Cemetery Road Read online

  Denny scowls in my direction. “So don’t pay me.”

  “You’re missing the point, Denny.”

  “No, I’m not. I don’t like the sheriff. And the chief of police I like even less. They hassle me all the time. Until they need me, of course. That time they had a car wreck down in a gully by Highway 61, they called me to fly down in there and check to see if anybody was alive. They were glad to see me then. And at the prison riot, too. Although they stole my micro SD cards and copied them. But any other time, they’re major A-holes.”

  “I heard they have their own drone now.”

  Once again, Denny snorts in contempt.

  “You know what I’m thinking?” I say.

  “Nope.”

  “The next thing we need to know is where Buck’s truck is. He drives an old GMC pickup. It’s bound to be upstream from where he was found—unless something isn’t what it appears to be.”

  Denny is nodding. “You want me to fly the banks and look for his truck?”

  “Seems like the thing to do, doesn’t it? You got enough battery left?”

  “Two is one, one is none.”

  “What?”

  “Navy SEAL motto. Meaning I brought some extras.” Denny leans over the fence and looks down the sharp incline of Front Street. “Looks like they’re loading him into the coroner’s wagon. Let the deputies get clear, and I’ll fly the drone back up here, change out my battery, and start checking the banks.”

  “Sounds good. Let’s try the Mississippi shore first.”

  “Yep.”

  We stand at the fence together, looking down into Lower’ville, which on most mornings would be virtually empty (except in March, which is peak tourist season for our city). But on this May morning, death has drawn a crowd. Though they’re almost stick figures from our perspective, I recognize Byron Ellis helping the deputies slide the sheet-covered body from his gurney into the old Chevy. Watching them wrestle that mortal weight, I hear a snatch of music: Robert Johnson playing “Preachin’ Blues.” Turning back to the road, I look for a passing car but see none. Then I realize the music was in my head. “Preachin’ Blues” was one of the first songs Buck taught me on guitar. The harmless man lying beneath the coroner’s sheet with his skull cracked open salvaged my young life. The realization that he has been murdered—possibly on the river—is so surreal that I have to force it into some inaccessible place in my mind.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Denny asks in a hesitant voice.

  I wipe my eyes and turn back to him. “Yeah. Buck and I were close back when I lived here. When I was a kid.”

  “Oh. Can I ask you something?”

  He’s going to ask me about my brother dying, I think, searching for a way to avoid the subject. Seeing Buck pulled from the river has already knocked me off-balance. I don’t want to dwell on the nightmare that poisoned the river for me.

  “Sure,” I reply, sounding anything but.

  “I knew you won a Pulitzer Prize and all, when you were in Washington. But I didn’t realize what it was for. I was online last week and saw it was for something you wrote about being embedded in Iraq. Were you with the SEALs or somebody like that? Delta Force?”

  A fourteen-year-old boy’s question. “Sometimes,” I tell him, relief coursing through me. “I was embedded in Afghanistan before Iraq, with the Marines. But in Iraq I was with private security contractors. Do you know what those are?”

  “Like Blackwater and stuff?”

  “Exactly. Most guys who do that work in Afghanistan are former soldiers: Rangers, Delta, SEALs. But a lot of them in Iraq were just regular cops back in the world, believe it or not. And lots of those were from the South. They go over there for the money. It’s the only way they can make that kind of paycheck. They earn four times what the regular soldiers do. More than generals.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair.”

  “It’s not.”

  Denny thinks about this. “So what’s it like? For real. Is it like Call of Duty come to life?”

  “Not even close. But until you’ve been there, you can’t really understand it. And I hope you never do. Only a few things in life are like that.”

  “Such as?”

  “That’s a different conversation. One for you and your mom.”

  “Come on. Tell me something cool about it.”

  I try to think like a fourteen-year-old for a minute. “You can tell what units the contractors came from by the sunglasses they wear. Wraparound Oakleys for Delta Force. SEALs wear Maui Jims. Special Forces, Wiley X.”

  “No way. What about Ray-Bans?”

  “Over there? Only for punks and phonies. Over here, that’s what I wear.” I glance at my wristwatch. “I need to call Buck’s wife, Denny.”

  “Sure, okay. But like, how did you get that kind of job? I mean, that kind of access?”

  “A guy I went to high school with helped me out. He was an Army Ranger a long time ago, during the Persian Gulf War. He got me that gig with the private contractors. He also saved my life over there. That’s what won me the Pulitzer, that assignment. What I saw over there.”

  Denny nods like he understands all this, but I have a feeling he’ll be buying my book online this afternoon.

  “Save your money,” I tell him. “I’ll give you a copy.”

  “Cool. Who was the guy? Your friend?”

  “Paul Matheson.”

  His eyes widen. “Kevin Matheson’s dad?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That dude’s like, rich. Really rich.”

  “I guess he is, yeah. Paul didn’t go over there for the money, though. It started as a sort of Hemingway trip for him. Do you know what I mean by that?”

  “Not really.”

  “A macho thing. He had problems with his father. He felt like he had a lot to prove.”

  “That I understand.”

  I’ll bet you do.

  “Hey,” Denny says, his voice suddenly bright. “We should go up to the cemetery to run this search. That ground’s like forty feet higher than here, counting the hills. Better line of sight up there, which gives me better control.”

  The thought of the Bienville Cemetery resurrects the dread I felt earlier. “Let’s just do it from here, okay? I’m on a tight schedule this morning.”

  The boy gives me a strange look. “What you gotta do?”

  “They’re breaking ground on the new paper mill at eleven a.m. I need to be there for that.”

  He laughs. “The Mississippi Miracle? I’ll believe it when they build it.”

  Denny sounds like he’s quoting someone else. “Where’d you hear that line?”

  He looks sheepish. “My uncle Buddy.”

  Denny’s uncle is a mostly out-of-work contractor who spends his days getting high in front of the TV. “That paper mill’s the real deal. The Chinese have the money. And a billion-dollar investment could put this town in the black for the next fifty years.”

  Denny looks a little less skeptical. “My mom’s been kind of hoping to get work out there.”

  “I’ll bet. The average salary’s going to be sixty thousand dollars. And that,” I think aloud, “is why I’m afraid that the new paper mill might have played some part in Buck’s death.”

  Denny’s head whips toward me. Even a fourteen-year-old boy can put this together. “I read your article about the artifact Buck found. Would that mess up the paper mill somehow?”

  “It could. It scared the shit out of most people in this town. The whole county, really.”

  “You think somebody would kill Buck over that?”

  “I can think of about thirty-six thousand suspects at this point.”

  “For real?”

  “Kids are killing kids over cell phones in this town, Denny. What do you think people will do for a billion dollars?”

  “A billion dollars?”

  “That’s what the Chinese are investing here, not counting all the millions that will come with the new bridge and interstate.”
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br />   “Wow. I see what you mean. Well . . .” He looks over the fence again. “The coroner’s splitting. I’ll get the drone back up here and start checking the riverbanks.”

  I give him a thumbs-up. “I’m going to walk down the fence and make a few calls. Holler if you see anything.”

  “I will.”

  For a second I wonder if I could be putting him in danger by having him search for Buck’s pickup, but I can’t see how. Turning, I walk north along the fence, looking down at the roof of the coroner’s wagon as it hauls Buck’s remains up from the river for the final time. I really have only one call to make, because the call I want to make, I can’t. Not for several hours yet. The call I must make I’d give anything to avoid.

  Taking out my iPhone, I dial Buck’s house. Not even one full ring passes before his wife pounces on the phone.

  “Marshall?” Quinn Ferris says breathlessly.

  “It was him,” I tell her, knowing the slightest delay would only make it worse. “Buck’s dead.”

  There’s a deep-space silence for two full seconds, and then Quinn says in a tiny voice, “You’re sure?”

  “I saw his face, Quinn.”

  “Oh, God. Marshall . . . what do I do? Is he all right? Is he comfortable? I mean—”

  “I know what you mean. They’re treating him with respect. Byron Ellis picked him up. I imagine they’ll take Buck to the hospital for a brief period. There’s going to have to be an autopsy in Jackson.”

  “Oh . . . no. They’re going to cut him open?”

  “There’s no way around it, I’m afraid.”

  “Was it not an accident?”

  Here a little soft-pedaling won’t hurt anyone. Not in the short run. “They don’t know yet. But anyone who dies while not under a physician’s care has to have a postmortem.”

  “Dear Lord. I’m trying to get my mind around it.”

  “I think you should stay at home for a while, Quinn.”

  “I can’t. I have to see him. Marshall, does he look all right?”

  “He was in the river. That doesn’t do anybody any favors. I think you should stay out at your place for a bit. I’ll drive out to see you in a couple of hours.”

  “No. No, I’m coming in. I can take it. He was my husband.”

  “Quinn, listen. This is me, not the police, asking. Do you know where Buck was last night?”

  “Of course. He was going back to the industrial park to try to find some bones.”

  I fight the urge to groan. The industrial park is the site of the new paper mill, where the groundbreaking will happen in two hours. Buck was jailed for five hours for digging at that site the first time, and charged with felony trespass. He knew he would only get in more trouble if he went back there. But more important, that site lies downstream from where Buck was found.

  “Did they kill him?” Quinn asks. “Did some of those greedy bastards murder my husband because of their stupid mill?”

  “I don’t know yet, Quinn. But I’m going to find out.”

  “If you don’t, we’ll never know. I don’t trust one of those sons of bitches in the sheriff’s department. They’re all owned by the local big shots. You know who I’m talking about.”

  I grunt but say nothing.

  “The goddamn Bienville Poker Club,” she says.

  “You could be right. But we don’t know that.”

  “I know. They don’t care about anything but money. Money and their mansions and their spoiled rotten kids and—oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just not right. Buck was so . . . good.”

  “He was,” I agree.

  “And nobody gives a damn,” she says in a desolate voice. “All the good he did, all those years, and in the end nobody cares about anything but money.”

  “They think the mill means survival for the town. Boom times again.”

  “Damn this town,” she says savagely. “If they had to kill my husband to get their mill, Bienville doesn’t deserve to survive.”

  There it is.

  “You need to call Jet Matheson,” she says. “She’s the only one with the guts to take on the Poker Club. Not that you haven’t done some things. I mean, you’ve printed stories and all. But Jet’s own father-in-law is a member, and she’s still gone after a couple of them like a pit bull. She took Dr. Warren Lacey to court and damn near stripped him of his license.”

  Quinn got to know Jet during our senior year in high school, and better during the years I was away. “Jet’s out of town this morning,” I tell her, “taking a deposition in a lawsuit. I’ll speak to her when she gets back.”

  “Good.”

  Quinn goes silent, but I can almost hear her mind spinning, frantically searching for anything to distract her from the immediate, awful reality. I wait, but the new widow says nothing more, probably realizing that no matter what I do, or what Jet Matheson or anyone else does, her husband will still be dead.

  “Quinn, I need to get back to work. I’ll check in with you soon, I promise. You call me if you have any trouble with anyone or anything today.”

  “I can handle it, Marshall. I’m a tough old girl. Come out later if you get a chance. This house is going to seem pretty empty. You’ll remind me of better times. All my old Eagle Scouts around the dinner table. Well, Buck’s, really.”

  Quinn and Buck married in their early forties, and she was never able to have children of her own. Buck’s Boy Scouts always got an extra dose of maternal affection from her, one much needed by some.

  “Yours too, Quinn.”

  “They were. And all the music. Lord, you and Buck played through till dawn so many nights. I’d get so mad knowing we had to be up the next day, but I never said anything. It was so pure. I knew how lucky we were, even then.”

  And with that, my first tears come. “I remember you complaining a time or two,” I tell her.

  “Well, somebody had to be responsible.” She laughs softly, then her voice drops to a confiding whisper. “I know you know what I’m going through, Marshall. Because of Adam.”

  I close my eyes, and tears roll down my cheeks. “I’ve gotta go, Quinn.”

  “I didn’t mean to— Oh, hell. Death sucks.”

  “I’ll call you this afternoon.”

  I hang up and strike off down the bluff, away from Denny Allman, who doesn’t need to see me crying right now. Denny’s father abandoned him a long time ago, and while it might be good for him to see how grown men react to death, I don’t want to explain that the loss robbing me of my composure now didn’t happen last night, but thirty-one years ago.

  A fourteen-year-old boy doesn’t need to know grief can last that long.

  Chapter 6

  While Denny Allman flies his drone up the bluff face to change batteries and begin searching for Buck Ferris’s truck, I walk north along the fence and try to get myself under control. It’s tough with the Mississippi River dominating my field of view. Seeing Buck pulled dead from that water kicked open a door between the man I am now and the boy I was at fourteen, the year fate ripped my life inside out. That door has been wedged shut for more years than I want to think about. Now, rather than face the dark opening, my mind casts about for something to distract itself from peering into the past.

  My finger itches to make that call I cannot make, but the person I want to talk to can’t take a call from me right now. I’ve slept with married women twice in my life. The first time was in my twenties, and she was French—my professor at Georgetown. I didn’t even know she was married when I started sleeping with her; her husband lived most of the year in France. The risks during that affair never rose above the possibility of an awkward meeting at a restaurant, which might have resulted in a sharp word later, for her not me. The woman I’m sleeping with now has a husband quite capable of killing me, were he to learn of our affair. If I called her now, she could try to play it off as business, but even people of marginal intelligence can detect intimacy in the human voice. I don’t intend to have my life upended—or even e
nded—because of an unguarded syllable decoded by a nosy paralegal. I could send a text, of course, but SMS messages leave a digital trail.

  For now I must suffer in silence.

  A group of women power walking along the bluff approaches from a distance. An asphalt trail follows the bluff for two miles—the Mark Twain Riverwalk—and in the early mornings and evenings it’s quite busy. Thankfully, by nine thirty most of the serious walkers have retreated to coffee shops or to their SUVs for morning errands. For the first hundred yards, I keep my eyes rightward, on the buildings that line Battery Row. I pass the old clock tower, the Planters’ Hotel, two antebellum mansions. Behind them stands the tallest building in the city, the Aurora Hotel. Next comes the memorial fountain enshrining 173 Confederate dead. It’s a stone’s throw from the emplacements where thirty-two-pounder Seacoast guns covered the Mississippi River during the Civil War. Across from the fountain stand a couple of bars and restaurants, another antebellum home, and then the new amphitheater, paid for by casino money.

  The old railroad depot functions as the hub of the bluff, with its small café, convenience shop, tourist information office, and herd of blue bicycles for rent. Past the depot stands the only modern building on the bluff, the Holland Development Company, headquarters of our local real estate king. Just down the street from that crouches the Twelve Bar, a ratty blues club owned by a native son who’s turned down stunning sums to hold on to his pride and joy. Across from the Twelve Bar is a graded site awaiting the granite slab of a promised civil rights memorial, but somehow the final money never seems to get appropriated. I’ve walked this route too many times over the past months to be distracted for long. Eventually the gravity of the river draws my gaze to the west.

  From the midpoint of the Bienville bluff, you can see seventeen miles of river. Thanks to the misguided Corps of Engineers, the Mississippi upstream from Bienville looks like a canal. It’s a nine-mile run to the first meander, and two meanders above that stands the siege city of Vicksburg. Besieged by Yankees during the Civil War and by economic woes today, the city fights hard to survive. It’s a grim reality, but the river towns are dying in Mississippi, by a slow exsanguination of people and talent that functions like a wasting disease. Most have changed so little over time that if you resurrected a citizen who lived in the 1890s, they would still recognize the streets they once walked. In Natchez and Bienville, you could do that with someone from the 1850s.