He turns to me, his eyes not accusatory but plainly questioning. I am too shocked to speak for a moment. "That… that's impossible," I stammer. "I mean, nothing really bad ever happened between Livy and me. It was the trial that drove the last nail into our relationship."
"Maybe that was Marston's goal all along. To drive you two apart."
This thought occurred to me nineteen years ago, but I discounted it. Livy abandoned me long before her father took on that malpractice case.
Dad shrugs as if it were all meaningless now. "Who knows why people do anything?"
"I'm going to go see Presley," I tell him. "If that's what I have to do to-"
"You stay away from that son of a bitch! Any problems I have, I'll deal with my own way." He downs the remainder of his bourbon. "One way or another."
"What does that mean?"
His eyes are blurry with fatigue and alcohol, yet somehow sly beneath all that. "Don't worry about it."
I am suddenly afraid that my father is contemplating suicide. His death would nullify any leverage Presley has over him and also provide my mother with a generous life insurance settlement. To a desperate man, this might well seem like an elegant solution. "Dad-"
"Go to bed, son. Take care of your little girl. That's what being a father's all about. Sparing your kids what hell you can for as long as you can. And Annie's already endured her share."
We turn to the door at the same moment, each sensing a new presence in the room. A tiny shadow stands there. Annie. She seems conjured into existence by the mention of her name.
"I woke up by myself," she says, her voice tiny and fearful. "Why did you leave, Daddy?"
I go to the door and sweep her into my arms. She feels so light sometimes that it frightens me. Hollow-boned, like a bird. "I needed to talk to Papa, punkin. Everything's fine."
"Hello, sweet pea," Dad says from his chair. "You make Daddy take you to bed."
I linger in the doorway, hoping somehow to draw out a confidence, but he gives me nothing. I leave the library with Annie in my arms, knowing I will not sleep, but knowing also that until my father opens up to me, there is little I can do to help him.
CHAPTER 5
My father's prediction about media attention proves prescient. Within forty-eight hours of my arrival, calls about interviews join the ceaseless ringing of patients calling my father. My mother has taken messages from the local newspaper publisher, radio talk-show hosts, even the TV station in Jackson, the state capital, two hours away. I decide to grant an interview to Caitlin Masters, the publisher of the Natchez Examiner, on two conditions: that she not ask questions about Arthur Lee Hanratty's execution, and that she print that I will be vacationing in New Orleans until after the execution has taken place. Leaving Annie with my mother-which delights them both-I drive Mom's Nissan downtown in search of Biscuits and Blues, a new restaurant owned by a friend of mine but which I have never seen.
It was once said of American cities that you could judge their character by their tallest buildings: were they offices or churches? At a mere seven stories, the Eola Hotel is the tallest commercial structure in Natchez. Its verdigris-encrusted roof peaks well below the graceful, copper-clad spire of St. Mary Minor Basilica. Natchez's "skyline" barely rises out of a green canopy of oak leaves: the silver dome of the synagogue, the steeple of the Presbyterian church, the roofs of antebellum mansions and stately public buildings. Below the canopy, a soft and filtered sunlight gives the sense of an enormous glassed-in garden.
Biscuits and Blues is a three-story building on Main, with a large second-floor balcony overlooking the street. A young woman stands talking on a cell phone just inside the door-where Caitlin Masters promised to meet me-but I don't think she's the newspaper publisher. She looks more like a French tourist. She's wearing a tailored black suit, cream silk blouse, and black sandals, and she is clearly on the sunny side of thirty. But as I check my watch, she turns face on to me and I spot a hardcover copy of False Witness cradled in her left arm. I also see that she's wearing nothing under the blouse, which is distractingly sheer. She smiles and signals that she'll be off the phone in a second, her eyes flashing with quick intelligence.
I acknowledge her wave and wait beside the door. I'm accustomed to young executives in book publishing, but I expected something more conventional in the newspaper business, especially in the South. Caitlin Masters stands with her head cocked slightly, her eyes focused in the middle distance, the edge of her lower lip pinned by a pointed canine. Her skin is as white as bone china and without blemish, shockingly white against her hair, which is black as her silk suit and lies against her neck like a gleaming veil. Her face is a study in planes and angles: high cheekbones, strong jawline, arched brows, and a straight nose, all uniting with almost architectural precision, yet somehow escaping hardness. She wears no makeup that I can see, but her green eyes provide all the accent she needs. They seem incongruous in a face that almost cries out for blue ones, making her striking and memorable rather than merely beautiful.
As she ends her call, she speaks three or four consecutive sentences, and a strange chill runs through me. Ivy League Boston alloyed with something softer, a Brahmin who spent her summers far away. On the telephone this morning I didn't catch it, but coupled with her face, that voice transforms my suspicion to certainty. Caitlin Masters is the woman I spoke to on the flight to Baton Rouge. Kate… Caitlin.
She holds out her hand to shake mine, and I step back. "You're the woman from the plane. Kate."
Her smile disappears, replaced by embarrassment. "I'm surprised you recognize me, dressed like I was that day."
"You lied to me. You told me you were a lawyer. Was that some kind of setup or what?"
"I didn't tell you I was a lawyer. You assumed I was. I told you I was a First Amendment specialist, and I am."
"You knew what I thought, and you let me think it. You lied, Ms. Masters. This interview is over."
As I turn to go, she takes hold of my arm. "Our meeting on that plane was a complete accident. I want an interview with you, but it wouldn't be worth that kind of trouble. I was flying from Atlanta to Baton Rouge, and I happened to be sitting across the aisle from you. End of story."
"And you happened to be reading one of my novels?"
"No. I've been trying to get your number from your parents for a couple of months. A lot of people in Mississippi are interested in you. When the Hanratty story broke, I picked up one of your books in the airport. It's that simple."
I step away from the door to let a pair of middle-aged women through. "Then why not tell me who you were?"
"Because when I was waiting to board, I was sitting by the pay phones. I heard you tell someone you didn't want to talk to reporters for any reason. I knew if I told you I was a newspaper publisher, you wouldn't talk to me."
"Well, I guess you got your inside scoop on how I killed Hanratty's brother."
She draws herself erect, offended now. "I haven't printed a word of what you told me, and I don't plan to. Despite appearances to the contrary, my journalistic ethics are beyond reproach."
"Why were you dressed so differently on the plane?"
She actually laughs at this. "I'd just given a seminar to a group of editors in Atlanta. My father was there, and I try to be a bit more conventional when he's around."
I can see her point. Not many fathers would approve of the blouse she's wearing today.
"Look," she says, "I could have had that story on the wire an hour after you told it to me. I didn't tell a soul. What better proof of trustworthiness could anyone give you?"
"Maybe you're saving it for one big article."
"You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. In fact, we could just eat lunch, and you can decide if you want to do the interview another time or not."