Natchez Burning (Penn Cage)

by Greg Iles

“No.”

  “Well, I have. And that idea you’ve got of what mixed-race people look like belongs on the trash pile with phrenology and all the other hokum from that era. Did you know you can get a black mouse from two white ones? Luck of the draw, in genetic terms. I’ve seen the face of a white man when the high-yellow woman he married popped out a black baby. I’m talking ’bout a woman who’d been passing for white. There’s no expression like it, my man. No, indeed. Sur-priiise.”

  I’m not sure how to respond to this. I know a lot of black people, and in my mind those on the lighter end of the spectrum—those with “yellow” or “bright” skin tones—represent the mixed-race types that my ancestors called mulattos, quadroons, or octoroons, those classifications based on the percentage of African blood. We all develop preconceptions about such matters based on folk wisdom rather than science, and until I learn more, there’s no point in debating the issue.

  Lincoln leans closer to me. “The man you called Daddy your whole life is my daddy, too. Only I never saw him in person till yesterday. That’s no mystery, either. What white man ever wanted the world to know he had a nigger baby? Huh? Because that’s what it comes down to, brother. Simple as that.”

  “Are you suggesting that my father has known all this time that he had a son by Viola, and did nothing to help support her?”

  Lincoln shakes his head almost sadly. “I’m not saying he did nothing. A rich man can always spread a little money around to ease his conscience. But as far as acknowledging my existence, he did nothing. He wanted Mama to stay up in Chicago, same as the Klan did. They wanted it for different reasons, I guess. Though when you strip away all the bullshit, the reasons weren’t so different after all.”

  Turner is filled with the accreted anger of thirty-seven years. And by the circular logic of every bastard son in history, he’s transformed supposition into “facts” to prove he’s the son of a great man. Arguing this point with him would be like arguing with a convert about religion. I should get out of here as quickly and quietly as possible.

  While I try to think of a graceful excuse to leave, he takes a bite of pulled pork and speaks as he chews. “Now that you understand the situation, the idea of murder doesn’t seem so far-fetched, does it?”

  “That’s ridiculous. Killing Viola wouldn’t keep your existence secret, if that’s what you’re implying. Dad would have to kill everyone else who knew, as well.”

  “Almost nobody did.” Lincoln finishes chewing, then swallows and watches me for a few seconds, seeming to enjoy my discomfiture. “But by the other night, he knew that I knew.”

  “So, killing your mother wouldn’t keep the alleged secret.”

  “It would, if he killed me, too.”

  I draw back from him in shock. “You’re not seriously suggesting . . .?”

  Lincoln shrugs. “When was the last time you talked to him?”

  I try to keep my face immobile.

  “Uh-huh. What do you think I’m doing out in this dump? I can afford to eat at the Castle if I want to. But I can’t show my face in Natchez until Tom Cage is in jail. Even then, I can’t be sure I’m safe. He’s got plenty of redneck patients who’d be happy to do him a favor by making me disappear.”

  I shove my chair back from the table. “You’re crazy. What do you really hope to get out of this?”

  “Justice. Plain and simple.”

  I have a practiced eye at reading deception, and there’s something more than sincerity in Lincoln Turner’s eyes. He radiates the cool certainty of a con artist rather than the sincerity of a wronged child. For an instant I feel I’m on the verge of a revelation, but the insight fades. Instead of trying to recapture it, I voice a question that’s been nagging me since Shad called Monday morning with the news of Viola’s death.

  “Why were you thirty minutes north of Natchez on the morning your mother died? Why haven’t you been here for the past month, while she was dying? You’re about to be disbarred in Illinois. And you just told me you have enough money to stay at a nice hotel. Why weren’t you down here easing her last weeks on earth? Why were you sitting up in Chicago while your mother suffered at death’s door?”

  He has no ready answer for this, and the anger in his eyes deepens appreciably.

  “I think I know why you want to punish my father,” I say softly. “Viola knew she couldn’t rely on you for the hard duties of being a son. That’s why she came back here to die. My father had the guts and the patience and the love to sit with her while she wasted away, but you couldn’t. And you want him to pay for that. You want to blame somebody for your own shortcomings, and your mother’s lack of faith in you.”

  Lincoln’s dark face darkens still more with blood. Then he speaks with unsettling conviction. “When a child finds out his parents have been lying to him for his whole life—not about some little thing, but about who he is, and who they are—it doesn’t exactly predispose him toward feelings of charity. Do you feel me, bro?” Lincoln tilts his head toward mine. “Yeah, you do. The next time you look dear old Daddy in the eye, you’re gonna feel like puking. ’Cause there’s nothing worse than a self-serving lie to a child.”

  “Is that what you believe? That your mother lied to you out of self-interest?”

  “No. Her motive was worse than that. She didn’t lie to protect herself. That would have made sense, at least. No, she lied to protect him.” Unalloyed rage enters Lincoln’s voice. “My mother thought more of Tom Cage’s happiness than she did her own. Or mine. Isn’t that pathetic? She and I paid the price for your family’s shiny little life.”

  I feel my hands shaking as my heart rebels against this twisted view of my personal history, but Lincoln goes on relentlessly.

  “You ever read that story, ‘The Secret Sharer’? Well, I’m your dark twin, Mayor. The shadow you never knew you had, leading you to your destiny. We’re like two parallel lines that finally converge, against all odds. We were conceived in the same town, from the same pair of balls, the same pool of protoplasm, the same strands of DNA. But we were born and lived our lives seven hundred miles apart.”

  My face has grown hot with blood. “If that’s true . . . will you agree to take a DNA test?”

  Lincoln smiles. “Any time, so long as it’s not in Natchez, Mississippi.You won’t hear Tom Cage make that promise.”

  Nothing could have stunned me more than this offer to subject his claim to scientific testing. Clearly, Lincoln believes what he’s saying.

  He drains his beer glass, and the waitress moves toward the table, but I wave her away.

  “She’s out of pain now,” Lincoln says. “There’s nothing left to worry me now but earthly justice. Before long, Tom Cage is gonna be standing in the dock in handcuffs, just like any old nigger brought there by the sheriff. He’ll stand there while all his lies are stripped away and his soul is laid bare before the town he’s been worshipped in so long. It’s taken a lot of years, but the truth he tried so long to bury has finally found its way up to the light.”

  The specter Lincoln has conjured sends a shiver down to my bones. To see Dad publicly shamed as a liar might be worse than hearing he’s been shot by a cop somewhere. I know he would rather die than be seen to have betrayed the code he tried to live by all his life.

  “What you thinking?” Lincoln asks, a strange gleam in his eyes. “You thinking life would be a lot simpler if my truck ran off the road halfway back to town?”

  “No.”

  He laughs softly. “You sure, Mayor? Aren’t I just like some girl you fucked and hoped never to see again, come back to tell you I’m pregnant? You want me to disappear. That hope is smoldering deep in that overheated brain of yours, even if you don’t know it yet. And the fact that it’s there ought to prove something to you.”

  I lay my hands on the table and push my chair back. “I think we’re done here, Mr. Turner.”

  “Sure. Go home to your little girl and pull the covers over your head. You won’t forget one word of what I’ve said. This is
exactly what you hunted me down to hear.”

  I reach for my wallet, but Lincoln waves his hand to stop me. “My treat, brother.”

  This time when he laughs, it comes from deep within his chest, like the laugh of the voodoo master in Live and Let Die.

  “What the hell’s goin’ on here?” drawls a redneck voice. “Family reunion?”

  Somehow Sheriff Billy Byrd has materialized beside our table, his potbelly straining against his starred brown shirt, and his red-tinged cheeks shadowed by the brim of his Stetson hat. His high-pitched cackle merges with and then drowns out the resonant laugh of Lincoln Turner, but it’s the pistol jutting from his gun belt that holds my attention.

  Lincoln is staring at the sheriff, but I can’t tell whether he’s been expecting Byrd or not.

  “Mayor Cage,” Billy says, “we don’t like people threatening witnesses in this county. And this looks to me like harassment of a witness. This man here’s gonna help put your father in jail for murder, which means you need to steer clear of him till the trial.”

  “I haven’t threatened anybody. This man was parked outside my house an hour ago, and when I pulled up, he took off like he was leaving the scene of a crime.”

  Byrd grunts skeptically, then looks down at Lincoln. “That right, Mr. Turner?”

  “The mayor’s mistaken, Sheriff. I was just sitting here having an early supper. He walked in, sat down, and started asking me where his father was. To tell the truth, I think he’s confused.”

  “I imagine he is,” Billy says. “Now that his daddy’s jumped bail. I call that damned peculiar behavior for a model citizen. Hell, the Louisiana State Police say Dr. Cage killed a trooper over there. I don’t figure he’s got long before somebody puts a bullet in him.”

  Lincoln’s mouth drops open. This is clearly new information to him.

  “Yeah,” Billy goes on, “at this rate, your mama’s case might not even get to trial. Dr. Cage is liable to be bagged and tagged by sundown. But that’s no reason to let the mayor abuse his position.”

  Sheriff Byrd looks toward the end of the bar, where my waitress stands whispering to the big bartender. “Hey, hon! Fix me a coupla them cat-head biscuits to go. Put some gravy in there with ’em.”

  If Lincoln or the club management didn’t summon Sheriff Byrd here, then Billy himself—or one of his minions—was already nearby when I arrived, keeping an eye on Lincoln. The sheriff might have several reasons for doing that, but at this moment, in my mind, one overrides the rest.

  “I just realized what you’re doing here, Billy. You think Dad might try to contact Lincoln, or even hurt him. Lincoln is nothing but a goat tied to a tree. You want to put a bullet in my father before some Louisiana state trooper beats you to it. And all because Dad knows what a rotten son of a bitch you really are.”

  Billy’s hand drops to the pistol at his side.

  “You’re quick to reach for that gun, aren’t you? That temper’s going to get you in trouble someday. Soon, maybe.”

  “Aren’t you late for a meeting?” Byrd asks, his eyes burning. “That Joint Governance Committee you started gets going in ten minutes, and you’re twenty miles from the courthouse.”

  He’s right, I realize, looking at my watch. “I do have a meeting,” I tell Lincoln, getting to my feet.

  Byrd looks down at Turner. “Did you know the mayor wants to rebuild the old slave market for tourists to gawk at? ‘Cultural tourism,’ he calls it. What you think about that? As an Afro-American? Would you pay money to come look at the block they sold your ancestors on?”

  Lincoln wipes his mouth with a napkin and gets up from the table. He towers six inches above Billy Byrd, and he doesn’t make any effort to give the sheriff the space he’s accustomed to.

  “You in the wrong jook, Sheriff,” he says. “We settle our own business up in here. Ain’t no place for the law.”

  Byrd seems stunned by “his” witness’s behavior. Leaving his hand on his pistol grip, he takes a step back and says, “I’m the high sheriff of this county, boy. I go any damn place I please.”

  “Then go,” Lincoln says. “Before somebody decides to disabuse you of your notions.”

  Sheriff Byrd glances over his shoulder. The big bartender stares back at him, both hands invisible behind the bar. The waitress and cook are watching from the kitchen curtain, and there’s a cleaver in the cook’s hand.

  “All right, now!” Billy says loudly, backing away from our table. “Nobody do nothin’ stupid!”

  “That sounds like good advice,” Lincoln says.

  Billy finally looks to me for help—the only other white man in the room. But I simply turn up my palms.

  “Where’s my damn biscuits?” he calls, trying to assert the old hierarchy.

  The bandanna-clad waitress slides between two tables with a small brown sack in her hand. As Billy reaches out with his free hand, she drops the sack on the floor at his feet.

  “Sorry ’bout that,” she says, making no effort to pick it up.

  “You people need a little reeducation,” Billy mutters. “Oh, yeah.”

  The sheriff looks like he’s going to say something else, but instead he shakes his head and marches out to the parking lot, leaving his biscuits on the floor.

  “I thought you were working with him,” I say to Lincoln.

  “I’m not working with anybody, Mayor. I’m here for justice. I’ll use a cracker like Byrd if I have no choice, but I don’t have to like it.”

  “What about Shad Johnson?”

  Lincoln shrugs. “Same for that Oreo. But he’s the man in the DA’s office.”

  “What were you doing outside my house this afternoon?”

  “Looking at the life I might have lived, if things had been different.” He gazes down into my eyes with emotion that I can’t begin to read. “Think about what I’ve told you today. Think about what the Bible says: ‘I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the father on the sons unto the third and fourth generation.’ ”

  As he quotes the Bible, I sense a malevolent urge within him, something darker and more primitive than anything he’s voiced today.

  “Lincoln . . . you wish history was something less terrible than it was for your mother. I wish the same thing. But you shouldn’t try to punish my father for pain inflicted by someone else. My father loved your mother. He proved that in the last month of her life. Why can’t you leave it at that?”

  Lincoln lays a twenty-dollar bill on the table and prepares to go.

  “You talk about sin like you’ve never committed any yourself,” I observe.

  His eyes blaze with sudden passion. “Whatever evil I’ve done goes on Tom Cage’s account. You hear me? I am his sin, alive in the world.”

  Lincoln’s ominously resonant voice makes my skin prickle. “If that’s true, then what am I?”

  He looks back at me for several silent seconds. “You’re what he could have been.”

  Lincoln turns toward the door and walks out without looking back.

  Before I follow, the bartender calls: “Don’t come back here no more, Mayor. I don’t want that sheriff up in here again.”

  I acknowledge his order with a wave, then walk out of the juke in the footsteps of a man who just might be my brother.

  CHAPTER 73

  A MILE DOWN the road from CC’s Rhythm Club, something breaks in my mind, like a steel restraining pin giving way inside some complex machine. For the past two and a half days, my father’s behavior has stumped me. Nothing about it has made sense from the moment Shad Johnson called to tell me that Viola was dead and Lincoln wanted my father charged with murder.

  But if I simply accept Lincoln Turner’s assertion to be true—that my father is also his father—then logic leads me to a sequence of deductions that can’t be refuted. One: If Lincoln is my father’s son, then he’s family in my father’s eyes. Two: If Lincoln is family, then he deserves my father’s protection as much as I or my sister would. My heart clenches as th
e next question forms in my mind: In what circumstance would my father risk his life to protect Lincoln Turner?

  Lincoln’s life must be at risk.

  How could Lincoln’s life be at risk?

  He’s either been threatened, or he’s guilty of a serious crime.

  Who might have threatened him?

  No way to know.

  Of what crime could Lincoln be guilty?

  “Killing his mother,” I say aloud. Killing his mother . . .

  My heart flexes like a straining biceps, but still my mind races down the interrogatory chain. “How could Lincoln kill his mother if he was thirty miles outside Natchez?”

  He couldn’t.

  The next question flares in my mind like a bottle rocket in a black sky: What if Lincoln was in Natchez when Viola died?

  In some process infinitely faster than conscious thought, a new relationship between the principals in this deadly drama forms in my mind. If Lincoln was in Natchez when Viola died, then he would surely have agreed to help her end her life—especially if my father had already refused. If my mother were dying of a terminal illness, wracked with pain and with no hope of recovery, I’d do whatever she asked without question. Would the man I just spoke to in CC’s Rhythm Club do less? No. But if Lincoln euthanized his mother in the wee hours of Monday morning . . . then my father did not.

  Unless they did it together, whispers a voice in my head.

  “No,” I say softly, my mind racing. “No way.”

  Yet once I accept the possibility that both Lincoln and Dad could have been in that house at the same time—or even within minutes of each other—a dozen new scenarios become possible.

  Lincoln could have botched the morphine injection, causing Dad to try desperately to revive Viola. (Only Dad wouldn’t have given an adrenaline overdose under those circumstances.) Lincoln could have botched the morphine injection, panicked, then tried to revive Viola himself. A son overcome by guilt might easily do that. If something like that did happen—after Dad had left the house with Viola alive—then Dad may have deduced that Lincoln probably killed his mother. He might even know that for a fact. Cora Revels might have told him. Or he might have returned to the scene and found Lincoln grieving over Viola’s body. I saw dozens of crazier death scenes as a prosecutor.