“I’m five minutes from the cemetery. Leave now.”

“All right.”

Livy’s borrowed Fiat is parked at the foot of Jewish Hill when I arrive, next to the low stone wall of the city cemetery. She got here first because I took a wide circle through town to avoid the police. I park behind the Fiat and shove Ike’s pistol into my waistband, then get out and walk up to the Spyder.

Livy is not in the car.

To my left, across Cemetery Road, stands the dark silhouette of Weymouth Hall, an antebellum mansion that marks the two-hundred-foot drop to the river, its widow’s walk silhouetted against the stars. To my right is the low wall and the nearly vertical slope of Jewish Hill. One mile south along the bluff, the police are taping off the pecan plant as a crime scene.

I climb the wall and push through the shrubbery, then dig my hands into the face of the hill and begin climbing. As I near the top, a ghostly figure appears at the edge, looking down at me.

It’s Livy. Her hair is flying behind her, caught in the wind blowing up the bluff from the river. She’s wearing a white blouse, a fitted jacket, and slacks tapered to the ankles. She bends and catches my hands, then pulls me up to the flat plateau of gravestones, statuary, and mausoleums.

“Did you call the police?” I ask.

She brushes a strand of hair from her eyes. “Daddy called some off-duty cops. They got there before I left.”

“How did he react when you told him Presley might be coming to kill him?”

“What do you want, Penn?”

“It scared him to death, didn’t it? Livy, your father gave the cops what they needed to send Presley to Parchman when we were kids.”

“Really?” A hard smile tightens her mouth. “Good.”

“What I don’t understand is why my call didn’t scare you.”

She walks past me to the edge of the hill. The lights of Vidalia, Louisiana, a mile away, outline her like another marble angel among the stones. “Why are we here, Penn? What’s the big mystery?”

“You are.”

She turns back to me. “I’m the mystery?”

“You’re the mystery of my life. But I understand you now.”

Something flickers in her eyes. I can’t tell if she’s intrigued or afraid. “Do you? Enlighten me, then.”

“I know who Jenny’s father is.”

Even in the dark I can tell she has gone rigid. She turns away from me, then back, her chin held high. “How do you know? Did he tell you?”

“Tell me? God, no. He hates me. Why would he tell me?”

She shakes her head. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you know this. It’s so pathetic.”