was more widespread, but it had a shorter duration. Generated a lot more complaints, though, with all the people partying up there.?
?Were all carriers interrupted, or just one??
?All.?
?Shit. Somebody was jamming the radio spectrum.?
Logan licks his lips but says nothing.
?That'?s serious business. Have you talked to the cellular providers??
?No way. I figured this out from the complaints of witnesses. And a couple of my black officers live out by the cemetery.?
?You know what happened. Whoever killed Tim jammed the cell signals around the cemetery while they were chasing him out there. They stopped it after they had him in the SUV, when they were torturing him. Then they started jamming the lines again when he broke loose and ran for the fence.?
Logan sniffs and looks back toward his door. ?Are you prepared to tell me who ?they? are??
I wonder.
?Do I need to tell you??
The chief walks back behind his desk. ?Six months ago I got an offer to be chief of police in a little town on the Florida coast. Ever since I saw Jessup lying in that ditch, I?'ve been wishing I hadn'?t said no.?
I walk forward and lay a hand on his shoulder. ?It?s a sad day when two Mississippi boys can?t trust each other any more than this.?
?Yes, sir, it is. Things have slid a long way out of whack.?
?Maybe we need to try to do something about it.?
Logan?s eyes open a little wider. ?Maybe. Let?s see what that autopsy says. You stay in touch, Penn.?
I turn to go, but the chief?s voice stops me at the door.
?How?s that little girl of yours doing??
?She?s fine,? I reply, my eyes hard and flat. ?It was good to see you, Don. Take care of yourself.?
CHAPTER
21
I'm standing before the grave of Florence Irene Ford, who died in 1871 at age ten. Because the child was afraid of storms, Irene?s mother had a glass window installed in the casket, so that during inclement weather she could descend the little stairway behind the gravestone and reassure her child. This tale always fascinated Tim Jessup, so I thought Florence?s stairway might make a good hiding place for the stolen disc. But a locked metal trapdoor protects the stairway now, the price of protecting the cemetery from vandals.
For ninety minutes I?'ve crisscrossed the cemetery in search of Jonathan Sands?s missing disc, following a map that only I could have drawn. Sketched hastily in my Moleskine notebook, it shows the locations of graves of people that Tim and I both knew. If Tim were running for his life and meant to hide evidence with the intent of retrieving it later?or in the worst case for me to retrieve it?I figured he would choose a spot I might think of on my own. A grave we both knew seemed the likeliest place. Had I chosen to include deceased people from my parents? generation, it would have been a long list indeed, but knowing that time was short, I included only ours, with two exceptions. Still, I could easily think of nine, and they were spread throughout the vast cemetery.
There was Mallory Candler, our Miss Mississippi, who was mur
dered in New Orleans. Tim?s in-laws are also buried here: Julia?s father, a suicide at forty-nine, and her mother, dead from a stroke two years later. Two St. Stephen?s schoolmates who died in accidents also made the list: a boy shot by his brother while hunting, and a girl who broke her neck diving into a pond when she was twelve. Kate Townsend, a St. Stephen?s student who was murdered a year and a half ago, also went on my map, but I found no sign of anything hidden near her?or any other person?s?tomb.
My next step was to include the famous monuments of the cemetery, figuring that in the dark Tim might not have had time to search out the stones of the recently deceased. This trek took longer, for the older sections have no modern grid layout or uniform tombstones. Sweating from the midday heat, I crawled through a world of fantastical sculptures, mausoleums fenced with heavy wrought iron, cracked marble and masonry filled with crannies ideally suited to hide contraband. I probed like an archaeologist beside the graves of the principals in the Goat Castle murder case; of Rosalie Beekman, the only casualty of the Civil War at Natchez; of Louise the Unfortunate, an unknown woman from the North who died in a Natchez brothel; and of Bud Scott, the famed black bandleader many believe to be the father of Louis Armstrong, who spent several summers in Natchez as a boy. Yet none of these mossy monuments concealed the treasure I sought.
While concealed in the shadows between two mausoleums, I used the Blackhawk satellite phone to check on Annie and my mother. They had already reached Houston, and were nearly to the safe house that awaited them. I gave the Blackhawk dispatcher the names of the five percent investors in Golden Parachute and asked if the company could check out the two Chinese investors for me. After promising this would be done, the dispatcher informed me that Daniel Kelly could arrive in Natchez in twelve to fifteen hours, depending on certain variables. This was faster than I?d hoped, and welcome news. During bad times, Kelly makes good things happen, and when he can?t manage that, he at least deters those who would like to make things worse.
Knowing that the missing disc is all that might bring my family safety from Sands?or give me the weapon I need to destroy him?I prepare to continue my search, but the sheer size of the task is
overwhelming. I see why Quinn was so anxious for me to take it on. It would take strangers weeks to search this graveyard.
When my cell phone rings, I half expect to hear Seamus Quinn?s voice, but the caller is Paul Labry.
?Penn, you need to get over here,? he says.
?Where? The Ramada??
?No, we moved the pilots? meeting to the Visitors? Center. We needed the space. All the pilots know about the shooting, and they all want a say in what happens next.?
?Well, that?s the city?s decision. The pilots can stay or leave as they will.?
?Most of them want to hear what happened from the horse?s mouth before they decide. I really need you to get over here. The meeting is controlled chaos right now. Another fifteen minutes, and it could be a riot.?
?I'm on my way.?
The Natchez Visitor and Reception Center looks like the student union building of a junior college. Cut into a slope in the shadow of a Hampton Inn and a casino hotel, it?s almost invisible as you cross the bridge from Louisiana to Mississippi. When large events are held here, access is virtually impossible. Nearly a hundred pickups with balloon trailers have wedged themselves into the parking lot. There would be enough room were it not for the regiment of cars that have filled every remaining space in the lot and even the grassy shoulders. The license plates tell me these are local people drawn to the scene by the rumor of this morning?s shooting. Making my way up the sloping asphalt, I realize it could take me a half hour to get through the milling crowd of locals. As I near its periphery, though, Paul Labry texts me to walk around to a service door behind the center, where he will be waiting.
True to his word, Labry admits me to the building and rushes me down a bland corridor to the main meeting area, which looks like a breakout meeting room in a convention hotel. A hundred men and half as many women sit in folding chairs before a lectern on a small riser. Eddie Jarvis, one of the city selectmen, is speaking to them, and everyone seems amazingly calm. Labry is talking in my ear, but it takes me a few moments to register the import of his words.
?Hans Necker just saved our ass. He called some key pilots as soon as he got out of surgery and told them he thought the shooting was a freak accident, some kids out hunting who got out of hand. About half the pilots wanted
