Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

Caitlin had been fascinated when Penn told her that Mississippi had the highest per capita number of churches and also the lowest literacy rate. Three years ago, she had used these statistics as the launching point of a story on charismatic religions. People speaking in tongues, faith healing. For her, the most disturbing thing about doing the story had been her contact with the younger girls in the churches. She could see that they aspired to be like other teenage girls, but they

had been raised in families with nineteenth-century values, or certainly pre-Eisenhower-era twentieth-century values. Her portrayal of these churches as patriarchal and sexist had upset a lot of their members and got some girls in trouble with their pastors, but it had also opened a lot of eyes to a closed society.

A couple of the women she’d spoken to had remained kind to her, and so the moment Caitlin suspected that the girl who delivered the note might be Pentecostal, she had checked her files at the

Examiner

and made some phone calls. Using what she’d gleaned from Penn’s description, she said she was looking for a tall girl who had probably lost a lot of weight in the past year or two, and who might have a job in Vidalia. That was all it had taken to get the two pieces of information she needed: a name and a location. Darla McRaney, the Bargain Barn on Highway 15.

At first Caitlin had been tempted to tell Penn what she’d discovered. But then she’d realized it would only prove to him that his jab about her penchant for following a story was on target. If this trip led any closer to Linda Church, Caitlin had promised herself, she’d tell Penn immediately.

The Bargain Barn is a long, low-slung building just off the highway, that looks as if it might once have been a brand-name store. During all the time Caitlin lived in Natchez, she’d only been inside it once, but her memory is clear. The store sells everything from clothing to housewares, medicine to ant poison, all of it cheap both in quality and price.

Only a few cars are in the lot. Caitlin parks between two of them, then locks her car and walks through the glass door. An elderly man wearing an orange vest greets her with a puzzled smile, and she walks past him into the clothing section.

“Can I help you?” asks a middle-aged woman sorting dresses on a circular rack.

“I'm looking for Darla McRaney.”

“Darla mostly stays over in housewares.”

Caitlin quickly navigates the empty aisles until she reaches an area filled with thin metal pots and imitation Tupperware. In the next aisle, above a rack of blenders, she sees Darla McRaney’s head. She knows it’s Darla because a girl would have to be almost six feet tall to be seen above the blenders.

Making a U around the end of the aisle, Caitlin approaches Darla cautiously, like a naturalist trying not to spook a timid animal. In spite of this, Darla looks up sharply and takes a step back, blushing scarlet.

“I didn't see you,” she says. “Can I help you?”

“Darla, my name is Caitlin. I'm a very good friend of Penn Cage.”

The girl stares back for several moments, neither breathing nor blinking. Then she starts to back away.

“Wait,” Caitlin says. “Please, wait. I know you gave Penn that note at the Ramada Inn. I know you tried to disguise yourself, but he recognized you. He thought you worked at a restaurant, but I found you anyway.”

“I used to work at a restaurant,” the girl says in a dazed voice. “Franky’s Pizza. I liked it there, but I kept putting on weight. I had to quit.”

Caitlin nods with empathy.

“But I don'’t know nothing about no note,” Darla says, twice as loudly as she’d spoken before.

Caitlin can’t help but smile at this obvious lie.

“But you knew exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned the Ramada and Penn Cage.”

Darla licks her lips, then looks around as though suspicious someone is watching her.

“I was at the Ramada,” she says. “So were a lot of people. And I did see the mayor there. But I don'’t know nothin’ ’bout no note. I haven'’t passed notes to men since grade school.”

Caitlin takes a step forward and speaks with sisterly intimacy. “I'm trying to help Linda Church. She’s in terrible danger, more even than she knows. I know you'’ve been trying to help her, you and your friends. But she needs more help than that.”

Fear glitters in Darla’s eyes. “I told you, I don'’t know nothin’ ’bout any a that. I gotta get back to work. I got customers.”

“I don'’t see any customers,” Caitlin says gently. “But I'’ll be glad to buy something if you’ll tell me just a little bit of the truth.”

“I did,” Darla insists.

“Have you seen Linda yourself? The reason I'm asking you is because of your eye makeup. I saw you didn't know how to put it

on, and I figured that if Linda was with you, she would have fixed it for you.”

Darla looks on the verge of tears. Her neck is splotchy, and her breath is going shallow. “I can’t talk anymore. Please, go away. Leave me alone.”

Caitlin reaches into her purse and hands Darla a card with her cell number on it. “I want the same thing you do, Darla. I want Linda to be safe. Please call me later. Think about all this. You’ll know it’s the right thing to do.”

Darla accepts the card with a shaking hand, then turns and hurries down the aisle toward a collection of Chinese lawn mowers.

Caitlin knows the girl is lying, but sometimes you have to stop pushing and let the source make her own decision. With a girl as skittish as Darla McRaney, it shouldn’t take long.

CHAPTER

40

Car doors close with a disturbing finality in cemeteries. Tim lies under the earth now, a few flowers on top of his coffin, dropped in by family and friends. He wasn'’t buried on Catholic Hill, but he does lie within sight of it. This wasn'’t a punishment, but a matter of limited space. Green Astroturf carpet conceals the mound of dirt that the backhoe will use to fill in the grave. The familiar green canopy of McDonough’s funeral home keeps the sun off the few people who remain: Dr. Jessup and his wife, some relations from California, Julia and the baby.

A second knot of people stands several yards away, mostly pallbearers, myself among them. These men I knew as boys flew so far to do their somber duty, and though most of us haven'’t seen each other much in the past twenty-five years, we’re as comfortable as brothers who live on separate coasts. Paul Labry stands with us, waiting, as I asked him to do at the cathedral.

After a couple of quiet jokes, well-concealed smiles, and well-meant but empty promises to stay in touch, the guys head for their rented cars. After the short line of vehicles disappears up the lane, I turn to Paul, but find myself facing Julia Jessup. She’s left Tim junior with his grandmother. Her eyes are bloodshot, the skin around them raw and swollen.

Labry takes a step back out of courtesy, but one hard glance from Julia sends him back another twenty feet.

“I know I look bad,” she says in a cracked voice. “I'm not getting much sleep. Tim used to help me with the baby. A lot more than most men do, I think. And Tim junior’s not sleeping well at all now.”

“I'm sorry, Julia.”

“Are you?” Her hollow eyes probe mine. “I came over here because I want you to know something. I didn't want Tim doing what he did. The thing that got him killed. But he did it anyway. I think you should know that he did it for his father, and for you.”

A wave of heat goes through my face. “Me?”

She nods with conviction. “Tim really had you up on a pedestal. A lot of people do, I think. He never forgot how close you were when you were young, and when you stopped being friends, he blamed himself. He thought he’d let you down somehow. You went on to be a big success, and he wound up dealing cards on a casino boat. I told him that was honest work and nothing to be ashamed of, but it didn't help. He was ashamed. And after he found out whatever was really going on with that boat, it just ate at him until he had to do something.”

“I'm truly sorry, Julia. Tim was a good man, and I wish he hadn'’t gotten involved with any of that. I wish I hadn'’t let him.”

“I just want to know if it did any good,” she says. “Because my son is going to have to live the rest of his life without a father. Was it worth it, Penn? Did Tim accomplish one goddamned thing by dying?”

While I try to find a suitable answer, Julia says, “What about

you

? Have you done what you promised you would do?”

As I try to recall exactly what I promised Tim that night, his widow turns and walks back to his grave without waiting for an answer.

“What was that about?” Labry asks, coming up behind me.

“Did you hear any of it?”

He shakes his head. “She made it pretty clear that was a private conversation.”

I take deep breath and blow out a long rush of air, trying to flush the guilt from my system. “Let’s go over there, away from the family.”

We walk a little way up the lane, then climb some steps to a hill shaded by cedar trees. Like most of the names in this cemetery, the one engraved on the stones in this plot is familiar to me. A cool but gentle breeze blows over the hill, and the sun shines bright enough to warm the bricks of the wall around the plot. Leaning back against the wall, I regard Paul Labry.

Where most of the Catholics in Natchez are Irish or Italian, Paul is of French descent. By marriage, he’s related to the Acadians forced by the Spanish to live near what would become the infamous Morville Plantation. Labry has dark eyes and skin and he’s still handsome despite losing some hair and putting on weight. He looks more like an aging poet than the manager of an office-supply business, but I never cease to be amazed by how poorly some people fit the stereotype of their occupation.

“Paul, I want to tell you something that I haven'’t told anyone else.”

“I thought you wanted to ask me something.”

“That too. I’'ve decided to step down as mayor.”

“What?”

He looks me from head to toe. “You’re not sick, are you?”

Tim asked me the same thing the night we met here. “No, it’s not that. My reasons are personal, mostly to do with Annie and Caitlin.”

Paul’s watching me like a man who still can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Are you guys getting back together? You and Caitlin?”

“If she’ll have me.”

“Are you kidding? You know she loves you.”

“Not enough to live here with me.”

He purses his lips while he mulls this over. “Is that it, then? You want to stay in Natchez, but you feel you can’t?”

“No. It’s time for me to go. The reason I'm talking to you is that I want you to stand for mayor in the special election after I'm gone.”

Labry draws back, his face pale. “Are you serious?”

“It should have been you two years ago. I should never have run.”

“Oh, that’s bullshit.”

“No, it’s not. You’re the man for the job, Paul. I think you

should announce on the same day I resign, and I'’ll throw you my full support.”

Labry turns away, looking thoughtfully toward the tent over Tim’s grave. “I used to think I might try it,” he says. “But I'm forty-four now, and I'm starting to think I don'’t understand the world anymore. My father’s business is going down, Penn. Wal-Mart and the rest have about killed it. I’'ve tried to save it, but the hole just keeps getting deeper.” His cheeks redden in embarrassment. “All the old retail places are going down. Hell, we don'’t have more than a handful of Jewish families left in town, and they were the backbone of the retail economy when we were growing up.”