Natchez Burning (51 page)

I turn away for a moment, trying to hold my anger in check. “You never do anything without considering your career. Nobody does, but you’re worse than most. You invited a photographer down here for this appearance, didn’t you?”

“Hell, no! Lincoln must have invited him to witness that little floor show. You think I wanted to be spanked like that in front of a reporter?”

“No.” As I think about this, the truth driving Shad’s strategy hits me in a revelatory flash. “In fact, you wouldn’t have come to Justice Court if you had a choice.”

“What do you mean?” he asks, but he knows.

“The grand jury’s in session. You could have gone straight there for an indictment, even without an arrest. Then you could have got an arraignment in circuit court. But you didn’t, because this is Judge Elder’s month.”

Shad’s blank look is almost comical.

Normally, he would want Judge Joe Elder to be assigned my father’s case. Elder is a fine judge, and impartial, so far as I know. But he is African-American, and Shad would much prefer him to the other circuit judge, sixty-three-year-old Eunice Franklin, a white female who is known to admire my father. But last month, Joe Elder announced that he planned to resign and move to Memphis, where his physician brother can treat him for his worsening liver disease. If Shad had gone to the grand jury today, Dad’s murder case would have been tried by an unknown replacement for Elder, six months down the road. Given local demographics, that replacement judge is likely to be black, but that doesn’t mean he or she won’t be a fan of my father.

“What’s your game?” I ask. “You trying to find out who Joe Elder’s replacement will be?”

Anger fairly sparks from Shad’s eyes.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” I decide. “Judge Elder has been at the Mayo Clinic for the past week. You’re hoping to dodge Judge Franklin and get someone assigned that you can play like a fiddle.”

“That sounds downright paranoid, Mayor.”

I lean toward him and speak low. “Shad, I never thought in a million years that I’d use that photograph against you. I never thought you’d force me to. But you’re going after my father. That’s like going after my
child
. Do you hear me? I will not spare you.”

“Don’t act like I’m the one in the wrong here,” he snaps, pulling back and looking up the street. “Your father is refusing to assist the coroner with a legal obligation, and you’re trying to blackmail the district attorney. Any objective listener would brand you the bad guy here.”

I know Shad too well to let this bother me.

“Penn,” he continues gravely, “have you considered the possibility that your father might actually be guilty?”

Of course I have.
“Of murder?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

The ping of my cell phone alerts me to a call. My first instinct is to ignore it until I’m clear of Shad, but then I remember that Kirk Boisseau is diving the Jericho Hole this morning. While Shad watches, I dig out my phone and check the screen. Sure enough, it reads
KIRK B.

“Hey, buddy,” I answer. “I’m in a meeting. What’s the situation?”

“I found what you wanted
.
”

My heart quickens, but I keep my face impassive. “What would that be?”

“Bones
.
”

“The ones I mentioned?”

“I’m pretty sure
.
”

Shad looks impatient. “That was fast,” I say casually. “What makes you think so?”

“There was a car sitting on them. Some were handcuffed to a steering column. If they hadn’t been, they’d have washed out into the river back in the flood of seventy-three.”

My heart stutters, and I turn away from the DA in hopes of concealing my excitement. “Where are you now?”

“On Highway 84. We had to tear ass out of there. The landowner was riding a four-wheeler around the hole when I came out of the water the last time, and that hole ain’t exactly a lake
.
It’s more like a big pond.”

Shad points at his wristwatch, a platinum Rolex.

“Thank you, Rose,” I say with all sincerity. “I’ll call you back in a few minutes.”

Again I give Shad my full attention. “You and I need to arrange a DNA test,” I remind him. “Immediately. I want this paternity bullshit settled before rumors hit the street.”

“Okay by me,” he says. “But the usual procedure isn’t going to cut it. Lincoln Turner doesn’t trust any local lab to send the right swab to New Orleans or Jackson. He doesn’t even trust the cops down here. We’re going to have to get an out-of-town lab to send a tech.”

“Christ, Shad. Well … get on it. The sooner Turner knows the truth, the sooner sanity might prevail. Have you spoken to him about his possible parentage? And by that, I mean the gang rape.”

The district attorney looks up and down Wall Street again. The stately old thoroughfare is empty, but pedestrians are moving along Main Street to his left. “Penn, you’ve been laboring under some misconceptions for a long time. It’s not really my place to enlighten you—especially not out here—but maybe we need to clear the air. Why don’t you come to my office a little later?”

“I’ll stop by when I finish with some business. I need to get an old photo album out of my safe.”

The DA shakes his head the way he might at a charity case. “Don’t do anything without talking to me first. I’m telling you that for your sake.”

As he strides off down Wall Street, I call Kirk back and promise to meet him in twenty minutes, in the parking lot of a music store owned by a friend of mine. Then I call Caitlin. I asked that she not come to the initial appearance this morning, so that no one present would feel they were playing to the media. She only agreed on the condition that I call her as soon as court adjourned.

“Did the judge grant bail?” she asks by way of greeting.

“Fifty grand. Dad’s out.”

“How much did Shad ask for?”

“He asked that bail be denied.”

“I told you! The gloves are off. Shad thinks this is his golden chance to get back at you. You’ve got to go nuclear. You should have done it last night.”

“I pretty much did. But he chose to ignore the threat.” A tick of worry is biting at me. “I’m concerned that he’s got the photo covered somehow.”

“How?” she asks, incredulous. “How could he possibly protect himself from that picture? He could go to jail over that, right?”

“Probably not. But he’d definitely be disbarred.”

“Are you sure the image is safe?”

“I’ve got the flash drive in my pocket now. But Shad would be crazy to proceed this way unless he’s figured a way to cover his ass.”

“Maybe he thinks he has equally damaging material on you. Or on Tom. Is that possible?”

A cold shiver goes through me. “Not on me. But something’s not right about this. Shad just spoke very cryptically to me outside the courtroom, and he didn’t sound like a man who’s afraid. He asked whether I’d considered whether Dad was really guilty, then suggested I come up to his office later to discuss it.”

“Then what are you doing talking to me?”

“You’d have had a stroke if I didn’t call you first.”

“Granted. Now get up there and find out what cards he’s holding.”

I would, but I have some bones to look at across the river.
I start walking toward my parking space at City Hall. “I will. But I want to be sure I’ve thought through every angle before I confront Shad again.”

I give her a quick summary of Lincoln’s unexpected appearance and outburst, then tell her about the photographer.

“That bastard,” she says. “Shad probably asked the
Clarion-Ledger
to send someone down.”

“Shad claims Lincoln did it, and he may have. I’m afraid the media storm is about to hit.”

“That’s all right. I’m a good sailor. I’ll come by City Hall after lunch. I love you.”

The instant I hit
END,
a female voice calls out from behind me, “Mr. Mayor?”

I turn, ready to politely brush off a constituent, but I find myself looking at Jewel Washington, the county coroner. Jewel’s office is two doors down from the Justice Court.

“I saw you out here talking to the DA,” she says, beckoning me toward her office door.

“I don’t have much time,” I tell her.

“You have time for this.”

Jewel is an African-American woman of about fifty-five, and a former surgical nurse. Just as Justice Court judges don’t have to be lawyers in Mississippi, coroners don’t have to be M.D.s. But in Jewel’s case, her lack of a medical degree has proved no impediment to the efficient running of her office. A perfectionist in all things, she has an unerring sense of justice. Jewel also happens to love my father, having known him for many years.

“I heard Shad asked for no bail,” she whispers, opening the door to her office suite, which leads into a small, empty reception area.

“News travels fast in this building.”

“You know it, honey. Thank heaven Judge Noyes feels the same way about your daddy that I do.”

“I appreciate that, Jewel. What’s up?”

“Shad’s getting on my last nerve about Miss Viola’s autopsy. He wants me to try to rush the pathologist up in Jackson, and also to use my contacts at the state crime lab to rush the toxicology. He wants everything done yesterday.”

“What does he most want to know?”

“You know. Cause of death. The
exact
cause.”

“Do you know yet?”

Jewel raises her eyebrows and clucks her tongue once. “She didn’t die from any morphine overdose.”

“I didn’t think so,” I reply, recalling the recording on Henry Sexton’s hard drive. “How sure are you?”

“Miss Viola had a PICC line in place for receiving meds, but she’d developed complications with it. Her sister said she’d been getting direct injections for pain the last couple of days. Whoever injected Viola with morphine pushed the needle right through her antecubital vein. Would have been easy to do, because that vein was shot. Some morphine probably got into her system, but most of it went into the soft tissue beneath the vein. No way that killed her. The home health nurse told me she had a huge tolerance built up.”

“Then what killed her?”

“It’s looking like an adrenaline overdose. But they’re not positive yet.”

I squeeze the coroner’s wrist. “Thank you, Jewel.”

“Wait, baby. That’s not what I came to tell you.”

Glancing through the small windows that frame her office door, I watch an ancient Chrysler trundle down Wall Street with a white-haired woman at the wheel. “I’m listening.”

“Two things. One, I worked alongside Dr. Cage long enough to know he wouldn’t push a needle through nobody’s antecubital vein.”

“Not even under stress?”

Jewel scowls. “He wouldn’t have wasted time trying to hit that old thing. I’ve seen Doc find a deep vein to draw blood from a four-hundred-pound man. He’s got the best touch I ever saw. Either somebody without medical training gave that injection, or Viola tried to inject herself, and she was so far gone that her nurse’s training was useless.”

“Good. What’s the second thing?”

“News flash. Shad Johnson
hates
yo’ ass, boy. You made him lose one election and beat him yourself in another. Add to that the Del Payton case, Dr. Elliott’s trial, and that casino mess a couple months back … that’s a big account coming due, from Shad’s point of view. That Negro ain’t playing. He means for Doc to die in jail.”

“That’s what Caitlin thinks, too.”

Jewel’s eyes gleam like the precious stones she was named after. “I always said that girl was smart.” She takes hold of my hand and squeezes. “If you need help, call my son, not me. He’s staying in town for a while. Your fiancée can find out his phone number.”

Before I can respond, Jewel pulls open her door, pushes me outside, and shuts it again. The lock turns behind me.

After a stunned couple of seconds, I hear Kirk Boisseau’s excited voice in my head:
Bones … There was a car sitting on them
.

After a paranoid glance at the sheriff’s department, I start running for my car.

KIRK BOISSEAU DRIVES
a scarred Nissan Titan with kayak racks mounted over its bed and roof. His truck is parked in the side lot of Easterling’s Music Company, a family-owned music store that’s surely connected in spirit to Albert Norris’s long-vanished emporium. The owner, a man nearly my father’s age, is a gifted musician and a country philosopher in the mold of Will Rogers. His store sits right beside Carter Street, the busy main thoroughfare of Vidalia, Louisiana, and thus makes a convenient but unobtrusive place to pick up the bones Kirk found in the Jericho Hole.

When I pull my Audi to the far side of the Titan, I find Henry Sexton standing beside the truck’s passenger window, where Kirk’s girlfriend, Nancy something, is sitting. Henry’s Explorer must be parked behind the store. The reporter’s face is bright with excitement, but Nancy’s is lined with concern.

By the time I climb out of my car, Kirk has gotten out and come around to my side of the truck. The ex-marine’s face shines like that of a boy who just dug up a dinosaur bone. An inch taller than I, Kirk has a waist no bigger than a woman’s and the shoulders of a mountain gorilla, the result of good genes and kayaking miles every day on the Mississippi River.

“Where’s the fossil?” I ask.

He grins and reaches through the passenger window, down between Nancy’s legs, then brings up a foot-long object wrapped in wet newspaper. When he unwraps the soaked paper, I see a dark brown cylinder with a rounded head at one end. I’ve visited the burial sites of many murder victims, and in seconds my brain categorizes this artifact as the distal end of a femur.

“Human for sure?”

“It’s no chimpanzee,” Kirk says.

If the bone is in fact a human femur, then I’m looking at what must be the lower three-quarters of it. Below where the hip should be—the trochanter and other protuberances—the bone appears to have been crushed.

“The water mineralized this?” I ask.

“Obviously!” Henry Sexton exults, shivering with excitement. “Do you realize what this means?”

“Is this all you brought up?” I ask, trying to stay focused.