Cemetery Road Read online

I take another long sip of coffee. “I’m not anxious to get my skull caved in. But Buck was right. Old B. L. C. Wailes wouldn’t have wasted time drawing maps of nothing. I think there are bones out there, thousands of them. The bones of people who were living in this county four millennia ago, and maybe five or six. Right where you and I grew up.”

  Nadine steeples her fingers and smiles the way my favorite English teacher used to, as if she’s about to test me in some private way. “In a vacuum,” she intones, “I’d say that’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. But the way things are now . . .” She sighs.

  “Go on.”

  “Bortles is an asshole, but he raised a real dilemma. What if you go out tonight and dig up some bones? You trace out the Woodhenge and uncover a major archaeological site. A new Poverty Point. Would you kill the paper mill deal to do that? Would you kill the future of this town to do it?”

  There’s surprising passion in her voice. “Killing that mill deal wouldn’t kill the town.”

  “Don’t be so sure.” She raises her right forefinger, and again I flash back to school. “The new white-flight neighborhoods in the eastern part of the county have brought in some money from Jackson, and there’s some smaller commercial activity going on—indie retail, like my store—and some light industry. But to really survive, Bienville has to have something like that paper mill. Hundreds of jobs that pay sixty or seventy grand, with good benefits. God knows how many ancillary jobs will be created. The construction alone will be a bonanza for this town. Then—”

  I lift my right hand to stop her. “You’re right, no question. The bridge and the interstate alone mean hundreds of millions. Even the ancillary stuff . . .” I look up into her bright eyes. “They killed Buck, Nadine. You know? They murdered him.”

  “Who’s ‘they,’ Marshall?”

  I sigh heavily. “Quinn Ferris thinks the Poker Club did it.”

  “The venerable Bienville Poker Club,” Nadine whispers. She raises her hands and makes a mock show of reverence. “The descendants of the hallowed founders. I’d say Quinn’s instincts are dead-on, as usual.”

  “I’m about to see most of them at the groundbreaking ceremony. I may try to talk to a few.”

  The front bell rings again. Nadine looks over to see a familiar customer, an older lady, who walks to the mystery section. Turning back to me, she whispers, “What does Jet say about all this?”

  “I haven’t spoken to Jet.”

  She looks surprised. “Why not?”

  “She’s out of town today, taking a deposition in that suit over rigged construction bids. She probably hasn’t even heard Buck’s dead.”

  Nadine slowly shakes her head. “That’s going to hit her hard. But she’s going to have some ideas about who did it. She knows more about the Poker Club than we ever will.”

  “Because she married into it,” I say in a sour voice. I look at my watch, then gulp the rest of my coffee. “I need to get moving if I’m going to make it.”

  “You want a go cup?”

  “No, thanks.” I start to stand, but Nadine reaches out and catches my right forearm, holding me in my seat.

  “One second.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I see something in your eyes. Something I haven’t seen before. Not even when you talked about your divorce. Or . . . your son.”

  A cold blade slices through my heart. “I’m okay.”

  “Come on. This is me. When you came in, you said the river got to you this morning. Did it make you think about Adam? The day he drowned?”

  God, this woman knows me. After a few seconds, I nod. “It’s like Buck’s death pulled a cork on something, and the past came rushing out. It feels like water rising over my head.”

  She nods slowly. “Should you talk to somebody?”

  “I’m talking to you.”

  “A professional.”

  “Come on. I haven’t talked to a shrink since I was fifteen.”

  “Maybe you didn’t need to. Do you want to come back here after lunch?”

  “No, I’m fine.” I move to get up again, but something holds me in my place. “I think how I feel has as much to do with my dad as Adam.”

  “That was the start of your problems, right? Him blaming you for Adam’s death.”

  “Yeah. And it was my fault, as much as something can be your fault when you’re fourteen. The thing is, after Dad stopped hunting for Adam’s body, he finally apologized. This was like four months after the memorial service. I’m pretty sure my mother made him do it.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he didn’t mean it. Dad wasn’t sorry he’d blamed me. He’s blamed me every day since. That was the central fact of my life for three years. He never said it out loud again. But he never truly made eye contact with me after that day. Not unless I caught him staring at me when he thought I was preoccupied. And when I did catch him, I could read his mind like a neon sign blinking on his forehead.”

  “Don’t say it, Marshall.”

  “Why are you here? That’s what the sign said. Why are you here when he’s gone? Where’s the justice in that?”

  “That’s your guilt talking,” Nadine insists. “You’re flagellating yourself. Your father’s a good man. He just couldn’t—”

  “Sure, sure,” I say angrily. “A hero to millions. The Conscience of Mississippi, right? But to me? He was a living rebuke. Never mind that the tower climb could have killed Adam just as easily.”

  Nadine takes my hands in hers. “Don’t you get it? This is why you’re back here. You didn’t come only because your mother needed you, or even because he’s sick. You came because you have to settle this between you. You have to forgive each other before he goes.”

  I appreciate Nadine’s efforts, but very gently I remove my hands from hers. “That’s not going to happen. I’ve been alone with him several times now, hard as that is, and he hasn’t said one word about it. He just sits there and yells at the television. The news, of course.”

  “He’ll get there,” she says with absolute assurance. “He probably carries unimaginable guilt for doing that to you. He had to blame somebody. He could have blamed God, but he didn’t believe in God. You were handier.”

  For five seconds I allow myself to recall the black hole of my life from the end of ninth through tenth grade. The black hole that Buck Ferris pulled me out of. I sigh heavily, then stand. “Thanks for the coffee. Also the floor show with Dr. Bortles. I’ll update you tomorrow morning.”

  She walks me to the door. “Hey, have you heard the rumor about the party tonight? On the roof of the Aurora?”

  “The celebration of the mill deal? What about it?”

  “They say Jerry Lee Lewis is going to be there. He’s supposed to play a set, like he used to in the old days.”

  “No way. Isn’t he like eighty-five or something?”

  “Eighty-two.” Nadine has gotten that glint in her eye. “But the Killer still brings it.”

  “They said Trump was coming to the groundbreaking ceremony, too, but all we get is the secretary of commerce.”

  “I’ve got faith in Jerry Lee.”

  “That’d be something to see, all right. But I’m not invited.”

  Nadine looks genuinely surprised. “But the Mathesons are co-hosting. Surely Jet or Paul—”

  “I’m persona non grata since writing that piece about Buck’s discovery.”

  Nadine stops at the door and turns to me with her mischievous smile. “Well, I’m invited. Why don’t you be my plus-one?”

  I start to decline, but this is Nadine. And the party would be a damn good opportunity to study a lot of people who are profiting off the paper mill deal. “Can I get back to you in a bit?”

  She shrugs. “Open invitation.”

  “I’m a little confused,” I say, unable to resist needling her. “I heard you were gay.”

  She laughs out loud. “Come to the party with me, and we’ll kill that rumor for good. People
will have us engaged by morning.”

  As I open the door, her smile fades, and she follows me outside.

  “Take a hard look at the Poker Club at the groundbreaking,” she says. “They’re bastards to a man. They’ve ruled this town for a hundred and fifty-three years, and not one of them would lose a minute’s sleep over killing Buck.”

  “I actually hope that’s not true.”

  She points at a display of mysteries and thrillers in her front window. “Despite my trade, the truth is there’s not much mystery to real-life murders. Cui bono, honey. That’s the only question that matters. I’d bet my store that one of those Poker Club assholes killed Buck. But don’t kid yourself about what it would mean to take them on. They’d kill you, too. Wouldn’t hesitate. Keep that in mind during your editorial meetings.”

  With that, Nadine goes inside and closes her door, leaving me to walk away with the muted ring of her bell in my ears.

  Chapter 9

  The ride from Nadine’s to the paper mill site takes ten to fifteen minutes. The land called the “industrial park” sits below the bluff south of town, where four or five large factories and a few smaller ones operated from the 1940s through the 1980s and ’90s, before going through down cycles, changes of ownership by second- and third-tier companies, and finally the sheriff chaining the gates shut. It’s the same story all over the South—all over America, really.

  I drive along the bluff most of the way, thinking about Buck and who might have killed him. Both his widow and Nadine believe the Bienville Poker Club must be behind the crime. I don’t disagree in principle, but I’ve yet to see any evidence. Before I forget, I text Ben Tate, my editor at the Watchman, and ask him to find out who employed the security guards who started covering the industrial park after we published our story on Buck and whether any were on duty last night.

  Again the river dominates my view for most of the route, this time on my right, as I drive south along the bluff, which is mostly covered with kudzu here. Searching the Sirius channels for some of the music Buck and I used to play together, I realize I’m thinking about my son, whom Nadine mentioned back in her bookshop. He was in my mind earlier, at the cemetery wall, just below the dark drama of Adam and my father. My talk with Nadine dispelled the clouds of sediment that memory raised, and during the drive along the bluff my little boy rises from the deep darkness.

  I got married fourteen years ago, to a colleague in Washington. Her name is Molly McGeary, and quite a few TV viewers still remember her. After starting as a reporter at the Washington Times, Molly became one of the first print journalists to make the jump to television. First she moved to USA Today as a political reporter. Then a producer at NBC happened to catch her on a panel at a conference in New York, and she was off. In no time she was making appearances on the Today show, covering Washington stories and the business side of the entertainment sector.

  At the time I married Molly, I believed I loved her. But looking back later, I realized I was in that situation where everyone you know—lifelong friends, colleagues, old classmates—has already been married for years and is having children, some their second or third child. Faced with this, you start wondering if you were put on earth merely to work and have a succession of sexual relationships that ultimately go nowhere. That kind of anxiety skews your objectivity, makes you persuade yourself that you’re feeling things you’re really not. You believe you ought to be feeling those things, so eventually—with the help of your parents, your cajoling friends, and a romantic co-conspirator—you do. That was my state of mind before I went to Iraq. By the time I got back, I knew that life could be snatched away at any moment, and the only sensible thing to do was get married and start procreating.

  Molly and I were still in the glow of infatuation when we walked down the aisle. The first year was a good one. But after she got pregnant—a planned decision—the reality of having a child started to come home to us, and particularly to her. To my consternation, as the fetus grew inside her, and she ballooned up in the later months, she began to feel that our baby was a parasitical being, sapping the life from her, changing her irrevocably. At first I thought Molly was only half-serious. And surely, I reasoned, such feelings must be common among professional women? They would inevitably pass. But within two weeks of delivering Adam (yes, I named my son after my dead brother), I witnessed something I had never quite understood before: postpartum depression.

  With the clarity of hindsight, I now believe Molly never recovered from that condition—not while we were together. We consulted a parade of medical experts, tried several promising therapies, and went to great lengths to get first-class child care so that Molly could return to her career. Nothing worked. Two years passed like that—a mostly wonderful time for Adam and me, but for Molly a sort of shadow play that never quite became real. She stayed emotionally muted, exhausted, and irritable when she did feel alert. She resented the demands of motherhood, but also the demands of her job. And then—just as I was considering a radical job change to try to improve the situation—I discovered that death had been hovering over us once more, just as it had when I was fourteen.

  In late August, I was working in the main offices of the Post, on Fifteenth and L, where Woodward and Bernstein did the work that made me want to follow in their footsteps. I was supposed to be home by six thirty, to take over caring for Adam so that Molly could attend a network event. Then I got a call from CNN. Could I run over to their studio and appear on Lou Dobbs Tonight to discuss President Bush signing the bailout bill, and the suspension of trading on both Russian stock exchanges? This was before the era of ubiquitous pundits on television every night, so it was something I felt I should do. Molly agreed, though she let me know she wasn’t happy about giving up her evening to babysit our two-year-old.

  I was in the midst of the interview when my cell phone vibrated an emergency code in my pocket. By the time I got off camera and checked it, the emergency was over. Molly had taken Adam to a friend’s condo about fifty yards up the street from ours. She and Taryn Waller had started drinking wine and commiserating over their husbands’ unreasonable work hours, while Adam—comatose after an ice cream cone—slept in the TV room down the hall. Taryn was pouring their fourth glass of wine when Molly realized she hadn’t checked on Adam in a while. When she went to the TV room, she didn’t see him.

  They found him behind the condo, at the bottom of the Wallers’ swimming pool. While Molly and Taryn were talking, our son had awakened and somehow crawled through a homemade pet entrance set in the Wallers’ back door. He wandered onto the patio, where there was no pool fence or motion alarm. The police report said it appeared that Adam had simply walked off the edge of the swimming pool into six feet of water. He never made a sound. None that Molly heard, anyway.

  Our marriage did not survive his loss.

  You hear all the time how the death of a child always leads to divorce. In truth, most times it doesn’t. Sometimes that kind of tragedy strengthens a marriage. I can see how it would happen, if you were married to the right person. I wasn’t. For four years I had tried to convince myself that I was, but the fissure that opened in our relationship after Adam died proved me wrong. I tried not to blame Molly. Whether I was successful in that effort or not, she believed that I blamed her, and that—combined with her own sense of guilt—had a corrosive effect on both our marriage and her mental state.

  For me, the irony was nearly fatal. Twenty-one years after my brother drowned in the Mississippi River, I had to endure my son drowning in six feet of water. Worse, I—who had been blamed by my father for my brother’s death—was now in the position of persecutor. How could she have left him unattended for more than an hour? I wondered. A two-year-old! How could she not have heard him when he woke up? Surely Adam had made some sound, called out for me or his mother, as was his habit. Especially after waking in an unfamiliar room. Or finding himself alone on a dark patio. I asked myself these questions thousands of times. And then, when I could stand
it no more, I asked her. Molly hit back with the obvious: if I hadn’t forced her to cancel her plans so that I could race over and appear on CNN, Adam would still be alive.

  This was unquestionably true. But accepting it did nothing to alleviate our suffering. I’ll omit the awful, protracted descent into hell that followed this exchange. Suffice to say that by the time we divorced eleven months later, we were both emotionally scarred, and Molly had lost her job. I was nearly fired myself, and were it not for the benevolence of a sympathetic friend in management, I would have been out. Instead, they kept me on, and I slowly worked my way back to some semblance of normalcy, often taking risky assignments as a way of penetrating the emotional damper that grief wraps around us.

  But it was the advent of the Trump circus in 2015 that not only resurrected my career, but lifted it to new heights. I became a regular on MSNBC and an occasional guest on CNN. This spurred me into a kind of mental overdrive. Using my most closely held sources in Washington and New York, I began researching Donald Trump’s financial ties to Russian oligarchs. At the same time, I started writing a book about how the Trump phenomenon had exposed the grim truth that the sins for which the South had always been excoriated—racism, tribalism, and xenophobia—were deeply embedded in the white body politic across the United States. I was halfway through my first draft when I discovered how ill my father truly was and decided to come home. The Trump-Russia story I had to leave to others. And I was less than fours hours south of Washington when I realized that all that work I had been doing—maintaining a pace that had shocked even my most intense colleagues—had but one purpose: to shield me from the pain of losing my little boy.

  Nadine knows about Adam’s death. The facts, anyway, and what it did to my marriage. She understands that I’ve never fully dealt with his loss, any more than I’ve dealt with my brother’s. As regards healthy grieving, I’ve been stuck in a state of arrested anger for decades. The death of my son piled onto the death of my brother gave me a psychological burden—or perhaps a soul burden—that requires much of my fortitude to carry through each day. “My two Adams,” I sometimes call them. I’ve had countless nightmares about both tragedies, my brother’s more than my son’s, which may seem odd. But recently, it’s my little boy I see in the long watches of my restless nights.