Natchez Burning (82 page)

No one could deny the fierce resolve in John Kaiser’s eyes. “How do you plan to do that?” I ask, passing the letter back to him.

“By busting every Double Eagle still walking this earth. I don’t give a shit how old they are. I want life sentences for every last one of them. And I’m not going to rely on any local juries. I can get them under the conspiracy statutes, and also for domestic terrorism.”

“Don’t sell local juries short. Even Mississippi juries have been doing the right thing on old civil rights murders lately.”

Kaiser takes his cell phone out of his pocket, checks a text message, taps quickly on the keypad, then puts it away. “Almost all of Henry’s computers and records were stolen or destroyed last night,” he says. “I find it hard to believe that he kept no copies, but that’s what he’s telling me.”

Part of me wants to tell Kaiser that Henry did in fact keep backups, but I’m not about to take that step without consulting Caitlin.

“If Henry
does
have copies,” Kaiser goes on, “I need them. And if you know about files or ledgers or anything like that, please don’t sit on them in the hope that they’ll somehow help your father.”

“I don’t have anything like that,” I tell him, praying that Kaiser hasn’t bugged Henry’s hospital room.

The FBI agent gives me a long look. “You spent nearly two hours alone with Henry in his newspaper office Monday night. He must have confided quite a bit to you.”

“He wanted to help my father, if he could. He told me the Double Eagles had threatened to kill Viola if she ever returned to Natchez. He didn’t know why. That’s mostly what we covered. Then he played his guitar and we talked about old times.”

Kaiser pulls a wry face, but he doesn’t press me.

“Let me ask you something,” I say, as a wild idea strikes me. “If you’re investigating the Double Eagles under the Patriot Act, you must have turned on the Big Ears.”

Kaiser looks disingenuous. “What do you mean?”

“I mean you have the NSA monitoring their phones and e-mail. Right?”

The FBI agent sniffs and looks down the shore. “Is there a motive behind that question?”

“Absolutely,” I reply in a tone that makes him turn back to me. “What do you know about a man named Brody Royal?”

JORDAN GLASS KNELT IN
some dead weeds beside Caitlin and began shooting the workboat with her motor-drive Nikon. She clicked off nine shots, then pointed her lens back the way they had come and framed a shot of Penn talking to her husband.

“Do you know why this is happening?” she asked, framing yet another image. “The draining of this massive hole?”

“Because your husband pushed for it?” Caitlin guessed.

“No. Katrina guilt.” Jordan pointed at the semi trucks. “See those pumps over there? They’re the biggest mobile pumps in North America. They’ve been sitting down in New Orleans since the hurricane, when they were used to help drain Orleans Parish after the flood. But take my word for it, nobody could have released them to move up here without very high authority. The FBI couldn’t do that.”

“Then who?”

“The Bush administration is taking a huge hit for its poor handling of Katrina, especially from the black community. Ergo, they’re willing to send these pump trucks up here. Why? To win political points by sparing no expense to solve a decades-old civil rights murder they didn’t give a shit about last week.”

Caitlin could tell by the passion in Jordan’s voice that she was the kind of journalist who got personally involved in the stories she covered. “Well, at least they’re here.”

“Oh, I agree. I just think it’s important to understand the context.”

Caitlin could hardly believe she was talking to someone she’d admired since she was thirteen years old. She’d first heard of Jordan Glass when a female reporter at one of her father’s papers started waving some pictures around the newsroom where Caitlin was working after school. The photos had been shot in the bush in El Salvador, and the massacre they showed was entirely inappropriate for a thirteen-year-old girl; but just as indelible as the bloody images was the reporter’s triumphant tone when she boasted that the photos had been shot by a twenty-three-year-old American woman and former reporter for the
New Orleans Times-Picayune
. Now, twenty-two years later, Caitlin was walking beside that very photographer, only now Glass was forty-five and had a string of prestigious prizes behind her. Glass had been
shot
while doing her work, for God’s sake.

“Race politics,” Caitlin said. “Even in Natchez, it’s the subtext of half the stories my paper covers.”

“Sorry if I sound pissy,” Jordan said, loudly enough to be heard over the rumbling of the pump trucks. She straightened up. “This isn’t how I wanted to spend today and tomorrow.”

“No?”

“No. I’m flying to Cuba on Friday to shoot Fidel and Raúl Castro. John and I had planned to spend today and Thursday in our house on Lake Pontchartrain—which we haven’t gotten to do since Katrina. That was until your boyfriend—”

“My fiancé,” Caitlin corrected, a little defensively.

“Oh. Congratulations. When are you getting married?”

“The wedding was scheduled for next week.”

“Was?”

“After this stuff came up with Penn’s father, I decided we’d better postpone it. Do you know about the murder charge?”

“John told me.”

“We’re going to wait until we have a better idea of what’s going to happen. Maybe until after the trial. If there is a trial.”

Glass stopped walking and looked at Caitlin with disconcerting intensity. “You want some free advice? Don’t wait. You never know what’s going to happen. How old are you, thirty-two?”

“Thirty-five.”

Jordan held Caitlin’s eyes for another few seconds, then blinked and looked away. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“It’s fine,” Caitlin said, starting down the shore of the Jericho Hole again. “I just don’t want my wedding tainted by Penn’s father being in trouble. Dr. Cage’s health is pretty fragile.”

A cloud seemed to pass over Glass’s face before she started walking again. “Seriously, I’m sorry I was bitching. I just … John and I have hardly had any time alone since the storm. I sympathize with Henry, believe me. He’s done a lot of work that the Bureau should have done decades ago. But frankly—if you don’t mind a little oversharing—I’ve been trying to get pregnant for the past six months, and this little detour doesn’t help.”

Caitlin instantly flashed back to her morning pregnancy test.

“I know I’m old,” the photographer said, as if to counter silent criticism, “but I was always so—”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Caitlin said. “I say go for it. You deserve a family as much as anybody else.”

Jordan shrugged. “Yeah, well … I’m not home much.”

“I know,” Caitlin said, too loudly. “I see your credit under pictures from all over the world.”

Jordan’s eyes revealed a shocking vulnerability. “Oh, I lead the glamorous life. A month ago, Angelina Jolie asked how I’d feel about her playing me in a film. It’s surreal.” She looked at the ground and shook her head sadly. “Why does a woman who’s adopting babies left and right want to play a childless woman?” The photographer grimaced, then looked up at Caitlin. “I’m
so
ready to spend some time around joy and innocence instead of pain and death. I let John hire me as a contract photographer for this expedition so we could be together for these two days, but it sucks. He won’t even sleep for the next two days, much less take time for me.”

“Why is he so gung ho about this case?”

Glass panned her gaze across the horizon, as if searching for new perspectives. “John’s very tight with an old-time FBI agent named Dwight Stone. These cold cases from the Ku Klux Klan days are like a holy quest for them.”

“I know Dwight,” Caitlin said with a touch of pride. “I met him on—”

“The Del Payton case,” Glass finished. “I know about that. And I know about your Pulitzer. Good work, by the way. I read your Payton stories last night in the hotel, on the Internet.”

Caitlin felt the way she did after being given a blast of nitrous oxide at her dentist’s office. She wanted to say thank you, but she found herself strangely tongue-tied by Glass’s praise. She was almost never starstruck, but years of hero worship couldn’t be easily hidden.

With a fluid motion Glass raised her camera and shot a photo of a mallard coming in low for a shallow landing on the water. “What’s it like being with a politician?”

“
Penn?
He’s no politician.”

“He’s not?”

Caitlin laughed. “He’s a crusading lawyer with a savior complex. And a part-time novelist. Deep down, he’s just a boy who wants to save his hometown.”

Jordan smiled at Caitlin’s candor. “Can it be saved?”

Caitlin shrugged. “I didn’t think so, once. But now I think maybe it can. I’ve promised to try to help him.”

“Good for you.” Jordan let her camera rest against her chest. “But if a crusading lawyer with a savior complex is anything like a crusading FBI agent with one, I don’t envy you. At least you can work alongside Penn. That’s something I really can’t do, except by little charades like this one.”

Caitlin tried an encouraging smile but felt as though she’d failed.

“I guess you ought to call me Jordan,” said Glass. “After my overshare back there.”

Caitlin laughed with relief. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I spent some time on Nexis last night. I couldn’t find any
Examiner
stories about the murders Henry has been covering.”

“These old cases have been Henry’s private preserve, so to speak,” Caitlin said, reddening with embarrassment. “But I actually hired Henry yesterday. He was supposed to start writing for me today. But then … last night happened.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Usually very close with information, Caitlin felt a powerful urge to confide in her childhood hero. Surely Jordan Glass would have sage advice for her. And yet … could she trust Jordan not to reveal the conversation to her husband?

“Do you always tell your husband everything about your work?”

Jordan smiled. “No, ma’am. I do not.”

“Does he think you do?”

“He pretends to think that.”

It was Caitlin’s turn to smile. “Does he tell you everything?”

Glass shook her head. “If John told me everything he knows, he could be charged with treason.”

“I see. Penn and I operate by a similar set of rules. We keep our two careers as separate as possible.”

“Yet you’re both here today.”

“More separate than together today, to be honest. And we’ll split up as soon as we get back to the hospital.”

“Which brings me back to my question. What are you going to do now? Pick up where Henry Sexton left off?”

You bet your ass I am
. “Isn’t that what you’d do?”

“Hell, yes. And I’ll tell you something else. I’d rather help you do that than sit around here taking pictures of these guys waiting for a lake to be pumped dry.”

Caitlin wondered if her suspicion showed on her face. After several seconds, she made a silent decision. “Tell you what. If you get too bored, and you’re still in town tomorrow morning, come see me at the
Examiner
. I could use a world-class combat photographer.”

Glass raised an eyebrow. “Are you expecting a war?”

Caitlin saw no reason to hide the anger that was driving her. “Starting one, if nobody manages to stop me.”

“What about this afternoon? I could get free for a couple of hours.”

Caitlin wondered for a moment if John Kaiser had encouraged his wife to spy on her. But when Caitlin shook her head, it was with genuine regret. “No, I’m sorry. This afternoon I have to work alone.”

Jordan nodded, a knowing look in her eyes. “Good for you.”

TO MY SURPRISE, JOHN
Kaiser has no knowledge of Brody Royal’s involvement with the Double Eagles. He knows Royal is a player in the New Orleans real estate market, and that he had ties with Carlos Marcello long ago. He’s also aware that two federal witnesses disappeared before they could testify against Royal and his son-in-law in the state insurance fraud case. But beyond this, he seems to know little.

“Last night you mentioned major 1960s assassinations on the telephone,” he says. “I did some digging, but I couldn’t find any connection between Royal and extreme politics. There was some talk that he might have contributed to the anti-Castro cause back in the day, but that was it.”

“I’m not sure Brody’s motive was political. But it’s not the assassinations I’m worried about right now. It’s Viola Turner. I think Royal was behind her death.”

Kaiser’s skepticism is plain. “Why on earth would he want that woman dead? Dwight and the other agents who worked this area in the sixties never mentioned Royal to me. What do you have on him?”

“I’d rather not answer that just yet. But if you grant me a favor, you may well find most of your work done without lifting another finger.”

Now Kaiser looks suspicious. “This must be some favor you want.”

“It is. I want you to extend your digital surveillance to include Royal and his right-hand man, Randall Regan. Regan is married to Royal’s daughter.”

Kaiser runs his tongue around the inside of his cheek. “And why would I do that?”

“Because if you do, within twenty-four hours, you may have proof that Royal ordered the deaths of Albert Norris, Pooky Wilson, Jimmy Revels, Luther Davis, and Dr. Leland Robb. Eventually, you’ll find out he was behind the deaths of those two federal witnesses as well.”

Kaiser’s eyes have gone wide. “You and I obviously need to have a long talk.”

I shake my head. “Not yet. I’ve got things to do. But if you do this for me, we’ll have our talk.”

He weighs my proposition in silence. Then he says, “There’s no evidence suggesting Brody Royal was ever a Double Eagle. How can I justify including him in the surveillance?”

“You said you’re operating under the Patriot Act. Don’t I count as a reliable informant? I just told you the son of a bitch was the real power behind the Double Eagles during the sixties. That’s probable cause, if you really need it. From what I understand, you guys have been playing pretty fast and loose with National Security Letters.”