He removed the contents, a neat stack of eight and a half by eleven Xerox copies of newspaper stories, headlines, and photos, all arranged in perfect chronological order, all copied with the columns straight and the photos clean.
Boyette was an old Democrat from New Orleans, and he’d served several terms as an undistinguished rank and file member of the U.S. House, when one day Senator Dauvin, an antebellum relic from the Civil War, suddenly died in office at the age of ninety-one. Boyette pulled strings and twisted arms, and in keeping with the great tradition of Louisiana politics rounded up some cash and found a home for it. He was appointed by the governor to fill the unexpired portion of Dauvin’s term. The theory was simple: If a man had enough sense to accumulate a bunch of cash, then he would certainly make a worthy U.S. senator.
Boyette became a member of the world’s most exclusive club, and with time proved himself quite capable. Over the years he narrowly missed a few indictments, and evidently learned his lessons. He survived two close reelections, and finally reached a point attained by most southern senators where he was simply left alone. When this happened, Boyette slowly mellowed, and changed from a hell-raising segregationist to a rather liberal and open-minded statesman. He lost favor with three straight governors in Louisiana, and in doing so became an outcast with the petroleum and chemical companies that had ruined the ecology of the state.
So Boyd Boyette became a radical environmentalist, something unheard of among southern politicians. He railed against the oil and gas industry, and it vowed to defeat him. He held hearings in small bayou towns devastated by the oil boom and bust, and made enemies in the tall buildings in New Orleans. Senator Boyette embraced the crumbling ecology of his beloved state, and studied it with a passion.
Six years ago, someone in New Orleans had floated out a proposal to build a toxic waste dump in Lafourche Parish, about eighty miles southwest of New Orleans. It was quickly killed for the first time by local authorities. As is true with most ideas created by rich corporate minds, it didn’t go away, but rather came back a year later with a different name, a different set of consultants, new promises of local jobs, and a new mouthpiece doing the presenting. It was voted down by the locals for the second time, but the vote was much closer. A year passed, some money changed hands, cosmetic changes were made to the plans, and it was suddenly back on the agenda. The folks who lived around the site were hysterical. Rumors were rampant, especially a persistent one that the New Orleans mob was behind the dump and would not stop until it was a reality. Of course, millions were at stake.
The New Orleans papers did a credible job of linking the mob to the toxic waste site. A dozen corporations were involved, and names and addresses led to several known and undisputed crime figures.
The stage was set, the deal was done, the dump was to be approved, then Senator Boyd Boyette came crashing in with an army of federal regulators. He threatened investigations by a dozen agencies. He held weekly press conferences. He made speeches all over southern Louisiana. The advocates of the waste site ran for cover. The corporations issued terse statements of no comment. Boyette had them on the ropes, and he was enjoying himself immensely.
On the night of his disappearance, the senator had attended an angry meeting of local citizens at a packed high school gymnasium in Houma. He left late, and alone, as was his custom, for the hour drive to his home near New Orleans. Years earlier, Boyette had grown weary of the constant small talk and incessant ass kissing of aides, and he preferred to drive by himself whenever possible. He was studying Russian, his fourth language, and he cherished the solitude of his Cadillac and the language tapes.
By noon the next day, it was determined the senator was missing. The splashy headlines from New Orleans told the story. Bold headlines in the Washington Post suspected foul play. Days went by and the news was scarce. No body was found. A hundred old photos of the senator were dug up and used by the newspapers. The story was becoming old when, suddenly, the name of Barry Muldanno was linked to the disappearance and this set off a frenzy of Mafia dirt and trash. A rather frightening mug shot of a young Muldanno ran on page one in New Orleans. The paper rehashed its earlier stories about the waste site and the mob. The Blade was a known hit man with a criminal record. And on and on.
Roy Foltrigg made a grand entrance into the story when he stepped in front of the cameras to announce the indictment of Barry Muldanno for the murder of Senator Boyd Boyette. He, too, got the front page in both New Orleans and Washington, and Clint remembered a similar photo in the Memphis paper. Big news, but no body. This, however, did not throttle Mr. Foltrigg. He ranted against organized crime. He predicted certain victory. He preached his carefully prepared remarks with the flair of a veteran stage actor, shouting at all the right moments, pointing his finger, waving the indictment. He had no comment about the absence of a corpse, but hinted that he knew something he couldn’t tell and said he had no doubt the remains of the late senator would be found.
There were pictures and stories when Barry Muldanno was arrested, or rather, turned himself in to the FBI. He spent three days in jail before bail was arranged, and there were photos of him leaving just as he had arrived. He wore a dark suit and smiled at the cameras. He was innocent, he proclaimed. It was a vendetta.
There were photos of bulldozers, taken from a distance, as the FBI trenched its way through the soggy soil of New Orleans, searching for the body. More of Foltrigg performing for the press. More investigative reports of New Orleans’s rich history of organized crime. The story seemed to lose steam as the search continued.
The governor, a Democrat, appointed a crony to serve the remaining year and a half of Boyette’s term. The New Orleans paper ran an analysis of the many politicians waiting eagerly to run for the Senate. Foltrigg was one of two Republicans rumored to be interested.
He sat next to her on the sofa, and wiped his eyes. He hated himself for crying, but it could not be helped. Her arm was around his shoulder, and she patted him gently.
“You don’t have to say a word,” she repeated quietly.
“I really don’t want to. Maybe later, if I have to, but not now. Okay?”
“Okay, Mark.”
There was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Reggie said just loud enough to be heard. Clint appeared holding a stack of papers and looking at his watch.
“Sorry to interrupt. But it’s almost ten, and Mr. Foltrigg will be here in a minute.” He placed the papers on the coffee table in front of her. “You wanted to see these before the meeting.”
“Tell Mr. Foltrigg we have nothing to discuss,” Reggie said.
Clint frowned at her and looked at Mark. He sat close to her as if he needed protecting. “You’re not going to see him?”
“No. Tell him the meeting’s been canceled because we have nothing to say,” she said, and nodded at Mark.
Clint glanced at his watch again and backed awkwardly to the door. “Sure,” he said with a smile as if he suddenly enjoyed the idea of telling Foltrigg to take a hike. He closed the door behind him.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Not really.”
She leaned forward and began flipping through the copies of the clippings. Mark sat in a daze, tired and drained, still frightened after talking things over with his lawyer. She scanned the pages, reading the headlines and captions and pulling the photographs closer to her. About a third of the way through, she suddenly stopped and leaned back on the sofa. She handed Mark a close-up of Barry Muldanno as he smiled at the camera. It was from the New Orleans paper. “Is this the man?”