down at St. Catherine’s Creek? I don’t remember ever seeing any down there.”
“When was the last time you were down there?”
“When we were kids, I guess.”
“That was thirty years ago, Penn. A couple of apartment complexes you think of as white have gone black in the past ten years. A lot of the kids play down there. Smoke dope, have sex, whatever.”
“Do you think some random black kid would have recognized you?”
“Why not? I have a lot of black patients.”
“But earlier you said that whoever was watching you was probably the killer.”
“I think so, yeah.”
“You think Kate was murdered by some random black kid?”
“Why not? Some crazy teenager?”
“We’re talking about capital murder, Drew. Murder during the commission of a rape.”
“Happens all the time, doesn’t it?”
“It does in Houston or New Orleans. But Natchez is a universe away from there. Houston had two hundred and thirty-four homicides last year. I think Natchez had two. The year before that, nobody got murdered here.”
“Yeah, but in the last twenty years, we’ve had some seriously twisted crimes.”
He’s right. Not even Natchez has gone untouched by the scourges of the modern era—stranger-murder and sexual homicide.
“Only now I’m thinking it wasn’t one kid,” he says. “We just got shot at while we chased the guy on the motorcycle. That means two people, at least. Maybe there were more. Maybe Kate was waiting for me at the creek, and it was just the wrong time to be down there. Maybe a crew of horny teenagers was down there messing around and they saw her. Maybe they decided they wanted her, whether she wanted them or not. Like that ‘wilding’ thing in Central Park, remember?”
I don’t answer. As a prosecutor, I found that whenever a crime victim’s relative suggested minority-assailant murder cases as parallels, I needed to look more closely at that person. What I’ve learned in the past five minutes has fundamentally altered my perception of Kate’s death and Drew’s relationship to it. When the school secretary interrupted the board meeting tonight, Drew already had a good idea of what she was about to say. When Theresa Cook choked out that our beloved homecoming queen was dead, Drew felt no surprise. Only hours before, he had been pounding on her chest and kissing her dead lips, trying to breathe life back into her body. I’ve never thought of Drew as duplicitous, but I guess we’re all capable of anything in the interest of self-preservation.
“What happens now?” he asks.
“You tell the police about your involvement with Kate. If you don’t, you’re at the mercy of whoever was on that motorcycle. And his buddy with the rifle.”
“What happens if I do tell the cops?”
“At the very least, you can count on a statutory rape charge from Jenny Townsend.”
Drew shakes his head. “Jenny wouldn’t do that.”
“Are you crazy? Of course she would.”
He steps closer to me, close enough for me to see his eyes clearly. “Jenny knew about us, Penn. About Kate and me.”
I blink in disbelief. “And she was okay with it?”
“She knew I loved Kate. And she knew I was going to leave Ellen.”
Every time I think I have my mind around the reality of this case, Drew moves the boundaries. “Drew, we’re through the looking glass here. If you have any more earthshaking revelations, I’d just as soon hear them all now.”
“That’s the only one I can think of right now.”
My mind is spinning with new permutations of motive and consequence. “A minute ago you said you were thinking of carrying Kate up to her mother and confessing everything. Now you tell me she already knew about you. Which is it?”
“‘Confess’ was the wrong word. I meant tell Jenny how Kate died, that I’d found her. I felt it was my fault. I still do. I guess I said ‘confess’ because if I’d done that, everything would have become public.”
I mull over this explanation. “Given what’s happened, Jenny might change her mind about your relationship with Kate.”
“We were fine tonight. That house was full of grieving people, but Jenny and I were the only two who truly knew what was lost when Kate died.”
“Jenny doesn’t know you were at the crime scene, does she?”
“No. But I’m probably going to tell her.”
“I wouldn’t rush into that. Even if she remains your biggest fan, if your affair with Kate becomes public, Jenny may feel she has no choice but to demand your head on a platter. If it were known that she sanctioned your relationship, she’d be crucified right along with you.”
“Jenny’s never been too concerned about the opinions of others.”
“This is a little different than … Oh, hell, the point’s moot anyway. If your affair becomes public, the police or the sheriff’s department will probably charge you with murder. Spurred on by the district attorney, of course.”
“Shad Johnson,” Drew says softly.
Even the name makes my gut ache. Shadrach Johnson is a black lawyer who was born in Natchez but raised in Chicago. Five years ago, he returned to Natchez to run for mayor, an election he lost by one percent of the vote. A year later he won the post of district attorney, taking the office from a white man who had never distinguished himself in the position. The mayoral race Johnson lost happened to be going on during my investigation of the unsolved civil rights murder, and during the stress of that case, Shad revealed his true colors to me. The man has one interest—his own political career—and he doesn’t care who he steps on, black or white, to advance it.
“Shad would charge you in a heartbeat,” I murmur. “He has wet dreams about getting a case like this.”
“Anything for headlines,” Drew agrees.
I’m starting to think Drew may have been right not to call in the cavalry when he discovered Kate’s body. My chivalrous side is revolted by his callousness, but the modern world is not a chivalrous place. In this world, no good deed goes unpunished.
“What will the blackmailers do now?” Drew asks.
“You gave them the whole twenty thousand?”
“Yeah. I thought about stacking some bills over a newspaper, but the geometry of the stadium wasn’t right for that. I knew he’d have too much time to check the bag before I could get him.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t just take your rifle down there and shoot the guy when he showed up.”
Drew looks uncomfortable. “I figured
