She looks like she’s about to laugh. “God, no.”
“Well. Until we get this figured out, you don’t need to sleep at home.”
She starts to object, but then she realizes I’m right. “I have a friend I could stay with, but it’s a little late to call.”
“You can stay with me tonight. I have an extra room.”
She gives me a long look. “You sure?”
“Of course.”
Her eyebrows go up. “Nobody would mind?”
“Hell, no. It’s just me.”
“Okay, then. I’ll need some clothes. Toiletries.”
“We’ll run by your house. I’ll go in with you.”
“Let me lock up here. Or should I say, shut the barn door after the horse has bolted?”
“That’s about it. Hey, can I grab a muffin from the case? I didn’t eat any hors d’oeuvres at the party.”
“Grab me one, too. Cranberry.”
Nadine lives in her mother’s house on Hallam Avenue, in the Garden District. It’s a tall blue Victorian covered in gingerbread, with a whimsical turret at one end of the porch. It’s here that Nadine hosted her popular book club during the two and a half years her mother lived with cancer. While Margaret Sullivan was alive, Nadine lived in a small house nearby, but as the end approached, she sold that and moved into the home in which she’d grown up.
“Do you have a security system here?” I ask as she unlocks the door.
“No. Always meant to get one, but I never have.”
“It’s time. Do you have a gun?”
She switches on the lights, revealing a house that appears to be in perfect order. “I do. It was my mother’s. Or my father’s, actually. He left it behind.”
“Get the gun when you get your clothes,” I advise. “You don’t want it stolen if somebody does hit this place.”
“Aren’t you coming upstairs with me?”
“Absolutely.”
After we go up, I check the bedrooms for signs of being searched. I see none. Nadine grabs a gym bag and throws in some clothes, then packs a hanging toiletry bag.
“Ready,” she says.
“The gun?”
“Oh, yeah.” She goes over to her bedside table and takes a small black semiautomatic from the drawer, then starts to put it in her bag. It looks like a .32 caliber, a traveling salesman’s gun.
“I’ll take that,” I say, walking to her. “In case we meet anybody on our way out.”
She passes it to me, then follows me out and switches off the light behind us. While she locks the front door downstairs, I scan the yard, which at this hour is a dark jungle filled with azaleas, oak trees, and huge Elaeagnus shrubs.
“Everything okay?” she asks.
“I think so. Let’s get to the Flex.”
Not a car moves on Hallam Avenue, which is normal at this hour, but I feel strangely alert. I crank the SUV quickly, then head east, away from the Garden District and the river.
“Didn’t you say you needed to stop by the newspaper?” she asks.
“I can handle it by phone. Ben’s there late tonight.”
“You’re welcome to call him now.”
“I’ll do it when I get home.”
Soon we’re passing through the outer sprawl of Bienville to the outlying subdivisions.
“Who could do that?” she asks in a distracted voice.
“What? Kill Buck?”
“No. Get into my safe like that. Without damaging it. You said a pro. What kind of professional does that?”
“Some of the Poker Club guys have connections who could do that. Tommy Russo for sure. Wyatt Cash has Special Forces guys who endorse his products. And Paul has buddies who served with him in Iraq. They worked for ShieldCorp, his private security company.”
Nadine lays her fingertips on the window and slowly drums the glass.
“Did you notice how angry Beau Holland was when he lunged at me during the party?” I ask. “He looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel.”
“I’ve been thinking about that. He’s been in my store quite a bit. Most of those Poker Club guys have, for coffee or breakfast. I’ve learned a fair bit about them.”
“What do you know about Holland?”
“My guess is he has the most to lose if the paper mill deal were to fall apart.”
“I figured that would be Buckman or Donnelly.”
“Those guys are rich enough to take a licking and keep on ticking. Beau Holland comes from a proud family that was short on cash. He’s bound to be overextended. He owns the biggest piece of the Aurora, for starters. Russo’s deep in that with him. And Holland’s the main investor in the white-flight developments out by the county line. Also in the new outlet mall, plus some land grabs near the industrial park. God knows what else he’s got cooking. If the Chinese pulled out at this point, Beau could be ruined.”
“That makes sense.” I still recall Holland’s red-faced fury, and how Max stopped him with his flattened hand.
“Why does Warren Lacey hate Jet so badly?” Nadine asks.
“Before you can open a nursing home or surgical center in Mississippi, the state has to issue a certificate of need. They’re worth more than gold mines. Lacey was trying to fiddle one in Jackson, for a city where there’s no legitimate need. A state official ended up going to jail over it. Lacey kept himself insulated enough to stay out of prison—barely—but Jet almost got his medical license revoked. He’s never forgiven her.”
“I think he’d strangle her if he could.”
“He won’t. You don’t bite off a piece of the Mathesons if you plan on living the rest of your life outside a wheelchair.”
“So . . . Max protects Jet?”
“That’s the only explanation I can figure for why she’s not dead.”
Nadine looks over at me for several seconds. “Max is a real son of a bitch, isn’t he?”
“You know the stereotype about Vietnam soldiers committing atrocities? Ninety-nine-point-nine percent never did. But Max did. Worse, he’s proud of it. When I was playing football at ten years old, he told us, ‘War is hell, boys, so I made it as hellish as possible. That’s the way you win.’ When I was younger I thought that was just Patton-type bluster. But later I found out he meant it.”
Nadine is nodding. “He’s hit on me a few times in the store.”
“Really?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve seen him flirt with other women, too. He’s got an instinct for weakness.”
“I know. We’re about five minutes from my house,” I tell her, hoping to change the subject.
“Is Paul an alcoholic?” Nadine asks.
“Yeah. Has been most of his life.”
“I feel like his public persona is a mask. Like underneath, he might be a little nuts.”
“He might be. But he’s basically a good guy. At least he used to be. He’s not living the life he hoped for.”
She gives the windshield a pained smile. “Are any of us?”
I shrug. “I figured you are, if anybody is.”
She doesn’t reply for some time. We’re on a lightless stretch of Highway 61, a black ribbon of asphalt stretching through thick forest on both sides of the road. There’s not much to see.