Greg Iles 3-Book Thriller Collection: The Quiet Game, Turning Angel, The Devil’s Punchbowl. Greg Iles
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that’s left is down in the basement. Five, six boxes.”
I stop on the landing. “Is the basement locked?”
“Yep.” He looks up and down the empty stairwell. “The door’s out back. If you was to check there in about five minutes, you might find a key. When you done, leave it where you found it.”
He shuffles down the stairs without another word.
I wait a few moments, then walk out onto the street and stare across at the oak-shaded courthouse. Sifting through old legal files could take some time. I need to move my father’s car in case Mackey comes out before I’m done. When I stopped at my parents’ house to take care of the Smith & Wesson, I found that the glass in the BMW had been repaired. I gave the Maxima back to Mom, so that if anyone targeted the BMW again, it would be me, and not my mother and daughter, who took the risk. I also transferred the remaining $25,000 into the trunk of the BMW, meaning to get it back to my father before the end of the day. Climbing inside the car, I pull around the corner, call directory assistance for the number of the Examiner, and have them connect me.
“Caitlin Masters, please.”
“Ms. Masters is in a meeting. Would you like me to transfer you to her voice mail?”
“Tell her Penn Cage is on the phone.”
“Sir—”
“Please just do it.”
Thirty seconds later, Caitlin says, “You’d better not be standing me up for lunch.”
“I do need to postpone. Something’s come up.”
“What could be more important than me?”
“Actually, I was going to suggest dinner tonight.”
“Who says change is bad? Does eight o’clock work for you?”
“Yes. Thanks, Caitlin.”
“You can repay me with information.”
I hang up laughing, then lock the car and hurry into the inner square of the block. It harbors parked cars, dumpsters, and fire escapes, but thankfully no people. At the rear of Mackey’s building, eight concrete steps and a green handrail descend to a steel door. There’s no key in the lock. I go down the steps and feel beneath the crack of the door. Nothing. In the lee of the bottom step lies a broken, rust-colored brick. I bend and lift it.
The key is there.
The basement is lighted by bare hanging bulbs, and it stinks of mildew. I feel like I’m breathing fungus. What I first perceived as walls are stacks of boxes, hundreds of them, old bellied cardboard things that look like they were stolen from a grocery store trash pile. Thankfully, there are dates scrawled on them in black magic marker.
There seems to be no organizing concept. Files from the 1920s have been stacked next to files from the 1970s. I scan the wall of dates as though searching for my size in a display of blue jeans. No luck. But after twenty minutes of digging through rat droppings and dust, I find a short stack of boxes labeled ’73 FIRE.
Dragging the stack into the nearest pool of light, I open the top box and riffle through its contents. The files inside are charred, stained, and mildewed, and all date from 1966. I set that box aside and open the next one. My pulse quickens. The files inside are dated 1968.
Starting at the front of the box, I examine the first page inside each folder. Marston’s name is all over the files, but none deals with Delano Payton. When I get to the end of the box, I go back to the beginning and flip through every sheet in every folder, but again I find nothing. One by one I go through each folder in the boxes dating from the fire with painstaking care, but I find nothing related to Del Payton.
It looks like Mackey was telling the truth.
After restacking the boxes, I lock the door, put the key back under the brick, and climb back into the sunlight. The custodian is standing thirty yards away, smoking a cigarette in the shadow of a nearby building. I walk straight up to him like a tourist asking for directions.
“Mackey was right.”
He spits on the concrete. “Shit.”
“You don’t happen to clean the police station, do you?”
He shakes his head.
“I guess that’s it, then. I appreciate your help.” I start to leave, but he reaches out and touches my elbow.
“You know, we had a couple of black police chiefs. The first one was back in ’eighty-one. I knew him pretty good. He didn’t mind stepping on toes to get the job done, so they fired him after a few months. He might know something.”
“What was his name?”
“Willie Pinder.”
“Does he still live in town?”
“He stay over to Gaylor Street. Blue house. Drives a old Dodge pickup.”
“Would he be home during the day?”
“I believe he ’tired. You could see.”
“I’ll call him. Hey, I never got your name.”
“That’s right. You watch your ass, Penn Cage. And tell your daddy Zoot say hello.”
He grinds his cigarette beneath the heel of a cheap work boot and walks back toward the D.A.’s office.
As soon as I reach the car, I dial directory assistance again. There’s a listing for a Willie Pinder on Gaylor Street. This time I dial the number myself.
“Yeah?” says a coarse voice.
“Is Willie there?”
“This Willie.”
I hang up.
Gaylor Street is in a black neighborhood off the road that leads up to the city cemetery. It takes several trips through blocks of small, brightly colored houses, but I finally find the ex-chief’s Dodge pickup parked on the street. A cracked pad of cement leads to the rear of the house. I drive around and park near Pinder’s back porch. It’s fully screened, with rust eating the black wire in big orange patches.
“Who the hell are you?” shouts a hostile voice. “You just call me on the telephone?”
I wave broadly at the dark screen. For all I know, I’m looking into the barrel of a shotgun. “I’m Penn Cage. I’m looking for the former chief of police, Willie Pinder.”
“Who you work for, chump?”
The screen door opens with a screech of protesting springs, and a big black head appears in the opening. The sleepy-eyed face says late fifties, with some rough years on the back end.
“Car like that, you ain’t no process server. Must be a lawyer. You work for my ex-old lady?”
“No. My name’s Penn Cage. If you’re Willie Pinder, I want to ask you about the Del Payton murder.”
At the words “Del Payton” the sleepy eyes wake up. “I’m Willie,” he says, looking closely at me.
“You got my name, right?”
“Trouble. That’s your name.”
“Will you talk to me?”
“Sure.” Pinder laughs. “I might be hearing your last words. Come on up.”
He holds the door open for me. Three steps lead up to the porch, the kind of weed-grown slat steps that snakes like to lie under in the heat. In one bound I am up and through the door, which slaps shut behind me with a bang like a pistol shot.
“Porch is far enough,” says Pinder. “Hotter inside anyway. AC’s busted. You want a beer?”
“Sure.” I try not to glance at my watch; it can’t be eleven a.m. yet.
Pinder