“Actually, you’re wrong, Captain. This is a hate crime. One of the victims received a card calling him a ‘nigger-lover’ and telling him to ‘die soon.’ That’s a quote. I have the card in my purse. Doesn’t the FBI have jurisdiction over hate crimes?”

I’m about to pull her away from Ozan when a piercing beep sounds, and Kaiser takes his cell phone from his pocket.

“Yes? … Understood. Where? … Good, that’s good. I’m on my way.”

He pockets his phone, then cocks his head slightly as though sizing up Ozan one last time. The state cop looks braced for an argument, but Kaiser only turns to Walker Dennis and says, “Sheriff, feel free to call if you need us.”

Walker nods but says nothing in reply.

As Kaiser starts back toward the hospital entrance, he takes his flashlight from my hand and whispers, “Meet me in the parking lot. Bring Caitlin.”

Captain Ozan’s eyes follow Kaiser as he walks away. In the shadows, it’s hard to see much of the captain’s face, but I’m left with the impression that he has Indian blood.

“Are you Mayor Cage?” he asks, turning to me after Kaiser disappears into the dark.

“That’s right.”

“I understand your fiancée was standing a couple of feet from the victim when he was hit.”

“I was,” Caitlin says defiantly.

Jordan Glass steps up protectively beside her.

“You’re a lucky girl,” Ozan goes on. “To walk out of that room alive. Mighty lucky, I’d say. It’s a lucky thing I was in town, too.” He looks over at Sheriff Dennis. “This parish has been going to hell for a long time, and you don’t seem to be able to handle it.”

Walker looks like he’s about to have a stroke, but he doesn’t argue.

After holding my ground long enough to prove that Ozan’s scrutiny doesn’t rattle me, I take Caitlin’s hand and lead her back toward the main hospital doors. Jordan takes up station at Caitlin’s other shoulder as we walk.

“This is nuts,” Caitlin says shakily. “Who was that guy?”

“A killer,” Jordan says in a cool voice. “I’ve shot enough of them to know.”

CHAPTER 83

JORDAN, KAISER, CAITLIN, and I stand by my car like two couples after a mugging. We stare at each other in dazed incomprehension, the hospital’s sodium vapor lamps rendering everything around us in an eerie, dichromatic world of yellow and gray.

“What just happened?” Caitlin asks.

“One of the killers just showed up to investigate the murder,” Kaiser answers. “Or one of his flunkies, anyway. This state is something. It’s like it’s still 1964.”

“Are you saying the state police were involved in killing Henry Sexton?” Caitlin asks.

“Off the record?”

Caitlin glances at Jordan, who looks embarrassed by Kaiser’s insistence on secrecy among the four of us. “Off the record,” she says grudgingly.