Natchez Burning (60 page)

To answer these questions, I need the kind of source that Caitlin couldn’t access with all the power of her father’s media empire, that the police couldn’t match with all their informants and all the information petrifying in dusty file rooms across Mississippi and Louisiana. I need information that lives not on hard disks in remote servers, but in the soft tissue of aging human brains.

And one brain in particular.

Putting the Audi in gear, I back out of my parking space and pull into Commerce Street, driving almost in a trance. A few hours ago, Caitlin said something that’s resonated ever since: “
There’s a secret history here
…” That phrase always makes me think of Donna Tartt, the Mississippi-born writer, though that title originated with Procopius and his exposé of the crimes of the emperor Justinian. Every small town has its
historia arcana,
and in Natchez, our secret historian is a woman whom few people have seen in the past ten years. A fabled recluse, she lives with her three servants in one of the finest antebellum mansions in the city. Her name is Pythia Nolan—“Pithy” to her friends—and she’s probably one of the few Natchezians who could read Procopius in the original Attic Greek.

Born into one of Natchez’s oldest families, Pithy was widowed in 1943, when her husband was shot down over the Pacific. She never remarried, but she lived a full and varied life, and as a result knows everything about anyone who matters in Mississippi over the age of forty, and most things about their offspring. I’ve used Pithy as a secret source for three of my novels, and her disguised anecdotes invariably delight or shock my readers, even those on the other side of the world. As per our agreement, her name has never appeared on my acknowledgments pages, a distinction that some locals point to with pride. Pithy operated by some personal code that I suspect made her an instrument of karma. Through what she revealed through me, she dispensed a sort of stealth justice, even if the only people who recognized themselves were those who had committed the sins for which she believed they should pay.

About a year ago, to my dismay, Pithy stopped taking my phone calls. She claimed that I hadn’t sufficiently disguised information she’d given me for my last book. No amount of apology or obeisance has proved sufficient to reopen the gates of her famed mansion to me, but today I must risk rejection once more. For no one is more likely to know what secrets lie behind the public faces of Brody Royal and Tom Cage.

Pithy is probably older than Royal, and while her wealth may not be as liquid, the widowed belle probably owns more land than the Louisiana magnate. She was my father’s first patient when he moved to Natchez (as she never tires of reminding him), and Dad continues to make regular house calls at her mansion, though he’s almost as sick as she is. I say “almost” because Pithy is dying of emphysema. She coped well with the disease for some years, but over the past six months she’s deteriorated rapidly, or so Dad tells me.

Dialing her number from the contacts list on my phone, I wait two rings; then a rich African-American voice, says, “Mrs. Nolan’s residence.”

That voice belongs to Flora Adams, Pithy’s maid since 1956, and the daughter of her mother’s maid.

“Flora, this is Penn Cage. I need to talk to Pithy, in person if you think she’ll see me. It’s very important.”

“Mayor, if you’d called yesterday, you wouldn’t have stood a chance. But if talking to you can speed up Dr. Cage coming back out here, you’ve got a magic key to her sickroom.”

“That’s exactly what I’m coming to see her about. Dad’s in trouble, and I think Pithy may be able to help get him out of it.”

“Come on, then. Doc Cage was s’posed to see Miss Pithy today, but he didn’t show up. She’s about to die for one of his cortisone shots.”

“I’ll be out front in five minutes.”

“I’ll have Darius open the gate.”

Flipping the S4 into Tiptronic mode, I roar down Homochitto Street and blow through the yellow light onto Lower Woodville Road, which blurs into background as I drive. How small and helpless Henry Sexton must have felt all these years, pursuing Brody Royal—a multimillionaire who counts senators, governors, judges, and business magnates among his close friends. A man who could with impunity order the murders of two federal witnesses and go on as though nothing had happened. If any man in this area is untouchable, it’s Brody Royal. Yet the despair I felt in the doorway outside Shad’s office has faded. If Shad told me the truth up in his office—if Dad’s bail won’t likely be revoked until Judge Elder returns next Monday—then I have six days to prove that someone else killed Viola, or at least to raise reasonable doubt. And if anyone can illuminate the hidden chapters of my town’s history, it’s the old woman dying in regal splendor in her cloistered mansion, the keeper of our collective secrets …

Pithy Nolan.

WALT GARRITY’S SILVER
Roadtrek hummed northward on Highway 61 in the diffuse glow of the setting sun. He and Tom had been making mile-long laps on a stretch of Highway 61 while Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield ate supper at a nearby Ryan’s Steakhouse.

Tom had told Walt enough to convince him of the tactical soundness of his plan, but thankfully his old friend had not pressed him for more information. Even with the bond of shared combat—and worse—Tom was not sure he could tell Walt everything. There was no risk of losing their quarry, because earlier Walt had affixed a GPS tracking device beneath Knox’s pickup, which could be monitored on a screen he’d plugged into his cigarette lighter. Walt had done this at the Concordia airport, while Knox visited the service hangar. When they traced Snake to Ryan’s to test the GPS tracker, Tom had recognized Sonny Thornfield getting out of another pickup truck nearby. Apparently, the two men had met for an early supper. Walt intended to attach a tracker to Thornfield’s pickup as well, but he was worried he might be seen from one of the restaurant’s broad windows.

Walt drove with a plastic Coke cup between his legs, while Tom munched on a Wendy’s cheeseburger in the passenger seat. Every now and then Walt’s police scanner chattered—too low for Tom to make out the messages, but Walt apparently missed nothing. The codes meant nothing to Tom anyway, except for a few he remembered from his days staffing the St. Catherine’s ER.

“Food all right?” Walt asked.

“Good,” Tom said, reaching for iced tea to wash down his cheeseburger. “Peggy would kill me if she knew I was eating this.”

Walt gave an obligatory chuckle. Then his voice dropped, and he said, “I know you don’t like lying to your boy.”

“It’s better this way,” Tom said, trying to believe it. “Penn’s got too much weighing on him already. And I don’t want him worrying Quentin to death.”

“Does that old lawyer know how to keep his mouth shut?”

Tom nodded. “When Quentin Avery goes to his grave, a lot of people will rest easier.”

“From what you said, it doesn’t sound like that’ll be a very long trip.”

Tom looked out at what remained of the little town of Washington, which had been the capital of the Mississippi Territory until 1802. “None of us knows the length of that trip, do we?”

Walt slowed and began a careful U-turn near the entrance to Jefferson Military College, where John James Audubon had once taught as a professor. “Some are closer than others. A grunt walking through a minefield is likely to buy it a lot sooner than a Remington Raider.”

“Remington Raider” was what they’d called rear-echelon typists in Korea. Tom tapped the window absently, his mind on other things. He’d missed a house call earlier that day, on one of his favorite patients, an elderly woman dying of emphysema. “Brother, at this age we’re all in the minefield.”

“Speak for yourself. I intend to be keeping Carmelita just as happy ten years from now as I am today.”

Tom watched his breath fog the window glass. He hoped his friend would be that lucky. He’d watched so many friends and patients die over the past ten years that life seemed the most fragile and tenuous state imaginable. Korea had taught him that lesson early, but somehow he’d blinded himself to it in the intervening years. You basically had to, to function in the world. But the steadily lengthening list of the dead—Viola’s only the latest name to be added—had forced him to confront the fact that he had little time left himself. That was tough enough from an existential perspective; but to have his perception of his whole history shattered, and with it his legacy, as had happened in the past two days, had pushed him into uncharted territory. Tom had never felt so alone and isolated.

Jumping bail on a murder charge was probably the most extreme action he had taken in his life. Had he followed the mildly restrictive terms of his bail, he would have been entitled to the presumption of innocence by all men and women of goodwill. But now he was a fugitive, his flight a tacit admission of guilt. Any cop who recognized him could use deadly force to take him into custody, and if he died in the process, no one would ask too many questions. Tom had actually been counting on that. But that didn’t make the reality easier. Walt Garrity was risking his life at this moment. Tom had already let so many people down, Viola and Peggy first among them. Penn, after that. But there were others, and the tragedy was that he might never be able to explain his behavior to them.

“Screw this,” Walt muttered. “I’m going to plant that tracker when we make this next pass. You keep lookout.”

A ripple of fear went through Tom’s chest. “Are you sure?”

“Hell, yeah. Those two are in there digging into a couple of T-bones, not watching the parking lot.”

This time, when they reached the steak house, Walt turned into the big lot and parked two spaces away from Sonny Thornfield’s pickup.

Tom popped a nitro under his tongue, hoping to head off his angina.

“Two minutes,” Walt said, holding the magnetized device in his hand. “I’m gonna wire this baby into his electrical system, just like the other one. We’re not gonna risk having dead batteries when it comes to the action. If you see those assholes coming out of the restaurant, start the engine. I’ll hear it.”

Tom started to warn his friend to be careful, but Walt had already left the van.

PYTHIA NOLAN’S PALATIAL
antebellum mansion stands on eighty-eight forested acres in the middle of Natchez. Called “Corinth,” it’s one of the few great houses still in the hands of the family that built it. As a rule, I don’t like Greek Revival mansions—especially the local variety, bland boxes with columned porticos—but Corinth was built on the scale of an authentic Greek temple, and its craftsmanship is beyond replication in our era.

The estate’s wrought-iron gate stands twelve feet tall and is usually closed, but today I find it open, with Darius Stone, Pithy’s driver, waiting for me in a fifteen-year-old Bentley. After I drive through, Darius closes the gate and follows me up the paved private road to the house. The driveway is probably half a mile long, and it winds through acres of oak and elm trees bearded with Spanish moss. Half a dozen Hollywood production companies have begged to use Corinth in their films, but Pithy has never allowed it.

As the mansion comes into sight, I see Xerxes, Darius’s aptly named son, operating a truck-mounted auger near a line of shrubs. His dark muscles ripple in the fading light, but because of the roar of the tool’s motor, he doesn’t look up until I’m almost past him. Recognizing me, he waves, then goes back to work.

Flora Adams awaits me at the front door. One of the few maids in town who still wear a uniform, Flora has the imperious manner of an exiled queen. She’s always driven a Lincoln Town Car—one that belongs to her, not her employer—and her three sons all graduated from college, courtesy of Pithy Nolan. Flora also owns a fine two-story house in town, which Pithy gave her twenty years ago. After Pithy fell ill, Flora chose to live in Corinth’s renovated slave quarters for convenience’s sake.

“She said bring you right up,” Flora says, holding open the door. “She’s had a rough couple of days. She misses Dr. Cage something terrible. I believe she misses you, too, though she’d never admit it.”

As Flora leads me to the grand staircase, I recall a story my mother told me about Pithy Nolan. Pithy achieved fame—or infamy, depending on one’s prejudices—in the late 1960s, during a historic Garden Club meeting. The issue in question was whether to terminate the practice of serving refreshments during the annual Spring Pilgrimage tours, since new federal laws would allow “people of color” to actually tour the great southern mansions—homes they had previously been allowed in only as slaves or paid servants. Carried to its logical conclusion, this practice might result in southern ladies of good family actually waiting upon “Negroes” at table. (“Oh, the horror!”) This discussion, prickly at first, quickly became heated, with the majority clamoring to do away with refreshments altogether. After twenty minutes of squabbling, Pythia Nolan stood up and cleared her throat.

As a “homeowner,” she enjoyed special status in the Garden Club. But unlike many homeowners who were “house poor,” Pithy Nolan still had wads of cash. And not only did she own one of the city’s crown jewels, but she also had an impeccably blue bloodline dating back to the Revolutionary War. Pithy was a past president of the Daughters of the American Revolution, a summa cum laude graduate of Bryn Mawr, and the widow of a war hero. Furthermore, she had the brass of any five ladies present. So when Pithy Nolan cleared her throat, the room fell silent.

She cast her icy gaze about the room and said, “Heaven spare us from all this
jabbering
. There’s not one woman here who hasn’t served her own maid supper a hundred times, waited on her hand and foot, and eaten from the same set of utensils. The refreshment service brings much-needed money to this club. So put an end to all this
hysteria
and move on to something that actually matters. I’m starving.”

The tinkle of a china cup boomed like a thunderclap in the silence that followed Pithy’s radical statement of the obvious. But sixty seconds later, the assembled ladies voted in a landslide to continue the refreshment service, regardless of who might show up. On the outcome of such quotidian skirmishes hinges the march of Progress. Pithy Nolan did more for racial equality that day than a hundred CORE workers marching the streets of Natchez could have managed in a month.