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

Asked by “the publisher” to describe the evidence on which I based my accusations, I stated:

I am in contact with certain members of the Justice Department who have long known of Marston’s involvement in the crime. Conscientious citizens and law enforcement officers have also come forward with previously unknown facts about the Payton murder. I believe we would already have seen a prosecution of Judge Marston but for the fact that John Portman, the present director of the FBI and a former federal judge, was involved in the original Payton investigation in 1968. Some former FBI agents believe the Bureau itself may have been involved in a cover-up of certain facts of Payton’s death, but this will be difficult to prove without the original FBI file on the Payton case, which is sealed until the year 2007, ostensibly for reasons of national security.

I was purposefully vague about Marston’s possible motives for the crime, but on Caitlin’s advice I hinted that Marston, heretofore considered a moderate on race, might secretly have been working in concert with members of the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission to prevent black workers from rising into “white jobs.”

Because of my reference to John Portman, the wire services picked up the story before noon, and just before one Caitlin received a call from CNN in Atlanta. There were already two network stringers in town to cover the “black-white” mayoral election, and they spent the morning outside my family’s motel rooms, pleading for comment on the story.

But the morning paper had far more tragic consequences. Caitlin had written a separate piece about the fire and kidnapping. In it she vividly described the rescues of Ruby Flowers and Officer Ervin, and also Ruby’s death in the ER. She quoted several citizens on Ruby’s character, in particular the pastor of the Mandamus Baptist Church, of which Ruby had been a devoted member. She also quoted the fire chief, who pronounced the fire arson, based on the discovery of an incendiary device in the collapsed attic of our house. Caitlin concluded by saying that the arson and kidnapping were clearly attempts to stop my investigation into the Delano Payton murder. It was yellow journalism at its finest, and the consequences were immediate.

At a little after one, a seventy-four-year-old white man named Billy Earl Whitestone walked down his sidewalk to get his mail from the box. He got both barrels of a twelve-gauge shotgun instead, fired from a red Monte Carlo driven by two unidentified black youths. The gunmen stopped long enough to drop a copy of the Examiner on Mr. Whitestone’s shattered skull, but even if they hadn’t, the shooting would have been recognized as a reprisal for Ruby’s death. In his younger days Billy Earl Whitestone had achieved national notoriety as a Grand Wizard of the White Knights of the Imperial Ku Klux Klan. He had also enjoyed a brief renaissance of fame during the 1980s when, Wallace-like, he marched at the head of some black civil rights parades, but apparently this belated conversion had not sufficiently impressed certain members of the African-American community. At least not the two young men in the Monte Carlo.

A drive-by shooting in Natchez is the equivalent of a race riot in Los Angeles. Within the hour Mayor Warren went on the local country radio station to appeal for calm and to condemn the “reckless and irresponsible charges” made against “one of the city’s finest citizens” by former Natchezian Penn Cage. He also blasted the “Yankee editor” of the local newspaper. Shad Johnson also took to the airwaves—the black AM station—to urge restraint in the face of “the deteriorating racial situation.” Unlike Wiley Warren, Shad urged the city authorities look into the charges printed in the morning paper and, if they were found to be substantive, to reopen the investigation into Del Payton’s murder. Despite his wish that the Payton murder remain a non-issue, Shad could not in the aftermath of the fire and shooting afford to be seen as anything but a champion of the black community, his core of electoral support.

Three hours after Whitestone’s death, I was invited to the police station to discuss the statements I’d made in the newspaper, particularly my reference to “local law enforcement officers.” The police chief conducted the interview, and he seemed to labor under the misapprehension that I was subject to arrest if I didn’t answer his questions. I calmly and courteously enumerated my rights under the Constitution, then explained that I had first contacted the district attorney about my suspicions and found him apathetic. I refused to answer any questions, and suggested that the chief talk to Austin Mackey instead. As I departed, he told me he considered the death of Billy Earl Whitestone my responsibility, and I didn’t argue. He was mostly right.

I left my bodyguard outside during this interview. He and his three associates from Argus Security had arrived from Houston just after midnight, flying into Baton Rouge via Argus’s Gulfstream V and driving up to Natchez in four separate rental cars. They checked into the Prentiss Motel, and by two a.m. my family was being protected by some of the finest bodyguards in the world. The total cost of this protection was staggering, but my memory of Annie’s quivering chin was enough to make me ashamed for even thinking of money.

Three of the four guards were former FBI agents, and fit exactly the mental image I’d had before they arrived. Lean and tight-lipped. Late forties. Economical movements. Nine-hundred-dollar business suits specially tailored to conceal the bulges of various firearms. The fact that they were former FBI agents concerned me a little, but their boss had assured me that none of his men had worked under John Portman. The fourth Argus man was about thirty-five and blond, with the lean, confident look of a professional mountain guide. He wore jeans, a sweatshirt, and hiking boots. Daniel Kelly was a veteran of the army’s Delta Force, and like the others, was billed at eight hundred dollars per day.

After hearing the details of our situation, the senior member of the detail suggested the following plan. One operative should remain with my mother and Annie at all times, another with my father, and one with me. The fourth would sleep at the hotel for six hours, then relieve one of the other men, beginning a continuous rotation. I agreed, and chose Daniel Kelly as my guard.

After my interview at the police station, Kelly and I stopped by the offices of the Examiner, where we found Caitlin doing her best to handle a barrage of phone calls from other newspapers. She stopped working long enough to tell me that her father had called from Richmond and demanded to know what the hell she thought she was up to, then ordered her aboard the first Virginia-bound aircraft leaving Mississippi. Caitlin told him he had better get ready to mount a libel defense, because she was sticking by her story, and if he fired her, he should prepare to read further installments of the Payton story in the Washington Post. I didn’t envy Mr. Masters. Caitlin had been preparing for this day for a long time.

Thirty minutes before the courthouse closed, Leo Marston filed suit against myself and the Natchez Examiner for a grand total of five million dollars, his complaint drafted in record time by his junior law partner, Blake Sims. Actually, they filed two separate suits—one for slander and one for libel—neatly severing my fate from that of the Examiner, which, as part of a media group, will have a battery of attorneys on retainer, many of them First Amendment specialists. A deputy served me with the papers just as our family was leaving the motel for dinner at the Shoney’s Restaurant across the street.

I invited the Argus men to eat with us, but they took their jobs too seriously for that. Two stood in the front parking lot near their cars, like businessmen shooting the breeze after an early dinner, while Daniel Kelly covered the rear entrance. I hadn’t felt that safe in a long time. The Argus men made quite an impression on Annie too. She’d spent most of her waking hours since the fire on my mother’s lap, but during dinner she began to loosen up, using the Shoney’s crayons to play each of us in games of tic-tac-toe.

Ruby’s death hung over the adults like a pall, but we tried to focus on the good times we’d had with her, which were countless, as they spanned thirty-five years. My father had stopped by Ruby’s house earlier to give her husband, Mose—a retired pulpwood cutter—a substantial check and a gallon of Wild Turkey. They talked for half an hour, shared some whiskey, and Dad left the house wondering how long the old man would survive without Ruby around to take care of him.

Caitlin’s articles had upset my mother, but Marston’s lawsuit terrified her. I tried to reassure her by explaining that my intent had been to force just such a lawsuit, but she refused to be mollified. Like most people who have lived any length of time in Natchez, my mother believes that Leo Marston is untouchable, and that anyone who tries to hurt him is doomed to failure or worse.

I kept the good news of the day to myself. Just after noon Special Agent Peter Lutjens had called the motel from a pay phone in McLean, Virginia, and asked me to call him back from a pay phone. When I did, he told me he’d been stewing about the Payton case and had decided to try to photocopy the sealed FBI file. He still had his security pass to the proper archive. The problem was the staff. The “friend” who had reported his initial inquiry to Portman worked every day but Sunday, so Sunday was Lutjens’s only shot. And he was due to report in Fargo on Monday. I thanked him profusely and tried to reassure him that what he was doing would ultimately serve the Bureau, not undermine it. He told me he’d call me Sunday if he wasn’t in jail, and hung up.

When we got back to the motel after supper, I found two old-fashioned handwritten messages waiting: “Call Livy” and “Call Ike.” I had no idea what Livy could want, other than to curse me for vilifying her father in the newspaper, but I called Tuscany anyway. The number of the Marston mansion hadn’t changed since we were kids, but the fact that it had remained in my memory for twenty years probably said something about my buried feelings for Livy. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach as the phone rang, but I resolved to tell Leo to kiss my ass if he answered.

“Marston residence.” A maid.

“Yes, could I speak to Liv, please?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Her husband.”

“Just a moment, Mr. Sutter.”

After a few moments Livy came on the line and said, “John?”

“It’s Penn.”

“Oh. Just a minute.” Her voice was under tight control. I heard the clacking of heels on hardwood, then her voice again, more relaxed. “I’m glad you called back. How’s Annie doing?”

“Better. Look, I know you must be upset about the paper.”

A strange laugh. “Things are pretty crazy around here. I don’t know what you’re trying to do. But I know why you’re doing it.”

I said nothing.

“Penn … hurting my father won’t make up for the years we lost.”

“I know that.”

“I hope so. Because I called to tell you that, as bad as all this is, I don’t want to let him come between us again.”

We both waited in the vacuum of the open line, each hoping the other could somehow bridge the chasm my accusations had opened between us. I imagined her sitting alone in the Italianate palace that had sheltered her throughout her childhood. She had often portrayed it to me as a prison, but I never bought into this. She wouldn’t have traded Tuscany for anything.

“Livy?”

“I’m here.”

“You haven’t asked where I got my information about your father. You haven’t protested his innocence.”

“Of course I haven’t. It’s ridiculous. My father murdering a black man? He’s probably the least prejudiced man in this town.”

“Del Payton’s death may not have been a race murder. Tell me something, Livy. What would you do if you found out your father ordered the burning of my parents’ house?”

“That’s insane.”

“Just pretend it was true. What would you do?”

“Well, obviously, I’d be the first one to call the police.”

Maybe she didn’t even know she was lying. “I need to go, Livy.”

“Can we see each other tonight?”

I couldn’t believe she wanted to be within ten miles of me after the newspaper story. “Not tonight.”

“Tomorrow, then?”

Images from the day before filled my mind: Livy floating naked in the pool, kissing me passionately as we sank slowly through the green water, her thigh pressing against me. “We’d better play it by ear. There’s a lot going on right now.”

“That’s all the more reason to stay close. Just remember what I said about my father. I meant it.”

“I will.”

I hung up and dialed Ike’s cell phone before thoughts of Livy could overwhelm me. I wanted to call her back and say, “Pick me up in twenty minutes.” But the past had finally caught up with us, and Ike the Spike was growling in my ear.

“Meet me where I wanted to last night,” he said, meaning the warehouse in the industrial park by the river. “One hour.”