by Greg Iles
Dad had no answer for that, at least not one he would share with me.
When I left him, I told him nothing about my plans to try to get his plea bargain revoked. The odds of success are low, and the process could take a long time. But if Dad actually goes to the penitentiary, my mother will go mad. My cold assessment is that he will be transferred to Parchman, and that my best—and probably only—hope of getting him released before he dies there is to prove that someone else murdered Viola. And I don’t know how I can do that when the full resources of the FBI have proved insufficient to find and capture Snake Knox.
It took switching from gin to scotch to have my epiphany. After this additional chemical assault on my normal thought processes . . . I saw to the bottom of my father’s soul. Was alcohol the lantern that allowed me to see what I had failed to while I listened to Dad through the wire mesh screen of Billy Byrd’s jail? Maybe whisky was only the catalyst that shoved me out of my own way. In any case, I now understand something I did not before, and like anyone else who’s had his last illusion torn away . . . I want it back.
Dad didn’t condemn himself to prison because he chose us over Viola—to remain with his wife and children rather than leave them for a mistress who loved him. If that had been his only crime, he would have put it behind him decades ago. Viola’s desperate plea to be saved had carried more within it than a desire to spend the rest of her life with Dad—a lot more. Back at the jail, as my father talked to me about God and atonement, there was a deeper knowledge in his eyes—a knowledge of himself with all self-delusion stripped away. What remained was the truth, and the burden of it was terrible. Dad was trying to tell me what he’d realized about himself while Shad told his parable in court, but he couldn’t find the words to carry the awful weight of his discovery. Here in my house, though, alone with my whisky in the rubble of my father’s decision, I have finally plumbed the well inside him.
Dad didn’t choose to stay with us out of honor and duty. That was part of it, sure—but not all. If he had acted out of loyalty, he wouldn’t feel the need to punish himself as he has. The truth is, there never was a real choice for him. Because he never had it in him to leave his own culture and go through the hell he’d have had to endure to share a life with Viola. What would that have been like in 1968? In Mississippi, it might have meant being murdered. But even up north, it meant being ostracized. Shunned. Constant stares . . . harsh words . . . getting kicked out of restaurants and hotels. He’d have been cut off from all the comfort of his former life, maybe even from his own parents and siblings.
Dad had wanted Viola, but he hadn’t wanted everything that came with her. He did a lot to help black people over the years, but he wasn’t willing to join their ranks. Not in that way. So he took the best that Viola had to offer and refused the worst. In the end, he let things unravel in the way that they do when you don’t stop them. For Dad, that meant a little guilt over the years. But for Viola . . . it meant a lifetime of suffering and regret.
Before I left the visiting room, Dad made a general sort of statement, something I took as guilty rambling. Now, drunk as I am, I remember it nearly word for word. He said: Our country’s messed up, son. Mortally wounded. And I can’t for the life of me see how we’re going to heal it. Your generation can’t do it. Even you’re too old. The new ones coming along . . . that’s where the hope lies, if there is any. We’ve got to acknowledge what we did to those people. But I don’t think we ever will. People hate admitting guilt, but we can’t blame it all on the Knoxes of the world. We’re all guilty. Blacks are messed up, too . . . but how could they not be? White people fight this so hard because they know the truth in their bones. You know? You don’t get that angry unless you know you’re wrong.
“Is that why you’re going to prison?” I asked him. “You’re taking on the sins of your race?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not that ambitious. I’m only doing penance for my own.”
The rattle of hailstones hitting glass brings me out of a sound sleep or a drunken stupor. I must have passed out after remembering Dad’s jailhouse rant. Getting to my feet, I realize I’m on one of the basement cots the guards have been sleeping on, and that the “hailstones” are actually the sound of someone banging on one of the tall windows of my basement office. I figure some pushy reporter has slipped past my guards and dropped down into the light well that surrounds the house. But when I look around the corner, I see the dark face and intense eyes of Lincoln Turner willing me over to the glass. After cautiously moving to the window, I crouch and raise the sash, and he bends and clambers into the room where a week ago I had my first real conversation with Serenity Butler.
“What do you want?” I ask him.
Lincoln looks around the room, cocks his head at the bottle of Hendrick’s on my desk. “There’s something we’ve got to do.”
“We? What’s that?”
His smoldering eyes find me again. “You know.”
I try to think through the fog of gin, but I can’t identify any areas of mutual benefit. “Sorry. I don’t.”
“Think about it.”
This time, the obvious comes clear with a flash of memory of wild eyes in a face that reminds me of Ronald Reagan. “Snake Knox?”
“You get the prize, brother man.”
“Nobody knows where Snake is.”
Lincoln smiles strangely. “I know.”
“So it’s pointless to talk about.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean I know. I know where Mr. Snake is at. I found his hidey-hole.”
This revelation blows away some of the gin fog. “How?”
“Don’t matter. We can talk about it on the way.”
“On the way where?”
Lincoln looks around my office again. “I said we can talk about it on the way. Get your shit.”
“What shit would that be, exactly?”
“Whatever you want to bring. Just make sure you bring a gun.”
Okay. I see where this is going. “Where is he, Lincoln?”
“Sorry. Not taking any chances on you playing Boy Scout and calling your FBI buddy. We’re past that now. Way past.”
Only now do I realize that my half brother is wearing black jeans and a black polo shirt. He smells like he’s drunk at least half as much alcohol as I have, and also like he’s been sweating for a while. Or maybe that’s the stink of homicidal anger.
“Look, what the fuck else you gonna do?” he growls. “Sit here and drink yourself into a stupor?”
“How far are you talking about going? Five miles? Fifty? Five hundred?”
“I’ll tell you on the way, goddamn it. We don’t have a lot of time. So get your shit.”
Maybe it’s the gin in my system, but his argument seems persuasive. “How many people does Snake have with him?”
“Two, to the best of my knowledge. But if we keep talking, he could be gone. Or we could have a dozen of those skinhead motorcycle freaks burning a cross for kicks.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Two guys on Harleys showed up while I was there. Not right at his place, but not far from it. I didn’t get the feeling they’re on the best of terms.”
“What kind of place is he hiding in?”
“A dump. Little two-room shack behind a house. Sitting in some poplar trees.”
I think about this for a while. “So maybe we let the VK guys take him out.”
“Can’t rely on that. They haven’t killed him so far. And it might go the other way. We can’t take a chance on him disappearing again.”
“Why are you so sure Snake’s about to rabbit?”
“FBI’s turned up the heat. Big time.”
“Then it might make more sense for him to sit tight where he is.”
“No. Snake’s fixing to blow this country.”
I walk to my desk, where my pistol lies at the moment, and mull over Lincoln’s suggestion. “I think Snake had some fantasy that he was going to be able to stay here. But n
ot now. Kaiser’s got a witness who can finger him for a murder back in the sixties. A woman.”
“Then I’m right. We gotta move.”
“What’s your plan, Lincoln? You sound like you just want to execute the guy.”
“Sure I do. Did you not hear what he did to my mother? They tied her to a table in a machine shop and took turns raping her. They sodomized her with a goddamn Coke bottle. They tortured my uncle and his best friend, and then they killed them. And they would have killed Mama if that Presley guy hadn’t busted her out.”
“That’s a hell of an irony, you know? Because Ray Presley was a very bad guy. Take my word for that.”
Lincoln shrugs. “I got no problem with that. Most guys I grew up with were bad by any technical definition. Bad guys do good things sometimes. But you’re missing the point, man. I want to kill Snake, but you’ve got no choice. You have to kill him.”
Something in his voice chills me. “Why’s that?”
“Because once your father—and mine, as strange as that sounds—passes through the gates of Parchman, he’s a dead man walkin’. I doubt he’ll live a week. Snake will reach out to whatever Nazi gang is on top in there, and Tom Cage will die. And take my word for it—he’ll die rough. Is that what you want?”
I warned Dad of this very threat only hours ago. “I get that. But what I told you before is true. This woman Kaiser has, Dolores St. Denis, she can put Snake on death row.”
Lincoln isn’t impressed. “How long will that take? A year? Two? You think if Kaiser arrested Snake tonight, he couldn’t reach out from whatever jail he’s in and kill the doc? Man, what world do you live in? I thought you’d been a prosecutor in Texas.”
This guy is starting to piss me off. “Okay, let’s say Snake dies tonight. A certain threat to Dad may be reduced, but he’s still going to spend three years in jail.”
“So?”
“He won’t live to serve that time. He’s in heart failure now. Anything over a year was a death sentence.”
Lincoln turns up his palms. “We can’t change the sentence. What are you suggesting?”
“I need to get him out. Free. Snake can do that. Because he killed your mother. Him and Sonny Thornfield. And I need to get him to admit that on tape.”
Lincoln snorts, then laughs in derision. “You can forget that shit. The only way Snake would do that is if he was about to kill you. Taunting you. And we’re not trying that kind of sting.”
“Tell me where he is, Lincoln. Can’t we bug the place?”
“No way. And he won’t be there long enough for us to set up something fancy and wait. This is an in-and-out thing.”
“Lincoln . . . you remember I’ve got a daughter, right?”
“Yeah. So?”
“So if I were to get killed on this little trip with you, she’d be an orphan.”
“Is that what you were thinking when you went out to that hunting camp to see Forrest Knox three months ago?”
Touché. “I wasn’t thinking then. That’s my point. And you’re not thinking now.”
“You’re wrong. I’ve thought it through. I’m here because something told me that, given the chance, you’d go with me. So either tell me to get the hell out, or pack your shit and let’s go.”
“I’m bringing a tape recorder.”
“You can bring a box of Havana cigars if you want, just bring your fucking piece. And some extra ammo, if you got it.”
“Handgun?”
“That’ll work. But if you’ve got a long gun, bring that, too. It’s a fluid situation we’re going into.”
The process of decision is a funny thing. One minute you’re explaining all the perfectly rational reasons why you can’t do something insane; the next you’re opening a drawer and taking out a nine-millimeter pistol, then going into the next room to fetch a Remington .308 hunting rifle from your father’s old gun cabinet.
While Lincoln watches me with satisfaction, I hand him the rifle, then sit at my desk and grab a legal pad and a pen.
“What the hell you doing now?” he asks, checking the bolt action on the Remington.
“Writing a holographic will.”
“Christ. A lawyer to the end, huh?”
“Let’s hope not. But let’s not pretend this isn’t a high-risk play.”
He shrugs. “Can’t lie about that.”
As I start to write, I have difficulty making the letters clear. I’m not that drunk. Then I realize that adrenaline is flooding my system, making fine motor tasks difficult. I try to breathe deeply and regularly as I finish the note.
March 17, 2006
To Whom It May Concern,
I, Penn Cage, being of sound mind and body, do here attest that I wish to add a codicil to my existing will, which should remain in force but with these additional bequests added. To Mia Burke, in appreciation for her generous aid in taking care of my daughter during a painful time (and for her critical work during the trial of Drew Elliott two years ago), I leave $150,000. To Keisha Harvin, who worked bravely to complete Caitlin’s work to bring the Double Eagles to justice, and who suffered disability at their hands, I leave $100,000. The remainder of my assets and copyrights I leave and/or assign to my daughter, Annie, less the smaller bequests listed in my existing will.
Penn Cage
Lincoln watches me scrawl my name, then lets out a long whistle.
“You’re really handing out the candy, aren’t you?”
“Both those girls need money. I’d leave you something, but Dad fixed up that trust for you. Besides, your chances of making it through the next few hours aren’t any better than mine.”
He chuckles with appreciation. “My truck’s parked one block over. Can you take care of your security guys?”
“Yeah,” I say, getting out my phone.
“Oh, I’m gonna need that when you’re done.”
“Need what?”
“Your phone. In about twenty-five minutes you’re going to figure out where we’re going. And you’re not going to be texting anybody our route.”
Chapter 75
The main road north out of Natchez is U.S. 61, the blues highway. If you stay on 61, it’ll carry you up to Vicksburg, then to Yazoo City and the Mississippi Delta. But there’s a far older road that runs north from my hometown—the Natchez Trace—and Lincoln takes it once we leave the lights of Natchez and its outlying settlements behind.
The two-lane blacktop follows an ancient Indian path, winding north through Adams County, past Jefferson College, Emerald Mound, Loess Bluff, and a hundred other landmarks before it leaves the state following the old flatboatmen’s route back to Nashville, Tennessee. The northwest corner of Adams County is mostly old plantation land, thickly wooded, nearly impenetrable in some places, and it’s there that Lincoln leaves the Trace and steers his big pickup deeper into the forest.
For the first few miles, lights are sparse, cars few. Then both disappear altogether. Somewhere out to the west of us, the Mississippi River is flowing. To the north lie Alcorn State University, the river city of Bienville, and the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station. But from where we are, you’d never know it. I feel like we’re following a narrow stream through a primeval forest. The hills get steeper, the gullies off the shoulders deeper, but the trees never relent.
“You guessed where we’re going yet?” Lincoln asks.
The only settlement that I know about up this way is Church Hill, to the west, but I’m pretty sure we’ve already passed it. As I ponder what I remember of this region, a vision of dark Corinthian columns against a night sky comes to me, the only survivors of a once-great plantation house that burned in the 1800s—and one of Caitlin’s favorite places.
“Windsor Ruins?” I ask.
Lincoln laughs softly. “Close, but no. That’s in the next county up.”
“Aren’t we almost out of Adams County by now?”
“No.”
“What’s left? Who lives up here?”
“Nobody, baby. We’re going to a de
ad place.”
“What does that mean? A cemetery?”
“Might as well be.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Those Double Eagle bastards, the few that are left . . . what are they, really? Devils who outlived their time. They’re ghosts. You know what I’m saying?”
“Sure. But I still don’t get it.”
“Where do ghosts feel safe?”
“I don’t know. A church?”
“Close again.”
“For God’s sake, Lincoln.”
“A ghost town!”
It takes a couple of seconds, but then I get it. Just south of the Claiborne County line lie the remnants of Rodney, a once-prosperous town abandoned by the Mississippi River in the 1800s. My father took me there when I was a boy, because the place had been the site of a small but famous Civil War action. All I remember of Rodney is a two-story brick church with a Yankee cannonball embedded high in its front wall, and a lot of sand and dust.
“You got it now?” Lincoln asks.
“What the hell is Snake doing in Rodney?”
“You just answered your own question.”
“Does anybody still live up there? The river left it high and dry a hundred years ago.”
“There’s probably forty people spread through the woods up there. Maybe fifty. There’s a big hunting camp, though. Sound familiar?”
A chill runs up my back at the memory of the Valhalla hunting camp. “Is that where Snake is?”
“No, I told you back at your house, he’s in a two-room shack behind a bigger place owned by somebody he knows. It’s a good hiding spot. There’s a couple of ways in and out on land. There’s also a road through some swamp bottom that will take him to the river. He’s got a speedboat tied up down there. His hole card, I imagine. I figure that’s how he got to Natchez without being caught by the FBI.”
“How the hell did you find Knox?”
