office before I head home. But if I go to the rooftop party at the Aurora tonight with Nadine, I can stop by the newspaper afterward, while they’re finalizing tomorrow’s issue. Instead of going downtown, I point the Flex east and take out my iPhone. As I drive, I dictate a draft story about the coroner’s findings, then email it to Ben Tate. I tell Ben not to post it on our web edition until I’ve had time to ask some Poker Club members for comment.
Less than five minutes later, Ben calls me to complain. I let him vent his frustration, but when he finally takes a long breath, I say, “Don’t post it till midnight, Ben. End of discussion. I’ve got something else for you to do. Call the locum tenens pathologist at the hospital and ask him twenty questions about Buck Ferris’s autopsy. Why the rush? Why break from procedure and do it locally? You know the drill. I want you to scare him. Tell him we’re going to be all over the cause of death in that case. And let him know you’ve already heard the family intends to pay for a private autopsy.”
“You’re trying to intimidate him into an honest result?”
“He’ll find it tough to lie if he thinks Michael Baden will be coming along behind him to repeat the post. And do it now. He might have already cut Buck. He could be dictating his findings as we speak.”
“What if I can’t get him on the phone?”
“Drive to the hospital. Push him hard, Ben.”
“Understood.”
As I end my call with Ben, my burner phone pings. I snatch it off the seat with a frantic motion. Jet’s texted reply reads: You’re right. Paul and I just had a fight. He’s suspicious. Focused on Josh but he did mention you. Don’t know where this is coming from. I’m still planning to come this aft but won’t if I’m not certain I’m clean. I love you. Stay calm and deny everything if confronted. If it all blows up, I know that’s not what we planned, but all we can do is deal with it. For the time being, deny. See you soon I hope!
I feel like that burner phone is wired to my limbic brain. My autonomic nervous system is firing nonstop, and it’s all I can do not to piss my pants. For three months we’ve been gliding under the radar, knowing there was danger yet somehow feeling invulnerable. That changed today.
Three o’clock is forty minutes away. I fight the urge to speed and force myself to pay attention to the traffic. The last thing I need is a fender bender to prevent me from seeing Jet in private during this crisis. Who knows when we’ll get another chance?
Her text made it clear that she has no more idea than I do about what triggered Paul’s sudden suspicion. We may never find out. The “six degrees of separation” principle applies on a global scale. In a town like Bienville, few people are even one degree removed from everyone else. A huge percentage of residents know each other directly, and not only by name, but by entire family histories. My mama went to school with her daddy, and my grandfather hunted with his, and I’ve heard tell that four generations back, we might even have come from the same Civil War colonel. The idea that two well-known citizens could carry on an illicit affair in this kind of matrix without being discovered is preposterous.
Yet people try it every day.
What strikes me as I drive out Highway 36 is that Paul and I have always been rivals for Jet’s affection. There’s no mystery about that. Even after he married her, he knew I still lived within her heart, the way she lived in mine after my marriage to Molly. But something has made him fear a physical manifestation of our feelings. A present-day resurrection of the sexual relationship that he knows far too much about to sleep easily. And if he truly fears that, then what will he do about it?
Paul Matheson is capable of extreme behavior. No one knows that better than I. I made him famous by writing about his courage, skill, and daring, but also by omitting the truth about his terrifying lack of restraint when under threat. Had I told the truth about all I have seen, Paul would be viewed as a different man today. Celebrated by some, surely, but reviled by others. Most of