Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

“Nobody leaked these to Ms. Masters, by the way,” he adds.

Thank God for small favors.

“Were these stashed with the dope?”

“No.” Logan can’t suppress a small smirk. “Folded inside

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

”

“Have you ID’d the woman? She looks vaguely familiar.”

“Linda Church. Hostess at the Devil’s Punchbowl, one of the bars on the

Magnolia Queen.

Born right here in Natchez.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Who ID’d her?”

“One of the patrolmen recognized her. I did too, when I saw the

pictures. She grew up out in Morgantown, like me. She wasn'’t that far behind me in school. I'm eight years younger than you, remember, even if I'm losing my hair faster.”

I smile and nod.

“You never saw Linda on the boat?” he asks.

“I don'’t gamble.”

“Me either. But I go down there and eat with the wife sometimes. Food’s good, and not too expensive.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She stripped in Vegas. A lot of people don'’t know that. She went to a juco in Oklahoma, married a guy there. That lasted about ten years. No kids. He left her. She got short of money, started stripping in Oklahoma City, then moved on to Vegas. Not sure why she left, but she came back here and started working the boats. I do remember her from school, though. They called her Butterface.”

“Butterface?”

“You know, everything about her was hot but her face.”

I lean forward and examine the pictures more closely. Aside from her high, full breasts and tight bottom, Linda Church has large eyes and good bone structure. “She looks pretty enough in these pictures.”

“Yeah. It was acne. She had it bad in high school. She’s scarred more than these pictures show. But Linda’s like a lot of country girls, a ten-plus when you see them from behind, a five from the front.”

“So based on these pictures, you think Tim was having an affair with her.”

“Sure looks that way.”

“Jessup’s not in any of the pictures.”

“Would you be, if you were going to keep these around your house?”

“I wouldn'’t keep them around my house. And neither would Tim. Julia would castrate him if she found them.”

“No offense, but Jessup has a history of self-destructive behavior.”

“Have you questioned this woman yet?”

Logan sighs heavily. “We can’t find her.”

The moment he says this, I suspect that Linda Church may never be found alive. “Was she supposed to report for work today?”

“Not for another hour yet. We already questioned her coworkers, though. One said she’s positive Jessup and Linda were hooking up on the sly. They kept it secret because of workplace rules.”

If Tim was having an affair with her—or if she was helping him with his plan to steal evidence—why didn't he tell me about her? As soon as I ask myself, I know the answer: Tim didn't want me to judge him for cheating on Julia, if in fact he was doing so.

“Jessup never told you about this girl?” Logan asks.

“Me? We weren’t that close, Don. Not since we were nine years old.”

“Right. But you’re positive he wasn'’t doing drugs.”

Frustrated by the need to conceal my relationship with Tim, I say, “I'm just telling you what I think.”

“Well, here’s what

I

think. To an objective investigator, it looks like an old dopehead slid back to his old ways. He was banging a waitress at work and selling meth to keep up his two women.”

“That'’s what it’s supposed to look like. Did you find any meth precursors in Jessup’s house? Any cooking equipment?”

Logan shakes his head.

“It’s bullshit, Don. Staged. Every bit of it.”

Logan leans back in his chair and cradles his hands behind his head, his eyes regarding me coolly. “Were you and Jessup working on something together?”

I thought I was ready for this kind of question, but the directness of it takes me by surprise. “I'm the mayor. He was a blackjack dealer. What could we be working on?”

Logan’s eyes remain steady. “You’re also a novelist. And a lawyer. A former prosecutor.”

“And?”

“And a couple of nights ago, one of my patrolmen saw your car out at the cemetery. After midnight. That'’s not far from where Jessup worked. And his shift ended at twelve a.m. this week.”

I shrug as casually as I can. “I was feeling down, Don. I went out to visit my wife’s grave. I do that sometimes.”

Logan looks as if he’s trying to give me the benefit of the doubt—and failing. “That'’s what my man said you said. I can respect that. But if anything else happened while you were out there, I’d sure like to know about it.”

I shake my head slowly. “Nothing. Me and the ghosts, that’s it.”

Logan watches me awhile longer, then says, “There’s a couple of other things you should know. One, Jessup’s wife is missing.”

“Meaning what? Someone filed a missing persons’ report? Or you just can’t find her?”

“We can’t find her or her son.”

I shrug again. “I don'’t know where she is, if that’s what you’re asking. Do you have Tim’s car?”

“That'’s the other thing. It’s missing too. Thing is, I’'ve got Linda Church’s cell phone records, and she received a pretty disturbing text message last night shortly before midnight.”

“What did it say?”

Logan reaches back into the manila envelope, takes out a small piece of paper, and slides it across his desk. Written on it in pencil are the letters:

Thiefwww kllmmommy. Sqrttoo.

“What do you make of this?” Logan asks.

“Tim sent this?”

“It was sent from the cell phone of a man whose phone was stolen while he was on the

Magnolia Queen

last night. I think Jessup’s been doing a lot of that lately.”

Logan’s inquisitive eyes probe mine, but I say nothing. At length he says, “In my experience, strippers have been exposed to pretty much everything. Getting mixed up in a murder for hire wouldn'’t be that big a step for some of them. An objective investigator might look at that text message and see an order to kill Jessup’s wife and child.”

I can’t believe the chief is serious. “Tim was planning to murder his wife? The woman who saved his life? That'’s ridiculous. You know it is.”

“Brother, two years ago I’d have said it was ridiculous if you told me Dr. Drew Elliot was porking a high school girl. If this job has taught me anything, it’s that you have no idea what people are capable of, not even the people you think you know best.”

“Fair enough. But I'm telling you, Julia Stanton was Tim Jessup’s salvation.”

Logan taps one of the photos on his desk, his finger coming to rest on Linda Church’s shapely derriere. “Maybe Tim thought

this

was his salvation.”

“That'’s sure what somebody wants you to think. You and everybody else in town.”

“You really believe he’s being framed? After his death? Who has a motive to frame Tim Jessup?”

“Cui bono, my friend.”

“What?”

“Who benefits?”

“From his death?”

“Yes. And from smearing what remained of his good name. It’s pretty clear that someone wants Tim’s death to look like a run-of-the-mill drug murder. Guaranteed to go in the ‘unsolved’ file.”

Logan looks uncomfortable.

“Which is exactly how Shad Johnson seemed to be reading it last night at the crime scene,” I remind him. “Before any such evidence had been discovered. By the way, when Shad was here to make sure you threw the book at Soren Jensen, did he give you any sense of urgency about solving Jessup’s murder?”

The chief can’t meet my eyes now. “Not exactly.”

“Uh-huh. I’d say the situation’s pretty self-explanatory, Don.”

Logan gets up from his desk and walks to the window, toys with the blinds. “Let me ask you a question. You know a lot about this town. You were raised here, you'’ve written about it.”

“What do you want to know?”

He turns and looks me squarely in the eyes. “Who actually runs this place?”

This is a question I’'ve asked myself since I was a boy.

“You’re the mayor. Do you run it?”

“Far from it. In fact, our kind of city government is literally defined as the ‘weak mayor’ form of government.”

Logan gives me a guarded look. “You’ve got the power to fire me.”

“I’d happily trade that for the power to fire the district attorney.”

The chief grunts as if he agrees. “My folks always told me Natchez was run by the garden clubs. Maybe that was true once, but that idea’s a laugh and a half now.”

“They never really did, Don. This town was always run by a few big men behind the scenes. Men like Leo Marston. Judges, bankers, lawyers, oilmen. But things have changed. The big money’s mostly gone or spread among the heirs. There’s not that much power here

anymore. It’s a free-for-all. White or black, everybody’s chasing whatever money they can find. We’re just like the rest of the country that way.”

Logan nods dejectedly, but something else seems to be eating at him. “I tell you, I'm starting to feel like the marshal in a company town. Mining town, lumber town, whatever.”

“Gambling town?” I suggest quietly.

A quick, worried glance. “You said that, not me. Look, gambling is gambling, and everybody knows what comes with it. But it’s legal now, and given that, I have to say the casinos have been good partners.”

“You sound like a lot of people when they talk about casinos.”

“How’s that?”

“Careful.”

“Well. It’s like being police chief in a town by an army base. If you’re not pro-army, you’re in the wrong job. The way I see it, my job is to collect evidence and make arrests. I can only go by the evidence I find.”

“Chief, your job is to uncover the truth.”

Logan looks at me with a dogged defiance in his eyes. “No, sir. That'’s a jury’s job. And a judge’s. Lawyer’s, maybe. And it don'’t make a bit of difference how much detective work I do if the DA doesn’'t want to prosecute something.”

Now I stand. “If you find solid evidence, Shad will have no choice.”

“You really believe that? You were an assistant DA yourself. You know how political that stuff gets.”

“Murder is murder, Don.”

The chief makes a clicking sound with his tongue. “Well, I'’ll sure be interested to see the results of Jessup’s autopsy.”

“When will you get those? Next week?”

“Actually, Jewel Washington put a rush on it. She’s pretty tight with the people at the crime lab in Jackson. I think the pathologist may be cutting Jessup late today.”

A fillip of excitement shoots through me. “Does Shad know that?”

Logan shakes his head. “I wouldn'’t want to be Jewel when he finds out either.”

“If he tries to retaliate against Jewel for doing her job the way it ought be done, Shad’ll find out just how much power I

have.

”

“Penn, look—”

“No, this is bullshit. You tell me one thing. If the autopsy comes in conclusively as homicide, are you going to press the investigation or not?”

Logan straightens up with impressive dignity. “If it comes back homicide, I'’ll be investigating a homicide. I'’ll do it by the book, and I won'’t miss a lick. But, brother, in the end, being chief of police is a lot like being mayor. Unless you’re backed up by the people above and below you, it’s just a nice-sounding title.”

As Logan grimaces under the burdens of his office, something disturbing strikes me. “Don, we’ve been talking quite a while, and you haven'’t asked me anything about my balloon getting shot down.”

He takes a deep breath, then answers with carefully chosen words. “First off, I can see you weren’t hurt bad. Second, it happened over Louisiana. Not my jurisdiction. Mine ends at the river.”

I sense barely contained anger behind his eyes, but he will not voice it.

“One thing has troubled me since last night,” I tell him. “You said Tim tried to call me several times before his death. I was in one of the highest parts of the city, but I never got those calls. No texts either. How could that be?”

Logan folds his arms and looks at the institutional green carpet.

“May I see Tim’s phone?”

The chief shakes his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Ask the district attorney, not me.”

“Do you

have

the phone? Is it in the evidence room?”

Logan keeps his gaze on the carpet. “You’re outside the bounds of what I can answer.”

“Jesus, man, what

can

you tell me?”

Logan chews on his bottom lip for a while. Then he glances at his door and walks to within a foot of me. “Last night, there were two localized interruptions of cellular service. In two different places, and at two different times.”

I ponder this for a minute. “Let me guess. The first was around midnight, near the cemetery.”

Logan nods almost imperceptibly.

“And the second was right around the time Tim died. When he jumped out of the SUV and was trying to get away from whoever was inside.”

“You get the prize.”

“How widespread was the interruption?”

“From the complaints, the best I can figure was about half a square mile near the cemetery. Up on the bluff it was more widespread, but it had a shorter duration. Generated a lot more complaints, though, with all the people partying up there.”

“Were all carriers interrupted, or just one?”

“All.”

“Shit. Somebody was jamming the radio spectrum.”

Logan licks his lips but says nothing.

“That'’s serious business. Have you talked to the cellular providers?”

“No way. I figured this out from the complaints of witnesses. And a couple of my black officers live out by the cemetery.”

“You know what happened. Whoever killed Tim jammed the cell signals around the cemetery while they were chasing him out there. They stopped it after they had him in the SUV, when they were torturing him. Then they started jamming the lines again when he broke loose and ran for the fence.”

Logan sniffs and looks back toward his door. “Are you prepared to tell me who ‘they’ are?”

Is he asking me this honestly?

I wonder.

Or is he testing me? And if he’s testing me, is it for himself or for Jonathan Sands?

“Do I need to tell you?”

The chief walks back behind his desk. “Six months ago I got an offer to be chief of police in a little town on the Florida coast. Ever since I saw Jessup lying in that ditch, I’'ve been wishing I hadn'’t said no.”