Cemetery Road

by Greg Iles

  She looks worried that she might have crossed a line. Seeing that she didn’t, she says, “He also lost a brother when he was young.”

  This coincidence stops my feet altogether. “The brother didn’t drown, too?”

  She shakes her head. “Run over by a drunk in broad daylight.”

  “I had no idea.”

  “But you recognized the suffering in his voice.”

  As I look back at Jerry Lee’s head bowed over the microphone, Nadine lays her right cheek against my chest, and we gently turn in the warmth of the swaying crowd. Holding her like this feels surprisingly natural, with none of the awkwardness I usually feel dancing with someone for the first time. In the midst of my dark reverie, a sudden cacophony cuts through a flamboyant piano solo.

  By the time I look up, a wide circle has opened on the dance floor, as though someone emptied a bag of rattlesnakes there. Sally Matheson and her husband stand in the center of that circle, facing each other as though about to engage in mortal combat. Max looks more flustered than angry, and I can see why. His wife, who all her life has been a model of Southern gentility, looks like a spitting cat with its tail in the air. As the crowd gapes, Max looks around at the ring of faces, then moves cautiously toward his wife, who empties a full drink in his face with stinging force.

  Everyone gasps, and Nadine clenches my left arm hard enough to hurt. Max wipes his face on his jacket sleeve, then leans forward and says something in a low tone to Sally, who takes the opportunity to slap him like a drunken sailor. Half the crowd cries out, so alien is this behavior to the image they have of the Mathesons.

  Suddenly Paul enters the circle and goes to his mother. He takes her by the shoulders, speaking softly to her. Max tries to join them, but Paul shoves him away. Then Sally yells, “Get away from me! Bastard! I’ve taken all I’m going to take. You said never again!”

  “All right now!” Jerry Lee shouts from the stage. “I’m the headliner tonight! Let’s get this show back between the ditches!”

  And with that he breaks into “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” The crowd stands paralyzed, unable to recover. The confrontation between Max and his wife was like a lightning strike at the center of the roof, leaving scorched tar and the stink of ozone in its aftermath. But after eight bars of Jerry Lee pumping that grand piano, couples at the edge of the crowd begin jitterbugging again. This trips some psychic switch, and suddenly the circle closes, the crowd begins writhing, and Paul leads his mother toward the exit while Max stands looking like a man who just got sucker-punched at his own wedding.

  “What the hell just happened?” Nadine asks.

  “I’ve got no idea.”

  Some drunks in the empty swimming pool start swinging yellow pool noodles around like light sabers, and it hits me how smart the hosts were not to fill that pool with water tonight.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sally Matheson cuss in public,” Nadine says, still flabbergasted. “Much less smack somebody. Max must have really messed up.”

  “Max has messed up his whole life. When it comes to chasing women, anyway. This must be something worse. Wow.”

  While couples spin around us, Nadine and I come back together and begin a sort of hybrid version of the Shag. As we spin through the crowd, I catch sight of Jet standing where Max and Sally argued. Max is gone now, but Jet is still staring at the spot where Sally slapped him. She looks nothing like she did three minutes ago. I only see her in quick flashes, but she’s not moving. She’s replaying the scene in her mind, trying to figure out what just happened in plain sight.

  “Hang on,” Nadine says, stopping in my arms. “Just a second.”

  Her cell phone appears in her hand.

  “I’ve just had a break-in at my shop,” she says, sounding puzzled. “Wow. First time since I’ve opened.”

  “It’s probably a false alarm, right?”

  “Maybe. But the cops are on their way. Do you mind if we go check it out? You can stay here if you’d rather.”

  “No, no,” I tell her, glad for an excuse to get out of this crazy goldfish bowl. “Let’s go make sure everything’s okay.”

  Nadine smiles with gratitude. “Thank you.”

  As I escort her toward the rooftop doors, I risk one backward glance. Thanks to Jet’s height, I can see her eyes between the heads on the dance floor. She’s no longer looking at the spot Sally was standing in a minute ago.

  She’s watching Nadine and me leave.

  As I pass through the doors with Nadine’s hand clasped in mine, I realize how true Jet’s realization was down on the mezzanine balcony. She’s tied to Paul and his family by more than paper. The bond that binds her to the Mathesons is blood—effectively unbreakable. I’ve always known this at some level, I suppose, but in my euphoria at possessing Jet again, I let myself believe that some magical solution would reveal itself later. But later has become now, as it always does, and I see no solution. Not even the hope of one. And as for Buck’s death, at this moment, nothing links the Poker Club to it other than their collective relief that he’s dead.

  And there’s no law against that.

  Chapter 21

  Only one city police officer responded to the alarm at Constant Reader, and he found both the front and rear entrances locked. The alarm had been triggered by a motion detector on the ground floor. After a quick search, Nadine discovered that a second-floor window had been forced. Oddly, that window was fourteen feet above the pavement of the rear parking area. To gain access that way, the intruder would have had to either bring his own extension ladder or do some creative climbing and risky acrobatics—wasted effort employed in the robbing of a bookstore.

  All Nadine can find missing is the tower unit of her computer server. The cash register hasn’t been disturbed. We stand with the cop in the midst of the bookshelves, trying to figure out why someone would steal her computer. The cop has already grown impatient. He seems resentful about having to fill out a report.

  “Are you sure that’s all that’s missing?” he asks.

  “I think so,” Nadine says. “I mean . . .”

  “What have you not checked?” I ask her.

  She purses her lips, bemused, and turns in a circle. “Nothing. I mean, unless . . .”

  “What?”

  “The safe?” she asks, almost humorously.

  “Check it.”

  She goes into a small office tucked between the bookstore and café portions of the shop, and I follow. The safe appears to be undisturbed.

  “It looks okay,” she says.

  “Open it,” I advise her. “Just for kicks.”

  She looks back to make sure the cop can’t see, then spins the dial right, left, and right again. When she opens the door, I hear a long sigh.

  “Well?”

  “Somebody was in here,” she says. “Shit.”

  “What’s missing?”

  “A couple of external hard drives.”

  “What was on them?”

  She’s shaking her head in silence.

  “Nadine?”

  “The backups of my business software, plus my financial records for the past two years.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all?” She looks over her shoulder, her face taut with frustration. “I am so fucked.”

  “How so?”

  “It’ll take me weeks to get back up and running. Back up to speed, I mean. I have my basic software on disk, but I’ve lost so many transactions, records . . . God, what a nightmare. And before you ask, I kept those drives here because this is a fire safe. I don’t have one at home.”

  The cop’s voice comes over my shoulder: “So that’s all of it, ma’am? A computer and two hard drives?”

  “Looks like it, yes.”

  “It’s just . . . sometimes people have firearms stolen, and since they’re not licensed, they don’t like to report it.”

  “No,” Nadine says wearily. “No gun.”

  “All right. If y’all are okay, I
’m going to head out. There’s been kind of a rash of these things tonight.”

  “What things?” I ask. “Break-ins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What else got broken into?”

  The cop pauses halfway to the door. “Couple of law offices downtown.”

  Nadine and I share a puzzled look. “Law offices? What was taken?”

  “Same thing. Some computers. Disks and files and such.”

  What the hell? “That’s pretty unusual, isn’t it?”

  The cop shrugs, then takes out his cell phone to check a text message. “I guess. We get all kinds of crazy stuff in this town. Last week some guys backed a truck through a brick wall to rob the fishing store.”

  Nadine rolls her eyes at me.

  “Okay, well, I think we’re fine,” I tell him. “Thanks for responding to the call.”

  After walking the cop to the door, I come back and find Nadine sitting at one of her café tables.

  “How do you feel?” I ask, just to get her talking.

  “Violated.”

  “It’s always that way with burglaries.”

  She looks around the store with what seems like hopelessness. “What the hell, Marshall? What do you think?”

  “I think it’s pretty damn weird that they broke into your safe. Even weirder that they didn’t bust it open with an ax. Somebody cracked it. A pro.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Had to be. Somebody’s looking for something. Breaking into law offices around town?”

  “I’m not a lawyer anymore.”

  “Have you done anybody a favor? Legally, I mean. Like someone gave you a tape of their husband having sex with his secretary, something like that?”

  She looks like she’s about to laugh. “God, no.”

  “Well. Until we get this figured out, you don’t need to sleep at home.”

  She starts to object, but then she realizes I’m right. “I have a friend I could stay with, but it’s a little late to call.”

  “You can stay with me tonight. I have an extra room.”

  She gives me a long look. “You sure?”

  “Of course.”

  Her eyebrows go up. “Nobody would mind?”

  “Hell, no. It’s just me.”

  “Okay, then. I’ll need some clothes. Toiletries.”

  “We’ll run by your house. I’ll go in with you.”

  “Let me lock up here. Or should I say, shut the barn door after the horse has bolted?”

  “That’s about it. Hey, can I grab a muffin from the case? I didn’t eat any hors d’oeuvres at the party.”

  “Grab me one, too. Cranberry.”

  Nadine lives in her mother’s house on Hallam Avenue, in the Garden District. It’s a tall blue Victorian covered in gingerbread, with a whimsical turret at one end of the porch. It’s here that Nadine hosted her popular book club during the two and a half years her mother lived with cancer. While Margaret Sullivan was alive, Nadine lived in a small house nearby, but as the end approached, she sold that and moved into the home in which she’d grown up.

  “Do you have a security system here?” I ask as she unlocks the door.

  “No. Always meant to get one, but I never have.”

  “It’s time. Do you have a gun?”

  She switches on the lights, revealing a house that appears to be in perfect order. “I do. It was my mother’s. Or my father’s, actually. He left it behind.”

  “Get the gun when you get your clothes,” I advise. “You don’t want it stolen if somebody does hit this place.”

  “Aren’t you coming upstairs with me?”

  “Absolutely.”

  After we go up, I check the bedrooms for signs of being searched. I see none. Nadine grabs a gym bag and throws in some clothes, then packs a hanging toiletry bag.

  “Ready,” she says.

  “The gun?”

  “Oh, yeah.” She goes over to her bedside table and takes a small black semiautomatic from the drawer, then starts to put it in her bag. It looks like a .32 caliber, a traveling salesman’s gun.

  “I’ll take that,” I say, walking to her. “In case we meet anybody on our way out.”

  She passes it to me, then follows me out and switches off the light behind us. While she locks the front door downstairs, I scan the yard, which at this hour is a dark jungle filled with azaleas, oak trees, and huge Elaeagnus shrubs.

  “Everything okay?” she asks.

  “I think so. Let’s get to the Flex.”

  Not a car moves on Hallam Avenue, which is normal at this hour, but I feel strangely alert. I crank the SUV quickly, then head east, away from the Garden District and the river.

  “Didn’t you say you needed to stop by the newspaper?” she asks.

  “I can handle it by phone. Ben’s there late tonight.”

  “You’re welcome to call him now.”

  “I’ll do it when I get home.”

  Soon we’re passing through the outer sprawl of Bienville to the outlying subdivisions.

  “Who could do that?” she asks in a distracted voice.

  “What? Kill Buck?”

  “No. Get into my safe like that. Without damaging it. You said a pro. What kind of professional does that?”

  “Some of the Poker Club guys have connections who could do that. Tommy Russo for sure. Wyatt Cash has Special Forces guys who endorse his products. And Paul has buddies who served with him in Iraq. They worked for ShieldCorp, his private security company.”

  Nadine lays her fingertips on the window and slowly drums the glass.

  “Did you notice how angry Beau Holland was when he lunged at me during the party?” I ask. “He looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. He’s been in my store quite a bit. Most of those Poker Club guys have, for coffee or breakfast. I’ve learned a fair bit about them.”

  “What do you know about Holland?”

  “My guess is he has the most to lose if the paper mill deal were to fall apart.”

  “I figured that would be Buckman or Donnelly.”

  “Those guys are rich enough to take a licking and keep on ticking. Beau Holland comes from a proud family that was short on cash. He’s bound to be overextended. He owns the biggest piece of the Aurora, for starters. Russo’s deep in that with him. And Holland’s the main investor in the white-flight developments out by the county line. Also in the new outlet mall, plus some land grabs near the industrial park. God knows what else he’s got cooking. If the Chinese pulled out at this point, Beau could be ruined.”

  “That makes sense.” I still recall Holland’s red-faced fury, and how Max stopped him with his flattened hand.

  “Why does Warren Lacey hate Jet so badly?” Nadine asks.

  “Before you can open a nursing home or surgical center in Mississippi, the state has to issue a certificate of need. They’re worth more than gold mines. Lacey was trying to fiddle one in Jackson, for a city where there’s no legitimate need. A state official ended up going to jail over it. Lacey kept himself insulated enough to stay out of prison—barely—but Jet almost got his medical license revoked. He’s never forgiven her.”

  “I think he’d strangle her if he could.”

  “He won’t. You don’t bite off a piece of the Mathesons if you plan on living the rest of your life outside a wheelchair.”

  “So . . . Max protects Jet?”

  “That’s the only explanation I can figure for why she’s not dead.”

  Nadine looks over at me for several seconds. “Max is a real son of a bitch, isn’t he?”

  “You know the stereotype about Vietnam soldiers committing atrocities? Ninety-nine-point-nine percent never did. But Max did. Worse, he’s proud of it. When I was playing football at ten years old, he told us, ‘War is hell, boys, so I made it as hellish as possible. That’s the way you win.’ When I was younger I thought that was just Patton-type bluster. But later I found out he meant it.”

 
; Nadine is nodding. “He’s hit on me a few times in the store.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve seen him flirt with other women, too. He’s got an instinct for weakness.”

  “I know. We’re about five minutes from my house,” I tell her, hoping to change the subject.

  “Is Paul an alcoholic?” Nadine asks.

  “Yeah. Has been most of his life.”

  “I feel like his public persona is a mask. Like underneath, he might be a little nuts.”

  “He might be. But he’s basically a good guy. At least he used to be. He’s not living the life he hoped for.”

  She gives the windshield a pained smile. “Are any of us?”

  I shrug. “I figured you are, if anybody is.”

  She doesn’t reply for some time. We’re on a lightless stretch of Highway 61, a black ribbon of asphalt stretching through thick forest on both sides of the road. There’s not much to see.

  “This isn’t where I thought I’d open my bookstore,” she says at length. “But it’s been interesting. The social life leaves a bit to be desired, though.”

  “You do more than your share to make the town interesting.”

  “I try.” Her fingernails tap the window glass again. “Are you sure I’m not putting you out? Staying at your place?”

  “I’ll sleep a lot better knowing you’re safe.”

  “I can move to my friend’s house tomorrow.”

  “Whatever you want. You’re always welcome.”

  She smiles. “You gonna tell me about that shirttail?”

  “Oh. Jet was crying. She’s afraid Paul might be mixed up in Buck’s murder. I wiped her face with my shirttail.”

  Nadine nods slowly. “Did she notice something suspicious about Paul?”

  “Not specifically related to Buck. But she’s around those Poker Club guys a lot.”

  “No kidding. It’s hard to believe she’d be surprised that her husband might be involved.”

  I suddenly feel defensive about Jet. “She’s done more than anybody else to punish them for illegality.”

  Nadine watches me expectantly but says nothing.

  “I think she sort of wears blinders when it comes to her husband,” I venture.