With a last look at Paul and Janet Wilson, I exit the house through the door no one answered when I arrived and walk down the sidewalk to my Saab.
Closing myself into the little space, I start the engine, but I don’t pull into the street. My hands are cold and shaking, and my chest feels full of something besides air. ”What’s happening?“ I ask aloud. ”I mean what the fuck?“
One thing I know for sure: the murders of Paul and Janet Wilson will stun this town in a way that the attack on Cyrus White’s safe house never could, and possibly even more deeply than the murder of Kate Townsend. The reason is simple. When drug dealers get killed-black or white-the public perception is that the victims simply got what was coming to them. When a young girl is raped and murdered-black or white-our knowledge of the primitive laws of attraction and male sexual dominance informs our response. But when middle-aged white people minding their own business are murdered in their home in the safest part of town, the fundamental order of Southern life is thrown out of balance. And the repercussions of such a severe anomaly are inevitably dire. By noon tomorrow, the full resources of law enforcement will be mobilized to a degree only surpassed by the response to a kidnapping or to the murder of a cop. A multiagency task force will almost certainly be formed. The DEA and FBI will be part of it. But as I sit in my idling car on Espero Drive, images of Paul and Janet’s butchered bodies running through my mind, one question comes to me:
Chapter 24
”Dad, it’s Penn. You awake?“
”You know me,“ my father says in his deep voice. ”I’m dictating and smoking a cigar.“
Dad was doing exactly the same thing thirty years ago, while I tried to stay awake to watch the late movie, back in the dark ages before HBO. Eternally behind with his hospital charts, he would dictate late into the night and then reward himself with three hours of reading on the Civil War or the history of the Crusades.
”I heard the ER’s been pretty busy tonight,“ he says with understated curiosity.
”Yeah.“
”What do you need, son?“
”A gun.“
”What kind?“
Not a moment’s hesitation. My father has collected guns for most of his life. The bulk of his collection consists of Civil War muskets, with a few pieces dating back to the Revolutionary War. But he also has a nice collection of modern pistols.
”I need an automatic with a big magazine.“
”I’ve got a nice Browning you can use. You on your way over?“
”Yep.“
”You in a hurry?“
”I need to get some sleep.“
”I’ll meet you outside.“
Five years ago, my parents’ house-my childhood home-was burned to the ground by a man trying to stop me from working on a thirty-year-old race murder. Five years, yet I still find myself turning into our old neighborhood, as though the house I grew up in is still standing. It’s not. My father had the wreckage cleared but built a new house elsewhere. Now our old lot holds only flowers and a small granite monument to Ruby Flowers, the black maid who raised me and my older sister. Ruby died as a result of the fire that took the house, and part of me died with her. The new house is south of town, where most new construction in Natchez goes up.
True to his word, Dad is standing in his carport when I arrive. In the glow of my headlights, I see the Browning automatic hanging from his right hand. I leave my engine running and walk up to him. Seventy-two years old, half crippled by diabetes, arthritis, and coronary artery disease, he still manages to practice medicine more hours per week than most internists fresh out of medical school.
”Thanks,“ I say, taking the gun.
”Is Annie in danger?“ he asks.
This is no idle question. The man who burned our house five years ago also targeted my daughter for kidnapping and death. ”Not yet. But I try to learn from past mistakes.“
Dad nods. ”By the time most people realize they’re in danger, it’s too late to do anything about it.“
”I may give Daniel Kelly a call.“
”Sounds like a good idea. I thought he was working in Afghanistan.“
Daniel Kelly is a former Delta Force operator who worked with me during the Del Payton case. Now an operative for a prestigious corporate security firm based in Houston, Kelly has truly frightening skills, but more important, he knows and loves my family.
Dad probes my eyes with a gaze that has searched out illness and deception for more than forty years. ”What happened tonight? You look shell-shocked.“
”Somebody tried to kill a drug dealer. Three black guys got killed-teenagers, probably.“
Dad shakes his head. ”That’s not all of it, is it?“
”Paul and Janet Wilson were just murdered in their home.“
Now it’s my father who looks shell-shocked. ”Professor Wilson?“
”And his wife. Cut to pieces.“
”Who the hell would do that?“
”I’m not sure yet. I think the killer was after an exchange student who lives with them.“
”Why? Is this a drug thing, too?“
”I think so.“
”Are you involved in that case?“
”In a way. I’m afraid it might be connected to Drew’s case.“
”How?“
”This is you and me, right?“
Dad gives me a look that makes me embarrassed to have asked the question.
”Ellen Elliott was addicted to Lorcet,“ I tell him. ”Drew had the DEA on his back for keeping her supplied, so his girlfriend started getting it for Ellen to make life easier on Drew. She got it from this black dealer.“
Dad closes his eyes. ”Damn it. I suspected something like that.“
”What?“
”Drew called me once and asked if I’d write Ellen a scrip for fifty Lorcet.“
”Did you?“
”Sure. But I knew if he was asking me to do it, he was already at the limit himself.“
”Do a lot of local people abuse that drug?“
”Patients ask for it by name every day. I take it myself for arthritis. Couldn’t get by without it. But it’s addictive as hell. You don’t hear about it much. Oxycontin gets all the headlines, but Lorcet is an opium derivative, too, and it makes you feel pretty good.“
I look down at the Browning and familiarize myself with the safety mechanisms.
Dad grips my wrist in his hand. ”You’re shaking, Penn.“
”That crime scene was pretty bad.“
”What can I do to help?“
This is no idle offer. At nineteen my father was part of the infamous retreat from the Chosin Reservoir in Korea. He also had occasion to use violence a couple of times in civilian life after that. But I would never put him in harm’s way now, despite his willingness to put himself there. ”Nothing right now, but I appreciate the offer.“
”You know my number.“
As I start to go, an idea hits me. ”Do you have a pistol with one of those lights on it? Sonny Cross had one, and it looked pretty useful.“
”A laser sight?“
