The Quiet Game

Laying Kelly's pistol on the seat beside me, I retrieve the keys, crank the engine, and force myself to drive normally as I leave the lot. In ten minutes I'm on Highway 61. Natchez lies eighty miles to the north, but much of the road is two-lane blacktop and heavily traveled by log trucks. The trip can be agonizingly slow during the day.

I reach under the seat for the cell phone, switch it on, and dial the Natchez Examiner. Caitlin has been handling the transportation of my out-of-town witnesses. Huey Moak and Lester Hinson are scheduled to arrive in Baton Rouge tonight, and we'd planned to have one of the Argus men pick them up.

"Penn?" Caitlin asks, after a minute of hold music.

"Yes. Remember, your phone's tapped."

"What's going on? I've been freaking out here."

"Have you asked any of the Argus guys to pick up the witnesses yet?"

"Not yet. I can call them now."

"Don't."

"Why not?"

"Just don't. Don't even mention it. I'll be there soon, and I'll handle it. Hang tight until then. Stay inside the newspaper building if you can."

"Penn, Kelly was acting a little strange before he left. Like I might not see him again."

You might not. "Things are pretty fluid right now. I'm on my way."

"Listen. An hour ago my receptionist told me I had a call from the editor of the Rocky Mountain News. When I got to the phone, he told me he was sending a reporter down to cover your trial, and he wanted to know if the guy could use our office facilities."

"And?"

"He said the reporter's name was Bookbinder. Henry Bookbinder."

Bookbinder. Stone's dead partner. And the Rocky Mountain News is based in Denver. I want to scream with joy, but I just say, "Did he say when this reporter would arrive?"

"Only that he'd be here in time to cover the trial. And there's something else."

"What?"

"CNN, Court TV, and some others have been pressing Judge Franklin to allow the trial to be televised."

"Cameras aren't allowed in Mississippi courtrooms."

"I know, but this is a civil case. Apparently if both parties agree, the judge could allow it."

"But why would Leo agree? Portman would tear him a new one if he did."

"CNN and the other networks have been saying publicly that if Marston and Portman have nothing to hide, they should have no problem with cameras. It's a PR nightmare for Portman. It's extortion, basically. I assume you'd have no objection to cameras?"

"Of course not."

"Good, because I already told a CNN reporter that you didn't."

"That's fine. Listen, if that 'reporter' you mentioned shows up, keep him inside the building until I get there."

"I will."

"Thanks. I'll be there before you know it."

As I hang up the phone, I yell, "You tough old son of a bitch!" Though he is probably a thousand miles away right now, Dwight Stone is almost certainly alive. If he can reach Natchez by tomorrow morning without being killed, my slander trial will provide more fireworks than the city has seen in decades. And Leo Marston will be indicted for murder. Only now that prospect does not offer even a shadow of the satisfaction it would have two days ago. If I'm right about Leo being Jenny Doe's father, every judgment I ever made about Livy Marston was wrong. In my mind she has already been transformed from a privileged princess into a tragic figure, a lost girl trying to find her way.

I try to keep the Taurus under the speed limit. A state trooper has haunted this stretch of road for years, handing out tickets like confetti. As the hardwood forest drifts past, I lean back in the seat and force myself to ponder one of the connections that came to me last night in the darkness of the Denver motel. Sometime near dawn a remarkable and frightening idea struck me. A possible link between Del Payton and Leo Marston. Dwight Stone believes Ray Presley randomly chose Del Payton to be murdered. But if my theory of paternal incest is true, there could be a secret link joining the Payton and Marston families, one which Dwight Stone would have known nothing about.

Althea Payton.

Althea is a nurse now. She works in the hospital nursery. But where did she work in the 1960s? Could she have worked for a private physician? A pediatrician perhaps? Is it possible that she noticed some physical evidence of sexual abuse while handling Livy Marston and reported it to the doctor? If she had, what would have been the likely result? In the 1960s sexual abuse of children was grossly underreported, and became public only in the most egregious cases. A man as powerful as Leo Marston would have had little to fear from a doctor, especially if the evidence was equivocal. And even if it wasn't, would the doctor have the nerve to confront Leo? To bring in the police to investigate the district attorney?

Of course, Leo Marston would never have been to the pediatrician's office.