is a thirty-year-old Mississippi murder. It’s got nothing to do with national security.”
“Nevertheless, the file was sealed on grounds of national security in May 1968. The order was signed personally by the director.”
A faint buzzing has started in my head. “J. Edgar Hoover?”
“The man himself. The file can’t be opened for nine more years. Not without a vote by Congress. There’s no telling what you’ve stepped into. Hoover used the rubric of Vietnam to conceal a multitude of sins during the sixties.”
I’m so lost that I don’t even know what question to ask. “What about the names? The agents.”
“I’m going to send a fax to your office. A list of agents working out of the Jackson, Mississippi, field office in the summer of sixty-eight. I don’t know how complete it is, but it’s the best I can do. Personal memoirs from the period might help you narrow it down.”
“I owe you big-time for this.”
“Yes, you do. Listen, the Bureau has been very supportive of Mississippi prosecutors this year, providing files on these old civil rights cases. Even if the files embarrassed us a bit. This file is obviously different. I’d think long and hard about pursuing it.”
“I will.”
“Watch your back, buddy.”
And with that he is gone.
I pull back onto the highway, heading toward my parents’ house. I suddenly have a lot to do today, but I can’t do it with a murder weapon in my car. Accelerating through the bypass traffic, I punch in my office number and get Cilla, who tells me Lutjens’s fax is already coming through.
“No cover page. It looks like a list of some kind. Sixty or seventy names. Social Security numbers too.”
I say a silent thank-you to Peter Lutjens.
“There’s a handwritten note at the bottom. It says, ‘If you telephone anyone on this list, you’ve announced your interest to Washington.’ Penn, what’s going on?”
“You don’t want to know. Those names belong to FBI agents, probably all retired. Find phone numbers for every one you can. Then start calling them. Give them the usual line: you’re working for me, researching a novel. I need to know which agents worked in Natchez, Mississippi, in the summer of 1968. Particularly on the Delano Payton case. Okay?”
“Delano Payton. No problem.”
“Fax a copy of the list to my father’s medical office.”
“Right.”
“And, Cil?”
“Yes?”
“Use a fake name on these calls.”
“I will. I’ll—My God, a KHOU truck just pulled into the driveway. Got to be about the Hanratty execution.”
“You can handle them.”
“You got that right. I’ll call you.”
She rings off.
As I punch End on the cell phone, I see my hand shaking. I am crossing a line I have crossed only a few times previously, and always with sense of euphoria mingled with dread. In the great train of cases that crossed my desk as a prosecutor, a few engaged not merely my mind or my talents or even my heart. A few penetrated the deepest springs of my being: my fears, my prejudices, and my desires. When that happened, I became more than a lawyer. I became a personification of justice. And not justice as the law defined it, but as I did.
That is how I feel now.
Last night, when Ike Ransom told me Leo Marston was involved in a thirty-year-old capital murder, I wanted to believe it, but some part of me refused. I could see no possible connection between Marston and his supposed victim. But when Peter Lutjens said the words “J. Edgar Hoover” and “national security,” a circuit closed somewhere in my brain, sparking the faintest glimmer of understanding. Leo Marston is a political man from a political family, and if the Delano Payton murder had a political angle sensitive enough for the file to be hidden from public view, then a connection to Leo Marston no longer seems impossible.
Twenty years ago, that ruthless bastard wronged my father, hurt my mother, and stole my future. He did not suffer one moment for doing that. He lived as men of his kind always have: exempt from justice, untouchable. But now, far in the distance, he has come into sight, like a buck on a high ridge line. And this time I have a weapon in my hands. That weapon is a dead man.
Del Payton.
The district attorney’s office is in a three-story building near the courthouse, and there are open parking spaces out front. I take one, then trot up the stairs beside the brass plaque with Mackey’s name on it. There is no receptionist, only a long hall with offices on both sides and a black custodian working in a broom closet at the far end. I walk past partly open doors until I see Mackey sitting behind a desk, wearing one of those striped oxford shirts with a white collar that I always found a little too precious.
Pushing open the door, I see a heavyset woman sitting across from Mackey’s desk. “I’m sorry. I’ll wait.”
As I close the door, I hear Mackey say, “Excuse me just a moment, ma’am.” He steps into the hall, looking put upon by the unannounced visit. “What do you want, Cage?”
“I came to see if you have any files on the Del Payton murder.”
His fair-skinned face goes red, making him look like a pissed-off fraternity boy. “Do you have wax in your ears? I told you last night there was no file. I also said I’d give you no assistance unless you’re the attorney of record for a member of the Payton family.”
“Let’s say I am.”
He swallows, brought up short. “Are you or aren’t you? I checked with the bar association this morning. They told me you’re licensed to practice in Mississippi.”
“Put it this way, Austin. If you insist on being a pain in the ass, I’m a lot more likely to be.”
His lips disappear into a tight seam.
“What about the file?”
“There is no file. After the party last night I stopped by here and checked, just to be sure. All the records from 1966 through 1968 were destroyed in a fire when you and I were still in grade school.”
This throws me. My first instinct is to ask whether Leo Marston was still district attorney during that fire, but I don’t. Mackey isn’t Clarence Darrow, but if I appear too interested in Marston, he’ll zero in on my real motive quickly enough. And Marston will instantly hear about it.
“What about the police department?”
“The chief won’t show you files on an unsolved
