Natchez Burning

by Greg Iles

  He rolls his eyes and says, “They know what we’re up to. That’s the only explanation. So, do you want to tell me what you have on Royal?”

  While I try to think of a credible answer, I realize that Randall Regan must not have said anything on the phone about Caitlin firing a gun in his house. If he had, Kaiser would certainly have said something to Caitlin about it.

  Kaiser is clearly getting impatient, but before he can press me, an FBI agent taps on his window, then tells him that Henry Sexton is demanding that his mother be let in to visit him when she arrives. Preoccupied with me, Kaiser grants permission, so long as Mrs. Sexton presents valid ID and matches the picture on it. As he concludes this conversation, Caitlin appears in front of the car and signals for me to get out.

  “I need to speak to her,” I tell Kaiser, and quickly make my escape.

  “Are you okay?” I ask Caitlin.

  She nods but says nothing. Then I see Jordan standing a few feet behind her.

  “Delayed shock,” Jordan says. “I’ve seen it plenty of times in war zones. She’ll be all right. She’s plenty tough.”

  “Maybe I should drive you back,” I suggest.

  Caitlin shakes her head, her eyes fraught with conflicting emotions. “Thanks, but my press operator drove me over, and he’s still here. Jamie texted me while we were inside. The deadline’s crashing down on us. They need me back at the paper now. I’m going to go say good-bye to Henry, then get back to work.”

  This seems like an overly thorough explanation, but something tells me not to question her. Kaiser looks a little suspicious as well, but his buzzing cell phone distracts him. He checks a text message, then says, “I’ve got to get back inside. Apparently Captain Ozan has been questioning hospital employees about Henry’s status. I need to call my SAC.”

  I shake Kaiser’s hand, thank Jordan, then take Caitlin’s hand and pull her toward my car. She follows without resistance. Once there, I lean in and start the engine, but we stand outside, our breath fogging in the cold.

  She raises her eyebrows in silent reproach. “Did you tell him anything about Henry’s files?”

  “No.”

  “The recording of Katy Royal?”

  “Hell, no.”

  Caitlin relaxes a little, then rubs her hands together. “Can you believe he tried to extort me like that?”

  “Kaiser’s serious about nailing the Double Eagles. And he’s got a point. Without Henry’s files, he’s got one hand tied behind his back.”

  Caitlin’s eyes flash. “I could say the same about the recording of Katy Royal, but you’re not giving him that.”

  “You’re right.”

  She looks around cautiously, then reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small photograph. When she turns up her palm, I see Henry Sexton with a rifle scope superimposed over his face.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “Someone sent it to Henry a few months ago. He was in New Orleans, looking into old real estate deals between Brody Royal and Carlos Marcello. He showed it to the FBI at the time, but they didn’t come up with anything. It’s one more thing to keep in mind when you confront Brody.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Have you talked to Kirk?”

  “He’s waiting for me now.”

  She gives me a long look. “Promise me you won’t give Royal anything that matters. You can’t trust him, Penn.”

  “I know that.”

  “Stop by the newspaper when you’re done. I can’t make any final decisions about tomorrow’s editions until I know where you stand with him.”

  “I will.”

  “All right, then.” Slipping the photo back into her coat, she stands on tiptoe and kisses me.

  As she starts toward the hospital entrance, Jordan Glass gets out of a car to my right and follows her to the doors. Maybe Kaiser told his wife to keep an eye on Caitlin, or maybe she’s just concerned.

  Shaking off my worry, I climb into my Audi, throw it into gear, back out of the space, and race out of the parking lot. As soon as I hit Highway 15, something in my chest comes loose. It’s not empathy for Henry, or grief over the woman he loved. The reckless attack on Henry—with Caitlin standing only feet away—has penetrated the most primitive fibers of my brain. I feel myself gearing down into survival mode, a state without sentiment, hesitation, or moral constraint. Instead of apprehension, I feel an almost surreal sense of calm.

  The ambient glow of Vidalia fills the sky ahead, and the lights of Natchez flicker like stars high on the bluff across the river. Taking out my cell phone, I call Kirk’s number.

  “I’m on him,” he says. “Still at St. Catherine’s. Whole family’s outside the ICU.”

  “Randall Regan, too?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Are you still up for this?”

  “Oo-rah, brah. Let the games begin.”

  CHAPTER 84

  AS SOON AS the guard passed Caitlin through the front entrance of the hospital, Jordan Glass called out her name, then beckoned her toward some chairs in the corner of the darkened lobby. The seats had cracked covers, but they were comfortable enough. The coffee table was strewn with well-thumbed magazines. Jordan sat beneath a poster warning about heart disease in women, then waited while Caitlin took a chair to her right. Caitlin’s skin felt cold, and her ears were ringing. She wondered if she was finally going into shock.

  “You saved Henry,” Jordan said, as though they had been discussing the issue for the past twenty minutes.

  Henry’s frozen face kept floating behind Caitlin’s eyes, the trickle of blood running down to the pillow, then Sherry whirling from the window, her hands flying to her throat as one eye socket poured blood. Caitlin didn’t want to say anything about it, for fear of sounding like a baby in front of a woman who’d spent years in war zones. Who opened those damned window blinds? she asked herself for the hundredth time.

  “And Sherry died doing what she could to save the man she loved,” Jordan added.

  “She died doing what I told her to do,” Caitlin corrected.

  “If you hadn’t told her to do that, Henry might be dead instead of her. Or both of them. Or you.”

  Caitlin stared at a tattered issue of Self on the table.

  “In 1992,” Jordan said, “a man I loved got blown apart while standing in line to fill a canteen with water for me. I was hiding twenty yards away. A mortar round took off the top of his head and killed four other people, two of them children. I didn’t even get a bruise. I can’t tell you how many ‘if onlys’ I suffered through over that. He died because of me, no question. But he was also there for himself, just like Henry Sexton. And I almost got myself killed a week later because I was still dwelling on it. I don’t want you to end up like Sherry tomorrow because you’re not paying attention.”

  Caitlin said nothing. The story seemed like a magazine article she’d read long ago. Still, the accuracy of Glass’s intuition was unnerving.

  “Did Henry tell you anything important before he was shot?” Jordan asked.

  Caitlin’s thoughts leaped to Toby Rambin, the poacher Henry had told her about—the man who supposedly knew the location of the Bone Tree. With a stab of guilt she recalled entering Rambin’s name and number into her phone, then altering it in Henry’s so that no one else could discover it there. She hoped the FBI had no way to detect recent editing on a SIM card.

  “You don’t trust me,” Jordan said.

  A simple statement of fact.

  “It’s not that,” Caitlin lied. “This morning you told me that you don’t always share everything with your husband. But I’m sure you share a lot. Where’s the line?”

  The photographer smiled with an inward sadness. “That’s not always clear. But I wouldn’t betray anything you’re working on to John.”

  “Are you asking me to tell you everything Henry’s confided in me?”

  “No. But I figured you wouldn’t have been in that room tonight unless you hoped to learn something more from him.�
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  Caitlin’s head snapped up, angry words on the tip of her tongue.

  “Hey, hey,” Jordan said gently. “No offense, okay? But if there’s one thing I know, it’s reporters.”

  “I’m the publisher of my paper, not a reporter.”

  Glass gave her a knowing smile. “I’ve read your stories. You’re a reporter.”

  Caitlin resented the confidence with which Glass had pigeonholed her, but a little part of her glowed, as well.

  Jordan hooked her hands around one knee and leaned back in her chair, her perceptive eyes on Caitlin. “I’m about to tell you something I shouldn’t.”

  “What?” Caitlin asked, intrigued by the tone of Glass’s voice.

  “Tomorrow John is going to subpoena the files you got from Henry Sexton. He’s going to take them from you legally.”

  A jolt of alarm made Caitlin sit upright. “He can’t do that! That’s crazy.”

  “John wouldn’t do it if he didn’t think he’d get the files.”

  “But Henry gave me those files. Those are a journalist’s records. He was my employee at the time! I can prove that. He still is. His publisher will swear to that.”

  Jordan held up her hands to stop Caitlin. “Remember what I told you at the Jericho Hole? How John got things moving so quickly on this case? He’s operating under provisions of the Patriot Act.”

  Caitlin felt a cold sweat inside her shirt.

  “When a federal judge considers Henry’s files in that light—and his attempted assassination—he’ll probably decide they’re critical evidence in the hunt for an out-of-control domestic terror cell. So—here’s my free advice. Go back to your office and make copies of everything Henry gave you, if you haven’t already. Then give John either the copies or the originals. Because he’s going to get them anyway. Things will go a lot smoother if you do it voluntarily, and I think after you get a little sleep, you’re going to realize what it will mean to have John giving you exclusive information.”

  A dozen different emotions swirled through Caitlin’s exhausted brain. “Did your husband tell you to talk me out of those files?”

  Jordan smiled sadly, then shook her head. “I’m on your side. I loved it when you got in that trooper’s face out there. I look at you and see my younger self. I want you to own this story. But John’s right: tomorrow an army of print and TV journalists is going to descend on this area. Your window of exclusivity is going to slam shut fast. Hiding those files may feel instinctively right, but it’s not. People are dying. John and his team are the best hope of stopping this violence. He won’t let any other journalist see those files. And if you give him access, he’ll pay you back ten times over. I know him.”

  Caitlin’s heart told her to believe Glass, but skepticism had been drilled into her from infancy.

  “If you need to hold something back,” Jordan said, “then do it. Something special that Henry gave you, maybe. But the rest of it … let it go. That’s the safest thing for your family, too.”

  Caitlin thought about the Moleskine notebook she’d discovered outside the burned Beacon building, the Toby Rambin lead, the recording of Katy Royal. “Are you going to tell John you told me that?”

  Jordan laughed without humor. “If I ever do manage to get pregnant, I’d prefer to be married, not divorced. So, no, I’m not going to tell him.”

  Caitlin rubbed her eyes so hard she saw spots. Then she set her elbows on her knees and gave Glass an unguarded gaze. “When I was thirteen, I worked at one of my father’s newspapers. I saw some photographs there that had just been shot in El Salvador. A massacre by a death squad. A lady who worked at our paper was so proud that a young American woman had shot those pictures. Do you remember who shot them?”

  Jordan tapped the coffee table as though bored or frustrated. “Me.”

  “Those pictures went a long way toward leading me to where I am now.”

  Glass’s smile looked forced. She’d obviously heard this kind of thing a thousand times before. Her eyes focused somewhere in the darkness across the lobby. “I’m not the same person I was then. I’m tired. I’m ready to stop—for a while anyway.” She put her face in her hands and massaged her temples as though to relieve a headache. “I’m not that girl who sneaked into a village and shot those pictures anymore.” She looked up at Caitlin. “But you are. That’s why I gave you that advice. You’re not thinking straight right now, because of what happened. But tomorrow you will be again.”

  Caitlin had never felt so validated as she did in that moment.

  “John’s not exactly himself right now, either,” Jordan said. “You should know that. When you criticized the Bureau out there, it really hurt him.”

  Caitlin shrugged, but she didn’t apologize.

  “John knows the Bureau failed all those years ago. It failed the murder victims, the families, even its own agents. He wants to make that right. When he tells you he’s on your side, he means it.”

  “He’s gotten a lot done in a short time, I’ll give him that.”

  “Thanks to Henry and Penn. And you.”

  Caitlin was suddenly nervous. “I haven’t done anything yet. But I’m going to.”

  Jordan’s eyebrows rose. “Something you probably shouldn’t be doing?”

  “That depends on your point of view.”

  “What’s your plan? Just between us and the coffee table? No shit.”

  What the hell? Caitlin thought, suddenly realizing that she trusted Jordan Glass more than many people she’d known for years. “I want to find Pooky Wilson’s bones. I think Pooky and Jimmy may have been killed or dumped at the same place.”

  “And you know where that is?”

  “Maybe. I’ve got a good lead. One nobody else has. Maybe that’s what I’ll keep for myself.”

  “Does Penn know what you know?”

  “No.”

  Jordan smiled in the shadows. “A girl after my own heart. So where are these mysterious bones?”

  As badly as Caitlin wanted to confide in her idol, something held her back. While she wondered how to tactfully evade the question, her Treo pinged with a text message. She took it out and entered her privacy code, then saw a message from Jamie Lewis, her editor.

  In 1970, Dr. Wilhelm Borgen was indicted for multiple counts of sexual abuse of psychiatric patients at his Texas institute. Crimes date from 1956–1968. Testimony of nurses indicated he used electroshock to erase the memories of his victims. Aborted fetuses of impregnated patients under his care. This story getting sicker by the minute. HURRY BACK!

  Caitlin’s heart fluttered. She thought of trying to hide her excitement, but Jordan was far too sensitive to be deceived.

  “Everything okay?” Jordan asked in a leading tone.

  “Yes.” Caitlin typed a quick response to Jamie, then texted her press operator that he should pick her up out front. “But I think I’ve got to skip saying good-bye to Henry.”

  Glass gave her a sisterly smile. “Do what you need to do.”

  Caitlin stood and slung her purse over her shoulder. “If you find yourself at loose ends tomorrow morning, come by the Examiner. I might have some work for you.”

  “I might do that.” Jordan stood and offered Caitlin her hand.

  Instead of shaking it, Caitlin hugged the older woman tight, then stepped back blushing. “Thank you. I mean it.”

  “I know. Get going.”

  Caitlin hurried to the exit, gave the guard a familiar wave, then darted through the door and ran for her ride.

  CHAPTER 85

  WHEN THE HOSPITAL security guard recognizes me as the mayor—and Dr. Cage’s son—he not only allows Kirk and me to pass unchallenged into the main building, but also answers my questions about “poor Mr. Royal and his family.” I’m actually a little surprised to find Brody Royal at the hospital after 11 P.M., but given that the administrator has cleared three patient rooms near the ICU for the use of his family (Brody is on the hospital board), the old man is exempt from the usual discomfort
s of late-night visitors.

  I’ve known the way to the ICU ever since I accompanied my father on emergency calls as a kid. Walking up the deserted corridor, I remind Kirk that I want him to stay cool and quiet, and only intervene if any of Royal’s people try to get physical. If they do, he should use the minimum force required to restrain them. I’ve brought Pithy Nolan’s straight razor in my back pocket, but only as a prop to intimidate the old man into thinking I know everything there is to know about him.

  Brody’s oldest son, Andy, sees me first, glancing to his left as he passes between the big ICU double doors and a regular room. Andy looks away, then turns angrily back as he makes the connection between Caitlin and me.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he challenges.

  “I’m here to speak to your father.”

  President of his father’s bank, Andy Royal is a big man of thirty-five with more gut than muscle. He takes a couple of steps toward me, his face turning scarlet. “You’ve got some damn nerve, Cage.”

  “You don’t understand the situation. Where’s your dad?”

  Andy Royal grinds his jaws with fury. “My sister’s lying in there in a coma, thanks to your goddamn girlfriend. And you—”

  “I’m sorry about your sister, Andy. More than you know. But your dad is going to want to talk to me. If he doesn’t, he’s not going to like what he reads in tomorrow’s paper.”

  His eyes bulge. “What? Man, we’ve already talked to our lawyers about what happened this afternoon, and they think we’ve got a hell of a case against your girlfriend and her father’s media group.”

  “Then you didn’t tell your lawyers the whole story. But of course you don’t know it. So how about you take me to the man who does?”

  Andy points at Kirk, who decided to wear a sock cap in the hope of concealing his identity. “Who’s this guy?”