“Can he pay that?”

“Probably. He’s got a house across the lake he could put up as surety. He was in Central Lockup, but they just moved him to the parish prison.”

The anonymous tip about the location of the murder weapon bothers me. It was too easy. “Sean, do you really think Malik is the killer?”

“I’m a lot more convinced than I was yesterday. I just found out that ten days after Malik got back from Vietnam, his father was badly beaten. Spent two months in the hospital, and he never looked the same again.”

“Did Malik’s father ID his assailant?”

“Said he didn’t see anything. It happened in his home, but nothing was stolen.”

“Did Malik have an alibi?”

“Nobody even asked him for one. This was Columbus, Mississippi, not Berkeley, California. Malik was a hero, just home from the war. What did he have to be pissed about?”

As I consider this, Billy Neal walks into my field of vision, just below Pearlie’s porch. “Dr. Kirkland wants to see you,” he says, though I’m obviously using the phone. “He told me to bring you to the study.”

“Tell him I’ll see him later. I have somewhere to go first.”

“What?” says Sean.

A strange smile distorts Billy Neal’s mouth. “The island, you mean?”

“Sean, let me call you back.” I put the phone in my pocket and address the driver. “Have you been eavesdropping here?”

Neal ignores the question. “He’s waiting for you now. He doesn’t like to wait.”

I turn to Pearlie. “What’s going on? What is it about the island that nobody wants me to know?”

Pearlie gets up from her rocker and gives me a hug. “It’s not my place, baby. Go talk to your granddaddy. If you still want to go down to the island after that, maybe I’ll go with you.” She steps to the porch rail and gives Billy Neal a withering glare. “Get out of my sight, trash.”

The driver laughs, a brittle sound that makes me think of a boy I once saw torturing a cat in a sandbox.

Pearlie turns and goes into her house without another word.

“Your grandfather’s waiting,” Neal says again.

“Tell him I’ll be there in a minute.”

“He said I should bring you.”

“Listen, asshole, you keep standing there, you’ll be waiting all day.”

Billy Neal gives me his crooked smile. “I wouldn’t mind that. You ain’t half bad to look at.”

The door behind me bangs open, and Pearlie walks out carrying a rifle. Her eyes are squinted nearly shut and her jaw is set tight. “Get away from here, trash,” she says in a menacing voice.

“That’s a pellet gun,” says Neal, his smile broadening. “An air rifle.”

“That’s right.” Pearlie raises the rifle until it’s pointed at his midsection. “I use it to kill the possums that tear up the garbage. But if I shoot you in the balls with it, they gonna swell up like a watermelon, and you ain’t gonna be bothering no womens for a long time.” To emphasize her point, Pearlie puts her eye to the sight and aims the barrel at Neal’s genitals.

The smile vanishes from the driver’s face. “Your day’s coming, nigger.”

“If I tell Dr. Kirkland you bothering his grandbaby, your day’s come and gone, cracker. Get out of here!”

Billy Neal laughs again, then walks slowly back toward Malmaison.

“Why did you do that?” I ask. “I can take care of myself.”

“He’s a bad apple. I don’t know why Dr. Kirkland keeps him around here.”

“He’s a bodyguard, you said the other day.”

Pearlie spits over the rail. “That boy got a law degree, too, from somewhere. You believe that?”

This revelation makes me think of Sean and his night-school law degree. He told me tales of con men and criminals taking the same courses and earning the same degree he did. “I believe it.”

“I think he got something over Dr. Kirkland,” Pearlie says softly.

“What do you mean? Something on him?”

She nods once, firmly.

“What could he have on Grandpapa?”

Pearlie shakes her head, her eyes still on the retreating figure. “His mama used to work for your granddaddy. Secretary or bookkeeper, something. She knew things.”

“What could she know about? Something illegal?”

Pearlie turns to me, her eyes hard. “I don’t know. Dr. Kirkland’s careful with the family business. But it’s got to be something. Your granddaddy wouldn’t let that trash tie his shoes, otherwise.”

Her comment reminds me that my grandfather-a man who places such value on integrity that he closes million-dollar deals with a handshake-has destroyed the careers of several men who crossed him, or who lied to him in business deals. “I wouldn’t want to try to blackmail Grandpapa.”

“Lord knows that’s right. Be like climbing into a bear pit with the bear in it.”

“You stay away from that driver, Pearlie.”

She reaches out and squeezes my wrist. “You, too, baby. Things have changed around here.”

“Have they?” I shake my head. “I don’t think so. I think things were always this way. I was just too young to see it.”

Grandpapa is waiting for me in his study. He’s sitting in the same leather executive chair he sat in two days ago, when he told me the same old lie about my father’s death. What does he want to tell me now?

He doesn’t speak when I enter. He sits erect in his chair, his left hand cradling a glass of Scotch, his blue eyes looking strangely wet. He’s still wearing his suit and tie, and his tanned skin and silver hair give him the appearance of a veteran Hollywood actor awaiting a scene-not a character actor, but an aging leading man.

“Your driver said you want to talk to me.”

“That’s right,” he says, his voice a commanding blend of baritone and bass. “I need to ask you a question, Catherine. Please sit down.”

Something makes me want to take the initiative away from him. “Why do you keep that lowlife around?”

Grandpapa appears taken off guard. “Who? Billy?”

“Yes. He doesn’t belong here, and you know it.”

Grandpapa looks at the floor and purses his lips, as though reluctant to discuss this with me. Then he speaks in a tone of regret. “The casino business isn’t like our other family businesses, Catherine. Las Vegas wears a corporate image nowadays, but the old unsavory practices are still around. The big Nevada boys don’t like competition, and they have quite a stake in Mississippi. I need someone who knows that world inside and out. Billy worked in Las Vegas for twelve years, and he spent three working for an Indian casino in New Mexico. The exact nature of his experience is something into which I don’t delve too deeply. I’m not proud of that, but sometimes to accomplish something good, you have to rub elbows with the devil. That’s the nature of the gambling business.”

“It surprises me to hear you talk that way.”

He shrugs in the chair. “This town is desperate. We can’t afford our high ideals any longer. Please take a seat, dear.”

I sit in a club chair and face him across a Bokhara rug.

“Still off the alcohol?” he asks, motioning toward the sideboard.

“So far, so good.”

“I wish I had your willpower. Must be the diving that gives you the discipline.”

“You said you needed to ask me a question.”

“Yes. This morning you mentioned hiring a professional forensic team to search your old bedroom. For blood and other evidence, you said.”

I nod but say nothing.

“Have you shelved that plan, given what I told you this morning about Luke’s death?”

“No.”

Grandpapa doesn’t react at first. Then he raises his glass and takes a long drink of Scotch, closing his eyes as he swallows. After a few moments, he opens them again and sets the glass on a table beside his chair.

“I can’t let you do that,” he says.

What do you mean? I ask silently. But aloud, I say, “Why not?”

“Because I killed your father, Catherine. I shot Luke.”