by Greg Iles
Presley cocks the hammer of his .357, and Leo at last gives in to terror. “Ray, I’m begging you. Please don’t do it.”
Presley wrinkles his lips in disgust.
Livy says, “Our daughter looks just like you, Ray.”
Presley’s profile vanishes as he looks toward her, and in a single fluid motion I swing the bottle in a sweeping arc that terminates at the base of his skull. The impact of the heavy glass club slams him forward, and he falls over the front of the desk.
Somehow he still has both pistols in his hands. I leap forward and hammer at his head with both fists, thinking of Livy lying under him with her dress stuffed down her throat. As I flail away, I see Leo’s huge hands take hold of Presley’s IV-scarred wrists and pin them to the desktop like brittle sticks.
Presley pulls the trigger of the derringer.
Leo flinches as though stung by a hornet, but he looks less hurt than pissed off. He rakes a huge right hand down Presley’s left wrist, stripping the derringer from the smaller hand and tossing it on the floor. With his other hand he yanks the .357 out of Presley’s right, which is still pinned to the desk.
Presley tries to raise himself off the desk, but all my weight is on him.
Leo presses the .357 to Presley’s forehead.
“Let him go, Cage.”
I smack Presley once more for good measure, then heave myself off him. Despite the blows to his head, he straightens up, like a punch-drunk boxer who can remember only one thing: stay on your feet.
Leo pulls open his jacket long enough to reveal a bloodstain on the right side of his shirt, but he doesn’t examine the wound any more closely than that. “This creates a problem,” he says, the anger gone from his voice. Already he is computing the calculus of how Ray’s actions will affect tomorrow’s trial. “Cage, you and I should try to-”
He stops at the sound of Livy’s voice. I’m not sure, but I think she said, “Ray?” in the intimate voice of a lover. She must have, because Presley turns from the desk to the sound of her voice, his eyes glassy but still curious.
“I wanted you to see this,” she tells him.
Then she brings up Ike’s Sig-Sauer and shoots him in the chest.
Ray sits down on Leo’s desk as though he has decided to have a think there. Then his eyes bulge as he looks down at the red river flowing from his upper chest with a depressingly regular rhythm.
Livy stands with the automatic held stiffly before her, smoke drifting from its barrel, exactly the way it looks in old westerns. She doesn’t look the slightest bit upset. She seems, in fact, to be contemplating a second shot. Before she can fire again, I jump in front of her and grab her wrist. She doesn’t resist as I pull the gun from her hand.
“Lock the door, Cage,” Leo orders from behind his desk. “Hurry.”
I obey without hesitation, though I’m not sure why.
“The guards will be here any second,” he says. “I shot Ray. Do you understand? He broke in, tried to kill me, and I shot him.” Leo’s eyes are full of paternal concern. “Will you back me up?”
“Are you kidding? You can’t lie about something like this. Not these days.”
His eyes glow with hypnotic intensity. “Listen to me, Cage. We can tear each other to pieces at trial tomorrow. But if you’ve ever cared for my daughter, help me protect her now.”
“You can’t pull it off. Not nowadays. There are nitrate tests… a hundred things.” I look at Ray, who, despite horrific blood loss, is still sitting on the desk. “Besides, he’s still alive.”
Leo walks around his desk and takes the Sig-Sauer from my hand. Before I can ask what he means to do, he backs three feet away from Ray, aims at his head, and blows his brains out. Presley flips backward over the desk and lands with his head in the corner.
“Now he’s dead,” Leo says, giving me a look so matter-of-fact that it makes a psycho like Arthur Lee Hanratty look like a Cub Scout. “So much for your nitrate tests.”
The study door shudders under a sudden barrage of rapping.
“Judge Marston!” shouts a male voice. “Judge! Are you all right?”
“Cage?” Leo asks calmly, the Sig-Sauer still in his hand. “Are we agreed?”
I look at Livy, who seems to be undergoing some sort of delayed shock reaction. Then at Ray Presley, the man who engineered the murder of Del Payton and the living death of Ike Ransom… who killed Ike in the end and probably killed Ruby Flowers. Who raped the girl I loved at eighteen, dooming us to lose each other forever.
“Agreed,” I say softly.
The off-duty cops are still rapping and yelling at the door. Leo crosses the study, opens it, and waves the officers in. Two uniforms step into the room, guns drawn.
“You’re a little late, boys,” Leo says, pointing at the body behind the desk. “He got past you.”
The cops gape at the corpse on the floor. Without his John Deere cap Presley looks like a hundred-year-old man with three eyes.
“Goddamn,” says one of the cops in an awed voice. “Ain’t that Ray Presley?”
“I’ll be damned if it ain’t,” says his partner. “You were right, Judge.”
“It’s a good thing I was ready for him,” Leo says. “He got off a shot, hit me in the gristle. But I nailed him. You’d better call the chief, Billy, so we can get this mess straightened out. I’ve got to be in court tomorrow.”
The cop called Billy starts around the desk to examine Ray more closely, but Leo says: “Why don’t you use the hall phone?”
Billy stops. “Sure thing, Judge.”
“When you’re done talking to the chief, y’all come back and drag this piece of trash out of here for me.”
Billy bites his lip. “Well… it’s a crime scene, Judge. We can’t move anything. You know that.”
“It’s more of a crime to have this bastard bleeding all over my Bokara rug.”
“Um,” says Billy’s partner, the one who stopped Livy and me outside. “Is your daughter okay?”
“She’s fine,” says Leo, though Livy is standing like a statue near the door. “A little squeamish. All the blood, you know.”
An absurd laugh escapes my lips. Livy is about as squeamish as a fur trapper.
After Billy and his partner leave the study, Leo walks back behind his desk and sits in his chair. “Penn,” he says, using my Christian name for the first time in two decades. “I was wrong to blame you all those years for what happened to Livy. I see that now.”
“That’s why you went after my father?” I ask, making sure. “Because of me?”
He nods. “I was wrong to do that too. It’s a hard thing to accept after all this time. I guess Livy bears the ultimate responsibility.” He gives me a fatherly look. “You call your girl at the newspaper and tell her to run that apology. We’ll end this thing like gentlemen, and save the town a hell of a lot of misery.”
“I might do that,” I say quietly. “If you were a gentleman.”
His eyes narrow.
“But since you’re an amoral, hypocritical, heartless bastard, I won’t. Tomorrow you’re going to be indicted for capital murder in the death of Del Payton.”
I turn away from him and walk toward the door.
“Goodbye,” I say, touching Livy’s hand. “Don’t think twice about Presley. You did the world a favor. I’ll tell it just the way your dad wants it.” I squeeze her hand, then pause and kiss her lightly on the cheek.
She says nothing at first, but as I move away she says, “Penn, I can’t let you take that file.”
“What?” Leo says, his voice instantly alive with suspicion. “What file?”
“I showed him your safe. I was angry. Penn, please give me the envelope. I can’t help you destroy my father. Not like that. Not after all that’s happened.”
I reach for the doorknob, wondering how far she’ll go to stop me.
“She won’t shoot you, Cage. But I will.”
I don’t know if he’d shoot me in the back or not. But I have a daughter wait
ing for me at home. And I will not bet our future on the honor of Leonidas Marston.
Turning to face him, I untuck my shirt, slip the Hoover file out of my pants, and toss it toward him. There’s a flutter of papers as the letters scatter across the desk and floor. I start to leave, but then I bend down and lift the fallen wine bottle from the Bokara. It survived the impact with Presley’s skull, though most of the wine has spilled out. Glancing back at Livy, I invert the bottle and pour the remaining wine onto the desk, splashing the red fluid across Hoover’s personal missives to Leo.
“Pretend it’s our lost bottle,” I tell her. “You two were made for each other.”
I reach for the brass knob, open the door, and walk out into the hall. The last thing I hear is Leo’s voice floating after me:
“See you in court.”
CHAPTER 39
An hour before jury selection in the slander trial of Penn Cage, the police blocked motor-vehicle access to the streets surrounding the Natchez courthouse. The television vans had already been let through, at least eight, despite the fact that only crews from CNN and the black-owned Jackson station would be allowed inside the courtroom.
Judge Franklin’s decision to allow cameras in her court was a landmark in Mississippi jurisprudence, and she had carefully defended it in her pretrial order. Besides stating that Marston v. Cage was a civil case and that both parties to the suit had agreed to have the proceedings televised, Franklin observed that community interest in the Payton murder-which was the central issue of the trial-was at such a pitch that the “window into the court” provided by the news camera could go a long way toward fostering the perception of fair and impartial justice.
The police roadblocks did nothing to limit the crowds outside the courthouse. Caitlin’s newspaper account of the deaths of Ike Ransom and Ray Presley had electrified the city. Black families laid out blankets beneath the oak trees on the north lawn, and endured without complaint the desultory showers that had fallen since dawn. The whites stood mostly on the south lawn, huddled under umbrellas with Calvinist stoicism. The division was not solely racial; there was intermingling at the edges of each crowd, but for the most part a natural segregation had occurred. Police officers milled through the throngs, watching for verbal altercations that could all too easily spark violence under the circumstances.
None of this concerned me as I entered the courthouse flanked by two sheriff’s deputies. All I could think about was Dwight Stone. Except for the strange call Caitlin had received yesterday, saying that Stone’s dead FBI partner would be at the trial, I’d heard nothing. This morning Caitlin picked up a story off the AP wire saying that four unidentified men had been found dead in the mountains near Crested Butte, Colorado. This buttressed my hope that Stone had at least survived our encounter by the river, but many hours had passed since then. I tried calling his daughter several times but had no luck. Dwight Stone seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth.
In a city with over six hundred antebellum buildings, more than sixty of which are mansions, one might expect the courtrooms to be marvels of architectural splendor, spacious and high-ceilinged, paneled with oak and smelling faintly of lemon oil. In fact, while the original Natchez courthouse was built in 1818, and has been expanded several times since, its second-floor courtrooms are small compared to those in Houston, and surprisingly functional in character.
The circuit court has seven rows of benches for spectators, with another six in an upstairs balcony at the rear, several of which have been co-opted today by the cameras of CNN and WLBT. Viewed from the rear door, the jury box stands against the right wall, with the door to the jury room in the far right corner. The witness box stands to the right of the judge’s bench and, awkwardly, a little behind it, attached to the rear wall. The judge’s bench is set on a dais at the center, with desks for the court reporter and circuit clerk extending forward into the room at right angles to the bench. The reporter sits on the right, the clerk and his deputy on the left. Beyond the clerk’s desk on the left is a large, open space for the presentation of exhibits. The lawyer’s tables stand just beyond the bar, not far separated from the clerk’s and reporter’s desks, with the podium beside the table on the right. The only touches of Southern atmosphere are the white capitals of the Doric columns visible through the windows behind the judge’s bench, and the intertwining oak branches beyond them, which give an unexpected airiness to the otherwise close room. And then there is the clock on the wall. Symbolically enough, it has no hands, and I am reminded of Carson McCullers’s dark and poignant novel. She would feel right at home in the midst of the strange and tragic case that has brought us here today.
Walking up the aisle toward my table to begin the voir dire phase of the trial, I receive one of the greatest shocks of my life. Seated at the plaintiff’s table alongside Leo Marston and Blake Sims is Livy Marston Sutter. She doesn’t look up at me, but any fleeting hope that she might be here for moral support is quickly banished by her appearance. From her pulled-back hair to her tailored navy suit and Prada shoes, she is every inch a lawyer. Every movement precise, every glance measured, Livy radiates a self-assurance that draws the eyes of everyone in sight of her, producing in both men and women a desire for her attention and approval.
Blake Sims looks dowdy beside her. He wears the traditional uniform of the Ole Miss lawyer: blue blazer, white pinpoint button-down, striped tie, dress khakis, and cordovan wing tips. His face is pink and fleshy, the face of a student council president, with sandy blond hair and blue eyes. The more I think about Sims, the more obvious it becomes why Leo wants Livy here.
Leo himself sits facing the bench with imperious detachment. He is a head taller than Blake Sims, and his close-cropped silver hair and chiseled features give him the look of a wise but austere judge, which he was. Four decades spent roaming the corridors of power have served him well. His tailored English suit was made for the television cameras, and no one looking at him this morning would suspect that he executed a man last night.
Moving toward my table, I scan the faces of the spectators who have managed to get into the packed courtroom. This morning I arranged with the bailiff that my parents be allowed in, with Sam Jacobs escorting them, and also Althea and Georgia Payton, with Del Jr. All are seated in the second row on the right, behind my table. The first row was roped off for city officials, who have turned out in force. Mayor Warren and District Attorney Mackey shoot me glares whenever I look their way. Beyond them are many faces from my youth and, peppered among these, the characters who have populated my life for the past two weeks. Ex-police chief Willie Pinder. Reverend Nightingale. Some of the neighbors who helped search for Annie on the day of the fire. Charles Evers. What sobers me is my awareness of those who aren’t here. Ruby. Ike. Ray Presley. Dwight Stone.
I shake hands with my father over the bar, then take my seat. As I begin reviewing the notes I made last night about questioning potential jurors, someone touches my shoulder. It’s Caitlin Masters. For the first time since the cocktail party, she has abandoned her informal uniform of jeans and button-downs for a dress. A blue sleeveless one that emphasizes her lithe body. The effect is so profound that I simply stare at her.
“I do own dresses,” she says, obviously pleased by my reaction.
“You look very nice. Any word from Stone?”
She bites her lip and shakes her head, then pats her pocket. “He has the number of the paper. They’ll call me the second he or his daughter calls in.”
“If he calls. Is Portman here?”
“They’ve got him in a room upstairs with five FBI agents.” She reaches out and touches my forearm. “Hold on to your hat. They’ve got the governor up there too.”
“The governor of what?”
“Mississippi. He’s here as a character witness for Marston.”
I feel my face flushing. “He’s not on the witness list.”
She gives me a “get real” look. “Do you think Judge Franklin is going to tell the go
vernor to go back to Jackson without letting him take the stand?”
“Damn.” I fight the urge to tear out a handful of my hair.
“Take it easy. African Americans hate the governor. Did you get any sleep?”
Sleep. Last night, after the police and the sheriff’s department took turns grilling me for hours over the shootings at the pecan plant and at Tuscany, I met with Betty Lou Beckham and her husband. Mr. Beckham is totally against his wife testifying, but she promised my father she would, and she means to go through with it. Considering the embarrassment she will suffer when the circumstances that allowed her to witness the crime come to light, she is doing a brave thing indeed. After meeting the Beckhams I went to the Eola Hotel and woodshedded with Huey Moak and Lester Hinson, whom Kelly had delivered safely from Baton Rouge. When we finished, I spent the few hours before dawn trying to build a convincing case against Marston that did not rely on the testimony of Dwight Stone.
I failed.
“Hang on as long as you can,” Caitlin says, squeezing my hand. “If Stone is alive, he’ll be here.”
“Do you think Portman would be here if he thought there was any chance Stone would show? With TV cameras?”
“Don’t second-guess yourself. You’ve got a murder to prove, and that’s what you’re good at. Pick your jury and forget the rest.”
She gives my hand a final squeeze and walks back to the benches.
Judge Franklin enters the court wearing a black robe with a white lace collar, looking very different than she did the night she confiscated Leo’s files from Tuscany. She’s obviously had her hair done, and her makeup looks television-ready. She takes her seat on the bench, and the bailiff calls the court to order.
Blake Sims rises and informs the judge that Livy Marston Sutter has been retained as co-counsel, and with the court’s permission will occupy the second chair at the plaintiff’s table during the trial. Judge Franklin makes a show of asking if I have any objection, but she clearly expects me to go along. I could point out that Livy is not licensed in Mississippi, but with her considerable trial experience and Sims acting as lead counsel, I don’t really have a leg to stand on.
