Despite the importance of the historical murders, Caitlin’s mind gravitated to Henry’s most recent discoveries, detailed in the Moleskine notebook she’d found at the fire. Last night, descriptions of savage beatings, flayings, and a possible crucifixion had still retained the power to shock her. But the sheer weight of the horrors Henry had uncovered had begun to deaden her sensibilities. The same thing could easily happen to the Examiner’s readers, so she had to choose her focus carefully. The dozen-odd murders committed by the Double Eagles comprised a diffuse mass of data spanning a decade and involving unknown witnesses who could take years to locate, if they weren’t dead already. Nailing a few wrinkled old Klansmen who’d been peddling crystal meth to pay their rent might sell a few newspapers, but it wouldn’t win her any prizes. Glenn Morehouse’s sickening account of the murder of the whistle-blowers from Royal Insurance was the kind of story that grabbed modern readers by the throat. Further, Brody Royal was about the juiciest target imaginable in terms of a marketable story. If she brought down one of the richest men in the state by tying him to Carlos Marcello and the attempted assassination of Robert Kennedy, the story would break worldwide in a matter of hours.
Caitlin set down her teacup, her heart racing. The last thing she needed now was more caffeine. To nail Brody Royal for murder, she needed one of two things: a witness who could tie him to one of the murders, or a line into his secret life that could yield damning evidence. The only witness she knew about was the one Henry had dubbed “Huggy Bear” in his notebooks—an unidentified black man who had mysteriously appeared at the bedside of Pooky Wilson’s dying mother. Yet Henry had committed many hours to finding this man, and he’d failed, even with the advantage of having known many of the boys who’d worked at Albert Norris’s store. As for finding a door into Royal’s secret life, Caitlin’s possible lines of infiltration were few. One was Brody’s daughter, Katy Royal Regan, who’d been Pooky Wilson’s lover forty years ago. Another was Royal’s homicidal son-in-law, who was as likely to rape and kill her as talk to her. And then there was Claude Devereux, Royal’s wily old attorney. Caitlin didn’t hold out much hope of tricking a lawyer into admitting anything damaging about a client, much less his richest one. The daughter, on the other hand, might make a vulnerable interview subject. Henry had interviewed Katy Royal and come up dry, but then … Henry was a man.
Caitlin felt sure she could do better.
The only problem was that after leaving the Jericho Hole, she’d promised Penn not to publish anything about Brody Royal until midnight tonight. She regretted that promise now, but Penn had told her that he and John Kaiser were working together to obtain proof of Royal’s involvement in Viola Turner’s death. She couldn’t very well argue against a strategy that might gain Tom his freedom.
As her mind shifted to thoughts of Tom on the run, someone cleared their throat in her doorway. She looked up and saw Jenna Cross, her personal assistant, looking harried.
“What is it, Jen?”
“Your father’s on line two, returning your call.”
Caitlin nodded and lifted the landline next to her computer. She often called her father to authorize extra funds for specific stories, and their pattern of negotiation was invariable. John Masters would complain for a while, but in the end he would give his daughter what she wanted. But this time Caitlin’s request had been unusual. She’d asked her father to publish tomorrow’s Double Eagle stories not only in the Natchez Examiner, but in all twenty-six other papers of his chain. Since most Masters papers were based in the Southeast, the public reaction would come like a storm. But Penn’s goal of making the story so big that attacking Caitlin or Annie or Peggy would seem pointless would be well and truly accomplished.
“Hello, Daddy. What did you decide?”
Her father’s deep chuckle filled the earpiece. “I’ll run your story in ten papers.”
Caitlin started to argue out of reflex, then reconsidered. “Which ten?”
“The urban markets. Charleston, Wilmington, Savannah, Birmingham, et cetera, down the line.”
She closed her eyes and suppressed the impulse to ask for more. Agreeing to run her story in ten papers was an unprecedented concession from her father, whose strategy of expansion had always been based on giving small cities what they wanted: good news rather than strong medicine.
“Thank you, Daddy.”
“How much space are these stories going to take up?”
“Pretty much the whole edition here, excepting the sports page.”
“You know I can’t give you that in the other papers.”
“What can you give me? This story’s going to go international sixty seconds after we go out with it.”
“Three related stories, a total of … three thousand words.”
This was like a gift from the gods, but still she clenched her jaw and said, “Four.”
“Thirty-five hundred, Cait, and that’s pushing it.”
Caitlin wanted to press him, but she stifled herself. She’d have to be content with adding links to the full suite of stories on the Examiner’s Web edition. “Done,” she said.
“When will you be finished with these stories?”
She was going to have to lie now and beg forgiveness later. “What’s the absolute latest I can get them out?”
“Midnight, if you want them in the other papers. That’s nonnegotiable. I can’t pay the staffs of ten papers overtime because you’re late getting a story in. If you need more time, we can run it day after tomorrow.”
“I’d like nothing better. But Penn says no.”
“Is Penn making your publishing decisions now?”
She quickly explained her fiancé’s theory of achieving security for the family by running the story as soon as possible.
“I agree with Penn,” her father said. “You have those stories done by eleven—no ifs, ands, or buts. If you don’t, I’ll call Penn and have him dictate a story. I’m not suffering through one more night like I did two months ago.”
Caitlin closed her eyes and tried to remain in the present. “I’ll make the deadline. And you’d better get ready. We’re going to have every TV network in the country calling us tomorrow.”
“I’ll let the other editors know.”
Caitlin thanked him again, then hung up and looked at her watch.