Greg Iles - Cemetery Road

I’ve never asked an expert that question. I didn’t even google it. In the last analysis, I probably don’t really want to know. But maybe I’ll meet an expert someday. Maybe I’ll find the courage to ask. Because however hesitant I might be to face reality, I’m a human being, and that’s something we have to know sooner or later. Did our loved one suffer? And if so … how badly?

It took a long time for me to start seeing women after that. Eventually I did. The first couple of tries didn’t go very well. I found it difficult to be at ease with a woman once other people were removed from the equation. Then I met Eleanor Attie, a producer at one of the cable networks. Eleanor sensed that I carried some deep pain, but she never pushed me about it, and that made intimacy possible. We’d been dating for about four months when I realized I needed to return to Bienville. We kept in close touch at first, but after three weeks or so, our calls started getting further apart and our emails less frequent—weekly, almost perfunctory things. When you leave the small, hyperconnected family that is the Washington media circus, it’s like falling off the earth—at least to the people still working under the big top.

After all, it wasn’t like I was sending in weekly reports from Zabul Province in Afghanistan. I was in Mississippi, which from Washington looks like a fourth-world country. The newspaper I’d taken over focused mostly on local matters, except for the occasional blistering screed against the depredations of Trump and his cronies, authored by my father. But it’s been two months since Dad printed one of those. Mortality is having its way with him. His diminished editorial output has cut into the profits of our local glazier, who was making good money replacing the plate-glass windows on the ground floor of our downtown office. Before Dad slowed his pace, not even security cameras stopped the angry Trump supporter who simply wore a mask as he marched up to the windows with brick in hand to make his feelings known.

As I reach the head of Port Road, which leads down the bluff to the industrial park, the sun flashes off a large gathering of cars about a mile away. This confuses me for a few seconds, because it looks more than anything like cars gathered for a sporting event. Then I realize this crowd must have assembled for the groundbreaking. As the Flex coasts down the steep bluff road, I start to make out tents set up on the actual paper mill site, where Buck found his artifacts. Several large groups of people are moving around the tents, and as I reach the level ground of the industrial park, logos on those tents become legible.

One belongs to the casino and reads SUN KING RESORT in gold letters. A larger tent reads AZURE DRAGON PAPER, which is the parent company of the mill that will be built here. The mill will operate under the name PulpCore, Inc., but Azure Dragon will own it. Off to the right, Claude Buckman’s Bienville Southern Bank has two tents set up side by side, but the grandest tent of all reads PRIME SHOT PREMIUM HUNTING GEAR. These logos tell me that the men who truly run this city are out in force today. And why not? All their years of machinations have brought them to this moment. The town took a serious hit in the ’90s, and another after 2008, but unlike the other river towns, Bienville has come through the recession strong enough to not only maintain its population, but also to expand its tax base. The twelve members of the Bienville Poker Club stand on the threshold of a billion-dollar payoff. Bigger, really, when you add in the ancillary elements of the deal. A new interstate highway that will run from El Paso, Texas, to Augusta, Georgia, passing over the new Bienville bridge as it carries Azure Dragon paper pulp to market. Weighed against all this, one archaeologist’s life wouldn’t have counted for much.

“Marshall McEwan!” cries a male voice as I get out of the Flex.

I turn to find New Jersey émigré Tommy Russo hurrying along the road in a close-fitting tailored suit. The owner of the Sun King Casino is walking in the direction of the tents. I figured Russo would have been here an hour ago, working the governor and the secretary of commerce. The only non-native-born member of the Poker Club, Tommy Russo plans to bring in a second casino as soon as I-14 becomes a reality. Bienville has a long gambling history, dating back to the Lower’ville saloons and a nineteenth-century horse track on the river. But Tommy has updated the old riverboat gambler stereotype and brought The Sopranos to Bienville. He’s quick to smile, but you sense menace just behind his eyes. He’s like a friendly snake with his fangs folded out of sight.

“I guess the Chinks are really going to make us rich after all,” he says, as I fall into step beside him. “Off the record, of course.”

“I take it a day at a time, Tommy.”

“Come on, brah. None of that pessimism. A billion dollars is like the second coming. That’s real money, even to me. Hey, did you hear about Buck Ferris?”

I show no reaction. “What about him?”

“They found him in the river this morning. I figured you’d be all over that.”

“I’ll wait and see what the police tell me.”

Russo’s predatory eyes read every line and shadow on my face. “Yeah? Good. That’s good. Last thing we need around here is more bullshit stories to upset the Chinamen. This town’s on the right track, while everybody else is starving.”

“Looks that way. I’ll catch you later, Tommy.”

Just as I start to break away, another member of the Poker Club emerges from the parked cars and calls, “Tommy Flash! What you doin’ fraternizing with the enemy?”

Beau Holland is a real estate developer, and he likes to tell people that his family can trace itself back eight generations in Bienville. If you let him talk, Beau will swear he’s descended from French royalty. A few years shy of fifty, Holland is the second-youngest member of the Poker Club. He owns property all over south Mississippi, and he developed both white-flight subdivisions on the eastern edge of the county that have attracted affluent young professionals from Jackson. Word is he’s speculated heavily in all sorts of ventures since finding out that Azure Dragon would be building its newest mill at Bienville.

“Marshall’s not the enemy,” Russo says as Holland catches up to us, wearing a suit that probably cost more than my entire wardrobe. “He’s just doin’ his job.”

“Could’ve fooled me with that story on Buck Ferris.”

Beau Holland always sounds like an irritated spinster to me. He reminds me of some Mississippi Delta boys I met when I went to Boys’ State as a junior in high school. They weren’t gay, but they spoke with a soft lisp and a passive-aggressive sarcasm that fit the old stereotype. What they were was mama’s boys.

“At least we won’t have to worry about Buck anymore,” Beau adds, finding it impossible to suppress his bile.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” I mutter.

“What?” he asks sharply, reaching out to stop me.

I keep walking, and Tommy stays apace.

“I’m talking to you, McEwan!” Holland snaps.

“Keep talking,” I call over my shoulder. “Maybe somebody will come by who gives a shit.”

Tommy Russo snickers under his breath.

As we come to the tents, I say, “Catch you later, Tommy,” then break away and push into the edge of the crowd, trying to avoid eye contact where possible. I don’t want to suffer through fishing expeditions by people wanting information about Buck’s death.

Moving into the crowd’s center, I see Max Matheson holding court beneath the Prime Shot tent. Max radiates the same vitality he always did as a younger man, his lean build, deep tan, and hard blue eyes making it easy to visualize him in a sergeant’s uniform in a Vietnam rice paddy. As I focus on his gray-blond head, I see his son standing to his left and, beside Paul, several attractive young women wearing Prime Shot polo shirts. Something tells me they’re here to keep the Chinese officials entertained. As I hover between two tents, a dark-skinned, black-haired beauty behind the Prime Shot girls draws my gaze. She’s wearing an indigo sundress that exposes perfect shoulders. She’s older than the Prime Shot girls, but even behind large sunglasses, she’s clearly out of their league. As I shield my eyes against the glare of the sun, I curse out loud.