Greg Iles - The Quiet Game

“You ain’t asked me if I solved the case or not.”

“Did you?”

“No.” He looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “But not because it ain’t solvable. I kept that file close to my vest, man. Didn’t tell no white officers nothin’ ’bout it. Told a couple of black ones I trusted I was gonna be working the case real quiet. One week later somebody sent me a message.”

“What kind of message?”

“They sent a man to talk to me. A man I hated but wasn’t about to ignore.”

“Who was he?”

“Ray Presley.”

I try to keep my composure, but Pinder cannot fail to notice the thunderous effect the name has on me. “I know Presley,” I say carefully. “He was somehow involved in the original case.”

“That’s right. And that son of a bitch’ll kill a man like picking off a scab. He’s killed for less than what you just give me.”

“Did he threaten you over the Payton case?”

“Not the way I expected. If he had, I’d have thrown him in a cell. He’d been to Parchman by then, and I was still riding my high horse. He didn’t say, ‘Stay out of this or you might wind up dead.’ No, he said, ‘I hear you’re thinking about looking into the Del Payton murder, Willie. I worked that case myself in sixty-eight, worked it hard, and just about the time I thought we was getting somewhere, somebody told me to leave it alone. And I did. I left it alone. I was white and I wanted to solve that bombing, but I let it go. You ought to think about that.’ ”

“What do you think he meant? Who was he talking about?”

“Don’t know.” Pinder’s voice softens, becomes vulnerable. “But anybody who could put fear into Ray Presley scared me plenty. My kids was still living with me then, and I wasn’t about to watch them die for my pride. Or black pride, or whatever you want to call it. I couldn’t even trust the brothers in my own department. How far was I gonna get? Del Payton was gonna be just as dead either way.”

“Was it the Klan, you think?”

“The Klan? Shit. Klan wouldn’t scare Ray Presley. Those kluckers scared of him. He did shit them crackers only talked about.”

“Could it have been the FBI?” I ask, recalling Lutjens’s story of the sealed file.

A funny gleam comes into Pinder’s eyes. “Why you ask that?”

“Is it possible?”

“Anything’s possible. The feds and the local cops didn’t get on too good then. Not much better now, really. But why they’d warn Presley off… don’t make no sense. Hoover hated Martin Luther King. But Del didn’t have nothing to do with no big-time peoples like that.” Pinder stands suddenly and drops the file in my lap. “We finished here.”

Despite this strong hint to leave, I open the file. The first page is headed: SUPPLEMENTARY INVESTIGATION REPORT, and dated 5-15-68. Beneath this is typed: Delano Payton Murder Bombing. Then come four handwritten paragraphs that appear to detail an anonymous phone call. The signature beneath them reads, Patrolman Ray Presley.

“You can do your reading at home,” Pinder says. “I’m goin’ fishin’. Gonna spend the afternoon forgettin’ I ever saw you.”

I stand and shake his hand. “I appreciate the help, Chief. Don’t spend it all in one place.”

He chuckles. “Hey, I got an old bulletproof vest I can sell you. Wanna take a look?”

“I don’t plan to need it.” I push open the screen door and walk quickly down the steps. “I’ll drop the original back tomorrow.”

“Keep it. I don’t want no part of that no more.”

“I never saw you.” I put one leg into the BMW. “Hey… if you really gave up on the case, why’d you steal the file when you left?”

Pinder stands motionless in the open doorway. “Get a little of my own back, I guess. I knew I’d be the last black chief for a long time.” He smiles oddly, as though he has just seen something in a new light. “Maybe that file’s been waiting here for you all this time. Mysterious ways, right? Maybe the bastards won’t get you after all.”

I give Pinder a salute. “Hope they’re biting today, Chief.”

He winks at me. “They biting every day, if you know where to look.”

The Payton house is a typical rural home, built with cheap materials on concrete blocks, but better maintained than most. Lovingly tended flower beds border the front, concealing the dark crawl space beneath the structure. The cars in the driveway are probably worth more than the house, but at least the nearest neighbor is fifty yards up the road.

Georgia Payton sits beneath a large pin oak, rocking slowly in a white cotton dress. She lifts a hand as I pull into the driveway, but she does not get up.

I walk over to say hello before going to the front door. “Hot one, isn’t it?”

She cackles at me. “I lived three-quarters of my life without no air conditioning. The Lord’s breeze be good enough for me.”

“Mr. Cage?”

Althea Payton is beckoning to me from the door. She wears navy shorts and a red blouse tied at the waist. She looks like she’s been gardening.

“Come in out of that heat!” she calls. “Georgia’s fine out there.”

I smile at the old woman, then cross the drive and follow Althea into the house.

“Georgia’s like an old loggerhead turtle sunning itself on a rock,” she says. “I asked her to stay outside while we talk. She can be a little hard to handle. Have a seat.”

I sit on a flame-print love seat, and Althea takes a cloth-covered easy chair to my right. The living room holds old but clean furniture, all of it arranged around a new television set. Dozens of framed family photos hang on the wall behind the TV. I look away when I realize I’m staring at a wedding photo of Del and Althea. They look young and happy, destined for anything but what happened to them in the spring of 1968.

“On the phone,” she says hesitantly, “you said it was about my husband.”

“Yes, ma’am.” My next words are an irrevocable step. “I’ve decided to look into Del’s death after all. I’ve already taken some steps in that direction.”

She seems not to have understood. Then her eyes well up and her voice spills out in a reverent tone. “Sweet Lord Jesus, I can’t believe it.”

“I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves. There may not be anything to find out.”

She nods, her hands clasped over her chest. “I realize that. I just… it’s been so many years. Do you have any idea what you need to charge me?”

“Yes. I’m going to need a retainer of one dollar. And I’ll bill you for my time at the rate of one dollar per day.”

She shakes her head in confusion. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m deadly serious, Althea. Don’t give it another thought.”

She wipes tears from her eyes, and I look away. The wall to her left holds the sacred trinity of photographs I’ve seen in the homes of many black families: Martin Luther King, JFK, and Abraham Lincoln. Sometimes you see Bobby, or FDR. But the Paytons have only the big three. A plastic clock hangs above the photographs, its face painted with a rather bloated likeness of Dr. King. The words I HAVE A DREAM appear in quotes beneath him.

“Georgia bought that clock from some traveling salesman in May of 1968,” Althea says. “It stopped running before that Christmas, but she never let me get rid of it.”

“Maybe it’s a collector’s item.”

“I don’t care. Those clocks probably put a million dollars in some sharpie’s pocket.” She grips her knees with her palms and fixes her eyes on me. “Could I ask you one thing?”

“Why did I change my mind?”

“Yes.”

“I have a personal stake in the case now. I want to be honest with you about that.”