Regan moves out of the shooting station and approaches us with the flamethrower.
“I think it’s human nature to overestimate our own importance,” Brody says. “Here’s the ending, son. You and your girlfriend are going to disappear down the drain of this room, just like Henry and Mr. Johnston there. Randall’s going to melt you into barbecue drippings, then feed your bones to the pigs on my daughter’s farm, miles from here. Your father will be dead by morning.” Royal comes still closer, so close that I smell his breath, a mix of whiskey and dirty dentures. “Last of all, your mother and your little girl.”
For one shattering moment, I fear that he’s located Mom and Annie at Edelweiss. But I see in his eyes that he hasn’t—and then I understand the final act that remains to be played.
“It’s only fitting,” he says, “when you think about what happened to my Katy. So—”
“You’re insane. You think you can get away with killing my whole family?”
“I do. When morning comes, there won’t be anything left but three empty houses. There’ll be some hullabaloo, of course. The FBI will run all over town like ants in a stepped-on pile. But meanwhile, Forrest will quietly spread the word that your family went into witness protection somewhere. And you know what? Folks will believe it. They’ll figure they were right all along—Doc Cage couldn’t have really killed anybody! Yeah, they’ll figure that whole story of him being a fugitive was some kind of cover story.”
“What kind of cover story? That’s ridiculous.”
Royal purses his lips like a storyteller asked to make up a good one on the spot. “I’m thinking Sonny Thornfield might disappear tonight as well. Maybe Snake Knox with him. Those two have had their runs. And Agent Kaiser has declared the Double Eagles a domestic terror group. And then there are those rumors that Snake’s been claiming he killed Martin Luther King. Yes … I think that story’s got legs, Mayor. And I think the more loudly the Bureau denies it, the more people will believe it.”
He’s right …
Brody stares at me as he might at a wayward nephew. “You still don’t understand, do you? I built what I have from nothing. From that godforsaken levee where my mother ate raw pig. Hundreds of people depend on me now. Thousands. And you want to tear all that down because a couple of niggers forgot their place forty years ago? It defies understanding. Hell, Cage, not even the FBI was working those cases until Henry started embarrassing them in the newspaper every week!”
He turns away, rubbing his chin in silence.
“Now?” Regan asks eagerly.
Royal holds up one hand, then turns slowly around the firing range and focuses on me again. “You know the tragic irony of all this? It’s only happening because of your father. All of it. All these deaths go back to him.”
I blink in confusion. “What?”
“Back in the gun room you asked me if I killed Viola. Well, I didn’t, as a matter of fact. I would have, thirty-seven years ago.” Brody steps to within inches of my face, his eyes gleaming like those of an old lecher. “I’ll tell you this: she was a sweet piece, boy. I had my taste out at a machine shop in the woods. Snake and his boys had her tied to a worktable, taking turns. I wore a hood while I took mine, just to be safe, but I could sure see her. My God … like a brown-skinned angel she was. But Snake had said too much in front of her, and she needed to die.”
Caitlin is watching Brody with visceral hatred.
“That’s ancient history,” I say in a shaky voice. “Who killed her?”
He shakes his head in amazement. “Don’t you see it yet? Viola would have died forty years ago if it was up to me. Or Snake. We all wanted her silenced. It was your daddy who kept her alive. St. Thomas Cage, M.D.”
“I know that. But how did he save her?”
Royal shrugs as if the answer is self-evident. “The same way I was going to get that APB canceled, or blame Morehouse for her murder. Power. The crazy irony of this whole goat rope is that, after giving up so much to keep that colored nurse alive back then, Doc killed her himself forty years later.”
My blood pressure plummets so fast that I feel I might faint. But Royal only mutters, “It defies understanding, I tell you.”
I don’t want to believe a word he’s saying, but I see only truth in the old man’s eyes.
“Tom thinks that damn son of hers is his,” Brody goes on. “And I suppose he could be. But like as not, he’s mine—or Snake’s, or Frank’s, or God-knows-who-else’s.” Royal pokes me in the chest. “That’s why you’re down in this hole, son. That’s why you and yours are going to die. You’re paying for the sins of the father, just like the Bible says.” He shrugs philosophically. “It’ll kill your daddy to hear you died this way, but he’s got no one to blame but himself.”
Royal takes a long last look at me, then turns away as though I’m already dead and says, “All right, Randall.”
“You won’t get my mother and daughter,” I promise his back. “My father, either. You don’t know where they are.”
Royal nods, then smiles sadly. “I’ll know in about thirty seconds, when your fiancée is screaming like a heretic at the stake.”
Caitlin closes her eyes.
“I don’t know myself,” I tell him.
“Yes, you do. You hid your mother and daughter. Had to have. And as for your father … you may not know where he is, but you know how to reach him. As soon as I had Forrest cancel that APB, you were going to call him and Garrity and tell them it was okay to come in.”
I’ll never be able to convince Royal otherwise.
Regan braces the firing pipe on his hip and aims it at Caitlin’s helpless body.
“Oh,” Brody says, as though he’s just remembered something. He takes a small derringer from his pocket, breaks it open, and removes one of its two rounds, which he slips into his pocket. “I’ve always been a student of human behavior, and I’m curious about something.”