“That’s the best I can do for now,” I tell him, pulling my jacket back on.
“What’s the name of the bar?” he asks, rolling over. His face is even whiter than before.
“The Silver Bell. Bartender’s Tiny McSwain.”
“Good. Move your ass, kid.”
“What are you going to do?”
He drops one hand to his waist, where the butt of his .45 glints dully in the dark. “Slow those bastards down for you.”
“I’ll stay and help you, damn it.”
“You can’t help me. You don’t have a gun. You’ll help me by getting your ass back to Mississippi and nailing Portman’s hide to the barn wall.”
“Stone—”
The old agent grips my arm with more strength than I thought he could possibly have left. “No matter what you hear, keep running. I mean that. If it sounds like the goddamn O.K. Corral up here, you keep running until you reach that bar.”
“There’s only one way I’ll go.”
“How’s that?”
“If you promise to testify.”
His laughter is full of irony. “Boy, if I survive this night, wild horses couldn’t stop me from testifying. Portman gave the order for these sons of bitches to kill us because he thought I was going to testify. Well, now he’s right. If I’m alive, I’ll get to Mississippi. I’ll drag Portman’s ass down from the mountaintop if I have to tear the whole mountain down with him. Marston too. Now, get your ass out of here.”
I get to my knees and look through the trees to the south.
“Don’t come back,” Stone says quietly. “Not with Tiny or the sheriff. After you leave, everybody up here but me is a target. That’s how I want it. The whole thing’ll be over by the time anybody could get here, and if I don’t come out on top, whoever came would die for nothing. If you come back, I’ll shoot you myself.”
I grab his upper arm. “The trial starts in thirty-six hours. You get your ass back to Mississippi. You owe it to Del Payton.”
He nods in the dark. “That I do, Cage. That I do.”
My run to the town is a benumbed nightmare of falls and slides and collisions with trees, an endless march into a killing wind, but I never consider resting. Dwight Stone is offering up his life to cover my escape.
The first gunshot echoes down the valley behind me as the glow of Crested Butte appears like a mirage in the distance. All my instincts say, turn around, go back, and help Stone. But the old soldier’s tone of his last order keeps me going. Over rock. Through snowdrifts. Past a black mirror of a lake. Through thickets, thorns. Plodding forward into the relentless wind, ever forward, until at last I am sliding down a white slope toward a geometric heaven of lights and warmth.
When I reach the level of the buildings, I circle to my right in a broad arc that takes me around to the south entrance of town. Muted television dialogue drifts on the air, and the occasional sound of a car motor rumbles from between the buildings.
Crested Butte looks less like a cowboy town than a nineteenth century New England village plopped down in the mountains. The buildings along Elk Avenue have Victorian facades, and flowers line every street and window box. The windows are mostly dark, but as I move along the street, a shopkeeper backs out of a doorway, gives me a furtive glance, then locks his door and hurries to a truck parked across the street.
Twenty yards farther on, a yellow funnel of light appears down a side street to my left, illuminating a wooden bell painted silver. I turn down the alley and crunch through the snow as fast as my tingling feet will carry me.
The Silver Bell has old-fashioned swinging doors. It’s a rustic place that caters to locals, not a “ski bar” fluffed up for the tourist trade. There are three people sitting at the bar and two loners at the tables. All look like serious drinkers. Behind the bar stands a giant of a man with a gray-flecked black beard.
He has to be Tiny McSwain.
As soon as he sees me, he moves around the bar as though to throw me out. Before he can, I hold up my hands and croak:
“If you’re Tiny McSwain, Dwight Stone sent me.”
He stops, his eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”
“Better for you if you don’t know. Stone told me you’d help me.”
“Somebody heard shots up near the mesa,” he says suspiciously. “Was that Dwight?”
“It was the people trying to kill him. Him and me both.”
“I’ll call the sheriff. Where’s Dwight?”
“He’s back by the creek. He told me not to call anybody. He said everything would be over by the time anybody could get to him, and if not, they’d get killed for nothing.”
“Those his words?”
“Near enough.”
Tiny nods. “Then we don’t call anybody.”
“There are at least two men up there, probably more.”
“Stone’s a tough old boy. What did he tell you to do?”
“He said tell you to take me to an airport.”
“Which airport?”
“Denver. And he said do it quick.”
Tiny motions for a T-shirt–clad woman at a table to get behind the bar, then takes a set of keys from his pocket. “Let’s go, friend.”
“Hey,” calls the woman. “Where are you going, if anybody asks?”
“If anybody asks, me and this guy went back up the Slate to help Dwight.” Tiny McSwain looks at his customers, who are staring indifferently at me. “Nobody else says different.”
Blank nods from the drinkers.
“My Bronco’s parked out back,” he says. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 36
I am standing at the Continental Airlines gate in Baton Rouge, searching the crowds of travelers for Daniel Kelly as fear slowly devours me from the inside. A week ago I stood a few yards from here, entranced by the sight of Livy Marston. Now I stand shaking from adrenaline and lack of sleep, wondering whether Dwight Stone survived the night, and whether I will live to defend myself at my slander trial, which is scheduled to begin in less than twenty-four hours.
Kelly should have been here hours ago, but I’ve seen no sight of him. A dozen businessmen who could be FBI agents have passed me, stared at me, even bumped into me, but none has tried to stop me. So far, anyway. If Kelly doesn’t show in the next five minutes, I’m going to try to reach Natchez on my own.
Last night Tiny McSwain drove me all the way to Denver and dropped me at an airport motel. I paid cash and checked in under a false name, then lay in the chilly darkness, unable to sleep. Twice I lifted the phone to call the Colorado state police and send them up the mesa after Stone. I had visions of him lying wounded beside the Slate River, his attackers dead, him dying but savable if he reached a surgeon in time. But Stone’s orders came back to me, and each time I set the phone down.
Instead I called Sam Jacobs in Natchez, being fairly sure that his phone would not be tapped. The geologist promised to visit Caitlin Masters first thing in the morning and, through her, instruct Kelly to be at the Baton Rouge airport by ten a.m. and to meet every plane arriving from Dallas after that time. I know Jacobs well enough to know he followed through.
But Kelly isn’t here.
When I did finally close my eyes last night, I saw nightmarish images of Leo Marston raping Livy as a child, forcing her into a conspiracy of silence, raising her in a schizophrenic world of material bounty and spiritual agony, somehow maintaining such a hold on her that she still allowed him sexual access at the age of eighteen. When I pondered the nature of that hold, I felt the dread and horror I felt the first time I saw Roman Polanski’s Chinatown. The dread came when Faye Dunaway told Jack Nicholson that the young woman she had been hiding was her daughter and her sister. The horror arrived with the next line when Jack, reaching for a thread of sanity, asked about her father: “He raped you?” and Dunaway looked up and slowly shook her head. All sanity spun away with this terrible confession. I remember something similar from reading Anais Nin in college, that Nin had seduced her father several times; but Nin had be
en profligate in her sexual adventures, and besides, she was French. The idea of Livy Marston voluntarily having sex with her father simply would not set in my mind as reality.
“Continental Airlines passenger Penn Cage, please pick up the nearest white courtesy phone.”
It takes a moment for my name to sink in, but when it does, my fear escalates to alarm. The caller could be Kelly or Caitlin, but it could also be someone who means me great harm.
“Continental Airlines passenger Penn Cage, please pick up the nearest white courtesy phone.”
There’s a white phone across the concourse from me, near a bank of pay phones, but I can’t make myself walk over to it. What if Portman’s people are waiting to snatch whoever walks up to answer that call? On the other hand, what choice do I have? The caller could be Daniel Kelly.
“This is Penn,” I say, picking up the phone.
“It’s Kelly.”
“Jesus, are you in the airport?”
“Yes, but we can’t meet. Listen to me, Penn, we only have a few seconds.”
Kelly’s use of my first name rather than the facetious “boss” brings my inner self to attention. “What is it?”
“Portman’s men are in the airport right now. You’re going to have to get home on your own. I’m going to divert these guys, but you have to move fast.”
“I’m listening.”
“My Taurus is parked in sight of the terminal, in the short-term lot, space A-27. The keys are under the mat, and there’s a cell phone under the seat. You got that?”
“A-27.”
“Right. Next: downstairs, near the baggage carousels, there’s an Infiniti Q45 on display. I left a gun sitting on the left inside lip of the rear bumper.”
“Jesus—”
“Listen. You get that gun, get to the car, and haul your ass back to Natchez.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Buy you some time. But you’ve got another problem. I haven’t been straight with you. Nobody at the company has. They’ve reported every move you’ve made to Portman.”
My chest goes hollow. “How do you know that?”
“Because we’re reporting every move you make back to the office. And we don’t usually do that. Our CEO is former FBI, you know. And John Portman could swing a lot of corporate business to Argus any time he feels like it.”
The implications of Kelly’s revelation ricochet through my mind. “Is my family safe?”
“Argus doesn’t kill people. Other than in defense of a client, like the other night. But I’d find myself some new security, just to be on the safe side. Local boys maybe. Buddies are good, family’s better.”
“Kelly . . . how do I know I can trust you?”
“Because you’re alive. And because I’m telling you this.”
“Why are you telling me?”
A brief silence. “I think it’s got something to do with the way you buried your maid. Now, get your ass out of here. Walk fast, but don’t run. And if you hear shooting, don’t look back.”
His order is an exact echo of Stone’s. “Kelly—”
“We’ll be sharing a Scotch again before you know it. Move out.”
Reluctantly hanging up the phone, I scan the concourse like a tailback picking holes in an offensive line, then start through the crowds at a rapid walk, looking back frequently for signs of pursuit. After clearing the metal detectors, I dodge a golf cart carrying a handicapped woman, then bound down the escalator to the baggage-collection point where Annie and I said goodbye to Caitlin Masters, before we knew who she was.
Parked in the middle of the floor is the Infiniti Q45. Midnight blue. I look around once, then crouch down and reach under the bumper, feeling along the inside lip for Kelly’s gun. My fingers collide with something hard, but as I try to close them around it, the gun clatters to the floor. Glancing around at the people waiting for luggage, I drop to my stomach and sweep my hand across the tile, and the gun skitters into my chest.
It’s Kelly’s Browning Hi-Power.
I jam the pistol into my waistband beneath my shirt and trot past the rental car desks to the glass doors leading to the outdoor parking lot. I’ve heard no shots or even shouts since my conversation with Kelly, but this actually increases my anxiety. Did he manage to divert whoever was waiting for me? Or is he lying dead beneath a pay phone, the slug from a silenced pistol in his head?
The Taurus is parked sixty yards from the terminal. I can see it from the doors. Exiting the terminal with a group of LSU fraternity guys, I fall in with them until they stop near a Blazer thirty yards from the door, then break for the Taurus at a flat-out sprint. To my surprise, the wind cuts through my jacket with a cold bite. Maybe fall has come to Mississippi at last.
Laying Kelly’s pistol on the seat beside me, I retrieve the keys, crank the engine, and force myself to drive normally as I leave the lot. In ten minutes I’m on Highway 61. Natchez lies eighty miles to the north, but much of the road is two-lane blacktop and heavily traveled by log trucks. The trip can be agonizingly slow during the day.
I reach under the seat for the cell phone, switch it on, and dial the Natchez Examiner. Caitlin has been handling the transportation of my out-of-town witnesses. Huey Moak and Lester Hinson are scheduled to arrive in Baton Rouge tonight, and we’d planned to have one of the Argus men pick them up.
“Penn?” Caitlin asks, after a minute of hold music.
“Yes. Remember, your phone’s tapped.”
“What’s going on? I’ve been freaking out here.”
“Have you asked any of the Argus guys to pick up the witnesses yet?”
“Not yet. I can call them now.”
“Don’t.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t. Don’t even mention it. I’ll be there soon, and I’ll handle it. Hang tight until then. Stay inside the newspaper building if you can.”
“Penn, Kelly was acting a little strange before he left. Like I might not see him again.”
You might not. “Things are pretty fluid right now. I’m on my way.”
“Listen. An hour ago my receptionist told me I had a call from the editor of the Rocky Mountain News. When I got to the phone, he told me he was sending a reporter down to cover your trial, and he wanted to know if the guy could use our office facilities.”
“And?”
“He said the reporter’s name was Bookbinder. Henry Bookbinder.”
Bookbinder. Stone’s dead partner. And the Rocky Mountain News is based in Denver. I want to scream with joy, but I just say, “Did he say when this reporter would arrive?”
“Only that he’d be here in time to cover the trial. And there’s something else.”
“What?”
“CNN, Court TV, and some others have been pressing Judge Franklin to allow the trial to be televised.”
“Cameras aren’t allowed in Mississippi courtrooms.”
“I know, but this is a civil case. Apparently if both parties agree, the judge could allow it.”
“But why would Leo agree? Portman would tear him a new one if he did.”
“CNN and the other networks have been saying publicly that if Marston and Portman have nothing to hide, they should have no problem with cameras. It’s a PR nightmare for Portman. It’s extortion, basically. I assume you’d have no objection to cameras?”
“Of course not.”
“Good, because I already told a CNN reporter that you didn’t.”
“That’s fine. Listen, if that ‘reporter’ you mentioned shows up, keep him inside the building until I get there.”
“I will.”
“Thanks. I’ll be there before you know it.”
As I hang up the phone, I yell, “You tough old son of a bitch!” Though he is probably a thousand miles away right now, Dwight Stone is almost certainly alive. If he can reach Natchez by tomorrow morning without being killed, my slander trial will provide more fireworks than the city has seen in decades. And Leo Marston will be indicted for murder.
Only now that prospect does not offer even a shadow of the satisfaction it would have two days ago. If I’m right about Leo being Jenny Doe’s father, every judgment I ever made about Livy Marston was wrong. In my mind she has already been transformed from a privileged princess into a tragic figure, a lost girl trying to find her way.
I try to keep the Taurus under the speed limit. A state trooper has haunted this stretch of road for years, handing out tickets like confetti. As the hardwood forest drifts past, I lean back in the seat and force myself to ponder one of the connections that came to me last night in the darkness of the Denver motel. Sometime near dawn a remarkable and frightening idea struck me. A possible link between Del Payton and Leo Marston. Dwight Stone believes Ray Presley randomly chose Del Payton to be murdered. But if my theory of paternal incest is true, there could be a secret link joining the Payton and Marston families, one which Dwight Stone would have known nothing about.
Althea Payton.
Althea is a nurse now. She works in the hospital nursery. But where did she work in the 1960s? Could she have worked for a private physician? A pediatrician perhaps? Is it possible that she noticed some physical evidence of sexual abuse while handling Livy Marston and reported it to the doctor? If she had, what would have been the likely result? In the 1960s sexual abuse of children was grossly underreported, and became public only in the most egregious cases. A man as powerful as Leo Marston would have had little to fear from a doctor, especially if the evidence was equivocal. And even if it wasn’t, would the doctor have the nerve to confront Leo? To bring in the police to investigate the district attorney?
Of course, Leo Marston would never have been to the pediatrician’s office. He wouldn’t have taken time out of his day to carry his daughter to the doctor. Maude would have done that. A pediatrician might have been more comfortable bringing certain suspicious symptoms to the mother’s attention. But if he wasn’t, a compassionate nurse certainly might have. Mother to mother. I can see Althea Payton doing that. Pulling Maude aside and pointing out a couple of things. In the interest of the child.
What would Leo have done if Maude had confronted him with such a thing? Denied it, of course. Deny, deny, deny. Then he would have demanded to know the source of Maude’s suspicions. If she told him it was Althea, what then? Killing Althea would certainly silence her. But it was Del who had died, not his wife. Perhaps Leo had initially taken no action. But later, when the necessity arose to kill a black man to make an example for the Georgia carpet magnate, had Leo chosen Del Payton out of some perverse desire to strike back at the woman who had threatened him? A wild scenario perhaps. But Leo long ago demonstrated his penchant for holding grudges. Whatever the case, unraveling the truth of this low tragedy will be a nightmare for everyone involved. The idea of confronting Livy with my deductions leaves me numb.