It’s a repeat of my visit to Ray Presley’s trailer. I strip off my khakis and shirt, and Stone motions for me to remove my shorts and socks as well.

“Come over here,” he says.

“I’m not submitting to a rectal exam,” I tell him, walking toward the couch.

He chuckles, then stands and runs his fingers through my hair, following the line of my skull. He sticks a finger in each of my ears. “Sorry, but the transmitters are damnably small these days.”

“Now that we’ve got that over with,” I say, pulling on my pants, “let’s hear what really happened in Natchez in 1968.”

“How far have you gotten on your own?”

“I’ve got Presley nailed down for the actual murder. My witnesses are Frank Jones, his ex-wife, and Betty Lou Beckham. An ATF bomb expert will confirm C-4 as the explosive, proving Presley planted evidence at the scene. And one of the Fort Polk thieves will put stolen military C-4 in Presley’s hands.”

Stone smiles. “So, you got my fax.”

“Thanks.”

“How do you link Presley to Marston?”

“You.”

He raises his eyebrows. “I hope you’ve got something else.”

“Well . . . I did have an FBI agent trying to copy your original report for me. But he was arrested yesterday.”

Stone gives a somber nod. “I heard.”

Of course. His daughter told him.

“So,” he says. “Marston orders Presley to do the hit. That’s how you see it?”

“Well . . . there’s Portman, of course. But I don’t know what his role was. Are there more people involved?”

“Conspiracies are always complicated. But in this case, Presley and Marston make a nice package, so why complicate it? Of course, you don’t even have Marston yet.”

“But you did.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me how.”

He picks up the cordless phone again, presses a button, listens, then hangs up and begins speaking to me in a low, clear voice, his right hand thumbing the gun in his lap.

“First of all, Portman wasn’t my partner. Hoover foisted him on me, fresh out of Yale Law and the Academy. His father was a Wall Street lawyer with Washington connections. He thought the Bureau would be a good political incubator for his son. Like military service without the risk. So pal Edgar throws the kid into a high-profile assignment, safely under the wing of veteran agent Dwight Stone.”

Stone stops speaking for a few moments and simply listens. I hear only the crackle of the fire and, perhaps, the rush of the swollen Slate behind the cabin.

“Portman didn’t give a shit about the Payton case,” he says finally. “All he cared about was kissing ass and getting promoted to the Puzzle Palace.”

“But you cared. Althea Payton told me you did.”