Turning Angel (28 page)

Jan Chancellor says, ”The board has just scheduled a memorial service for Kate and Chris tomorrow.“

”Where?“

”The school gymnasium,“ says Holden. ”Chris was Methodist, but Kate was Presbyterian. And we wanted to do it during school hours. Better not to try to transport all the kids out to a church. We can do it right here.“

”Did you talk to Jenny Townsend about this?“

”I’m going to inform her as soon as the meeting’s over.“

Typical. As if the board’s decision should rule everyone else’s life. ”Okay. So why am I here?“

Holden’s voice takes on an almost feminine tone of irritation. ”The next order of business is the expulsion of Marko Bakic.“

”Expulsion and deportation,“ grunts Bill Sims. ”It’s time for that little bastard to go back where he came from.“

”On what grounds are you expelling him?“ I ask.

”They don’t really have anything specific,“ Jan informs me. ”Just a catalog of smaller infractions. Detention-type infractions.“

”Which I seem to remember he served detention for,“ I think aloud, noting Jan’s use of ”they.“

”Exactly,“ she says, turning to Holden and Bill. ”If you want to expel Bakic, you’re going to have to do it arbitrarily.“

”Fine,“ says Sims. ”He’s a damn Croatian. What can he do about it?“

”He can sue you and this school,“ I say in an even voice. ”Our insurance would cover it, but the publicity would eat us alive. You’d wake up every day and read the words ‘illegal drugs’ and ’St. Stephen’s Prep‘ in the same article.“

”He’s not even an American!“ blurts Smith.

”That makes no difference. The foreign prisoners being held at Guantánamo are suing the federal government for unlawful imprisonment, among other things. American lawyers are lining up down there to represent them.“

”Bullcrap!“ Sims bellows. ”That’s just
bull
crap. That’s what’s wrong with this country.“

”No, that’s one of the things that’s right with it.“

Sims glares at me, then looks at Holden Smith as if to say, ”What the hell’s
he
doing here anyway?“

”I’ll tell you something else,“ I go on. ”You pulled the trigger too fast on Drew. The more I find out about Kate’s death, the more certain I am she was raped and murdered by someone else.“

”Who?“ asks someone down the table. ”That drug dealer mentioned in the paper?“

”I can’t discuss that here.“

”We’re in executive session,“ says Holden. ”No one’s keeping minutes. Nothing will leave this room.“

”That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all year. I don’t remember one sensitive topic discussed in this room that I didn’t hear about two days later from someone who shouldn’t have known a damned thing about it. Everyone in here talks out of school, to belabor the expression, and I’m not blowing Drew’s defense to hell to satisfy the curiosity of this group. I just want those of you who condemned Drew for murder the minute you heard about him and Kate to know you were wrong.“

”But he
is
guilty of the affair,“ insists Holden. ”Correct?“

”If he is, you know what that makes him?“

”What?“

”As human as the rest of us.“

Holden looks genuinely hurt. ”Penn, you’re taking this personally. We all like Drew. We all respect him, apart from this, of course. But the damage that’s already been done to this school because of his involvement with Kate is incalculable. And what about the damage to Kate herself?“

”Honestly? I’m not sure how all that shakes out yet. What if Kate was already in deep trouble? What if Drew was a stabilizing influence in her life?“

”You’re saying that having sex with a forty-year-old man stabilized Kate’s life?“

”No. But being loved by him might have. Holden, the total tonnage of what we don’t know about these kids’ lives would sink an ocean liner.“

The board president blows out a stream of air like someone resigning himself to ambiguity. ”Penn, you obviously know a lot more about this situation than we do. What do you recommend?“

”Regarding Marko? Watch him closely, that’s it. If someone steps forward and says they saw him bring drugs to that lake party, that’s a different matter. A police matter. The lake party happened off school grounds, of course, but since it’s a criminal offense, I think we could justify immediate expulsion under our zero-tolerance policy. But so far, nobody’s come forward. And now that the Pinella kid has been beaten up, I doubt anyone will.“

”Was Marko responsible for that?“ asks a woman at the far end of the table.

”I don’t know, Jean. Look, even if Marko is selling drugs to our kids, he’s not the one bringing them into the city. Illegal drugs are an industry, and in this case they start down on the Gulf Coast and flow northward. Certain people here wholesale it to other people—possibly Marko—who then retail it to users, like a small number of our students. Marko’s only part of a very long chain. We don’t yet know who might have thought they had reason to beat up the Pinella boy.“

”But Marko is the link that most affects this school,“ Holden says. ”Until he showed up, we didn’t have a problem.“

”Not a
visible
problem. Every high school in America has a drug problem, Holden.“

”Should we test some of our students for Ecstasy and LSD?“ asks Sims, reviving an idea we killed months ago.

Now I’m losing my patience. ”Bill, if you’re worried about the school’s image, that idea is about as stupid as it was when you brought it up a couple of months ago.“

Sims reddens but doesn’t respond.

”What we need to do is calm down and let the police and the judicial system work. If you want Marko on a plane back to Croatia, you may get your wish sooner than you think.“

”What do you know?“ Holden asks eagerly.

”I know that the best thing we can do is let things take their course. Now, do you need me for anything else?“

Jan glances at Holden. ”Penn, we’d like you to remain on the board. This body was premature in asking you to step down.“

”I agree, Jan, but I can’t do that.“

”Are you officially Drew’s lawyer?“ asks Holden.

”I haven’t decided yet. But it makes no difference. This body has given up any moral right to leadership that it had before this crisis started. Most of you are here because you have your own private agendas, which may or may not be in the best interest of the school as a whole. One of our most distinguished and generous alumni is in trouble—he may soon be fighting for his life, in fact—and you abandoned him without even hearing his side of things. So, I bid you good night.“

I stand and walk to the door.

”Penn, wait!“ Holden calls.

”Let him go,“ snaps Sims. ”Goddamn bleeding heart lecturing us like that.“

As soon as I clear the door, I find myself jogging toward my car. My frustration is about to boil over. I climb in and start the car but leave the engine in Park. I’m not even sure where I should go now.

When my cell phone rings, I assume it’s Jan Chancellor trying to get me to return to the board meeting. But my caller ID saysSONNY CROSS . ”Sonny?“

”Yeah. Sorry I couldn’t talk before. I’ve got what you need now. Man, you’re not gonna
believe
it.“

”What?“

”Marko, Cyrus, Kate…I understand everything now. And, boy, have I got something to help Drew.“

”Tell me!“

”Not on your life. Not on a cell phone.“

”Where are you?“

”My house. Beau Pré Road. You know where that is?“

”Yeah. What’s the house number?“

”Two seventy-one.“

”I’ll be there in ten minutes.“ I pull into the southbound lane of Highway 61 and press the accelerator to the floor.

Chapter
21

A few miles south of Natchez, Kingston Road forks away from Highway 61 and curves through rolling land that a century and a half ago made up thriving cotton plantations populated with hundreds of slaves. Beau Pré Road is a serpentine offshoot of Kingston Road, lined with one-story houses and aluminum trailers, some with bass boats sitting in their front yards. The houses are set far apart, with small ponds, outbuildings, and dog runs in the overgrown border land between lots.

It’s full dark as I round a long curve that should carry me to Sonny Cross’s house. From what the drug agent said in our brief cell phone conversation, it sounded like he’s discovered the holy grail of this case. My greatest hope is that he can prove that Cyrus White murdered Kate. Scanning the homes flashing past on my left, I see two gold numbers tacked to the wall of a house trailer.

Two sixty-nine.

I ease my foot off the gas and coast around the tail of the curve. A lone porch light appears in the trees to my left. Then the beam of my headlights hits a rutted dirt driveway that intersects Beau Pré Road on my left. As I turn onto the dirt, a yellow rectangle of light appears beneath the porch light. The black silhouette of a man walks into the rectangle, then passes through it, and the orange eye of a cigarette bobs along the driveway at a height of about six feet. When I reach the cigarette, I stop my car, turn off my engine, and get out.

Sonny Cross takes a deep drag off his cigarette. The orange glow illuminates his haggard face and glints off a silver stud in his left ear. Despite the fatigue in his face, I see excitement in his eyes.

”How much do you want to know?“ he asks.

”Everything.“

”Don’t be so sure. This is
Dirty Harry
stuff.“

”Tell me everything, Sonny.“

Another long drag. Smoke drifts into the night as he speaks. ”I was pretty upset this afternoon. You saw it when we talked. I couldn’t just sit around waiting for something to break.“

”What did you do?“ I ask, my gut tightening in anticipation.

”I decided to have a little talk with Marko Bakic. I picked him up outside the Wilsons’ house, easy as pie. Then I took him to, uh…an undisclosed location, where we had a frank and honest exchange of views.“

”A willing exchange of views?“

Sonny chuckles softly. ”There might have been a little duress.“

”Jesus, what did you do to the kid?“

”I just asked him some questions. But young master Bakic indicated an unwillingness to cooperate. He emphasized this with some well-chosen sarcastic remarks. He seemed quite pleased with himself, all in all. So I stuck my gun in his mouth.“

I shake my head in disbelief.

”To tell you the truth,“ Sonny reflects, ”even that didn’t rattle him much. I think that boy saw a lot of shit over in Bosnia, and guns by themselves don’t scare him. I don’t think he believed I’d really use it.“

”You didn’t, did you?“

Cross shakes his head slowly. ”No. But I convinced him I would.“

”How did you do that, exactly?“

An unguarded smile. ”Some things we must pass over in silence, my son.“

”Was that what I heard when I called you before the board meeting? You torturing Marko?“

”No. That was somebody else.“

”Who?“

”One of Cyrus’s guys.“

I’d like to sit Sonny down and have a talk with him about the niceties of the Constitution, but right now I have a different priority. ”Enough foreplay, Sonny. Give me what you got.“

”Marko’s basically Cyrus’s punk, okay? He registered in the student exchange program hoping to get New York, L. A., or Miami. Instead, he got Natchez, Mississippi. Imagine his dismay. Marko saw himself as the next
Scarface,
a young Al Pacino coming to America to take over the drug trade. But when he got here, he didn’t find Robert Loggia, an old dealer soft and ready to fall. He found Cyrus White, a kind of nightmare he’d never seen before. Cyrus recognized something in Marko, though, maybe because they had both seen war up close. He saw Marko’s ambition, and he used that to open up new markets.
White
markets. Through the older brothers and sisters of our high school kids, Marko made contacts in the white fraternities at LSU, Ole Miss, USM, Millsaps, Louisiana Tech…you name it. This network is far more extensive than I imagined. The Asians on the Gulf Coast wholesale to Cyrus, massive shipments moving north by several different routes. When it gets here, Cyrus sends out his boys to supply Baton Rouge, Jackson, Oxford, Ruston, Hattiesburg—all the markets Marko opened up. It’s a massive operation, Penn. Mind-blowing, really.“

The drone of an engine echoes through the trees, then a pair of headlights sweeps past us in a long arc.

”Why are we out here?“ I ask.

”My kids are inside,“ Sonny explains. ”My ex-wife hears any more about this cowboy shit, she’ll be asking the judge to modify our custody agreement. Mosquitoes getting you?“

”I’m good. Go on. You said you had something that would help Drew.“

Sonny grins. ”I know why Kate Townsend was seeing Cyrus. She was buying Lorcet from him. You know what that is?“

”Pain pills, right? Like codeine?“

”That’s right. She tried to buy it from Marko first, but he doesn’t keep Lorcet in stock. It’s more of an adult drug. The kids don’t use it much. Anyway, Marko goes to Cyrus and asks for some, but Cyrus won’t hand it over just like that. He’s curious by nature. He wants to know why Marko suddenly wants hydrocodone.“

The word ”hydrocodone“ triggers something in my mind, but I’m too interested in what Sonny discovered to ponder it.

”Marko tells Cyrus he’s going to use the Lorcet to buy the finest piece of ass in the city. Cyrus asks who he’s talking about. Dumb-ass Marko tells him, and that was that. Cyrus knew damn well who Kate Townsend was. Her picture’s been in the newspaper about twenty times over the past couple of years. Tennis, swimming, her scholarship to Yale.“

”Harvard.“

”Wherever. Cyrus told Marko that if Kate wanted Lorcet, she’d have to come to him to get it. Personally.
That’s
how all this started.“

”I don’t get it,“ I say softly, suddenly afraid that I do. ”Drew told me Kate never used drugs.“

”Then she was buying them for somebody else.“

Another set of headlights appears in the distance, moving slowly this way.

”Tell me about Kate and Cyrus.“

Sonny watches the lights come and go. ”Once a month or so, Kate would tell Marko she needed a new bottle. She was buying at the rate of a hundred a month. A hundred pills, I mean. She bought a hundred and fifty per visit, the last couple of months.“