by Greg Iles
“If you had a son,” he says, trying to sound casual, “would you leave him and stay away? Never come back?”
Whoa. I’ve wondered if he’d ever ask me something like this. I guess he figures his mom can’t give him the answer he needs. I’m not sure I can, either. Trying to formulate a coherent reply, I stare at his mother’s transportation, a battered Eddie Bauer Ford Explorer from the early nineties. Its navy-blue panels are dented, rusted through in some places, and the khaki cladding once so prized by yuppies has mostly been ripped away by countless fender benders. Thanks to the father who left long ago, this wreck is the vehicle that carries Denny through the world.
“I had a son, Denny,” I say softly. “He drowned in a swimming pool when he was two. My wife and I ended up getting divorced because of it.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. My mom never told me that.”
“I thought about him today for the first time in a long while. Because of Buck’s drowning. My son never got a chance to be a person. Not even a boy, really. I mean, he had a personality. I could see hints of who he might become. But that’s all. Still . . . he was happy while he lived.”
“He was lucky, then.”
“Yeah. Until he wasn’t.” I look out at the unmown grass in Denny’s yard. “When I was your age, there wasn’t much divorce among my friends’ families. But it accelerated pretty fast. Till now . . .”
“I know, right? More than half of every class at the school has divorced parents. It’s not like I’m the only one or anything. But still . . . most of them have dads. Around. Somewhere.”
“I know what you mean.”
He picks at something on his pant leg. “Wouldn’t you think my dad would just be curious?”
I’m tempted to lie, to paint him a rosy picture. But how could that help him? “Maybe I shouldn’t give you advice. But I’ll say this: if your dad doesn’t come around, it’s because he doesn’t want to. That’s got nothing to do with you. He’s missing something in his character. Divorce is one thing, leaving a wife. But a man who leaves his children is something else. I’ve got no respect for a man who does that. A father who leaves his children does damage that can never be repaired. That’s why you’re hurting now.”
Denny nods slowly, then wipes his eyes.
“My father didn’t leave our house,” I hear myself saying. “But he left me. You understand? He pretended I wasn’t there.”
Denny looks confused. “How come? Because of the thing with your brother?”
“That’s right. He blamed me for my brother’s death. Still does. You know who really acted like a father to me?”
“Who?”
“Buck Ferris.”
Denny’s eyes narrow. “No way.”
“Yep. He was my scoutmaster. I didn’t even know what depression was, but I was messed up. When Buck saw that my dad wasn’t doing his job, he stepped in and picked up the slack. He taught me how to play guitar, how to use tools. That guy was an artist with a chisel. And what a teacher. Hell, I built a guitar when I was seventeen.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I’ve still got it.”
“That’s so cool. Is that what you’ve been doing for me? What Dr. Buck did for you?”
The image of Buck being dragged from the river flashes through my mind once more. “Maybe,” I concede. “A little bit.”
He nods. “Well . . . I like it.”
What a day. “Denny, listen. The time may come when your father will be filled with regret and come looking for you. Or he’ll call you to come see him, maybe even live with him. When that day comes, you might be tempted to leave your mom.”
The boy is staring at me now, hanging on every word.
“I’m not saying you don’t talk to him. Do what you need to do. But don’t live your life waiting for that day, okay? Don’t dream of life with him because you feel like your mother doesn’t understand you. She’s doing the work your dad should have done, on top of her own. You hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.” He looks into his lap. “So what’s your next step?”
“Talk to Buck’s widow. She lives out on the Little Trace.”
“Oh, yeah. The break-in.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing your video. It’ll be a huge help.”
“I’m going to go edit it right now. Watch your email inbox.”
I give him a firm handshake, and his slim hand squeezes tight. Then he scrambles out of the Flex and unloads his drone.
“Hey,” I call through the passenger window. “You got a lawnmower?”
“Uhh, yeah.”
“Use it. I don’t want to hear your mother had to cut that grass herself or pay somebody else to do it. You hear me?”
He rolls his eyes. “Maybe you’re taking this dad thing a little far?”
“You want to be part of this case? Cut the damn grass.”
“Okay.” He turns and walks into his house.
Before I can back out of the driveway, Denny’s mother leans out her door and gives me a weary wave. She looks tired, this woman I slept with thirty years ago because I needed comfort. She generously gave me that comfort, as she did many others. Even from this distance, I see the passage of every year on her face. Three husbands, at least one abortion in high school, a series of crappy jobs, and one precocious son. What does she think when she looks out here? I wonder as I back into the road. Who the hell are we? And why do we do the things we do?
A quarter mile from Denny’s house, I dictate a text to Byron Ellis, the Tenisaw County coroner: You ready to talk about Buck? I’m hoping the friendship I’ve made with Byron while covering the recent spate of shootings in the African American community will prompt him to feed me some inside information. I’ve sensed deep frustration in the coroner, much of it based on his awareness that the white men who manipulate Bienville’s elected officials have no interest in solving the problems that cause the violence, but only in jailing the perpetrators and minimizing publicity.
My iPhone pings, and Byron’s reply flashes up on the Flex’s nav screen: Not yet. Don’t call. Give me an hour, maybe less. This is heavy.
My hands tighten on the wheel. Byron must already be feeling pressure to steer the narrative away from murder. While the implications of this go through my mind, I take out my burner phone. Texting Jet is a risk, but after what Paul said to me under the tent, I don’t think I can wait until three. With one hand I type: Paul asked me if u sleeping w Josh Germany. WTF??? Why he suspicious all of a sudden?
I’ve got a twenty-five-minute drive to my next stop. This trip will eat a lot of my day, but Quinn Ferris treated me like a son for two years; the least I can do is fulfill that role when she needs one. I only hope Jet will get back to me before I reach Quinn’s house. If Paul is truly suspicious, he might know much more than he revealed to me. What if he’s following her? Should Jet even try to get to my house this afternoon? Filled with unexpected anxiety, I drive with the burner phone in my left hand, dividing my attention between the road and its LCD screen. “Come on, come on,” I murmur, a desperate mantra.
Nothing.
Chapter 13
Paul Matheson sat at the long rosewood conference table on the second floor of Claude Buckman’s bank, the Bienville Southern, waiting for more Poker Club members to arrive. This was an informal gathering, one called by Paul himself after the groundbreaking ceremony. Though he wasn’t an official member, it was understood that he would one day take his father’s seat, and the other members were curious about what had prompted him to ask for a meeting.
Claude Buckman sat at the head of the table, Blake Donnelly at his right hand. Senator Sumner sat on Buckman’s left. Next on that side came Wyatt Cash and Arthur Pine. Across the table from Cash sat Paul’s father, and to Max’s right sat Dr. Warren Lacey. Paul figured Beau Holland and Tommy Russo were the only other members likely to attend. The remaining three were older men—older even than Buckman, who was eighty-three—
and rarely attended meetings. There’d been some small talk, but Paul had not taken part. Being seated at the far end of the long table made casual conversation stilted.
The conference room was a temple to antebellum Bienville. The grass-cloth walls were lined with nineteenth-century photographs depicting the booming cotton economy of the pre-war years. Horse-drawn wagons hauling white gold wrapped in burlap from outlying Tenisaw County to the river. Steamboats docked at Lower’ville, so loaded with cotton bales that they looked as though they’d capsize in a mild storm. A big black locomotive shuttling onto the rail ferry that once linked the cotton fields of Louisiana to the market on the Mississippi side of the river. A few photos depicted the war years. Yankee officers stood on verandas owned by ancestors of the men around the table, sipping drinks and watching ladies cavort at badminton on the lawns. For some officers from Philadelphia and New York, the occupation of Bienville had been a welcome reunion with old friends from Harvard, Yale, and Penn. It was connections like those, Paul knew, that had helped Bienville to survive the war mostly intact, rather than winding up a charred ruin, like Jackson and Atlanta.
“Here they are,” announced Blake Donnelly, waving at Beau Holland and Tommy Russo, who’d just walked through the door behind Paul. “About time, fellas.”
Russo and Holland took seats beside Dr. Lacey, and before Buckman could bring the meeting to order, Beau Holland said, “What’s this all about? We’ve got the Azure Dragon guys in town, and I’ve got meetings all day.”
“Are everyone’s cell phones powered down?” Buckman asked in his perpetually hoarse voice. He sounded like a man who had smoked all his life and took pride in telling his doctors to go to hell.
There was a shuffle as a few members switched off their phones.
“Paul has a question for us,” Buckman told them.
All eyes settled on Paul Matheson. He wasn’t sure how to go about this, but he figured he knew most of these men well enough not to pussyfoot around.
“I’ll say it plain, gentlemen. Did we have anything to do with what happened to Buck Ferris?”
Everyone averted his eyes. Suddenly Paul seemed to be the least interesting object in the room.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that answers that question.”
“Not at all,” Buckman protested. “So far as I know, Dr. Ferris had an unfortunate accident. A fall, most likely. Regardless of what speculation the Bienville Watchman might be pushing tomorrow.”
“Damn right,” said Beau Holland, the real estate developer. “I’ve heard McEwan is out asking questions, implying foul play. That’s downright irresponsible with the Chinese in town.”
“Irresponsible?” Paul laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “Beau, what planet do you live on?”
Holland’s eyes flashed anger. He wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to that way.
Arthur Pine, the club’s in-house attorney, spoke up. “You obviously have a point to make, Paul. Why not make it?”
“You can forget about this playing as an accident,” Paul said. “This is a murder case now.”
“There’s no reason to think that,” Buckman countered. “I’ve been assured the autopsy is well under control. Death by misadventure will be the finding. Ferris was digging up above that cave mouth where he had no business being.”
Paul snorted. “You’re assured? Who the hell assured you of that?”
No one offered an answer.
Paul looked around the room in disbelief. “You’re living in a bubble, Claude,” Paul went on. “Like some Hollywood actor. Nobody wants to give you bad news.”
“Which is?” asked the old man.
“Marshall McEwan. Marshall’s not his old man, okay? He’s spent the last twenty-five years in Washington, digging up scandals that shake the Capitol Building. Major Defense Department stuff. He’s supposed to be writing a book about racism while he’s here, but he was investigating Trump’s Russian financial dealings when he came home to take care of his father. Azure Dragon and the paper mill are bush-league for him. Do not kid yourselves. Whatever rocket scientist decided to kill Buck Ferris has got Marshall after his ass now. You’d better get ready for some shit to hit the fan.”
Beau Holland leaned back in his chair, his usual smirk pulling at his mouth. “McEwan’s a friend of yours, isn’t he? Can’t you get him to ease off on the muckraking? At least for a week?”
Paul leaned forward. “Is that a joke? Buck Ferris was almost a father to him. Marshall went all the way to Eagle Scout because of Buck.”
“Sounds like sentimental bullshit,” said Holland.
“Yeah? See how sentimental you feel when Marshall shoves a proctoscope up your butt on CNN. He’s got the cell number of every anchor and producer for every major network in D.C. and New York.” Paul looked to the head of the table. “Claude, you want to have the club’s finances broken down on Meet the Press? McEwan can put you there.”
Buckman shifted in his seat.
“If Marshall smells foul play,” Paul said, “he’ll sink his teeth into this case and shake it like a pit bull. He won’t let go. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Tommy Russo.
“There’s nothing for him to find,” Blake Donnelly asserted. “Hell, I liked Buck a lot. But if he ran up on some bad characters and got himself killed, that’s nothing to do with us. Maybe he walked up on a drug deal out at Lafitte’s Den.”
“He didn’t die at that cave,” Paul said irritably. “Marshall told me that in the tent. Somebody staged things to look that way.” He looked around the table, giving the younger members a searching glance.
“What’s your problem?” Beau snapped. “You got something to say to me?”
Paul smiled, knowing he’d gotten to Holland. “Whoever was dumb enough to kill Buck Ferris put everybody in this room at risk, and every element of the Azure Dragon deal as well.”
“Hey,” Holland said angrily. “It’s not your place to pass judgment on anything a member might do.”
Max Matheson leaned forward and cast his eyes down the table at Holland. “Are you saying you killed Ferris?”
Holland glared at Paul’s father, which was not something people with good sense generally did. But Beau had always been an arrogant son of a bitch.
“I’m saying if anybody in this room did kill Buck Ferris,” Holland replied, “then it’s none of Paul’s business. Until he’s a full voting member, our decisions are above his pay grade.”
Paul turned up his left hand and gestured at Holland, as if to say, You guys see why I’m worried?
Claude Buckman spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “This group approved no decision to remove Mr. Ferris, however inconvenient his activities had become. And no individual member is empowered to make such a decision alone, except in extreme emergency. Is that understood by all present?”
A few nods signaled general agreement around the table.
Tommy Russo, the only man in the room without a Southern accent, said, “We know Ferris was digging out at the mill site, right?”
“He was,” Wyatt Cash confirmed. “I placed cellular game cameras out there that recorded him.”
“And if he found bones, that could have stopped construction?”
“No question,” said Arthur Pine. “We’d have had to cancel the groundbreaking.”
Russo tilted his head to one side and stuck out his bottom lip, as though gauging the amount of life left in a dog that had been run over. “Hard to see how that guy getting dead is a bad thing.”
Senator Sumner sighed in distaste and looked at his watch.
“A delay like that could have caused the Chinese to pull up stakes and go to Alabama,” Holland pointed out. “We’re not dealing with International Paper or Walmart here. Azure Dragon doesn’t tolerate mistakes. They hit a bump in the road, they find a different road.”
“Somewhere people know how to flatten bumps?” Paul asked.
Russ
o chuckled.
“Is there anything else?” Donnelly asked. “I’ve got a foursome of investors waiting on me out at Belle Rose.”
“Paul’s point is well-taken,” Buckman said. “If anyone has information about Dr. Ferris’s death that I need to know, I expect you to come to me. And if anyone has any influence over Mr. McEwan or his father, now is the time to use it to get him to soft-pedal this story. Or at least keep it separate from anything to do with the mill. Duncan McEwan always treated us fairly over the years.”
“Duncan’s got nothing to do with editorial content now,” Paul told them. “Don’t kid yourself. Marshall decides what goes in that newspaper.”
“Let’s buy him off then,” Holland suggested. “Justifiable PR expense.”
“Great idea,” Paul said. “How much you thinking? I know of a Russian oligarch who offered Marshall half a million bucks to kill a story.”
“He turned it down?” asked Buckman.
“Yes, sir. Then the oligarch threatened to kill him. Marshall went with the story anyway.”
“So he’s got balls,” Russo said. “That doesn’t sound good for us.”
“I’m thinking about the Watchman,” said Arthur Pine. “I’m surprised that rag hasn’t closed down yet. I think the father’s badly overextended. About eight years ago, he took out a big loan to buy out his brother’s stake in the newspaper.”
“Who’s carrying the paper on that?” asked Buckman.
“Marty Denis at First Farmers. He and Duncan McEwan go way back together.”
“Let’s look into that.”
“Duncan’s also carrying a business loan on a new press he bought about the same time,” Pine informed them. “Nearly two million, I think.”
Buckman’s eyes glinted. “Marty Denis have that loan, too?”
“I’m pretty sure he does.”
The old banker smiled with satisfaction. “Duncan McEwan never learned his way around a balance sheet. Typical English major. Let’s get into it, Arthur, just in case.”
