Greg Iles - The Devils Punchbowl

“Duly noted. What did the autopsy show?”

“Your friend was shot.”

A chill races along my arms. I expected anything but this. “Shot?”

“Pathologist in Jackson dug a .22 Magnum slug out of his heart.”

“Why didn't we see the entry wound? Was it masked by one of those dog bites?”

“You got it. Dog mauled that boy something terrible.”

“Are you sure it was a dog?”

“I got out the textbooks and took measurements. That man was tore up by a canine—a big one—and the wounds definitely occurred prior to death.”

Dad shakes his head in disgust.

Jewel says, “You combine that with the burns, and—”

“Just a minute. What caused the burns?”

“Some were from an electric cigarette lighter, like in a car. Others from an actual cigarette, which gets hotter than a car lighter. A lit cigarette burns at over a thousand degrees Fahrenheit. Draw on it, it heats up to nearly thirteen hundred degrees. That'’s a world of pain right there.”

“Sons of bitches,” Dad mutters.

“Add up those two things, you get one answer. Somebody tortured that man. Why? For kicks? For revenge? Something he knew? I'm guessing you’d know more about the motive than I would.”

“I don'’t know anything at this point, Jewel.”

She gives me a long look. “You sound more like Shad Johnson than Penn Cage.”

“Let’s get back to Shad in a minute. What else did the postmortem show?”

“They only have the initial toxicology panel back, but there were definitely drugs in the victim’s blood.”

Damn it.

“What kind of drugs?”

“Opiates, some crystal meth.”

I shake my head, unwilling to accept that Tim had gotten high before carrying out his secret mission.

“Funny thing, though,” Jewel says. “There was some bruising at

the injection site. Antecubital vein, which is unusual. Most addicts try to hide needle marks. This guy wasn'’t a habitual user, at least not that way. His veins were in decent shape, except for some old scarring between his toes and on his penis.”

“What killed him, Jewel? The fall or the bullet?”

“The fall, but only because it happened so soon after he was shot. Bullet wound would’ve killed him in a minute or two.”

“Did anybody hear shots on the bluff prior to Tim’s fall? I don'’t remember Chief Logan saying anything about that.”

“Not as far as I know.”

“And you said the wound would have killed him in a couple of minutes.”

“Yes.”

“If he’d been shot in the SUV, could he have made the run to the fence, and then run along it like he did?”

Jewel is considering this when Dad says, “It’s possible. I’'ve seen men hit several times with higher-caliber bullets continue fighting for over a minute.”

Jewel and I look at my father in silence, knowing that this kind of knowledge was not absorbed in medical school, but in Korea.

“In that situation,” Dad goes on, “being tortured, his adrenaline would have been off the charts. And he obviously summoned the strength to break away from his captors.”

“Okay, maybe that explains it. But if he was shot at the fence, then someone used a silenced weapon.”

“Like with the balloon,” Dad says. “I see.”

Jewel looks between us but says nothing. Like a lot of people in town, she has heard about the crash landing, and the rest is simple enough to piece together.

“Any other significant findings?” I ask.

Her eyes fix on me. “You could say that.”

“Well?”

“Penn Cage, I didn't carry my tired old butt out here to be doing all the givin’ without gettin’ nothing in return. You tell me what’s going on. Who killed that man like that? And why?”

I look to my father for support, but he only shrugs. “Jewel,” I say, “I want you to listen to me. Listen like I'm telling you about one of your children. You don'’t want to know any more about this case

than you already do. You could end up on the same table Tim was cut on. Tell me you understand what I'm saying. I don'’t want to add your safety to my list of worries.”

The coroner shakes her head, but I can’t tell if she’s offended or not. “What are you telling me? Stop working this death?”

“No. Just don'’t do anything out of your normal investigative routine. Follow the book, and nothing more. And by that standard, I think you’re finished.”

Now she looks offended. “If I’d followed the book, you wouldn'’t know what you know now.”

“I realize that. And I appreciate it. But the risk is mine to take, not yours.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I owe somebody.”

A small, strange smile shows on Jewel’s face. “Now you sound like your daddy. Okay, then. You’re telling me I'm at risk just by coming here, right?”

“You could be. If they'’re watching Dad. You need to come up with a plausible reason for your visit.”

“Prescription,” Dad says. “Is your mother still having problems with peripheral neuropathy?”

Jewel smiles broadly now. “Do you ever forget anything about a patient?”

“Hell, yes. More every day.”

“I don'’t believe it.”

I touch the coroner’s wrist. “You said there was something else.”

“Pathologist found something in your friend’s rectum.”

“What? Drugs?”

“No. The cap from a thumb drive.”

My heart thumps against my sternum.

“A thumb what?” Dad asks.

“A flash-memory device,” Jewel explains. “USB type. Made by Sony. It’s about two inches long and a third of an inch wide.”

“Only the cap?” I ask, certain that I'm a lot closer to at least the copy of the data on the DVD Tim stole from the

Magnolia Queen.

“Not the actual device?”

“Right. Weird, huh?”

“Maybe not.”

Jewel ponders my face. “He stuck the drive up there to hide it from whoever killed him, didn't he?”

To smuggle it off the boat,

I think. “Probably.”

“This guy worked on the

Magnolia Queen,

right?”

“Jewel—”

“So was he smuggling information off the boat.”

“Please stop, right there. I'm not kidding.”

She frowns and waves me away as she might a pestering child. “I ain’t tellin’ nobody nothin’ ’bout this. I just want to know for my own self. So when I sit up at night thinking about it, like I always do, I'’ll eventually be able to get me some sleep instead of puzzling about it till the sun comes up.”

“You’re on the right track, that’s all I can tell you.”

“Okay. So the question is, who has the USB drive now?”

I nod.

“Well, your friend left work just before midnight, and he died around twelve thirty-five. So whoever tortured him didn't have him long, not even if they had him that whole time, which they probably didn't. Jessup had lots of welts and abrasions on his legs and arms, like he’d been running through the woods.”

“Really?”

“Mm-hm. So let’s say they had ten minutes to torture him in the backseat of that SUV. I doubt they had time to do a cavity search.”

“Don’t be too sure. Some professionals do that kind of thing automatically.”

Jewel’s brow furrows. “What kind of professionals? You talkin’ ’bout cops?”

“Not exactly. Military types. Ex-military. Paramilitary, maybe.”

“What exactly does

para

military mean?”

“

Sort of

military,” Dad explains. “Like

para

medic. Not quite a doctor.”

“They didn't expect Tim to get out of that vehicle,” I reason aloud. “They injected him with drugs, started torturing him, but somehow he got out while they were driving down Broadway. So unless they cavity-searched him, or he gave up the USB drive’s location right away, he got out of that vehicle with it. Who had access to the body, postmortem?”

“The cops at the scene,” Jewel says.

“You think they’d pull his pants down and cavity-search him with spectators hanging over the fence like they were?”

“They could have,” Dad says. “They could have leaned a bunch of guys over him to shield it, the way NFL teams do when they want to hide an on-field injection from the camera.”

“No. That would take too many dirty cops. Let’s assume the drive was still in situ when Jewel got the body. Who had access after that?”

Jewel’s still looking at the ceiling, nodding slowly. “It was so late that I put him in the morgue at St. Catherine’s rather than drive him to Jackson. University said they’d rush the autopsy for me, but it wouldn'’t speed it up any for me to drive him up in the middle of the night. And I’d been all day under that hot sun—”

“The morgue is locked, right?”

“Most of the time. And the drawers are locked. But it ain’t like I got the only key. They gave me my key to the drawers when I got the job. I probably should have put new locks on them, but the administrator might not appreciate that, seeing how I don'’t own the hospital. So, I guess anybody with a key to the drawers could get to the body. The local pathologist for sure. Maybe some med techs or even nurses. Hell, maintenance might have a key, for all I know.”

“We need to find out.”

Jewel snorts. “The way things are at that hospital right now, you could ask questions for a month and never find out everybody who’s got a key. That'’s like asking who’s got a key to a church or a school. And if I start asking, everybody’s gonna know it. That how you want to play this?”

“No. Forget that. But as far as you know, no cops have reported a USB drive being found?”

“Nope. They don'’t even know about the cap, or I’d have already heard a dozen jokes about somebody ‘putting a cap in his ass.’”

“I think we need to get Jewel moving,” Dad says.

“One last thing,” I say. “Shad Johnson.”

Jewel’s brown eyes filled with an emotion I can’t read. “Pardon my French, Penn, but that man’s sure got a hard-on for you. I reckon ever since you beat him out for mayor, he’s been out to get you.”

“It goes back farther than that. It was the Del Payton case.”

“Mm-hm,”

Jewel responds with a unique emphasis that I’'ve only heard from black women. “That'’s why he lost for mayor. Betrayed his own people. And we knew it. We’re finally past the time where black folks always gonna vote for you just ’cause you black.”

“Shad explicitly warned you not to share any information with me?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“Did he give you a reason?”

“He said the victim was a friend of yours, and you might be involved in the case somehow. Giving you any kind of information would be improper, maybe even illegal.”

“Were those his exact words?”

“He said something about a ‘firing offense.’”

“Yet here she is,” Dad says. “Good people.”

“I do appreciate it, Jewel,” I tell her. “More than you know. But from now on, you need to lie low. There’s nothing more you can do.”

She pulls a wry face. “I ain’t so sure about that. But you won'’t hear from me unless I’'ve got something you really need.”

“How will you know that, if you don'’t know what I'm trying to do?”

“Boy, I know what you trying to do. You trying to prove your friend was a good man and nail whoever killed him. And that’s something I can get behind. Shad Johnson can kiss my big ass if he thinks he scares me. I could break that man over my knee.”

“It’s not Shad you have to worry about.”

Jewel nods slowly. “I hear you. But I know how to walk soft when I need to. Now, let me get out of here. I'm dying for a cigarette. I hate to admit it, but it’s the Lord’s truth.”

I'm rising to shake her hand when my cell phone rings.

“Go on and get that,” she says. “You gonna give me that ’scrip for my mama, Doc?”

I move into the hall. “Hello?”

“Penn, this is Julia Jessup.”

“Julia! Are you all right?”

“

No.

I just got off the phone with that girl you used to date, or live with, or whatever.”

“Who? Libby Jensen?”

“No! The one that wrote those lies in the paper this morning!”

“Caitlin Masters? Wait a minute. How did you talk to Caitlin? Did she call your cell phone? You’re not supposed to have that switched on.”

“I called

her.

I'm not going to have half this town believing Tim was dealing drugs. There wasn'’t any damn meth in our house.”

“I know that, Julia.”

Jesus.

“And I know you’re upset. We need to talk about this face-to-face.”

“What you

need

to do is call that bitch and tell her what you just told me. Tell her to write a retraction in tomorrow’s newspaper.”

“Julia, listen, please. The last thing you want right now is Caitlin Masters poking around this story. All that matters is you and your son staying safe. That'’s all Tim would want.”

I hear a child crying, then what sounds like a hand patting flesh. “You don'’t know what Tim wanted,” she says. “It doesn’'t sound like you do, anyway. He wanted to make those bastards he worked for quit whatever they'’re doing. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn'’t listen. He said you were helping him, and now he’s dead. And I don'’t see you defending him. Maybe if Caitlin Masters put all this on the front page, something would get done. I'’ll bet she’d do it too. She already asked me for an interview.”

Beads of sweat have sprung up on my face. How can a woman who just lost her husband not see that what she’s proposing could cost her and her son their lives? Just saying it on the telephone has put her at risk, and Caitlin too.

“Julia, Tim came to me for a reason. He trusted me because I’'ve dealt with this kind of thing before, and because he knew I would do the right thing. But the right thing is rarely what your emotions tell you to do when you’re upset. I know you can’t see that right now, but you have to try. Julia…? Are you still there?”

“I'm here.”

“Please forget about talking to Caitlin. Nothing good will come of that, and it could cost you everything.

Everything.

Do you understand? Julia? Do I have to spell this out for you?”

Her only reply is a strangled growl, a mixture of rage and frustration that rises to a crescendo, then abruptly ceases.

“Julia, as long as you stay where you are and keep quiet, you’ll be safe. You can call me tonight, and we’ll work out a way to see each other. All right?”

“Christ,” she says in disgust. “I'm hanging up.”

The phone goes dead.

I walk to the open door of my father’s office. Dad is bending over his desk to sign a prescription, while Jewel studies a photograph of our family when I was eleven and my sister seventeen.