Denny thinks about this. “So what’s it like? For real. Is it like Call of Duty come to life?”
“Not even close. But until you’ve been there, you can’t really understand it. And I hope you never do. Only a few things in life are like that.”
“Such as?”
“That’s a different conversation. One for you and your mom.”
“Come on. Tell me something cool about it.”
I try to think like a fourteen-year-old for a minute. “You can tell what units the contractors came from by the sunglasses they wear. Wraparound Oakleys for Delta Force. SEALs wear Maui Jims. Special Forces, Wiley X.”
“No way. What about Ray-Bans?”
“Over there? Only for punks and phonies. Over here, that’s what I wear.” I glance at my wristwatch. “I need to call Buck’s wife, Denny.”
“Sure, okay. But like, how did you get that kind of job? I mean, that kind of access?”
“A guy I went to high school with helped me out. He was an Army Ranger a long time ago, during the Persian Gulf War. He got me that gig with the private contractors. He also saved my life over there. That’s what won me the Pulitzer, that assignment. What I saw over there.”
Denny nods like he understands all this, but I have a feeling he’ll be buying my book online this afternoon.
“Save your money,” I tell him. “I’ll give you a copy.”
“Cool. Who was the guy? Your friend?”
“Paul Matheson.”
His eyes widen. “Kevin Matheson’s dad?”
“That’s right.”
“That dude’s like, rich. Really rich.”
“I guess he is, yeah. Paul didn’t go over there for the money, though. It started as a sort of Hemingway trip for him. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“Not really.”
“A macho thing. He had problems with his father. He felt like he had a lot to prove.”
“That I understand.”
I’ll bet you do.
“Hey,” Denny says, his voice suddenly bright. “We should go up to the cemetery to run this search. That ground’s like forty feet higher than here, counting the hills. Better line of sight up there, which gives me better control.”
The thought of the Bienville Cemetery resurrects the dread I felt earlier. “Let’s just do it from here, okay? I’m on a tight schedule this morning.”
The boy gives me a strange look. “What you gotta do?”
“They’re breaking ground on the new paper mill at eleven a.m. I need to be there for that.”
He laughs. “The Mississippi Miracle? I’ll believe it when they build it.”
Denny sounds like he’s quoting someone else. “Where’d you hear that line?”
He looks sheepish. “My uncle Buddy.”
Denny’s uncle is a mostly out-of-work contractor who spends his days getting high in front of the TV. “That paper mill’s the real deal. The Chinese have the money. And a billion-dollar investment could put this town in the black for the next fifty years.”
Denny looks a little less skeptical. “My mom’s been kind of hoping to get work out there.”
“I’ll bet. The average salary’s going to be sixty thousand dollars. And that,” I think aloud, “is why I’m afraid that the new paper mill might have played some part in Buck’s death.”
Denny’s head whips toward me. Even a fourteen-year-old boy can put this together. “I read your article about the artifact Buck found. Would that mess up the paper mill somehow?”
“It could. It scared the shit out of most people in this town. The whole county, really.”
“You think somebody would kill Buck over that?”
“I can think of about thirty-six thousand suspects at this point.”
“For real?”
“Kids are killing kids over cell phones in this town, Denny. What do you think people will do for a billion dollars?”
“A billion dollars?”
“That’s what the Chinese are investing here, not counting all the millions that will come with the new bridge and interstate.”
“Wow. I see what you mean. Well . . .” He looks over the fence again. “The coroner’s splitting. I’ll get the drone back up here and start checking the riverbanks.”
I give him a thumbs-up. “I’m going to walk down the fence and make a few calls. Holler if you see anything.”
“I will.”
For a second I wonder if I could be putting him in danger by having him search for Buck’s pickup, but I can’t see how. Turning, I walk north along the fence, looking down at the roof of the coroner’s wagon as it hauls Buck’s remains up from the river for the final time. I really have only one call to make, because the call I want to make, I can’t. Not for several hours yet. The call I must make I’d give anything to avoid.
Taking out my iPhone, I dial Buck’s house. Not even one full ring passes before his wife pounces on the phone.
“Marshall?” Quinn Ferris says breathlessly.
“It was him,” I tell her, knowing the slightest delay would only make it worse. “Buck’s dead.”
There’s a deep-space silence for two full seconds, and then Quinn says in a tiny voice, “You’re sure?”
“I saw his face, Quinn.”
“Oh, God. Marshall . . . what do I do? Is he all right? Is he comfortable? I mean—”
“I know what you mean. They’re treating him with respect. Byron Ellis picked him up. I imagine they’ll take Buck to the hospital for a brief period. There’s going to have to be an autopsy in Jackson.”
“Oh . . . no. They’re going to cut him open?”
“There’s no way around it, I’m afraid.”
“Was it not an accident?”
Here a little soft-pedaling won’t hurt anyone. Not in the short run. “They don’t know yet. But anyone who dies while not under a physician’s care has to have a postmortem.”
“Dear Lord. I’m trying to get my mind around it.”
“I think you should stay at home for a while, Quinn.”
“I can’t. I have to see him. Marshall, does he look all right?”
“He was in the river. That doesn’t do anybody any favors. I think you should stay out at your place for a bit. I’ll drive out to see you in a couple of hours.”
“No. No, I’m coming in. I can take it. He was my husband.”
“Quinn, listen. This is me, not the police, asking. Do you know where Buck was last night?”
“Of course. He was going back to the industrial park to try to find some bones.”
I fight the urge to groan. The industrial park is the site of the new paper mill, where the groundbreaking will happen in two hours. Buck was jailed for five hours for digging at that site the first time, and charged with felony trespass. He knew he would only get in more trouble if he went back there. But more important, that site lies downstream from where Buck was found.
“Did they kill him?” Quinn asks. “Did some of those greedy bastards murder my husband because of their stupid mill?”
“I don’t know yet, Quinn. But I’m going to find out.”
“If you don’t, we’ll never know. I don’t trust one of those sons of bitches in the sheriff’s department. They’re all owned by the local big shots. You know who I’m talking about.”
I grunt but say nothing.
“The goddamn Bienville Poker Club,” she says.
“You could be right. But we don’t know that.”
“I know. They don’t care about anything but money. Money and their mansions and their spoiled rotten kids and—oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. It’s just not right. Buck was so . . . good.”
“He was,” I agree.
“And nobody gives a damn,” she says in a desolate voice. “All the good he did, all those years, and in the end nobody cares about anything but money.”
“They think the mill means survival for the town. Boom times again.”
“Damn this town,” she says savagely. “If they had to kill my husband to get their mill, Bienville doesn’t deserve to survive.”
There it is.