Cemetery Road

by Greg Iles

  Knowing it must be Jet, I set the case on the grass and dig the phone out of my pocket. “Are you there?” I ask. “You got cut off before. I freaked out a little bit.”

  “It was Paul. I don’t think he heard me. I was in my closet. I heard him open the bedroom door, and I killed the phone and threw it in a drawer just before he walked in.”

  “God.”

  “Something has happened, though.”

  The hair all over my body stands erect, and fear spreads through me in a paralyzing wave. “What is it?”

  “Max gave him a photo.”

  “No.”

  “Take it easy. It’s not the video. It’s you and me hugging, from yesterday.”

  “What the hell? What is Max doing?”

  “Jiggling the swords over our heads. He wants you to find that cache.”

  “What did you tell Paul?”

  “The only thing I could say. We’ve been working on stories together. That was the first time I’d seen you since Buck’s murder, and you were upset. That Buck was like a father to you.”

  “Paul knows that. Did he believe you?”

  “He seemed to. But I can’t be sure. You’ll have to see what you think. He’s on his way to the Watchman right now. To your office. He wants to talk to you.”

  All thought vanishes in a wave of heat. “Jet—”

  “You’ve got to deny it, Marshall. Us, I mean. I know you’ve talked about coming clean, trying to get ahead of Max, but you’re kidding yourself. There’s only one thing you can say. Do you understand?”

  “Jesus. Yes, I hear you.”

  “If Paul asks you if we’ve spoken today, say no. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You also need to call Claude Buckman before you speak to Paul. Tell Claude about the video. Max only showing Paul that hugging photo was a gift from God. Claude has to stop Max from ever showing Paul the sex footage.”

  “Jet, calm down—”

  “Me? Will you do all that?” she asks, her voice cold. “Swear to me you will.”

  “Jet, I’ll deal with it. I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  “Don’t do anything crazy, Marshall. Nothing noble. Think about Kevin. Okay?”

  Unbelievably, my iPhone rings while I’m trying to get off the burner phone. The screen says arthur pine, atty.

  “Jet, I’ve got to go. Pine’s calling.”

  “Good. Tell Arthur to get Claude for you.”

  I pocket the burner and answer the iPhone. “Arthur, I’m sorry. I was on another call, but I was about to call you.”

  “I saved you the trouble.”

  “Look, about the club’s offer . . . I need to talk to you about one issue in particular.”

  “You can throw away your Christmas list.”

  Pine took too much enjoyment in saying that for me to mistake his meaning. “What’s happened?”

  “The offer’s off the table.”

  “Because I took longer than an hour?”

  “That didn’t help, but that’s not it. Circumstances have changed. Claude told you they might.”

  “What changed?”

  “We’ve become aware of a certain video.”

  Oh, hell—

  “A video that, if it were made public, could put a very close friend of yours in a homicidal state of mind.”

  They think they’ve got me by the balls now. They think they don’t have to give up anything, or help anybody, to get their crimes buried. I can’t believe I even considered making a deal with these bastards.

  “We still need that cache,” Pine says. “We need everything you have, as soon as you can get to the bank.”

  “Go to hell, Arthur.”

  “Listen to me, Marshall. This is life and death for you.”

  The only coherent thought I can hold in my mind is that before I do anything else, I need to have the conversation with Paul Matheson that I should have had three months ago.

  “Did you hear me?” Pine presses. “Where are you?”

  “Go fuck yourself, Arthur.”

  Chapter 33

  It’s been a long time since I felt real fear. In our insulated lives we only brush up against it, usually when confronting medical symptoms that suggest a mortal disease process. Raw, paralyzing fear is something you forget as soon as possible yet instantly recall when it hits again. That’s what I feel when I approach my office at the Watchman, knowing Paul Matheson is waiting inside to question me about his wife.

  The mere sight of his F-250 outside the building sets something thrumming in my chest—not merely the prospect of confrontation, which is certain, but of violence. I feel a sense of foreboding that Max spoke truly in my kitchen: that the fight we avoided on that golf course almost thirty years ago is about to happen. Why? Maybe because thirty years ago, Paul had betrayed Jet a dozen times himself.

  Today he’s married to her.

  The moment I enter the building, I become aware of an unusual quiet, which tells me that at some level my employees perceive some threat, if not outright danger. Ben Tate falls into step beside me at the pressroom door.

  “Bad vibes in your office. Worse than those guys from this morning.”

  I keep walking down the narrow hall. “And?”

  “He asked me if I’d seen his wife in the building recently.”

  Ben was never slow on the uptake. “And you said . . . ?”

  “I thought I saw her here after Max was arraigned yesterday, but I might have been mistaken. She’s in and out a lot, talking to reporters. Did I screw up?”

  “No. It doesn’t matter.” It’s odd how willing people are to cover for you, even if they’re not sure why they’re doing it. “Can you hold something for me, Ben?”

  “Sure.”

  I take out my burner phone, mute the ringer, then pass it to him. “I use this with only one source. If it rings, ignore it.”

  “Got it.”

  “One more thing.” I reach into the small of my back, then hand him my pistol.

  His eyes go glassy, and both of us stand awkwardly holding the gun. “Shit, man,” he breathes. “Is it loaded?”

  “Yeah, but there’s no round in the chamber. It’s all right. Just put it in your office.”

  After staring at the ugly but functional pistol for a few seconds, he says, “Okay. Good luck.” He clumsily stuffs the Walther into the back of his pants, then pockets the phone and veers off toward his office.

  I feel a primal urge to run as I reach for my doorknob, but that’s a childish impulse. The truth is, as I drove into town from the Indian Village, I felt more and more certain that further deception would be stupid, as well as an insult to Paul. Even if I manage to convince him that his suspicions are groundless today, the truth will eventually come out.

  The moment I open my office door and see my old friend sitting slumped at my desk, I realize confession would be a mistake. Paul is forty-seven years old—one year older than I—but today he looks fifty-seven. Only two days ago, in the Prime Shot tent at the industrial park, he seemed to have the glow of youth. He was drinking then, of course, which probably gave him some color, and the midday sun cast a youthful glow. Maybe most telling, I never really focused on him long.

  Today there’s nowhere to look but at each other. And what I see is a man deprived of sleep and peace, haunted by demons, doubting everything he’s ever believed or done. The contrast with his father hits me like a gut punch. Max always looks fifteen years younger than his age; Paul, a decade older. This has the unnerving effect of making them look more like siblings than father and son. More trenchant, though, is my sudden conviction that Paul has not come here to learn the truth, but to hear me deny that I’m sleeping with his wife. There is surely anger in him, but what I sense above all else is fear. Crippling dread.

  “What’s going on, man?” I ask. “My editor texted me you were here. I’m so sorry about your mom. I don’t even know what to say.”

  Paul waves his hand as though I’ve mentioned someth
ing of no importance.

  “Does this have something to do with Buck?” I ask. “Or the Poker Club?”

  He shakes his head and stands, his eyes cloudy with drink or confusion.

  “Are you okay?” I press.

  He laughs as he comes around the desk, but the sound contains no humor. “I’m fine. Not getting much sleep, is all.”

  “You look rough. You want to talk about it?”

  “Did Jet call you?” he asks, sitting on the front of my desk.

  “When?”

  “Last thirty minutes or so. To tell you I was coming?”

  “No.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nods slowly. “Mind if I look at your cell phone?”

  Maybe I misread his state of mind when I came in. “Not at all. Here you go.” I take my iPhone from my pocket and hand it to him. “My password is 052772.”

  “Your birthday.”

  “Yep.”

  He enters it, then starts scrolling through my recent calls. “You ought to use a tougher one than that.”

  “Nothing to hide.”

  Another wretched chuckle. “We’ve all got things to hide, bro. Mind if I look at a few texts?”

  Shit. “Knock yourself out.”

  As he scans several text threads, I wonder if he’s armed. Of course he is, I think, seeing how his Levi’s ride above his left shoe. He’s probably carrying a small automatic in that ankle holster, just like his father. Not that Paul would need that to kill me. He’s quite capable of doing it with his hands. After about a minute of studying my phone, he straightens up and hands it back to me. “This your only cell phone?”

  “Paul, what is this? You in the CIA now?”

  He looks at the floor for a couple of seconds, then takes out his iPhone, presses a button, and holds it out so that I can see a photograph displayed on its screen. The image has the pixelated graininess that results from being zoomed to the maximum, but I can clearly see Jet hugging me on the edge of my patio. This is the image Max shot yesterday from the trees behind my house. Jet’s back is to the camera. One of my arms is wrapped around the small of her back, while my other hand cradles the base of her neck. It doesn’t look very platonic. If I weren’t several inches taller than she, the pose would have looked like a kiss.

  “What the hell?” I say. “Where’d you get this?”

  I asked the question before I realized the risk. For all I know, Max has given him the whole history of the shot and told Paul that I already know it exists.

  “Does it matter?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Do you have private detectives following her or something?”

  “Should I?”

  “Are you serious?”

  He smiles strangely. “It’s not like we haven’t been here before, man. You two were fucking all y’all’s senior year. Why shouldn’t you be now? Right of re-entry and all that?”

  “What?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.”

  “Paul, what the hell? What do you want to know?”

  He takes a deep breath and holds it like a man about to throw a punch. “Are you fucking my wife?”

  There’s only one acceptable answer to this question—at least when you’re standing face-to-face with the husband. “I’m not.”

  “Then who are you fucking?”

  “Nobody.”

  The strange smile returns, and he shakes his head. “Okay, now I’m suspicious. Come on. You’re not doing Nadine Sullivan?”

  Naturally he would think that. And right now, I’m grateful that Nadine’s there to divert attention. “If I was, would that be your business?”

  “You are.” He nods as though confirming his instinct. “Can’t say I haven’t watched her walk across that café a time or three. She’s got a tight ass, in a good way. Some people say she’s gay, though.”

  The thrumming in my chest has slipped down a gear, but I’m wondering if Paul is distracting me in order to hit me with an unexpected jab. “She’s not gay.”

  “Huh. So, how about you tell me about the picture? That’s your house, right?”

  “You know it is.”

  “So what the hell’s Jet doing out there?”

  I shrug as if the answer should be obvious, almost inconsequential. “She came to talk to me about some stories. She works a lot of cases involving local corruption, and she knew I suspected the Poker Club might have something to do with Buck. I told her that at the groundbreaking—just like I told you.”

  Paul stares at me without speaking. His wordless gaze is disconcerting, but it doesn’t compare with the primal X-ray of his father’s stare.

  “That’s what Jet said,” he says at length.

  I turn up my palms. “There you go. Two sources.” Glib, I know, but I’m riffing. Guilty men don’t make light chatter, or, at least, that’s what I’m thinking. Maybe that’s exactly what they do—like Ray Milland in Dial M for Murder.

  Paul takes two steps closer to me, into my personal space. It’s a tense thing, standing close to another male when a woman’s fidelity is being discussed. I feel the energy crackling between us.

  “But you love her,” he says in a leading tone.

  Whoa. “Of course I love her. I always have.”

  He nods. “And you want her to leave me. To come to you. Go back to Washington with you.”

  It’s hard to lie about this with a straight face. “Paul, what the fuck, man? What’s gotten into you?”

  After a couple of seconds, he looks away, then walks to the small refrigerator in the corner of my office and looks down at it with contempt. “How come you don’t keep beer in this thing?”

  “Sorry. There’s probably some in the break room fridge.”

  He waves his hand and sits in one of the two chairs that face my desk. Rather than look at me, he bends at the waist and puts his head in his hands, then begins pushing his fingers through his hair with quite a bit of force. He looks like a man suffering from intractable head pain.

  “Paul . . . ? Is your head hurting, man?”

  “Just give me a minute.”

  “Sure.”

  I walk back behind my desk and sit, wondering if the worst has passed. Last night Jet told me his temper has been worsening, giving me the idea he could go off at any moment, like old dynamite. But Paul is more like a man being eaten alive from the inside. And though he does not know it, there can be no doubt that I have played a part in triggering that process.

  Does he really not know? asks the cold voice from within. How could he not?

  As he sits there, massaging his scalp and neck like a man in the corner of an asylum, I ask myself something I’ve asked a hundred times before. Why do so many people being deceived by their spouses go to absurd lengths to deny what they see? What they sense with their intuition? Even what, in the end, they hear whispered by their friends?

  I used to think it was to avoid the pain of betrayal, of facing inadequacy, of confronting a train of mistakes and admitting that their lives are an illusion and that they didn’t measure up to their partner’s image of them. But that’s not the marrow of it. Once a wife or husband begins a love affair, the marriage becomes a brittle, carefully maintained façade, beneath which lies a horror that most humans lack the courage to face. And the horror is this: when your wife or husband truly gives themselves to another person, they haven’t done it to hurt you. In fact, they’ve probably taken great care to avoid hurting you. No, the unspeakable truth is that you no longer matter to them. Except as the mother or father of their children, you do not exist. That is why people refuse to see. To do so, they’d have to crack the door on a limitless darkness in which they have come to mean nothing to the person who knows them better than anyone else in the world. They must face, probably for the first time, being utterly alone. And that way lies madness.

  How many nights has Paul lain awake and wondered if he’s losing Jet, or has already lost her? Has he wondered how his son would re
act to his mother leaving the house? Maybe even leaving the state? Who could possibly take Jet’s place? A hundred local women would be happy to move into her house and give their best years to Paul. But how many could fill the massive hole that her departure would create? None of them. I know what it’s like to try to replace Jet Talal. I tried, and with a damn good woman. But even she never quite banished Jet from my mind and heart.

  “Dying doesn’t scare me,” Paul says softly, still looking at the floor.

  A chill races over my arms. “What?”

  “Dying doesn’t scare me. In fact, there’ve been times when I would have welcomed it.” He looks up, his face scarlet from hanging his head over like that. “Don’t freak out, I’m not about to slit my wrists. I’m just saying, I’ve seen death up close. You know that. You saw some with me.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s dying alone, man.”

  “Now you’re talking crazy.”

  “Am I? My mother’s gone, Goose. She’d dead. My father may have killed her. And Jet? Who knows, man? I feel like she’s miles away, even when we’re sitting across the table from each other. Even when I’m inside her. She’s just . . . not there.”

  I breathe slowly, keeping my face immobile. “Maybe that’s just in your mind.”

  He shakes his head with conviction. “No! I’m not saying I blame her. I’ve got all kinds of problems. Head problems, dick problems—which drugs don’t always help—but mostly anxiety. And my temper. I can’t keep my shit in one sock. Sometimes, I’ll be at one of Kevin’s baseball games, and some asshole parent will start trash-talking a ref or even a kid. In less than a second I’m one tick from walking over and snapping the dude’s neck. It’s like my mind goes red, my brain’s on fire. I don’t carry a knife anymore, because I’m worried I might decapitate some asshole in the time it takes to cover three rows of bleachers.”

  I get up and walk around my desk, sit on its top. “Paul, you know what that is. PTSD. You’ve got to talk to somebody.”