Paul Matheson sat at the long rosewood conference table on the second floor of Claude Buckman’s bank, the Bienville Southern, waiting for more Poker Club members to arrive. This was an informal gathering, one called by Paul himself after the groundbreaking ceremony. Though he wasn’t an official member, it was understood that he would one day take his father’s seat, and the other members were curious about what had prompted him to ask for a meeting.
Claude Buckman sat at the head of the table, Blake Donnelly at his right hand. Senator Sumner sat on Buckman’s left. Next on that side came Wyatt Cash and Arthur Pine. Across the table from Cash sat Paul’s father, and to Max’s right sat Dr. Warren Lacey. Paul figured Beau Holland and Tommy Russo were the only other members likely to attend. The remaining three were older men—older even than Buckman, who was eighty-three—and rarely attended meetings. There’d been some small talk, but Paul had not taken part. Being seated at the far end of the long table made casual conversation stilted.
The conference room was a temple to antebellum Bienville. The grass-cloth walls were lined with nineteenth-century photographs depicting the booming cotton economy of the pre-war years. Horse-drawn wagons hauling white gold wrapped in burlap from outlying Tenisaw County to the river. Steamboats docked at Lower’ville, so loaded with cotton bales that they looked as though they’d capsize in a mild storm. A big black locomotive shuttling onto the rail ferry that once linked the cotton fields of Louisiana to the market on the Mississippi side of the river. A few photos depicted the war years. Yankee officers stood on verandas owned by ancestors of the men around the table, sipping drinks and watching ladies cavort at badminton on the lawns. For some officers from Philadelphia and New York, the occupation of Bienville had been a welcome reunion with old friends from Harvard, Yale, and Penn. It was connections like those, Paul knew, that had helped Bienville to survive the war mostly intact, rather than winding up a charred ruin, like Jackson and Atlanta.
“Here they are,” announced Blake Donnelly, waving at Beau Holland and Tommy Russo, who’d just walked through the door behind Paul. “About time, fellas.”
Russo and Holland took seats beside Dr. Lacey, and before Buckman could bring the meeting to order, Beau Holland said, “What’s this all about? We’ve got the Azure Dragon guys in town, and I’ve got meetings all day.”
“Are everyone’s cell phones powered down?” Buckman asked in his perpetually hoarse voice. He sounded like a man who had smoked all his life and took pride in telling his doctors to go to hell.
There was a shuffle as a few members switched off their phones.
“Paul has a question for us,” Buckman told them.
All eyes settled on Paul Matheson. He wasn’t sure how to go about this, but he figured he knew most of these men well enough not to pussyfoot around.
“I’ll say it plain, gentlemen. Did we have anything to do with what happened to Buck Ferris?”
Everyone averted his eyes. Suddenly Paul seemed to be the least interesting object in the room.
“Well,” he said. “I guess that answers that question.”
“Not at all,” Buckman protested. “So far as I know, Dr. Ferris had an unfortunate accident. A fall, most likely. Regardless of what speculation the Bienville Watchman might be pushing tomorrow.”
“Damn right,” said Beau Holland, the real estate developer. “I’ve heard McEwan is out asking questions, implying foul play. That’s downright irresponsible with the Chinese in town.”
“Irresponsible?” Paul laughed. He couldn’t help himself. “Beau, what planet do you live on?”
Holland’s eyes flashed anger. He wasn’t accustomed to being spoken to that way.
Arthur Pine, the club’s in-house attorney, spoke up. “You obviously have a point to make, Paul. Why not make it?”
“You can forget about this playing as an accident,” Paul said. “This is a murder case now.”
“There’s no reason to think that,” Buckman countered. “I’ve been assured the autopsy is well under control. Death by misadventure will be the finding. Ferris was digging up above that cave mouth where he had no business being.”
Paul snorted. “You’re assured? Who the hell assured you of that?”
No one offered an answer.
Paul looked around the room in disbelief. “You’re living in a bubble, Claude,” Paul went on. “Like some Hollywood actor. Nobody wants to give you bad news.”
“Which is?” asked the old man.
“Marshall McEwan. Marshall’s not his old man, okay? He’s spent the last twenty-five years in Washington, digging up scandals that shake the Capitol Building. Major Defense Department stuff. He’s supposed to be writing a book about racism while he’s here, but he was investigating Trump’s Russian financial dealings when he came home to take care of his father. Azure Dragon and the paper mill are bush-league for him. Do not kid yourselves. Whatever rocket scientist decided to kill Buck Ferris has got Marshall after his ass now. You’d better get ready for some shit to hit the fan.”
Beau Holland leaned back in his chair, his usual smirk pulling at his mouth. “McEwan’s a friend of yours, isn’t he? Can’t you get him to ease off on the muckraking? At least for a week?”
Paul leaned forward. “Is that a joke? Buck Ferris was almost a father to him. Marshall went all the way to Eagle Scout because of Buck.”
“Sounds like sentimental bullshit,” said Holland.
“Yeah? See how sentimental you feel when Marshall shoves a proctoscope up your butt on CNN. He’s got the cell number of every anchor and producer for every major network in D.C. and New York.” Paul looked to the head of the table. “Claude, you want to have the club’s finances broken down on Meet the Press? McEwan can put you there.”
Buckman shifted in his seat.
“If Marshall smells foul play,” Paul said, “he’ll sink his teeth into this case and shake it like a pit bull. He won’t let go. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” said Tommy Russo.
“There’s nothing for him to find,” Blake Donnelly asserted. “Hell, I liked Buck a lot. But if he ran up on some bad characters and got himself killed, that’s nothing to do with us. Maybe he walked up on a drug deal out at Lafitte’s Den.”
“He didn’t die at that cave,” Paul said irritably. “Marshall told me that in the tent. Somebody staged things to look that way.” He looked around the table, giving the younger members a searching glance.
“What’s your problem?” Beau snapped. “You got something to say to me?”
Paul smiled, knowing he’d gotten to Holland. “Whoever was dumb enough to kill Buck Ferris put everybody in this room at risk, and every element of the Azure Dragon deal as well.”
“Hey,” Holland said angrily. “It’s not your place to pass judgment on anything a member might do.”
Max Matheson leaned forward and cast his eyes down the table at Holland. “Are you saying you killed Ferris?”
Holland glared at Paul’s father, which was not something people with good sense generally did. But Beau had always been an arrogant son of a bitch.
“I’m saying if anybody in this room did kill Buck Ferris,” Holland replied, “then it’s none of Paul’s business. Until he’s a full voting member, our decisions are above his pay grade.”
Paul turned up his left hand and gestured at Holland, as if to say, You guys see why I’m worried?
Claude Buckman spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “This group approved no decision to remove Mr. Ferris, however inconvenient his activities had become. And no individual member is empowered to make such a decision alone, except in extreme emergency. Is that understood by all present?”
A few nods signaled general agreement around the table.
Tommy Russo, the only man in the room without a Southern accent, said, “We know Ferris was digging out at the mill site, right?”
“He was,” Wyatt Cash confirmed. “I placed cellular game cameras out there that recorded him.”
“And if he found bones, that could have stopped construction?”
“No question,” said Arthur Pine. “We’d have had to cancel the groundbreaking.”
Russo tilted his head to one side and stuck out his bottom lip, as though gauging the amount of life left in a dog that had been run over. “Hard to see how that guy getting dead is a bad thing.”