Natchez Burning (98 page)

Might not that same tactic serve him now?

The next time Irma McKay returned to check his vitals, Henry gave her the saddest smile he could muster.

“How are you holding up, Henry?” she asked. “I’m so sorry about Sherry. I should never have told you. That wasn’t my place.”

“Yes, it was. Better to hear it from an old friend than from some grouchy government agent. It’s all right, Irma. I won’t tell anybody that you told me.”

“Really?” she said hopefully, making notations on his chart.

“Not if you’ll you do me one little favor.”

She looked up quickly, anxiety in her eyes. “I can’t get you no cigarettes, Henry.”

He laughed at the absurdity of her misjudgment.

“No, that’s not it. The FBI guys never brought me my cell phone. Maybe it’s evidence now or something. But I really need to talk to my mama. She’s got to be frantic by now.”

“I don’t know, Henry. The FBI doesn’t want anybody knowing anything about your status.”

“I know. But you know how this town is. The news is bound to be all over the place by now. Mama could hear it any minute. She might even hear I’m dead.” He shook his head, then regretted it as his skull pounded in response. “Sherry and Mama weren’t best friends or anything, but when word gets out … Lord, I hate to think what Mama might do.”

Irma patted his upper arm. “I know, Henry. You’re right.” The nurse reached into her scrubs pocket. “If you promise not to tell, you can use my phone. Will that help?”

“You’re a blessing, Irma.” He gratefully accepted the phone. “Um … is there any way you could give me a little privacy? I don’t want to—get emotional in front of you.”

“Oh, Henry. We see men cry all the time in this place.”

He closed his eyes and gently shook his head.

“All right. I’ll go in the boss’s private bathroom while you call.”

Henry thanked her, then waited for Irma to fulfill her promise. As soon as she pulled the bathroom door shut, he looked down at the phone and carefully dialed his mother’s number.

“COON’S RIGHT THERE,”
says an FBI agent, pointing to a dark hump in the grass beneath the shattered window of Henry’s hospital room.

John Kaiser takes a small but powerful flashlight from his pocket and shines its beam on the gray animal, which appears to have been shot more than once. Then he pushes through the bushes beneath the window. I look right, then left, surprised to see how many volunteer trees and shrubs have obscured the windows that line the hospital wall.

“Hold my light, Penn?” Kaiser says, handing me the black metal tube. “Shine it on this tree trunk.”

I do.

With a penknife, Kaiser digs into a small hole in the bark of a sapling by Henry’s window.

“You got another slug in there?” asks Sheriff Dennis.

“Yep.” Kaiser turns and nudges me out of the bushes. When he steps into the open, his hand held in front of him, I shine the light beam into it. Lying in his palm is a small, deformed slug.

“Twenty-two Magnum?” Sheriff Dennis asks.

“Just like the ones inside.”

A deputy behind me whistles. “I’ll be damned.”

“Is that a sniper rifle?” Caitlin asks.

Kaiser shakes his head. “It’s a varmint gun, basically. People like them because they’re not as loud as a .308, but they have more killing power than a .22 long rifle. You can kill a coyote at seventy yards with a head shot.”

“You can also shoot coons and armadillos without waking up the neighbors,” Sheriff Dennis observes.

Everybody falls silent. Speculation about the bullet’s caliber temporarily blinded everyone to what is right before us. We have a dead raccoon and a dead woman within a few yards of each other.

“You see any other holes in that tree?” Sheriff Dennis asks Kaiser. “Maybe the wall?”

I shine the light at the window, and Kaiser points to the right of it. “Looks like one embedded in the wall there.”

“Shit,” says Dennis. “You think some kid could have been popping off rounds at that coon and accidentally shot through the window?”

“No way in hell,” says Kaiser.

Walker doesn’t look so sure. “Every kid in this parish owns a .22. They get BB guns for Christmas when they’re four years old. If you stand outside around here on any given night, you’re gonna hear shots. What if some kid was chasin’ that coon and run him up that tree you dug the slug out of? That’s just what a coon does. One miss would put a bullet right through Henry’s window.”

“Why would a kid fire with a lighted window right there?” Kaiser asks. “And why multiple shots? No. You’re reaching, Sheriff.”

“
Buck fever,
” says a new voice from behind us—a voice that sounds almost as amused as it does certain. “There’s prob’ly a ten-year-old kid crappin’ his pants somewhere right now, wondering if he shot a hole in somebody’s bedpan.”

As Kaiser turns to argue, the deputies part for the newcomer. I shine Kaiser’s flashlight on a man with a hard, angular, copper-hued face, gold bars on his shoulders, and a gold badge in the shape of the Pelican State gleaming on the breast of his blue uniform shirt.

“Who are you?” asks Kaiser.

“Captain Alphonse Ozan, state police. Who are you?”

Kaiser hesitates before answering, his perceptive eyes taking in the new man. “Special Agent John Kaiser, FBI.”

Captain Ozan grins as though at a private joke. “Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of you.” He points at me. “Get that light out of my eyes.”

I lower the light but leave it high enough to keep his face illuminated.

“What are you doing here?” Kaiser asks.

“I was in the area working a drug case, and my CO asked me to stop by and make sure this murder was being handled properly.”

“It is,” Sheriff Dennis says in a defensive tone.

“Who’s your CO?” asks Kaiser.

“Lieutenant Colonel Forrest Knox, Criminal Investigations Bureau.”

A brittle silence descends on the group.

“Ain’t that some shit,” Sheriff Dennis says under his breath.

“What was that?” Ozan asks.

“We were talking about the bullets,” says Walker, looking back at the building. “And this coon. Mighty queer situation, I’ve got to say.”

Captain Ozan steps forward and prods the dead raccoon with his boot. “We see this kind of tragedy all the time in rural areas. You know what they say about sport shooting these days? Every bullet you fire comes with a lawyer attached.”

“It’s a tragedy, all right,” Kaiser remarks. “But I can think of a dozen men who’ll be celebrating tonight.”

“Who you talking about?” Captain Ozan asks.

“The Double Eagle group.” Kaiser’s gaze is like a laser locked on Ozan’s face. “And the Knox family.”

Ozan returns the stare without a word, but he radiates the same energy as a wild animal in captivity—seemingly docile, but capable of lashing out with lethal speed and effect at any moment.

“That raccoon is the killer’s idea of a joke,” Kaiser says. “The Double Eagles are laughing their asses off right now.”

A strange smile stretches Ozan’s lips. “How do you figure that?”

Kaiser smiles back, but the expression contains no goodwill. “When the FBI came to Natchez in the mid-1960s, the Klan wrangled up a mess of rattlesnakes and snuck them into the agents’ hotel rooms. The agents killed all the rattlers and barbecued them in front of their hotel. The Klan guys drove by laughing and whistling. It was all a big game to them. This is the same kind of crap. I’ll bet they’re watching us
right now
.” Kaiser points across the highway. “I wish I had a thermal scope to scan that tree line.”

Everybody turns and peers into the dark field opposite the hospital.

“I want a time of death on that raccoon,” Kaiser says.

Ozan laughs out loud.

“Is he kidding?” asks a deputy from the surrounding darkness.

Kaiser’s eyes almost blaze in the dark. “Do I sound like I’m kidding?”

“How the hell are we gonna get that?”

“Shove a thermometer up its ass! Somebody in the Smithsonian will know the cooling curve on a dead raccoon. I want to know how long ago that goddamn ringtail was shot.”

“We’ll get it,” Walker says, hoping to keep the peace.

“High-tech law enforcement, boys,” Ozan says in a mocking tone. “The FBI wants to send a dead raccoon to the Smithsonian Institute.”

Muffled laughter comes out of the dark.

Kaiser ignores the disrespect and speaks with military precision. “Has anyone found shell casings out here yet?”

“Not yet,” answers a Yankee-accented voice.

“You need metal detectors and floodlights out here. Anything that comes out of this field other than grass or dirt, I want it. Bag it and tag it, no matter how trivial it may seem. Find out where the shooter fired from. I’m guessing inside thirty yards, at a perfect right angle to the window glass. That’s how—”

“Hold up there, fellas,” Captain Ozan calls. “This is now a state police crime scene, and you’ll be taking your orders from me. FBI assistance has not been requested and won’t be required.”

Kaiser can’t hide his shock, and Ozan doesn’t give him time to argue. “If you have any questions, Agent Kaiser, have your SAC in New Orleans call the governor. That’s who we take our orders from down here. Washington’s about as much use to us as tits on a boar hog, which Katrina just proved for all time. You can go back to your sump pumps and your forty-year-old bones. We’ll handle this crime scene.”

Kaiser stares at Ozan in furious silence. Though neither man speaks, the air between them seems on the verge of ionizing in a blue flash. The rest of us have become an audience to a confrontation we don’t quite understand. I’m not sure it will end without a blow being struck until Caitlin steps up and speaks to Ozan in a strong voice.

“Actually, you’re wrong, Captain. This is a hate crime. One of the victims received a card calling him a ‘nigger-lover’ and telling him to ‘die soon.’ That’s a quote. I have the card in my purse. Doesn’t the FBI have jurisdiction over hate crimes?”

I’m about to pull her away from Ozan when a piercing beep sounds, and Kaiser takes his cell phone from his pocket.

“Yes? … Understood. Where? … Good, that’s good. I’m on my way.”

He pockets his phone, then cocks his head slightly as though sizing up Ozan one last time. The state cop looks braced for an argument, but Kaiser only turns to Walker Dennis and says, “Sheriff, feel free to call if you need us.”

Walker nods but says nothing in reply.

As Kaiser starts back toward the hospital entrance, he takes his flashlight from my hand and whispers, “Meet me in the parking lot. Bring Caitlin.”

Captain Ozan’s eyes follow Kaiser as he walks away. In the shadows, it’s hard to see much of the captain’s face, but I’m left with the impression that he has Indian blood.

“Are you Mayor Cage?” he asks, turning to me after Kaiser disappears into the dark.

“That’s right.”

“I understand your fiancée was standing a couple of feet from the victim when he was hit.”

“I was,” Caitlin says defiantly.

Jordan Glass steps up protectively beside her.

“You’re a lucky girl,” Ozan goes on. “To walk out of that room alive. Mighty lucky, I’d say. It’s a lucky thing I was in town, too.” He looks over at Sheriff Dennis. “This parish has been going to hell for a long time, and you don’t seem to be able to handle it.”

Walker looks like he’s about to have a stroke, but he doesn’t argue.

After holding my ground long enough to prove that Ozan’s scrutiny doesn’t rattle me, I take Caitlin’s hand and lead her back toward the main hospital doors. Jordan takes up station at Caitlin’s other shoulder as we walk.

“This is nuts,” Caitlin says shakily. “Who was that guy?”

“A killer,” Jordan says in a cool voice. “I’ve shot enough of them to know.”

JORDAN, KAISER, CAITLIN,
and I stand by my car like two couples after a mugging. We stare at each other in dazed incomprehension, the hospital’s sodium vapor lamps rendering everything around us in an eerie, dichromatic world of yellow and gray.

“What just happened?” Caitlin asks.

“One of the killers just showed up to investigate the murder,” Kaiser answers. “Or one of his flunkies, anyway. This state is something. It’s like it’s still 1964.”

“Are you saying the state police were involved in killing Henry Sexton?” Caitlin asks.

“Off the record?”

Caitlin glances at Jordan, who looks embarrassed by Kaiser’s insistence on secrecy among the four of us. “Off the record,” she says grudgingly.

“That’s what I’m saying. And I appreciate you standing up for federal jurisdiction back there. That took guts. But next time leave the turf battles to me, okay?”

Caitlin doesn’t know whether to be flattered or angry.

“Do you really have that card you mentioned?”

She takes a card from her purse and hands it to Kaiser, who reads it, then slips it into his pocket.

“Are you really just going to give up the crime scene?” I ask, stepping up to Kaiser. “Caitlin’s right about the hate crime angle, and Walker already invited you to consult on the case.”

Kaiser looks like a man trying to wrap his mind around something. “They shot Henry
knowing
that my team could respond in a matter of minutes. That’s balls, you know?”

“But maybe not brains. Although Ozan could be destroying critical evidence as we speak.”

The FBI agent shakes his head. “Don’t kid yourself. This murder won’t be solved unless the shooter confesses or a co-conspirator fingers him. They’ve been planning this hit since they missed Henry the first time.”

“What was that phone call you got at the end?”

Kaiser cuts his eyes at Caitlin as though deciding whether he should speak candidly. “My people found something in the trunk of Luther Davis’s car.” He points to a Suburban parked twenty yards away, its engine running. “It’s in the back of that SUV over there.”

“What is it?” she asks, glancing at the vehicle.

Kaiser steps closer to her. “Before I answer that, let’s talk about Henry Sexton’s backup files. I know you have them, and I need access to them.”