The Devil's Punchbowl

by Greg Iles

  I sense barely contained anger behind his eyes, but he will not voice it.

  “One thing has troubled me since last night,” I tell him. “You said Tim tried to call me several times before his death. I was in one of the highest parts of the city, but I never got those calls. No texts either. How could that be?”

  Logan folds his arms and looks at the institutional green carpet.

  “May I see Tim’s phone?”

  The chief shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ask the district attorney, not me.”

  “Do you have the phone? Is it in the evidence room?”

  Logan keeps his gaze on the carpet. “You’re outside the bounds of what I can answer.”

  “Jesus, man, what can you tell me?”

  Logan chews on his bottom lip for a while. Then he glances at his door and walks to within a foot of me. “Last night, there were two localized interruptions of cellular service. In two different places, and at two different times.”

  I ponder this for a minute. “Let me guess. The first was around midnight, near the cemetery.”

  Logan nods almost imperceptibly.

  “And the second was right around the time Tim died. When he jumped out of the SUV and was trying to get away from whoever was inside.”

  “You get the prize.”

  “How widespread was the interruption?”

  “From the complaints, the best I can figure was about half a square mile near the cemetery. Up on the bluff it was more widespread, but it had a shorter duration. Generated a lot more complaints, though, with all the people partying up there.”

  “Were all carriers interrupted, or just one?”

  “All.”

  “Shit. Somebody was jamming the radio spectrum.”

  Logan licks his lips but says nothing.

  “That’s serious business. Have you talked to the cellular providers?”

  “No way. I figured this out from the complaints of witnesses. And a couple of my black officers live out by the cemetery.”

  “You know what happened. Whoever killed Tim jammed the cell signals around the cemetery while they were chasing him out there. They stopped it after they had him in the SUV, when they were torturing him. Then they started jamming the lines again when he broke loose and ran for the fence.”

  Logan sniffs and looks back toward his door. “Are you prepared to tell me who ‘they’ are?”

  Is he asking me this honestly? I wonder. Or is he testing me? And if he’s testing me, is it for himself or for Jonathan Sands?

  “Do I need to tell you?”

  The chief walks back behind his desk. “Six months ago I got an offer to be chief of police in a little town on the Florida coast. Ever since I saw Jessup lying in that ditch, I’ve been wishing I hadn’t said no.”

  I walk forward and lay a hand on his shoulder. “It’s a sad day when two Mississippi boys can’t trust each other any more than this.”

  “Yes, sir, it is. Things have slid a long way out of whack.”

  “Maybe we need to try to do something about it.”

  Logan’s eyes open a little wider. “Maybe. Let’s see what that autopsy says. You stay in touch, Penn.”

  I turn to go, but the chief’s voice stops me at the door.

  “How’s that little girl of yours doing?”

  “She’s fine,” I reply, my eyes hard and flat. “It was good to see you, Don. Take care of yourself.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  I’m standing before the grave of Florence Irene Ford, who died in 1871 at age ten. Because the child was afraid of storms, Irene’s mother had a glass window installed in the casket, so that during inclement weather she could descend the little stairway behind the gravestone and reassure her child. This tale always fascinated Tim Jessup, so I thought Florence’s stairway might make a good hiding place for the stolen disc. But a locked metal trapdoor protects the stairway now, the price of protecting the cemetery from vandals.

  For ninety minutes I’ve crisscrossed the cemetery in search of Jonathan Sands’s missing disc, following a map that only I could have drawn. Sketched hastily in my Moleskine notebook, it shows the locations of graves of people that Tim and I both knew. If Tim were running for his life and meant to hide evidence with the intent of retrieving it later—or in the worst case for me to retrieve it—I figured he would choose a spot I might think of on my own. A grave we both knew seemed the likeliest place. Had I chosen to include deceased people from my parents’ generation, it would have been a long list indeed, but knowing that time was short, I included only ours, with two exceptions. Still, I could easily think of nine, and they were spread throughout the vast cemetery.

  There was Mallory Candler, our Miss Mississippi, who was mur dered in New Orleans. Tim’s in-laws are also buried here: Julia’s father, a suicide at forty-nine, and her mother, dead from a stroke two years later. Two St. Stephen’s schoolmates who died in accidents also made the list: a boy shot by his brother while hunting, and a girl who broke her neck diving into a pond when she was twelve. Kate Townsend, a St. Stephen’s student who was murdered a year and a half ago, also went on my map, but I found no sign of anything hidden near her—or any other person’s—tomb.

  My next step was to include the famous monuments of the cemetery, figuring that in the dark Tim might not have had time to search out the stones of the recently deceased. This trek took longer, for the older sections have no modern grid layout or uniform tombstones. Sweating from the midday heat, I crawled through a world of fantastical sculptures, mausoleums fenced with heavy wrought iron, cracked marble and masonry filled with crannies ideally suited to hide contraband. I probed like an archaeologist beside the graves of the principals in the Goat Castle murder case; of Rosalie Beekman, the only casualty of the Civil War at Natchez; of Louise the Unfortunate, an unknown woman from the North who died in a Natchez brothel; and of Bud Scott, the famed black bandleader many believe to be the father of Louis Armstrong, who spent several summers in Natchez as a boy. Yet none of these mossy monuments concealed the treasure I sought.

  While concealed in the shadows between two mausoleums, I used the Blackhawk satellite phone to check on Annie and my mother. They had already reached Houston, and were nearly to the safe house that awaited them. I gave the Blackhawk dispatcher the names of the five percent investors in Golden Parachute and asked if the company could check out the two Chinese investors for me. After promising this would be done, the dispatcher informed me that Daniel Kelly could arrive in Natchez in twelve to fifteen hours, depending on certain variables. This was faster than I’d hoped, and welcome news. During bad times, Kelly makes good things happen, and when he can’t manage that, he at least deters those who would like to make things worse.

  Knowing that the missing disc is all that might bring my family safety from Sands—or give me the weapon I need to destroy him—I prepare to continue my search, but the sheer size of the task is overwhelming. I see why Quinn was so anxious for me to take it on. It would take strangers weeks to search this graveyard.

  When my cell phone rings, I half expect to hear Seamus Quinn’s voice, but the caller is Paul Labry.

  “Penn, you need to get over here,” he says.

  “Where? The Ramada?”

  “No, we moved the pilots’ meeting to the Visitors’ Center. We needed the space. All the pilots know about the shooting, and they all want a say in what happens next.”

  “Well, that’s the city’s decision. The pilots can stay or leave as they will.”

  “Most of them want to hear what happened from the horse’s mouth before they decide. I really need you to get over here. The meeting is controlled chaos right now. Another fifteen minutes, and it could be a riot.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  The Natchez Visitor and Reception Center looks like the student union building of a junior college. Cut into a slope in the shadow of a Hampton Inn and a casino hotel, it’s almost invisible as you cross the bridge from Louisiana to Mississippi. When large events are held here, access is virtually im
possible. Nearly a hundred pickups with balloon trailers have wedged themselves into the parking lot. There would be enough room were it not for the regiment of cars that have filled every remaining space in the lot and even the grassy shoulders. The license plates tell me these are local people drawn to the scene by the rumor of this morning’s shooting. Making my way up the sloping asphalt, I realize it could take me a half hour to get through the milling crowd of locals. As I near its periphery, though, Paul Labry texts me to walk around to a service door behind the center, where he will be waiting.

  True to his word, Labry admits me to the building and rushes me down a bland corridor to the main meeting area, which looks like a breakout meeting room in a convention hotel. A hundred men and half as many women sit in folding chairs before a lectern on a small riser. Eddie Jarvis, one of the city selectmen, is speaking to them, and everyone seems amazingly calm. Labry is talking in my ear, but it takes me a few moments to register the import of his words.

  “Hans Necker just saved our ass. He called some key pilots as soon as he got out of surgery and told them he thought the shooting was a freak accident, some kids out hunting who got out of hand. About half the pilots wanted to keep flying anyway. The weather hasn’t been this good in years, and there’s always the prize money.”

  “What’s the festival committee say?”

  “What do you think? Balloons in the air means money, especially tomorrow. Sunday without balloons is always a dud, financially speaking.”

  “Do I need to talk at all?”

  “Just a quick word of thanks. Show them you’re all right. Reassure them.”

  Many in the crowd have noticed me, and they’re watching me now, not Eddie Jarvis. Jarvis waves me forward, and I take the lectern.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I want to thank you for getting here on short notice. What happened to Hans Necker and me today has rattled everyone, I’m sure. But I want you to know that I agree with Hans. I feel sure this was an isolated occurrence. I think everyone should make his or her own choice about whether to continue flying, but we intend to go on with the festival. Law enforcement will have a strong presence along the course this afternoon and tomorrow.”

  “Will you be flying this afternoon?” someone calls, and there’s some muted laughter.

  “I will. But I’ll be aboard a sheriff’s department helicopter, helping to scout the course. I don’t want to put any of you good people at risk by asking you to fly me. It could be that today’s gunman was a disgruntled constituent of mine.”

  There’s more laughter this time. Balloon pilots are an intrepid bunch, but not all of them seem reassured.

  “I was in the balloon behind you guys,” says a mustached man in the fourth row. “I heard the bullets flying, but no gunshot. Do the police think the shooter used a silenced rifle?”

  There’s some murmuring at this.

  “I was in the service,” the man explains. “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “The police and the sheriff’s department are looking into all the available evidence. If we learn anything that bears on the safety of future flights, you’ll all be informed immediately. I’m going to arrange the helicopter flyovers now. Thank you again for all you’ve done to help make the festival a success. Mr. Jarvis?”

  I wave and leave the lectern, joining Labry by the door.

  “That was just right,” he says. “Best you could hope for.”

  “How many do you think will keep flying?”

  “Half. And half is plenty. If half of them fly, and this weather holds, the festival could still break a record.”

  “I need a phone, Paul. Not your cell either. A hard line.”

  He gives me a strange look. “What’s with all the cloak-and-dagger this weekend?”

  “Nothing. I just don’t want anybody hearing our security arrangements.”

  Labry steers me toward a door, then pushes it open and speaks to a middle-aged woman sitting at a desk inside. “Could we borrow your office, Margaret? City business.”

  “Of course,” she says, picking up her purse and coming around the desk. “Glad to see you’re all right, Mr. Mayor.”

  “Thank you.”

  I motion for Labry to follow her out, then take Danny McDavitt’s cell number from my pocket. He answers immediately.

  “Do you know who this is?” I ask.

  “I do.”

  “Where are you, Major?”

  “Adams County Airport. Topping up the tank.”

  “Can you pick me up somewhere close to town?”

  “No problem. Where?”

  I think quickly. “There’s a big field right in the middle of town, on the north side. It’s right behind the Children’s Home on Union Street. Not a lot of people know about it. I’ll be waiting there. If you touch down just long enough for me to jump on, nobody watching from a distance will even know you landed.”

  “Got it. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

  When I leave the office, Labry is there to escort me back to my car.

  “Keep your head down as we pass the crowd,” he says. “Caitlin nearly beat down the door to get access to that meeting. She’s liable to have an ACLU lawyer out there.”

  We exit the building at the rear, beneath the whipping flags of England, France, Spain, the Confederacy, the United States, and of course Mississippi, which still sports the Confederate battle standard in its top left corner.

  Making a wide circle around the crowd outside, we move down a row of cars toward my Saab. We’re thirty feet away when Caitlin steps from behind a balloon trailer with a cell phone held to her ear.

  “Well, here you are at last,” she says. “Paul, I need a minute with the mayor.”

  Labry looks at me. I sigh in exasperation, then wave him off. He moves back toward the Visitors’ Center at a vigorous march.

  Caitlin pockets her cell phone and walks toward me, her green eyes intent, probing mine with the power of the quick mind behind them.

  “One minute,” I tell her.

  “I just heard the flights are going to continue.”

  “Yes.”

  “There’s no way you would have supported that unless you knew that the shooting today was directed at you alone.”

  “What do you want, Caitlin?”

  I try to keep the frustration out of my voice, but my resentment at her decision to leave Natchez has not left me. She looks hurt, but also resolved to press forward.

  “I just saw some pictures that were found at Tim Jessup’s house. Nude pictures. Of a woman who worked on the Magnolia Queen.”

  “Some cop is going to lose his job this week.”

  “Listen to me, Penn, please. I think someone is trying to play me. I’m not even having to fight to get this stuff out of them. They’re using me to put out a story, I can feel it.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Won’t you tell me what’s happening? Let me help you.”

  “Don’t you mean help yourself? You’re in the hunt for another Pulitzer, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes flash. “I’m hunting for the truth. As always.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “What else do you have?”

  She takes a deep breath, looks off toward the crowd, which is dis persing into the cars now. “Not much. But that’s going to change. You know it will.”

  Conscious of my rendezvous with McDavitt, I make a fast decision. “Caitlin, let’s pretend no time has passed since we were together. None. No hurt feelings, nothing. I’m telling you that if you pursue this thing, your life is in danger. More than when we worked the Del Payton case, even. You won’t be helping Tim or what he was trying to do. You won’t be serving the public interest. And you’ll be putting me and my family at risk, as well as yourself. In a few days, I may be able to tell you more, but for now, that’s it.”

  She looks back in disbelief. “So, I’m just supposed to walk away?”

  “Weren’t you planning to anyway? I thought you were on your way to New Orleans with your friend?”

  “He’s already gone.”

 
“Why aren’t you?”

  She starts to answer, then bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Thanks for the minute. It was a real education.”

  She turns and follows Labry’s path up toward the Visitors’ Center, her jet hair blowing in the breeze from the river.

  Eight hundred feet over the Mississippi River, my stomach starts to go on me. The balloon crash was too recent; I have to belt myself tightly into the chopper just to keep my nerves together. Danny McDavitt is sitting in front of me, in the left seat of the Athens Point sheriff’s department helicopter. Folded into the right-hand seat is a tall, lean black man in his twenties named Carl Sims. Carl is the former marine sniper that Daniel Kelly told me about on the phone. He works as a deputy for the Athens Point sheriff’s department, but today, like most people who live within fifty miles of town, he was attending the Balloon Festival. His black jeans and blue hoodie contrast with McDavitt’s faded khakis and polo shirt. Though Sims and McDavitt are thirty years apart in age, they seem to know each other well. They communicate in brief phrases or dry jokes, and even their silences seem charged with exchanges of information.

  Ostensibly, we’re flying the course of the afternoon balloon race, watching the ground for signs of snipers. In fact, we’re searching for Tim Jessup’s car. When a child is kidnapped, the Investigative Support Unit of the FBI recommends getting a helicopter airborne as fast as possible, equipped with a vehicle description. Choppers are remarkably effective at locating cars on the run, and I don’t see why they should be any less effective at locating cars that have been abandoned. If Tim’s car has purposely been hidden, of course, our search is probably pointless. But since I have access to the chopper, searching for the missing car seems a better use of my time than riding shotgun for a bunch of balloons that won’t be fired on unless I’m flying in one of them.

  Once again, because of prevailing winds, the race course crosses the river from Mississippi to Louisiana. More than half of the pilots have decided to stay for the remainder of the festival, and half of these have already crossed the river and are sailing southwest under a glorious blue sky. The remaining balloons are stretched out to our left at various altitudes, from the twin bridges back to the launch site at the Natchez Airport. The wind has settled down since this morning, and from this distance the balloons look painted on the sky.