“Sure,” I reply, sounding anything but.
“I knew you won a Pulitzer Prize and all, when you were in Washington. But I didn’t realize what it was for. I was online last week and saw it was for something you wrote about being embedded in Iraq. Were you with the SEALs or somebody like that? Delta Force?”
A fourteen-year-old boy’s question. “Sometimes,” I tell him, relief coursing through me. “I was embedded in Afghanistan before Iraq, with the Marines. But in Iraq I was with private security contractors. Do you know what those are?”
“Like Blackwater and stuff?”
“Exactly. Most guys who do that work in Afghanistan are former soldiers: Rangers, Delta, SEALs. But a lot of them in Iraq were just regular cops back in the world, believe it or not. And lots of those were from the South. They go over there for the money. It’s the only way they can make that kind of paycheck. They earn four times what the regular soldiers do. More than generals.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not.”
Denny thinks about this. “So what’s it like? For real. Is it like Call of Duty come to life?”
“Not even close. But until you’ve been there, you can’t really understand it. And I hope you never do. Only a few things in life are like that.”
“Such as?”
“That’s a different conversation. One for you and your mom.”
“Come on. Tell me something cool about it.”
I try to think like a fourteen-year-old for a minute. “You can tell what units the contractors came from by the sunglasses they wear. Wraparound Oakleys for Delta Force. SEALs wear Maui Jims. Special Forces, Wiley X.”
“No way. What about Ray-Bans?”
“Over there? Only for punks and phonies. Over here, that’s what I wear.” I glance at my wristwatch. “I need to call Buck’s wife, Denny.”
“Sure, okay. But like, how did you get that kind of job? I mean, that kind of access?”
“A guy I went to high school with helped me out. He was an Army Ranger a long time ago, during the Persian Gulf War. He got me that gig with the private contractors. He also saved my life over there. That’s what won me the Pulitzer, that assignment. What I saw over there.”
Denny nods like he understands all this, but I have a feeling he’ll be buying my book online this afternoon.
“Save your money,” I tell him. “I’ll give you a copy.”
“Cool. Who was the guy? Your friend?”
“Paul Matheson.”
His eyes widen. “Kevin Matheson’s dad?”
“That’s right.”
“That dude’s like, rich. Really rich.”
“I guess he is, yeah. Paul didn’t go over there for the money, though. It started as a sort of Hemingway trip for him. Do you know what I mean by that?”
“Not really.”
“A macho thing. He had problems with his father. He felt like he had a lot to prove.”
“That I understand.”
I’ll bet you do.
“Hey,” Denny says, his voice suddenly bright. “We should go up to the cemetery to run this search. That ground’s like forty feet higher than here, counting the hills. Better line of sight up there, which gives me better control.”
The thought of the Bienville Cemetery resurrects the dread I felt earlier. “Let’s just do it from here, okay? I’m on a tight schedule this morning.”
The boy gives me a strange look. “What you gotta do?”
“They’re breaking ground on the new paper mill at eleven a.m. I need to be there for that.”
He laughs. “The Mississippi Miracle? I’ll believe it when they build it.”
Denny sounds like he’s quoting someone else. “Where’d you hear that line?”
He looks sheepish. “My uncle Buddy.”
Denny’s uncle is a mostly out-of-work contractor who spends his days getting high in front of the TV. “That paper mill’s the real deal. The Chinese have the money. And a billion-dollar investment could put this town in the black for the next fifty years.”
Denny looks a little less skeptical. “My mom’s been kind of hoping to get work out there.”
“I’ll bet. The average salary’s going to be sixty thousand dollars. And that,” I think aloud, “is why I’m afraid that the new paper mill might have played some part in Buck’s death.”
Denny’s head whips toward me. Even a fourteen-year-old boy can put this together. “I read your article about the artifact Buck found. Would that mess up the paper mill somehow?”
“It could. It scared the shit out of most people in this town. The whole county, really.”
“You think somebody would kill Buck over that?”
“I can think of about thirty-six thousand suspects at this point.”
“For real?”
“Kids are killing kids over cell phones in this town, Denny. What do you think people will do for a billion dollars?”
“A billion dollars?”
“That’s what the Chinese are investing here, not counting all the millions that will come with the new bridge and interstate.”
“Wow. I see what you mean. Well . . .” He looks over the fence again. “The coroner’s splitting. I’ll get the drone back up here and start checking the riverbanks.”
I give him a thumbs-up. “I’m going to walk down the fence and make a few calls. Holler if you see anything.”
“I will.”
For a second I wonder if I could be putting him in danger by having him search for Buck’s pickup, but I can’t see how. Turning, I walk north along the fence, looking down at the roof of the coroner’s wagon as it hauls Buck’s remains up from the river for the final time. I really have only one call to make, because the call I want to make, I can’t. Not for several hours yet. The call I must make I’d give anything to avoid.
Taking out my iPhone, I dial Buck’s house. Not even one full ring passes before his wife pounces on the phone.
“Marshall?” Quinn Ferris says breathlessly.
“It was him,” I tell her, knowing the slightest delay would only make it worse. “Buck’s dead.”
There’s a deep-space silence for two full seconds, and then Quinn says in a tiny voice, “You’re sure?”
“I saw his face, Quinn.”
“Oh, God. Marshall . . . what do I do? Is he all right? Is he comfortable? I mean—”
“I know what you mean. They’re treating him with respect. Byron Ellis picked him up. I imagine they’ll take Buck to the hospital for a brief period. There’s going to have to be an autopsy in Jackson.”
“Oh . . . no. They’re going to cut him open?”
“There’s no way around it, I’m afraid.”
“Was it not an accident?”
Here a little soft-pedaling won’t hurt anyone. Not in the short run. “They don’t know yet. But anyone who dies while not under a physician’s care has to have a postmortem.”
“Dear Lord. I’m trying to get my mind around it.”
“I think you should stay at home for a while, Quinn.”