Greg Iles - The Quiet Game

He looks toward the shore, as though trying to spot his truck against the darkness of the trees. When he answers, his voice is so soft it seems to drift out of the lap of water against the bow.

“Leo Marston put our family through hell for a year and a half. The stress damn near killed me, and it changed your mother forever.”

I say nothing, wondering if he’s talking to me or himself.

“The things he’s done to other people… compromised them, bullied them. You don’t know half of what he’s done. I’m not a vindictive man. But to make that bastard pay for some of that… God, that would be justice.”

He is taking himself where I wanted to take him all along.

“We’d have to find a way to protect Annie and Peggy,” he says. “Around the clock.”

“We can do that.”

He looks back at me. “You’re not in Houston anymore. You have no authority here. You can’t investigate secretly. Half the town already knows what you’re doing.”

“The more people who know, the safer we’ll be.”

“Marston can apply pressure from angles you never dreamed of. But physical safety is the first priority. I know a couple of good men. Cops. Patients of mine.”

“Do you really think you can trust them? Cops, I mean. Ray Presley was a cop.”

Dad chuckles softly in the shadows. “They’re both black. What do you think?”

Caitlin Masters has the corner booth in Biscuits amp; Blues. She smiles and waves when she sees me walking through the tables. I speak to a couple of people I know, but there’s no applause tonight. The restaurant is packed with diners absorbed in their own affairs.

“I’m sorry,” Caitlin says, pointing at a shrimp cocktail before her. “I was starved. I couldn’t wait. Have one.”

“No, thanks,” I reply, sitting down opposite her. She’s wearing a white button-down oxford shirt and emerald drop earrings that bring out the color in her eyes. Each time I see her, I’m shocked by the way those green eyes are almost wrong for her face. The fine black hair and porcelain skin seem to call for something else. Yet the final result is a remarkable beauty.

The young waitress who asked me to sign False Witness the other day hurries over and asks if she can get me something to drink.

“Jenny, right?”

She blushes and nods.

“What happened to my waiter?” Caitlin asks.

“I switched tables with him. I’ll take much better care of you guys.”

Caitlin gives her a sidelong glance. “I’ll bet you will.”

“Jenny, I’d love a Corona with a lime.”

“On the way.” She disappears like a dark-complected elf.

“Jenny has the hots for you.”

“A little starstruck, maybe. She’s probably got a novel in progress upstairs.”

“I don’t think that’s it. She watches you in a strange way.” Caitlin drinks from a sweating martini glass. “Trust me. I have lethal instincts.”

“You’re not drinking gimlets tonight?”

“They’re out of Rose’s lime. So, how’d you spend this lovely day?”

“I’ll tell you later. First, you owe me an explanation.”

She gives me a wry look. “Why did I make such a big thing of Del Payton?”

“Yes.”

“It’s simple, really. My father.”

“The one you grew up without?”

“That’s him. When he took over the chain from his father, it was five dailies, all in Virginia. In twelve years he built that into thirty-four papers across the Southeast.”

“I’m impressed.”

She raises a cynical eyebrow. “Do you know how he did that? He went into small cities that had only one or two newspapers. If there were two, he’d buy the dominant one, then institute John Masters’s Commandments, the cardinal one being, ‘Don’t piss off the advertisers.’ He printed every detail of little league games, weddings, society parties, high school graduations-everything but controversy. It didn’t make for very informative newspapers, but it kicked profits into the stratosphere.”

“Is it a public company now?”

Caitlin makes a fist and thrusts it toward the ceiling with mock fervor. “Never! Family-owned, down the line. Starting to get the picture?”

“You want to shake up Daddy’s world.”

“Yes. But not for some Freudian reason. Hard news is going unreported in every town where we have a newspaper. I’m instituting a new policy. At one paper, anyway.” She takes another swallow of her martini, and her eyes flash with conviction. “From now on, hard news leads.”

“The Payton murder wasn’t news until you made it news.”

“So, sue me. My gut tells me it’s a big story, and I’m going with it.”

“Good for you. It is a big story.”

She freezes with a shrimp in midair.

I take my Corona from Jenny the waitress before she can set it down. “How would you like an exclusive on the solution?”

“Is that a trick question?”

“There’s one condition. You print absolutely nothing until I give you the okay.”

“You know who killed him?”

“Maybe. But even if I do, proving it could be difficult.”

She pops the shrimp into her mouth and chews for a few moments. “I don’t get it. If you don’t want me to print anything, why bring me in at all?”

“Because I need your help.”

“For what?”

“Research that I don’t have the time or resources to do.”

“What do you need to know?”

“You haven’t agreed to my condition yet.”

She mulls it over some more. “Why should I muzzle my paper to help you? How do I know you’ll solve the case any faster than I could?”

“Do you have a copy of the original police file?”

“No. But I’m working on a request for his FBI file under the Freedom of Information Act.”

“Don’t bother. You won’t get it. J. Edgar Hoover sealed the Payton file in 1968 for reasons of national security.”

She shakes her head in disbelief. “I smelled a Pulitzer the minute you told me about this case. Okay, deal. Tell me what you want, I’ll get it. Fast. But I want in on everything.”

“Fair enough,” I say, wondering if I mean it. A half hour ago Cilla called from Houston. After spending hours tracing the names on Peter Lutjens’s list, and finding most retired or dead, she lucked into a fan of mine. He hadn’t worked the Payton murder, but he remembered it. More important, he numbered Special Agent Dwight Stone, the field agent Althea Payton recalled so fondly, among his old friends. Stone is retired and living outside Crested Butte, Colorado. Cilla called him and found him friendly enough until she mentioned Del Payton, at which time Stone bluntly stated that he would not discuss the Payton case with me or anyone. I intend to test his resolution very soon.

“So, what do you want to know?” Caitlin asks.

“I need everything you can get on Leo Marston. You know who he is?”

“Sure. A big-time attorney everybody calls Judge because he served on the state supreme court. I tried to get a comment from him for my Payton story, but I couldn’t get through. His secretary’s a cast-iron bitch.”

“You should meet his wife.”

“The woman who baptized you at the cocktail party?”

“That’s her.”

“No, thanks. Why Marston?”

“You don’t need to know that yet.”

She doesn’t like this response. “Who else?”

I’d like a detailed bio of Ray Presley, but Caitlin can’t access the kind of information I need on him. “Just start with Marston. Companies he owns, whole or in part. Personal and political connections. His tax returns if you can get them.”

Jenny reappears at our table, her dark eyes watching me with a disconcerting intensity. “Have you decided?”