by Greg Iles
A shadow passes the crack of the bedroom door, then pauses to hover there. My mother. She’s floating outside in the maternal holding pattern all women learn after they have children, one that serves them well after grandchildren come along. When I arrived tonight, I found Mom asleep in the chair next to this bed, her hand on a .38 revolver half covered by a crocheted comforter she brought from home to keep Annie surrounded by familiar things. She did not wake until I knelt before her, laid my hand flat over the pistol, and gently touched her shoulder.
Seeing my burned cheek and smelling the smoke on me, she asked what had happened. I assured her that Caitlin and I were all right, and that we’d learned nothing more about Dad’s whereabouts or well-being. Then I gave her an abbreviated summary of what had transpired at Brody Royal’s house. I could tell that my description of Henry Sexton’s death shook her deeply, but she insisted I go downstairs to the newly remodeled kitchen so that she could make me something to eat. I told her I would be down after a few minutes of sitting with Annie.
Mom’s appearance at the door must mean that the food is ready. If so, I’ve been up here longer than I thought. Not wanting to wake Annie, I leave her without a kiss, then join Mom in the hall. She’s holding a drink that looks like a gin and tonic, my tranquilizer of choice when I need one.
“Yours or mine?” I ask.
She holds out the sweating glass. “Yours. It’s strong. Knock-you-nekkid strong. You need it.”
I take a large swallow of the bittersweet mixture, then follow her down to the kitchen, where a plate of scrambled eggs, grits, and toast awaits me. Picking up the plate, I motion for Mom to join me on the sofa in the sparsely furnished sitting room opposite the kitchen. She folds her legs beneath her to keep her feet from the cold floor and watches with maternal satisfaction as I devour the food.
Without makeup, my mother looks closer to her actual age, seventy-one, but even with silver hair and her slightly fallen face, she looks younger than her contemporaries with all their plastic surgery, makeup, and expensive dye jobs. Long before Caitlin’s father bought the Examiner, an editor of that paper wrote that when he heard the word class, he thought of Peggy Cage. “One part Donna Reed, one part Maureen O’Hara, with a sprinkle of Audrey Hepburn,” the journalist described her, and he wasn’t far wrong. My mother has aged with rare grace, having settled into a fine handsomeness befitting her age and station. Peggy Cage didn’t come from money; she came from a dirt farm in central Louisiana, not far from the land that produced Frank and Snake Knox. But you would never know it to speak to her.
As I finish the meal she prepared, I sense an expectant tension in her. A strange emotion has animated her face. It almost looks like excitement.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I’ve got something to show you, Penn. While I was waiting for you to come downstairs, I checked my e-mail. I’ve been doing it every fifteen minutes since Annie and I got here.”
“Mom, I told you not to do anything like that.”
“Oh, fiddle. I had to, and you’ll be glad I did. Five minutes ago, I got a message from your father.”
“What?” The last forkful of eggs hangs suspended before my face.
She points to my notebook computer, glowing at the end of the sofa. Grabbing the device, I hit the return button to stop the screen saver. It vanishes to reveal the GUI of Mom’s AOL account, which is currently displaying a list of her old mail. In a box in the upper-right corner of her screen is a message from ENGINEERJACK1946.
“Uncle Jack?” I ask, recognizing the AOL user name of my father’s youngest brother, who lives in California.
“Yes! Read the message, and you’ll understand.”
Trying to get my heartbeat under control, I quickly skim the message.
Peggy,
A few minutes ago I received a phone call from someone who identified himself as “a friend of your big brother.” The caller told me not to mention my brother’s name during the conversation. He said that Tom had given him a message for you, which he was going to read to me, and I was to get it to you however I thought best. I called your house and got no answer, so I’m trying e-mail. The caller told me that he’d seen Tom in the flesh, and he was physically all right. I have no idea who the caller was. From traffic sounds, I’d bet he was standing at a pay phone. I don’t know what’s going on, obviously, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know, and I’ll fly in. Tell Penn to call me.
Love, Jack
Faithfully transcribed message follows:
Peg,
You’re going to hear that some people were killed tonight (Wednesday) and that Penn and Caitlin were there when it happened. It’s a tragedy, and I surely bear some guilt for it. But as far as I can learn, Penn and Caitlin are safe. I want you to know that I’m safe also. I know you’ll be worried to death, but think back to all I told you on Monday, and trust that I’m doing the right thing for our family.
Penn will be very angry. Please explain to him that while he thinks I have a choice in what I’m doing, I don’t. If we try to use the system to solve this problem, our family will suffer terribly. I have a plan to straighten all this out, and I believe it has a good chance of success. If I succeed, the charges over Viola’s death will be dropped and the matter of the state trooper taken care of. That’s the only outcome I’m willing to accept at this point. You’ll understand why later. Obviously there’s a lot I can’t tell you through this medium, but soon I’ll explain in person. You know me, my girl. I don’t always have the answers. But I’m asking you to trust that I know best in this case.
Tell Penn I’m counting on him to keep you and Annie safe. That’s far more important than him trying to get to the bottom of this mess, which would be pointless. I hope he can protect Caitlin, but that girl goes her own way, and you can’t tell her anything. That’s why she’s good at her work. I’ll get home as soon as I can. I love you, my darling.
Tom
Long before I finish the message, I’m shaking my head in disbelief.
“Do you feel any better?” Mom asks hesitantly.
“No. Mom, I told you what happened tonight . . . who died. A Natchez cop was murdered simply for guarding the Natchez Examiner. He died trying to protect Caitlin and me.”
“Surely you don’t blame your father for that?”
“Yes, I blame him. Because the death of Viola Turner set all this off, and all he’s willing to say about it is, ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing.’ People died because he made the decision to jump bail rather than remain in custody. And jumping bail led to Dad and Walt killing that state trooper.”
“You don’t really believe they did that?”
“I’m afraid I do. Out of self-defense, probably, but that won’t matter to anybody but us. The lead FBI agent in town would actually like to help Dad, but Dad’s making it very tough. It’s hard to help a man with a dead cop hanging around his neck.”
Mom draws her mouth into a tight frown. “I hate to hear you speaking against your father like this.”
“What do you expect? When Dad kept silent about Viola’s death, I told myself he was taking some kind of moral stand on euthanasia. When it looked like murder instead, Henry Sexton convinced me the Double Eagles had killed her. When Dad jumped bail, I told myself he had no choice—that we were dealing with a vendetta by the DA and a redneck sheriff, and there was a method to his madness. But now? People are dying every day, and Dad and Walt could be shot on sight at any moment. At the very least Dad should be calling Quentin Avery and trying to arrange a safe surrender. But he hasn’t. If you want to know the truth, I’m starting to believe that all my faith in Dad—all my life—has been misplaced. That I believed in a father who only existed in my head. And yours.”
Her eyes plead for understanding. “Penn, please don’t talk that way.”
“I’m sorry. But anybody looking at what he’s done since Monday would see the actions of a guilty man. I’m starting to think Shad Johnson is right: whatever Dad did i
n Viola’s house, he did it to keep something buried in the past. And if it’s so bad that he can’t tell us about it, then I’m afraid that once we discover what it is—if we ever do—it will change our view of him.”
I’ve never seen such sadness in my mother’s eyes. Very softly, she says, “It would kill your father to know you’ve lost faith in him like this.”
“He’s broken almost every rule he ever taught me. How many chances has he had to do the right thing?”
She closes her eyes and hugs herself. “None of us is the person that others think we are. Not you, and not me. I’m not the woman you think I am.”
“Yes, you are. I know nobody’s perfect, but this goes so far beyond normal human frailty that I can’t even make sense of it.”
“That doesn’t mean there is no sense to it.” Mom’s eyes open and fix me with adamantine conviction. “All I know is the man I married. I know what he’s capable of, and what he’s not.”
“No human being can say that with certainty. Not even about a spouse.”
My mother takes my hand and speaks across the gulf of a generation. “You and Sarah were married nine years before the cancer took her. I know you loved her. But nine years isn’t that long. I’ve been married to your father since 1952. Fifty-three years. I’ve earned the right to say that I know him as well as any human being can know another. And I know this—Tom Cage is going to do the right thing no matter what. He can’t do the wrong thing. It’s not in him.”
What would it take to shake such faith? This is like trying to knock down a granite wall by talking to it. My stomach burns with resentment from holding my tongue about so many things pertaining to my father. The right thing? I want to ask. Lincoln Turner believes that he’s Dad’s son by Viola Turner—and Dad probably believes it, too. This whole crazy nightmare may be happening because Lincoln Turner screwed up a mercy killing and Dad is covering for him. Risking all our lives because he can’t bear to watch an illegitimate son punished by the courts . . .
But I say none of that. Instead, I say, “I don’t think Dad would ever intentionally do something terrible. But he might deceive himself so badly that he wound up doing something that had terrible consequences. We’re all capable of that. And I’m not sure he could bear the idea that our image of him was going to be shattered, or even tarnished.”
My mother looks down into her lap, then takes the gin and tonic from my hand and takes two big swallows. “You’re right about that much. If Tom thought you’d begun to doubt everything he taught you as a boy . . . it would break his heart. So I want you to promise me something. If you do find him, please don’t try to browbeat the truth out of him, whatever it is. That will come in its own good time—if it’s meant to. Maybe even in a courtroom, if there’s no other way. Will you promise me that?”
I take the glass back from her and swallow some gin. “Yes,” I tell her, knowing it’s a lie. This is no time for truth. “But you’ve got to accept that you can’t help Dad by going along with his plans. His only chance now is a safe surrender into federal custody. If he contacts you again, please try to convince him of that.”
Her gaze falls away from me and settles in a dark corner of the room. “I could never have imagined things would go this far.”
“Of course not. How could you?”
She’s staring at the foot of the hall staircase, and she looks strangely preoccupied.
“Mom? I’m getting the distinct impression that you know more than I do about all of this. Do you?”
She doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure she heard me.
“Dad’s message said remember all he told you on Monday. What did he tell you?”
She slowly shakes her head. “Nothing that would help you. Just that Viola’s life had been tragic, and her death was, too. He didn’t want to burden me with anything I might have to lie about.”
Great. Realizing I’m going to learn nothing further about Viola, my mind skips back to my disturbing conversation with John Kaiser. “Mom?” I say gently. “Did Dad ever talk to you about knowing a man named Carlos Marcello?”
For a moment her face remains transfixed, but then the tiny webs of wrinkles move, and her eyes focus on me. They’re filled with surprise.
“Uncle Carlos?” she says.
“Uncle Carlos?” I echo. “Mom . . . are we talking about the same man?”
“The boss of New Orleans?”
Stunned speechless, I can only nod.
“Oh, I don’t know anything. Just a story your father told me. You know Tom did an externship at the parish prison in New Orleans during his final year of medical school. He was the jail doctor, and there was a lot of excitement. He once saw a crazed prisoner shot right in front of him.”
“Mom . . . what about Marcello?”
“Oh, yes. Well, Tom once told me a story about Carlos Marcello serving time in the prison. He said New Orleans policemen delivered his meals every night, from the best restaurants in New Orleans. Marcello even had women visit him in his cell. The godfather lived better in jail than most people did at home, and everybody called him ‘Uncle Carlos.’ The whole thing was like a big joke.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, but this is anything but funny. “What year would this have been?”
“Nineteen fifty-nine, of course. The year Tom graduated from LSU med school.”
The year before I was born. I’d forgotten that my mother and father lived in New Orleans for four years. This means that Dad could have met Carlos Marcello as early as . . . 1955. In any case, he surely met the don in 1959, and not as a random student, but as the parish prison physician. My father treated Carlos Marcello. What the hell would Kaiser make of that information?
“Did Dad mention Marcello any other times?”
An almost wistful look comes over my mother’s face. “No, but . . . I actually met him a couple of times. Both times in restaurants. Tom and I couldn’t afford to eat out back then, you know. I was teaching across the river, just to pay the rent on our little apartment in the French Quarter. But one night Tom took me to Felix’s Oyster Bar, and this short, grinning man came over to our table and asked if everything was all right. He spoke like an illiterate tradesman, but after he left the table, Tom told me he was the Mafia boss of Louisiana.”
I can scarcely take this in as my mother continues.
“The second time was near Waggaman. A nice, homey Italian restaurant called Mosca’s. The same thing happened. And I think Tom may have told me that Mr. Marcello owned that place. I’m not sure.”
“Do you remember whose idea it was to go there?”
“Oh, Tom’s, of course. It was our anniversary. Seventh, I think.”
“I see,” I tell her, which is a lie.
“Why are you asking about Carlos Marcello?” Mom asks, suddenly worried. “He’s been dead for ages, hasn’t he? What could he have to do with anything?”
For a moment my mind fills with the blurry image of my father visiting Carlos’s swamp hideaway in 1968, but it would be pointless to ask my mother about that. Whatever really took my father to Churchill Farms in 1968, he’d have told Mom nothing about it. And it would serve no purpose for me to tell her now. While I ponder this, my mother squeezes my right hand in both of hers.
“I wish I could help you, Penn. I wish I knew more. And I especially wish you could trust your father.” She wipes tears from the corners of her eyes. “And don’t you wear a hair shirt over that man you shot tonight. I’ve heard plenty over the years about Randall Regan, and how he abused his wife. You only did what any husband would have done, considering what they did to Caitlin. What any man worth the name would have done.”
This is exactly what I’d expect to hear from my mother, who carries genes and mores forged in the Scottish Highlands. I wonder how many mothers said similar things to their handcuffed sons in the Houston jail while I was preparing to prosecute them?
I lay my hand on her shoulder. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day, and you and Annie need to be ready
for it. Sheriff Dennis is going to hit the Knox family hard, and I’m going to help him. They’re involved in a major crystal meth operation in Louisiana, and Walker’s going to arrest as many low-level people as he can. By threatening them with mandatory prison sentences, he hopes to force a Double Eagle to turn state’s evidence. If one of them knows who killed Viola Turner, we might be able to force Shad to drop the murder charge. Then hopefully Dad’s jumping bail will seem more defensible.”
Mom is looking at me like she doubts either my sanity or my intelligence. “But isn’t that exactly what your father said not to do? He said it was pointless for you to try to get to the bottom of this mess.”
All I see in her eyes is adamant refusal to question her husband. “Doesn’t that make you even the slightest bit suspicious? Don’t you get it, Mom? What Walker and I are doing tomorrow may be Dad’s only hope.”
Fear flashes across her face. “I don’t see that at all! None of those old klukkers is going to confess anything. They don’t really believe they’ll be sent to jail. They never have been before.”
“You’re right, but that’s not my real goal. If we can hit them hard enough—really hurt them—then we’ll knock them off balance and force them to defend themselves. Forrest Knox is the power behind the Knox drug business, and the one who stands to lose the most if things go south. He’s also the one leading the hunt for Dad and Walt. A wave of arrests will be a major distraction for him, and that should ease the pressure on Dad and Walt. Maybe enough for them to get somewhere really safe. Now, if—”