Chapter 7

Drew’s blackmailers lost no time making him pay for his indecisiveness. At 11:10 the next morning, I was helping my mother paint some bookshelves in her garage when my cell phone rang. The screen showed Drew as the caller. I walked out of the garage under the pretext of getting better cell reception, then answered by saying, “Are you as sore as I am?”

“You were right,” he said. “I’m fucked.”

A current of anxiety shot through me, but experience kept my voice calm. “What’s happened?”

“I just got off the phone with Shad Johnson. He got an anonymous call this morning.”

“Let me guess. The caller said you were having an affair with Kate Townsend and that you might have killed her.”

“Yep.”

“Did he give any details?”

“Johnson didn’t say so.”

“What did Shad ask you during the call? Did he ask straight out if the accusation was true?”

“No. He basically said, ’Doc, I hate to have to call you about this, but I got this call with an accusation, and I wouldn’t be doing my duty if I didn’t ask you about it.‘ He was pretty friendly, actually.”

“Shad Johnson is not your friend.”

“I understand that. I was just giving you his tone. He said he wanted to give me a chance to deny it as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t become any kind of thing.”

“ ’Thing‘? That was his word?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s already a thing, Drew. You can bet your ass on that. Did you flat-out deny that you were seeing Kate?”

“No.”

I sighed with relief.

“I acted stunned,” he said, “which I was. I told him I was too shocked even to respond to such an outrageous accusation, that Kate was a close friend of our family, and that we’d been shattered by her death. Shad said he understood. He said he’d like to talk to me about it at his office. He said I might have information about Kate that could help them piece together a better picture of her than they have now.”

“What did you say to that?”

“What could I say? I told him I wanted to do everything I could to assist the investigation.”

“Okay. When is this meeting?”

“Lunch today. Fifty minutes from now.”

Shit.“Was it a short call? Long? What?”

“Short.”

“That’s because Shad got what he wanted. He thinks he’s going to question you on his territory.”

“He’s not?”

“Not unless you’re a complete moron-which, after last night, I’m starting to believe.”

“Penn-”

“Damn it, why didn’t you volunteer the information last night like I told you to?”

“You know why! I didn’t want Tim and Ellen to have to deal with it if they didn’t have to.”

“Well, now they have to.”

“What do I do, Penn?”

“You really need a lawyer now.”

“I told you that last night.”

“And I told you I wasn’t your guy. Not for this.”

“The meeting’s in fifty minutes!”

I bowed my head in resignation. The odds of finding a Natchez lawyer qualified to take that meeting were low, and the odds of adequately briefing one in time were nil. “Where are you now?”

“At my office. Seeing patients.”

“You’re off at twelve?”

“Yeah.”

“You just had an emergency.”

Drew was silent for a moment. “I’m skipping the meeting?”

“I’m going in your place.”

“Is that the best thing?”

“We need to get some idea of what Shad is thinking. I’d also like to know what the autopsy turned up. Shad probably has the pathologist’s report in hand by now.”

“I don’t want to think about that. This is Kate we’re talking about.”

You’d better get used to it.“Sorry. Now…we have a tricky little problem to deal with. Think before you answer me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“The first thing Shad is going to ask me is where you were when Kate was murdered. He won’t be obvious about it, but he’ll ask. And I happen to know you were at the murder scene. Where did you go after you left the creek?”

“Home.”

I was silent long enough for Drew to realize that if he was lying, he had better come clean then or stick with his story. “Was Ellen there?”

“No. She was at her sister’s place.”

“What about Tim?”

“The maid had taken him to his music lesson.”

“So nobody can verify that you were home?”

“I answered some e-mails soon after I got there. Couldn’t we use those?”

“Maybe. But depending on how narrow a window they’ve established as time of death, the e-mails probably won’t put you in the safety zone.”

“Tim got home around five, and Ellen about six.”

“Okay. It’s also possible that someone saw your car parked in that vacant lot in Pinehaven. For that reason, and for others I can’t predict now, I may decide I need to tell Shad the truth. Everything. Today. The affair, the blackmail, everything.”

Drew said nothing.

“In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think coming clean may still be the best option we have. Even lying by omission digs a hole they can bury you in later.”

A woman on Drew’s end of the line called out a blood pressure reading. Drew lowered his voice. “You’re my lawyer, Penn. I trust your instincts. Say whatever you think you need to. I’m innocent-of murder, anyway-and I’m not going to hide anything except to protect my son.”

What could I say to that? “I’ll call you when the meeting’s over. Keep your cell phone wired to your hip, and don’t answer any calls until you hear from me. Don’t talk to anybody. ”

“I won’t.”

I hung up and turned back to the garage. My mother was watching me with a quizzical look on her face. In that moment I realized just how far my life had already slid off its accustomed track. After dropping Annie at school this morning, I drove down to the football field and searched it for my lost pistol. Failing to find it, I went up to the high school and told Coach Wade Anders to keep an eye out for it. Anders is the athletic director of St. Stephen’s, and he promised to have his assistants search the bowl again before any kids were allowed into it. He also asked if I knew anything about the switch box for the stadium lights being shot up. I told him I didn’t, but that I’d send someone to install a new box as soon as possible. He looked at me in silence for a little while, then nodded as though we shared a special understanding. Like everybody, Anders was building up capital where he could.

The lost gun problem didn’t end there. The land that Drew and I chased the blackmailer over is owned by a group of investors who use it as a hunting camp. I called the doctor who heads the group to tell him I might have lost a pistol on their land, and to ask his members to keep an eye out for it. When he asked what I was doing on their land, I made up a story about a troublesome armadillo rooting up the St. Stephen’s football field-an armadillo I chased onto their land in my single-minded quest to kill it. Remarkably, he laughed as though he understood completely.

“Mom, I’m sorry,” I said, “but I need to go take care of something.”

“Is everything all right?” she asked, her eyes making it clear that she knew better.

“Yes.”

“It’s not Annie, is it?”

“No, no.”

“Are you and Caitlin all right?”

“We’re fine, Mom. This is just some legal business.”

She went back to painting the shelves with long, smooth strokes of her brush. At sixty-eight, she works with the strength and flexibility of someone twenty years her junior. Being raised in the country does that for some people.

When I arrived at the house this morning, Mom held up the newspaper and asked me about Kate’s death. Thankfully, Caitlin’s staff had reported only the known facts, which left my mother as curious as the rest of the town. And like most of the town, Mom believes Drew Elliott hung the moon. She often says that Drew is the only “young” doctor who practices medicine with the conscientiousness of my father. What would she say if she knew that he was sleeping with Kate Townsend until the day she died?

“Be careful,” Mom called as I walked to my car.

“I will,” I called, thinking that was good advice to follow when dealing with Shadrach Johnson.