THE FASTEST WAY to the Jericho Hole is to ride the gravel road atop the Mississippi River levee—fifteen minutes if you drive seventy, and Caitlin is urging me to do just that. The great hole lies in the wooded margin between the north end of Lake St. John and the newer course of the Mississippi River. The oxbow lake is shaped like a C facing the river, about ten miles north of the Natchez-Vidalia bridge, and the Jericho Hole forms an equilateral triangle at the upper end of the C, each of its sides about a third of a mile long. The levee road should bring us directly between the lake and the hole.
As we speed along the levee top, I give Caitlin a much-expanded summary of the theories Henry related to me Monday night—including the story of Brody Royal killing Albert Norris and ordering the downing of Dr. Robb’s plane. Since Henry has decided to pass on his files to her, I see no reason to withhold what she’ll soon read for herself. She records every word on her handheld Sony, but she seems less excited than I would have expected, which makes me suspicious. She’s obviously angry that I withheld so much, but still, to see her sit in tense silence while I describe the murder of two federal witnesses—both women—stretches credibility. Halfway to the Jericho Hole, she tells me that last night she salvaged Henry’s most recent notebook from the Beacon fire, and from it learned most of what Henry got from Glenn Morehouse, Pooky’s mother, and even what he told me on Monday night. That includes Brody’s Carlos Marcello connection, the plot to kill Robert Kennedy, and the murders of the two women from Royal Insurance.
“Given that I have all that,” she says, “do you still want me to write a comprehensive story in tomorrow’s paper, as Henry was planning to do?”
“Yes. Though I think you’d do well to leave out the Marcello-RFK plot. Until you have more proof, that’s only going to be a distraction from the civil rights murders.”
“But this story isn’t just about civil rights murders!” she explodes. “You can’t demand that I jump the gun on parts of the story and hold back the rest.”
“Did you really look at Henry back there?” I ask. “I don’t want you to end up like that. And the best way to prevent it is to convince Royal and the Double Eagles that the information they most fear is already out there. And that the FBI has it.”
Caitlin sighs and looks out the window at the river, which appears slate gray today, rather than reddish brown. “This is one of the most complex stories I’ve ever worked. I can’t possibly do it justice by tomorrow. I’m going to pursue it as hard as I can, but methodically. I’m going to get it right. I won’t let redneck psychopaths determine my publishing schedule.”
“Caitlin … Sherry Harden gave you the keys to Henry’s safe-deposit boxes. How quiet do you think she’ll stay about all she’s heard and seen? If the Double Eagles find out you have Henry’s files, you’ll be next on their hit list. The only way to stay off it is to publish the story Henry planned to publish, or one like it.”
Caitlin turns back to me and squeezes my arm, her eyes imploring. “But Henry had years to digest this stuff. He had it all in his head. I’m starting from zero! If I had his rough draft of the story, maybe I could pull this off. But that was destroyed in the fire last night.”
“I’m sorry. But you have a handpicked staff, most of them way overqualified. If you push your deadline till two or three A.M., you’ve got plenty of time to put a great story together. Caitlin … all you have to do is make the Eagles believe the FBI already has everything you do, even if they don’t. I’ll be glad to help you sift through Henry’s stuff—but I have to track down Dad first.”
“I don’t need your help,” she says sharply. “And I sure can’t wait for you to track Tom down. You don’t even know where to start looking.”
“I suspect Quentin might know where he is.”
“I’d start with your mother, if I were you.”
“She already lied to me about Dad once.”
“Well, you can’t blame her for that. What woman wouldn’t lie to protect her husband?”
“To her own son?”
Caitlin squeezes her knees in frustration. “We’re getting off subject. I just don’t like the way this thing has gone down. I’m still not sure you’re telling me everything.”
“Are you telling me everything you know?”
She blows out a rush of air, then says something unintelligible under her breath.
“Look!” I cry, pointing over the steering wheel as we come to a hard left turn on the levee. “What is that?”
Two hundred yards north of our car—and twenty feet below it—I see two huge tractor trailers with massive blue and white machines like blocky Transformers mounted behind them. Four black SUVs surround the trucks, and even from this distance, I hear a low, powerful rumble through my window glass. Some sort of workboat lies anchored about thirty yards out in the Jericho Hole.
“What the hell’s going on over there?” Caitlin asks.
“I have no idea. I figured we’d find an SUV filled with sonar equipment and a couple of FBI divers.”
A deeply rutted dirt road leads from the levee down to the Jericho Hole, and I’ve taken great care not to bottom out or get high-centered on it. Caitlin’s impatience is tangible in the car. The Jericho Hole is surrounded by trees except in a few places, but with the branches bare, you can clearly see the great loess bluff of Mississippi a mile across the river. As we draw nearer the semi trucks, I see Kirk Boisseau’s Nissan Titan parked at the water’s edge.
“How the hell did they find Kirk?” I wonder aloud.