Natchez Burning (85 page)

“Here she is!” Walt said with relief. “Wait—oh, no.”

Tom’s heart thumped at the fear in Walt’s voice. “What is it?”

“Something happened a little while ago. Hang on.”

“Tell me, Walt.”

Walt began typing with desperate intensity. “Somebody slipped a manila folder under our door. Photographs of a family that had been murdered. Their heads had been cut off. Goddamn it. That’s Mexican cartel bullshit.”

“This happened because of us? You think the Double Eagles got someone to Navasota that fast?”

“Distance doesn’t mean anything these days. Forrest Knox probably has contacts all over the South. Convicts, cops, Border Patrol guys.”

Tom rose painfully into a sitting position, his shoulder screaming. “Take Drew’s pickup and go to her, Walt. Right now. Didn’t he say the keys are in the bathroom? Top of the medicine cabinet.”

Walt stopped typing and turned to him. “She’s too far away to help that way. Seven hours, at least. They could take her and do whatever they want before I even got to Monroe. Besides, the whole reason they did this was to separate me from you.”

“Well, they used the right tactic. There’s no way you’re sticking with me while Carmelita’s in danger. I won’t let you. I’ll be fine on my own, and I’ve got Melba to tend my wound.”

Walt’s furrowed face was set with anger. “How long do you think the two of you could last here? They’d find you sooner or later. The police or Knox’s men, don’t matter which.”

“What else can you do but go to her?”

Walt worked his mouth around as though he were chewing tobacco. “When you Rangered as long as I did, you get pretty tight with the boys you work with. I think that’s something Mr. Knox ain’t countin’ on.”

“Do you know anybody close enough to get to Carmelita fast?”

After one brief nod, Walt went back to typing. “I’ve got a Ranger buddy who lives four miles outside of town. Still fish with him now and then. Got two more within fifty miles. Carmelita already called 911 and reported a prowler. And she’s got her own gun in the house, of course. Plus my collection.”

“Are all these friends retired Rangers?”

“Yep. And they’ve forgotten more about gunplay than most men will ever know.”

Tom tried to gauge whether Walt was as optimistic as he sounded, or whether he was just trying to keep his wounded friend calm. Tom couldn’t help but recall the motto Walt had always quoted with mild sarcasm.

“One riot, one Ranger?” he said.

Walt’s lips barely cracked in acknowledgment. “I’ve told you that’s practically an inside joke. But three Rangers can sling a lot of lead, and they generally hit what they aim at.” He stopped typing and looked over at Tom. “How does that shoulder feel now?”

Tom blinked in surprise. “I don’t even feel it.”

A fierce grin split Walt’s leathery cheeks. “Ain’t that always the way?”

SONNY THORNFIELD HAD
never been as afraid as when he walked around the side of Snake Knox’s house after returning from the hospital. He hadn’t been sure whether to lie or to tell the truth, but in the end he decided his best chance of survival was to come clean with his old friend. He’d known Snake for too long to successfully deceive him, and the prospect of lying to Forrest Knox made his bowels squirm. Things seemed to have gone all right, so far. Snake had used some emergency communication system to pass Sonny’s story up the chain of command, and the fact that he was still alive was encouraging. But until he knew for sure how Forrest had reacted to the news, Sonny wouldn’t take an easy breath. That’s what he and Snake were waiting for now.

Snake sat in a green metal lawn chair, chewing Red Man and watching a ring-tailed raccoon stare back at him from a rectangular wire cage. The cage was a live trap, meant to capture varmints so that they could be released into the wild or exterminated at close range. You baited the trap with fish heads, then waited for the greedy coon to walk in and trip the screen, jailing himself. The coon in Snake’s trap was a big female, maybe twenty pounds. Sonny could see her quivering with fear and rage. The slightest provocation would send her into a frenzy. Snake picked up an old golf club and tapped the top of the trap with it. The coon flew at the club, claws and teeth bared, screaming and hissing like a demon.

“You little bitch,” Snake said, chuckling. “I was gonna pop you with a .22 short and let my neighbor’s feist come get you. But you’ve got a date with destiny. We’re going to put on a little show tonight, and you’re the star.”

Sonny didn’t know what Snake was talking about, but he didn’t feel confident enough to ask.

“How’s your chest feeling?” Snake asked.

“It aches something fierce,” Sonny said truthfully, remembering the crazy Texas Ranger who’d threatened him with the blowtorch in the back of the RV.

Snake leaned his rifle against the lawn chair and laughed. “You salty son of a bitch. Walking right out of the hospital!”

Sonny forced himself to laugh despite the pain. “It sounds like something’s on for tonight, huh?”

Snake grinned. “Yeah. A nice little op. Billy’s left for Toledo Bend already.”

A vague answer, at best, but Sonny didn’t ask for clarification. Billy Knox owned a luxurious home on Toledo Bend, the vast man-made reservoir that lay on the Louisiana-Texas border. He called it his “fishing camp,” but it was nicer than the homes in the most affluent subdivisions of Natchez.

Snake reached into an Igloo and handed Sonny an ice-cold Schaefer. “Yeah, him and Joelle Brennan pulled out before six this morning.” Joelle was Billy’s latest squeeze; she ran a local health club and was built like a brick shithouse. “You and me can leave as soon as you’re feeling steady.”

“Are we flying over?”

Snake shook his head. “Drivin’. Flying back, though. Alibi city.”

Sonny couldn’t begin to fathom this strange arrangement. He looked at the beer, then handed the can back to Snake. “I’d better pass after all the drugs they give me.”

Snake downed the Schaefer in five gulps.

“You gonna fly drunk?” Sonny asked.

“Shit. I’m twice the pilot drunk that most men are sober.”

Sonny was only making conversation to divert his friend; Snake had walked away from a half-dozen crashes that would have killed less hardy men.

“What gun is that?” Sonny asked, pointing to the rifle leaning against the chair. “That ain’t your regular .22, is it?”

Snake gave Sonny an odd leer, then picked up the rifle and ran his fingers down its long barrel and checkered stock. “Something special. For tonight.” He held the rifle out to Sonny. “Check it out.”

Sonny groaned as he reached for the gun. One of the bruises on his chest was shaped like the heel of a Red Wing boot.

“Never mind,” Snake said, noticing his grimace.

“You gonna shoot that damn coon or just torment it some more?”

Snake laughed and looked down at the cage. “I was, but this little lady has a job to do tonight.” He touched the trap with the rifle barrel, and the coon went batshit. A blood-chilling scream came from the needle-toothed mouth and pointed snout.

A shiver of foreboding went down Sonny’s spine. “Granny always said, if a coon was big as a bear, it’d be the baddest thing on God’s earth.”

“She was right!” Snake kicked the cage, then whooped when the coon went for his boot. “
Look
at that bitch go. She’d rip my throat out if she could!”

“Run right up your leg,” Sonny agreed.

Snake stopped smiling. “Why do you think Dr. Cage and that Ranger didn’t kill you last night? That was a hell of a risk, dropping you off at the hospital like that.”

A swarm of yellow jackets rose up in Sonny’s chest. “The Ranger wanted to. It was Dr. Cage who saved me. He said he couldn’t kill a man in cold blood.”

Snake shook his head in wonder. “I wish we
could
fly over to Toledo Bend. You oughta rack out in the backseat of the truck while I drive.”

Not a chance,
Sonny thought, despite his exhaustion. If Forrest decided that last night’s events made him a liability, he would never reach Toledo Bend alive. It was even possible that this decision had already been made. Billy Knox was a businessman; sentiment didn’t figure into things. And Forrest was like an admiral on a battleship, moving plastic figures around on maps with a stick. To him every soldier under his command was expendable.

Sonny turned at what he thought was the sound of footsteps, and a tall, rangy man in black pants and a high-collared shirt walked around the corner of the house. Sonny was so jumpy that he leaped to his feet, but Snake raised his rifle in greeting. The newcomer was Randall Regan, Brody Royal’s right-hand man.

“What are you doing here?” Snake asked.

“Delivering a message,” Regan rasped, like a man with laryngitis. “Last night Forrest said no phones, period. And I think ours are being tapped.”

“What’s wrong with your voice?” Snake asked. “You swallow a wasp or something?”

Regan scowled, then unbuttoned his collar, revealing a nasty reddish-purple bruise that covered his throat.

“What the hell did that?” Snake asked.

“Penn Cage. He braced me in a public restaurant about the Royal Insurance bitches you dumped out in the swamp. He knew every detail. I didn’t say a word. But later, he sucker-punched me in the bathroom.”

This answer worried Sonny, but Snake started laughing so hard that Regan buttoned his collar again, all the while looking like he wanted to strangle Snake Knox.

Once Snake stopped laughing, he said, “What’s your message?”

Regan’s reply sounded like the wheeze of a diphtheria patient. “Brody doesn’t want you to wait until tonight. He wants it done right now. Or as soon as it can be done. He wants you to get word to Forrest.”

“Tell Brody not to worry. Forrest knows what has to be done.”

Regan pointed at the cage on the ground. “What the hell are you doing with that thing?”

“You’ll find out.” Snake chuckled and kicked the trap again. The raccoon went crazy, biting the steel wire in a futile effort to reach her tormentor.

I know how you feel,
Sonny thought, touching his chest where the Texas Ranger’s boot had driven into his sternum.
Jesus God.

IN ALL HER
life, Caitlin had never felt the kind of journalistic responsibility she did today, nor such frustration. Last night she’d been stunned by the horrific details contained in the single Moleskine notebook she’d found near the burned hulk of the
Concordia Beacon
. But today Henry Sexton had given her the fruits of decades of painstaking investigation into one of the darkest chapters in American history. Whatever it cost in time and money, she meant to vindicate the full measure of Henry’s faith. Yet Penn had made that impossible, by insisting that her story must run in tomorrow’s newspaper, as Henry had originally intended. Penn’s intentions were good—he meant for the story to render physical violence against Caitlin and his family pointless—but the result, she was sure, could only be a journalistic embarrassment.

The sheer volume of Henry’s files astounded her. The multiple murder cases were unimaginably complex; the historical context alone would consume all the column inches usually devoted to news stories. Pursuing Penn’s plan would be like trying to tackle the Watergate story in a single night. She and her staff might be able to produce a sketch of the Double Eagle group’s crimes over the years, but they couldn’t possibly explore the larger implications, or the FBI’s failure to achieve justice for the victims and their families. Henry Sexton’s solitary struggle on behalf of the victims deserved a book in itself. And yet, Caitlin reminded herself, Henry
had
planned to publish one comprehensive story tomorrow, in the interest of his loved ones’ safety. Henry’s publisher had verified this plan by telephone.

If only Henry’s first draft hadn’t been destroyed with his computer,
she thought.

Never one to shrink from a challenge, Caitlin had brought the full resources of her staff to bear on the problem. They’d begun with brute-force analysis. For the past two hours, five
Examiner
employees had been scanning every scrap of Henry’s files into their computer system using high-speed imaging machines. Their goal was to create a searchable database of Henry’s archive. From this epic record they would distill the macro story into discrete parts that could be handled by specific reporters. Caitlin would act as editor in chief, and write a master story that functioned as a hub for the others. Some stories would only be published in the
Examiner
’s online edition, and for the first time, stories in the actual paper would carry footnotes directing readers to the website for further detail. Caitlin had another groundbreaking idea, but executing it would require the permission of her father, and he had yet to call her back with an answer.

She took a sip of green tea and went back to her computer display. In studying Henry’s files so far, she’d learned three things: Sexton was a gifted investigator, a solid writer, but a twentieth-century organizer. To address the organizational challenge, a Columbia-educated reporter named Donald Pinter had begun creating data maps and spreadsheets containing breakdowns of every major and minor personality related to the 1960s-era murders. Victims were highlighted in blue, Double Eagles and Klansmen in red, and police and FBI informants in orange, which denoted uncertain allegiance. Any local police officer of that era had to be considered potentially corrupt or ideologically loyal to the Ku Klux Klan, while FBI agents could have been motivated more by fear of or loyalty to J. Edgar Hoover than by a sense of justice.

Pinter was also building a master timeline that began with the birth of Albert Norris in 1908 and ran to the present day. Contained within that master line were markers that kicked viewers to “sub-lines” with more detail. The most important of these gave a month-by-month chronology from January 1963 to December 1968. The watershed assassinations bookended this timeline in flaming red—Medgar Evers and John Kennedy at the beginning, Reverend King and Bobby Kennedy at the end—while local race murders were highlighted in dark blue. The simple beatings and “rabbit hunts,” as the Klan had called nonlethal attacks, were marked in yellow and dotted the line like a chain of daisies. Pinter had created a digital masterpiece of organization, yet still Caitlin felt overwhelmed by the data. Her personal story notes had already run to fifteen pages, and even her
outline
was already three pages long. In truth, she hadn’t been planning a news story, but a comprehensive investigation that would take weeks to accomplish, at the least.