The Quiet Game (25 page)

“I agree.”

“You do?”

“I simply want to use it in a different way than you.”

“How?”

“To scare the shit out of Portman and Marston, and see which way they jump.”

Now I have her attention. “How can you do that?”

“By making them think we can prove they're guilty of Payton's murder.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

“Simple. I state publicly that Leo Marston was responsible for the murder of Del Payton.”

“What?”
my father cries.

“With no evidence?” asks Caitlin. “Just slander him?”

“Exactly. I slander him.”

“But why?”

“Because by doing that, I leave Marston no option but to sue me.”

Dad snorts in amazement. “What the hell does that accomplish?”

“The minute Marston sues me, I'll answer his charge by stating that truth will be my defense. I will then be free under the rules of discovery to request Marston's business records, personal papers, tax returns—all kinds of things from the years surrounding the crime.”

“A fishing expedition?” asks Caitlin. “You think you'll find some documentary proof that Marston ordered Payton's murder?”

“Not really. My primary goal is psychological. Ike Ransom says everyone around here is playing the quiet game. He says the way you win that game is by making people nervous. So, that's what I'm going to do. Marston won't believe I'd make a public charge like that without hard evidence. He'll panic. His first thought will probably be Ray Presley. After Presley, who knows? Portman maybe. We don't know who else was involved. But Marston does.”

“You
think
he does. What if you're wrong? What if you have no evidence by the time the slander case comes to trial?”

“Then I'll lose a great deal of money. Maybe everything I have.”

“How long would that be? From the time of the slander till the trial?”

“Hard to say with someone like Marston. The deck would be stacked against me from the start. He'd want a quick trial, and he'd get one. Everybody in this town owes him favors, especially in the judicial system.”

“He's got his share of enemies too,” Dad points out. “You might get some unexpected help.”

“I'll tell you what would scare the shit out of him,” I think aloud, feeling excitement building inside me. “A jury trial. In this town the jury might be fifty percent black. We might even get a black judge.”

Dad actually cackles. “Marston would be apoplectic! After a lifetime of moderation on race, he gets hauled before a black jury on a case like this?”

“How would you do it?” Caitlin asks. “The slander, I mean. Walk into a bar, pound on a table, and accuse him of murder?”

“No. I'd have to make it impossible for him not to sue.”

“Talk radio?”

“Maybe. But the ideal medium is print. It carries the most authority.”

She blanches. “You mean
my
newspaper? Not a chance in hell.”

I smile. “Hey, are we partners or what?”

She stands and jabs her forefinger at me. “Marston would sue the paper for libel. He'd sue my father!” She shakes her head violently. “My father will tolerate a lot. But a libel suit? Do you know what kind of damages people have been awarded in libel cases?
Tens of millions of dollars.
He'd jerk my butt out of here so fast my feet wouldn't touch the ground.”

“Caitlin—”

She shakes her head again and walks quickly to the door. “I'm going to forget I ever heard this. And I suggest you think long and hard before you put everything you have up for grabs. You have a daughter to raise.”

“Not a word in the paper about any of this,” I remind her.

She closes her eyes and sighs angrily.

“Unless you want to print my accusations of Marston's guilt. Then you can blow the story wide open. You can take it national tomorrow morning. The more noise, the better.”

She stands in the door with her hands on her hips, nostrils flared, eyes burning. “Damn you, Penn Cage.” She glares at my father. “If I were you, I'd try to talk some sense into my son.” Then she steps through the sliding door and shuts it with a bang.

Dad looks at me with a glint in his eye. “That's some woman.” He takes a cigar from his shirt pocket, unwraps it, and sticks it between his back teeth. “Desperate times call for desperate measures?”

“What choice do we have? Even if Betty Lou would go public, she might never get the chance. Presley could kill her. And even if we somehow turned Presley, Marston could have him killed. But as soon as I go public, any suspicious accidents make Marston look guilty.”

“I agree. Not only that, I like it.”

“There's only one problem,” I murmur, fighting the fear germinating in my gut.

“What's that?”

“Leo is one cool customer. What if I can't spook him?”

 

By nine p.m. I've pretty much decided to go forward without Caitlin's help. Finding a newspaper reporter or radio talk-show host who will let me spout off about Leo Marston and a race crime shouldn't be too difficult. In the current media climate, where celebrity and controversy are the benchmarks of ratings, they'll probably fight over the story. But Caitlin's apprehension still worries me. What I need now is positive confirmation that I'm right to go after Marston.

Dwight Stone answers his phone after five rings, but as soon as I identify myself, he hangs up. I try once more, in case he made a mistake, but the result is the same. More curious than discouraged, I take out my wallet and fish out the card with Ike Ransom's cell phone number. The deputy answers instantly.

“This is your buddy from the Triton plant,” I tell him.

He asks if I'm home, then says he'll call back from a land line. A minute later, he tells me to meet him at an abandoned warehouse by the river, in the industrial park. This doesn't strike me as a good way to spend the evening, so I suggest that he pick me up in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He reluctantly agrees.

Fifteen minutes later, I climb into his cruiser, the claustrophobic little world of anger and guns and cigarettes. He looks just as he did the other night, only more nervous. He looks, in fact, like he might be wired on speed.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demands.

“Colorado. I talked to an FBI agent who worked the case in sixty-eight.”

Ransom hits the brake, then catches himself and continues up the bypass. “I thought I told you to stay away from the FBI.”

“You did. And I'm curious as to why.”

He ignores the comment. “What's this guy's name?”

“Stone.”

He taps the wheel impatiently. “Couple of people I talked to remembered him. They said it seemed like he really tried to solve the case.”

“He did more than try. He solved it.”

Ransom looks over at me, his speed-pinned eyes distant. “He tell you that?”

“In so many words.”

“No details?”

“He won't talk about it.”

Ike laughs humorlessly. “What did I tell you? The quiet game. Everybody's playing it.”

“What are they so scared of? Marston?”

“Judge Leo got some serious juice, man.”

“Is that all?”

“What you mean?”

“Did you know John Portman was here in 1968?”

“John who?”

I hesitate before answering. I have a feeling Ike knows exactly who I'm talking about. “The director of the FBI,” I say, watching him.

He accelerates and whips around the car ahead of us, but I can't tell whether he did it to buy time or not.

“What you mean, he was here?”

“It was his first year as an FBI agent. He was working the Payton case with Stone.”

Ike shrugs. “That's the first I heard of it. But I told you to stay away from the FBI, didn't I? You can't trust no Feds, man.”

“Never mind. Look, I've thought of a way to go after Marston. But it's risky. I've got to know more than I know now. You understand? You've got to give me something more.”

“Like what?”

“How about some evidence?”

“Shit, man, if I had evidence, I'd get that motherfucker my own self. Finding evidence is your job.”

“Why do you think he was behind Del's murder?”

“I just know, okay?”

“It's not okay, damn it. It doesn't make sense. Why would Marston want Del Payton dead?”

“That's what you're supposed to find out.”

My father's original doubts about Ike's motives are coming back to me. “Why do you hate Marston so much, Ike?”

He turns to me, his eyes smoldering. “I done told you once. It's personal.”

“That's not good enough anymore.”

“Fuck you, then!”

I say nothing for the next mile. Ike's respiration is heavy and erratic, as though so much energy is consumed by his anger that he has to remind himself to breathe.

“Were you and Ray Presley cops at the same time?”

He keeps his eyes on the road. “Presley was in Parchman when I joined
the force. But I knew that motherfucker later on. We were like two bad dogs on a street. We always stayed on different sides. Still do.”

“Well, somebody just tried to kill him.”

An eerie stillness comes over Ike. Then he turns his head toward me, and the intensity in his eyes is frightening. “Tried to kill him how?”

“Poison.”

“Take more than poison to kill that bastard.”

“I think Presley planted the bomb that killed Del Payton.”

Ike rolls his tongue around his cheek, his eyes moving on and off me. “Why you think that?”

“I've got reasons. What do you think?”

“I think all the evidence in the world against Ray Presley ain't gonna get you no closer to Marston.”

“Why not?”

“'Cause Presley don't know shit about the
reason
. You got to find the
why
of it.”

“Take me back to my car. You want me to fight your battles for you, but you don't give me shit for help.”

He spins the wheel and turns the cruiser back toward Wal-Mart, his anger making his knuckles pale. “Marston fucked up my family,” he says through clenched teeth. “Fucked up my whole life. That's all I'm gonna tell you. It's got nothing to do with Del Payton, but I knew you could bring Marston down behind the Payton thing. That's why I went that way. I want that bastard destroyed. In
public
. That's what'll hurt him the most. If it wasn't for that, I'd have killed his ass a long time ago.”

I settle back on the seat and let my eyes go out of focus, which turns the oncoming headlights into slow white meteors. “Ike . . . I want you to swear on the soul of your mother that Marston ordered Del Payton's death.”

He doesn't hesitate. “On the soul of my mother. If it wasn't for Leo Marston, Del Payton would be alive today.”

I guess that's all the certainty I'm going to get.

 

When I get home, Caitlin's Miata is parked in the driveway. She is standing in the garage, talking to Officer Ervin.

“What's the matter?” I ask as she walks out to meet me.

“Dwight Stone just called me at the newspaper. He thinks his phone is tapped. He gave me the number of a pay phone and told me to get you to call him back. He said you should use a pay phone too. One far from your house.”

“Let's go.”

I drive us up to the bypass, then north to Highway 61. There's a pay phone at a convenience store, but I go a little farther to a grocery store parking lot, where there won't be so much noise. Caitlin stands beside me as I dial the number.

“Yes?” Stone says in a gruff voice.

“It's Penn Cage.”

“Listen to me, Cage. My phone is tapped. So are the phones at your father's house and medical office. Probably the lines at the newspaper as well. You should also assume physical surveillance. I'm being watched right now.”

“Jesus. Someone just tried to kill Ray Presley.”

Caitlin tenses beside me, but I ignore her.

“How?” asks Stone.

“Poisoned his IV bag. He had a coronary, but he's still ambulatory and mad as hell.”

Stone says nothing, but I can sense the conflict raging within him. “I know you worked with Portman on the Payton case in sixty-eight,” I tell him. “Why did you lie about that?”

“I was trying to protect people.”

“Who?”

“You, for one. Others too.”

“Well, I took your advice. I talked to the eyewitnesses, and I've placed Presley at the crime scene.”

“And?”

“I want Leo Marston, not Presley.”

“Squeeze Presley.”

“That's easier said than done.”

Stone laughs softly. “Ray's not very squeezable, is he? Son of a bitch tried to kill us on the highway to Jackson.”

“You're the agent who got shot at on Highway 61?”

“Portman and me, if you can believe it. The world would be a lot nicer place if Presley had hit Portman that day.”

“Why? Goddamn it, what's the big secret? What was so terrible that Hoover had to bury it under a national security seal? What's Portman hiding? What could still scare you after thirty years?”

“Do you really expect me to answer that?”

“You're damn right I do. It's time you listened to your conscience, Stone.”

“Don't preach to me, son. You haven't earned the right.”

“If Ray Presley shot at you, why didn't he go to jail for it?”

“He did.”

“Presley went to Parchman for drug trafficking. That's a state prison.”

“Justice doesn't always happen in a straight line. You should know that.”

I grip the phone with exasperation. “I've thought of a way to go after Marston without Presley's help, but it's a gamble. A big one. I can't afford to be wrong.”