“That’s true. Most people who stay are very different from me. Zealots, moralists. Jesuits, I call them. Military types who like to punish criminals. My boss was a lot like that.”

“So, why did you stay?”

“I was accomplishing something. I felt I was a moral counterweight to those people. Some liberals even said I had an overdeveloped sense of justice. And that may be true. I convicted a lot of killers, and I don’t apologize for it. I believe evil should be held accountable.”

“Whoa, that was Evil with a capital E.”

“It’s out there. Take my word for it.”

“An overdeveloped sense of justice. Is that why you’re investigating the Payton case?”

“No. I’m doing that because of Livy Marston.”

Caitlin looks like I hit her in the head with a hammer. “What the hell are you talking about?”

I lean into the aisle and signal the flight attendant; it’s time for a Scotch. “Twenty years ago Livy’s father used very bit of his power to try to destroy my father. He didn’t succeed, but he separated Livy and me forever. And I never knew why.”

“And you think Marston is involved in the Payton murder?”

“Yes.”

“God, I’m trapped in a Southern gothic novel.”

“You asked for it.”

She finishes off her martini in a gulp. “I hope nobody’s going to ask me to squeal like a pig.”

I laugh as she orders another martini, amazed by how quickly the age difference between us has become irrelevant. I wonder how far apart we really are. Does she know that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the greatest songwriters who ever lived? That the pseudo-nihilism of Generation X was merely frustrated narcissism? That I, at thirty-eight years old, am as trapped in my own era as a septuagenarian humming “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me” and dreaming of the agony of Anzio is trapped in his?

“Back up,” Caitlin says. “You and Livy were high school sweethearts?”

“No. For most of high school we were competitors. She only dated older guys, and no one steadily. She was her own person. She never wore a boy’s letter jacket or class ring. She needed nothing external to define her or make her feel accepted. But at some point we both realized we were destined for bigger futures than most people we knew. We were going to leave that town far behind. That awareness inevitably pulled us together. We both loved literature and music, both excelled in all our classes. We dated for four months at the end of our senior year. We were both going to Ole Miss in the fall, but she was going to Radcliffe for the summer—”

“Oh, my God,” Caitlin exclaims. “That magnolia blossom actually darkened the door of Radcliffe?”

“Aced every class, I’m sure. She wouldn’t let Yankees feel superior to her for a second.”