Chief Logan blamed himself for the leak. He?d kept our plan to himself until the penultimate moment, but as he waited at the head of the escalator for me to appear, his nerves got the better of him, and he confided their true mission to his men. There were twelve cops on that detail, and eleven proved loyal. The biblical symbolism of the numbers escaped no one. After reporting this betrayal to me by phone, Chief Logan drove to City Hall and handed me his letter of resignation. I tore it up while he watched, then told him to get back to work.
The status of Edward Po remains unknown. Just before Logan
arrested William Hull on the riverbank, the lawyer took a call from the NSA, informing him that Po?s jet had turned back for Spain six minutes after Sands blew the cables. Improbable as it seems, Po was apparently bound for Louisiana in the belief that the planned gladiatorial spectacle would take place. Had Logan?s traitor not caused Sands to panic, Hull?s plan to capture the Chinese crime lord might actually have worked.
I?'ve wondered privately whether Jiao?who also watched the explosions from the bluff?might have warned her uncle that he hadn'?t chosen the best day for a visit to the United States. But I suspect it was one of the young Chinese prostitutes aboard the
Jiao has not fled the city, as I feared she might, and she has reaffirmed her intent to sign a plea agreement and provide a full description of the stunning variety of criminal activities overseen by Jonathan Sands.
Sands himself was plucked unconscious from the river by Carl Sims, who was hanging from a skid on Danny McDavitt?s helicopter. By then the sheriff?s department rescue boat and chopper had arrived, so McDavitt airlifted Sands to St. Catherine?s Hospital. There he was stabilized, then sent north to the University Medical Center in Jackson, where he lies chained to a bed under round-the-clock guard by the Mississippi State Police. The legal wrangling over his case has scarcely begun, but like me, Shad Johnson intends to make sure that Sands spends the rest of his life at Parchman Farm.
The only real mystery of the night was the disappearance of Kelly and Quinn. The sheriff?s department and the Coast Guard combed both sides of the river for hours but turned up nothing. By ten p.m., a consensus was building that the river had taken both men, as it had so many before them. Knowing Kelly as I do, I wasn'?t as quick to write him off, but even I was relieved to hear his voice on the phone when he called my office three hours ago.
?Look,? says Caitlin, pointing out toward the lake. ?Did you see that??
?What??
?A light. There.?
Out over the water, probably at the end of Drew?s pier, a yellow flashlight beam flashes twice in quick succession.
?That'?s got to be him,? I say, getting to my feet. ?Come on.?
?What if it?s not?? Caitlin asks. ?What if it?s Quinn??
I start to say this is ridiculous, but something stops me. ?Quinn?s dead. Kelly told me himself.?
?Still. I don'?t like this. Did you bring a gun??
?In the car. Should I go back and get it??
The light flashes again, then stays lit, shining upward. In the haze of its beam I see the glint of long blond hair. Then I hear a high, keening whistle that I?'ve only ever heard from the lips of Daniel Kelly.
?That'?s him! Come on.?
As we trot down to the pier, the light vanishes. Our feet make hollow bangs on the sun-warped boards, but as we reach the end of the dock, the rumble of an engine rolls over the water.
?Down here!? Kelly calls. ?In the boat. Get in.?
Peering down from the platform, I see Kelly sitting behind the wheel of Drew Elliot?s newest toy. Drew?s old boat was the Bayrider parked in the metal building where we met Walt and Carl and Danny. This is a thirty-foot Four Winns, with an enclosed cuddy cabin below the forward deck. It?s really too much boat for this lake, but Drew sometimes takes it out on the Mississippi, or even down to the Gulf to fish with his wife and son.
I help Caitlin down the ladder, then follow her into the boat. After giving Kelly a long hug, she sits in the padded passenger seat behind the windshield. I sit behind her. Kelly gives me a little salute, then pushes the throttle forward. The boat glides away from the pier with a softly churning wake behind it.
St. John is much larger than Lake Concordia, where Chris Shepard has his summer house. When we?re fifty yards from the pier, Kelly pushes the throttle again, and the big Volvo engine propels the bow up out of the water. In seconds we?re racing over the glassy surface, headed to the western end of the oxbow lake. Kelly looks pretty good, considering what he?s been through. His blond hair flying in the wind gives him a deceptively youthful cast.
?Where are we going?? Caitlin asks, leaning back to me. ?Seriously.?
?I don'?t know. With Kelly, you just have to be patient.?
Thirty seconds of silence is all she can manage. ?Danny McDavitt?s going to drop out of the sky and pick him up, isn?t he? We?re here to take the boat back.?
?I truly have no idea.? Reaching out with my foot, I touch Kelly?s hip. ?What are we doing?? I call over the whipping wind.
?Getting closure,? he replies.
Caitlin looks curiously at me, but Kelly offers nothing further.
He?s steering toward the far end of the lake?the shallow end, as Tim referred to it on the night we first met in the cemetery. The boat is really moving now, hydroplaning with perfect trim, the sensation as close to flight as you can get without lifting completely off the water. We?re making more noise than I?d like, and Kelly is running without navigation lights, but he seems unconcerned. The houses thin out on this end of the lake, and there?s zero chance of a patrol boat this late.
Caitlin turns her captain?s chair sideways and takes my hand in hers. Normally, I?d expect her to be chattering about what happened to the
or badgering Kelly about our destination, but she seems withdrawn, even depressed. For the first time it strikes me that she might not be thinking about the recent past, but the future. About leaving Natchez again.
Leaving me.
As I ponder this reality, Kelly pulls back on the throttle, and the bow settles into the water. Except for our collapsing wake, the lake is perfectly still, with thin fog hovering low over the surface. As we glide forward at a fraction of our former speed, thick cypress trunks close around us. The bellow of bullfrogs is startlingly loud, and a chorus of chirping insects joins in. The smell of decay is claustrophobic, like the floor of a swamp, thick with rotting vegetation and dead fish, burping methane. As the trunks come within a few feet of the boat on both sides, the cypress limbs arch into a ceiling above us, blocking out the moon in some places.
?You?re going too fast,? I say. ?There are fallen trees under the water here. You don'?t want to hole out down on this end.?
?No?? he says, staring into the darkness ahead of him.
?Take my word for it.?
Now and then there?s a wet sound as of something heavy sliding into the water. Caitlin squeezes my hand tighter. I wouldn'?t want to be driving this boat with only moonlight to steer by, and I don'?t feel particularly safe even with Kelly at the wheel.
?Dude,? I say, ?there?s nothing down here but an old fishing camp. What?s the mission??
He pulls back on the throttle until we?re barely moving, but he?s too late. A second later the boat shudders as though we?ve struck a granite boulder. I feel nausea as it rebounds and floats backward.
?What are we
?? Caitlin asks, looking up at the overhanging limbs. ?didn't you tell me water moccasins hang off of those limbs and drop into fishing boats??
?Sometimes,? I admit. ?If it happens, don'?t jump out of the boat. We?ll be all right.?
Kelly carefully reverses direction, eases forward, then puts the engine in neutral. The cypresses surround us like ranks of giant soldiers in the night, stretching back to muddy banks thick with undergrowth. Switching on his
