Chapter One
Some stories must wait to be told.
Any writer worth his salt knows this. Sometimes you wait for events to
percolate in your subconscious until a deeper truth emerges; other times
you’re simply waiting for the principals to die. Sometimes it’s both.
This story is like that.
A man walks the straight and narrow all his life; he follows the rules,
stays within the lines; then one day he makes a misstep. He crosses a line
and sets in motion a chain of events that will take from him everything he
has and damn him forever in the eyes of those he loves.
We all sense that invisible line of demarcation, like an unspoken
challenge hanging in the air. And there is some wild thing in our natures
that makes us want to cross it, that compels us with the silent insistence
of evolutionary imperative to risk all for a glinting shadow. Most of us
suppress that urge. Fear stops us more often than wisdom, as in most
things. But some of us take that step. And in the taking, we start down a
path from which it is difficult and sometimes impossible to return.
Dr. Andrew Elliott is such a man.
I have known Drew since he was three years old, long before he was a
Rhodes scholar, before he went to medical school, before he returned to
our hometown of twenty thousand souls to practice internal medicine. And
our bond runs deeper than that of most childhood friends. When I was
fourteen, eleven-year-old Drew Elliott saved my life and almost lost his
own in the process. We remained close friends until he graduated from
medical school, and then for a long time – fifteen years, I guess – I
saw him hardly at all. Much of that time I spent convicting murderers as
an assistant district attorney in Houston, Texas. The rest I spent writing
novels based on extraordinary cases from my career, which gave me a second
life and time to spend with my family.
Drew and I renewed our friendship five years ago, after my wife died and I
returned to Natchez with my young daughter to try to piece my life back
together. The early weeks of my return were swallowed by a whirlwind of a
murder case, but as the notoriety faded, Drew was the first old friend to
seek me out and make an effort to bring me into the community. He put me
on the school board of our alma mater, got me into the country club,
talked me into sponsoring a hot air balloon and a Metropolitan opera
singer during Natchez’s annual festivals. He worked hard at bringing this
widower back to life, and with much help from Caitlin Masters, my lover
for the past few years, he succeeded.
All that seems a distant memory now.
Yesterday Drew Elliott was a respected pillar of the community, revered by
many, held up as a role model by all; today he is scorned by those who
venerated him, and his life hangs in the balance. Drew was our golden boy,
a paragon of everything small-town America holds to be noble, and by
unwritten law the town will crucify him with a hatred equal to their
betrayed love.
How did Drew transform himself from hero into monster? He reached out for
love, and in the reaching pulled a whole town down on top of him. Last
night his legend was intact. He was sitting beside me at a table in the
boardroom of St. Stephen’s Preparatory School, still handsome at forty,
dark-haired, and athletic – he played football for Vanderbilt – a little
gray at the temples but radiating the commanding presence of a doctor in
his prime. I see this moment as clearly as any in my life, because it’s
the instant before revelation, that frozen moment in which the old world
sits balanced on the edge of destruction, like a china cup teetering on
the edge of a table. In a moment it will shatter into irrecoverable
fragments, but for an instant it remains intact, and salvation seems
possible.
The boardroom windows are dark, and the silver rain that’s fallen all day
is blowing horizontally now, slapping the windows with an icy rattle.
We’ve crowded eleven people around the Brazilian rosewood table – six
men, five women – and the air is close in the room. Drew’s clear eyes are
intent on Holden Smith, the overdressed president of the St. Stephen’s
school board, as we discuss the purchase of new computers for the junior
high school. Like Holden and several other board members, Drew and I
graduated from St. Stephen’s roughly two decades ago, and our children
attend it today. We’re part of a wave of alumni who stepped in during the
city’s recent economic decline to try to rebuild the school that gave us
our remarkable educations. Unlike most Mississippi private schools, which
sprang up in response to forced integration in 1968, St. Stephen’s was
founded as a parochial school in 1946. It did not admit its first
African-American student until 1982, but the willingness was there years
before that. High tuition and anxiety about being the only black child in
an all-white school probably held off that landmark event for a few years.
Now twenty-one black kids attend the secular St. Stephen’s, and there
would be more but for the cost. Not many black families in Natchez can
afford to pay five thousand dollars a year per child for education when
the public school is free. Few white families can either, when you get
down to it, and fewer as the years pass. Therein lies the board’s eternal
challenge: funding.
At this moment Holden Smith is evangelizing for Apple computers, though
the rest of the school’s network runs comfortably on cheaper IBM clones.
If he ever pauses for breath, I plan to tell Holden that while I use an
Apple Powerbook myself, we have to be practical on matters of cost. But
before I can, the school’s secretary opens the door and raises her hand in
a limp sort of wave. Her face is so pale that I fear she might be having a
heart attack.
Holden gives her an annoyed look. “What do you need, Theresa? We’ve got
another half hour, at least.”
Like most employees of St. Stephen’s, Theresa Cook is also a school
parent. “I just heard something terrible,” she says, her voice cracking.
“Kate Townsend is in the emergency room at St. Catherine’s Hospital. They
said … she’s dead. Drowned. Kate Townsend. Can that be right?”
Holden Smith’s thin lips twist in a grimace of a smile as he tries to
convince himself that this is some sort of sick prank. Kate Townsend is
the star of the senior class: valedictorian, state champion in both tennis
and swimming, full scholarship to Harvard next fall. She’s literally a
poster child for St. Stephen’s. We even used her in a TV commercial for
the school.
“No,” Holden says finally. “No way. I saw Kate on the tennis court at two
this afternoon.”
I look at my watch. It’s nearly eight now.
Holden opens his mouth again but no sound emerges. As I glance at the
faces around the table, I realize that a strange yet familiar numbness has
gripped us all, the numbness that comes when you hear that a neighbor’s
child has been shot in a predawn hunting accident, or died in a car crash
on homecoming night. It occurs to me that it’s early April, and though the
first breath of spring has touched the air, it’s still too cold to swim,
even in Mississippi. If a high school senior drowned today, a freak
accident seems the only explanation. An indoor pool, maybe? Only I can’t
think of anyone who owns one.
“Exactly what did you hear and when, Theresa?” Holden asks. As if details
might mitigate the horror of what is upon us.
“Ann Geter called my house from the hospital.” Ann Geter is an ER nurse at
St. Catherine’s Hospital, and another St. Stephen’s parent. Because the
school has only five hundred students, everyone literally knows everyone
else. “My husband told Ann I was still up here for the meeting. She called
and told me that some fishermen found Kate wedged in the fork of a tree
near where St. Catherine’s Creek washes into the Mississippi River. They
thought she might be alive, so they put her in their boat and carried her
to the hospital. She was naked from the waist down, Ann said.”
Theresa says “nekkid,” but her word has the intended effect. Shock blanks
the faces around the table as everyone begins to absorb the idea that this
may not be a conventional accident. “Kate was bruised up pretty bad, Ann
said. Like she’d been hit with something.”
“Jesus Lord,” whispers Clara Jenkins, from my left. “This can’t be true.
It must be somebody else.”
Theresa’s bottom lip begins to quiver. The secretary has always been close
to the older students, especially the girls. “Ann said Kate had a tattoo
on her thigh. I didn’t know about that, but I guess her mama did. Jenny
Townsend identified her body just a couple of minutes ago.”
Down the table a woman sobs, and a shiver of empathy goes through me, like
liquid nitrogen in my blood. Even though my daughter is only nine, I’ve
nearly lost her twice, and I’ve had my share of nightmares about what
Jenny Townsend just endured.
“God in heaven.” Holden Smith gets to his feet, looking braced for
physical combat. “I’d better get over to the hospital. Is Jenny still over
there?”
“I imagine so,” Theresa murmurs. “I just can’t believe it. Anybody in the
world you could have said, and I’d have believed it before Kate.”
“Goddamn it,” snaps Bill Sims, a local geologist. “It’s just not fair.”
“I know,” Theresa agrees, as if fairness has anything to do with who is
taken young and who survives to ninety-five. But then I realize she has a
point. The Townsends lost a child to leukemia several years ago, before I
moved back to town. I heard that was what broke up their marriage.
Holden takes a cell phone from his coat pocket and dials a number. He’s
probably calling his wife. The other board members sit quietly, their
thoughts on their own children, no doubt. How many of them have silently
thanked God for the good fortune of not being Jenny Townsend tonight?
A cell phone chirps under the table. Drew Elliott lifts his and says, “Dr.
Elliott.” He listens for a while, all eyes on him. Then he tenses like a
man absorbing news of a family tragedy. “That’s right,” he says. “I’m the
family doctor, but this is a coroner’s case now. I’ll come down and speak
to the family. Their home? All right. Thanks.”
Drew hangs up and looks at the ring of expectant faces, his own white with
shock. “It’s not a mistake. Kate’s dead. She was dead before she reached
the ER. Jenny Townsend is on her way home.” Drew glances at me. “Your
father’s driving her, Penn. Tom was seeing a patient when they brought
Kate in. Some family and friends are going over there. The father’s in
England, of course, but he’s being notified.”
Kate’s father, a British citizen, has lived in England for the past five
years.
A woman sobs at the end of the table.
“I’m adjourning this meeting,” Holden says, gathering up the promotional
literature from Apple Computer. “This can wait until next month’s
meeting.”
As he walks toward the door, Jan Chancellor, the school’s headmistress,
calls after him, “Just a minute, Holden. This is a terrible tragedy, but
one thing can’t wait until next month.”
Holden doesn’t bother to hide his annoyance as he turns back. “What’s
that, Jan?”
“The Marko Bakic incident.”
“Oh, hell,” says Bill Sims. “What’s that kid done now?”
Marko Bakic is a Croatian exchange student who has been nothing but
trouble since he arrived last September. How he made it into the exchange
program is beyond any of us. Marko’s records show that he scored off the
charts on an IQ test, but all his intelligence seems to be used only in
support of his anarchic aspirations. The charitable view is that this
unfortunate child of the Balkan wars has brought confusion and disruption
to St. Stephen’s, sadly besmirching an exchange program that’s only won us
glory in the past. The harsher view is that Marko Bakic uses the mask of
prankster to hide more sinister activities like selling Ecstasy to the
student body and anabolic steroids to the football team. The board has
already sought my advice as a former prosecutor on how to deal with the
drug issue; I told them that unless we catch Marko red-handed or someone
volunteers firsthand information about illegal activities, there’s nothing
we can do. Bill Sims suggested a random drug-testing program, but this
idea was tabled when the board realized that positive tests would probably
become public, sabotaging our public relations effort and delighting the
board of Immaculate Heart, the Catholic school across town. The local law
enforcement organs have set their sights on Marko, as well, but they, too,
have come up empty-handed. If Marko Bakic is dealing drugs, no one is
talking about it. Not on the record, anyway.
“Marko got into a scuffle with Ben Ritchie in the hall yesterday,” Jan
says carefully. “He called Ben’s girlfriend a slut.”
“Not smart,” Bill Sims murmurs.
Marko Bakic is six-foot-two and lean as a sapling; Ben Ritchie is
five-foot-six and built like a cast-iron stove, just like his father, who
played football with Drew and me more than twenty years ago.
Jan says, “Ben shoved Marko into the wall and told him to apologize. Marko
told Ben to kiss his ass.”
“So what happened?” asks Sims, his eyes shining. This is a lot more
interesting than routine school board business.
Clearly put off by the juvenile relish in Bill’s face, Jan says, “Ben put
Marko in a choke hold and mashed his head against the floor until he
apologized. Ben embarrassed Marko in front of a lot of people.”
“Sounds like our Croatian hippie got what he deserved.”
“Be that as it may,” Jan says icily, “after Ben let Marko up, Marko told
Ben he was going to kill him. Two other students heard it.”
“Macho bullshit,” says Sims. “Bakic trying to save face.”
“Was it?” asks Jan. “When Ben asked Marko how he was going to do that,
Marko said he had a gun in his car.”
Sims sighs heavily. “Did he? Have a gun, I mean.”
“No one knows. I didn’t hear about this until after school. Frankly, I
think the students were too afraid to tell me about it.”
“Afraid of what you’d do?”
“No. Afraid of Marko. Several students say he does carry a gun sometimes.
But no one would admit to seeing it on school property.”
“Did you talk to the Wilsons?” Holden Smith asks from the doorway.
Bill Sims snorts in contempt. “What for?”
The Wilsons are the family that agreed to feed and house Marko for two
semesters. Jack Wilson is a retired academic, and Marko seems to have him
completely snowed.
Jan Chancellor watches Holden expectantly. She’s a good headmistress,
although she dislikes direct confrontations, which can’t be avoided in a
job like hers. Her face looks pale beneath her sleek, black bob, and her
nerves seem stretched to the breaking point. They must be, to bring her to
this point of insistence.
“I move that we enter executive session,” she says, meaning that no
minutes will be taken from this point forward.
“Second,” I agree.
Jan gives me a quick look of gratitude. “As you all know, this is merely
the latest in a long line of disruptive incidents. There’s a clear pattern
here, and I’m worried that something irreparable is going to happen. If it
does – and if it can be demonstrated that we were aware of this pattern
– then St. Stephen’s and every member of the board will be exposed to
massive lawsuits.”
Holden sighs wearily from the door. “Jan, this was a serious incident, no
doubt. And sorting it out is going to be a pain in the ass. But Kate
Townsend’s death is going to be a major shock to every student and family
at this school. I can call a special meeting later in the week to deal
with Marko, but Kate is the priority right now.”
“Will you call that meeting?” Jan presses. “Because this problem’s not
going to go away.”
“I will. Now I’m going to see Jenny Townsend. Theresa, will you lock up
when everyone’s gone?”
The secretary nods, glad for being given something to do. While the
remainder of the board members continue to express disbelief, my cell
phone rings. The caller ID shows my home as the origin of the call, which
makes me unsure whether to answer. My daughter, Annie, is quite capable of
pestering me to death with the phone when the mood strikes her. But with
Kate’s death fresh in my mind, I step into the secretary’s office and
answer.
“Annie?”
“No,” says an older female voice. “It’s Mia.”
(Continues…)
Scribner
Copyright © 2005
Greg Iles
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-7432-3471-5
Excerpted from Turning Angel
by Greg Iles
Copyright © 2005 by Greg Iles.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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