“Sonny boy, you fucked up. You had the right idea, but you got caught. It’s just a good thing you got caught by my people, or life would be getting very uncomfortable right now. In fact, it still could. Then Hoover talked to Leo’s papa. It’s a lot like The Godfather. Nothing formal, but everything understood. Fealty. Absolute loyalty.” Stone modulates his voice into a scratchy Marlon Brando impersonation: “‘Someday, I may ask you to perform a difficult service, but until that day, accept this favor as a gift.’ From that day forward, Hoover owned the Marston family. All their influence, everything.”

“Hoover buried your evidence?”

“All of it. Leo went back to his job and his future. The Payton investigation was allowed to die. Only Ray Presley paid a price.”

“Presley?”

“He’d shot at us on the highway, remember? Hoover wouldn’t let that pass. It was part of the price he demanded from Marston. Presley had to go down for something. Didn’t matter what.”

“Marston gave him up?”

“Didn’t even hesitate. Presley had a dozen sidelines for making money. His police job was just a fulcrum for the rest of it. He fenced stuff, collected protection money—”

“And sold dope.”

“Right. Amphetamines mostly, for truckers. Interstate transportation of federally regulated narcotics. Marston gave us everything we needed to nail him, and we fed it to the state police. They busted him on possession with intent to distribute. I showed up at the arrest, just so Presley would know it was payback.”

“Did he find out it was Marston who gave him up?”

“Not as far as I know. That’s the irony. Marston was right to trust Presley, but Presley was a fool to trust Marston. Presley’s like a dog that way.”

“A pit bull maybe.”

Stone goes through his little phone ritual again.

“You waiting for a call?”

“No.” He picks up his pistol, stands, and walks back to the front window.

“They still out there?”

“Still there.”

“So, the national security seal was completely bogus?”

Stone chuckles dryly. “Completely. Think about the Payton case. The Bureau had been tasked with destroying violent opposition to civil rights in the South. Instead, Hoover purposefully protected a race murderer for his own political ends. Normally, he would have added the Payton evidence to his personal files. The infamous blackmail files. But Payton’s file was too big for that. We had agents in Natchez generating reams of useless crap. The national security seal was an impenetrable shield.”

“Do you think the audiotape of Marston and Presley is still with the main file?”

“I doubt it. That was the critical evidence. It was probably taken to Hoover’s home when he died, with the other blackmail material. Shelves of books have been written about what might have happened to that stuff. You’ll never find that tape.”

“So, Marston’s motive was just—”