by Greg Iles
“Really?”
“They’re supporting the coroner in a big way. Daring the supervisors to try to unseat him. Somebody on Facebook said that come November, the black community may surprise their old-line leaders, the ones who sold out to the Poker Club, and try to elect some new blood.”
“Maybe,” I murmur. “More likely they’ll wait until the paper mill is built and they’ve gotten all the jobs they can.”
Nadine sighs wearily. “You’re a buzz kill.”
“What else did Ben say?”
“Your dad’s press men can use me out at the”—she glances at the woman sitting ten feet away from us—“the place. They’ve recruited a bunch of teenagers from a church to fold the front page and drive the routes. Literally choirboys and -girls. They need food and drinks and supplies from Walmart.”
“Ben thinks they can really do that front page?”
“He seems to. He’s fired up.” She drops her voice to a nearly inaudible level. “The main printing in Natchez is all set. They’re going to run it off about one a.m. Ben’s going to pick up the papers himself in a borrowed truck.”
“I sure hope the Poker Club doesn’t get wind of this. I can see Tommy Russo’s guys hijacking Ben’s load between there and here. That’s a dark highway.”
“How many people know this is going on?” Nadine asks.
“I’m not sure. The number’s obviously growing.”
“Don’t worry. Before long it’ll be too late for anybody to stop it.” Nadine gets to her feet, then takes my arm and pulls me thirty feet down the hall. “Tomorrow’s going to be a historic day. People are going to look outside and find a Watchman in their driveways when they weren’t expecting one. And you’re going to be able to take it into that ICU and show your dad.”
Even after today’s wretched events, her boundless optimism proves infectious. “I’ve got to admit, that seems like a pretty good prospect right now. You know what I really wish, though?”
“Tell me.”
“That I could get the paper back from those bastards.”
Nadine nods thoughtfully. “Maybe you can.”
“How?”
“Find out who your source is—Mark Felt or whoever—and get the rest of Sally’s cache. Then you’d have the Poker Club by the balls. You could demand anything you want.”
Something warm stirs in my breast. “That’s worth working on.”
“I’d say. What would Buckman and his buddies have to give you to keep you from printing that cache?”
Something feels wrong about her question, or maybe her tone. “When you put it like that . . . it seems like a messed-up thing to do. To cut a deal with the devil.”
Nadine shakes her head. “You’ve got to get over this choirboy complex. Don’t you remember what I said? Most people sell their souls a piece at a time. Whatever they get in exchange, it’s lost forever. You do this right, you’re going to sell yours for a record price. You can change the world—or at least your little corner of it. I told you once before: you don’t destroy a village in order to save it.”
In the silence that follows this exchange, my iPhone rings. To my surprise, it’s Jet. Why would she call my iPhone and not the burner she bought me? A nightmare image of Paul discovering her burner and grinding it up in the garbage disposal rises in my mind. Or, worse, him finding it and calling the speed-dial number programmed into it. I click my iPhone but say nothing.
“Marshall?” says Jet. “Are you there?”
“I’m here. Are you okay? Are you home?”
“No, I’m at the hospital. Kevin’s with me. We wanted to pay our respects to your father. I know we can’t get into the ICU, but I want your mom to know we care. I also need to talk to you about the Ferris murder. Can you meet me in the lobby?”
I look at my watch. “Um—”
“Like right now.”
Something’s wrong. “Uh, sure. I may have to come unlock the front door for you.”
“We’re already inside.”
I look at Nadine in puzzlement. “Okay. Listen, Nadine is here. She brought us food and coffee. I’m going to bring her out to sit with Kevin, if she will. We don’t want him hearing a bunch of stuff about his father’s friends.”
“That’s a good idea, if she would.”
“We’ll see you in a sec.”
As I slip my phone back into my pocket, Nadine says, “Jet?”
“Yeah. She sounded weird. She needs to talk to me about Buck.”
“I’m happy to sit with Kevin. He’s been in my store plenty of times, buying books from his school reading list.”
“I appreciate it.”
She gives me a smile, but it looks forced. “We should take the snacks. He’s twelve, right?”
“Right,” I reply, trying not to think of the conversation I had with Jet only hours ago. And his grandfather is his father—
As Nadine and I walk down the corridor toward the lobby, she says, “What are the chances that Jet could be your secret source?”
“Zero. She’d tell me if she had Sally’s cache.”
“Would she? She seems like a good choice. Sally was her mother-in-law, and Jet’s an attorney.”
“I know, but . . .” An image of Sally’s sapphire necklace comes to me. “They had a complicated relationship. Jet doesn’t have the cache.”
“Well. You’d know, I’m sure.”
There’s a security guard in the hospital lobby, but he’s kicked back in a Naugahyde chair reading Sports Illustrated and paying no attention to the mother and son standing by the unattended reception desk. Kevin sights us first. He perks up his head, then nudges Jet, who turns to us with a face so pale that my ears start to pulse. She looks more agitated than she did after smashing a hammer into Max’s skull.
Nadine instantly picks up on the tension. She steps forward and extends her hand to Jet with an odd formality. Jet squeezes it lightly, a tight smile on her face.
“Anybody hungry?” Nadine asks, offering Kevin a raspberry muffin.
“Thanks,” the boy says in a restrained voice, and takes the fist-sized treat. “I always get these at the bookstore.”
“How’s your season going?” I ask, trying not to look for Max’s features in his young face.
“We’re doing pretty good. Nineteen and one, so far.”
“Wow. You play, what, second base?”
“Pitcher now.”
“On a Bienville traveling team?”
“Nah. The local teams are too diluted now. Too many dads with money. I play on a major league team out of Baton Rouge. That’s one level above triple-A.”
I glance at Jet, who’s clearly waiting for her son to finish so that she can talk to me. “Major league, huh? At twelve? You must be pretty good.”
He blushes a little. “I do a’ight.”
Having paid sufficient court to Kevin, I ask him to excuse his mother and me for a couple of minutes. Kevin doesn’t look too put out at being left with Nadine.
I lead Jet to the automatic doors and wait for them to slide open. I can almost sense her heart pounding. Beyond the doors, the sidewalk recedes into a circle of black asphalt designed for easy entry and egress by wheelchairs. A few shrubs line the circle, apparently to give visitors and employees a place to throw their cigarette butts. We walk out into the industrial glow of sodium-vapor streetlamps, moving far enough from the building for privacy, but remaining within sight of Kevin and Nadine, who are visible through a large picture window with its blinds turned open.
“Where’s Paul?” I ask in a low voice. “What’s happened?”
“Paul’s in the ER.”
This can only be bad news. “Is he hurt?”
“No. Don’t react when I say this, okay? Be stone cold. Max is in the ER. He’s the patient. Paul’s here for Max. And he could be watching us right now.”
Chapter 41
Jet might as well have sucker-punched me in the throat. “Dr. Lacey must have figured he’d die without emergency care,”
I reason, glancing back at the hospital entrance. “Turn your back to the doors, so I can watch for Paul over your shoulder without being obvious.”
Jet turns until I have a clear line of sight to the main doors without moving my head.
“Has Max said anything about the attack?”
“I have no idea. I don’t know if he can even talk. Two doctors are working on him now, and they’ve called the helicopter to take him to Jackson.”
“Oh, man. Have you been alone with Paul?”
Jet looks like she’s gritting her teeth hard enough to crush a stone. “Not since we got here. He was drunk when I got home, and he drank some more after. We only got the call a half hour ago. I was going to leave Kevin with Tallulah, but she wasn’t in her house or Max’s. She didn’t answer her phone, either. Marshall, I have no idea what to do. What if Max accuses me of trying to kill him?”
“He won’t. He’d have to explain too much.”
“What if he doesn’t care anymore? What if he’s ready to blow everything up? The whole family?”
“Jet, he can’t. It just hit me: Max can’t implicate you in this assault—he can’t even use the video he shot of us. It’s all a bluff.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve got the nuclear option in this war, not him. If he comes at you with anything, you can charge him with rape. Kevin is living proof of his guilt.”
Jet opens her mouth, but no sound emerges. Her eyes seem to dilate, as though the prospect of escape from Max’s power has intoxicated her. But then she shakes her head. “That’s a weapon I can never use. It would destroy Kevin. And Paul.”
“I’m not saying you use it first. Or ever. I’m saying it’s a deterrent. A neutron bomb. If Max believes you’ll use it, then he can’t hurt you. Not without hurting himself worse.”
She’s breathing harder. “I’ll lose that game, Marshall. Max can stand more pain than I can. Not me, but . . . you know. I can’t watch Kevin suffer through that.”
I want to hold her close and comfort her, but I can’t do it out here. Looking over her shoulder at the brightly lit hospital entrance, I see Nadine and Kevin sitting on a couch just inside the big glass doors.
“Max isn’t going to say anything. It’ll be just like when you stabbed him with the steak knife. But if he does, you only have one play. And you can’t hesitate. Max tried to rape you tonight—you defended yourself. You fought for your life, and not for the first time. Tell Paul about the stab wound. Max will still have a scar from that. Tell Paul you kept all this from him because you didn’t want to destroy the family. But now Max has lost his mind. He killed Sally, and now he’s obsessed with you.”
“I think I’m going to puke,” Jet says, looking back at the lighted doors. “Seriously, I can’t get my breath.”
“You’re having a panic attack. Try to breathe slowly. You’ve been under massive pressure for a decade. You kept an explosive secret all that time. Now you feel it’s on the verge of coming out. That kind of stress kills people. It can also make them do self-destructive things. Stay in control, Jet. Stay ahead of Max. Know what you’re going to do, whatever move he makes. You’re twice as smart as he is.”
She’s nodding, trying to get her composure back. “As soon as I got home tonight, I showered and changed clothes. I thought about destroying the ones I was wearing on the hill, but in the end I just washed them.”
“That might not get the blood off, if you had any splatter on you.”
“Okay. I’ll burn them. I also destroyed Max’s cell phone. I couldn’t hack his password, and I didn’t want to risk being caught with it.”
“Good. I still have some hope the video was on that phone.”
“Me, too. Oh, when I was in the ER, I looked through his personal effects for his second phone and didn’t find it. Turns out a nurse had already given it to Paul.”
“Was it a Samsung, too?”
“I haven’t seen it yet. I’m afraid to ask. But if I can somehow get hold of it tonight, I will.” She reaches up to her neck, takes hold of a slim chain, and lifts Sally’s sapphire pendant from beneath her top.
“You’re wearing a fifty-thousand-dollar necklace around town?”
“This is our good-luck charm. Sally left these passwords for me. When I find whatever they open, we’ll be able to save ourselves. I’m betting it’s Max’s other phone.”
“Two passwords for a phone?”
“The second could be for a program on the phone.”
“Jet, those passwords could be years old.”
“No,” she says, unshakable faith in her eyes. “The sticker is new, clean and white.” She flips the sapphire so that I can see the bright paper, then tucks the pendant back beneath her blouse.
“Don’t take stupid risks to get that phone. Let’s see how Max plays this—if he lives.”
We stand in the sodium-yellow glow like refugees, a desperate couple with nowhere to run. “I’m so sorry you had to find out about Max,” she says. “This isn’t what you signed up for.”
“I signed up for you. Okay? Remember that, no matter what happens tonight. I wish I could hug you.”
She looks afraid to believe me.
“Oh, I forgot,” she says. “A bunch of calls came in on Max’s phone before I destroyed it. Three from Beau Holland, two from Arthur Pine, one from Wyatt Cash, and one from Claude Buckman.”
“All tonight? What does that suggest to you?”
“Trouble inside the Poker Club. Think about it. Who leaked you that picture of Beau Holland and Dave Cowart with Buck? A lot of people hate Beau, even in the club. Maybe he’s scared the club will throw him to the wolves.”
Something makes me turn and scan the parking lot. A presentiment of danger? I’m suddenly aware of the hard bulge of my pistol in the small of my back.
“What is it?” Jet asks.
“Nothing. I just felt funny for a second. Like we’re being watched.”
She looks over her shoulder. “I’d better get back inside. Kevin’s probably wondering about this, and the helicopter will get here any minute.”
“Will you go to Jackson with them?”
“Probably. To look after Kevin.”
As I fight the urge to take her hand, a black city police cruiser wheels into the entry circle and parks thirty feet from us. Two cops get out: one in his twenties, the other in his forties.
“Oh, God,” Jet murmurs, losing color fast. “I told you. He did it. Max told them it was me.”
The cops are talking to each other across the roof of the cruiser. The older one’s holding a cell phone to his ear. “No way,” I say. “Take it easy. They’re probably just visiting somebody in the hospital.”
“You’re wrong, Marshall. Max must be awake.”
“If he accuses you, then you know what to do. Go nuclear. Incinerate that son of a bitch. Tell Paul everything. I’ll support you in the paper, and I’ll be waiting for you when the ashes clear.”
Now the cops are walking our way. Even so, I feel confident. There’s no way Max invited police into the middle of his family soap opera. After trying to rape the mother of his “grandchild”? Jet’s back is to the cruiser, and she’s standing as stiffly as someone awaiting a bullet from a firing squad.
“Are you Marshall McEwan?” asks the older cop.
“That’s right.”
As he comes closer, into our pool of light, I see that his name tag reads farner. The look on his face makes me acutely aware of the gun wedged against my skin.
“Where were you earlier tonight, sir?”
Jet closes her eyes. She’s so pale that I worry she might collapse. In this moment, I realize that I’m going to lie to protect her. “Is there something I can help you with, Officer?”
“I just told you what I need from you. Your whereabouts earlier tonight.”
“I’ve been at the hospital for quite a while. My father had a massive coronary.”
“Before that.”
Jet opens her
eyes, and I see confusion in them.
“I was at my home.”
“Can anybody corroborate that?”
Jet nods almost imperceptibly, by which I gather she means for me to use her as an alibi. But I don’t want to go that way unless there’s no other option. Glancing left, I see Nadine standing at the big lighted window thirty yards away, her face a dark oval against the glass. Kevin Matheson stands just behind her, a cell phone pressed to his ear.
“Officer, do I need to consult an attorney?”
The big cop ignores my question. “I just left the emergency room, where Mr. Max Matheson informed me that you assaulted him with a hammer. He has a skull fracture. That’s aggravated assault, which is a felony. You need to come down to the station with us to straighten this out.”
Jet’s mouth falls open. “Wha—wait,” she stammers. “Where and when did this assault supposedly occur?”
“Let it go,” I tell her, realizing this could end in worse ways than me under arrest. My first priority is finding a way to tell them about my gun without getting killed. “I’m happy to go to the station with you and sort this out.”
“Step out of the way, ma’am,” says Officer Farner.
Jet doesn’t move. “I happen to be Mr. McEwan’s attorney. Where and when did this alleged assault occur?”
“Parnassus Hill, if it’s any business of yours. Now, step back, lady. That’s your last warning.”
“Do you know who I am?”
Farner laughs. “Yeah, I know. Princess Muckety-Muck. And I got a news flash for you. Tonight it don’t make a fuck.”
An alarm goes off deep in my medulla. Did Farner just announce that Jet’s protection has been withdrawn?
“Parnassus Hill is outside the jurisdiction of the city police,” she points out.
The officer heaves a heavy sigh. “We’ll call the sheriff’s department on the way to the station, and they can take custody there.” Farner turns to me, his eyes weary but belligerent. “Marshall McEwan, I’m placing you under arrest for aggravated assault. Put your hands behind your back.”