Natchez Burning (Penn Cage)

by Greg Iles

  “Our carriage awaits,” I tell Henry, who tenses instantly. “Do you feel good enough about this to walk out there unarmed?”

  He shrugs. “What choice do we have?”

  “I could call the Natchez police chief and ask him to ride over here and get us. But I don’t think that’s necessary.”

  “Screw it, then. Let’s go.”

  I slide the picture of my father and Brody Royal off the table. “May I take this?”

  “Sure. I’ve got a copy.”

  Henry unlocks the door of the war room and leads me down the hall to the main office. Red lights are flashing in the parking lot, and their distorted refraction through the glass door lends a cinematic sense of danger to the scene. As Henry gathers papers into his briefcase, I touch his shoulder, and he jumps like a man who thought he was alone.

  “I really need to be able to tell Shad Johnson a little of what you’ve told me tonight,” I say. “Not much, and I won’t tell Caitlin anything. But if I can’t slow Shad down, he’s going to have my father arrested in the morning. Will you give me your blessing for that much?”

  Henry looks like a man being asked to lend out his life savings.

  “I wouldn’t ask if I had another option. But Dad nearly died from that last heart attack. I’m not sure he can survive an arrest, much less jail.”

  To his credit, Henry hesitates only a moment. “Do whatever you have to, Penn. I don’t want Doc to suffer for something he didn’t do.”

  “Thank you.” I edge up to the glass door. A white Ford Crown Vic with a bubblegum light waits in the dark parking lot to my left, gray smoke puffing from its tailpipe. “Okay. We’re going to walk out there like we own the town. Right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I’ll go first.”

  “Won’t argue with that.”

  Turning my back to the door, I take hold of his arms. “Before we go, is there anything else you want to tell me?”

  Henry’s eyes widen. “Are you saying you think I’m about to get shot?”

  “I hope not. But you never know.”

  Henry seems to waver. Then he says, “There’s a witness who can take down Brody Royal. I haven’t found him yet, because I don’t know his name. He was a childhood friend of Pooky Wilson’s. I call him ‘Huggy Bear.’ He went to Pooky’s mother a week ago, just before she died. He wanted forgiveness, after forty years of silence. He saw Brody leave Albert’s store that night, just as the fire started, and get into a car with his future son-in-law, Randall Regan. I think Mr. Huggy Bear left Ferriday a long time ago. He’s the only eyewitness who wasn’t one of Albert’s killers. Find him, and we’ll nail Brody.”

  “Thank you, Henry.”

  He nods once. “If I don’t make it, you find him. And talk to your father. I hate to say it, but I think Doc has known about Brody Royal from the beginning.”

  With that, the reporter turns away and, forgetting our plan, walks through the glass door like a man striding onto the red carpet at a world premiere.

  CHAPTER 24

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL FORREST Knox was lying on his sofa watching the Baltimore Ravens demolish Brett Favre and the Packers on Monday Night Football when the text message came in. Forrest had always loved Favre. Number 4 was a tough Mississippi boy from the old school, the last of the gunslingers. But lately Favre had been tanking, and tonight the coach had replaced him with some punk named Rodgers late in the third quarter. When Forrest’s secure cell phone pinged, he actually welcomed the interruption.

  The text was from Al Ozan, a captain who served in his Criminal Investigations Bureau. Forrest had been expecting Ozan to update him on a load of precursor chemicals from Mexico later on, but not yet. The body of the message brought Forrest bolt upright on the couch.

  G. Morehouse DOA at Mercy Hospital. Please advise.

  A faint thrumming began in Forrest’s chest, a gift of intuition that told him when action was imminent—a gift that had carried him through Vietnam and countless lethal confrontations in civilian life. He took a plug of Red Man from the bag on the coffee table, stuffed it into his cheek, and waited for the shock to wear off.

  His wife had gone to bed at the end of the first quarter, and he’d been thinking about getting Ozan to call him out on a fake emergency so he could run over and pop the wife of a young moron in Patrol. Cherie Delaune had sent Forrest the all-clear signal an hour ago—meaning her husband was on patrol and her daughter was spending the night out—but Forrest hadn’t been able to summon the energy for the trip. If he could have snapped his fingers and been in Cherie’s bed, he’d have done it. But ever since Katrina hit, work had been steadily grinding him down. Tonight was only the second time since the storm that he’d gotten home before 9 P.M.

  “Good ol’ Glenn,” he said, ruminating about his father. “Poor bastard. Rest in peace, Mountain.”

  Forrest reached down to the floor for his black leather boots, pulled them on with a groan, then stood and buckled on his gun belt. Walking into the kitchen, he spat tobacco juice into the sink, then unscrewed the top off a prescription bottle and dry-swallowed four Adderall, which had been given to him by a detective-sergeant in the narcotics division. The Adderall helped him focus. Then he opened a second bottle and swallowed a 50 mg Viagra. Even with the Morehouse development, he had time for a quick stop by Cherie’s house. He needed to hit it fast, or he’d risk her husband going off shift. Forrest didn’t need a confrontation with a fellow state cop, even if he was just in Patrol. He called Ozan on his secure cell. The captain answered on the first ring.

  “What you think, boss?” Ozan asked by way of greeting.

  “Was it the cancer, Alphonse?”

  “Don’t know yet. I just called Billy, but he didn’t answer. I know Snake has been nervous as a cat since that Viola Turner got back to Natchez, and I think he may have got Brody Royal stirred up.”

  “Brody? What makes you say that?”

  “I ran into Royal’s son-in-law, that Randall Regan, buying a muzzle-loader over at the Bass Pro Shops. He mentioned the Turner woman dying. So Brody’s obviously been thinking about her. I been thinking that her and Morehouse dying on the same day seems a little funny. Don’t it?”

  Forrest glanced at the flickering television as Baltimore put another nail in Green Bay’s coffin. He was waiting for his instinct to tell him something, as it always did during times of danger. Maybe Favre himself was the message. Gifted quarterbacks sometimes stayed in the game too long, and it was looking more and more like Brett should have left the league a couple of years back. Forrest was older than Favre, yet he was only now coming into the prime of his earning potential. His playing field was the state of Louisiana, and he had it wired from Shreveport to New Orleans. About all he really had in common with Favre, other than geography of birth, was being his own worst enemy. Keeping his primal impulses in check chafed Forrest’s spirit. Men with outsized appetites and abilities ought to get some sort of exemption from the rules of common men. In a way, of course, Forrest had exactly that—the badge he wore every day, the mantle of authority that kept most potential troublemakers at arm’s length.

  “Call Snake, Al,” he said. “Get it straight from him. All that blood-oath bullshit Daddy started is one big pain in the ass.”

  “Any personal message?”

  “Tell Snake to stay away from Henry Sexton. I see Henry’s stories within an hour of him drafting them, so Snake should just calm the fuck down. I know Billy’s told him already, but that’s not the same as it coming from me.”

  Ozan laughed. “Not by a damn sight, boss. I just hope it’s not too late. Snake’s been wanting to kill that reporter ever since I’ve known him.”

  “That is absolutely the last thing we need. I sure wish Billy could control his daddy.”

  Alphonse laughed again. “You think if your old man was alive, you could control him?”

  Forrest’s mind filled with the forbidding image of his father roused to anger, something no man had ever faced wi
thout fear. “You got a point there, Al. How’s that other thing coming? The Mexican run?”

  “Unloading in Barataria Bay right now.”

  “And the cash?”

  “Our runner’s bringing it up to Fort Knox tonight.”

  Forrest glanced at his Breitling and calculated how long a stop at Cherie’s might take him. The Valhalla Exotic Hunting Reserve lay fifty miles north of Baton Rouge. “I’m gonna make a cooter stop before we go.”

  “Shit. Where?”

  “Where do you think?”

  Ozan groaned. “Where’s that husband of hers?”

  “On patrol over near Lafayette. I had the dispatcher check his twenty.”

  “What if he doubles back without reporting in? You been hitting that a little too often for comfort. Not to mention longer than usual.”

  “Why you think I’m taking you with me?”

  Ozan chuckled. “All right. Just remember, Ricky ain’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but you don’t need that kind of trouble—not with Colonel Mackiever crawling up your backside.”

  The mention of the superintendent of the state police sent a flood of acid into Forrest’s stomach. Ozan himself had originally been assigned to Forrest’s division as a plant by Colonel Mackiever, after Internal Affairs had failed to get any dirt on Forrest. Mackiever had figured a Redbone like Ozan would never allow himself to be corrupted by a man with the Ku Klux Klan in his lineage. But Forrest had learned long ago that blacks and Indians craved money and power every bit as much as white men, and within four months, the only reports Ozan sent back to the colonel were being scripted by Forrest himself.

  “I can’t help it, Alphonse,” Forrest said, as the Adderall hit his system like a blast of pure oxygen. “I crave that girl’s kink. But you’re right: she’s starting to get ideas above herself.”

  “Don’t they all, eventually?”

  Forrest grabbed a coat, locked the house, then walked out to his supercharged cruiser. “I guess. Men grab the low-hanging fruit, but women always want to trade up to the next branch. This better be my last trip.” As he climbed behind the wheel, a perverse idea struck him. “Hey, maybe you ought to take her over. You’re moving up in the world.”

  “I doubt she’d be into me, boss. I’m an acquired taste.”

  That’s the damn truth. Forrest laughed, thinking of the big Redbone. Ozan was like a modern version of Injun Joe from Tom Sawyer. “Maybe you can educate her palate. Expand her horizons.”

  “Not with her husband in the troop. After she spent one night with me, he’d know she was different. Ruint. I’ve seen it too many times.”

  Forrest suppressed laughter as he backed out the driveway. “We’ll see. You just let me hit it one more time before you ruin her.”

  “Consider it a Christmas gift. Unmarked ride for the pit stop?”

  “Always. Pick me up outside headquarters.”

  Forrest felt his face flush from the Viagra, and his cock stiffened as he thought of his immediate destination. “I’m serious about Snake. Tell him if he kills Henry Sexton, I’ll lock him and Sonny in Angola myself. They’ll be wearing Depends twenty-four hours a day after that. Maybe Snake’ll pass that message to Brody Royal.”

  Ozan’s laughter carried a cruel edge of pleasure. “Happy to pass that on, boss.”

  CHAPTER 25

  THE CONCORDIA PARISH Sheriff’s Department cruiser peels off my tail after Henry Sexton and I reach the Pizza Hut at the western edge of Vidalia. Driving ahead of me, Henry Sexton turns off the main highway into a residential neighborhood, while I continue toward the twin bridges that span the Mississippi River, five miles to the east. The lights of Natchez glimmer on the bluff high above them, calling me back home.

  The moment we left the Beacon office, I called a retired cop named James Ervin to set up security for Henry and his loved ones, but for the last few miles I’ve fought the urge to use my cell phone again. I don’t like making decisions in the heat of the moment, especially after absorbing an information dump like the one Henry laid on me tonight. In the span of sixty minutes, the reporter gave me the results of twenty years of painstaking investigation, and the full ramifications aren’t easy to grasp. For the time being, I don’t intend to try. What matters now is my father’s plight, and whether or not he’s willing to try to extricate himself from it. With a preparatory tensing of my stomach muscles, I dial Dad’s cell phone. He doesn’t answer until I’ve nearly despaired of getting him.

  “Hello, Penn,” he says in a softer voice than usual.

  “You told me to call you if Henry had any new information that was relevant. Well, he had a lot. We need to have a very different conversation than the one we had this afternoon.”

  “Son . . . I can’t talk now. Peggy is upset.”

  “I imagine she is, if you’ve just told her about this mess. Is she right there?”

  “No, but close enough.”

  “Hold the earpiece close to your head, then.” I lower my voice. “I’m going to ask you one question, and I want a yes-or-no answer. I need you to answer it, because before I can make a move, I need to know where you stand.”

  “I will, if I can.”

  “Will you take a DNA test to establish whether or not you are Lincoln Turner’s father?”

  There’s a stunned silence. “Penn—”

  “Yes or no, Dad. Please.”

  More silence. I could have asked whether or not he’d fathered a child by Viola, or whether it’s even possible, but what would be the point? Though I’ve never known him to lie to me, in the end this question will only be answered by scientific evidence.

  “I will,” he says at length.

  My relief is palpable. Passing into Vidalia, I adjust my brights for oncoming traffic. “All right. I’ll see you later tonight.”

  “Make it late, after Peggy’s asleep. Midnight.”

  “Okay.”

  I hit END and squeeze the steering wheel until my knuckles ache. I’m not even sure what his answer meant. But from a legal standpoint all that matters now is his willingness to take the test. Before I can second-guess myself, I call Shad Johnson’s cell phone. It rings several times, but just as I expect to be kicked to voice mail, the DA’s smooth voice comes on the line.

  “I’ve been expecting you to call back all day.”

  “My father didn’t kill Viola Turner.”

  “Do you have exculpatory evidence I don’t know about?”

  “I know how you convinced yourself you could win a case for premeditated murder. You believe Lincoln Turner is my father’s illegitimate son, by Viola.”

  The line goes silent.

  “If that’s your case, Shad, you’d better slow down. Because Tom Cage is not that man’s father. Dad just told me he’s willing to take a DNA test, at your pleasure. I’m sure Lincoln spun you a heartbreaking story, but there are some biographical details of which he’s blissfully unaware—the first being that his mother was gang-raped by ex–Ku Klux Klansmen just before she fled Natchez. And not once, but twice, a few days apart. Henry Sexton believes one of those men is Lincoln Turner’s father.”

  “What does Henry Sexton have to do with this?”

  “He’s an expert on the Double Eagle group. So, before you call a press conference making charges about my father and his 1960s love child, I’d verify my soon-to-be-disbarred client’s story. You don’t want to be charged with defamation and false arrest.”

  “He’s not my client. I’m the district attorney.”

  “Call it what you will. But if you arrest Dad in the morning, you’ll be stepping into serious trouble. Don’t let Lincoln Turner and Sheriff Byrd drag you into something you’ll regret.”

  The phone stays silent, but I know Shad is thinking furiously. Rather than push him further, I let him stew in his anxieties awhile.

  “What do you expect me to do with this?” he asks finally. “Throw out a murder case based on a phone call from the mayor?”

  “It shouldn’t even be a murder
case. Not against my father, anyway.”

  “Penn, listen. This thing has taken on a life of its own. Lincoln’s pushing every political hot button he can in this town. You know I’ve got to deal with my own community in a case like this.”

  “Your community wouldn’t even know about this if you weren’t stirring it up.”

  “You’re wrong! Black deputies worked that crime scene, man. Plus, Billy Byrd’s not about to lay off without proof that Dr. Cage wasn’t involved.”

  “Everybody’s pushing this thing but you, huh? I don’t buy it, Shad.”

  “Your father hasn’t even tried to defend himself! What are people supposed to make of that?”

  There’s no denying this problem. “I know that looks bad. But this is a complex situation.”

  “Not from where I sit. You have the luxury of dealing in theories; I’m stuck with what I can prove. I’ve got your father’s fingerprints on morphine vials and a horse-sized syringe. I’ve got a suicide pact between your father and the victim, and the victim’s sister puts him at the scene just prior to death. Lincoln’s paternity angle is just the cherry on top.”

  “Don’t bullshit me, Shad! Lincoln’s assumed paternity is what took you from assisted suicide to murder. Nothing else. Are you seriously fucking with me? Because I know exactly how to handle that.”

  “No—Penn, wait.”

  Gripping the wheel fiercely, I try to rein in my anger. “A man named Glenn Morehouse was murdered near Vidalia tonight. You need to look into that. He was spilling his guts to Henry Sexton, and the Double Eagle group killed him for it. The same reason they killed Viola fourteen hours earlier.”

  “Can you prove that?”

  “Talk to Henry Sexton.”

  “I will. But meanwhile, I don’t have control over what Billy Byrd does.”

  “You’re the DA. He’s the sheriff. Muzzle that son of a bitch.”

  “I’ll try, but it’s not going to be easy. If anything goes down in the morning, you call me before you do anything crazy.”

  “I might not have time, Shad. The Examiner has that Web edition now, and Caitlin’s always hungry for a good story.”