Lewis Perdue - Perfect killer

"A test dossier?"

"Bait. Bona fides."

"I don't get it."

I slowed as we made our way into the southern end of Malibu.

"I think this is what got Mom interested in Talmadge's case. I think the lawyer promised her a taste of bigger things to come, something explosive that would make her commit to a deal and throw our legal foundation's muscle behind Talmadge's defense."

"Far-fetched, wouldn't you say? I mean, given the crime?"

"Not so far-fetched. Mom's been pretty out front about opposing the death penalty, especially in places like Mississippi where white people still get jail time for the exact same crimes that send blacks to the gas chamber. So, no-it's not all that far-fetched."

"Well, there is that." I stopped for a squad of surfers in wet suits heading for one of the few public access spots not already illegally blocked off by wealthy Hollywood scofflaws. "Or there is the issue of whether Talmadge was insane or suffering from some sort of detectable physical problem with his brain-the reason your mom first contacted me."

"Exactly. But I think it runs a lot deeper and reaches into some scary places that somebody will kill to keep us out of."

"Like what?"

Jasmine bent her head and looked at her Blackberry. "Well, Clark Braxton's name keeps coming up, and-"

"Whoa! Heavy-duty stuff. With the Democrats still out in the political ozone, he's gonna be the next president for sure unless…" My voice trailed off as the implication hit me.

"Unless something comes along to screw it up."

I glanced over at Jasmine.

"Whoa," I said quietly.

The shock stunned us speechless for a solid minute. Then Jasmine tapped the Blackberry with a manicured but not flashy, index finger.

"It's about Braxton," she said. "Talmadge's lawyer Jay Shanker, put the files together showing that Braxton served as a lab rat for some secret medical research program at one of the old POW camps in the Delta."

I nodded. During World War II, the United State had a problem with Southernported cargo ships returning empty from Europe. On top of that, there were European food shortages and huge troop resources needed to guard POWs over there. Somebody looked at the situation and solved them all by loading captured German soldiers on the empty ships and sending them to rural Mississippi with its plentiful food and cheap land and open spaces where escapees had no place to run and few citizens who spoke German.

The Army located POW camps near Delta farming communities like Belzoni and Greenwood. After the war, most prison camps deteriorated, although as a child I heard talk of continuing activities at the camp in Belzoni, southwest of one of the Judge's plantations.

"Belzoni."

"What? How did you know?"

"Educated guess."

"You're right. The MicroSD card Mama gave you says the Army conducted some sort of secret medical experiments there, something not quite kosher-like the Tuskegee syphilis thing."

An uncomfortable vision of my previous life burrowed toward the surface. As a new recruit, I participated in the end of Project 112 and later, Project SHAD, experiments that tested nerve gas and bacteria on more than five thousand military personnel from 1962 to 1973. Scores of soldiers closer to the release site than I had suffered permanent disabilities. These tests leaked into the media in 2003 with little interest.

Instead of mentioning this I said, "Or like all the atomic tests on soldiers in the 1950s."

Jasmine gave a rueful shake of her head.

"Jesus, it hurts me to think of things like that," I said "Here we have brave men and women who're willing to die to protect their country and they get betrayed by the fatassed, political paper-pushers in the Pentagon."

I felt the anger rise as we finally cleared the Malibu congestion and started making some speed up the hill.

"Anyway, the stuff on the memory chip contains excerpts from Braxton's medical records. They indicate he underwent brain surgery in Belzoni as treatment for a head wound he received in Vietnam."

"That's pretty famous."

"Uh-huh, but these records say Army doctors experimented on him and others with head wounds in order to make them more aggressive. In their words, they wanted 'perfect killers' for the Army."

I whistled. "That's political dynamite."

"More like a nuke."

"On the other hand, maybe it helps: brave, mortally wounded hero gets taken advantage of by the military he so bravely served."

"I doubt it," she said. "Nobody wants a head case for president."

"Why not? They've all been head cases since JFK."

"Good point."

The road dipped toward a broad expanse of beach and ocean. "What else is in the file?"

Jasmine shook her head. "A lot of vague stuff, intended to tease Mom and get her involved."

"It worked."

"Jay Shanker promised her the microfiche archives of all the Belzoni medical records on a CD, including name, rank, serial numbers, dates, procedures, doctors, and chain-of-command approvals authorizing the whole thing."

I whistled. "Any number of people would kill to keep that quiet."

A few miles past Point Dume, I slowed for a small, discreet sign designed to attract only the attention of people already looking for it. As I had twice a week for the past six years, I turned into a narrow, cobbled lane bounded with lavish landscaping; a sculpturequality steel gate fixed to stone columns loomed ahead. I stopped next to an intercom/keypad pedestal and punched in my code.

"Talmadge ties everything together," I said as the gate opened. "Which means the answers are back home."

"Home?" Jasmine gave me that Mona Lisa smile again. "I thought California's your home."

I accelerated slowly through the gate as I thought about this.

"Camilla used to catch me saying that. She told me it made her sad."

"The Delta never lets loose."

"Yeah, it's got my heart, but I can't imagine living there again."

We drove in silence for a bit more, then I said, "Why now? Why bring Talmadge to trial now after so many years? And why kill Vanessa?"

"Well, the leading theory for the killing-at least among the cops-is that Mom was assassinated by someone in the African-American community who didn't want her helping Talmadge."

"Blame the victim?"

"Old story She got a lot of hate mail. Some pretty angry voices among big AfricanAmerican groups condemned her for helping the white devil."

Jasmine stared silently out the side window. "It had a race thing about it. And a personal thing. Some of them were the same voices which slammed her years ago for being a traitor to her race when she dated a couple of white guys in New York."

She said it evenly, but my pulse stumbled anyway. Her ability to talk so casually about the incendiary topic of race astonished me. I had friends of every race and tried to ignore skin color, which seemed to strengthen the friendships because I considered each as a surgeon, an entrepreneur, a talented artist, first, rather than as a Pakistani, Asian, black, whatever. But then, I was white and could afford to ignore race since it was not constantly thrown in my face by those who were incapable of seeing past skin color.

"So," I said, and hesitated. "So could it be that?"

"It's always possible, but I doubt it. Doubt it very seriously. Convincing the police is another matter."

"But why prosecute Talmadge now? The man's old and coming apart at the seams. His awful seizures tear him apart and he's got terminal larynx cancer from cigarettes. Why doesn't somebody just let him die. The cancer's its own punishment."

"Punishment is not always justice," Jasmine said. "Do you think the Nuremberg trials were only about punishment and the culpability of those being tried?" She paused for an answer I did not have, then shook her head.