The Devil's Punchbowl (30 page)

 

“Will you be flying this afternoon?” someone calls, and there’s some muted laughter.

 

“I will. But I’ll be aboard a sheriff’s department helicopter, helping to scout the course. I don’t want to put any of you good people at risk by asking you to fly me. It could be that today’s gunman was a disgruntled constituent of mine.”

 

There’s more laughter this time. Balloon pilots are an intrepid bunch, but not all of them seem reassured.

 

“I was in the balloon behind you guys,” says a mustached man in the fourth row. “I heard the bullets flying, but no gunshot. Do the police think the shooter used a silenced rifle?”

 

There’s some murmuring at this.

 

“I was in the service,” the man explains. “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

 

“The police and the sheriff’s department are looking into all the available evidence. If we learn anything that bears on the safety of
future flights, you’ll all be informed immediately. I’m going to arrange the helicopter flyovers now. Thank you again for all you’ve done to help make the festival a success. Mr. Jarvis?”

 

I wave and leave the lectern, joining Labry by the door.

 

“That was just right,” he says. “Best you could hope for.”

 

“How many do you think will keep flying?”

 

“Half. And half is plenty. If half of them fly, and this weather holds, the festival could still break a record.”

 

“I need a phone, Paul. Not your cell either. A hard line.”

 

He gives me a strange look. “What’s with all the cloak-and-dagger this weekend?”

 

“Nothing. I just don’t want anybody hearing our security arrangements.”

 

Labry steers me toward a door, then pushes it open and speaks to a middle-aged woman sitting at a desk inside. “Could we borrow your office, Margaret? City business.”

 

“Of course,” she says, picking up her purse and coming around the desk. “Glad to see you’re all right, Mr. Mayor.”

 

“Thank you.”

 

I motion for Labry to follow her out, then take Danny McDavitt’s cell number from my pocket. He answers immediately.

 

“Do you know who this is?” I ask.

 

“I do.”

 

“Where are you, Major?”

 

“Adams County Airport. Topping up the tank.”

 

“Can you pick me up somewhere close to town?”

 

“No problem. Where?”

 

I think quickly. “There’s a big field right in the middle of town, on the north side. It’s right behind the Children’s Home on Union Street. Not a lot of people know about it. I’ll be waiting there. If you touch down just long enough for me to jump on, nobody watching from a distance will even know you landed.”

 

“Got it. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes.”

 

When I leave the office, Labry is there to escort me back to my car.

 

“Keep your head down as we pass the crowd,” he says. “Caitlin nearly beat down the door to get access to that meeting. She’s liable to have an ACLU lawyer out there.”

 

We exit the building at the rear, beneath the whipping flags of England, France, Spain, the Confederacy, the United States, and of course Mississippi, which still sports the Confederate battle standard in its top left corner.

 

Making a wide circle around the crowd outside, we move down a row of cars toward my Saab. We’re thirty feet away when Caitlin steps from behind a balloon trailer with a cell phone held to her ear.

 

“Well, here you are at last,” she says. “Paul, I need a minute with the mayor.”

 

Labry looks at me. I sigh in exasperation, then wave him off. He moves back toward the Visitors’ Center at a vigorous march.

 

Caitlin pockets her cell phone and walks toward me, her green eyes intent, probing mine with the power of the quick mind behind them.

 

“One minute,” I tell her.

 

“I just heard the flights are going to continue.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“There’s no way you would have supported that unless you knew that the shooting today was directed at you alone.”

 

“What do you want, Caitlin?”

 

I try to keep the frustration out of my voice, but my resentment at her decision to leave Natchez has not left me. She looks hurt, but also resolved to press forward.

 

“I just saw some pictures that were found at Tim Jessup’s house. Nude pictures. Of a woman who worked on the
Magnolia Queen.
”

 

“Some cop is going to lose his job this week.”

 

“Listen to me, Penn, please. I think someone is trying to play me. I’m not even having to fight to get this stuff out of them. They’re using me to put out a story, I can feel it.”

 

I don’t respond.

 

“Won’t you tell me what’s happening? Let me help you.”

 

“Don’t you mean help yourself? You’re in the hunt for another Pulitzer, aren’t you?”

 

Her eyes flash. “I’m hunting for the truth. As always.”

 

“I can’t help you.”

 

“So where does that leave us?”

 

“What else do you have?”

 

She takes a deep breath, looks off toward the crowd, which is dis
persing into the cars now. “Not much. But that’s going to change. You know it will.”

 

Conscious of my rendezvous with McDavitt, I make a fast decision. “Caitlin, let’s pretend no time has passed since we were together. None. No hurt feelings, nothing. I’m telling you that if you pursue this thing, your life is in danger. More than when we worked the Del Payton case, even. You won’t be helping Tim or what he was trying to do. You won’t be serving the public interest. And you’ll be putting me and my family at risk, as well as yourself. In a few days, I may be able to tell you more, but for now, that’s it.”

 

She looks back in disbelief. “So, I’m just supposed to walk away?”

 

“Weren’t you planning to anyway? I thought you were on your way to New Orleans with your friend?”

 

“He’s already gone.”

 

“Why aren’t you?”

 

She starts to answer, then bites her bottom lip and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Thanks for the minute. It was a real education.”

 

She turns and follows Labry’s path up toward the Visitors’ Center, her jet hair blowing in the breeze from the river.

 

 

Eight hundred feet over the Mississippi River, my stomach starts to go on me. The balloon crash was too recent; I have to belt myself tightly into the chopper just to keep my nerves together. Danny McDavitt is sitting in front of me, in the left seat of the Athens Point sheriff’s department helicopter. Folded into the right-hand seat is a tall, lean black man in his twenties named Carl Sims. Carl is the former marine sniper that Daniel Kelly told me about on the phone. He works as a deputy for the Athens Point sheriff’s department, but today, like most people who live within fifty miles of town, he was attending the Balloon Festival. His black jeans and blue hoodie contrast with McDavitt’s faded khakis and polo shirt. Though Sims and McDavitt are thirty years apart in age, they seem to know each other well. They communicate in brief phrases or dry jokes, and even their silences seem charged with exchanges of information.

 

Ostensibly, we’re flying the course of the afternoon balloon race,
watching the ground for signs of snipers. In fact, we’re searching for Tim Jessup’s car. When a child is kidnapped, the Investigative Support Unit of the FBI recommends getting a helicopter airborne as fast as possible, equipped with a vehicle description. Choppers are remarkably effective at locating cars on the run, and I don’t see why they should be any less effective at locating cars that have been abandoned. If Tim’s car has purposely been hidden, of course, our search is probably pointless. But since I have access to the chopper, searching for the missing car seems a better use of my time than riding shotgun for a bunch of balloons that won’t be fired on unless I’m flying in one of them.

 

Once again, because of prevailing winds, the race course crosses the river from Mississippi to Louisiana. More than half of the pilots have decided to stay for the remainder of the festival, and half of these have already crossed the river and are sailing southwest under a glorious blue sky. The remaining balloons are stretched out to our left at various altitudes, from the twin bridges back to the launch site at the Natchez Airport. The wind has settled down since this morning, and from this distance the balloons look painted on the sky.

 

To the west, the Adams County sheriff’s helicopter is running along the levee on Deer Park Road like a gunship preparing to lay down suppressing fire on enemy troops.

 

“I think they’ve got the primary mission under control,” McDavitt says over the interphone. “What say we get to work?”

 

“I still don’t know exactly what we’re doing,” Carl Sims confesses, looking back from the front seat. “I’m happy to help, but a little detail would be appreciated.”

 

I don’t see any reason to burden McDavitt or Sims with more knowledge than they need. “Guys, let me put this as simply as I can. Last night, a friend of mine was murdered. Who did it isn’t important at the moment. But they’ve threatened my family. Right now we’re looking for my friend’s car. It’s a blue Nissan Sentra, five or six years old. I’m not sure what it can tell me, but there might be evidence inside that could nail the people who killed him. Is that enough for you?”

 

“Where are we looking?” McDavitt asks.

 

“I think they caught him somewhere out past the city cemetery, on Cemetery Road or one of the dirt roads that turns off it.”

 

The major executes a pedal turn and heads toward Weymouth Hall, a mansion atop the bluff not far from Jewish Hill. As we approach the widow’s walk atop the house, he turns north and starts following Cemetery Road at about four hundred feet. The cars parked at the houses and shacks below are easily identifiable, and this gives me some hope.

 

“Got a license plate number?” Carl asks.

 

“No.”

 

“I can get that for you. One call to the dispatcher in Athens Point.”

 

“Can’t risk it. This has to be totally under the radar.”

 

After a brief glance at McDavitt, Carl says, “Right. Blue Nissan Sentra.”

 

The Athens Point helicopter is brand-new, and far more advanced than the Adams County chopper, having been purchased after the crash Hans Necker mentioned during our stop at the old Triton Battery plant. It’s a Bell JetRanger, with a lot of bells and whistles I don’t understand, but one that I do is FLIR, or Forward Looking Infrared Radar. This formerly military surveillance system is based around a pod mounted beneath the chopper’s nose, which contains an array of sensors that detect both infrared and visible light. Its readings are processed by a computer, then displayed on a screen mounted on the instrument panel in front of Major McDavitt. Modern FLIR units are so sensitive to heat that they can “see” the transient “handprint”—actually a heatprint—of a fugitive who has momentarily touched a car as he flees from police in total blackness. In daylight, FLIR signals can be blended with the signals from visible light cameras to create a sort of God’s-eye view of the terrain below. The Athens Point unit was donated by a lumber millionaire and avid hunter who occasionally uses it to monitor the white-tailed deer population on the thousands of acres he owns.

 

McDavitt seems to be flying with one eye on the ground and the other on the FLIR screen. When I ask about this, he explains that he flew Pave Low helicopters in Afghanistan, one of the most advanced choppers in the world, and that he became accustomed to using instruments as his primary interface with the world. Carl Sims searches the old-fashioned way, as befits a former sniper. His forehead is pressed to the curved windshield beside him, and he takes
occasional breaks to survey the ground through the “chin bubble” below his feet.

 

Our main problem is not that Cemetery Road runs through a vast forest, but that this forest is laced with dozens of dirt roads, most cut long ago by loggers or oil drillers, and few are well maintained. If Tim was fleeing from pursuers in his car, he could have turned down any of these roads, hoping to find a wooded sanctuary.

 

“How far off the road do you want me to look?” McDavitt asks, obviously sharing my concern.

 

“Half a mile, I guess. Much more than that, and we won’t be able to see anything anyway.”

 

“Half a mile, it is.”

 

The pilot begins banking from side to side, and as the chopper dips and rolls, my stomach begins to churn. Following advice I’ve heard about seasickness, I fix my gaze on the horizon line across the river. Carl and Danny make occasional comments about the landscape below, and several times the pilot drops to treetop level to examine a car more closely. Sims even spots a Sentra, but when we descend to check it, we find that its paint is actually green.

 

A couple of minutes after this disappointing reconnaissance, McDavitt says, “Son of a bitch,” and brings the ship into a hover over a high bluff not far from the river. He points to the FLIR screen. “Look at that, Carl.”

 

“I’m seeing it.”

 

“What is it?” I ask, leaning forward into the cockpit.

 

“A car,” the pilot answers. “And it’s hot.”

 

On the screen I see a tiny black rectangle partially obscured by masses of gray that must represent the foliage. “How hot?”

 

“It was probably still on fire this morning.”

 

“Vehicles can burn for a long time,” Sims explains. “Upholstery and stuff. I saw it in Iraq.”

 

“It looks…I don’t know, sort of far away. A lot lower than the trees.”

 

“It’s in a hole,” says McDavitt.

 

“How deep?”

 

“I can’t tell. I tried putting the laser on it, but there’s too much vegetation to get an accurate reading. Just guessing, I’d say three hundred feet below those treetops.”

 

I lean into the window and gaze out over the Mississippi River. After orienting myself to the angle of the bend, and the lake not far beyond the river, a sense of certainty much like triumph settles in me.

 

“I know where we are.”