But a libel suit? Do you know what kind of damages people have been awarded in libel cases? Tens of millions of dollars. He’d jerk my butt out of here so fast my feet wouldn’t touch the ground.”
“Caitlin—”
She shakes her head again and walks quickly to the door. “I’m going to forget I ever heard this. And I suggest you think long and hard before you put everything you have up for grabs. You have a daughter to raise.”
“Not a word in the paper about any of this,” I remind her.
She closes her eyes and sighs angrily.
“Unless you want to print my accusations of Marston’s guilt. Then you can blow the story wide open. You can take it national tomorrow morning. The more noise, the better.”
She stands in the door with her hands on her hips, nostrils flared, eyes burning. “Damn you, Penn Cage.” She glares at my father. “If I were you, I’d try to talk some sense into my son.” Then she steps through the sliding door and shuts it with a bang.
Dad looks at me with a glint in his eye. “That’s some woman.” He takes a cigar from his shirt pocket, unwraps it, and sticks it between his back teeth. “Desperate times call for desperate measures?”
“What choice do we have? Even if Betty Lou would go public, she might never get the chance. Presley could kill her. And even if we somehow turned Presley, Marston could have him killed. But as soon as I go public, any suspicious accidents make Marston look guilty.”
“I agree. Not only that, I like it.”
“There’s only one problem,” I murmur, fighting the fear germinating in my gut.
“What’s that?”
“Leo is one cool customer. What if I can’t spook him?”
By nine p.m. I’ve pretty much decided to go forward without Caitlin’s help. Finding a newspaper reporter or radio talk-show host who will let me spout off about Leo Marston and a race crime shouldn’t be too difficult. In the current media climate, where celebrity and controversy are the benchmarks of ratings, they’ll probably fight over the story. But Caitlin’s apprehension still worries me. What I need now is positive confirmation that I’m right to go after Marston.
Dwight Stone answers his phone after five rings, but as soon as I identify myself, he hangs up. I try once more, in case he made a mistake, but the result is the same. More curious than discouraged, I take out my wallet and fish out the card with Ike Ransom’s cell phone number. The deputy answers instantly.
“This is your buddy from the Triton plant,” I tell him.
He asks if I’m home, then says he’ll call back from a land line. A minute later, he tells me to meet him at an abandoned warehouse by the river, in the industrial park. This doesn’t strike me as a good way to spend the evening, so I suggest that he pick me up in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He reluctantly agrees.
Fifteen minutes later, I climb into his cruiser, the claustrophobic little world of anger and guns and cigarettes. He looks just as he did the other night, only more nervous. He looks, in fact, like he might be wired on speed.
“Where the hell have you been?” he demands.
“Colorado. I talked to an FBI agent who worked the case in sixty-eight.”
Ransom hits the brake, then catches himself and continues up the bypass. “I thought I told you to stay away from the FBI.”
“You did. And I’m curious as to why.”
He ignores the comment. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Stone.”
He taps the wheel impatiently. “Couple of people I talked to remembered him. They said it seemed like he really tried to solve the case.”
“He did more than try. He solved it.”
Ransom looks over at me, his speed-pinned eyes distant. “He tell you that?”
“In so many words.”
“No details?”
“He won’t talk about it.”
Ike laughs humorlessly. “What did I tell you? The quiet game. Everybody’s playing it.”
“What are they so scared of? Marston?”
“Judge Leo got some serious juice, man.”
“Is that all?”
“What you mean?”
“Did you know John Portman was here in 1968?”
“John who?”
I hesitate before answering. I have a feeling Ike knows exactly who I’m talking about. “The director of the FBI,” I say, watching him.
He accelerates and whips around the car ahead of us, but I can’t tell whether he did it to buy time or not.
“What you mean, he was here?”
“It was his first year as an FBI agent. He was working the Payton case with Stone.”
Ike shrugs. “That’s the first I heard of it. But I told you to stay away from the FBI, didn’t I? You can’t trust no Feds, man.”
“Never mind. Look, I’ve thought of a way to go after Marston. But it’s risky. I’ve got to know more than I know now. You understand? You’ve got to give me something more.”
“Like what?”
“How about some evidence?”
“Shit, man, if I had evidence, I’d get that motherfucker my own self. Finding evidence is your job.”
“Why do you think he was behind Del’s murder?”
“I just know, okay?”
“It’s not okay, damn it. It doesn’t make sense. Why would Marston want Del Payton dead?”
“That’s what you’re supposed to find out.”
My father’s original doubts about Ike’s motives are coming back to me. “Why do you hate Marston so much, Ike?”
He turns to me, his eyes smoldering. “I done told you once. It’s personal.”
“That’s not good enough anymore.”
“Fuck you, then!”
I say nothing for the next mile. Ike’s respiration is heavy and erratic, as though so much of his energy is consumed by his anger that he has to remind himself to breathe.
“Were you and Ray Presley cops at the same time?”
He keeps his eyes on the road. “Presley was in Parchman when I joined the force.
