Buckman, the banker, is in the same league. Donnelly’s in his mid-seventies, though, and Buckman’s over eighty. Max Matheson made his fortune in timber, and together he and Paul run a huge lumber mill north of town, plus the Matheson Wood Treatment plant near the sandbar to the south. They also manage hundreds of thousands of acres of timber all over the state. I’m not sure how much Wyatt Cash is worth. I do know he owns one river island outright, which he operates as an exclusive hunting camp—one frequented by NFL players and college coaches, most from the SEC.
Beau Holland, the asshole I met down on the road with Tommy Russo, is the hungry jackal among the lions of the club. From what Jet tells me, Holland has used inside information to exploit every aspect of the new paper mill, bridge, and interstate. Until last year, Beau had a junior partner named Dave Cowart working for him as a contractor. Cowart built most of Belle Rose and Beau Chene, the two residential developments at the eastern edge of the county. But last year, Jet went after Cowart with a lawsuit alleging rigged bidding on a project partly funded by federal dollars. As a result, Cowart and one alderman ended up doing time in federal prison. This did not endear Jet to the remaining club members, but since she’s Max Matheson’s daughter-in-law, there was little they could do except bitch on the golf course.
The other members span the professions. Tommy Russo has his casino. Arthur Pine handles the legal paper. Warren Lacey is a plastic surgeon and nursing home king whom Jet nearly sent to jail over bribery of state officials. (Dr. Lacey ended up with a suspended sentence and a one-year suspension of his medical license. He’d happily inject Jet with a lethal drug cocktail if he could.) Then there’s U.S. senator Avery Sumner, the former circuit judge whom the Poker Club somehow got appointed to the seat recently vacated by the senior senator from Mississippi for health reasons. Sumner flew in for today’s event on a CitationJet owned by Wyatt Cash’s company. The jet’s livery features a large circular view through a riflescope, with buck antlers centered in the reticle. The other three members of the club I know little about, but they surely fulfill their function of greasing the wheels of commerce while pocketing whatever they can skim from every transaction or building project.
What must those men feel as they watch the local elected officials—nine whites and four blacks—lift the gold shovels from the stand and spade them into the pre-softened earth? The aldermen and supervisors are mugging for the cameras now, trying to look like Leland Stanford at the golden spike ceremony in 1869. A paper mill is no transcontinental railroad, but any project that brings a new interstate to a county containing only thirty-six thousand people comes pretty close to salvation.
When the photographers stop snapping pictures, the ceremony is over. The crowd disperses quickly, and crews miraculously appear to break down the tents. As the governor’s motorcade roars up Port Road, Jet and Paul give each other a quick connubial hug, then separate to find their respective vehicles. Was that hug for show? I wonder. Max and Paul walk side by side to a couple of Ford F-250s, while a few yards to their right, Beau Holland climbs into a vintage Porsche 911.
I half expect Jet to text me, but she doesn’t. She and Josh Germany climb into her Volvo SUV—Jet behind the wheel—and pull onto Port Road, heading toward the bluff without even a glance in my direction. Suddenly Paul’s suspicion doesn’t seem so absurd. As I follow the Volvo with my eyes, I notice something I missed when I arrived: a small fleet of earthmoving equipment parked in the shadow of the bluff, under a line of cottonwood trees. As Jet’s XC60 vanishes at the top of the bluff, black smoke puffs from a couple of smokestacks, and then the low grinding of heavy Caterpillar engines rolls toward me. I had no idea they intended to start work so soon. In fact, I’m pretty sure they didn’t. Nobody made any mention of it today.
They’re going to wipe out all traces of Buck’s digging, I realize. And maybe of Buck himself. Suddenly I’m as sure as I’ve ever been of anything that Buck was murdered here last night.
A chill races over my skin as the big yellow monsters crawl out of the shadows. I’m