He nods thoughtfully. “Cage, in all the mountains of shit, sometimes one case gets to you. You know? For me, it was that one. Payton was a good guy who basically minded his own business and tried to better his lot in life. And he got killed for it. When I found out he’d served in Korea, it got personal. I’d known some black noncoms over there, and they were okay. Payton survived Chosin Reservoir only to get blown to shit by some gutless rednecks in his home town.” Stone slaps the cordless phone against his thigh with a percussive pop. “Man, I wanted to nail those sons of bitches.

“My first steps were the same ones you’ve been taking. Frank Jones, his wife, then Betty Lou Jackson. Beckham now, I guess. Betty Lou knew something, but she wouldn’t talk. Then Portman and me got shot at out on Highway 61. Hoover got irritated after that incident. Scumbags shooting at the FBI and getting away with it didn’t fit his PR plan. He authorized a lot more money and muscle. I cracked Betty Lou, and that put Presley at the scene. Portman and I braced Presley at home, and he told us to stick it. That bastard didn’t rattle easy, I’ll give him that. Even when we got the Fork Polk thieves to admit selling him the C-4, Presley told us to go to hell.

“We put on the full-court press. On my request, Hoover authorized illegal wiretaps on Presley’s home, plus all the nearby pay phones. We bribed local Klansmen, but they couldn’t find out a thing about Payton’s death. Whoever killed Payton had acted without Klan authority. We put intermittent surveillance on Presley, tight enough to annoy him but loose enough for him to shake. After a week he called Leo Marston from a pay phone near his house.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing incriminating. Said he wanted to talk, somewhere private. Marston was the D.A. then, of course. Nothing illegal about wanting to talk to the district attorney. I thought Presley might be trying to cut a deal with the state authorities to avoid any sort of federal prosecution. The Klan had a lot of influence in Parchman in those days, and they could have assured him an easy stretch. They also had influence over pardons.”

“But making a deal wasn’t Presley’s style.”

“No,” Stone agrees. “Anyway, the second Hoover heard Leo Marston’s name in connection with the case, the whole case changed. The director assumed personal control.”

“Why?”

“Hoover was a creature of politics. He demanded total control over every case that involved anyone who could do him good or harm down the road.”

“What happened next?”

“We did a black bag job on Marston’s mansion. Bugged it top to bottom. Phones, the house, the garden, gazebo, the works. It was a beautiful job.”

“You and Portman?”