Greg Iles 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, The Devil’s Punchbowl

“About this time, Ray Presley happened to come to see me about his blood pressure. You know how I get to talking to patients, and Presley always had a good story. He saw that I wasn’t myself. He asked what was bothering me, and I told him. He’d been a cop, after all. I thought he might have a suggestion.”

He’d also done a hitch in Parchman prison, I think, but now does not seem the best time to bring that up.

“Ray heard me out, and he didn’t say much. Grunted a couple of times in the right places. You never know what he’s thinking. So we’re both just sitting there, saying nothing. After a while he says, ‘So what’s this shitbird’s name, Doc?’ I didn’t say anything for a minute. Then I told him. We shot the bull for a few more minutes, and Ray left. Three weeks later, the Natchez D.A. called and told me Hillman was dead. Somebody’d shot him in the head and taken his wallet outside a topless bar in Mobile.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“At first I was relieved. But somewhere in the back of my mind I was worried about Ray. He’d always appreciated me taking care of his mother, and some part of me wondered if he hadn’t taken it into his head to get rid of my problem for me.”

“Oh, man.”

“A month later he came back in to get his pressure checked. I told the girls I was too busy to talk, but he slipped into my office and waited for me. When I went in, I asked him point blank if he knew anything about Hillman’s death.”

“And?”

“He told me right out he’d killed the guy.”

“Shit.”

Dad shakes his head. “Just like saying, ‘I fixed that flat for you. Doc.’ He gave me this funny smile and told me not to give it another thought. Said I didn’t owe him anything. Just get back to doctoring and living. Those were his exact words.”

“Tell me you reported this to the police.”

“I didn’t.”

Having watched my father make moral choices that cost him money and friendships for years, I am stunned by this answer. “That’s accessory after the fact, Dad. Five years in the pen.”

“I realize that. But the situation was more complicated than you know.”

“You hadn’t committed any crime until you kept Presley’s confession from the police.”

“Listen, damn it! Ray must have seen how he upset me. Because twenty minutes after he walked out, he came back and handed me a zipper pouch. Inside it was a pistol I’d lent him about six months before, a forty-five.”

My heart slaps against my chest wall. “He killed Hillman with that pistol?”

“No. But he was always borrowing things from me back then. Guns, books, my Nikon for a stakeout, that kind of thing. You know I can’t say no to anybody. Anyhow, I’d lent him another pistol about a year before, a little feather-weight thirty-eight. So, when he handed me the forty-five, I asked about the thirty-eight.” Dad takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “He told me it had been stolen.”

I close my eyes as though to shield myself from what is coming.

“He told me not to worry about it, that he’d get me another thirty-eight. But he was really telling me that reporting the murder wasn’t an option. He’d killed Hillman with my thirty-eight, and he still had the gun. If I tried to report him, he could tell the police that I’d asked him to commit the crime and had given him the gun to do it.”

“How soon did he start blackmailing you?”

“He didn’t mention it again for twenty-five years.”

“What?”

“He had no intention of blackmailing me, Penn. Ray Presley idolized me back then. Still does, I think. But last year he got prostate cancer, and he doesn’t have health insurance. He needed money, so he started getting it wherever he could. For all I know, he’s blackmailing ten other people besides me. The point is, he had me over a barrel. I couldn’t see any option but to pay him.”

“Why didn’t you call me when he first came to you?”

“Do you really have to ask? I was ashamed. Because of me, a man was murdered.”

“You had nothing to do with that! You didn’t solicit the thing, for God’s sake. You couldn’t know Presley would kill the guy.”

Dad dismisses this rationalization with a wave of his hand. “Do you remember Becket?”

“The movie or the historical archbishop?”

“The movie. After Becket makes his moral stand against King Henry, the king is alone in the palace with his nobles. These so-called nobles are a nasty bunch, greedy, violent, and drunk. And though King Henry loves Becket, he says out loud: ‘Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?’ And of course they do. They go to Canterbury and murder him with swords.”

Sometimes I wish my father had less rigorous moral standards.

“Henry knew what he was saying, Penn. He knew the company he was in. And that made him guilty of murder. That’s why he submitted to the lashing by Becket’s monks.”

“You’re not a king. You couldn’t know what Presley would do.”

Dad is too wracked by guilt for me to get through to him. “I’ve spent years thinking about this. I didn’t know Presley would kill the man, but when he asked for the name, I knew he might do something. I’d treated his parents for free, and he felt indebted to me. He’d just gotten out of prison. From the moment I told Presley that name, Hillman was bound to get hurt, maybe killed. There’s no getting around that.”

I know what it has cost my father to admit this. He may even be right. But that’s not my primary concern at this point. “That’s not how the law would see it. Technically, your only crime was accessory after the fact. And the statute of limitations ran out on that in 1975.”

“What about the gun?”

“That’s another story. If Presley will lie to the D.A. and say you asked him to kill Hillman, and that you gave him the gun—and if he still has the gun—that adds up to capital murder. It puts you in line for what I’ve got to witness in two days. Lethal injection.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Why did you decide to tell me this today?”

“You want to find out who killed Del Payton. I know you do, and you’re right. Maybe you even have an obligation to do it. But the road to Payton’s killers runs right through Ray Presley, because he worked on the case. I knew you’d eventually go see him, and if you did, you’d probably find out about this. He might even hit you up for money. I wanted you to hear the truth from me.”

“The hell with Del Payton. There’s only one thing to do.”

“What?”

“Go to the D.A. before Presley can. Tomorrow morning we’re going to walk in there, tell the whole story, and demand that Presley be arrested for murder and extortion.”

Dad raises both hands like a supplicant. “I’ve thought of doing that a hundred times. But why should the D.A. believe me?”

I think of Austin Mackey, district attorney and former schoolmate of mine. Not my first choice for a sympathetic confessor, but we go back a lot of years. “The D.A. has a lot of discretion in a case like this. And it’s possible we could sting Presley. Wire you before meeting with him. Videotape a blackmail payment.”

“You’re underestimating Ray. Since he started this, he’s talked and acted as though we were partners from the beginning.”

“Damn.”

“Mackey would probably insist that you drop the Payton business, Penn.”

“I dropped it the second you told me about this. We don’t have any options. We’ve got to come clean, and Mackey’s the man we have to see.”