Natchez Burning (80 page)

Caitlin walks around the bed, lays her hand lightly on his shoulder, and bends to speak close to his ear. Her words are faint but filled with conviction. “I’m going to do everything in my power to live up to the example you’ve set. You concentrate on getting better. Any time you want to file a story, have Sherry call my cell, and I’ll come myself to take dictation.”

Caitlin continues speaking, but I’m distracted by Sherry, who comes to my side and begins whispering with great passion.

“Who said my man had to be the one to bring the whole damn Klan to justice? Huh? He’s done more than anybody else already. Hasn’t he done enough?”

“More than enough,” I assure her.

Sherry shakes her head. “I can’t live like this anymore. I want a life, you know? A
normal
life. I’m too old to have more kids, but I can sit on the porch and listen to Henry play the guitar. I can work in my garden, and do a lot of other things that don’t make people want to kill you.”

Unsure of how to comfort her, I take her arm and whisper, “I think Henry’s dangerous work is done. A lot of good people are going to take over from here, including the FBI. But without Henry’s work, those Klansmen would almost certainly go free forever.”

She laughs bitterly. “Do you think that makes it worth it? Look at him. What if that was your girlfriend lying there?”

Henry looks like somebody dragged from a basement after an aerial bombardment. But then I think of the bones Kirk pulled up from the bottom of the Jericho Hole, bones with rusted barbed wire and a bullet embedded in them. “Only Henry can answer that.”

She gazes angrily at the man she loves. “He won’t quit. Not even after this. I know him too well.”

“Maybe he will,” I murmur, but I know it’s a lie. No man who’s come as far as Henry Sexton would stop his quest now. I want to ask him so many things, first and foremost about Brody Royal. But all that will have to wait. “Let’s go, Caitlin. Let’s let them get some rest.”

Caitlin kisses Henry on the forehead. Then she comes over and touches Sherry’s hand, whispers something in her ear, and follows me to the door.

“What did you say to her?” I ask when we’re outside.

“Girl stuff.”

This tells me I will learn no more.

Our cars are parked side by side in the hospital lot. As we walk down the steps at the exit, Caitlin takes my hand and squeezes it, then lets go. I feel her shaking, but it’s only when we reach the car that she turns, and I see tears on her face, and her black mascara running down to make a raccoon mask.

“What is it?” I ask. “Henry?”

She shrugs and wipes her cheeks. “I didn’t think things like that happened anymore. Even in my job, I just—I don’t know. I mean drug murders, sex crimes, sure. But that in there … that’s something else. This is America, isn’t it? He’s a
journalist
.”

“Henry was a threat to the Double Eagles, so they tried to eliminate him. They want to stay out of jail. They don’t think beyond that.”

Caitlin wipes her face on her sleeve, then looks up at me with an almost accusing expression. “Are you so sure it was the Double Eagles? Why not Brody Royal?”

“Is that what you’re angry about? Something to do with Brody Royal?”

“Penn, you held back so much about him yesterday. I told you last night that Henry was going to work for me. There was so much you could have told me. I’ve lost so much time.”

“Not so much. And we didn’t know—”

She holds up her hand, then stares out at the highway with cold resolve. “I’m going to that bank to get Henry’s files.”

“Yes, and I’m taking you. We’ll pick your car up on the way back. Or maybe send a reporter back over here to get it.”

“No, I want my car. You can follow me if you want.”

“Caitlin, wait. We really need to ride together. You’re right, I have held some things back from you. But the biggest thing of all is that Dad has jumped bail.”

She drops her hand from her face. “What?”

“I found out late last night, but I couldn’t risk telling you on a phone. His life is on the line now. I’ve moved Mom and Annie to a safe house, and—”

“Excuse me,” says an unfamiliar male voice. “Are you Mayor Cage?”

A muscular man wearing a suit and an earpiece has appeared between two cars, and he walks toward us with one hand near the gap in his sport coat.

“Who are you?” I ask warily, wishing I hadn’t left my gun in my car.

“Special Agent Loomis.” He reaches into his coat, then flips open a wallet, revealing blue and white FBI credentials. “Special Agent John Kaiser would like you to meet him at the Jericho Hole.”

Caitlin touches my arm and shakes her head. “I don’t have time for that.”

“What does Agent Kaiser want to talk to me about?” I ask, not relishing the idea of being interrogated by an FBI agent on this particular day. “Can’t he do it by phone?”

Loomis gives me a tight smile and shakes his head. “We’ve ID’d the car at the bottom of that hole, sir. That’s not for publication, by the way,” he adds, with a look at Caitlin.

“Who did it belong to?” she asks.

“Sorry. Agent Kaiser may reveal that when you get to the Jericho Hole, but I can’t.” Agent Loomis looks at Caitlin again. “Are you Caitlin Masters?”

“Yes.”

“Agent Kaiser told me to invite you, too.”

“Why would he do that? Especially after the stories in this morning’s paper.”

Caitlin wasn’t kind to the FBI in her main story this morning. And she looks very reluctant to divert from the straightest path to Henry’s backup files.

“I never know why he does anything, ma’am,” Loomis says, “but he usually has a good reason.”

“How many people did Kaiser bring with him?” I ask.

“Four agents, plus some techs. But three more agents just left New Orleans. Oh, and his wife is with him.”

The effect of this statement on Caitlin is immediate. She looks like a musician after being told Bob Dylan is at a party she just declined an invitation to.

“Jordan Glass is here?” she asks.

“Yes, ma’am. Five minutes from where we stand. She’s taking pictures of everything we uncover.”

Even before Caitlin speaks, I know she’s decided she can afford a stop at the Jericho Hole. “Twenty minutes,” she says. “I don’t like playing catch-up.”

“You go on ahead,” I tell Loomis. “We know the way.”

The FBI agent looks uncertain, but after I wave him off, he heads for a parked Ford. As soon as he’s out of earshot, Caitlin says, “Penn, what the hell is Tom up to?”

“I have no idea. But if a cop spots him, and he resists arrest, they’ll kill him. I’m betting Forrest Knox has already given that order.”

Suspicion clouds her eyes. “Are you going to tell me what you know about Forrest?”

“On the way to the Jericho Hole.” Pulling her to me, I hug her tight, even though she stiffens at my touch. “You’ll have Henry’s files on your desk in under an hour.”

“A lot less than that,” she says into my chest. “I’m going to pick up right where he left off.” Drawing back her head, she reveals the wrath of a Fury behind her startlingly green eyes. “And whoever did that to him is going to suffer for it.”

THE FASTEST WAY
to the Jericho Hole is to ride the gravel road atop the Mississippi River levee—fifteen minutes if you drive seventy, and Caitlin is urging me to do just that. The great hole lies in the wooded margin between the north end of Lake St. John and the newer course of the Mississippi River. The oxbow lake is shaped like a C facing the river, about ten miles north of the Natchez-Vidalia bridge, and the Jericho Hole forms an equilateral triangle at the upper end of the C, each of its sides about a third of a mile long. The levee road should bring us directly between the lake and the hole.

As we speed along the levee top, I give Caitlin a much-expanded summary of the theories Henry related to me Monday night—including the story of Brody Royal killing Albert Norris and ordering the downing of Dr. Robb’s plane. Since Henry has decided to pass on his files to her, I see no reason to withhold what she’ll soon read for herself. She records every word on her handheld Sony, but she seems less excited than I would have expected, which makes me suspicious. She’s obviously angry that I withheld so much, but still, to see her sit in tense silence while I describe the murder of two federal witnesses—both women—stretches credibility. Halfway to the Jericho Hole, she tells me that last night she salvaged Henry’s most recent notebook from the
Beacon
fire, and from it learned most of what Henry got from Glenn Morehouse, Pooky’s mother, and even what he told me on Monday night. That includes Brody’s Carlos Marcello connection, the plot to kill Robert Kennedy, and the murders of the two women from Royal Insurance.

“Given that I have all that,” she says, “do you still want me to write a comprehensive story in tomorrow’s paper, as Henry was planning to do?”

“Yes. Though I think you’d do well to leave out the Marcello-RFK plot. Until you have more proof, that’s only going to be a distraction from the civil rights murders.”

“But this story isn’t just about civil rights murders!” she explodes. “You can’t demand that I jump the gun on parts of the story and hold back the rest.”

“Did you really look at Henry back there?” I ask. “I don’t want you to end up like that. And the best way to prevent it is to convince Royal and the Double Eagles that the information they most fear is already out there. And that the FBI has it.”

Caitlin sighs and looks out the window at the river, which appears slate gray today, rather than reddish brown. “This is one of the most complex stories I’ve ever worked. I can’t possibly do it justice by tomorrow. I’m going to pursue it as hard as I can, but methodically. I’m going to get it right. I won’t let redneck psychopaths determine my publishing schedule.”

“Caitlin … Sherry Harden gave you the keys to Henry’s safe-deposit boxes. How quiet do you think she’ll stay about all she’s heard and seen? If the Double Eagles find out you have Henry’s files, you’ll be next on their hit list. The
only
way to stay off it is to publish the story Henry planned to publish, or one like it.”

Caitlin turns back to me and squeezes my arm, her eyes imploring. “But Henry had
years
to digest this stuff. He had it all in his head. I’m starting from zero! If I had his rough draft of the story, maybe I could pull this off. But that was destroyed in the fire last night.”

“I’m sorry. But you have a handpicked staff, most of them way overqualified. If you push your deadline till two or three
A.M.
, you’ve got plenty of time to put a great story together. Caitlin … all you have to do is make the Eagles believe the FBI already has everything you do, even if they don’t. I’ll be glad to help you sift through Henry’s stuff—but I have to track down Dad first.”

“I don’t need your help,” she says sharply. “And I sure can’t wait for you to track Tom down. You don’t even know where to start looking.”

“I suspect Quentin might know where he is.”

“I’d start with your mother, if I were you.”

“She already lied to me about Dad once.”

“Well, you can’t blame her for that. What woman wouldn’t lie to protect her husband?”

“To her own son?”

Caitlin squeezes her knees in frustration. “We’re getting off subject. I just don’t like the way this thing has gone down. I’m still not sure you’re telling me everything.”

“Are you telling me everything
you
know?”

She blows out a rush of air, then says something unintelligible under her breath.

“Look!” I cry, pointing over the steering wheel as we come to a hard left turn on the levee. “What is that?”

Two hundred yards north of our car—and twenty feet below it—I see two huge tractor trailers with massive blue and white machines like blocky Transformers mounted behind them. Four black SUVs surround the trucks, and even from this distance, I hear a low, powerful rumble through my window glass. Some sort of workboat lies anchored about thirty yards out in the Jericho Hole.

“What the hell’s going on over there?” Caitlin asks.

“I have no idea. I figured we’d find an SUV filled with sonar equipment and a couple of FBI divers.”

A deeply rutted dirt road leads from the levee down to the Jericho Hole, and I’ve taken great care not to bottom out or get high-centered on it. Caitlin’s impatience is tangible in the car. The Jericho Hole is surrounded by trees except in a few places, but with the branches bare, you can clearly see the great loess bluff of Mississippi a mile across the river. As we draw nearer the semi trucks, I see Kirk Boisseau’s Nissan Titan parked at the water’s edge.

“How the hell did they find Kirk?” I wonder aloud.

“Look!” says Caitlin, pointing to her right. “That’s Jordan Glass.”

Forty yards past the trucks, an athletic-looking woman about my age is crouching on a log, shooting pictures through a long telephoto lens. The fleece jacket tied around her waist tells me she’s already learned that December in Natchez isn’t discernibly cooler than in New Orleans.

Parking beside Kirk’s truck, I notice a knot of men standing on the far side of the semi trucks. They seem to be studying a map.

“Penn!” cries a voice from my left, startling me. “You believe this shit?”

I turn and find Kirk Boisseau watching me with flushed cheeks and an excited smile. He’s wearing a wetsuit with a down jacket over it.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I had to show them where I found the bones.”

“But
how
did you get here? I mean, how did they find you?”

He shrugs. “I figured you gave them my name.”

“I didn’t.”

Kirk shrugs again. “That Kaiser guy just called me out of the blue, late last night. He said the FBI needed my help, and they wanted to hire me as a diver. He’s a marine, too. Vietnam. What was I going to say?”

A tall, brown-haired man has detached himself from the group and is coming toward us. He’s carrying a neoprene bag in his hand.

“That’s him,” Kirk says quickly. “He brought a couple of FBI divers up with him, and they’re damned good. We’ve already brought up most of the bones.”