“He’s got a Mexican wife in Navasota.” Ozan grinned. “Dry as an old boot, probably, but I imagine she bleeds like any other woman.”

“Make some calls. Before we get back in the chopper.”

“Will do, boss.”

CHAPTER 67

I’M SITTING IN my Audi outside the Kuntry Kafé, an old-time diner not far from the music store where Henry and I met Kirk Boisseau after he discovered the bones in the Jericho Hole. Three minutes ago, Randall Regan walked inside alone to eat lunch. As I got up to follow him, I saw through the window that he’d sat down with an attractive woman thirty years his junior, a woman most definitely not his wife. I know from Caitlin’s research that Katy Royal Regan is fifty-nine. The girl laughing with Randall inside is barely thirty. His mistress? A casual conquest? Or an innocent flirtation? The diner is nearly full, yet Regan obviously has no qualms about eating with an attractive young lady, even though he’s married to Brody Royal’s daughter.

For a few seconds I consider waiting for a better opportunity to confront him. But the sooner I rattle the son of a bitch, the sooner he and Brody are liable to say something incriminating on the telephone (or via e-mail or text). After a brief argument with myself, I put my .357 in the glove compartment, lock my car, and walk into the Kuntry Kafé, my entry announced by Christmas bells hanging from the door.

Several people recognize me, and wave, but I walk straight to Regan’s table and sit in one of the two empty chairs. Regan gives me a mildly curious look, but the young woman appears shaken. She looks anxiously at Randall, but he seems content to wait and see what I intend to do.

“I know you,” she says, peering closer at me. “You’re the … the mayor of Natchez.”

I give her a politician’s smile. “That’s right. And everybody else in here is figuring out the same thing about now. They’re all staring at us, and trying to figure out who you are, and why you’re eating with Randall here.”

She looks around at the watchful crowd, then back at Regan, who tilts his head toward the door. Blushing red, she grabs her purse and bolts without a word. Randall chuckles, then gives the crowd a hard look, one face at a time, and they go back to their meals.

Pithy Nolan described him as Black Irish, and as usual, she was right. Regan’s eyes are dark and fey, his nose an off-center testament to the risks of boxing (or street fighting), and his curly black hair lined with silver. Rangy and rawboned, he looks like he’s done enough manual labor to make him harder than most athletes ever get. If a weight lifter challenged him to an arm-wrestling contest, he’d probably snap the man’s wrist just for spite.