Natchez Burning

by Greg Iles

  “Did Forrest call you about Viola?” Sonny asked anxiously. “Did he say something?”

  “No discussion of Forrest,” Billy said. “Not even here.”

  Sonny nodded quickly, but Snake looked furious. “I came here to ask permission, goddamn it—on Glenn and Henry—and all you’ve done is sit there and jabber about being careful. And now you threaten us?”

  Billy wondered if his father’s posturing was a front, if Snake had actually killed Viola and simply lucked out that Dr. Cage had somehow been implicated. But unless Sonny betrayed Snake and told Billy the truth, he’d never know for sure. It didn’t matter now. So long as Dr. Cage went to jail for Viola’s murder, the threat to his organization would be neutralized.

  “Uncle Sonny,” Billy said, returning to the reason for their meeting. “No Double Eagle has ever talked to any reporter. Do you really believe Glenn Morehouse wants to be the first?”

  Sonny made a point of not looking at Snake. “God help us, Bill, but I’m afraid your daddy’s right. Glenn’s done got religion. He’s scared. What does he care about prison? Or us? He’s tryin’ to get right with God. Wilma says he’s been ravin’ when he’s on his medication. I think he’ll probably spill every gol-dern thing he knows before he’s done. He might’ve already done it. We’re liable to read our whole life stories in this Thursday’s Beacon.”

  “If we don’t have FBI agents knocking on our doors tonight,” Snake added.

  At this prospect, the first worm of anxiety burrowed into Billy’s gut. He fished a Xanax from his pocket and crushed the bitter tablet between his teeth.

  “I wish I felt different,” Sonny concluded, “but there it is. Glenn could put us all in Angola, Bill. You and Forrest, too. Even Mr. Royal.”

  “All right,” Billy said, swallowing the powdered pill with a grimace. “All right. What do you old outlaws want to do?”

  “An oath is an oath,” Snake declared. “There’s rules. Prescriptions and proscriptions, as Frank used to say.”

  Billy stirred at the mention of the blood oath his uncle had created back in 1964. “Let me get this straight. Poor Glenn has one foot in the grave, but you two want to carry out some medieval penalty on him? One that’ll make the front page of every paper from here to Los Angeles?”

  “That’s the law,” Sonny said with imperious certainty. “That’s what Frank laid down for traitors, and everybody agreed.”

  “Well, that’s not gonna happen. If Glenn is a traitor, he’s got to die. But dead is dead, no matter how you get there.”

  “Of course it matters,” Snake argued, shaking his head with exaggerated passion. “Glenn was one of us. Don’t you see?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Snake’s eyes widened in indignation. “What about honor, boy?”

  “Honor don’t cover the payroll, Pop.”

  Snake’s face had gone so red that Billy feared he might burst a blood vessel. “We’ve got to make an example for everybody else.”

  Billy thought this over. His father had a point, but on balance, the risk wasn’t worth it. “The goal here is survival. However Glenn dies, the people who matter will get the message. But he’s not going to die unless you can confirm you’re right. I’ll do some checking on my end. You guys can confront Glenn directly. But”—Billy pointed at Sonny—“he only dies if you believe he’s betrayed us. Got it?”

  Sonny gave him a casual but sincere salute.

  “And even if Glenn has crossed over, you’ve got to forget all that code-of-silence crap. He needs to go gently into that good night.”

  Snake looked perplexed. “What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

  “He needs to choke to death on a Hall’s Mentho-Lyptus, or fall down in the shower. He doesn’t need his throat cut by two guys who think they’re costarring in a sequel to Goodfellas.”

  Snake gritted his teeth, then said defiantly: “This ain’t the way Frank would have handled it.”

  Billy was glad he’d eaten the Xanax. “Uncle Frank’s dead,” he said mildly. “Been dead thirty-seven years.”

  “That don’t matter,” Snake said softly. “You know it don’t.”

  “Forrest isn’t dead,” Billy said more firmly. “You want to take this up with him?” Billy slid his chair to the right, opening their line of sight to the big razorback. “’Cause I can tell you exactly how he feels about it.”

  Sonny swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his wrinkled throat.

  “This ain’t right,” Snake said, but the defiance had gone out of him.

  “Are we clear on what’s going to happen and not happen?” Billy asked.

  Sonny nodded. Snake took longer, but he eventually nodded his assent, as Billy had known he would. These men had had their time in power, but that time was long gone. Mentioning Forrest to them was like a Wehrmacht officer mentioning the Gestapo to a German line soldier.

  Billy pushed back from the table with a frustrated sigh. “We’re done here, boys. Let me know how it goes.”

  Snake slid his half dollar off the table, slipped it back over his head, then gave his son a sullen glare. “You figure Brody feels the same way about this as you and Forrest?”

  Anger flashed through Billy like a stroke of lightning. He stood and looked down at his father. “What the hell does Brody Royal have to do with any of this?”

  Snake said nothing, but Billy saw more smugness in the curl of his father’s lip.

  “Not a damn thing,” Sonny said, grabbing Snake’s arm and pulling him to the study door.

  Billy stayed on his feet and watched them go. He hoped to hell Brody Royal wasn’t under the delusion that he was free to whack people on his own anymore. That era had come and gone, only some men refused to see it. And the more power they had, the longer it seemed to take them. When the main door banged shut, Billy sat down and pulled up the Web page of Jimmy Buffett’s agent. But his mind was no longer on his birthday party. It was on Viola Turner, and all the men who might have had a motive to kill her.

  CHAPTER 14

  THOUGH MOST OF the staff had left the Beacon office, Henry had stayed at his desk, working patiently at his computer. The Morehouse interview had forced him to rethink his entire view of the Double Eagle cases, and also to rejigger his priorities. The old Klansman had confessed to or described at least ten murders, and he’d hinted at others, but one confession had left Henry in a dilemma. He needed to inform the FBI that Jerry Dugan, a Bureau informant, had been murdered at Triton Battery in 1964. But doing so would instantly create problems. The Bureau would want to know Henry’s source, and that he could not reveal. Also, he usually published new information within a day of talking to the FBI, yet he’d promised Morehouse that he wouldn’t publish anything until death took him. Who could predict when that would occur? Morehouse appeared to be at death’s door, yet Henry had known many cancer patients to far outlive even the most optimistic prognoses.

  Then there was the question of missing corpses. Of the dozen-odd murders Henry was investigating, four involved missing men, and without a corpus delicti, a murder case was stillborn, almost without exception. He’d never doubted that Pooky Wilson, Joe Louis Lewis, Jimmy Revels, and Luther Davis were dead, and today Morehouse had confirmed his instincts (with the exception of Lewis, whom Henry had forgotten to ask about before time ran out). Yet Henry still had no clue to the location of the bodies. The Jericho Hole and the Bone Tree had always been rumored dump sites, yet Morehouse had discounted both. Dragging the Jericho Hole was beyond Henry’s resources, and while he had a fresh lead on the Bone Tree, finding this near-mythical totem had eluded everyone who’d tried it since the 1960s.

  Something about the murders of Revels and Davis haunted Glenn Morehouse in a way that the other killings did not, Henry was sure. He suspected it was the gang rape of Jimmy’s sister Viola, in which Morehouse had almost surely participated. The old Eagle had exposed the depraved brutality of the Revels-Davis murders by revealing that the boys’ military tattoos had bee
n cut from their bodies (after death, Henry hoped) and might even have been kept as trophies. More disturbing still, Morehouse had mumbled half coherently about witnessing deaths by flaying, burning, drowning, and crucifixion. Yet he hadn’t specified who had suffered these fates. Henry had always heard that Pooky Wilson and Joe Louis Lewis had suffered the most cruel treatment, but now he wondered whether Revels and Davis had endured equally horrific deaths.

  More germane to the present, Glenn Morehouse seemed absolutely sure that Snake Knox had murdered Viola Turner to fulfill their decades-old threat, or else had ordered it done. But as for why this threat had originally been made, the old Eagle had refused to speak. It might simply be that she could identify the men who’d raped her, but Henry suspected that Viola had specific knowledge about her brother’s death. Most puzzling was Morehouse’s assertion that Viola never would have made it to Chicago alive had it not been for Ray Presley and Dr. Tom Cage. How had a dirty cop (and inveterate racist) teamed up with a beloved physician to save Viola Turner from the vengeance of the Double Eagles?

  All told, today’s interview had generated enough leads to keep an FBI field office busy for six months, and Henry felt overwhelmed. Simply reviewing and prioritizing his notes would take a full night’s work, and he was exhausted already. But the more he reflected on the day’s revelations, the more certain he became that he should call Penn Cage. After only twenty minutes with Shadrach Johnson, Henry had sensed that the Natchez DA intended to try to convict Tom Cage for Viola’s murder. And that Henry could not let stand.

  He was about to call Penn from his desk phone when his cell phone rang. The LCD read: G. MOREHOUSE. Scarcely able to believe that the old man had fulfilled his promise, Henry hit the answer button with shaking hands.

  “Hello?” he said, filled with irrational fear that he would hear the voice of Wilma Deen (or God forbid, Snake Knox) checking to find out whom Henry had called earlier.

  “It’s me,” whispered Glenn Morehouse.

  “Are you okay?” Henry asked. “Can you talk?”

  “Wilma’s back in her room watching TV. I think she took a sleeping pill, so I took the chance.”

  “What’s on your mind, Glenn?” He was half afraid that Morehouse would try to deny everything he’d said this morning.

  “I been thinking about all we said today. About Viola, mostly. It pains me something fierce to look back on all that. I know you don’t understand, but … things was just different then.”

  “I know,” Henry said, thinking Morehouse sounded different than he had face-to-face, smaller and less imposing. He wondered if the old Klansman had taken a pill himself.

  “You asked me about the bodies,” Morehouse said. “Where they might be.”

  “Do you know?”

  “Them places you mentioned? The Jericho Hole and the Bone Tree? You won’t go far wrong if you check them out.”

  Henry’s pulse picked up. “Are you saying the Bone Tree really exists?”

  “I wish it didn’t.” Morehouse wheezed, then burped. He sounded drunk. “But it does. At least it did about fifteen years ago. That was the last time I saw it.”

  The hair rose on Henry’s neck and forearms. “Can you tell me how to get there?”

  “Naw. The times I went there it was night, and I was in a boat. I ain’t never been good at directions like that. Everything looks the same in the swamp. Frank or Snake always took me out there. Sonny might remember the way.”

  “Sonny Thornfield?”

  “Shit, Henry. You got me talking too much.”

  “You’re doing the right thing, brother. You know it. Surely you can tell me something about where that tree is.”

  “Lusahatcha Swamp. But tellin’ you to hunt for a cypress tree back in there is like telling you to go outside on my five acres and find one blade of grass that has my initials wrote on it.”

  “Not quite. Death leaves traces, Glenn. Skeletal remains. Corpses put out gases caused by decay, other things.”

  Morehouse gave a hollow laugh. “Even if they dumped a corpse in there yesterday, you wouldn’t have a prayer. That swamp bubbles out methane twenty-four hours a day. All manner of creatures been killin’ and dyin’ in there every minute for a million years. And forty-year-old bones have either rotted or been shit out by hogs and alligators. Can’t nobody show you that tree except somebody who’s been there. And anybody who’s been there who would have showed it to you … they died there.”

  “Does anyone besides the Double Eagles know where it is?”

  “Some of the nigras down in Lusahatcha County, supposedly, but they wouldn’t go there for a million bucks. If you go down there a-lookin’, watch yourself. Because they’ll know. Nothing moves down there that those boys don’t know about.”

  “I went down there once with a guide, but I didn’t find anything.”

  “Then you were lucky. If you go back, take the National Guard with you.”

  “What about the Jericho Hole? Over the years, I’ve heard rumors that ten different bodies were dumped in there.”

  “Might have been. That’s a deep old hole.”

  “Were Luther and Jimmy buried together?”

  “Who said anything about buried? They’re not together. I can tell you that much.”

  Henry forced himself to think back to the interview. “You wanted to tell me something about that plane crash this morning. The midair collision. Do you think Snake risked his own life to kill Dr. Robb by flying his plane into Robb’s? Crazy or not, no pilot can control the physics of a midair collision.”

  Morehouse laughed. “Man, I once saw Snake jump off a two-story building because somebody offered him fifty bucks. You hear me? But think about that so-called collision, Henry. Nobody saw it but Snake and his nephew. There was heavy fog. Weren’t no tower at all. How do you know there even was a collision?”

  “I’ve thought of that. Snake could simply have sabotaged Robb’s plane, then banged up his own wing with a hammer after the other plane crashed. Snake’s plane was hardly damaged. As long as his nephew confirmed the midair collision, nobody was going to question their story.”

  “Yessir. That’s about the size of it.”

  “Four people died in that crash, Glenn. One girl was only twenty-one years old. Would Snake really have murdered three innocent people just to kill Dr. Robb?”

  “If Snake thought Lee Robb was gonna put him in jail, he’d have machine-gunned the man in a crowd of nuns on Sunday morning. Look at who was on that plane when it went down. Then look at who was supposed to be on it. Hell … I done give you enough to work it out, Henry. I need to go.”

  “Wait!” Henry felt an almost hysterical reluctance to let Morehouse off the phone. His panic was irrational; surely they could talk again tomorrow. But his years of experience were telling him one thing: Your source is talking. The faucet is flowing, and it might never flow this way again. “Just a couple more questions—please.”

  “Wilma’s program goes off in five minutes. Make it fast.”

  Henry checked his watch: six minutes to the bottom of the hour. “The Natchez DA seems to think Tom Cage killed Viola Turner.”

  “Dr. Cage? Bullshit.”

  “What about a mercy killing?”

  “Well … I can see that, I guess. If Dr. Cage would pay me that kind of visit, I might be obliged. A painless end ain’t the worst thing in the world. Just like a loyal old dog. Only I ain’t been so loyal.”

  “Do you know of any reason Dr. Cage would kill Viola to keep her quiet?”

  “What? Hell, no. Dr. Cage couldn’t do that, even if he had a reason. It was Snake, I tell you. Prob’ly Sonny, too. They still run together, you know. They’re in business together.”

  Henry had heard rumors that some former Eagles were involved in the local meth trade, which had been exploding over the past few years. “Really?” he said, feigning ignorance. “I thought Snake had his crop-dusting service, and Sonny has a used car lot.”

  Morehouse barked a drunke
n laugh. “That’s rich, boy. Their real business is dope. You didn’t know that?”

  “I’ve heard some rumors. I didn’t put much credence in them.”

  “Snake’s son Billy is the biggest goddamn meth dealer in the state.”

  “Snake and Sonny work for Billy Knox?”

  “Yep. They’re in the transport end of things. Airplanes and a car lot. Don’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out, does it?”

  “So Snake and Sonny would have the knowledge to try to fake a suicide with drugs?”

  Another inebriated laugh. “I’d be surprised if they ain’t done that a bunch of times in their line of work.”

  “Where does Billy live?”

  “Billy’s got houses all over, man. Land, too. And he ain’t never even been arrested in this state. Which there’s a reason for, you know. Those guys are protected. You gotta be, to stay in that business. Just like whores.”

  “Who protects them, Glenn? Brody Royal?”

  “No. Billy’s cousin. Forrest shields their operation and thins out their competition every few months.”

  “Forrest Knox? The state policeman?”

  “Forrest ain’t just a trooper, Henry. He’s the director of the goddamn Criminal Investigations Bureau. And every man who works for the Knoxes knows the law, same as we knew with Frank. You threaten the group, you die. Law of the jungle.”

  Henry checked his watch. “When can we speak again, Glenn? Face-to-face?”

  “That depends on Wilma. And on how long I live.”

  “How long do the doctors give you?”

  An awkward silence stretched into black emptiness. Then Morehouse spoke in a cracked voice. “A month, maybe, my oncologist said.”

  Henry wrote “30 days?” on the pad beside his computer. Looking down at the note, it struck him for the first time how devastating was Morehouse’s plight. The empty silence between them—which a moment ago had seemed like the vast reaches of space—contracted until Henry felt like a boy holding a tin can on the end of a wire stretched between two tree houses. And the boy holding the other can was on the verge of losing whatever grip he still had on himself.