Stone is playing it so close to the vest that I decide to keep Ike Ransom’s name to myself. “You wouldn’t know him. He came along after your time. But he’s interested in the case, and he hates Leo Marston. What can you tell us about Marston’s involvement?”

“Nothing more than I have already.”

“Will you help us with this case?”

A deep conflict is playing itself out behind the old agent’s eyes, one only hinted at by the tension in his muscles and the tightness of his lips. “I can’t,” he says finally.

“Why not?”

“Because despite what you see here, I’m not alone in the world. There are people I care about. I’m thinking of getting married, believe it or not. And I won’t put innocent lives at risk for something that can’t make any difference now.”

“Do you really think there’s that much danger?” asks Caitlin.

Stone rakes a hand along his jaw. “Make no mistake about it. You are already swimming with sharks.”

His baleful eyes linger on mine, trying to impress his seriousness upon me. He reminds me of an old homicide cop I knew in Houston, a guy who’d been shot twice in the line of duty. When he told you to start worrying, it was time to put on the Kevlar.

“What about the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission files?” Caitlin asks. “Payton’s is sealed. Do you think we could learn anything significant from it?”

“Those were state files. I never saw them.”

“The FBI file is sealed as well. Does that surprise you?”

He barks a laugh. “I’d be surprised if the damn thing exists at all.”

“It exists, all right,” I tell him. “Forty-four volumes. The question is, what’s in it?”

“Forty-three volumes of nothing, and my final report.”

“What was in your final report?”

He sighs and looks past us, to the front windows of his cabin. “I can’t tell you that.”

Caitlin glances at me, her lower lip pinned by her teeth, her gesture of concentration. “The file was ostensibly sealed for reasons of national security,” she says. “Can you give us any hint as to what the Payton case could have to do with national security?”

Stone taps his fingers nervously on the arm of his chair. “Del Payton was killed five weeks after Martin Luther King was assassinated, and three weeks before Robert Kennedy. Have you considered that?”

Caitlin and I share a look.

“Are you saying Payton’s death was somehow connected to those assassinations?” I ask.

“Kings climb to eminence over men’s graves, Mr. Cage.”

“Who said that?”

“A very wise man.”

“Who is the king you’re referring to?”

“I’m just quoting an old poet, son.”

“Last night I was threatened by the present director of the FBI. Why should John Portman be concerned with a thirty-year-old civil rights murder?”