“Oh, hush. This is going to come out all right. You’ll see.”
Is she really that na?ve? “Mom … I don’t want you to panic, but you have to know how things stand. Now that Dad has jumped bail on a murder charge, any cop can shoot him down with impunity and say he resisted arrest. I suspect that Sheriff Byrd and some Louisiana State Police officials will quietly give orders to do just that, once they know he’s gone.”
At last I see fear in her eyes.
“If Dad contacts you in any way, you’ve got to do everything in your power to persuade him to come home.”
“I realize that.”
As her voice finally cracks, I voice one of my deepest fears. “Dad’s not running for real, is he? I mean, leaving the country.”
She looks up at the ceiling and blinks back tears. “You know better than that. Tom’s never run from anything in his life. Judge Noyes said as much from the bench yesterday.”
“So what the hell is he doing?”
“Keep your voice down. Remember Annie.”
“You’d tell me if he was setting up house for you guys in Brazil or something, right?”
“Oh, for God’s sake.” She flips her free hand as she might at any absurdity. “We’re not leaving our home because some ambitious DA has got it into his head to put Tom in jail. I can’t pretend I understand all this. I just have to have faith that what Tom’s doing is necessary.”
“Mom, don’t you think the time for blind faith has passed? Dad’s not only risking his own life. Good people are getting hurt. Henry Sexton may die. You and Annie are scared to death. I think we’re safe here for the time being, but I honestly don’t know. And Dad’s leaving us hanging out here without one word of explanation!”
She wipes her cheeks, then takes both my hands in hers. “I’ve been married to your father for fifty-three years,” she says in a voice edged with iron. “Tom has always done right by this family, and I’m not going to start second-guessing him now.”
Has he? I ask silently. Has he always done right by us? But I won’t force my mother to the edge of her faith, where a black maw of disillusionment must surely await. Not at this hour. I may have the strength to choose the truth over my father, but after fifty-three years, perhaps my mother must choose her husband over the truth. At least tonight.
“Where should I sleep?” she asks.
“There’s a twin bed in the room that connects to the master suite upstairs, where Annie is. You take that.”
“Where will you be?”
“Down here. I’ve got a lot to think about before tomorrow.”
My mother slips off the stool, gives me a long hug, then pads into the hall. Soon I hear the stairs creaking.
Alone in the kitchen, I open a Corona Extra and sit at the counter, wondering what in God’s name my father thinks he’s playing at. If Billy Byrd or Forrest Knox finds out that he’s jumped bail, he might not live until John Kaiser and the FBI reach Natchez tomorrow. Even if he does, I can’t be sure Kaiser will agree to protect him. By making himself a fugitive, Dad has placed himself outside the pale of the law.
Forcing this insanity from my mind, I remind myself that all I can do in the short run is prove that someone else killed Viola Turner. Putting pressure on Brody Royal and the Double Eagles seems the best way to do that, since they almost certainly planned and executed that crime. And if Walker Dennis can get a warrant to tap Royal’s telephones, then all I need to do is find a way to “shake the tree” of Brody Royal.
Last night, Henry Sexton gave me a lot of detail about 1960s-vintage Double Eagle murders and plots, but I don’t think those would worry Royal much. Too many witnesses have died in the decades since. But the nightmare Glenn Morehouse recounted about the murder of the two female whistle-blowers from Royal Insurance is another matter. Royal’s son-in-law, Randall Regan, is obviously as sadistic a killer as any Double Eagle from the Jim Crow era. And an investigation that threatens not only the existence of one of Royal’s companies, but also Brody himself, would be something Royal simply couldn’t ignore. With the horrific details Morehouse gave Henry, I ought to be able to scare the living hell out of Randall Regan, and by extension, Brody himself. I’ll just have to make sure that when I do, neither man is in a position to make me suffer for it.
CHAPTER 57
BRODY ROYAL HAD not been spoken to in anger by another man in more than twenty years. Claude Devereux had felt something close to panic as Forrest Knox lambasted the old man for authorizing Randall Regan’s abortive attempt to kill Henry Sexton. Claude had watched this confrontation from a club chair in the rear corner of Royal’s study, while Forrest stood before Brody’s desk, speaking with the cold fury of a field officer reprimanding a deskbound general who’d been insulated from battle for too long. Brody weathered the storm like a craggy rock face on a mountainside, making no excuses, saying nothing at all. Randall Regan and Alphonse Ozan stood behind their principals like seconds at a duel, and Claude had the feeling that each was itching to step in and settle the disagreement with knives or worse.