Natchez Burning (22 page)

“You need to tell it, man. Let go of this thing. That’s why you brought me here.”

The old man clung to his silence like a shield.

“Viola wouldn’t admit the rape to me,” Henry said softly, “but I saw the pain in her eyes. You took a turn, didn’t you?”

Morehouse’s face had gone bone white, and his eyes looked wild.

Henry forced down his disgust and laid a hand on the old man’s arm, hoping to appeal to his Baptist fundamentalism. “It’s God’s judgment you need to worry about, not Snake Knox. God already knows what you did. He wants to hear you own up to what you did, Glenn. That’s what matters to Him.”

Morehouse jerked his arm away and pulled the crocheted comforter over the lower half of his face. Only his eyes and nose showed, like those of a terrified child after a nightmare. To imagine this pathetic shell of a man brutalizing a proud young woman like Viola Turner sickened Henry; yet he knew now that it had happened.

“You just do what I asked you to do,” Morehouse said through the crocheted yarn. “Tell Nurse Viola I never meant her no harm, and tell her to get back to Chicago.
Quick
. I’ll pay her airfare if she needs it. She don’t deserve what Snake and the others will do to her.”

Present tense again.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that for you, Glenn.”

“Why not?”

All Henry’s senses kicked wide open, preparing to read the old man’s reaction. “Because Viola’s dead. Somebody killed her this morning.”

The shock in the old man’s eyes was so profound that Henry acquitted him of murder on the spot. Morehouse worked his jaw, trying to gum up some spit, but he couldn’t seem to do it. The implications of his ignorance spun out in Henry’s mind. If the Eagles
had
fulfilled their threat against Viola—and kept Morehouse out of it—then that meant they no longer trusted him. Had the old man realized this yet? Was he gauging the odds of his survival even now? Henry didn’t think so. Casting his gaze desperately about the room, Morehouse looked like a man with a terrible sin lashed to his back, one that Viola’s death had cursed him to carry into the afterlife.

Henry gently shook his arm. “The Eagles killed Jimmy and Luther back in sixty-eight, didn’t they?”

Morehouse nodded like a man struck dumb.

Triumph surged through Henry’s chest. He’d toiled for more than a decade to prove this. “Where are their bodies, Glenn? Tell me, man. For the sake of the families.”

Morehouse stared into the flames as though hypnotized. The news of Viola’s death had pushed him into some kind of fugue state. But Henry could no longer restrain himself. He stood over the recliner and glared down without a shred of mercy in his heart. “You were there when they died, weren’t you?
Weren’t you?
”

The old man’s cheek twitched, but he held his stony silence.

“What did you do to them, Glenn? Is that who you saw crucified?”

“Damn your eyes!” Morehouse shouted, jabbing a fist up at Henry.
“You don’t know a goddamn thing. Get out of my house!”

“Why were they killed, Glenn? Why Jimmy and Luther?”

“They were goddamn Muslims, that’s why! They was fomentin’ a Muslim rebellion. Snake knew all about it. They was running guns and all kinds of other shit. Hand grenades, dope, you name it!”

Henry would have laughed, were the old man not so enraged. If the Knoxes had given credence to this kind of delusion, they were not only paranoid but stupid. “Jimmy Revels was no Muslim,” he said with quiet conviction. “He was Roman Catholic. He sang in local churches. And he sure never ran any guns. He was a pacifist, for God’s sake. That’s verified in his navy record.”

“If he was a pacifist, what was he doin’ with a badass nigger like Luther Davis? Davis was a dope dealer and a gunrunner.”

“Luther Davis served in Vietnam. Didn’t that count for anything with you guys?”

Morehouse looked back at the fire. “I’ll tell what it counted for with Snake. Both them boys had tattoos on their arms. Luther’s said
‘
Army,’ with an eagle under it. Jimmy’s said ‘USN,’ with the anchor. Neither of them boys was wearing their tattoos when they died,” Morehouse murmured. “Get the picture?”

Henry shuddered. He remembered the indigo anchor on Jimmy’s arm. He’d seen it when the young vet had taught him R&B guitar riffs in the back of Albert’s store. Henry hadn’t realized that black skin would show tattoos until he saw Jimmy Revels’s arm. “Are you saying Jimmy and Luther were skinned alive? Is that who you saw flayed?”

Morehouse shook his head. “Not like you’re thinking. Just the tattoos. Snake said niggers wearing service tattoos was an abomination.”

Henry felt like he might vomit. But more than this, he wanted to send Brody Royal to death row at Angola Prison. “Tell me how all this is connected. Tell me about Ray Presley and Dr. Cage. How could they save Viola?”

“It don’t matter now,” Morehouse whispered. “Not if she’s dead. But if you want to prove who killed them two boys, you find those tattoos.”

Henry recalled some of the grisly trophies taken by serial killers whose cases he’d followed while working as a reporter. “Are you saying those tattoos still exist? Is that even possible?”

“Oh, yeah. Anybody who knows about tanning can keep a thing like that for a hundred years. Just like a scalp or a hide. It’s all skin.”

“Damn it, Glenn, think about what I said before. With one taped statement, you could put an end to all this. You could have Snake and the others behind bars by suppertime tomorrow. You could give all those poor victims’ families peace. And you could save your own soul. Isn’t that why you called me here?”

Desperation shone from the old man’s eyes. “I’ll think about it. It ain’t just myself I’m worried about, you know? I’ve got family, too. I’ve got a son, plus two grandkids. They don’t live here, and they don’t much care whether I live or die. But I care about them. And Snake knows that.”

“Glenn, you can defang Snake Knox any time you want. Brody Royal, too. They won’t be able to hurt your family.”

Morehouse looked at Henry in disbelief. “You ain’t heard a damn word I’ve said, have you? Frank and Snake had
sons,
Henry, and most are on the wrong side of the law. This shit don’t die. It goes down through the generations. Look what happened to Viola! Don’t assume Snake done it. He would have
wanted
to, but he could’ve sent any number of guys to do that for him.”

Henry thought about Shad Johnson and his quest to convict Tom Cage. “You’ve got to tell the DA what you know, Glenn. That’s the only way to protect yourself. If Snake ordered Viola’s death, and he didn’t let you know about it, then he already doesn’t trust you.”

“And why should he?” Morehouse took hold of Henry’s wrist. “Listen to me. Ain’t no John Law gonna jail Snake. He’s got protection.”

“What kind of protection? Brody Royal?”

A curtain fell over Morehouse’s eyes. “We don’t have time to go into that.”

“No?” Henry couldn’t bring himself to leave the house when there was so much to be learned. Yet his neural circuits felt overloaded. He’d forgotten to ask anything about Joe Louis Lewis, the missing busboy. Yet of all the unanswered questions sparking in his mind, the most fantastic found its way to his vocal cords. “Answer me one question. I know of at least three people that Snake Knox told he shot Martin Luther King. I always assumed that was bullshit. Just a drunk redneck talking. But the FBI won’t comment one way or the other. And photographic evidence from the scene suggests that the shooter fired from the mechanical penthouse above the elevator shaft of the Fred P. Gattis Building, not the bathroom of the rooming house across the street, where James Earl Ray was. Before I go, I want you to look me in the eye and tell me Snake Knox is full of shit.”

Morehouse’s eyes had grown round and white. “I’m only going to tell you one thing about Snake, Henry. The motherfucker is crazy, but crazy like a fox. What he’s done or ain’t done, nobody knows but Snake and the devil himself. And in case you didn’t know, he served as a sniper in Korea.”

A chill ran along Henry’s arms.

“You watch your ass after you leave here,” Morehouse said, in the tone of a fellow soldier. “Don’t stray far from cover.”

Henry glanced anxiously at his watch. “Please give me the bodies, Glenn. Without the bodies, Jimmy and Luther stay a kidnapping on the books.”

The old man shook his head. “Not today. You ain’t proved I can trust you yet. And I don’t want to read all this in the
Beacon
on Thursday. You prove I can trust you, I’ll tell you some things that’ll scorch your eardrums.”

Henry’s frustration finally boiled over. “I won’t print a damned thing you’ve told me! I swear it.”

Morehouse glanced at the wall clock. “Wilma’s gonna come up the driveway any minute. If she does, we’re both dead.”

Henry stood up and looked down at the old man. “No,
you’re
dead. Where did you dump those boys? I’ve heard the Jericho Hole, by Lake St. John, and I’ve heard the Bone Tree. Which was it? Or was it someplace else?”

“I don’t know where they are, Henry. I never did. The Bone Tree ain’t even a real thing. Don’t do this, man. Wilma would sell me out to Snake in a minute.” Every passing second was pushing Morehouse deeper into panic. “I’m
beggin’
you,” he pleaded. “Get out now.”

The cell phone in the old man’s hand pinged. He peered at the LCD and his face went blotchy with panic. “Wilma’s down at the end of the road! Her dog got loose while she was gone, and she’s trying to get him into her truck. She’ll be here any minute!”

Henry wanted to push the old man to the wall, but if he did, he’d never get another interview with him. “I’ll go. But only if you’ll call me later.”

“It’s too late!” Morehouse wailed. “You can’t get out without her seeing you now!”

Henry thought about the topography outside the house. “Are you sure there’s no other way out? I came in a four-wheel drive.”

Relief washed over the old man’s face. “Drive right through the ditch at this end of the road, then head for the tree line. Park behind the trees until you see Wilma come in. Then you can work your way east toward the river. There’s a dirt track over that way that’ll get you to the levee road. But you gotta go
now
.”

Henry stuffed his Moleskine in his pocket and trotted to the door. “If you don’t call me before midnight, I’m coming back here.”

“I will, if I can. Otherwise tomorrow.
Go!
”

Henry opened the door and glanced up the gravel road. Seeing no vehicles, he ran to his Explorer. Ten seconds later he was nose-down in a ravine, fighting mud and gravity. With a lurch the Explorer slammed to a stop. For thirty awful seconds, his worn tires spun and whined in vain, and Henry sweated like he was being chased by a demon, not a leather-faced old woman. As his heart thundered in his chest, he realized that what he’d heard during the past hour had altered his life forever, as it would soon alter the world. He hadn’t even begun to process all that Morehouse had told him. Henry was no conspiracy theorist; he was the opposite, in fact. But the look in Morehouse’s eyes when he’d asked about Snake Knox and Martin Luther King had sunk into the marrow of Henry’s bones. With a squawk and a stink of burning rubber, the tires finally caught and carried Henry over the lip of the ditch. After one last glance at his rearview mirror, he gunned his motor and made for the tree line across the empty field.

FORTY MILES DOWN
the Mississippi River, Billy Knox waited in the study of the Valhalla Exotic Hunting Reserve, which his father stubbornly insisted on calling by its original name: Fort Knox. The massive compound straddled the boundary between Lusahatcha County, Mississippi, and West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, both of which lay on the eastern bank of the Mississippi River. Though much of Valhalla was surrounded and protected by impassable swampland for part of the year, a fourteen-foot-high fence kept trespassers out and valuable game species in. Trophy heads of African antelope, Canadian moose, and whitetail deer jutted from every wall in the lodge, while grizzly bears and alligators guarded the corners with lifelike menace. Behind Billy’s chair, a seven-hundred-pound hog with a spear in its back prepared for a charge. The Teddy Roosevelt décor pegged Billy’s cheese meter, but he hadn’t gotten up the nerve to take any of it down. His cousin Forrest liked the lodge exactly the way it was—the way his father Frank had liked it—and Billy didn’t fancy the consequences of desecrating the memory of Frank Knox.

Billy liked to think of himself as a redneck renaissance man. From humble beginnings, he’d raised himself to a plane where he was able to contemplate spending $250,000 to hire Jimmy Buffett to perform at his upcoming forty-fourth birthday party. Not many men could do that. The fact that he’d broken a multitude of laws to attain his present position was of no consequence. The lesson of history was that every great fortune was built upon a great crime, and great men from medieval popes to modern philanthropists had succeeded by taking this maxim to heart, just as Billy had done.

The drug trade had been Billy’s primary engine of success, but over the past five years he’d expanded into real estate, oil, timber, and hunting equipment. He also produced a reality hunting show for television, one carried on five separate cable channels. Top NASCAR drivers, NFL players, and country music stars had appeared on the show with him, hunting everything from alligators and razorbacks to the prize bucks that roamed the wooded hills of Valhalla. More than a few admirers had observed that Billy fit right in with that elite: with his dirty blond hair and ice-blue eyes, he looked like the lead singer of a 1970s southern rock band. He exuded a daredevil aura, much as his father once had, and society women found his charm irresistible.

At bottom, Billy thought of himself as a modern-day buccaneer, using his wiles to circumvent onerous, puritanical laws passed to keep red-blooded Americans from enjoying themselves. An avid reader of the maritime novels of Patrick O’Brian, he’d bought a thirty-five-foot sloop and christened her
Aubrey
to fulfill his most cherished fantasy. Thanks to Hurricane Katrina, however, the
Aubrey
now lay on her side in a pine barren north of Biloxi, wrecked beyond salvage. But today that was the least of Billy’s problems. For he shared more than his blond locks with Captain Jack Aubrey. Like Jack, whose Radical father caused him no end of problems by intemperate behavior in Parliament and in private life, Billy Knox had been cursed with a father who bowed to no authority but his own.