Mississippi Blood

by Greg Iles

  Initially, he’d been content to let Dr. Cage be convicted of murder and die in Parchman. Snake had meant to let the son endure this heartbreak, then suffer his own retribution for killing Forrest. That would likely involve the death of his daughter first, and only later the death of the mayor himself. But the revelation that Dr. Cage had covered up Frank’s murder for his nurse had scrambled Snake’s thinking. His sense of being in control of events had slipped.

  Worse yet, he’d received a report from someone attending the trial that Quentin Avery had got up on his hind legs and shocked the court with his opening statement. That meant that Tom Cage might mean to make a fight of it after all. Snake had been trying to figure out why Cage would do that, and he couldn’t. He’d put out all the feelers he safely could, and as yet no answer had come back to him.

  As the upper rim of the flaming sun sank below the horizon, Snake turned to go, but before he took two steps, his burner phone rang.

  “Yeah?” he said.

  “This is BB,” said a voice Snake recognized as coming from a mouth stuffed with chewing tobacco. He also heard wind roaring in the phone. He could picture Sheriff Billy Byrd driving down the highway in his cruiser, sticking his big head and Stetson out the window to spit.

  “About fuckin’ time,” Snake said. “What you got?”

  “It ain’t good.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “That nigger girl those VK boys thought must be FBI?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She’s a friend of the mayor’s. Another writer, believe it or not.”

  Snake had already learned that Cleotha Booker had been visited by Penn Cage and a young black woman, but he’d assumed the girl was one of Kaiser’s FBI agents. “A writer? You’re telling me this gal going around bending her pistol over bikers’ heads is a writer?”

  “Truth is stranger than fiction, man. She apparently served in Desert Storm. Army.”

  “I’ll be goddamned. What about the older woman? Dolores?”

  “I sent patrols up Washington Street as many times as I could today”—Byrd spat loudly in the rushing wind—“helping out with security, don’t you know. Turns out Kaiser and four of his agents went crashing into Cage’s house after lunch yesterday and got the St. Denis woman out of there. One of my deputies talked to a neighbor who saw it happen. So the St. Denis woman had probably been staying in Cage’s house since Monday night.”

  “Son of a bitch, Billy. Any idea where they took her?”

  “None yet.”

  Snake sighed and looked out over the darkening water. Dolores St. Denis could put him on death row at Angola, and he had no desire to test the ability of the Aryan Brotherhood to protect him from the most violent niggers in America.

  “Billy, I got to know where that high-yellow bitch is being hid.”

  “I know it, bud. But I don’t know how I can help you. John Kaiser ain’t gonna tell me shit about that kind of thing. She’s in the hands of Uncle Sam now.”

  Snake made a fist and squeezed it tight. As much as he’d wanted to cut the cord with the VK, he was going to need them still. “Okay. Tell me about Tom Cage, then.”

  “What about him?”

  “I heard his lawyer said today they’re gonna make a fight of it.”

  “Sure sounded like it to me. But they got their asses handed to them all day long in court. If the jury could have voted right after that air force major spit on Dr. Cage, he’d already be in the bus headed for Parchman.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not when they vote.”

  “I don’t think it matters, buddy. That Avery’s been acting like he’s gone senile.”

  “‘Acting’ is right,” Snake muttered. “Quentin Avery is the craftiest spade you ever come across in your life. You can bank on that.”

  “Well . . . what do you need from me?”

  Snake closed his eyes and made a command decision. “Tell me about Dr. Cage’s jail routine.”

  “Ohhhh, shit now. Come on. Don’t go there. We got media from all over the world in town!”

  Snake winced and spat into the river. “Start talking, Billy boy.”

  As the sheriff reluctantly complied, Snake turned and walked up into the dark trees between the river and Rodney. A cloud of mosquitoes instantly swarmed his head. He cursed and swatted until they were a bloody paste on his cheek and forearms. He had no intention of becoming one of the ghosts of this forgotten town.

  Chapter 44

  An hour after nightfall, we finally caught a break. The one-sided nature of today’s courtroom action had an unintended consequence: after seeing how badly things were going for my father, Reverend John Baldwin and his son Reverend Richard, whom Serenity and I visited on her first full day in Natchez, knocked at my front door and asked to see us. With them they carried something Henry Sexton would have seen as the holy grail of local journalism: two photocopied pages from the journals of Albert Norris.

  According to Henry, Norris’s journals disappeared from his music store on the night it was burned by the Double Eagles. Some investigators had even theorized that Norris had been murdered over the journals themselves. A set of accounting ledgers, these apocryphal volumes supposedly contained records of all the trysts Albert had arranged over the years between mixed-race couples, as well as records of bootlegging sales, loans, and many other activities that fell on the wrong side of the law. Henry had once told me that anyone in possession of those ledgers would never have to worry about money again, so valuable would they be as a blackmail tool.

  Tonight I learned that Reverend Baldwin personally salvaged those ledgers from Albert’s floor safe on the night he was burned out. Baldwin had served with Albert in the Deacons for Defense, and he knew his friend wouldn’t have wanted those records to fall into the wrong hands—especially those of the KKK or the Double Eagles, where knowledge of interracial relationships would likely have resulted in reprisal murders. For this reason, too, Baldwin did not risk bringing the journals to my house, but only two photocopied pages.

  “We’ve been attending the trial, you see,” the elder Reverend Baldwin explained. “And it’s pretty clear to me that Judge Elder is biased toward the prosecution.”

  “Quentin Avery believes the same thing.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s fair to your father. And I don’t think it’s accidental.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  That was when Baldwin brought out the photocopied pages. And what they showed was that in 1954, a black woman named Fannie Elder had been secretly meeting a white man with whom she was sexually involved. Most times she met him in his office, but a few times she met him in the back of Albert’s store. When I saw the man’s name, I was speechless for a few seconds. When I finally found my voice, I said:

  “That son of a bitch?”

  Reverend Baldwin nodded and said, “Is Judge Joe Elder’s real father.”

  The man whose name was written in Albert Norris’s book was Claude Devereux. Claude Devereux, the Cajun lawyer who had defended both Ku Klux Klansmen and Double Eagles during the worst years of the 1960s. Claude Devereux, the lawyer to whom Albert Norris’s doctor had confided Albert’s dying accusation against Brody Royal, and who had then betrayed that information to Royal, resulting in the murder of that doctor by Snake Knox. Claude Devereux, the lawyer in a photograph with my father, Brody Royal, and Ray Presley during a deep-sea fishing excursion with a Frenchman who likely had been involved in the assassination of John Kennedy. The lawyer who three months ago fled the country to escape RICO charges stemming from his illegal business activities with Brody Royal, and for criminal acts committed on behalf of the Knox family.

  “Does Judge Elder know this?” I asked.

  “He does,” said Reverend Baldwin. “And I believe that’s the reason for his bias against your father. When he thinks about your father and Viola, he sees Claude Devereux and his mother.”

  I thanked both men profusely, as did Serenity, and then we led them back to t
heir car. I found that I was shaking with excitement, if only because the revelation that those ledgers still exist would have been such a triumph for both Henry and Caitlin.

  “What do you want to do with this?” Serenity asked.

  “We have to take it to Quentin. Joe Elder clerked for him. He’ll know how to handle it.”

  “I guess we made a good impression when we went to see the Revs,” Tee said.

  “I think we can chalk this windfall up to you.”

  She grinned then. “I’ll take that. I only wish my efforts in the redneck quarter had been as effective.”

  Less than five minutes later, we discovered that they had been. Before we could leave the house to visit Quentin at Edelweiss, my cell phone rang. The caller was Deke Devine. The younger son of Double Eagle Will Devine—the son named after a Mercury astronaut—Deke told me that he and his mother wanted to speak with me privately about a possible deal for his father. Will Senior, he said, would not leave the house because he believed that he—like every other surviving Double Eagle—was being watched by members of the VK motorcycle club. When I asked how we could meet, Deke told me that he and his mother would drive up my street—Washington Street—in one hour in a Winnebago motor home. He would stop at the corner of Washington and Union long enough for me to climb inside. When the meeting was over, he would return me home. I didn’t like the sound of it, but Devine said those were the only circumstances under which his mother would meet me. I told him to be at that corner in one hour, and I would hear what he had to say.

  “Why is everybody helping us all of a sudden?” I asked the air.

  “Because your dad’s getting his ass kicked?” Serenity suggested.

  I laughed, but I knew that explained only the Baldwins’ visit. The only thing that could be driving old Will Devine to cut a deal was the raw fear of death. For himself or his family—or both. And even then, betrayal is an almost incomprehensible step to take. For to date, every Double Eagle who even tried to betray his “brothers” has died for it, and died badly.

  Despite the fact that Serenity and I come bearing gifts, Quentin lets us no farther into Edelweiss than the main hall, which irritates me more than a little, since I own the house. He’s wearing a robe cut off and hemmed just below his stumps, and a crumpled comforter lies in the front part of his wheelchair’s seat. Doris stands far down the hall behind him, just outside the door to the kitchen. She’s wearing a translucent nightgown that leaves little to the imagination, even in the faint light spilling onto her from the kitchen.

  Quentin is studying the first photocopied page in his lap, after grumpily chastising me for bothering him at this hour. I don’t know why he’s taking so long to speak. I highlighted the names of Fannie Elder and Claude Devereux in yellow, with the dates of their rendezvous. But Quentin is staring down at the photocopy like a doctor deciphering a litany of lab test results.

  “You see those names, right?” I ask. “The highlighted ones?”

  He doesn’t look up. “I’m not blind yet, goddamn it.”

  “You get the significance, right?”

  At last he raises his head, his face dark with frustration. “Reverend Baldwin’s out for blood, isn’t he? Forty years of sitting on this, and now he’s ready to blow the whole city wide open. I’ve known Fannie Elder for fifty years. And yes, I know that coonass snake-in-the-grass Claude Devereux. Did Reverend Baldwin tell you that Devereux is definitely Joe’s father?”

  “He did.”

  “Damn.” Quentin folds the sheet and slips it into his wheelchair pocket. “I guess he would know, if anybody would. He’s Fannie’s pastor. Goddamn it.”

  “Don’t you think this could be grounds for a mistrial?”

  “A mistrial?” Quentin looks at me like I’m crazy. “Man, I don’t want a mistrial! I want a fair trial.”

  “But Quentin—”

  “This isn’t the easy call you seem to think it is, Penn. Judicial bias is a funny thing. For one thing, all judges are biased, some way or other. That’s human nature. You start trying to prove it, though, and you’ll run out of friendly jurisdictions quick.”

  “You’re not worried about that. Not anymore.”

  “Because I have one foot in the grave? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “All I’m saying is, look at the situation for what it is.”

  “And what is the situation, my brother? As you see it?”

  It takes a lot of will to control my frustration. “Judicial bias in a trial is like a rock under a rushing stream. You can’t see it, and you might get through the rapids without hitting it, but that rock is steering the current the whole fucking time. The rock itself doesn’t even know what effect it’s having. But in the end, it’s decisive.”

  Quentin smiles. “That’s a pretty good analogy, boy. You’ve got a way with words. But don’t start kidding yourself that you’re a voting member of this defense team. You’re on it because your mama wanted you there. Now, if that’s all, I’ve got things to do.”

  “Surely you’re not going to just sit on this.”

  The old lawyer takes a deep breath, then blows out all the air in one long rush. “Doris?” he says over his shoulder. “Bring me my cell phone, please.”

  The shadow behind him disappears, then quickly returns with the phone.

  “Dial Joe Elder for me.”

  As Doris does his bidding, Quentin looks at Serenity and says, “I’ve been reading your book. To help myself sleep.”

  Tee doesn’t rise to his bait.

  “Turns out it’s not as boring as I hoped it would be.”

  Doris hands him the phone. While Quentin awaits an answer, he looks up at Serenity again and shakes his head. Then I hear a tinny version of Joe Elder’s bass voice saying, “What the hell are you doing calling me, Quentin?”

  “Joe, this is important. . . . Yes, I know. I taught you that, damn it. . . . No, it’s nothing about the trial. It’s personal. . . . No, not about me. About you. I need to give you a heads-up, brother, and you don’t want me to talk about this on the phone. . . . How about you meet me on the bluff, down by the old pecan factory? . . . Listen, Joe. This is no game. This is brother to brother. . . . Right. Thirty minutes’ll work. See you soon.”

  Quentin clicks end and hands the phone back over his shoulder to Doris, who retreats down the hall in her nightgown.

  “Anything else?” he asks in a challenging tone.

  “Yes. What if I told you I may have a Double Eagle ready to turn state’s evidence?”

  To this, at least, Quentin has no sarcastic reply.

  “This man has almost certainly committed murder with Snake Knox. He probably participated in the rape of Viola Turner, as well. The one at the machine shop.”

  “Who is it?” Quentin asks, his eyes as serious as those of a man contemplating a duel.

  “Will Devine, the man whose truck was parked near Viola’s house on the night she died. The truck with the Darlington Academy sticker on it.”

  Quentin whistles long and low. “How’d you pull off that trick?”

  I tilt my head at Serenity, and Quentin gives her a knowing leer. “I might have guessed Wonder Woman here had something to do with it. Well. That changes things a bit. You said you may have a Double Eagle. What exactly does that mean?”

  “We’re going to meet his wife and son in a little while. We won’t know for sure what we have until then.”

  Quentin is obviously working something out in his mind. “Devine’s going to want a plea deal before he testifies in open court and implicates himself. And he’s going to want protection. What are the odds you can get a federal plea deal done in time for Will Devine to help your father?”

  “How long does that give me?”

  “Hell, Penn, I need him by tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow!”

  “Boy, how many rabbits you expect me to pull out of my ass?”

  “I see your point. Well, I can sure as hell put John Kaiser on it. And I know the U.S. atto
rney for the Western District of Louisiana. It’s certainly possible—in theory.”

  Quentin nods slowly. “All right, then. You get to work on Devine. Just don’t get killed. You could go to a meeting like that expecting fat Will Devine and arrive to find Snake Knox waiting—like finding a timber rattler where you expect a box turtle.”

  “We’ll be careful.”

  “I’m guessing Ms. Butler there can take care of herself. Maybe she can take care of you, too.”

  “Kiss my ass, Quentin.”

  “Are we done?” he asks.

  “You never got back to me about what Jewel Washington told me.”

  “About Byrd’s deputies possibly tampering with evidence?”

  “Yes! The hair and fiber evidence.”

  Quentin turns up his palms. “Have you got me any proof?”

  “No.”

  “Then get out of my face and go find me some!”

  “Jewel’s trying. But I’ve thought about it, and one thing seems clear. If those guys did any kind of tampering with hairs taken from the scene, the hairs had to be Caucasian.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that house would have been full of African-American hairs. From fifty different people, I’d bet. And Sheriff Byrd’s priority is nailing Dad. We know Dad was there, so what kind of tampering could those deputies have done?”

  “I’m too tired to guess.”

  “They’d have destroyed other Caucasian hairs found at the scene. There wouldn’t have been many, not in Cora Revels’s house. I’m guessing they got rid of some Caucasian hairs and, if necessary, replaced them with others, maybe even their own, which wouldn’t raise any red flags.”

  “Why replace them?”