“Politics. Which I detest. I’ve cleared this through the U.S. attorney’s office, all the way up to Washington.”
“All this effort for a couple of musicians who went missing nearly forty years ago?”
Kaiser raises one eyebrow. “Those musicians were kidnapped and murdered by a domestic terror organization, Mayor Cage. A terror cell that murdered FBI informants and probably executed one of its own members only two days ago. Which means that it’s still active.”
I detect a hint of sarcasm in his voice, but he sounds deadly serious about his motive.
“Are you saying—”
“I’m saying that the Patriot Act, flawed as it may be, has its uses.”
“That’s how you got Morehouse’s body. Right?”
He gives me a conspiratorial smile.
“Agent Kaiser, I have a feeling you’re not the standard-issue Quantico robot.”
“True, I’m afraid. I usually like to do things quietly, but when those bastards tried to kill Henry Sexton, I decided to take the gloves off.”
“Kirk said you’ve already gotten most of the bones up.”
“On their way to the crime lab in Washington, as we speak.”
“I’m betting they belong to Luther Davis.”
Kaiser nods. “But that’s not for your girlfriend.”
“I know. You already ID’d the car, right?”
Kaiser smiles again. “Nineteen fifty-nine Pontiac Strato Chief. Two-door, full-size convertible. Split grille, twin tailfins, the only year they made them. This one has a 389-cubic-inch Trophy V-8, three-two barrel carburetors, and Wide Track Tiger wheels. Three hundred forty-five horsepower. If the Double Eagles hadn’t had Concordia Parish deputies radioing ahead to help them, they’d have never caught Davis and Revels the night they beat them up for going to that all-white drive-in.”
“You got all that while it’s still under the water?”
“I knew what I was looking for. That’s the same car Luther Davis bought used in 1961, right after he was discharged from the army.”
A twinge of excitement ripples through my chest. “You’re positive?”
Kaiser reaches into his pocket and takes out a folded photo print. At first it looks like a bad underwater shot of the Loch Ness monster. Then I realize I’m looking at a rectangular metal plate with rounded edges and several faint numbers and letters engraved on it.
“One of my divers shot this forty-five minutes ago.”
“The numbers look like they’re in groups,” I muse, taking the photo from him. “One—five-nine—P—four … zero-three-five?”
“The VIN number,” he explains. “On that model Pontiac, it’s on the left front door hinge pillar. The ‘one’ represents the model series: Catalina. The second number is the year of manufacture: 1959. The P means the car was built at the home plant in Pontiac, Michigan. And this last number is the car’s serial number: four-zero-three-five. According to Dwight Stone’s case notes, Pontiac Catalina number 4035 was registered with the Adams County Department of Motor Vehicles in 1961 by one Luther Elijah Davis, age twenty, a Negro veteran of the U.S. Army.”
“Jesus,” I breathe, thinking of Henry. “You did it.”
“I called Dwight as soon as I matched the VIN. That old hardass was ready to fly down from Colorado and start digging into the case himself. I couldn’t allow that, of course, even if his health was good—which it’s not. But Dwight’s daughter works at headquarters in Washington, and she’s helping me grease the skids for all this support.”
“Lucky you. But why keep draining the Hole, since you’ve already ID’d Luther’s car? Why not just pull the car up with a cable?”
Kaiser doesn’t answer immediately. “We have a lot of unsolved crimes on our books in this parish. I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years about bodies being dumped into water. I think it’s time the sun shone on the bottom of this little lake.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Another enigmatic smile. “Well … you might say I’m poking my stick in the rattlesnake hole and waiting to see what crawls out.”
I point toward the massive pump trucks. “It won’t take long for word of all this to get out.”
Kaiser starts walking again, and I follow. “I want every ex-Klansman and Double Eagle in this parish to know the federal government just stomped in here with the biggest boots we’ve put on the ground since 1964. I want ’em pissing their geriatric diapers by morning.”
His audacity leaves me speechless for the moment. Pointing to a fallen cottonwood log, he moves toward it, meaning to sit. Before he can, I grab the back of his shirt, then kick the log to scare off any snakes that might be nesting under it.
“Snakes don’t hibernate up here any more than in New Orleans,” I tell him.
“Thanks.” He sits on the thick log and turns his brown eyes on me, reading more than I usually like to let people see. “Penn, I know your father’s jumped bail. He’s in real trouble, and you need to get him back before anybody else finds out he’s gone.”
“What makes you think he’s jumped bail?” I ask, hoping my face doesn’t betray my guilty knowledge.
“Come on, man. Let’s not do this. You already knew he skipped.”
Blood is pounding in my ears. “My father didn’t kill anybody, Agent Kaiser.”
He gives me an appraising look. “From what I’ve read of his history, I tend to believe you. But if he’s innocent, why did he jump bail?”
“I’m not sure yet. But this whole prosecution is motivated by revenge. The local sheriff and DA have wanted payback on my father and me for a long time.”
Kaiser nods slowly. “I figured it might be something like that.”
“How did you find out he skipped?”