Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

Before the priest can respond, I turn and pull the old surgeon with me to the door. Dr. Jessup is wheezing like an asthmatic, but this sound isn’t respiratory distress; it’s the throttled crying of a man who sealed himself off from emotion for most of his life and now finds himself unable to contain the hurt and stunted love within him.

“Can you get home all right?” I ask.

Dr. Jessup won'’t let me off so easy. When we reach the steps, he

seizes my arm and turns me until I'm looking into his watery gray eyes, eyes that for forty years seemed to look down from an Olympian height to the mortals who came to him to cut out their tumors and inflamed gallbladders, and that now hold only pain and pleading. How the mighty are fallen.

“Was that true? What you said about Tim? That he was trying to do something good?”

“Yes. But don'’t ask me what it was. And please don'’t tell your wife yet. I'’ll tell you the rest of it someday, Doctor. When it’s safe. But that’s the best I can do tonight.”

Dr. Jessup shakes his head slowly. “You said he—he suffered.”

I look down the street, toward the corner of Washington Street. “You’re going to see that for yourself when Tim’s body comes back from Jackson. You’re a doctor, so you’ll know what you’re looking at. I wanted you to be prepared. Don’t let your wife see him.”

“Who killed my boy?” Dr. Jessup asks in a cracked whisper. “You tell me. Tell me!”

“I can’t.”

“But you know, don'’t you?”

“No, sir. And I'm afraid the police aren'’t even calling it murder yet. Not officially. The next few days are going to be hard on you and Mrs. Jessup. I hope you can take some comfort in what I told Father Mullen. I don'’t think you’ll have any more trouble about the funeral. Mullen’s just young, and I'm sure Mrs. McQueen was pretty formidable. She feels about Patrick the way you do about Tim.”

Dr. Jessup nods. “I know that. I see it now.”

I try to turn and walk to my car, but he clings to me, his hand like a claw on my wrist. “What are

you

doing? I know you’re your father’s son. Are you trying to finish what Tim started?”

A car with blue headlights approaches on the street. After it hisses past, I say, “All I can tell you is this: If I have anything to do with it, Tim will not have died in vain. Now, I need to go.”

“One last thing,” Dr. Jessup says. “I know your father never thought much of me. All my life I chased after things that don'’t mean a damned thing. My son needed me, and all I could do was hate him for not being what I wanted. Well, this is my punishment, I guess.” Dr. Jessup’s gaze slides off my face and climbs the but

tresses and spires of the cathedral. “Your father was the best of us. Our crop, I mean.” The wet eyes come back to me. “And Tim thought the world of you. I wish you would say something at his wake, if you will. Even if you can’t say what you told us in there.”

“Of course I will.”

Just as I think I'm free, the gray eyes peer into mine with a darkness like blood behind them. “If you find out who killed my boy, Penn, you pick up the telephone. You hear me? Tell me where to find him, that’s all. I don'’t care if I spend the rest of my life behind bars and eternity in flames.”

Dr. Jessup’s clenched hand finally loosens as the force of his passion drains from him. For a moment I fear he’s going to collapse on the steps, but then he pulls his coat around him and gets himself under control. I saw this too many times when I was a prosecutor, most often in victims’ families: fathers and brothers who would readily kill to avenge those they should have loved far better when the person was alive.

“Tim will get justice. The best thing you can do for him now is take care of your grandson. Your wife and your daughter-in-law too. They need you.”

With a last grimace of confusion, he shuffles past me toward the big Mercedes by the curb. As he wrestles with his key, I trot to my car on unsteady legs, hoping that Caitlin has waited for me.

Caitlin is watching from one of her front windows as I pull up. She opens the front door with only her face showing, as though she’s just gotten out of the shower, then motions for me to come in, but I wave her out to the car. She extends a bare foot and calf, points to the foot, then disappears inside. I get out and walk halfway to her door. A moment later she comes out wearing shorts, sandals, and a white linen top, a puzzled look on her face.

“To what do I owe this honor?”

“We need to talk,” I whisper, “and it can’t be in our houses or cars. Is there a car at the newspaper office we can use?”

She’s looking at me strangely, but she answers quietly. “Yes. Are you going to drive us over there?”

When I nod, she walks back and locks her door, then comes out to my car.

Caitlin never needs to be told anything twice, unless it’s to keep her nose out of something. She doesn’'t speak as we drive across town; she’s content to study me from the passenger seat. I look toward her a few times, but it’s difficult to do that without making eye contact, and there’s too much unsaid between us to endure that for long. It’s easier to study her legs, which are long and toned and surprisingly tawny, given her pale skin. She must have spent some time in the lower latitudes recently.

“Antigua,” she says, reading my mind.

“Alone?”

“No.” After letting me suffer for a few moments, she says, “A corporate retreat.”

“I’'ve never really understood what happens at those.”

“Depends on the company. Some put you through a week of New Age sermons on the gospel of wealth. Others encourage you to kill large mammals and screw beautiful ethnic prostitutes.”

After the awful tension at the rectory, this makes me laugh. “I spent a lot of my career dealing with men who’d rather screw large mammals and kill beautiful ethnic prostitutes.”

This brings a real laugh from Caitlin. In the closed car the sound rings bright and true. “Or writing about them,” she says.

I nod but don'’t continue our old conversational rhythm, and the sparkle dies in her eyes. As I start to pull into the newspaper parking lot, she points to the side of the building, which I assume means I should park behind it. When I get to the back, I see six cars parked in a row beside a glass door.

As soon as we’re inside, she says, “Are you sure you don'’t just want to talk here?”

“Can you get us total privacy? I don'’t want everyone in the building knowing I'm here.”

“If you don'’t mind sitting on the floor of a supply room.”

“Fine. Perfect.”

A little way up the hall, she leads me into a room lined with metal shelves and boxes, then locks the door behind us. After a quick survey of the shelves, she pulls down two boxes of legal-size copy paper and makes a seat. I pull down two more, and soon we’re facing each other, separated by three feet of harshly lit space.

“You look bad,” she says bluntly. “How long has it been since you slept?”

“That doesn’'t matter right now.”

She considers this for a few seconds. “You know, you acted like a total shit to me today.”

“You asked for it. You acted like you expected me to take you into my confidence as though we’re still together. We’re not together.”

She looks away. “I just wanted you to have a civil conversation with me.”

“No. You wanted a story. The inside story. And I couldn'’t give you that. No one would have benefited from that.”

“Is that for you to decide?”

“In this case it is.”

“You spoke in the past tense. Why are you here now?”

“Because you’re in danger. The deeper you look into Tim Jessup’s death, the more likely it is you’ll be hurt.”

I see disbelief in her eyes, but not because she doubts the danger. “You know I’'ve worked stories like that before.”