Oh boy. Here it comes. “The Watchman prints the news, Dr. Bortles.”
He smirks at this. “Bad news, in that instance.”
“I could debate that. But even if you’re right, what’s your thesis? I’m not supposed to print bad news?”
He makes a sour face, as though he’s being forced to converse with an idiot. “You know, it’s easy for you to stir this up. You don’t live here anymore, not really. After your father passes, you’ll go back to Washington and spend your nights on TV, telling people how smart you are. What do you care if this town dries up and blows away?”
“I happen to care a lot about that.”
“Then stop printing stories about crazy Buck Ferris and his Indians. Keep it up, and you can rename this town Poverty Point. Nobody will have a job that pays more than minimum wage.”
Anger flares in my gut, but I force myself to stay in my seat. I look closer at him, at the meticulous comb-over, the plastic surgery around his eyes, the Apple watch with the $5,000 band. “Buck Ferris wasn’t crazy,” I tell him. “But you don’t have to worry about Buck anymore. Somebody killed him.”
Shock blanks the orthodontist’s face. “What?”
“The next thing I’ll be printing about Buck is his obituary.”
Dr. Bortles stands blinking like a rodent after someone hit the lights in a dirty kitchen, disoriented but not entirely unhappy. “Do you mean that he died? Or that someone killed him?”
“Read tomorrow’s paper and find out.”
Bortles shakes his head. “Well. You can’t say he didn’t ask for it.”
My right fist tightens, and I’m halfway out of my chair when Nadine touches my arm and gives me a sharp look.
“Why don’t you let us finish our conversation, Doctor?” she says in a syrupy Southern voice that bears little resemblance to her own.
The round-faced Bortles looks surprised, then indignant. He’s clearly unaccustomed to being dismissed by anyone. “You’ve certainly gotten rude all of a sudden, Ms. Sullivan.”
Nadine gives him the too-broad smile of a woman whose mouth wouldn’t melt butter. “I never knew you were an asshole before, Doctor. Now I do.”
Bortles draws himself up to his full five feet six inches and in a pompous voice announces, “I will never buy another book in this shop. You have lost my patronage, Ms. Sullivan. Forever.”
The French tourists are watching from their table.
“Then why are you still standing here?” Nadine asks. She waves in Bortles’s face with mock solicitude. “Toodle-loo. You have a blessed day.”
Bortles huffs a couple of times but doesn’t manage any coherent response. Then he marches out, dropping his book loudly on a display table before slamming the door and filling the shop with the high clanging of the bell.
“Well,” I say. “You are something, Ms. Sullivan.”
She waves her hand in disgust. “The only reason I can do that is because I have some money. If I relied on this store to put food on my table, I’d have had to sit here and listen to that shit.”
I nod, dispirited. “That prick is probably an accurate reflection of how most people in town will feel about Buck’s death.”
“Were you telling the truth? Is Buck’s obit the next thing you’ll write about him? Or are you going to blow this story wide open tomorrow?”
“I don’t know. I need more facts before I can do anything.”
She nods thoughtfully. “You never answered my question. Why were bones the Holy Grail of Buck’s little Indiana Jones excursion?”
I smile. Like any good lawyer, she doesn’t lose the thread of the narrative, no matter the distractions. “You’re the lawyer.”
“Oh. Does Mississippi have some kind of grave-desecration statute? I know they differ from state to state.”
“Mississippi does, thank God. Anybody who comes across human remains in this state must report them. And a discovery like that stops whatever’s going on around it. Even major construction. Doesn’t matter whether the land is public or private.”
“Oh, man. The local politicians would crap their drawers.” Nadine is working it all out in her mind. “But for how long? It’s one thing if a team comes in, catalogs things, then moves them to a museum. But you can’t move a Poverty Point. That’s like discovering the pyramids.”
“You’re right. That level of find would kill the paper mill. The Chinese would move on to one of their alternate sites. Arkansas or Alabama.”
“Is the paperwork not fully completed? They’re breaking ground in less than an hour, for God’s sake.”
“That’s all for show. Gold shovels and glad-handing. The Chinese company has an office here and reps, but nothing’s final-final. The associated state projects are finishing the planning stage. The I-14 route is on the verge of final approval, but technically the mill is at binding letters of intent. There’s still due diligence to be done. If the Chinese really wanted to, they could fold up their tents and leave next week.”
Nadine sits back in her chair. “I’d say that’s a motive for murder.”
“I’m not sure how many people truly understand that risk at this point.”
“Does it matter? Anybody who fears the worst could have killed Buck. Even some hotheaded version of Dr. Bortles.”
“I guess so. Well, the powers that be will want this to go down as an accidental death. But it’ll be tough to hide. Buck has a massive skull wound, maybe from a rifle bullet, maybe a rock.”
Nadine is studying me as though trying to see behind my eyes. “What are you thinking, Marshall? I know you. You’re going to go out there and try to dig up some bones yourself, aren’t you?”
I take another long sip of coffee. “I’m not anxious to get my skull caved in. But Buck was right. Old B. L. C. Wailes wouldn’t have wasted time drawing maps of nothing. I think there are bones out there, thousands of them. The bones of people who were living in this county four millennia ago, and maybe five or six. Right where you and I grew up.”
Nadine steeples her fingers and smiles the way my favorite English teacher used to, as if she’s about to test me in some private way. “In a vacuum,” she intones, “I’d say that’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. But the way things are now . . .” She sighs.
“Go on.”
“Bortles is an asshole, but he raised a real dilemma. What if you go out tonight and dig up some bones? You trace out the Woodhenge and uncover a major archaeological site. A new Poverty Point. Would you kill the paper mill deal to do that? Would you kill the future of this town to do it?”
There’s surprising passion in her voice. “Killing that mill deal wouldn’t kill the town.”
“Don’t be so sure.” She raises her right forefinger, and again I flash back to school. “The new white-flight neighborhoods in the eastern part of the county have brought in some money from Jackson, and there’s some smaller commercial activity going on—indie retail, like my store—and some light industry. But to really survive, Bienville has to have something like that paper mill. Hundreds of jobs that pay sixty or seventy grand, with good benefits. God knows how many ancillary jobs will be created. The construction alone will be a bonanza for this town. Then—”