Chapter 17

New Orleans, Louisiana

Friday, January 30, 1925

"Are you ready for this visit with Walden?" Andrew asked as they got out of the taxi at the prison.

"I've never been more ready." Lucas said with a devilish smile.

As they walked inside, they stopped at the front desk. "Good morning. My name is Governor Lucas Bouchard from Alberta Canada. I have a meeting with Warden Brown." Lucas said cordially.

"Yes, Governor, this way. The warden is expecting you." The receptionist said as she walked them down the hall where they were met by a tall man with glasses.

"Governor, welcome. Warden Harry Brown. Come in." The warden said as he greeted them with handshakes.

"Warden, let me introduce, Captain Andrew Donovan, RAF." Lucas told him. "Captain Donovan is my assistant."

"It is a pleasure to meet both of you. I spoke with Daniel Sterling last night and I have the paperwork ready that you requested." The warden told him as he handed it to Lucas to look at.

Lucas reviewed the document. "This will do nicely. I will stop back and let you know how things went." Lucas told him as the men got up to leave.

"Good Luck. My secretary will escort you to the interrogation room." The warden told them.

As they reached the interrogation room the guard opened the door and there sat Wyman Walden. Andrew studied the man, he was very unassuming, older with blonde silver hair. Walden looked up; the look of surprise was written all over his face. "Lucas, I must say you are an unexpected surprise. Who might your friend be?" Walden asked with a furrow brow as he studied Andrew.

"This is my assistant, Captain Donovan, RAF." Lucas said simply.

Walden eyed Lucas suspiciously. "I can't imagine what business we would have to discuss. What happened in Hope Valley was years ago." Walden said in his usual calm manner.

Lucas smiled. "I'm actually here to discuss something that happened much further back than that. Something that when you were in Hope Valley you were aware of but I was not. Any guesses as to what that might be?" Lucas said evenly as he took a seat opposite Walden at the table.

"I'm sorry Lucas, I appear to be at a disadvantage here. I have no idea what you're talking about." Walden said with a curt smile.

"At the time, I should have questioned why you tried to frame me with illegal gambling ledgers from New Orleans. I never mentioned New Orleans to you; so why pick there? Unless of course, you knew I had ties to New Orleans and I had known people there. This, of course, would make your ploy believable if you needed it." Lucas said with a sardonic smile.

"Again, Lucas I have no idea what you are talking about." Walden said serenely.

"Do the names Jack Thornton or Matthew Aucoin ring any bells?" Lucas asked with a mocking smiled.

Lucas watched as Walden flinched ever so slightly. "I assume Jack Thornton was some relation to Elizabeth Thornton? Walden told him. "A husband perhaps?"

Lucas huffed out a short laugh. "Now you might want to think twice before you lie to me, Walden. You should assume I know a great deal to have traveled all the way from Canada to bring up men you dealt with ten years ago." Lucas said in surly tone.

"Lucas." Walden said with a smirk. "I know nothing about a dead Mountie or this other man."

"Interesting, I never said either of them were a Mountie or that either of them was dead." Lucas said coolly.

"I may have asked around about Mrs. Thornton when you are I were potentially going to do business in Hope Valley. It was a known fact that you and Mrs. Thornton were involved. Don't you remember threatening me to stay away from Mrs. Thornton and her son? Honestly Lucas, I am sitting here in a New Orlean's prison in America. What threat do I pose to you or her now?" Walden asked quizzically.

"I am not here because I have anything to fear from you but rather to seek justice." Lucas said succinctly.

"I see, and what justice might that be?" Walden asked while glancing down at Lucas's hand on the table. "I notice you're wearing a wedding ring. Congratulations. So, you and Mrs. Thornton married and I presume that is why you are so interested in Jack Thornton. I assure you I know nothing about the unfortunate accidental death of your wife's first husband. What justice is there to obtain from an unfortunate accident?" Walden asked aloofly.

"Certain information has come to light that perhaps Jack Thornton's death was not so accidental as was first thought. My wife deserves to know the truth, her son, now my son deserves to know the truth. And Walden, I am going to give that to her." Lucas said in a threatening tone. "I don't think Jack Thornton died due to an accident. I think someone caused that mudslide and made sure that Constable Thornton was in harm's way. Do you want to comment?" Lucas asked as he sat back in his chair.

"Good for you, Lucas. But you will have to do that without any input from me. Now, if you will call for the guard. I would like to go back to my cell." Walden said as Lucas could see him start to sweat. Andrew suppressed a smile, Lucas had him rattled.

"You do know that once you finish your prison sentence here, you will be transferred to Canada to serve your sentence for fraud and attempted murder. Now how you spend that time in Canada is up to you. As a matter of fact, the American prison system is more than happy to send you to Canada right now." Lucas told him.

"I still have a few years to serve here first. I'm not going anywhere until then. You're bluffing and we both know how good you are at that. So, I believe I am the one holding all the cards right now, wouldn't you say? You will get nothing from me." Walden said flatly.

"I assume being in prison here in America, you haven't kept up on the news in Canada?" Lucas asked with a grin.

"They don't share much news here in New Orleans about Canada." Walden told him smugly.

"What a pity. Well, let me fill you in on an interesting fact that you're not aware of. I am currently in my second term as the Governor of Alberta. So perhaps you'd like to read this first." Lucas said as he took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket and handed it to Walden.

"It's an extradition order to take you back to Canada. Alberta specifically, you know, where I am the law of the land and wield a great deal of power and influence. That is, of course, assuming that you don't suffer an unfortunate accident of your own on your way back to Canada with myself and Captain Donovan escorting you there." Lucas said evenly.

Lucas turned to Andrew, "Isn't that right Captain Donovan?" Lucas said with a quiet laugh.

Andrew stared at Lucas for a moment. He was good at this, he thought. "Absolutely Governor." Andrew responded as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall.

Walden stared menacingly at Lucas. "Honestly Bouchard, I don't think you have the guts to kill me. And even if you had your thug over there do it, I don't think you could live with yourself. And I also don't think your pretty school teacher wife could live with knowing you killed a man in cold blood" Walden said mockingly.

Lucas leaned forward in his chair and folded his hands on the table. "Matthew Aucoin was my best friend, more like a brother. I've tortured myself for ten years believing I was the cause of his death. And as I told you, some new information has come to light. I want to know the truth about that night. I assure you Walden, I won't stop until I have all the answers. And unlike 10 years ago, I have the money and power to do so. Now you decide just how secure you feel with what I would or wouldn't do." Lucas said in quiet menacing tone as he glared at Walden.

Lucas sat back in his chair for a moment, holding Walden's gaze. He stood up slowly, suddenly lifting the table up causing it to flip on its side. Walden jumped in his seat at the suddenness of Bouchard's move and swallowed hard, as Andrew looked on in surprise.

Lucas started walking around. "I know Aucoin was experiencing some financial difficulties and Amos Dixon referred him to you since you had a job that required someone who would do anything to make money quickly. You hired him to run guns up to Canada. But what you didn't count on was Aucoin working with the Mounties, in particular Jack Thornton, to disrupt the number of illegal guns being brought into the territory. When you found out what Aucoin was up too, you decided to have him eliminated. The only problem was you didn't want to attract any unnecessary attention from the authorities to your operation." Lucas told him.

Walden shook his head. "Lucas, this is all conjecture and you know it. You can't prove anything you just said." Walden said succinctly.

Lucas sat back down, facing Walden. "When I showed up in New Orleans, you had the perfect way to flush out Aucoin. Somehow you found out I was working on a case for the CSIS. Now you had the perfect cover. Everyone would think I was the intended target of the ambush and Matthew was just collateral damage on my case. The CSIS bought the story because we were unaware of what Aucoin was up to and no further investigation was done. Aucoin was dead and your operation was still intact and undetected by law enforcement."

"I do admire your tenacity, Lucas." Walden told him with a smile. "We could have used someone like you." He said sarcastically.

"I can just imagine your surprise when years later you found me living in Hope Valley. I didn't know you but you remembered me. That's how you knew what evidence to plant that would be believable to silence me." Lucas told him quietly.

"That was a surprise, I'll give you that. But it did make it easier to keep you under our thumb. If that idiot hadn't hit that Mountie with his car, you would have been locked up right next to us." Walden said with enthusiasm.

"Yes, but I'm not. I'm now in a position to make you pay in ways you never imagined. I may not have the scenario exactly correct but I think I'm close. So, Walden, why don't you tell me what I'm missing." Lucas said as he leaned in closer to Walden putting his elbows on his knees.

Walden stared at Bouchard, seeing for the first time that he meant everything he said. He wouldn't stop until everyone that caused Aucoin and Thornton's deaths had paid. "I'm not the man you want. And if I tell you, I'm a dead man." Walden told him.

Lucas's composure slipped for just a second at those words. Hadn't Clayton Pike said those exact words to him in the jail in Hope Valley? Walden was scared of someone. But Johnathan Kingston was dead, Jeanette and Casmir Shaw were in prison. Was it possible that after everything that had happened, they still did not yet have the kingpin of all this criminal activity? Lucas wondered as a shiver ran down his spine as he recalled the words he spoke back to Pike, "And if you don't, am I?"

His countenance was once again unreadable. "And your mistake Walden is believing I won't kill you if you don't give me what I want. Do you really want to bet your life on that assumption? You've got 24 hours to think about where you want to live out the rest of your life or if you even have more time on this earth. I'll be back tomorrow." Lucas said as he stared at him coldly before standing and walking out the door.

Lucas walked out of the room and kept walking down the hall, shaking his arms trying to reign in his emotions.

"Lucas stop." Andrew call to him.

Lucas stopped and turned back to Andrew. "Did you hear him? He more or less admitted that someone associated with him killed both Matthew and Jack. Maybe if I had figured out what Matthew was up to maybe I could have helped and it didn't have to end the way that it did." Lucas lamented.

Andrew took Lucas by the shoulders. "I'm going to stop you right there Lucas. Matthew and Jack were doing exactly what they wanted. Matthew chose not to confide in you. And neither one of us knew Jack Thornton, his death was not something you could have stopped." Andrew told him sternly. Andrew could not let him go down that path or his hell would start all over again. Lucas was always putting the troubles of others on his shoulders.

Lucas lowered his gaze for a moment and regained his composure. "You're right, I know that. Now we have to figure out who is calling the shots and finish this once and for all. Let's go see the warden." Lucas told him as walked back down the hall.

Lucas and Andrew entered the warden's office slightly dejected. "How did your meeting with Walden go?" The warden inquired.

"Not quite as well as I had hoped. I need you to put Walden in solitary. I don't want him talking to anyone. He didn't quite give us everything we need. I gave him 24 hours to think about things." Lucas told him. "Also, do you have an inmate here by the name of Julius Spurlock?" Lucas asked. Lucas watched as the Warden turned red.

"Is there something wrong?" Lucas asked as he felt himself getting nervous.

"I'm sorry to say that Spurlock escaped three years ago. We haven't seen him since. I believe he had help from the inside." The warden told them embarrassed.

"I see. Do you have a picture of Spurlock and Walden that I can borrow?" Lucas asked him. "I need to show them to someone."

"Yes, give me a minute." The warden said as he left the room.

Andrew turned to Lucas. "Who is Julius Spurlock?"

"He was Walden's muscle the last time he was in Hope Valley. Interesting that Spurlock broke out of prison and not Walden." Lucas said almost as if to himself.

"What are you thinking, Lucas?" Andrew asked as Lucas got a faraway look in his eyes.

"I was just remembering a scene I witnessed between Walden and Spurlock in Hope Valley. I was out on the saloon balcony. Walden had just come out of Bill's office; Spurlock was waiting for him. It almost looked like Spurlock was in charge and wasn't happy with Walden about something. Also, the attempted murder charge against Walden stems from him trying to kill a hotel clerk in Brookfield. Why would Walden be the shooter instead of Spurlock? Walden told us we had the wrong man. Something is not right here." Lucas said perplexed.

The warden returned to the office and handed Lucas a mug shot of Spurlock and Walden. "Thank you, warden, I appreciate it." Lucas said as he handed the pictures to Andrew. "We'll be back tomorrow to talk to Walden again. I appreciate all of your help." The men shook hands and left.

Lucas and Andrew made their way back over to the Queen of Hearts to speak with Robert one more time. He was not in yet, so they got to play some poker, which was a nice distraction. At least for Lucas who was back to his winning ways.

After a few hands they sat down to eat some dinner. "Lucas, I have another question for you. Why did you let Walden think you were married to Elizabeth?" Andrew asked surprised that Lucas hadn't corrected the man.

"He assumed I was married to her and I thought it played better not to dissuade him of that notion. I figured if he thought I was doing all this to settle a score for my wife he might be more inclined to help. He always seemed to like Elizabeth." Lucas stated nonchalantly.

"Was this what your life was like with the CSIS?" Andrew asked.

"Pretty much. Always trying to stay one step ahead of the opponent. It was tiring, it takes a toll and eventually it comes to a point when you just can't do it anymore. That's what happened to me at the end. I was just done. I couldn't do it anymore, and yet here I am, back playing a mark. Daniel never mentioned that you never really leave the agency." Lucas said with a sad laugh.

Just then Robert came up to their table. "Lucas, Andrew, you're back. I heard you played some poker this evening and as usual Lucas; you schooled them all." Robert said with a hearty smile as he took a seat at their table.

"I have some pictures for you to look at." Lucas said as he took the pictures out of his pocket and handed them to Robert. "Do you recognize either of these men?"

Robert stared at the pictures for a long moment. "The man who met with Matthew had dark hair and a beard. This guy is bald and doesn't have any facial hair and is a bit heavier. I mean he does look vaguely familiar but I don't think he's the man that was meeting with Matthew though. The other guy may have been in the saloon a time or two. But Lucas, I couldn't swear to it." Robert told him.

"Thanks Robert. I know some people who knew Spurlock a long time ago. Perhaps they will remember what he looked like before I had met him in Hope Valley. Tomorrow, Andrew and I will be on the afternoon train headed back to Canada. It was great seeing you and Sophie. I wish you continued success with the saloon. Matthew would be happy to know that the two of you are running it now." Lucas told them.

"Thank you, Lucas. We won't be seeing you again, will we?" Robert asked.

"Hopefully not down here. But if you ever find yourself in Capital City or Hope Valley, be sure to look me up. I'd like you to meet my wife, MaKayla, and our adorable twins." Lucas said with a happy smile.

After Robert walked away, Andrew turned to Lucas. "Who do you know that might be able to tell us if Spurlock once looked like the man that Robert described and could possibly be the same man that is in that photograph?" Andrew asked pointing to the photograph in Lucas' hand.

"Elizabeth and Henry. Believe it or not, Spurlock worked for Henry when he was in charge of the coal mine in Coal Valley which is what Hope Valley was originally called. Spurlock was Henry's head of security. He may be able to give us some additional information about him as well. It's a time in Henry's life he's been trying to outrun for a long time, but he might know something that can help us. And if I remember the story correctly, Jack put Spurlock in prison in 1910 for a few years for arson. He burned down the church and tried to pin it on the widow of one of the coal miners because she spurned his advances. Another reason that Spurlock would want Jack dead. They have a history together and not a good one."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

New Orleans, Louisiana

Saturday, January 31, 1925

The next morning Lucas and Andrew returned to the prison. As they entered the interrogation room, Walden was sitting there smugly. "You're wasting your time Bouchard. I'm not talking."

Lucas laughed. "No worries, Walden. We figured it out. I'll be sure to give your boss your regards when I see him. I wish you a lot of luck in the future, something tells me you're going to need it."

"You're bluffing again. You have no idea who is pulling the strings." Walden said nervously.

"I told you not to underestimate me. Oh, by the way, that transfer to Granville Prison in Canada will be happening in the next few days. That way I can personally keep an eye on you." Lucas said with a smirk and walked out of the room.

Lucas and Andrew got in a taxi outside the prison. "One more stop before we head to the train station." Lucas told Andrew.

"Driver, please take us to 425 Basin Street." Lucas told him.

"Where are we going?" Andrew asked.

"To say hello to an old friend." Lucas said.

The driver let them out at St. Louis Cemetery. "Please wait, we won't be long." Lucas told the driver. Lucas hadn't been back here since the day they buried Matthew. As they walked, Lucas took some deep breaths to steady his nerves. They finally came to a simple tombstone that was surrounded by a lot of big crypts.

Matthew Joseph Aucoin

Born 07/15/1888-Died 10/15/1914

Beloved Husband, Son and Friend

To unpathed waters, undreamed shores

Andrew watched as Lucas dropped to his knees in front of Matthew's tombstone. He reached a hand out to caress the tombstone gently. "Hey Mattie, sorry it took me so long to get back here. I brought Andrew with me. I want you…I want you to know that I've tried to be a good man, to live a good life just like you asked me. Jeanette has struggled. I tried to help her but she lost her way for a time. I hope she will come to see you soon. I finally found my soulmate; it took me a while but she was worth the wait. You know her, Andrew's sister, MaKayla. I know your laughing about that right now. We have twins, a boy and a girl. Our son, we named him after you. I think you would like him; he reminds me of you every day. Robert and Sophie are running the saloon now. I know you would be happy about that. Your dream establishment lives on." Lucas paused for moment trying to regain his composure.

"We are so close to bringing your killer to justice and then you can truly be at peace. I miss you, Mattie and I always will. Sleep well my brother until we meet again." Lucas hung his head as he let the tears flow for his lost friend. He finally got up from the ground and wiped the tears from his cheeks. He walked away so Andrew could have a minute.

Andrew stared at the tombstone. "Don't worry about Lucas. MaKayla and I will take good care of him. Your namesake will do you proud. I have no doubt he will get in as much trouble as you did." Andrew said with a soft laugh. "But he will also be the kind of friend you were to Lucas and I. You and I both know Lucas won't give up until he has justice for you, my friend. Goodbye Matthew, until next time." Andrew bowed his head as the sadness reached his heart. He placed his hand on the tombstone one last time before turning to meet up with Lucas.