After Reverend Nightingale toddles off toward his baby blue Cadillac, Ike beckons me to the side of the church, out of earshot of Caitlin and the photographer. I walk over and speak to my parents, then join Ike.
“What you got?” he growls, stepping around me so that I can see no one but him. The blood vessels in his eyes form a red network around the dark irises, and the smell of cheap whisky blows past me with every word. “You got enough to nail Marston on Wednesday?”
“I’m working on it.”
“Working? The trial’s three days from now!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“So, tell me what you got.”
I quickly summarize my case, from Frank Jones to Betty Lou Beckham and everyone in between.
“Will that bitch testify in open court?” Ike asks, loudly enough to be heard across the hill. “Betty Lou?”
“I don’t know. She’s scared of Presley, and her husband doesn’t want her to testify. I’ve got my father working on her.”
“What about tying Presley to Marston?”
“I’ve got something working,” I say grudgingly, thinking of Peter Lutjens, who at this moment may be risking prison to get a copy of Stone’s original FBI report.
Ike grabs my wrist, his grip like a claw. “What you talking about?”
I jerk my hand free. “I’ll let you know if it works out.”
His glare is disquieting. “Is Stone helping you?”
“No.”
“You ask him to testify?”
“He won’t. Look, I need to go. My family’s waiting.”
“You ain’t telling me shit, man!”
“You need to get some sleep, Ike.”
“Sleep? Let me tell you something. I been thinking. I been thinking I messed up coming to you. You may put Presley in jail, but that ain’t nothing. He’s dying anyway. Marston’s laughing at you, man. Old Shad may be right about you leaving this alone, even though the nigger be a little bright for my taste.”
“I’m going now, Ike.”
He grabs my arm. “You keep me posted, right?”
I nod slowly. “Let go of my wrist.”
He looks down at the junction of our limbs as though unaware he has hold of me. As the hand relaxes, a question comes to me. “Are you a member of this church, Ike?”
“Me? Baptist? I’m Catholic, man. Holy Family.”
“You’ve known more than you’ve told me from the start. Whatever you have, now’s the time to tell me.”
His head moves forward, then back, like a man falling asleep at the wheel of a car. “You think I’m playing the quiet game too?” A faint smile, as though at a private joke. “I told you, man, everybody keeps something back. It’s the only way to stay safe.”
“I’m gone, Ike. Be careful, okay?”
When I come around the corner of the church, everyone is waiting in the cars but Caitlin and Kelly. Caitlin says something to him, then breaks away and meets me halfway.
“What was all that about?” she asks. “It sounded like he was yelling at you.”
“He’s drunk. He’s losing his nerve as the trial gets closer.”
“What about you?”
“Solid as a rock.”
She smiles. “I couldn’t believe Shad put you on the spot like that.”
“Are you going to report what he said?”
“He said it, he’s responsible for it.”
“Good.”
“Have you heard anything from Peter Lutjens?”
“Not yet.”
“You think he really has the nerve to try for that file?”
“If he doesn’t, he’s going to spend a lot of winters shoveling snow in North Dakota.”
“God, I hope he gets it. If he doesn’t—”
“There’s still Stone.”
“Don’t hold your breath. You want to come back to the paper and wade through some files? I’ll help.”
“Not yet. I’m going to take a drive. My parents and Annie are riding back with the Argus guys.”
Caitlin takes my hand. “Want some company?”
“Not this time.” I squeeze her hand. “But thanks for offering.”
She looks off toward Kingston Road. “You’re taking Kelly on this ride, right?”
“No.”
She looks back at me, her eyes worried, then suspicious. She drops my hand. “Tell Livy I said hello.”
“Livy? I have no intention of seeing Livy. Kelly can come if he wants, but in his own car. I just want to be alone for a while.”
Her eyes soften. “I’m sorry. I understand. I’ll tell him.” She rises on tiptoe and kisses me on the cheek. “Keep your eyes open.”
“I will.”
CHAPTER 32
Sometimes we think we are moving randomly. But random behavior is rare in humans. We are always spiraling around something, whether we see it or not, a secret center of gravity with the invisible power of a black hole. As a teenager, most of my “aimless” rides led me past Tuscany. Usually I would drive past the entrance, hoping to catch sight of Livy entering or leaving in her car. But a few times, at night, I would idle up the long driveway (it wasn’t gated then) and look up at her lighted window, staring at it like a caveman at a fire, then turn around and continue my endless orbit, a ritual that left me perpetually unsatisfied but which I was powerless to stop.
After Ruby’s funeral, I circumnavigate the county on its back roads, hurtling along gravel lanes with Kelly in my wake, driving his rented Taurus. Like a planet and its moon, we circle the town and the mystery that lies at the heart of it. Often the act of driving acts as a catalyst that allows the information banging around in my subconscious to order itself in a new way.
Today is different.
Today the emotional fallout from the funeral will not dissipate. Reverend Nightingale’s portrayal of my “unselfish” motives shamed me in a way I’ve never felt before. As he stood there praising me, I felt like a soldier who ran from battle being mistakenly awarded a Silver Star. At the other extreme was my anger at Shad Johnson, who hijacked Ruby’s funeral for his own political ends. And yet, if I were black, his suggestion that I retract my charges against Marston would make sense. My public statements may already have frightened liberal whites who might have voted for Shad into casting their ballots for Wiley Warren and the status quo.
After an hour of driving, the secret heart of my troubled orbit finally reveals itself. For the past week I’ve been acting like a writer. I was a prosecutor for twice as long as I’ve been a novelist, and I should have been thinking like one. At least my hands know where to take me, if my brain doesn’t. I’m on the Church Hill road, less than a mile from Ray Presley’s trailer. When I pull off beside the dilapidated structure, Kelly parks behind me, gets out, and jogs up to my window.
“What’s up, boss? Who lives here?”
“The man who killed Del Payton. I think he killed Ruby too.”
Kelly winces. “And what are we doing here?”
“What I should have done days ago.”
He squints and looks up the two-lane road. “I didn’t sign on to kill anybody. Or to watch it done.”
“I’m just going to talk to him.”
He gives me a skeptical look. “That sounds an awful lot like, ‘I’m just going to put it in a little way.’ ”
“I mean it. I’m here to talk. But this asshole is dangerous. I assume you won’t stand on ceremony if he tries to kill me.”
“He makes the first move, I got no problem punching his ticket.”
“Come on, then.”
I get out and walk toward the trailer, Kelly on my heels. We’re ten feet from the concrete steps when the front door bangs open and Presley yells from inside.
“That’s far enough! What the hell you doing here, Cage?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“Who’s that hippie?”
“A friend.”
“Is he carrying?”
“You bet your ass.”
A long pause. “I got nothing to say to you. Except you’re playing mighty fast and loose with your daddy’s future, all that shit you’re saying in the papers.”
“You haven’t heard my proposition, Ray. You might just save your life by listening. However much you’ve got left, anyway.”
“Yeah? Fuck you. You could save your daddy from going to jail by shutting the hell up and going back to Houston.”
“My father will never go to jail for the Mobile thing, Ray. But you will if you open your mouth.”
A bluejay cries raucously in the silence, the sound like a rusty gate closing.
“You got two minutes,” calls Presley. “But the hippie stays out there.”
I look back at Kelly, who walks casually past me and up to the open door, his hands held out to his sides. I can’t hear what he says, but when he’s done, he walks back to me and gives me the OK sign.
“What did you say to him?”
“I made sure he understood that hurting you would be a bad idea. He understands. Watch the girl in the corner, though. She looks shaky.”
Holding my hands in plain view, I walk up the three steps and into the trailer.
The stink of mildew and rotting food hits me in a wave, as though the trailer hasn’t been opened for days. As my eyes adjust to the dimness, I see Ray standing by his wall of police memorabilia. He’s dressed just as he was the other day: pajama pants, tank-top wife-beater T-shirt, and the John Deere cap pressed over his naked skull. He’s also holding a shotgun, which is aimed in my general direction, and wearing a shoulder holster with the butt of a large handgun protruding from it. Deeper in the gloom, on the couch by the IV caddy, sits the pallid blonde I saw on my first visit. Her legs are folded beneath her, and she’s clenching a rifle in her hands. She looks nervous enough to pull the trigger without provocation.
“So talk,” says Presley.
“I’ve got three days to prove Leo Marston conspired to kill Del Payton.”
He snorts. “Maybe you can find out who killed the Kennedys before Wednesday too.”
“I know you killed Del, Ray.”
Not even a tremor in the narrow face.
“I know you lied about the dynamite. You planted those blasting caps. I also know the murder wasn’t your idea.”
The eyes blink slowly in the shadows, like a snake’s. “You don’t know shit.”
“You’ll find out different on Wednesday.”
The shotgun barrel moves closer to me. “You can’t prove I killed that nigger, because I didn’t kill him.”
“Come on, Ray. What’s the point in lying now?”
He chuckles softly. “You know how people say, ‘That boy don’t know nothing’? Well, you don’t even suspect nothing.”
“If you’ll tell the D.A. how the Payton murder really went down—if you’ll give up Marston—I’ll get the D.A. to grant you full immunity.”
“Immunity for murder.”
“Your testimony would force Marston to plead guilty. If Leo cuts a deal, it saves the city the embarrassment of a public trial for a race murder. That’s what the powers-that-be want.”
“Rat out Judge Marston.”
“And John Portman.”
A short bark of a laugh. “Boy, you’re so goddamn stupid I’m surprised you made it through law school. What you think Portman had to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. But I know he’s scared enough to try to kill you to keep you quiet.”
The nerve in Presley’s left cheek twitches. “That weasel. He wasn’t shit in sixty-eight.”
“He is now. And he’ll try again. He’s got too much to lose. Cut a deal, you short-circuit the whole trial. It’ll all be over before Portman knows what hit him.”
Presley waves the shotgun furiously. “You think I give a fuck if that trial happens? What do I care if the niggers run wild in the streets? Let the goddamn bleeding hearts see what happens when there ain’t nobody like me around to keep the jungle bunnies in line.”
He turns his head and spits through a narrow door, which I hope is the bathroom. Then he says, “You’re working with a nigger on this, ain’t you?”
“You mean Althea Payton?”
“Shit, no. That nigger deputy. Ransom.”
“Don’t know him.”
“Don’t try to lie, boy. You ain’t had the practice. That Ransom ain’t right in the head. Never has been, since the army. He did dope and turned on his own people. He sucked that bottle like a tit for twenty years. The boy can’t hardly function without a football in his hand. You ever ask yourself why he wants Marston so bad?”
I say nothing.
“I knew Ike when he was with the P.D. His old shit will drag him down quick as it will me.”
“You’re not listening, Ray. If I’m forced to put on my case, you’ll be indicted for murder before sundown Wednesday. I guarantee it.”
Presley squints at me as though measuring me for a shroud. “You keep pushing for that trial, you won’t live to see Wednesday. And that fag bodyguard you got out there won’t be able to help you none.”
“Who’s going to kill me? You?”
“Me? I ain’t leaving this trailer.”
“Do the deal, Ray. It’s your only chance.”
“Me and the judge go back thirty years. I ain’t no punk to roll over on my friends.”
“You think Leo Marston is your friend?”
He jabs the shotgun at me. “I know you ain’t.”
The blonde’s eyes track me over the sights of her rifle, all the way to the door. I shouldn’t say another word, but Ruby’s blood is calling to me from the ground.
“Where were you Tuesday afternoon, Ray?”
He cuts his eyes at the blonde, then looks back at me, a smug light in his eyes. “I believe I was delivering a message in town.”
“A message,” I repeat, recalling the flames eating through the roof of our house, the smell of Ruby’s cooking flesh. My hands ball into fists at my sides.
“I don’t think it got received, though,” he says.
I step within two feet of him. “I’m going to settle that score, you piece of shit. You’re going to die in the Parchman infirmary. They don’t stock your Mexican cocktail there. And there aren’t any blondes to take the edge off, as you like to put it. Not girls, anyway.”
His thin lips part in a predatory smile, revealing small white teeth. “You’ll be dead before I will. It’s coming now, and you don’t even see it.”
When I open the door, the sun hits my eyes like a flashbulb, but it feels good to get out of the stinking trailer.
Kelly is standing by the cars. “Accomplish anything?” he asks.
“No.”
When I reach the cars, he pats me on the shoulder. “Let’s go back to town, boss.”
One of the things that has always separated Natchez from other Mississippi towns is that if you want a drink you can get it, no matter the day or hour.
Kelly suggests the Under the Hill Saloon (a national treasure of a bar), but a big crowd gathers there on Sundays to watch the sun set over the river, and they start celebrating early.
A crowd is not what I want right now.
The bar at Biscuits and Blues is oak and runs a good thirty feet down one wall, with a mirror behind it and glittering bottles and glasses stacked in front. The restaurant is empty but for a couple eating in a booth against the wall opposite the bar. Clanks and clatters filter through the heavy kitchen doors, but otherwise the atmosphere is perfect.
I order Scotch, Kelly the same. Our reflections watch us from the mirror behind the bar like solemn relatives visiting from a cold northern country. When the whisky comes, I swallow a shot big enough to steal my breath, then wipe my mouth on my jacket sleeve. Kelly sips with a deep centeredness, like a man who has known life without luxuries and wants to savor them while he can. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t look at me. He stares through the bottom of his glass, as though pondering the grain of the wood beneath. Yet I am
certain that every movement in the restaurant—even on the street outside—registers on his mental radar. Kelly is covering me even now.
“Kelly?”
“Mm?”
“Did you have a maid when you grew up?”
His head bobs once. Then I hear soft laughter, an ironic chuckle.
“Did you?”
“My mother was a maid.”
He glances at me from the corner of his eye, then looks back into his glass. Embarrassment is not exactly what I feel. It’s more like mortification. I’m trying to think of how to apologize when he says, “Nothing wrong with being a maid. It’s honest work. Like soldiering.”
I want to hug him for that.
“How long did Ruby work for your family?”
“Thirty-five years. She came when I was three.”
“That’s a long time.”
“And she burned to death. Because of what I’m doing, she burned to death.”
Kelly rotates his stool and puts his foot on a crosspiece of mine. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why are you doing what you’re doing?”
“The truth? I don’t know. In the beginning I wanted to nail a guy who hurt my father a long time ago. And me.” I take another shot of Scotch, and this one brings sweat to my skin. “That’s a bad reason, I guess.”
“Not so bad.”
“It’s not worth Ruby’s life.”
“No. But that’s not the only reason you’re doing it. You’re trying to set a murder right. And from what I can tell, it needs setting right. I’ve watched you these last few days. You’re a crusader. I knew some in the service, and you’re one of them. I’ve got a feeling you saw some horrible atrocity when you were young. A race murder or something. Something that’s weighed you down a long time.”
“No. I never saw anything like that. Not much of that happened around here, to tell you the truth.”
I swallow the remainder of my Scotch and signal the bartender for a refill. “What I do remember . . . it probably won’t sound like anything. I was in the fourth grade when integration started here. I was in the public school then. The first semester they sent twenty black kids into our school. Twenty. Into an all-white school. The black kid in my grade was named Noble Jackson. Nobody was horrible to those kids. Not overtly. But every day at recess, we’d be out there playing ball or whatever, and Noble Jackson would be standing off at the edge of the playground by himself. Just standing there watching us. Excluded. I guess he tried to play the first couple of days, and nobody picked him for anything. Every day he just stood there by himself. Staring, kicking rocks, not understanding. The next semester my parents moved me to St. Stephens.”