After she does, I decide to make sure my message gets through. “Tell Agent Kaiser I’m the Mississippi lawyer who forced the resignation of Director John Portman in 1998.”

I’m pretty sure I hear a gulp at the other end of the line.

“Do you have that?”

“Yes, sir.”

As soon as I hang up, I rise and start pacing, trying to think of the most efficient moves I can make while I wait for Kaiser’s callback, which could take hours.

“Life or death?” Annie echoes. “Is your friend going to die?”

“I hope not, Boo. But he’s hurt pretty bad.”

“Is Dr. Drew going to take care of him?”

I smile and nod, tying to convey confidence. “Drew’s going over there now. If anyone around here can fix Mr. Henry up, he can.”

“What about Papa?”

I considered calling Dad to check on Henry, but it’s been years since he treated trauma cases in the ER. “Papa’s under too much strain to be dealing with a trauma case right now.”

“Do they have a CAT scan machine across the river?”

“Uh … I think so.”

“Do they have a neurologist?”

My eleven-year-old daughter is a huge fan of both Grey’s Anatomy and House, M.D. Initially, I tried to keep her from watching these shows, but after a while I gave up. Annie has an almost morbid interest in cancer, which killed her mother, and she’s told me repeatedly that her ambition is to become an oncologist and cure the disease.

“I don’t think so,” I admit. “But Drew knows how to read a scan. If Henry has bleeding in his brain, they’ll airlift him to Baton Rouge.”

“Why not Jackson?”

“The Louisiana doctors have connections in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, not Jackson.”

“That’s weird, since Natchez and Vidalia are only a mile apart.”

I walk over and lay my hand on her shoulder. “Boo, in a lot of ways, the Mississippi River is like a locked gate.”

The slam of the front door tells me Caitlin must have run right out the door of the Examiner when she got my text. The newspaper office is less than a mile from our houses as the crow flies, but she must have driven fifty or sixty miles an hour through the maze of one-way streets that is downtown Natchez to get here so fast.

“What do you know about Henry?” she asks, almost skidding into the room.

Annie jumps up and hugs Caitlin’s waist.

Before I can answer, the telephone rings. The LED says UNKNOWN NUMBER. I hold up my hand to Caitlin and answer.

“Penn Cage.”

“Mayor, this is Special Agent John Kaiser. What’s happened? Is it Henry Sexton?”

“How did you know?”

“Just a feeling. Is he alive?”

“Right now he is.”

“Thank God.”

CHAPTER 45