“Because it’s Brody you’re after. But son, if you ever get close to him, you’re gonna find yourself playing the same game those girls did, or one like it. And that’s no way to die.”

Henry heard real concern in the old Double Eagle’s voice.

“Shit, my sister just texted me,” Morehouse said anxiously. “She’s in Waterproof. We ain’t got but twenty-five minutes left. I didn’t hear your engine. You still out there?”

“Yeah. I’m coming back in.”

“You sure you want to, after what I told you?”

Henry knew this was his personal Rubicon. If he walked back into that house, he was putting his life on the line. “I’ll bring in a log for the fire.”

WHEN HENRY ENTERED MOREHOUSE’S sickroom for the second time, the old man was pissing in the plastic urinal. Henry turned away and set the red oak log on the dying fire, then stirred the coals. Groaning in discomfort, the old man set the jug beside his chair.

“Last case,” Henry said, sitting down beside the La-Z-Boy and flipping open his notebook. “March twenty-seventh, 1968. Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis disappeared from Natchez. Neither man was ever seen again. Were they murdered?”

Morehouse nodded reluctantly.

Henry felt a rush of euphoria. He was about to get a truth that had been buried for thirty-seven years. “Before we go any further, would you clear up one thing for me?”

“If I can.”

“Between the bombing of George Metcalfe in August of sixty-five and Jimmy Revels disappearing in March of sixty-eight, there were no major Eagle operations that I know about. Snake Knox ran over an old black man who’d registered to vote down in Lusahatcha County, and killed him, but no charges were filed. That seemed more like a crime of passion. Big John DeLillo shot a black man in Babineau’s Barbecue, but you told me DeLillo was never an Eagle. So … why the time gap?”

Morehouse sighed heavily. “Simple. Frank’s boy got killed in Vietnam in July of sixty-six. Friendly-fire incident. A short artillery round blew him to pieces in the shadow of the Rockpile, near the DMZ. Losing his oldest boy messed Frank up something terrible. He stayed drunk for two years, day and night. He didn’t snap out of it till right before he died, and even then … aw, hell. I don’t want to think about that.”

Henry felt like an imbecile. How could he have overlooked this? Sometimes you studied a thing so hard for hidden significance that you missed the neon-lit truth staring you in the face. “Frank died just one day after Jimmy and Luther disappeared,” he thought aloud. “Was Frank drunk when that pallet of batteries fell on him?”

Morehouse nodded slowly.

“Okay. Why did you guys target Jimmy Revels? Because he was registering blacks to vote?”

“Did you know that boy?” Morehouse asked softly, staring into the fire.