Natchez Burning (76 page)

“Annie’s finally asleep. Mom, you’ve got to tell me what’s happening.”

She nods, but her expression doesn’t inspire much hope.

“I simply can’t believe Dad would leave you without some way of reaching him.”

“But he did, Penn.” Her eyes look sincere, but I’ve had so little experience of deception in my mother, how would I recognize it? “I don’t think Tom wanted me to be in a position where I would have to lie to the police.”

I give her a few seconds’ grace. “Still. I don’t believe he’d leave you to face all this alone.”

She turns her hand over and squeezes mine. “But I’m not alone.
You’re
here. Tom knew that he could count on you to take care of me.”

“The last time you saw him was midday today?”

“Yes. An hour after I drove him home from the hearing, he drove himself to the office. I tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Did he say anything when he left?”

“No more than usual. But there was something in his face that told me he wasn’t coming back. Not for a while, anyway.”

“And you didn’t try to stop him?”

She gives me a look that says,
Are you serious?
“You know your father.”

I nod. “I thought I did. After these past two days, I’m not so sure.”

“Oh, hush. This is going to come out all right. You’ll see.”

Is she really that naïve?
“Mom … I don’t want you to panic, but you have to know how things stand. Now that Dad has jumped bail on a murder charge, any cop can shoot him down with impunity and say he resisted arrest. I suspect that Sheriff Byrd and some Louisiana State Police officials will quietly give orders to do just that, once they know he’s gone.”

At last I see fear in her eyes.

“If Dad contacts you in any way, you’ve got to do everything in your power to persuade him to come home.”

“I realize that.”

As her voice finally cracks, I voice one of my deepest fears. “Dad’s not running for real, is he? I mean, leaving the country.”

She looks up at the ceiling and blinks back tears. “You know better than that. Tom’s never run from anything in his life. Judge Noyes said as much from the bench yesterday.”

“So
what the hell is he doing
?”

“Keep your voice down. Remember Annie.”

“You’d tell me if he was setting up house for you guys in Brazil or something, right?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She flips her free hand as she might at any absurdity. “We’re not leaving our home because some ambitious DA has got it into his head to put Tom in jail. I can’t pretend I understand all this. I just have to have faith that what Tom’s doing is necessary.”

“Mom, don’t you think the time for blind faith has passed? Dad’s not only risking his own life. Good people are getting hurt. Henry Sexton may die. You and Annie are scared to death. I think we’re safe here for the time being, but I honestly don’t know. And Dad’s leaving us hanging out here without one word of explanation!”

She wipes her cheeks, then takes both my hands in hers. “I’ve been married to your father for fifty-three years,” she says in a voice edged with iron. “Tom has always done right by this family, and I’m not going to start second-guessing him now.”

Has he?
I ask silently.
Has he always done right by us?
But I won’t force my mother to the edge of her faith, where a black maw of disillusionment must surely await. Not at this hour. I may have the strength to choose the truth over my father, but after fifty-three years, perhaps my mother
must
choose her husband over the truth. At least tonight.

“Where should I sleep?” she asks.

“There’s a twin bed in the room that connects to the master suite upstairs, where Annie is. You take that.”

“Where will you be?”

“Down here. I’ve got a lot to think about before tomorrow.”

My mother slips off the stool, gives me a long hug, then pads into the hall. Soon I hear the stairs creaking.

Alone in the kitchen, I open a Corona Extra and sit at the counter, wondering what in God’s name my father thinks he’s playing at. If Billy Byrd or Forrest Knox finds out that he’s jumped bail, he might not live until John Kaiser and the FBI reach Natchez tomorrow. Even if he does, I can’t be sure Kaiser will agree to protect him. By making himself a fugitive, Dad has placed himself outside the pale of the law.

Forcing this insanity from my mind, I remind myself that all I can do in the short run is prove that someone else killed Viola Turner. Putting pressure on Brody Royal and the Double Eagles seems the best way to do that, since they almost certainly planned and executed that crime. And if Walker Dennis can get a warrant to tap Royal’s telephones, then all I need to do is find a way to “shake the tree” of Brody Royal.

Last night, Henry Sexton gave me a lot of detail about 1960s-vintage Double Eagle murders and plots, but I don’t think those would worry Royal much. Too many witnesses have died in the decades since. But the nightmare Glenn Morehouse recounted about the murder of the two female whistle-blowers from Royal Insurance is another matter. Royal’s son-in-law, Randall Regan, is obviously as sadistic a killer as any Double Eagle from the Jim Crow era. And an investigation that threatens not only the existence of one of Royal’s companies, but also Brody himself, would be something Royal simply couldn’t ignore. With the horrific details Morehouse gave Henry, I ought to be able to scare the living hell out of Randall Regan, and by extension, Brody himself. I’ll just have to make sure that when I do, neither man is in a position to make me suffer for it.

BRODY ROYAL HAD
not been spoken to in anger by another man in more than twenty years. Claude Devereux had felt something close to panic as Forrest Knox lambasted the old man for authorizing Randall Regan’s abortive attempt to kill Henry Sexton. Claude had watched this confrontation from a club chair in the rear corner of Royal’s study, while Forrest stood before Brody’s desk, speaking with the cold fury of a field officer reprimanding a deskbound general who’d been insulated from battle for too long. Brody weathered the storm like a craggy rock face on a mountainside, making no excuses, saying nothing at all. Randall Regan and Alphonse Ozan stood behind their principals like seconds at a duel, and Claude had the feeling that each was itching to step in and settle the disagreement with knives or worse.

Claude had always known that Frank Knox’s son was tough—Forrest had more than proved himself in Vietnam—but he hadn’t known that the boy possessed his father’s temper. Seeing the state trooper challenge the silver-haired old multimillionaire had shaken Claude deeply. At bottom, he was watching a young wolf whose power was waxing try to establish his supremacy over an older one whose power, while still considerable, was on the wane. But if Forrest Knox believed Brody Royal would be easily dislodged from his alpha position, he wasn’t as astute as Claude believed he was.

Ensconced behind his heavy desk, Brody continued to display a forbearance that Claude had never known he possessed. But with each passing second, Devereux became more certain that this was like the quiet before a hurricane. Brody always kept at least one pistol in his desk drawer, and Claude worried that his old friend might simply shoot Knox out of hand, without even deigning to argue with him. Royal had been raised in a world where that kind of thing was still possible. The Redbone behind Forrest looked like he expected something of the sort; he reminded Claude of a guard dog waiting for an attack command.

“Your
real
problem,” Forrest went on, “is that you’re acting out of fear. That’s a reflex, Brody, and a stupid one.”

Royal’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time he spoke in answer. “You’re not your daddy, boy,” he said with venom. “Be careful.”

Forrest drew himself to his full height, then gave himself a few seconds before replying. “You’re right, I’m not. You and Pop were lions in your day. Everybody knows it. But we’re not living in the jungle anymore. You got scared of payback for something you did forty years ago, and you decided the best response was to kill somebody. Worse, you gave the job to
this
guy”—Forrest pointed at Randall Regan, who instantly went red—“and he fucked it up beyond belief.”

“Nobody knew that fat secretary had a gun,” Regan snapped. “And I want to know where those boys are now. One of ’em was my nephew.”

Forrest gave him a contemptuous look. “Then you shouldn’t have told him to make his own way when he called you for help.”

Before Regan could respond, Forrest stabbed a forefinger at Royal. “Do you sell all your stock when the market starts crashing? No. You buy. This is the same situation. The FBI has had forty years to prove these murders, and they couldn’t do it. They won’t prove ’em this year, either. So, what are you scared of?”

“Guilt,” said Brody, his gray eyes steady in the hawklike face. “Some born-again fool’s conscience. I wanted Sexton questioned properly, not killed in the street. I wanted to know the identity of every Eagle he’s talked to, everything he told Penn Cage last night, and whatever Viola Turner told him before she died.
Then
I wanted him to disappear. I still do.”

“Guilty consciences are a legitimate worry with old men,” Forrest conceded. “But let me worry about that from now on. You don’t see me trying to run a bank or an agribusiness, do you? Well, shutting people up is one of my specialties. When it has to be done, nobody does it better.”

Ozan chuckled ominously behind his master.

“That doesn’t reassure me,” Brody said. “You’ve let Henry Sexton write whatever he pleased for years now.”

“And what’s come of it? Nothing but talk. Not one prosecution. Not even an arrest.”

“That could change overnight, son.”

Forrest Knox smiled, probably at the idea of being seen as young. Devereux figured he was about fifty-five.

“And you think burning the goddamn
Beacon
is going to help your cause?” Forrest asked. “That fire was like a Jumbotron screaming,
This reporter’s on the right track!
Brody, before that fire I had a direct digital line into Sexton’s computers. I saw everything that fool was going to publish, days before it appeared. You’ve destroyed all that. Worse, Randall’s rookie crew failed to finish Henry off. Now we have no way of knowing what he’s telling the FBI.”

Royal lifted the glass of single malt whisky Claude had poured him earlier and drank it off neat. Then he spoke with an unnerving precision that silenced even Forrest Knox, his eyes never leaving Knox’s face.

“You don’t know as much as you think you do, Lieutenant. For instance, are you aware that Sexton interviewed my daughter, Katy, at her home only one week ago?”

Forrest blinked but said nothing.

“He arranged the interview under false pretenses, then questioned her about that young nigger Wilson, and Albert Norris.”

Forrest looked intrigued. “What did he ask her, exactly?”

“Enough to upset her greatly. My daughter is fragile, Lieutenant. I’m not sure what she remembers about that period, but I do know that further questioning of that kind could dredge up information that none of us wants exposed.”

Forrest nodded slowly. “I see. Well, I can pay you back for that tidbit. A week ago, some nigger showed up at the deathbed of Pooky Wilson’s mother. He knows all about what you and Daddy did back in sixty-four. In fact, he
saw
you and Daddy jump from Norris’s store window, and he saw Randall drive you away.”

Claude felt his stomach tighten. This was the first he’d heard of such a potentially devastating witness.

“Sexton’s been looking all over for him,” Forrest went on, “only he doesn’t know the man’s name. The mama died before he could get it out of her. But now that you’ve cut off my line into the
Beacon,
we won’t even know if Henry finds him.”

“All the more reason to deal with the problem at its source!” Royal leaned over his desk, his face darkening with passion. “Do you remember being three years old, boy?”

Forrest looked perplexed by this question.

“I do,” Brody said. “It was 1927, and my mama was standing on tiptoe, holding me over her head while the floodwater rose up to her mouth, then her nose. My daddy was diving down to try to find an axe to hack through the roof. If he hadn’t found it, we’d all have died that day.”

Claude Devereux knew this story well, but few others did. Claude also knew the full extent of his richest client’s ambitions. He wondered whether Brody was finally going to reveal his plans to Forrest Knox.

“My daddy owned two stores,” Brody went on, speaking softly. “He sold bootleg whisky on the side, and he used the profits to buy land. We lived in St. Bernard Parish. In 1927, as the floodwater came downriver, the bankers who controlled New Orleans started to panic. In the end, they hijacked the government in Baton Rouge and extorted permission to dynamite the levee that protected our parish.” Brody nodded, his eyes focused on some faraway scene and time. “They dynamited for three straight days. Everything we had went underwater. When the water finally went down, months later, we’d been wiped out. The stores were gone, and three feet of mud covered the land.”

Brody blinked once, which emphasized the stillness of his aquiline features. “Those bankers had promised full reparations before the dynamiting, but they lied. They left us in the mud to rot. Our total compensation, according to those bastards, was twelve dollars and fifty cents. Twelve-fifty for everything we owned. That’s when Daddy started bootlegging full-time. He got in with Carlos Marcello, and he never looked back. Along with Huey Long’s people, they put slot machines into every parish in this state. In the end, my daddy made back all his money and more. Far more. So did I. But every goddamned day, I thought about the bastards who’d done that to us. And ever
since
that day, I’ve worked to destroy them.”

Forrest nodded but did not speak, obviously sensing that he would gain nothing by interrupting Brody. Claude also figured Knox knew that information was power, and knowing Brody’s deepest motives might well come in handy someday.