Natchez Burning

by Greg Iles

  As a sop to Penn, she dialed Mercy Hospital and asked for Henry Sexton’s room. A few moments later, Sherry Harden came on the line.

  “Sherry, this is Caitlin Masters. Is Henry doing any better?”

  “Nobody knows,” Sherry said curtly. “He’s sleeping. He’s been out for most of the day.”

  “I’m sorry. I was hoping to verify something about the story he wants me to publish tomorrow. I need to know if he tried to reinterview someone who refused to tell him anything the first time.”

  “Are you serious? I can’t wake him up for that. You’ll just have to do the best you can. And please don’t call back. The phone disturbs him.”

  Sherry hung up.

  Thank you very much, Caitlin thought with perverse satisfaction. Now Penn couldn’t argue that she’d tried to circumvent Henry.

  She saved her open computer files in an encrypted format, then logged into a White Pages website and typed Katy Royal Regan in the search field. The search engine instantly kicked back Randall and Katy Regan, 18 Royal Road, Lake Concordia, Louisiana. She memorized the address and scrawled the phone number on a Post-it, then typed in Royal Insurance Company, Vidalia, Louisiana. Adding this phone number to the Post-it, she made a quick plan.

  Lake Concordia was ten miles from the Examiner offices. She could call Royal Insurance on her way to Louisiana, and with any luck verify Randall Regan’s presence at his office. If he wasn’t there, she’d have to find a way to make sure he wasn’t home with his wife. But given what she’d learned about that relationship, Caitlin felt confident that home was the last place Randall Regan would be. With adrenaline pumping through her like fuel, she stuck the Post-it to her Treo, dropped a Sony tape recorder into her purse (next to her pistol), and headed for the front door.

  CHAPTER 75

  CAITLIN KNEW SHE was risking her life to interview Katy Royal Regan. To minimize that risk, while driving over the bridge to Louisiana, she’d called Royal Insurance and asked for Randall Regan. When the receptionist asked for her name, Caitlin answered that she was Special Agent Glass of the FBI. When Regan came on the line, speaking like he had a bad case of laryngitis, she informed him that an FBI search team would arrive at Royal Insurance in thirty minutes with a warrant, and that he should be prepared to produce all files pertaining to the state insurance fraud case of 2003. If Regan had any trouble remembering which case that was, she said, it was the one in which two female employees who had given evidence to federal agents had disappeared. Before Regan could do anything but curse, she’d hung up.

  As for Katy Regan, Caitlin had reluctantly decided on an ambush interview. According to Henry’s notes, the woman hadn’t been upset by his questions about Pooky Wilson during his interview, and she’d been gracious to Henry throughout. But when he’d called back two days ago, she’d angrily rebuffed him. Caitlin wasn’t going to risk spooking her quarry before getting inside her house.

  Dusk was falling by the time Caitlin reached Lake Concordia, and the first thing she saw was a line of houses decorated with Christmas lights. None could compete with the Regan home for gaudy splendor. Every surface of the house had been lined with colored bulbs, and the yard boasted at least six inflatable displays, one depicting Santa landing in a helicopter. Caitlin called the house immediately, identified herself, then told Mrs. Regan that the Examiner was doing a lifestyle story on Christmas displays. Could she possibly stop by for ten minutes to discuss Mrs. Regan’s decorative sense? When Katy agreed, Caitlin hung up before the woman could change her mind. Five minutes later, she presented herself at the front door, which had been covered with red foil wrap.

  The interior of the Regan home looked like a photo spread out of Southern Living magazine—French country fireplaces, contemporary furniture, and three antlered deer staring down from the living room walls. Katy herself looked like a Stepford wife of indeterminate age. Caitlin knew from research that Brody Royal’s daughter was fifty-nine, but Katy already had the scared-cat face of the plastic surgery addict. When she answered the door, her eyes had a glaze that Caitlin read as the result of a couple of gin-and-tonics. Her polite drawl had the beginnings of a slur, as well. Caitlin hoped the alcohol might loosen the woman’s tongue.

  The Regans’ living room looked out over the narrow oxbow of Lake Concordia, which reflected a thousand colored lights. Caitlin accepted the offer of a glass of sherry, though she detested the stuff, and watched her hostess walk to her kitchen to pour it. While Katy was out of sight, Caitlin switched on the miniature tape recorder in her purse.

  Soon her glassy-eyed hostess handed her the sherry, then went to the chair opposite Caitlin and sat with her legs crossed so perfectly that she must have learned the art at some finishing school for southern belles. Caitlin found it difficult to reconcile this poise with her knowledge that Katy Regan had been forcibly committed to a mental institution where she’d been subjected to primitive electroshock therapy for nearly a year.

  “You look very chic,” Mrs. Regan said, nodding at Caitlin’s black silk T-shirt and jeans. “I could never carry off that look.”

  “Of course you could,” Caitlin said, smiling.

  “Oh, no. But thank you. Aren’t you and the mayor getting married soon?”

  Caitlin forced her mind to shift gears. “Ah … yes, we are. I mean, we were getting married this weekend, but some family issues came up. We’ll probably have the ceremony this spring.”

  Katy Regan’s smile broadened. “Will it be a big wedding? Dunleith and the carriage? All that? I love big weddings.”

  Caitlin forced herself to sip the sherry, then set down her glass. “Mrs. Regan, I’m sort of under a deadline.”

  “Of course, dear. What would you like to know?”

  She took a deep breath, then spoke in the most sympathetic voice she could muster. “I’m going to be honest with you. I didn’t really come here to talk about Christmas lights.”

  The surgically augmented lips flattened into a tense smile. “I never thought you did. I’ve read your stories, Ms. Masters. You’ve never written anything but hard news.”

  Caitlin was startled to hear such frank clarity from this seemingly airheaded woman. “The truth is, I’ve been working with Henry Sexton, and—”

  “Oh, Lord,” Mrs. Regan cut in, her face a caricature of shock. “Wasn’t that terrible what happened to him?”

  “Yes,” Caitlin said, sensing a chance for cooperation. “That’s why I’m working on this story now. And Mrs. Regan, I must tell you—”

  “Please call me Katy, dear.”

  “Katy,” Caitlin said thankfully. “Both Henry and I believe—we fervently hope—that you can shed some light on one particularly heinous crime.”

  Mrs. Regan blinked like a young ingénue auditioning for a lead role. “What crime is that?”

  “The murder of a boy named Justus Wilson. His friends called him ‘Pooky.’”

  Katy Royal kept looking back at Caitlin as though she hadn’t spoken a word. Then, after an interminable silence, she blinked once, like a patient bird. “Who, dear?”

  Caitlin leaned forward and gave Katy the full intensity of her gaze. She knew that her bright green eyes sometimes unnerved people, and she hoped they would have that effect now. “Pooky—Wilson,” she enunciated. “He was a young black man who worked for Albert Norris, the music store owner, back in 1964. He disappeared on July nineteenth, the day after his boss was murdered. He was never seen again.”

  If anything, Katy’s eyes had grown glassier still.

  Purely on instinct, Caitlin took the photo of Pooky and his band from her purse, then crossed to Katy’s chair and held the picture before her.

  “That’s Pooky on the right,” she said, “playing the bass guitar. He was murdered in 1964, and I finally know why.”

  “Why?” Katy asked, her eyes glued to the photograph, her voice as distant as the echo in a canyon.

  “Because he loved a white girl. A beautiful eighteen-year-old girl.”

  “No.�
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  “Yes,” Caitlin said softly. “A girl named Katy.”

  “No.” Mrs. Regan shook her head. “He didn’t love her.”

  This was the last thing Caitlin had expected to hear. “He didn’t?”

  The stretched-taut face began to twist with emotion. “No, no, no. He just wanted to touch her. Use her. Do dirty things to her.”

  Caitlin couldn’t quite read what lay behind the troubled face, but the voice sounded angry. “Who are you talking about, Katy?”

  Mrs. Regan shook her head like someone trying to wake herself from a trance. Then she looked at Caitlin with unsettling directness. “You’re taping this, aren’t you?”

  Caitlin swallowed. “No.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire,” Katy chanted in a childlike voice. “I’m not blind, you know.”

  Caitlin felt as though she’d awakened in a 1950s horror movie.

  “If you want me to keep talking,” Katy said, “turn off your tape machine.”

  Caitlin thought about it for a few seconds. Then she went back to her chair and replaced the photograph in her purse. Lifting the Sony so that Katy could see its red light, she switched off the recorder.

  The woman smiled with childish satisfaction. “Now. Where were we?”

  “Pooky Wilson.” Caitlin dropped the recorder back into her purse. “I was confused, because you were speaking in the third person. You said, ‘He didn’t love her. He just wanted to do dirty things to her.’ But I assume you were talking about yourself.”

  “Yourself, myself, himself … no-self. What’s the difference?”

  Caitlin took a stab in the dark. “Were you talking about Katy Royal?”

  “Katy Ann Royal!” Mrs. Regan barked. “You get those shoes off and get ready for dinner!” Then she answered in a child’s plaintive voice, as though acting two roles in a play. “Yes, ma’am, I will.” Then a third voice, oddly detached, began to chant: “Katy Ann, tall and tan. She was a good girl, but she’s gone again. All gone. Nobody left now … nobody but me. Daddy and Dr. Borgen made sure of that.”

  “Dr. Borgen?” Caitlin said, wishing the Sony were still on.

  Katy gave her an eerie, knowing look. “Mm-hm. You’d know him if you saw him. His eyes sparkle, and his hair is made of blue fire.”

  Caitlin jumped as her Treo vibrated in her purse, but she didn’t dare reach for it. Mrs. Regan’s eyes tracked the sound like the buzzing of a rattlesnake. “Are you still taping me, Miss Priss?”

  “No! I promise. That was my cell phone. I’m going to set it to silent so we won’t be interrupted.”

  Katy looked uncertain, then nodded her assent.

  As Caitlin reached for the vibrating phone, an idea struck her. As casually as she could, she opened her Treo’s voice note program and hit the record button. Then she switched off the vibrate setting and laid the phone atop the pistol in her purse.

  “Katy … you were talking about your time in the Borgen Institute?”

  The woman raised up her hands and hugged herself as though she’d been airdropped into the middle of an ice storm. “Shhhh. That’s not its real name. That’s what they call it on the outside. But when you go there, when they lock you in, you learn its real name. The secret name.”

  “What was its secret name?”

  Katy Regan lifted her chin and spoke in an exaggerated whisper. “Hay-des. The main building was built over a humongous hole. Down under the basement there’s a hole that goes all the way to the center of the earth. It has an electric door that crackles and burns. Dr. Borgen has the switch that works the door.”

  Caitlin wasn’t sure how to respond to this.

  “They have a furnace, too. A furnace where they burn people they don’t want anymore.”

  Caitlin shivered at the conviction in the woman’s voice. “Katy … are you all right? Can I get you something?”

  Mrs. Regan giggled, then let her arms fall and said: “No drinky-poo for Katy-boo! She’s had too much already.”

  Caitlin found herself at a loss. Obviously Katy Regan was mentally unbalanced, but was that sufficient reason to stop trying to find out what she knew about Pooky Wilson’s murder? Katy had already implied that Pooky had done things to her against her will. Was it possible that Henry had got the story wrong? Had Pooky’s “Huggy Bear” ever known the truth about Pooky and Katy? Had Justus “Pooky” Wilson forced himself on a rich white girl and then paid a medieval price for his transgression? No, Caitlin thought. That’s the classic stereotype. Why would a well-liked black boy risk being castrated or killed for a few minutes with a white girl who didn’t want him?

  “Katy?” Caitlin said gently. “What can you tell me about the day Pooky disappeared? Were you happy or sad?”

  Mrs. Regan scrunched up her face like a child, then shook her head.

  “Did you love Pooky?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Katy squeezed her eyes shut like a little kid. “Don’t! Dirty! Dirty bird!”

  “Katy?”

  “That dirty bird put it in me! He had to be punished!”

  Caitlin suddenly realized that Mrs. Regan was sweating profusely. “Who are you talking about, Katy? Are you talking about Pooky?”

  The woman nodded, but again the gesture seemed to have been against her will. Then she cried, “Dr. Borgen did it! He put it in me. When the nurses were gone. Every day Katy had to play, or else stay longer in the hole.”

  A shudder ran through Caitlin. She wanted to ask for details of what she gathered was sexual abuse by a psychiatrist, but she didn’t know how long Katy would stay coherent. More than this, her first priority remained unshaken: Brody Royal.

  “Tell me about your father, Katy.”

  Mrs. Regan’s eyes went wide, as though she’d mistakenly opened a door into a theater showing a slasher film. Yet once again the voice that came from her mouth was soft and childlike. “Daddy took care of me. Always. He takes care of us all. When I had the blue devils, Daddy chased them away. When I was alone, he found me a husband. Did you know that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Daddy owns the company Randall works for. He owns Randall, too. Bought him a long time ago, right after I got back from Hay—” Katy winked—“from the institute.”

  Without Caitlin realizing it, Katy had uncrossed her legs and sunk deep into her chair. If she sank any farther, she would probably slide right out of it. As Caitlin began to despair of learning anything useful, Katy said, “Pooky was so sweet. He sang pretty, too, all the time. Can you keep a secret?”

  Caitlin nodded with what she hoped was girlish enthusiasm.

  “Pooky wanted to marry me. With the carriage and everything. But all he had was a bicycle and his daddy’s old mule. The night I got married for real”—Katy’s voice dropped to a whisper—“I thought about Pooky the whole time. Poor Poo. I knew he was gone, though.”

  “Where did he go?”

  Katy shook her head. “It’s too terrible,” she whispered.

  “I need to know, Katy. For Pooky’s sake.”

  Mrs. Regan looked around the room, paying special attention to the windows and the door, as though she expected to find white-coated attendants peering in at her. “There’s another place like … like the place I was. Another hole in the world. It’s for the dark people. A tree grows over it. A big twisted tree with branches that reach almost to the sky. And it’s filled with bones. The dark people who break the law are taken there.”

  “Why are they taken there?”

  Katy looked into her lap and spoke in the voice of a two-year-old. “To get punished.”

  “Do they ever come back?”

  Now Katy’s face held the sober concentration of a child given its first glimpse of human cruelty. “Never.”

  Caitlin sensed she was on the verge of a revelation. All she could think about was a place described in Henry’s journals as the Bone Tree—a place where Indians and black men had been murdered for years, a
nd dead bodies dumped to prevent their being found. “Who took Pooky to that tree?”

  “I was always going to tell,” she said softly. “But I have to wait until Daddy passes. Then he can’t hurt me.”

  “Katy—”

  “Shh! He might hear us. Daddy can hear from miles away sometimes. You know … before Henry came and talked to me, all this was blank. Everything had fallen down Dr. Borgen’s hole. But then it started to come back. First the bathtub … Daddy killed Mama in the bath. Did you know that? I thought he was just talking to her—and he was. But later I figured it out. He was holding her head under the water while he talked.”

  Every hair on Caitlin’s body was standing erect. She swallowed hard. She couldn’t find her voice.

  “Then, when you called a few minutes ago,” Katy said, “I knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  The woman shook her head again. “It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”

  “What do you mean? Too late for what?”

  Brody Royal’s daughter listed to the left in her chair. “For me. For Katy-Poo.”

  “Katy,” Caitlin said firmly. “Whatever you were waiting to tell, you can tell me. Now. No one will hurt you anymore. I’ll make sure of that.”