by Greg Iles
The district attorney remains stone-faced.
I think I know where you are on this, I say, trying to help him along. You think that drive is your ace in the hole, if everything goes to hell. I dont know how badly compromised you are, or what Sands has on you. But you need to figure out which side youre on. Because if you give me that drive now, Ill make sure you stay out of trouble when the wheels come off of this deal.
I have no idea what youre talking about, Shad says evenly. But even if I did, you dont have the power to offer anybody any kind of dealcertainly not immunity from prosecution. Im the DA, Cage, and I could jail you for assault right now, based on what I saw five minutes ago.
I want to snatch Shad up from his chair and bang his head against the desk, but thats not going to get me the drive. Id find myself in the county jail in short order, and its right across the street.
Shad, theres a federal investigation going on in this county, and my guess is you dont know a thing about it. Or if you do, you only know enough to make your asshole pucker. When the feds dont tell you theyre on your turf, its bad news for you. So, I repeat, you need to decide which side youre on. And the best way to prove youre on the right one is to give me that drive.
Shad gives me a tired smile. I think were done here.
I make no move to leave or even straighten up. After I leave, you might be tempted to destroy that drive. I could see the logic of it, from your point of view. But that would be a mistake. Youre going to need a friend when this blows up. And if Caitlin dies because you didnt give it to me, Ill hound you right into Parchman, I swear to God. Youll have a cell right next to Sands.
Theres a sudden rush of heavy footsteps outside, and then someone pounds on Shads door. I jump to my feet and open the door, expecting to see Paul Labry making another plea for forgiveness. But its Mitch Catton, a deputy from the sheriffs department, and hes breathing hard.
What is it, Deputy? Shad asks calmly.
Paul Labry was just killed in a car accident!
What?
He hit a bridge abutment. Must have been doing seventy, at least.
Was anyone else hurt? I ask.
Nope. One-car accident. There was an empty bottle of vodka in the car too. Sally, over to the clerks office, told me Mr. Labryd been hanging around here all during lunch. Said he smelled like a liquor cabinet.
I look down at Shad, my eyes filled with foreboding.
Thank you, Mitch, Shad says. Mayor Cage and I need to finish our conversation.
Okay, sorry. I just figured youd want to know. I mean, is there anything special we should do because its a selectman?
No, just follow your normal procedures.
Catton stares at us in puzzlement for a few seconds, then shuts the door and bangs down the stairs.
This town is under siege, I say softly. And the biggest threat always comes from within. Dont kid yourself that you can come out of this clean. Not without me. I dont know if Paul committed sui cide or if they killed him, but when this is all over, theres going to be a reckoning. Pick your side, Shad. Fast. That thumb drive is your only get-out-of-jail-free card. You know how to reach me.
Get out of my office.
I hold up my forefinger and point at him, my eyes burning, then turn and go.
CHAPTER
54
Caitlin stands naked in the storeroom of the kennel, a leather dog collar tight around her neck, its thick chain binding her to the wooden support post of some shelves behind her. Shes bound so tightly that she cant turn her head, which forces her to watch the scene taking place before her. Shes shut her eyes as long and as often as she could, but Quinn has sworn to Taser her if she does it again.
Linda Church lies bent forward over a crude table, her collar chained to a ringbolt set in its top. Naked from the waist down, Seamus Quinn plunges relentlessly into her from behind, his eyes on Caitlin to be sure shes watching. Linda screamed so much when he began that Quinn wrapped four long pieces of duct tape around her face. Caitlin is afraid Linda will vomit and aspirate it before Quinn can get the tape offif hed even try.
Dont pretend you dont want to look, Quinn says, panting from exertion. Everything that walks on two legs would watch this if they knew nobody was looking. Why do you think Romans paid their last coin to see this kind of thing? This is what we are, princess. The emperors gave the people what they wantedsex and death. Everything else is just window dressing.
Caitlin keeps her eyes on Quinn but speaks to Linda. Think about something else, she says in what she hopes is a maternal voice. Anything but this. This will pass, like every other thing in life. You dont believe me right now, but it will
Shut your gob! Quinn shouts, seizing Lindas haunches and driving harder. You know what they really loved in the arena? Women and animals. Theyd take the urine of female animals and spread it on virgins, sometimes twenty at a time. Then theyd let the trained males at them. Baboons and mandrills, bulls and boars, dogs and leopards, even giraffes. Thats historyreal, every bit of it. Quinn shows Caitlin his gray teeth. People dont change, and youre no different.
Caitlin cant bear to look at Lindas face. All she can think to do is deflect some of Quinns bottomless rage onto herself. Id like to see you get it this rough, she says. See how you like being on the receiving end.
Quinn huffs and laughs. A man does the givin, princess. The woman does the takin. Im not particular, so long as its warm and tight.
Your day is coming, Caitlin says in a barely audible voice. There are places not far from here where men twice your size will be happy to give you what youre giving her. Twice as much, from what I saw when you dropped your pants.
Quinn pulls out and starts toward Caitlin, but before he can reach her, the door to her right bursts open and two men enter the room. One wears a black balaclava hood, the other a green one. The man in the black mask looks from Quinn to Caitlin, then back at Quinn. Its as though Linda isnt in the room.
What are you doing here? Quinn asks in a dazed voice.
Liam called me. The black-masked mans voice seems hardly distinguishable from Quinns. About a day late, by the look of it.
You told me I could do what I wanted with her.
You bloody sod. For one night, I said. The man looks at Caitlin, eyes glinting through the slanted eyeholes cut in the balaclava. Has he touched you?
Caitlin is certain that the man in the black balaclava is Jonathan Sands, but given the circumstances, letting him know that could be fatal. Only to put this collar on me, she says. Hes raped her for two days straight, though. She has some serious infections, her leg and her urinary tract. She needs an emergency room right away.
Quinn laughs, then cuts off the sound with a cough.
The man in the black balaclava takes two steps toward Quinn and leans forward as though to speak, but then his right hand lashes out and cracks the bridge of Quinns nose. Blood erupts from the Irishmans face, and he topples backward, holding his nose with both hands.
The third man watches without reaction.
Quinn gets to his knees but remains doubled over, blood pouring through his hands. Sands extends his arm to help him up, but when Quinn takes the hand, Sands snaps his boot into Quinns rib cage with a crunch. The force of the blow lifts Quinn bodily from the cement. He drops flat on his belly, gasping for air.
Get up, you piece of shite.
Quinn gets slowly to his knees, covering his belly like a beaten dog preparing for another kick, then slides up the wall behind him until hes erect.
Sands jerks his head toward Caitlin. Wheres her clothes?
Over there. In the cabinet.
Get em. And take that fuckin collar off her.
Why? Are you trading her?
/> Get her bloody clothes. And keep your mouth shut while youre about it. Jaysus.
Quinn goes to the cabinet and retrieves Caitlins jeans and T-shirt. You broke my ribs, he grunts, as he hands them to her.
I ought to give you a proper digging, Sands mutters. You ignore another order and Ill have Liam kneecap you. Ive half a mind to do it here and now. Got a drill in the lorry.
Quinn holds up both hands, silently pleading for mercy.
What about it, ladies? Sands asks. You want to hear this bastard scream?
We just want to go home, Caitlin says. We dont care about you or him or whatever youre doing.
A toothy smile flashes through the mouth of the balaclava. Thats what you say now. But youll feel different later.
What are you going to do with us?
Sands sniffs and keeps looking at her, but says nothing. Slowly, his eyes travel from her breasts to her ankles, then back to her eyes. As this happens, she realizes that there is no us for Sands or Quinn. In their minds, Linda is already dead.
Youll be home in twenty-four hours, good as new, Sands says. Thats a promise.
I dont believe you.
You dont have to. Its the truth.
What about Linda?
Sands glances to his right, where Linda remains bent over the table, sobbing through her nose, covering the duct tape with glistening mucus.
Shell be looked after. She cant go back home, though. Not right away. Shell have to start over somewhere else. Well either give her a job on one of our other boats or see she has the money to start somewhere else. Moneys no problem.
Caitlin knows hes lying, but theres nothing to be done. She wishes Linda believed what he was saying, but who knows better than Linda Church how worthless Sandss promises are?
Quinn takes a key from atop the cabinet, then comes over and unlocks the thick leather collar from Caitlins neck. Hes still naked from the waist down, but his erections gone, his penis shrunk to a nub.
Go ahead, Sands says to Caitlin.
What?
Kick him. Right in the bollocks. He deserves it for being so bloody stupid.
As Quinn darts out of reach of her feet, Caitlin recalls what he asked Sands: Are you trading her? Penn must be trying to negotiate her release by trading something for her. What? Could he be onto Ben Lis private insurance policy? During the night, Linda told her that Quinn had several times asked her what The birds know might mean. Apparently Ben Li had screamed this phrase several times as he was being interrogated belowdecks on the Magnolia Queen. Maybe Penn has cracked this mysterious code
Put her back in the office, Sands says to Quinn, whos pulling on his pants.
What about the other one?
Wherever you had her before. And get her some fucking medicine. Human medicine. You know where to get it.
Quinn looks puzzled by this order, but he signals his willingness to obey with a nod.
Ill take Masters, Sands says, motioning Caitlin toward the storeroom door.
Her door is the first outside the storeroom, the only other room with four walls. Now she can see the rest of the kennel, and its just as Linda described it, two rows of Cyclone-fence stalls, the cats housed in the one nearest the main door.
Sands pauses outside her room, waiting for her to enter first. Caitlin looks through the eyeholes of the balaclava. Will you give Linda her clothes back? Please?
Sands stares into her eyes for a long time. Then he shouts, Give Linda her clothes! and prods Caitlin into her cell.
Caitlin goes to the corner and squats over her bloody footprints, but not in time. Sands grabs her wrist and pulls her across the floor. Staring down at the prints, he looks around the walls, then up at the roof. An appreciative smile shows through the mouth hole.
Seamus? he calls.
Yeah?
Get those fucking cats out of here.
Why?
Just do it!
What am I supposed to do with them?
What do I care? Just get em outside the fence, yeah?
Okay.
Sands takes a strand of Caitlins hair between his fingers, rubs it softly. Very fine, he says in the tone of a man judging an animal pelt.
She pulls away but makes a point of not jerking back, so as not to appear afraid.
Sands smiles again, then looks back at the bent tin of the roof.
Smart girl, he says. Cage is a lucky man.
CHAPTER
55
When I come out of the district attorneys office, I find Kelly sitting on the concrete wall by the courthouse, beneath the shade of a gnarled oak. His rented 4Runner is parked in front of him, but when he points at it, I shake my head and sit beside him on the wall.
Whats the deal? he asks.
Shad has the thumb drive, but hes not giving it up unless I get more leverage.
He admitted having it?
No. But hes got it. Id like to take you back in there and sweat it out of him, but he is the DA. Two minutes after we left him, wed be in there.
Kelly looks to where Im pointing, a tall pile of red brick with slit windows above the sheriffs department across the street. He nods. Okay, whats plan B?
While Shads at work, I want you to search his house. If you dont find it there, come back to his office after work and search that. Can you get his safe open?
No problem.
Okay. We need to check Ben Lis place too. They burned it down, but we should check the yard, anything. Ive got Chief Logan looking into any other property he might have had. Storage units, safe-deposit boxes, like that. Maybe well get lucky.
You trust Logan? Kelly asks, as two women come down the courthouse steps and turn our way.
As much as anyone in this town. One of the women waves. I do the same, acting as if I recognize her.
What about you? What are you going to do?
Run the bluff of my life.
Whats your play?
The only way to increase the odds of Caitlin living through the night is to make Hull think Im willing to blow his case wide-open if they hurt her. That theyve pushed me so far I no longer give a shit about Po or anything else.
That shouldnt be a tough sell. If the time limit Labry gave you is rightthirty-six hoursand he was supposed to tell you that this morning, the Po sting must be set up for tomorrow. Tomorrow night at the latest. Hull will be sweating bullets until then.
Exactly. But I have to be careful. I cant demand that they trade Caitlin for something I dont have, and I dont want Sands to panic. He could kill her and split.
Hell figure the moment Caitlins loose, shell go public anyway.
Right. What I want is to know Caitlins alive.
Kelly scratches his chin. Proof of life. Its like youre keeping your cool, but you know better than to trust Sands and Quinn. Do you think Hull knew they were going to take her?
I shake my head. He would have tried to stop that. I think they panicked and did it, then presented him a fait accompliif theyve told him at all.
So what will you ask for? A phone call from her?
They wont do that. We could backtrack with the cell company and figure out where she called from.
A photo with todays newspaper is standard. They could text it to you.
Im thinking of something even faster and simpler.
What?
A question only she would know the answer to.
Kelly gives me a thumbs-up. Do it.
I speed-dial Hull, but he doesnt answer. Theres a click that I think is his voice mail, but suddenly his voice comes from the phone.
Yes? Who is this?
Penn Cage.
Im in a m
eeting. What is it?
Youd better take a bathroom break if you want Edward Pos scalp on your wall.
Dont use that name on an open line.
Buddy, Im sixty seconds from calling the FBI and telling it to their kidnap squad.
Kidnap squad? Hull sounds genuinely shocked.
Is that news to you?
I dont know what youre talking about, he says under his breath. But I told you, the FBI is part of my task force.
Part of the FBI is part of your task force. The National Security Branch, Im guessing. And the Money Laundering Task Force. But I know how the FBI works kidnappings, Hull. Five minutes after I call the New Orleans and Jackson field offices, theyll call the Puzzle Palace, and youll have a world-class clusterfuck on your hands.
Give me just a minute, Hull says softly. Ill be right back.
I hear shuffling, then a closing door. Cage, I dont know what the hell youre up to, but were into endgame on this. Youre begging for an obstruction-of-justice charge.
I laugh out loud. Last night Caitlin Masters was kidnapped from her home. A sworn officer of the law was almost killed protecting her. I dont know how much you know about this, and I dont give a shit. I want proof that shes alive.
How can I
Do you have any idea who that girls father is? Clinton Masters owns twentysome newspapers across the Southeast. Hes got Rupert Murdoch on speed dial. If I pick up the phone and tell him whats happened, you can kiss Edward Po smack on the ass as he flutters out of your net. Capisce?
Kellys smiling and nodding encouragement.
Lets just calm down, Hull temporizes. If there has been a kidnapping, you should know this: Going public sometimes results in the death of the hostage. The Bureau can tell you that.
Youre not hearing me, William. Your pet psychopaths crossed the line down here. I no longer give a shit about your investigation, and I have enough evidence to arrest Sands for money laundering on my own hook right now. I want proof of life, and I want it in fifteen minutes. If I dont get it, your investigation goes straight down the toilet. Make it happen.