Neither Tom nor Walt answered. Walt had explained to Tom that for their plan to work they must instill genuine terror in Thornfield. If they had more time, a different approach might work. But under the pressure they faced now, they couldn’t afford gentleness. Sonny Thornfield had to believe that they didn’t care whether he lived or died. Only then would he grasp at the only escape route they offered him.
To ensure privacy, Walt had parked the Roadtrek on the river side of the levee, near the edge of the borrow pits—the long trenches left behind where earth was “borrowed” after the 1927 flood to build the levee system that protected Louisiana from the wrath of the Mississippi River. In the decades since, those huge pits had filled with black water, cottonwood trees, and scrub vegetation, a perfect environment for snakes, fish, and alligators to thrive. More than one corpse had been found in the borrow pits over the years, and at this time of night, the only people likely to drive down here would be poachers or teenagers looking for a place to have sex. They would give the polished silver RV a wide berth.
“You guys just kidnapped me,” Sonny said resentfully. “That’s a fucking felony.”
Walt backhanded him across the face, just to set the tone of the occasion.
The old Klansman let out a screech of anger. “What the hell are you up to?” he asked Tom. “You aren’t supposed to leave Mississippi.”
Tom reached into his weekend bag and brought out his .357 Magnum. “I’m not supposed to be handling firearms, either. But I’m making an exception tonight.”
Thornfield’s demeanor hardly changed. He didn’t seem to believe he was in lethal danger, even after they’d driven so far from town. The low chatter of the police scanner seemed to puzzle him, but he hadn’t asked about it yet.
“You did kidnap Viola Turner in 1968,” Tom said. “You helped gang-rape her, and then you helped torture her. I know, because I’m the one who sent Ray Presley to take her back.”
For the first time, fear flickered in Thornfield’s eyes. Even dead, Ray Presley scared most people more than a live man could.
“I ain’t sayin’ shit to you,” Sonny said. “Either one of you. You might as well take me back home.”
Walt punched him in the gut, driving the wind from his lungs. Drool rolled down the old man’s chin as he straightened up.
“Are ya’ll taping this or something?” he asked, coughing violently. “The statue of limitations has run out on rape, you know. A long time ago. It’s like it never happened, far as the law’s concerned.”
Tom spoke patiently, as though he had all day to make his points. “You also murdered Viola’s brother, and a man named Luther Davis. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, Sonny.”
“You can’t prove that. The FBI doesn’t even think those two were murdered.”
“We’re not concerned with what the FBI thinks. Do you remember the night you got shot in the leg? The night Frank and Glenn brought you to my office? February 1968?”
Thornfield glanced down at his left leg. “What about it?”
“Viola was there that night. Her brother and Luther Davis, too. You’d gotten into a brawl with them, and I was patching them up when you got there. I know you were looking to get revenge on them. But they hid out in Freewoods, so you raped Viola to smoke them out.”
A little more of Thornfield’s defiance evaporated.
Walt squatted before him with surprising flexibility. “If you think we snatched you and drove you down here because we give a flying fuck about the law, you’re dumber than I figured.”
This time Sonny held his silence. Like Ray Presley, Walt gave off an aura of impending violence, and Sonny recognized it.
“We know you tortured them boys,” Walt said. “Presley told Tom all about it. You sliced off their service tattoos, which I take personally, you no-’count son of a bitch.”
Sonny swallowed and drew back a couple of inches.
“I’m no fan of torture,” Walt went on, as though discussing his preference in fishing lures. “Ain’t productive, as a rule. But I’ve seen it produce results. Tom and I were medics during the Korean War. We saw a lot of pain. You know what I’m talking about. You saw what the Japanese did on the islands.”
Sonny made a sour face. “I’m not scared of you, you Texas shitkicker.”
Walt sighed and glanced back at Tom. Then he patted one of the Roadtrek’s seats. “Sonny, I’ve got a toolbox under here. And Tom’s got his black bag with him. I feel pretty confident that between us, we can make whatever you and Snake Knox did to them colored boys back in sixty-eight look like a Girl Scout picnic.”
Sonny glowered at them in silence.
Walt chuckled patiently. “Yeah, a dull pocketknife dragged over one tooth for ten minutes will turn a bad outlaw into jelly. An old Ranger showed me that trick. When the blade cuts down into the dentin, the pain kicks in something fierce. Most men start talking right then. But if you go all the way down to the nerve … hell, you can’t shut ’em up after that, not even if you try. You gotta knock ’em out with a two-by-four just to stop the screamin’.”
“I’ve got some local anesthetic,” Tom said, playing the good cop as instructed. “Once you tell us what we need to know, I’ll make the pain stop.”
Sonny’s eyes tracked from Tom to Walt, then back again. “All this goddamn gummin’,” he muttered. “You haven’t said what it is you want.”
“Who killed Viola?” Tom asked.
Thornfield looked blank. “You did. Didn’t you?”
Walt straightened up and kicked him in the gut. Sonny doubled over, gasping for air. After half a minute, he croaked, “That’s what everybody says, ain’t it?”
“You were there that night,” Tom said. “At her sister’s house. I saw the pickup truck with the Darlington Academy sticker on the back windshield, parked a quarter mile up the road. Not long before dawn.” Darlington had been founded by the White Citizens’ Council in 1969, the year of forced integration in Natchez. “Nobody in that part of town ever went to Darlington Academy.”