As I try to banish this thought, one of the saner supervisors suggests that we should suspend discussion of the slave market and move on to the intentional flooding of St. Catherine’s Creek, which flows through the middle of Natchez, but she’s instantly shouted down. Apparently even the problems of eminent domain pale next to those involving race.
When my cell phone vibrates on the table yet again, two selectmen glare at me, almost daring me to check the LCD. Leaning forward, I see Caitlin’s name.
“Just tell me this!” snaps a supervisor. “If this is such an all-fired great idea, why hasn’t somebody on the South Carolina coast started rebuilding slave ships? Huh? Tell me that!”
Caitlin’s text message reads:
Call me NOW. Urgent!
Lifting my left hand in apology, I say, “Excuse me again, ladies and gentlemen. Family emergency.” With a screech of chair legs, I get to my feet and decamp to the anteroom, where I speed-dial Caitlin.
“Are you alone?” she asks, her voice quavering.
“What’s the matter?”
“I think I just killed somebody.”
My chest goes so tight that my next breath takes conscious effort. “What do you mean? With your car?”
“No. I just interviewed Brody Royal’s daughter, Katy Regan.”
“What?”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry. I just felt that I couldn’t write the story without at least trying to talk to her.”
My intimate knowledge of Caitlin’s ambition fills me with foreboding. “What did you do?”
“I ambushed her. I know it was wrong, but it was the only way. Henry had interviewed her about Pooky before, and it hadn’t upset her, so I figured it was okay. She let me into her house quite happily—”
“Jesus. You know Randall Regan is a killer.”
“I know. Please just listen. She seemed fine with it, seriously. Even when I told her why I was really there. I figured she might be ready open up to another woman, you know?”
Cold dread closes around my heart. “What happened, Caitlin?”
“It went fine for a while, and then she passed out right in front of me. She’d taken an overdose of pills before I got there.”
“Is she alive?”
“She’s in a coma at St. Catherine’s Hospital.”
I blow out a rush of air and force myself to start breathing again. “Caitlin, you—”
“I know,” she says again. “I should have told you.”
“No, you should have waited. Christ, this is a disaster.”
“Not totally.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d rather not say anything on the phone. I’m almost outside the Selectmen’s Building. Can you come out and talk for a second?”
I feel like screaming at her, but that’s not going to solve anything. And if she knows anything that can mitigate this tragedy, I need to hear it. “How close are you?”
“I’ll be out front in twenty seconds.”
“I’m on my way down.”
THE INTERIOR OF CAITLIN’S car is twenty degrees warmer than the outside air, but the voice of the disturbed woman coming from Caitlin’s Treo chills me more deeply than any wind. Katy Royal Regan’s voice as she accuses her psychiatrist of using her for sex sounds like that of a little girl shaken awake in the midst of a nightmare.
“Let me skip ahead,” Caitlin says, fiddling with the phone’s controls. “Right here. She’s talking about the Bone Tree that Henry wrote about in his journals. That’s a killing ground that dates back to Indian and slave times, but the Klan also used it, and they dumped bodies there. Just listen to this shit.”
Caitlin presses PLAY.
“Who took Pooky to that tree?”
“I was always going to tell,” says the childlike voice. “But I have to wait until Daddy passes. Then he can’t hurt me.”
“Katy—”
“Shh! He might hear us. Daddy can hear from miles away sometimes. You know … before Henry came and talked to me, all this was blank. Everything had fallen down Dr. Borgen’s hole. But then it started to come back. First the bathtub … Daddy killed Mama in the bath. Did you know that? I thought he was just talking to her—and he was. But later I figured it out. He was holding her head under the water while he talked.” There was a pause. “Then, when you called a few minutes ago, I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s too late.”
“What do you mean? Too late for what?”
“For me. For Katy-Poo.”
“Jesus,” I mutter. “This woman belongs in a hospital.”