kincaid had Casey come onstage and open the crate to unveil the cage.

            When it was exposed, a collection of gasps emitted from the bidders – all except for Tyler, who tried to conceal his glee, seeing the mortified look on the faces of Casey and Kincaid. What they expected to be the Archivist in the cage was Rania instead.

            “HELP ME!” She shrieked. “KINCAID…HE’S…HE’S GONE INSANE! HE KIDNAPPED ME! PUT ME IN HERE! HELP ME PLEASE!!!”

            Tyler was stunned by her performance as a helpless, frightened victim; it was so convincing, making it easy for him to react, along with Barnum and a few other men, rushing to Rania’s aid. Some other bidders had restrained a very confused Kincaid. “What the devil is goin’ on here?!” he bellowed.

            “I believe we should be the ones asking that, Mister Kincaid,” said Barnum, who was visibly angry – the angriest Tyler had ever seen him up close. “If there’s one thing I don’t enjoy being, it’s a fool!”

            Kincaid fixated an incensed glare towards Rania, as she was freed from the cage.

            “That woman!” He viciously pointed at her. “She had something to do with this!” Rania let out an overwhelmed shriek from the accusations, making it that much more difficult for Kincaid to plead his innocence. Becoming frantic, he yelled, “Listen to me! There was a creature from the stars in that very cage! I had it in my possession!”

            Amid his hysteria, Clemens and Grant arrived with some constables, placing Kincaid under arrest.

            Meanwhile, Casey attempted to make a break for it in the confusion, only to be cornered by Leeka, who emerged with a revolver aimed at Casey’s chest. “Where ya think you’re goin’, lil’ man?” she toyed with him.

            Casey’s hands went up, surrendering as Grant arrested him as well. “Mr. Casey, you are under arrest for abetting in Carlson Kincaid’s illegal auction, as well as the murder of your wife.”

            “Wife?!?!” Casey frowned.

            “Yes, wife, Mr. Casey.” Rania dropped her ‘helpless victim’ act, addressing the Second Mate with stone-cold, straight-forward resoluteness. “That woman you killed was married to you – an unsolicited marriage – because the woman wasn’t a freed slave, was she? No. And it only got more complicated for you when she ended up pregnant with your child.”

            The coo of a baby resonated across the room, drawing all attention to the doorway, from where Craig walked in with Fred in his arms.

            Casey’s dark brown eyes flared when he gazed on the baby.

            Rania noticed his reaction. “Yes, Casey…that’s your son.” She tried to control her rage as she glowered on Kincaid. “Carlson knew of all this because you were once a slave on his plantation.”

            Clemens followed her revelations with interest. “You mean…Casey’s a negro?!”

            Rania nodded. “I reckon he’s one-sixteenth black and majority white – a mulatto, if you will.”

            “A pudd’nhead is more like it,” Leeka uttered, winking at Clemens, who found the term rather amusing.

            “This is all absurd!” Kincaid roared. “You’ve not a shred of evidence to your outlandish claims, Miss Walker!”

            “You’re right…I don’t have evidence,” Rania said. “But I do have a witness.”

            On her cue, Rooney freely entered the room, his face twisted with fury as he looked on Casey. “We’s worked tuhgit on Mistuh Kincaid’s fields. We’s were bruddahs. Roxy was my sistuh. She loved you…and you killed her! You killed my sistuh, Casey!”

            Rania grew sick to her stomach looking at Kincaid and Casey. “Take these pieces of white trash outta here,” she demanded.

            Before Kincaid and Casey were taken away, Leeka couldn’t resist getting the last word in on Kincaid. She moved in on him from behind and whispered in his ear, “Word of advice – don’t drop the soap.”

            Unfortunately, Kincaid was not one to go down so easily.

            With lightning-quick swiftness that Leeka hadn’t anticipated from the spoiled businessman, Kincaid managed to swipe the revolver she was holding and gunned her down with a few shots to her upper chest and stomach. Leeka dropped dead to the floor, as Kincaid took aim for his next target: Rooney.

            “I should’ve done this a long time ago,” Kincaid hissed.

            Before he could have squeezed the trigger, however, Tyler brought him down with an unrelenting right cross to the face. Kincaid’s body went limp instantly, falling unconscious to the floor with a thud.

            Nursing his right hand, Tyler looked to Clemens. “Sorry,” he said.

            “I do believe such aggression was warranted in this circumstance, Mr. LeBeau,” Clemens consented with a smirk. That smirk fell when he glanced at Leeka’s dead body. “It’s just a shame that another life was claimed in the act.”

            Barnum exploded with laughter. “Mr. Clemens, I reassure you, there is nothing to worry about. Just give Miss O’Hara a moment.”

            A moment was given, and everyone watched Leeka in silence.

            Suddenly, she kip-upped herself back on her two bare feet (something that was rather impressive for a woman in a long-skirted dress) to the awe of Clemens, Grant, Rooney, Tyler, Craig, Casey, and all the other gentlemen in the room – save for Barnum. They all watched as she gagged for a brief moment and proceeded to spit out the few slugs that Kincaid fired into her. The gunshot wounds in her chest and stomach spectacularly healed in seconds.

            “Ta-da!” She cheered as if she pulled off the most astounding stunt ever.

            “And there you have it, gents!” Barnum presented with outstretched arms. “The Woman Who Cannot Die!”

            “I’ll take her for $1,000!” One man bid.

            “$10,000!” Another bid.

            “SHE’S NOT FOR SALE!!!” Barnum boomed.

            The following morning, after the previous night’s excitement had settled a bit, Clemens expressed his immense gratitude for Rania, Tyler, and Leeka solving the Mississippi mystery. Meeting with the super-sleuth trio in the Jefferson’s pilot house, he admitted with euphoric breath, “Truly, this experience has put a spark in me.”

            “Is it the creative bug?” Tyler playfully assumed, garnering him an admonished elbow blow to his side from Rania.

            “I can’t quite put it into words, at least not verbally,” Clemens shrugged. “I have yearned to share my experiences on the Mississippi with the rest of the world. The only way I can think to do it is in a book…but I’m not much of an author.”

            “Yet,” Leeka spiritedly muttered, garnering her an admonished elbow blow to her side from Rania.

            “What do you advise, Miss Walker?” Clemens asked Rania.

            “Me?” Rania was taken aback by his choice to consult with her.

            “You’re an accomplished author,” Clemens reminded her. “How do you think I should approach this new endeavor?”

            Rania paused for a short while, then smiled and said, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please – with that saying, Mr. Clemens, I do recommend leaving out the details of the last couple of days.”

            It was a moment the TARDIS team knew would eventually come, after the mystery of Fred’s parents was resolved. While his biological mother was regrettably deceased and his father was rightfully imprisoned for her murder, the only one left to care for him would be his biological uncle, Rooney. Thankfully, following Kincaid’s arrest, Rooney was now a free man – his freedom secretly arranged by Rania herself.

            Gathered in the cargo hold with Tyler, Leeka, Barnum and Rooney, Rania told her little companion, “Time to let Fred go now, Craigy.”

            Craig verged on tears. “Can I hold him for just a little longer?” he pleaded.

            Rania giggled. “I know how much you wanna, sweetheart…but he has to be with his only family now.” Craig understood, but it was still difficult to say goodbye to the little brother he always wanted. He handed Fred over to Rania, who herself got teary-eyed looking on the infant one last time. “Be great, lil’ fella,” she whispered to him with a kiss to his forehead, handing him over to his uncle.

            With Fred now in his care and his newfound freedom, Rooney was at a crossroads. “I’s don’t know what tuh do now,” he nervously confessed. “I’s can’t raise no child as a freed man.”

            “Not without a job, you can’t,” Barnum said. “How’d you like to work for me up north, Rooney? Earn your keep like any other man who’s free in this fine country?”

            Rooney heard the stories of how the slaves who were freed found new lives up north. Some weren’t freed like he was, having escaped through some ‘Underground Railroad’ (by what the rumors called it). But he wouldn’t have to risk such a thing. P.T. Barnum had offered him and his nephew a permissible opportunity.

            “Y-Yessuh,” he happily accepted. “T-That’d be real good, suh!”

            Barnum laughed heartily, patting Rooney on the back. “Splendid! We’ll board the first train to Chicago, soon as the Jefferson ports. You, me, and Scarlett are gonna do wonderful things together!”

            “Actually, P.T.,” Leeka spoke up, “I’m goin’ with them.” She gestured to Rania, Tyler, and Craig – who were all surprised by her announcement.

            Needless to say, Barnum was devastated. “What?! B-But, you’re supposed to be my star attraction! What’ll I do without you?!”

            “I’m sure you’ll find plenty more attractions bigger than me,” Leeka winked.

            Barnum scratched his head in a huff. “Well…where’ll you go, my dear?”

            “Just wait and see,” Leeka teased with a giggle.

            Barnum and Rooney stood and watched as Leeka accompanied Rania, Tyler, and Craig to one corner of the cargo hold that their gazes had avoided ever since they walked into the area. But now their focus was on that specific spot, and they were spellbound to see a tall black monolith that had somehow been there the entire time. They were further mesmerized when Rania placed her palm along the sleek, marbled structure of the monolith, opening a door that had manifested by pure light and led to a bigger space inside of it. They caught only a fleeting glimpse of a room filled with technological marvels – far more advanced than anything in their own time – before the monolith sealed back shut and vanished to the accompaniment of whooshing noises that reverberated throughout the cargo hold.

            Fred clapped and giggled at the spectacle.

            Seeing the baby’s reaction, the zealous Barnum gasped, “My gosh! How I wish I could have that in my museum!”

            “Welcome aboard, Captain!” Leeka saluted their new passenger. “But, if I may ask, what about your Torchwood team?”

            “Meh,” Leeka waved off casually. “They’ll be fine in my absence.”

            “I hate to be the downer, but what about the Archivist’s warning?” Tyler inquired. “Should we be worried about the Prometheans?”

            Rania’s face hardened into a heavy grimace. “The Archivist was lying.”

            Her conjecture – if it could be labeled as such – surprised her companions.

            “About which part?” Leeka asked her.

            “All of it,” Rania said. “Everything he said is what he plans to do, not just his people.”

            “How are you sure about this?” Tyler asked.

            “Because I know who the Archivist really is.”

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