David Baldacci - The Last Mile

“Did you see it that way?” asked Jamison.

“I was scared,” she admitted. “The world I knew was turning upside down. Now, don’t get me wrong. It didn’t surprise me. Hell, if I’d been them, I’d have been demanding the same damn things. But, see, I wasn’t them, if you can understand that.” She glanced at Mars and then looked away. “And I was raised a certain way, and taught things that, thankfully, they don’t teach anymore. At least out in the open,” she added, with another nervous glance in the direction of Mars.

She grew quiet and no one interrupted the silence.

She continued, “Reverend Sidney Houston was the pastor at that church. He could deliver a sermon like no one else, I can tell you that.”

“How did you know that?” asked Decker. “Did you ever attend a service?”

Her eyes grew wide behind the spectacles. “Oh my goodness, no. I would’ve been tarred and feathered and run out of town. But you see, Reverend Houston would sometimes take the sermon outside on the front lawn of the church. And his voice carried. It was deep and powerful. And, well, some of us would get close enough to hear. The man knew his scriptures. And delivered the message forcefully. Made the church I went to seem downright boring by comparison.”

“Okay,” prompted Decker.

Ryan started talking faster and with more assurance. “He was a firebrand, that man was. He was taking on Cain like King was doing to Selma. Like that Marshall fellow had been doing to every court in the South. And that brought him up against some very powerful people hereabouts.”

“Do you know who they were?” asked Decker.

“Nathan worked in the mayor’s office. He was assistant mayor, in fact, at the time.”

“And the mayor was Thurman Huey,” began Decker.

She waved her hand dismissively. “The only reason Thurman Huey had that job was because of his daddy. He was barely out of college, still more boy than man. Nathan rightly should have been the mayor, but once Travis Huey spoke, that was that,” Ryan added, the bitterness clear in her tone. “You know, Travis Huey was a hero to many of us back then. We saw him as our protector.”

“And now?” asked Jamison.

Ryan pointed to her Bible. “He was a false prophet, spewing evil and hatred. And violence,” she added.

“Do you think he had anything to do with the church bombing?” asked Decker.

“Not Travis Huey. He’d never get his hands dirty.”

“And his son?”

Now Ryan seemed to shrink once more. She shook her head. “I don’t know one way or another.”

“What about your husband?”

She let out a long sigh. “I think... I think Nathan had some inkling. Some...” Her voice trailed off and she suddenly looked panicked, as though these long-ago memories were surrounding her and there was no escape from them.

“He had an idea that something bad was going to happen?” suggested Decker. “And that was why he was near the church that night?”

She nodded almost imperceptibly, her frail shoulders quivering.

Jamison reached out and put a comforting hand on the old woman’s arm. “Mrs. Ryan, it’s okay. I think that your husband was trying to do the right thing.”

Ryan sniffled, reached for a tissue and blew her nose. “He was a good man. But he didn’t work with such good people.”

“Did you know he posted bail, for five hundred dollars, for a man named Charles Montgomery?”

She rubbed her nose with the tissue. “He told me about that. Money sure didn’t come from him. We didn’t have that sort of cash to throw around. Certainly not for posting bail for someone we didn’t even know.”

“So he was told to do it? And given the money with which to do it?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know by whom?”

“He was assistant mayor. Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”

“So Thurman Huey?”

“Maybe his daddy gave him the money. I don’t know. Travis was a Dixiecrat,” added Ryan. “And he found good company in Washington. He almost derailed Thurgood Marshall being a Supreme Court justice, did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t,” said Decker.

“I didn’t follow things like that, but my husband did. He didn’t think much of the Hueys. But he lived in Mississippi and he kept his mouth shut. He went into politics to try to do good. But it was hard to do good in Mississippi back then if it meant doing good for black folks.”

“That stance probably didn’t make him popular,” said Bogart.

“If you wanted a career in Mississippi back then you toed the line. He had a family to support, but that doesn’t mean he believed what those others did. Because he didn’t.”

“I’m sure,” said Jamison.

“But he did things, little things to help folks. He did it under the radar, so to speak.” She looked at Mars. “He helped folks like you, to the extent he could.”

“Sounds like a man ahead of his time,” replied Mars.

She nodded. “Old LBJ lost the South when he got the Civil Rights Act passed. Southern Democrats turned their backs on him. Travis Huey sure as hell did. He was furious, Nathan told me.”

Decker said, “You said that Travis Huey wouldn’t get his hands dirty by being involved in the bombing and you said you didn’t know if his son would, but do you think Thurman Huey might have been involved in the bombing?”

Ryan looked over at her Bible, reached for it, and opened it to where she had been reading. For a few moments Decker thought she was not going to answer.

“I will tell you that the apple doesn’t fall from the tree, certainly not with the Hueys.”

Decker looked at the others. “So you do think Thurman Huey was involved?”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you that Thurman had two very good friends. The Three Musketeers, folks called ’em back then. They were right famous in town.”

“Why was that?” asked Bogart.

“What else? High school football.”

And despite Decker’s asking several other questions, those were the last words the woman spoke.

They all sat in the car in front of Smithers’s house staring out the windows.

Bogart spoke first. “The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and possibly the next Speaker of the House. I have to admit, I didn’t see that one coming.”

Jamison said, “He was one of the Musketeers. I wonder who the other two were.”

Decker said, “Easy enough to find out.”

“Where?” asked Jamison.

It was Mars who answered. “High school football stars? Why don’t we start there?”

Decker looked at him. “We’ll make a detective out of you yet, Melvin.”

Cain High School was smack in the center of town. They found the school office, made their request, and were quickly shuttled off to the library. There a young woman in slacks and a sweater greeted them.

“The Three Musketeers?” she said in response to their question. “I have heard that. It has to do with—”

“Football,” answered Mars. “Back in the sixties. Thurman Huey?”

“Right, okay. I just started here a few years ago, but I can show you where all the yearbooks are.”

They were led to a shelf on which were kept all the yearbooks for the school, dating back to the 1920s. They had already determined Thurman Huey’s exact age, so they knew when he probably graduated from high school. Jamison found the right volume, and they gathered around looking over her shoulder as she slowly turned the pages.

Mars saw it first, probably because it was on the pages dedicated to the football team.

“The Three Musketeers,” he said.

It was a photo of three young men in football uniforms. The caption below the photo read, “Thurman Huey, Danny Eastland, and Roger McClellan, the Three Musketeers.”