Holland glared at Paul’s father, which was not something people with good sense generally did. But Beau had always been an arrogant son of a bitch.
“I’m saying if anybody in this room did kill Buck Ferris,” Holland replied, “then it’s none of Paul’s business. Until he’s a full voting member, our decisions are above his pay grade.”
Paul turned up his left hand and gestured at Holland, as if to say, You guys see why I’m worried?
Claude Buckman spoke in a tone that brooked no argument. “This group approved no decision to remove Mr. Ferris, however inconvenient his activities had become. And no individual member is empowered to make such a decision alone, except in extreme emergency. Is that understood by all present?”
A few nods signaled general agreement around the table.
Tommy Russo, the only man in the room without a Southern accent, said, “We know Ferris was digging out at the mill site, right?”
“He was,” Wyatt Cash confirmed. “I placed cellular game cameras out there that recorded him.”
“And if he found bones, that could have stopped construction?”
“No question,” said Arthur Pine. “We’d have had to cancel the groundbreaking.”
Russo tilted his head to one side and stuck out his bottom lip, as though gauging the amount of life left in a dog that had been run over. “Hard to see how that guy getting dead is a bad thing.”
Senator Sumner sighed in distaste and looked at his watch.
“A delay like that could have caused the Chinese to pull up stakes and go to Alabama,” Holland pointed out. “We’re not dealing with International Paper or Walmart here. Azure Dragon doesn’t tolerate mistakes. They hit a bump in the road, they find a different road.”
“Somewhere people know how to flatten bumps?” Paul asked.
Russo chuckled.
“Is there anything else?” Donnelly asked. “I’ve got a foursome of investors waiting on me out at Belle Rose.”
“Paul’s point is well-taken,” Buckman said. “If anyone has information about Dr. Ferris’s death that I need to know, I expect you to come to me. And if anyone has any influence over Mr. McEwan or his father, now is the time to use it to get him to soft-pedal this story. Or at least keep it separate from anything to do with the mill. Duncan McEwan always treated us fairly over the years.”
“Duncan’s got nothing to do with editorial content now,” Paul told them. “Don’t kid yourself. Marshall decides what goes in that newspaper.”
“Let’s buy him off then,” Holland suggested. “Justifiable PR expense.”
“Great idea,” Paul said. “How much you thinking? I know of a Russian oligarch who offered Marshall half a million bucks to kill a story.”
“He turned it down?” asked Buckman.
“Yes, sir. Then the oligarch threatened to kill him. Marshall went with the story anyway.”
“So he’s got balls,” Russo said. “That doesn’t sound good for us.”
“I’m thinking about the Watchman,” said Arthur Pine. “I’m surprised that rag hasn’t closed down yet. I think the father’s badly overextended. About eight years ago, he took out a big loan to buy out his brother’s stake in the newspaper.”
“Who’s carrying the paper on that?” asked Buckman.
“Marty Denis at First Farmers. He and Duncan McEwan go way back together.”
“Let’s look into that.”
“Duncan’s also carrying a business loan on a new press he bought about the same time,” Pine informed them. “Nearly two million, I think.”
Buckman’s eyes glinted. “Marty Denis have that loan, too?”
“I’m pretty sure he does.”
The old banker smiled with satisfaction. “Duncan McEwan never learned his way around a balance sheet. Typical English major. Let’s get into it, Arthur, just in case.”
“Right.”
These guys, Paul thought bitterly. If they want to destroy somebody, they find a way to do it without even un-assing their chairs. An honest man doesn’t stand a chance. And Duncan McEwan, for all his faults, is an honest man.
“Long as we’re in here,” Beau Holland said, “what’s your wife up to lately, Paul? She still trying to put any of us in jail? Because I heard she drove to Jackson today to take a deposition in a bid-rigging case.”
Paul gave Holland a dark look. Had they been alone, Beau would never have dared speak to him that way.
“I asked you a question,” Holland pressed.
“He gave you the answer you deserved,” Max said, his eyes glinting with an odd light that had moved many a man back a step. “We don’t discuss wives and children in this room.”
“Maybe not,” Holland said. “But your daughter-in-law makes herself impossible to ignore, Max. And a lot of people around this table agree with me.”
There was some awkward shifting in the chairs, but nobody spoke in support of Holland. Paul was grateful for his father’s defense.
“I hear she works with McEwan on stories,” Beau went on. “Feeds his reporters information. And some of that stuff splashes on us.”
“Then get yourself a fucking raincoat,” Max said. “Bid-rigging sounds like your area. You feeling the heat, Beau?”
Holland’s eyes smoldered, but Buckman spoke up before he could shoot back at Max. “Max is right,” the banker said with an air of finality. “Wives and children are off-limits. Paul, I wonder if you’d mind excusing yourself now. We have a little housekeeping business to take care of before we adjourn.”
There were no groans at this announcement, Paul noticed. Everyone in the room was watching him again, and the air felt brittle with expectation.
“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”
He slid his chair back and got up, then walked to the door, his eyes on a photograph of stooped black figures chopping cotton in a field. I know how you feel, he thought. As he took the elevator down to the first floor and moved through the lobby, he came to a certainty about one thing: Somebody in that room killed Buck Ferris.
The only thing he wasn’t sure of was whether they’d done it on orders from the club. He thought about waiting for his father to come down, but then the others would see that he’d waited. If Max wanted to tell him anything, he would call.
Three minutes later, Paul’s cell phone rang as he pulled his F-250 into his spot down at the wood treatment plant.
“Hey, Pop,” he said. “How about Beau Holland, huh?”
“I’m gonna hammer a punji stick up his ass one day.”
“Beau might just like that.”
Max laughed heartily. “You know he would.”
A flatbed truck pulled through the gate stacked with bundles of green pressure-treated fence posts.
“What do you think about the Buck Ferris thing?”
“I think Holland killed him. Unless it was Russo. He’s got the history for it.”
“Did the club order that hit?” Paul asked tentatively.
“No. But I don’t think anybody’s upset about it. Buck was a real threat to the mill. You know that.”