Henry had seen Dugan’s name in FBI 302s that he’d obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The Bureau had never been positive that Dugan’s death was a homicide. The Natchez police had ruled it an industrial accident. Now, with no more than a facial tic, Glenn Morehouse had not only confirmed the murder but also taken responsibility for it. Two murders solved in as many minutes.

“We didn’t even want to kill Jerry,” Morehouse went on. “We growed up with him, and Frank liked him feeding the Bureau stuff on the regular Klan. But Jerry overheard something about the Metcalfe operation, just a couple of days before we was scheduled to go, so that was that. We had to act quick.”

Henry’s heart thudded. The Metcalfe operation? “Are you talking about George Metcalfe? The president of the Natchez NAACP?”

“That’s right.”

“You guys planted the bomb in Metcalfe’s Chevrolet?”

Morehouse nodded as though confirming some trivial fact.

Henry swallowed and tried to figure the best way forward. “But Metcalfe didn’t die. Did the bomb malfunction or something?”

Morehouse shook his head. “We never meant to kill him. If we had, we’d have placed the bomb right under the dashboard instead of under the hood.”

“Well … what was your motive in that case? To scare Metcalfe? To scare the black population? Or the national NAACP leadership?”

The old man gave Henry a coy smile. “Never you mind, right now. Maybe we’ll cover that in our next meeting.”

Again Henry hesitated. His usual tactic with hostile sources was to get them into a rhythm of answering questions. The questions themselves weren’t critical; it was the give-and-take that counted. Because sources were quick to identify what you most wanted to know, and often held back that information, attempting to use it as currency (or sometimes just out of spite), Henry usually buried his critical queries in a litany of less important ones. But given Morehouse’s almost casual confessions, he felt tempted to go straight to the case that meant the most to him. And yet … if he somehow let Morehouse see how deeply he cared about Albert Norris, he’d be giving the Double Eagle control over the interview, and that chance he would not take.

“On Valentine’s Day in 1964,” he said, “a man named Albert Whitley was abducted from the Armstrong Tire and Rubber Company and horsewhipped.”

“Shit, Henry. A whippin’s small potatoes. Too small for us.”

Henry noted this in his Moleskine. “Two weeks later, a black employee of the International Paper Company was shot to death in his car with a machine gun. Were future Double Eagle men involved in that?”

Morehouse made a face as though he’d eaten something bitter. “You’re talkin’ about Clifton Walker, out on Poor House Road. Flashy nigger. A coupla them shooters eventually wound up in the group, yeah.”