Greg Iles - Sleep No More

He also knew about human frailty. After writing several successful legal thrillers, he had given up the law. Then his wife died of cancer, and his writing stalled. When he returned to Natchez with his young daughter to try to make sense of his life, a widow’s emotional appeal had caught him up in an old civil rights murder. Penn had ultimately turned those experiences into a novel called The Quiet Game, the book that the Hollywood producers staying in Bienville this week had come to Natchez to explore filming.

Some people might see Penn as a straight arrow, but those same people probably saw Waters as one too. Waters had read The Quiet Game very closely, and it was clear to him that its author was haunted by the past in a way not unlike the way he was haunted. This, combined with their childhood friendship, had finally convinced him that Penn Cage was the best possible confidant under the circumstances.

When he arrived at Penn’s home that morning, a stately town house on Washington Street, a maid had shown him to a spacious office at the back of the ground floor. Penn seemed pleased by the surprise visit, but he resisted any talk of legal representation.

“John, you know I don’t practice law anymore.”

“You took the Del Payton case,” Waters pointed out. On the bookshelves behind Cage, he saw studies of criminology and law, but also an extensive collection of psychology and philosophy.

“That was different. I was essentially defending myself.”

“Penn, I need help.”

“Is it the EPA thing?”

“Compared to why I’m here, the EPA investigation is nothing.”

“Something that could wipe you out financially is nothing?”

“Yes. You don’t have to represent me. I just need the benefit of your experience. And I need…”

“What?”

“Your confidentiality. And to absolutely ensure that, I need to hire you.”

“I could take that as an insult.”

“Please don’t. If you’re put on the stand one day and asked questions about me, I don’t want you to be held in contempt for trying to protect me. You can plead client privilege.”

“Jesus, John. What the hell have you got into?”

“Real trouble.”

A deep stillness settled over Cage. “Give me a dollar.”

Waters took out his wallet and slid a bill across the desk. Penn took it and slipped it into a drawer.

“Talk to me.”

Waters began at the soccer field and went on from there. The Dunleith party, Eve’s warning about danger at the school, the kiss at the cemetery, the matching handwriting, all of it, omitting nothing. Penn listened with absolute concentration, rarely interrupting except to ask for clarification. And you told Cole about this? She actually stated that she was Mallory Candler? Waters concluded with his blackout and waking up to find Eve dead, but the expression of shock he expected did not come.

“And you don’t remember strangling her,” Penn said.

“No.”

“Not even as erotic play?”

“No.”

“You say you passed out during your orgasm?”

“As best I remember.”

“Had you ever done that before?”

“Never.”

“Were you taking drugs of any kind? Cocaine? Amyl nitrate? X?”

“X?”

“Ecstasy. MDMA.”

“God, no.”

“This isn’t the time to hold anything back, John.”

“No drugs.”

“Not even a prescription drug?”

“No.”

“Was Eve using cocaine? Any other drugs?”

“I have no idea. I never saw any.”

“But you drank some wine.”

“One long swallow. Half a glass, maybe.”

“There could have been something in the wine.”

“I suppose so. But I never felt drugged with her before. What do you think?”

Penn moved back in his chair and picked up a blue Nerf basketball from the floor. “I don’t know yet. I’m processing what you’ve told me. Obviously, you could be in very serious trouble soon.”

“I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“This is why you asked me about Lynne Merrill. Whether you ever get over a relationship like that. You were talking about Mallory.”

“Yes.”

“She was only a year ahead of me at St. Stephens. I thought I knew a fair bit about her. I see now that I didn’t. I didn’t see much of her at Ole Miss. Obviously, you did.”

Waters nodded.

“John, you’ve referred to Mallory’s psychosis, to terrible things that happened, evil things she did. But you haven’t said what those things were. You did say that Eve had started to display the kind of behavior Mallory did when she started to lose her mind.”

“She did.”

“Then you had better tell me about Mallory. What started her slide into madness, as you called it?”

Waters looked to his left, where a large window gave a view of the backyard. There was a nice play set made of treated lumber; he’d built one like it for Annelise. “I don’t know if that’s possible, Penn. I mean we’re two guys sitting here in the light of day, twenty years after the fact. I’m not sure I can communicate the reality of what went on then. Not with the impact that it had.”

Penn smiled. “I’m a writer. I wrestle with that every day. If words could convey human emotion with sufficient force, we wouldn’t need to shed tears, hug, or kill someone. Because I know that, I listen in a different way than most people.”

Waters felt encouraged, but still he hesitated. “When I graduated from South Natchez, I weighed one hundred eighty-five pounds. During my freshman year at Ole Miss, I gained another fifteen. After one year with Mallory, I weighed one hundred sixty-five. I looked like a skeleton.”

“I’m going to ask some questions,” Penn said, “but don’t feel bound to answer them in a narrow way. Say whatever comes to mind.”

“Okay.”

“If you had to give me one word that summed up the root of Mallory’s mental problems, what would it be?”

“Jealousy.”

“Elaborate.”

“Mallory was pathologically jealous. You wouldn’t think she would be, as beautiful as she was, but that didn’t seem to matter where I was concerned.”

“Was she jealous in her previous relationships?”

“I don’t know. She only slept with two guys before me. One was a football player from St. Stephens, older than she was.”

“Wade Anders, probably. I remember them dating for a while. He was an asshole.”

“Then she was with a guy at Ole Miss, before I really knew her. Her freshman year. When I asked who it was, she told me he was older and already gone. I assumed she meant he was a senior who had graduated. I was curious, because she told me they’d done a lot of sexual experimentation. And I believed her, because there was nothing she didn’t know or do.”

“And?”

“I found out later that the older guy had been an English professor, thirty-eight years old. He lost his job over it. Resigned or was fired, I’m not sure which. He basically flipped out when Mallory dumped him. He stalked her, the whole nine yards. I also later learned she was lying about the sex. They hadn’t done all that experimentation. She’d got him to tell her all the exotic things he wanted to do to her, and what he wanted her to do for him, but she didn’t do those things with him. She basically tortured the guy, I think.”

“But she did those things with you.”

“Yes. And that’s where the problem began. I was the first person she ever really took off her mask for. She gave herself to me totally. Showed me the darkest corners of her personality…and there were some dark ones. And once you do that with somebody, and they reject you…”

“What happens?” asked Penn.

An image of Mallory’s face, desolate and cold, filled Waters’s mind. “I once saw an Oprah show where these distraught parents were talking about their college kids, kids who couldn’t get over a romantic relationship. Some had committed suicide, others simply couldn’t move forward with their lives. Their parents couldn’t help or even reach them. And they couldn’t understand why parental love couldn’t alleviate some of the suffering of these kids. These are healthy families I’m talking about.”