Despite the importance of the historical murders, Caitlin’s mind gravitated to Henry’s most recent discoveries, detailed in the Moleskine notebook she’d found at the fire. Last night, descriptions of savage beatings, flayings, and a possible crucifixion had still retained the power to shock her. But the sheer weight of the horrors Henry had uncovered had begun to deaden her sensibilities. The same thing could easily happen to the Examiner’s readers, so she had to choose her focus carefully. The dozen-odd murders committed by the Double Eagles comprised a diffuse mass of data spanning a decade and involving unknown witnesses who could take years to locate, if they weren’t dead already. Nailing a few wrinkled old Klansmen who’d been peddling crystal meth to pay their rent might sell a few newspapers, but it wouldn’t win her any prizes. Glenn Morehouse’s sickening account of the murder of the whistle-blowers from Royal Insurance was the kind of story that grabbed modern readers by the throat. Further, Brody Royal was about the juiciest target imaginable in terms of a marketable story. If she brought down one of the richest men in the state by tying him to Carlos Marcello and the attempted assassination of Robert Kennedy, the story would break worldwide in a matter of hours.

Caitlin set down her teacup, her heart racing. The last thing she needed now was more caffeine. To nail Brody Royal for murder, she needed one of two things: a witness who could tie him to one of the murders, or a line into his secret life that could yield damning evidence. The only witness she knew about was the one Henry had dubbed “Huggy Bear” in his notebooks—an unidentified black man who had mysteriously appeared at the bedside of Pooky Wilson’s dying mother. Yet Henry had committed many hours to finding this man, and he’d failed, even with the advantage of having known many of the boys who’d worked at Albert Norris’s store. As for finding a door into Royal’s secret life, Caitlin’s possible lines of infiltration were few. One was Brody’s daughter, Katy Royal Regan, who’d been Pooky Wilson’s lover forty years ago. Another was Royal’s homicidal son-in-law, who was as likely to rape and kill her as talk to her. And then there was Claude Devereux, Royal’s wily old attorney. Caitlin didn’t hold out much hope of tricking a lawyer into admitting anything damaging about a client, much less his richest one. The daughter, on the other hand, might make a vulnerable interview subject. Henry had interviewed Katy Royal and come up dry, but then … Henry was a man.

Caitlin felt sure she could do better.