Greg Iles - The Devil’s Punchbowl

‘There were twentysome-odd people up on the balcony at Bowie’s,’ the chief says. ‘Plus a couple over there in the gazebo, making out. There were probably some other people on the bluff too, but we haven’t got them separated from the mob yet. Thank God, the big doors of the bar were closed to enforce their cover charge.’

‘What did the wits see?’

‘Different things, of course. Or different versions of the same thing. After listening to everybody, the best I can figure is this. A tan or light-colored SUV, probably a Lincoln Navigator, came down Broadway from the direction of the Callon building. Nobody was paying much attention at that point. Then about a hundred feet past the gazebo, the SUV skidded to a stop. It squealed loud enough to make people turn. The guy on the gazebo saw Jessup running from Broadway toward the fence. He must have jumped out of the SUV. Then a second guy jumped out of the backseat and started to chase him. The second guy stopped in the grass. Jessup was screaming for help by then. The guy on the bandstand called 911, but we couldn’t get here fast enough to do anything.’

Logan pauses as if expecting me to question his department’s response time, but I motion for him to continue.

‘By this time people on the balcony were looking in that direction, but there are a few trees up there, so they couldn’t see a lot. It looked like the guy chasing Jessup disappeared under the trees. He must have been getting closer because Jessup climbed over the fence and started running along the ledge toward Silver Street. Nobody’s sure whether the second guy ran up to the fence or not. Half the witnesses figured Jessup and the other guy were just drunks horsing around.’

‘But the guy in the gazebo called 911.’

‘His wife made him do it,’ Logan explains. ‘Anyhow, for whatever reason, Jessup stopped on the ledge. He was twisting around like he was fighting an invisible man–that’s what the guy in the gazebo said–and then he went over the edge. That’s it. For now anyway.’

I look up to the ledge forty feet above and try to imagine Tim desperate enough to make that leap voluntarily. If the man chasing him had been torturing him, Tim might have leapt from the ledge in the hope that he could clear the drainage ditch and hit the limbs of the trees beyond it. But the odds of death would still be high. The logical thing would have been to run back toward the tavern, or even down the ledge along Silver Street. Cars travel that hill at all hours, and he might have flagged someone down.

‘Did anybody see the plates on the vehicle?’

Logan shakes his head. ‘The SUV got out of here in a hurry. Nobody’s even sure it had Mississippi plates.’

‘Damn. What do you make of all that?’ I ask, more to observe Logan’s reaction than to learn anything valuable.

‘Could be a lot of things. Jessup was a known drug abuser.’

‘He’s been clean for a year.’

Shad Johnson, quiet up to now, snorts in derision. ‘Jessup rear-ended a friend of mine a couple months back, and my friend swears he was fucked-up at the time.’

Tim was high two months ago? ‘Did the police do a blood test?’

Shad shakes his head. ‘Wasn’t that much damage. And Jessup wasn’t worth suing. He didn’t have anything but debts.’

Logan winces. He doesn’t like being caught between us.

‘This could have resulted from any kind of dispute,’ the DA speculates. ‘Argument over a woman. Jessup’s dealer taking the price of dope out of his ass. I expect we’ll know by Monday or Tuesday.’

‘Have you done a grid search around the body?’ I ask Logan.

‘Best we could. We didn’t find anything within throwing distance, but there’s a lot of damn kudzu and trees down there. If he threw something full force from the top of the bluff, it’ll take daylight to find it.’ Logan stops speaking, but his engineer’s eyes ask me what I think Tim might have been carrying. ‘If he threw something with some weight, he might have thrown it all the way to the river.’

‘Dope doesn’t weigh that much,’ Shad says. ‘Not throwing size, anyway. You’ll find his stash in the morning, if the rats and coons don’t eat it first.’

‘What are you doing at this crime scene?’ I ask pointedly. ‘You usually stay away from the dirty work.’

Shad’s lips broaden into a smile; he enjoys a fight. ‘I was at a party a few blocks away. I’m only answering you as a courtesy, of course. You’re not the DA, Penn Cage. No, sir. This investigation is in my hands, and I’ll decide what gets done and when.’

‘You’re in charge, all right. Just remember that with power comes responsibility. You’ll be held to the highest standard, make no mistake about that.’ I turn to Logan. ‘Let’s put a rush on that autopsy, Chief.’

‘There he goes again,’ says Shad, ‘giving orders like he’s the district attorney.’

Instead of taking the bait, I turn and stride back toward the ladder. As soon as Shad leaves my field of vision, he leaves my mind. My anger remains unquenched, perhaps even unplumbed, but its urgency recedes as I climb back up to Silver Street and make my way through the chattering crowd toward my car. Several acquaintances call out, but I brusquely wave them off. A cold heaviness is seeping outward from my heart. I’d rather clean and embalm Tim’s mutilated body than tell Julia Stanton that the father of her baby is dead. But some duties cannot be shirked. If Julia asks why Tim died, I wonder if I’ll have the courage to tell her the truth? That her husband almost certainly perished because I was late to our meeting.

Tim Jessup’s wife and son live in Montebello subdivision, a cluster of small clapboard homes built in the 1940s to house the employees of the International Paper Company. For most of their history, these structures sheltered generations of working white families, but in the past ten years, quite a few have been taken over by African-American families. Despite the age of the houses and the inexpensive materials with which they were built, most are well kept up, with fresh paint and well-tended lawns. What sticks in your mind when you drive through during the day is the abundance of kids, dogs, bicycles, flowers, lawn ornaments, and glitter-painted bass boats parked on the grass beside the driveways. Tim and Julia bought one of the more run-down houses when she got pregnant, then spent eight months fixing it up for the baby. Montebello is a long way down from the tony subdivision where Jessup grew up, but after he turned thirty, Tim stopped caring about things like that. His father never did. After my return to Natchez, I learned it was better not to mention Tim when I ran into Dr Jessup. Whenever I did, all I saw in the old surgeon’s eyes was shame and bitterness.

I turn off Highway 61 at the Parkway Baptist Church and take the frontage road down into Montebello. A warren of curving, tree-shaded streets divides the neighborhood into asymmetrical sections, and it’s easy to get lost down here if you haven’t visited in a while. After one wrong turn, I find Maplewood and swing around a broad curve through the parked cars and pickups that line both sides of the street.

In less than a minute I will shatter the life of Julia Stanton Jessup, and I’m suddenly aware that my outrage over Tim’s death is an order of magnitude smaller than what she will experience after the initial shock wears off. The explosion might even be immediate. Julia is no shrinking violet. She began life in a coddled existence, but fate soon had its way with her family, and she did not pull through without becoming tough. I still remember kissing her once at a senior party, when she was in the ninth grade. We’ve never spoken of it since, but the image of her as she was then remains with me, a beautiful girl just coming into womanhood, and unlike Tim she retained the glow of her youth through the hard years. I suspect that tonight’s shock may take that from her at last.