by Greg Iles
not even at St. Stephens.
This
realization steals my breath for a few moments, and to fully accept it is almost more than I can bear.
The only thing that could have prevented the present crisis was foresight during the boom years of my childhood. If community leaders had worked
then
to diversify the local economy away from oil production, and if white citizens had supported the public schools, Natchez would be a different city today. Political and economic opportunities were squandered that may never present themselves again. But short of a time machine, what I need to save this town is the people who have flown in for this funeral. Natchez needs the bright young citizens who benefited during her prime to return the favor. She needs their intelligence and energy, their desire to remake the city into the image of their dreams, a place where their children can experience the kind of childhood they enjoyed, but where those kids can also return and raise their own families if they choose to. But that is a pipe dream. The conversations I had a half hour ago told me that. Tomorrow, my old classmates will say good-bye to their aging parents and fly back to their own families. Other towns and cities will be the beneficiaries of their energy and intelligence; other schools will receive the fruits of their labor. They will always speak wistfully of Natchez, and many may retire here after their children leave for college, but with a few exceptions, thats it. The same is true of most young black people who leave Natchez after high school.
So,
I wonder, with a wretched emptiness that borders on despair,
what the hell am I doing here?
What does it mean to save a town anyway? American towns have been growing and withering since the 1600s. The idea that a city that has survived for almost three hundred years needs me to save it is more than a little egotistical. Natchez will always be here in one form or another. It stands on high ground, well watered and fertile, with a mild climate hospitable to crops. Even in 1927, when the Mississippi swelled to a terrifying seventy miles
wide
at Natchez, the city stood high and dry above the closest thing to Armageddon the Mississippi valley has ever known. In my messianic zeal to resurrect what I saw as the best part of the citys past, I simply lost sight of the fact that no matter what I do, Penn Cage will be but a footnote in the long history of this once great river town.
As the Communion service proceeds, and Father Mullen drones about the body and blood of Christ, my thoughts turn to my own family. For the past two years, I've tried not to think about what my political crusade has cost, but the price has been high. I lost Caitlin at the outset, because she didn't share my vision. I deprived Annie of the culturally rich experience she might have had in a larger city. I put my writing career on hold, giving up an absurdly large amount of money in exchange for a public servants salary. And for this I got the privilege of beating my head against a wall of stubborn provincialism and hidebound tradition for two dispiriting years. Ironically, my actions have actually exacerbated some problems. The magic I worked on Mrs. Pierce opened the gates to the
Magnolia Queen
and all its depredations. Tim Jessup lies dead twenty feet away from me, and despite my national reputation as a prosecutor, I've been unable to bring his killer to justice.
Pathetic.
That's my verdict on the Penn Cage administration.
While I waited for Tim in the cemetery that first night, I reflected that Id rarely failed at anything, and that Id never quit. True Southerners, I was always taught, surrender only when the means to fight no longer exist. But the Southern mythos of noble defeat gives me no comfort today. Am I to sacrifice the education of my child in a vain quest to save something that is merely changing, as all things do?
Penn? whispers Sam Jacobs, nudging me in the side. Its time to do our thing.
The Communion service has ended. Father Mullen is walking around Tims casket, sprinkling holy water. Rising like a sleepwalker, I take my place beside the casket and help roll it down the long aisle to the cathedral doors.
I recognize almost every face in the pews. As I pass, dozens of eyes seek mine with a beseeching look. What are they asking? How did Tim die? Why did he die? Or do they have deeper questions? In their puzzled faces, I sense a longing to know why the feeling of unity they experience on occasions like this cannot be sustained throughout the year, as it once was in this town. But the answer is sitting among them. A town that cannot sustain its children through adulthood cannot survive, except as a shadow of itself.
When the ushers open the cathedral doors, the sunlight blinds me
for several seconds. Luckily, my pupils adapt by the time we reach the head of the broad steps, where we lift the heavy casket from the gurney and carry Tim down the ten steps that have brought older pallbearers to grief. Without quite admitting it to myself, I had hoped to find Caitlin waiting outside, but one scan of the intersecting streets tells me shes not here. As we slide the casket along the rollers inside the waiting hearse, Sam Jacobs, a Jew, pats the side of the coffin and says, See you at the cemetery, Timmy. In that moment I recall two thoughts I had the last time I saw Tim alive, which was at the cemetery, on Jewish Hill.
One is the lesson my father learned in Korea:
Heroism is sacrifice.
The second is that most of the heroes I know are dead. Tim was one of those heroes. He chose a martyrs death as surely as some deluded saint from the Middle Ages. Looking down Union Street, lined with the rental cars of everyone but Caitlin Masters, the selfish voice that I usually suppress speaks loud and clear in my mind:
Are you going to live a martyrs life? Will you sacrifice your daughters education and the second love of your life to fight a battle you no longer believe is winnable?
Penn? says a mans voice. Are you okay?
Turning away from the hearse, I find Paul Labry standing beside me. Paul is Catholic, but he did not attend St. Stephens with Tim and me, and so was not asked to be a pallbearer. Despite this, hes stayed close to me today, knowing that I'm working under great strain, even if he doesn't fully understand the reasons for it.
I'm fine, Paul. Thanks for asking.
Are you riding with Drew and the other guys?
Looking past Labry, I see Drew Elliott beckoning me to a black BMW a few cars behind the hearse. I guess so. Youre going to the burial, right?
Of course. Unless you need me to do something else.
No, I want you to come. I want to speak to you afterward.
Pauls face takes on a worried cast, but he knows this isnt the place to ask for details. The congregation is spilling down the steps now, and car engines are starting all along Union and Main. Is anything wrong? he asks softly.
No, no. I just want to ask you something. Something I should have asked you two years ago.
Intrigued, Labry takes my elbow and starts leading me away from the crowd, but I pull free and quietly assure him that nothing is wrong. I'm just upset by Tims death, I tell him. Well talk after the burial, okay?
Sure. I'll see you at the cemetery.
While Paul heads up Main Street, presumably to get his car, I tread slowly toward Drew Elliots BMW like a man crossing the last mile of a desert. The flicker of an impulse to search for Caitlins face among those on the sidewalk goes through my mind, but I don't raise my head. Shes not here. She made that decision this morning. Squinting against the glare coming off the concrete, I suddenly realize that I know the answer to my silent questions. Some people have chosen to see me as a hero in the past. I traded on that reputation to gain the mayors office. But I'm no hero, not by my fathers measure. I'm certainly no martyr. My work here is not finished, not by a long shot. But I am. This time, when my old friends leave Natchez to return to their families, I will follow them with mine. This time I choose the future, not the past.
My crusade is over.
<
br /> CHAPTER
39
Caitlin crosses the Mississippi River Bridge with her heart pounding. She is sure she has found the girl who passed Linda Churchs note to Penn at the Ramada, and she did it with two phone calls. The trick was figuring out whom to call. Caitlin had only caught a glimpse of the girl at the hotel, and mostly walking away, at that. But shed seen enough. The giveaway was the hair. At first glance the girls hair had looked short, but as she walked away, Caitlin had seen the telltale mane hanging out from the tail of the jacket. Caitlin hardly ever saw waist-length hair anymore, and when she did, it usually meant one thingin the Deep South, anyway. The other thing was the girls eye makeup. Not only had she worn twice as much as she needed, but it looked as though it had been applied by an eight-year-old trying to imitate her teenage sister. These two things together told Caitlin that the girl was wearing her idea of a disguise. And what she was disguising was her religion.
Caitlin had been fascinated when Penn told her that Mississippi had the highest per capita number of churches and also the lowest literacy rate. Three years ago, she had used these statistics as the launching point of a story on charismatic religions. People speaking in tongues, faith healing. For her, the most disturbing thing about doing the story had been her contact with the younger girls in the churches. She could see that they aspired to be like other teenage girls, but they
had been raised in families with nineteenth-century values, or certainly pre-Eisenhower-era twentieth-century values. Her portrayal of these churches as patriarchal and sexist had upset a lot of their members and got some girls in trouble with their pastors, but it had also opened a lot of eyes to a closed society.
A couple of the women shed spoken to had remained kind to her, and so the moment Caitlin suspected that the girl who delivered the note might be Pentecostal, she had checked her files at the
Examiner
and made some phone calls. Using what shed gleaned from Penns description, she said she was looking for a tall girl who had probably lost a lot of weight in the past year or two, and who might have a job in Vidalia. That was all it had taken to get the two pieces of information she needed: a name and a location. Darla McRaney, the Bargain Barn on Highway 15.
At first Caitlin had been tempted to tell Penn what shed discovered. But then shed realized it would only prove to him that his jab about her penchant for following a story was on target. If this trip led any closer to Linda Church, Caitlin had promised herself, shed tell Penn immediately.
The Bargain Barn is a long, low-slung building just off the highway, that looks as if it might once have been a brand-name store. During all the time Caitlin lived in Natchez, shed only been inside it once, but her memory is clear. The store sells everything from clothing to housewares, medicine to ant poison, all of it cheap both in quality and price.
Only a few cars are in the lot. Caitlin parks between two of them, then locks her car and walks through the glass door. An elderly man wearing an orange vest greets her with a puzzled smile, and she walks past him into the clothing section.
Can I help you? asks a middle-aged woman sorting dresses on a circular rack.
I'm looking for Darla McRaney.
Darla mostly stays over in housewares.
Caitlin quickly navigates the empty aisles until she reaches an area filled with thin metal pots and imitation Tupperware. In the next aisle, above a rack of blenders, she sees Darla McRaneys head. She knows its Darla because a girl would have to be almost six feet tall to be seen above the blenders.
Making a U around the end of the aisle, Caitlin approaches Darla cautiously, like a naturalist trying not to spook a timid animal. In spite of this, Darla looks up sharply and takes a step back, blushing scarlet.
I didn't see you, she says. Can I help you?
Darla, my name is Caitlin. I'm a very good friend of Penn Cage.
The girl stares back for several moments, neither breathing nor blinking. Then she starts to back away.
Wait, Caitlin says. Please, wait. I know you gave Penn that note at the Ramada Inn. I know you tried to disguise yourself, but he recognized you. He thought you worked at a restaurant, but I found you anyway.
I used to work at a restaurant, the girl says in a dazed voice. Frankys Pizza. I liked it there, but I kept putting on weight. I had to quit.
Caitlin nods with empathy.
But I don't know nothing about no note, Darla says, twice as loudly as shed spoken before.
Caitlin cant help but smile at this obvious lie.
But you knew exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned the Ramada and Penn Cage.
Darla licks her lips, then looks around as though suspicious someone is watching her.
I was at the Ramada, she says. So were a lot of people. And I did see the mayor there. But I don't know nothin bout no note. I haven't passed notes to men since grade school.
Caitlin takes a step forward and speaks with sisterly intimacy. I'm trying to help Linda Church. Shes in terrible danger, more even than she knows. I know you've been trying to help her, you and your friends. But she needs more help than that.
Fear glitters in Darlas eyes. I told you, I don't know nothin bout any a that. I gotta get back to work. I got customers.
I don't see any customers, Caitlin says gently. But I'll be glad to buy something if youll tell me just a little bit of the truth.
I did, Darla insists.
Have you seen Linda yourself? The reason I'm asking you is because of your eye makeup. I saw you didn't know how to put it
on, and I figured that if Linda was with you, she would have fixed it for you.
Darla looks on the verge of tears. Her neck is splotchy, and her breath is going shallow. I cant talk anymore. Please, go away. Leave me alone.
Caitlin reaches into her purse and hands Darla a card with her cell number on it. I want the same thing you do, Darla. I want Linda to be safe. Please call me later. Think about all this. Youll know its the right thing to do.
Darla accepts the card with a shaking hand, then turns and hurries down the aisle toward a collection of Chinese lawn mowers.
Caitlin knows the girl is lying, but sometimes you have to stop pushing and let the source make her own decision. With a girl as skittish as Darla McRaney, it shouldnt take long.
CHAPTER
40
Car doors close with a disturbing finality in cemeteries. Tim lies under the earth now, a few flowers on top of his coffin, dropped in by family and friends. He wasn't buried on Catholic Hill, but he does lie within sight of it. This wasn't a punishment, but a matter of limited space. Green Astroturf carpet conceals the mound of dirt that the backhoe will use to fill in the grave. The familiar green canopy of McDonoughs funeral home keeps the sun off the few people who remain: Dr. Jessup and his wife, some relations from California, Julia and the baby.
A second knot of people stands several yards away, mostly pallbearers, myself among them. These men I knew as boys flew so far to do their somber duty, and though most of us haven't seen each other much in the past twenty-five years, were as comfortable as brothers who live on separate coasts. Paul Labry stands with us, waiting, as I asked him to do at the cathedral.
After a couple of quiet jokes, well-concealed smiles, and well-meant but empty promises to stay in touch, the guys head for their rented cars. After the short line of vehicles disappears up the lane, I turn to Paul, but find myself facing Julia Jessup. Shes left Tim junior with his grandmother. Her eyes are bloodshot, the skin around them raw and swollen.
Labry takes a step back out of courtesy, but one hard glance from Julia sends him back another twenty feet.
I know I look bad, she says in a cracked voice. I'm not getting much sleep. Tim used to help me with the baby. A lot more than most men do, I think. And Tim juniors not sleeping well at all now.
/> I'm sorry, Julia.
Are you? Her hollow eyes probe mine. I came over here because I want you to know something. I didn't want Tim doing what he did. The thing that got him killed. But he did it anyway. I think you should know that he did it for his father, and for you.
A wave of heat goes through my face. Me?
She nods with conviction. Tim really had you up on a pedestal. A lot of people do, I think. He never forgot how close you were when you were young, and when you stopped being friends, he blamed himself. He thought hed let you down somehow. You went on to be a big success, and he wound up dealing cards on a casino boat. I told him that was honest work and nothing to be ashamed of, but it didn't help. He was ashamed. And after he found out whatever was really going on with that boat, it just ate at him until he had to do something.
I'm truly sorry, Julia. Tim was a good man, and I wish he hadn't gotten involved with any of that. I wish I hadn't let him.
I just want to know if it did any good, she says. Because my son is going to have to live the rest of his life without a father. Was it worth it, Penn? Did Tim accomplish one goddamned thing by dying?
While I try to find a suitable answer, Julia says, What about
you
? Have you done what you promised you would do?
As I try to recall exactly what I promised Tim that night, his widow turns and walks back to his grave without waiting for an answer.
What was that about? Labry asks, coming up behind me.
