The Devil's Punchbowl (45 page)

 

“Kelly already saw me naked. Big whoop. It’s you I’m worried about.” Her voice goes quiet. “Stuff with Sarah? Things you might not want to see with me? Or me to see at all?”

 

I take her hand, and Kelly looks away. “It’s okay. Whatever there is, you can watch.”

 

Caitlin swallows hard, and her eyes soften. Then she sighs, composes herself, and clicks the button on the trackball.

 

On the screen, Sarah and Annie and I fade to black. Then Annie
appears again, alone this time. She can’t be more than ten months old, and she’s sitting on the steps of our house in Houston. She looks into the lens, then reaches for someone outside the frame. When no one takes her, her eyes fill with confusion and she begins to cry. Just as Sarah’s hands enter the frame to take her, the sound of maddened dogs bursts from the speakers. The savage cacophony hurls me thirty years back in time, to the night Tim and I pedaled for our lives in the cemetery. From the sound, five or six dogs are fighting over something, but then the snarls and snapping teeth are punctuated by a sound that freezes my blood. It’s a man screaming—first like a man, then like a little boy being torn apart by wolves. Male voices shout in the background, but I can’t make out distinct words. The screams become shrieks, rising in pitch and volume until they’re suddenly cut off. What follows can only be the sound of animals fighting over meat. As we stare in stunned horror, the screen goes blue.

 

“That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard,” Caitlin says. “Do you think the disc has fingerprints on it?”

 

“Yours,” I say. “These guys don’t make that kind of mistake.”

 

“Who
are
these people? That wasn’t dogfighting.”

 

“That was a snuff tape,” Kelly says, a strange awe in his voice. “I’ll bet they have video too. They just couldn’t risk showing it to us.”

 

“You think it shows them?” I ask.

 

“Maybe. I’ll bet we could ID the victim from it.”

 

“Ben Li?” I suggest.

 

Kelly shrugs. He’s already read Linda’s note and listened to the tape of Tim’s car chase. “Could have been. This guy sounded older to me when he first screamed, though. Late thirties, forties maybe.”

 

“Jesus,”
says Caitlin. “You can guess people’s ages by their screaming?”

 

The Delta veteran shrugs again. “Occupational hazard.”

 

She turns to me and starts to speak, then steps close. “Penn? I’ve never seen you look like that. Except maybe…after Ruby was in the fire.”

 

“Sands got what he wanted, right?” I say too loudly. “He found his missing disc. So why go to all this trouble? Why keep
fucking
with me?”

 

“Because they’re still vulnerable,” Kelly says. “They don’t have all
the variables locked down. The USB drive copy may still be out there. And now we find out this Ben Li kid may have kept some kind of insurance. Sands means to keep you on the hook for that stuff too. That’s what he’s saying with this.”

 

“Surely if they found the DVD, they found the other stuff long ago. They’ve known about Ben Li from the beginning.”

 

“I doubt they hired the kid because he was stupid.”

 

The screen saver has started on the Mac’s display; pastoral scenes of the four seasons fade in and out, providing jarring visual counterpoint to what we just heard.

 

“What do we do now?” Caitlin asks.

 

“I’m tempted to call Sands,” I say. “Tell him that as far as I’m concerned, everything is settled. He’s got his DVD, and I’m going back to normal life.”

 

Kelly shakes his head. “That won’t accomplish anything. Not unless you’re really backing off. Is that what you’re doing?”

 

Caitlin looks at me expectantly.

 

“You mean tonight?” I ask. “The kayaks? The photo op?”

 

Kelly nods. “They probably feel more secure right now than they have since the night Jessup died.”

 

I close my eyes, trying to see the larger picture.

 

“Look at it this way,” Kelly says. “Do you feel good about bringing Annie back to town as things stand?”

 

“No.”

 

“There you go.”

 

“How did Sands find that DVD?” I ask. “Even if he somehow heard Tim’s message—if Shad Johnson played it for him—he couldn’t have understood Tim’s clues.”

 

“Who knows?” says Kelly. “Metal detector, maybe. He’s probably had flunkies searching that cemetery ever since Jessup died. Don’t worry about it.”

 

An insistent buzzing starts in the room.

 

“Is that your cell phone?” Caitlin asks Kelly.

 

Kelly reaches into his pocket and silences the phone. “There’s only one way to get these guys out of your life. Send them to prison or kill them. We can put an end to this thing tonight. Three good photos and you’ve got them on felony charges. Then you can take backbearings and fill in the missing pieces. Linda Church. The USB
drive. Ben Li. The freaking ‘bird’ thing, whatever that is. What do you say, boss?”

 

“I’ll get the boats. Are Danny and Carl on line for it?”

 

“What do you think?” Kelly smiles at Caitlin. “Why don’t you make a few copies of Linda’s note? It wouldn’t hurt to dub Tim’s voice memo either, and make some backups of the last part of that DVD.”

 

She nods excitedly, glad for something to do.

 

Kelly looks at me. “Are you going to share any of this with Chief Logan?”

 

I don’t answer immediately, but I know what my gut is telling me. “I don’t think we can risk anyone finding out that Linda Church is alive.”

 

Kelly nods in agreement. “Logan didn’t tell you about the voice memo, did he? Even though it was meant for you.”

 

This hadn’t struck me until now. “I wonder if he knows about it. Maybe Shad Johnson took the phone the night of the murder, and Logan never saw anything but the texts. When I asked him at the station if he had the phone, he wouldn’t tell me.”

 

“So we’re definitely not showing the DA anything?”

 

I actually laugh at the absurdity of this idea, then sit back on the chair, suddenly drained by the release of tension. When Kelly takes out his phone to check his message, it’s instantly obvious that something is wrong. Before I can ask him what, he hands me the phone. There’s a text message on the screen, short and to the point:

 

Cease all inquiry re Jonathan Sands immediately. Conflict of interest. The assets will be protected, but you’re to stand down in Mississippi soonest. TOC Kabul 48 hours. Burton. PS Don’t push this.

 

“Daniel?” I say, handing the phone to Caitlin. “Are Annie and my mother the ‘assets’?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Oh, no,” Caitlin says. “This is crazy.”

 

“Are they truly safe, Kelly?”

 

“Absolutely. I’ve checked on them twice today.”

 

“It looks like things are changing fast.”

 

Kelly squats beside me, his eyes intense. “Personal protection is what Blackhawk was founded on. They’ve never lost a client, and they can’t afford to now. Especially people related to someone who can make as much noise as you can.”

 

“I don’t feel reassured.”

 

“Me either,” says Caitlin.

 

Kelly squeezes my shoulder. “I know the guys guarding them, Penn. Both shifts. Even if someone at the company gave out information, these guys would take out anybody who made a move.”

 

“What if Blackhawk people showed up at the door?”

 

Kelly licks his lips, then seems to take a silent decision. “Look, they’re not even where the company thinks they are, okay? Not anymore. As soon as I got the call about that bounceback on the Sands query, I told the guys to move them.”

 

My heart begins to race. “So you
are
worried.”

 

“No. I just don’t take chances. Annie’s fine, man. I told you how to make her truly safe. Stick to the plan. When you get this deep in, only one thing can get you out. Leverage.”

 

“You made that plan before you got the text message.”

 

“The message changes nothing.”

 

“
What?
You’re ready to lose your job over this?”

 

Kelly’s blue eyes are as steady as a man’s can be. “I took that risk the minute I moved Annie and your mother. I don’t know who’s protecting Jonathan Sands, but I know this: They’re on the wrong fucking side.”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER
31

 

 

The river is black glass tonight, and I’m thankful for it. It’s been three months since I’ve been on water in anything but a ski boat, and then only on a lake. We put in our kayaks a half mile above the city, on the Louisiana side of the river. The western shore is dark except for the digital depth markers the push boat pilots use to find the main channel. The sky to the south glows from the ambient light of Natchez. The air over the water is chilly and calm, but high above us black clouds are scudding across the face of the moon.

 

Kelly paddles beside me with smooth assurance, like a wingman flying escort. He learned his moves when his Delta team did an exchange program with Britain’s Special Boat Squadron; their commandos taught him the mysteries of handling small craft of all types. Our kayaks are Seda gliders, nineteen-foot touring boats with razor bows that move through the water like Kevlar arrows. With a seasoned paddler in the cockpit, they can do twelve miles an hour going downstream. The steamboats of the 1870s moved only slightly faster than this. I’m a recreational paddler, but I’ve mastered the art of powering the boat with my torso and hips, using the rudder pedals as braces for my long touring stroke. Kelly uses a power stroke, keeping his offset blades close to the kayak throughout his movement.

 

We can easily talk as we paddle, as long as he stays within ten or
fifteen feet of me, which he has made a point of doing. Kayaks are inherently unstable, and push boats can throw up four-foot waves in their wake as they drive their barges up and down the river. I can almost feel Kelly tensing to perform a rescue every time our boats hit a boil in the otherwise smooth river.

 

We almost scrubbed tonight’s mission five minutes before we put the kayaks in the river. That was when I confessed to Kelly that I’d contacted my closest friend in the FBI about Jonathan Sands. I probably wouldn’t have risked it if it weren’t a Sunday, but I knew Peter Lutjens would be home with his family, and not in the Puzzle Palace—FBI headquarters—where he works in the IT department of the National Security Division. The result wasn’t what I’d hoped for. In less than two hours, Lutjens called back and told me that no information could be given out about Sands under any circumstances, and I should be very careful whom I questioned about him.

 

I was about to hang up when Lutjens asked about Annie. I answered briefly, and then we chatted for a while about his son, who was having trouble with a science project. Lutjens told a lengthy anecdote about a next-door neighbor who’d turned out to be a retired physicist, who’d helped the boy finish the project. “Sometimes,” Lutjens concluded, “help comes from the most unexpected places.” I thanked him for his time, wondering what he could mean by that. Whatever he meant, it’s unlikely to help us on the river tonight.

 

Our kayaks glide past the northern reaches of Vidalia and Natchez almost without sound, the lights of the houses on Clifton Avenue glittering above us. Three-quarters of a mile to our left, the casino boats line the foot of the bluff, spaced about evenly for almost a mile. First comes the
Magnolia Queen,
then the
Zephyr,
the
Evangeline,
and finally the
Lady Belle.
I think of Tim as I pass the
Queen
because the cemetery sits on the ground high above it, but guilt will not help me tonight. Kelly didn’t even want me along, and I mean to prove that I won’t slow him down.

 

Danny McDavitt and Carl Sims are somewhere in the sky to the south of us, shadowing the VIP boat. Danny must be flying very high or very low because I can’t hear his helicopter. Our journey has been a milk run so far, but that will soon change, and knowing that Carl is riding shotgun in the chopper with his sniper rifle gives me a sense of confidence I might otherwise lack.

 

“Looking good,” Kelly says, his voice coming clear over the water. “You feeling okay?”

 

“Yeah. Trying to get used to working the rudder again.”

 

“The real work’s below the waist.”

 

“I feel it.”

 

As the twin bridges slide past high above our heads, Kelly stops paddling and adjusts the ear bud connected to the Star Trek in his pocket.

 

“Any word from Danny and Carl?” I ask.

 

“The VIP boat’s still cruising south, but not in any hurry.”

 

He pulls back a piece of canvas and checks the GPS unit Velcroed to the coaming of his boat. “We’ve been doing six miles an hour. Not bad, but let’s see if we can find some faster water.”

 

His kayak shoots forward without apparent extra effort on his part, then turns toward the middle of the river. I grip my two-bladed paddle and pull as strongly as I can, trying to stay up with him. On a river as broad as the Mississippi, the surface moves at different speeds in different places. Soon we’re moving at a steady nine miles per hour, and the lights of the town fall quickly behind us.

 

The land beyond the levee to our right is all former plantation land, and most of it’s still farmed today. From faintly silhouetted landmarks such as grain silos, I can tell we’re passing the old Morville Plantation, the one my father mentioned as a den of white slavery and gambling in the 1960s. Remembering this gives me a feeling of futility, as though Tim’s effort to stop what he saw as the rape of his hometown was nothing more than a vain quest to fight vices that will always be with us. The ironies are almost unbearable, if I think about them. Kelly and I are paddling this river to photograph men committing illegal cruelty upon animals, in order to “save” a city built upon the incalculable cruelty of slavery. The land on both sides of this river was watered with the sweat and blood of slaves, and their descendants still struggle to find their place in the life of the community. I’ve dealt with the consequences of that history every day of my term as mayor, and it lies at the root of the most intractable problem I’ve ever faced.