LITMIR.BIZ

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      As she ends her call, she speaks three or four consecutive sentences, and a strange chill runs through me. Ivy League Boston alloyed with something softer, a Brahmin who spent her summers far away. On the telephone this morning I didn’t catch it, but coupled with her face, that voice transforms my suspicion to certainty. Caitlin Masters is the woman I spoke to on the flight to Baton Rouge. Kate … Caitlin.

      She holds out her hand to shake mine, and I step back. “You’re the woman from the plane. Kate.”

      Her smile disappears, replaced by embarrassment. “I’m surprised you recognize me, dressed like I was that day.”

      “You lied to me. You told me you were a lawyer. Was that some kind of setup or what?”

      “I didn’t tell you I was a lawyer. You assumed I was. I told you I was a First Amendment specialist, and I am.”

      “You knew what I thought, and you let me think it. You lied, Ms. Masters. This interview is over.”

      As I turn to go, she takes hold of my arm. “Our meeting on that plane was a complete accident. I want an interview with you, but it wouldn’t be worth that kind of trouble. I was flying from Atlanta to Baton Rouge, and I happened to be sitting across the aisle from you. End of story.”

      “And you happened to be reading one of my novels?”

      “No. I’ve been trying to get your number from your parents for a couple of months. A lot of people in Mississippi are interested in you. When the Hanratty story broke, I picked up one of your books in the airport. It’s that simple.”

      I step away from the door to let a pair of middle-aged women through. “Then why not tell me who you were?”

      “Because when I was waiting to board, I was sitting by the pay phones. I heard you tell someone you didn’t want to talk to reporters for any reason. I knew if I told you I was a newspaper publisher, you wouldn’t talk to me.”

      “Well, I guess you got your inside scoop on how I killed Hanratty’s brother.”

      She draws herself erect, offended now. “I haven’t printed a word of what you told me, and I don’t plan to. Despite appearances to the contrary, my journalistic ethics are beyond reproach.”

      “Why were you dressed so differently on the plane?”

      She actually laughs at this. “I’d just given a seminar to a group of editors in Atlanta. My father was there, and I try to be a bit more conventional when he’s around.”

      I can see her point. Not many fathers would approve of the blouse she’s wearing today.

      “Look,” she says, “I could have had that story on the wire an hour after you told it to me. I didn’t tell a soul. What better proof of trustworthiness could anyone give you?”

      “Maybe you’re saving it for one big article.”

      “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to. In fact, we could just eat lunch, and you can decide if you want to do the interview another time or not.”

      Her candid manner strikes a chord in me. Perhaps she’s manipulating me, but I don’t think so. “We came to do an interview. Let’s do it. The airplane thing threw me, that’s all.”

      “Me too,” she says with a smile. “I liked Annie, by the way.”

      “Thanks. She liked you too.”

      As we step into the main dining space of the restaurant, a smattering of applause starts, then fills the room. I look around to see whose birthday it is, then realize that the applause is for me. A little celebrity goes a long way in Mississippi. I recognize familiar faces in the crowd. Some belong to guys I went to school with, now carrying twenty or thirty extra pounds—as I did until Sarah’s illness—others to friends of my parents or simply well-wishers. I smile awkwardly and give a little wave to cover the room.

      “I told you,” says Caitlin. “There’s a lot of interest.”

      “It’ll wear off. As soon as they realize I’m the same guy who left, they’ll be yawning in my face.”

      When we arrive at our table, she stands stiffly behind her chair, her eyes twinkling with humor. “You’re not going to pull my chair out for me?”

      “You didn’t look the type.”

      She laughs and takes her seat. “I wasn’t before I got here. Pampering corrupts you fast.”

      While we study the menus, a collection of classic Cajun dishes, I try to fathom how Caitlin Masters wound up in the job she has. The Examiner has always been a conservative paper, owned when I was a boy by a family which printed nothing that reflected negatively upon city worthies. Later it was sold to a family-owned newspaper chain which continued the tradition of offending as few citizens as possible, especially those who bought advertising space. In Natchez the gossip mills have always been a lot more accurate than anything you could find in the Examiner. Caitlin seems an improbable match, to say the least.

      She closes her menu and smiles engagingly. “I’m younger than you thought I’d be, aren’t I?”

      “A little,” I reply, trying not to look at her chest. In Mississippi, wearing a blouse that sheer without a bra is practically a request to be arrested.

      “My father owns the chain. I’m doing a tour of duty down here to learn the ropes.”

      “Ah.” One mystery cleared up.

      “Okay if we go on the record now?”

      “You have a tape recorder?”

      “I never use them.”

      I take out a Sony microcassette recorder borrowed from my father. “The bitter fruit of experience.”

      Our waitress appears and takes our orders (crawfish beignets and iced tea for us both), then stands awkwardly beside the table as though waiting for something. She looks about twenty and, though not quite in Caitlin Masters’s league, is quite lovely. Where Masters is angles and light, the waitress is round and brown and sultry, with the guarded look of the Cajun in her eyes.

      “Yes?” Caitlin says, looking up at her.

      “Um, I was wondering if Mr. Cage would sign a book for me.”

      “Sure,” I tell her. “Do you have one with you?”

      “Well—I live over the restaurant.” Her voice is hesitant and terribly self-conscious. “Just temporarily, you know. I have all your books up there.”

      “Really? I’d be glad to sign them for you.”

      “Thanks a lot. Um, I’ll get your iced tea now.”

      As she walks away, Caitlin gives me a wry smile. “What does a few years of that do for your ego?”

      “Water off a duck’s back. Let’s start.”

      She gives me a look that says, Yeah, right, then picks up her notebook. “So, are you here for a visit, or is this something more permanent?”

      “I honestly have no idea. Call it a visit.”

      “You’ve obviously been living a life of emotional extremes this past year. Your last book riding high on the best-seller list, your wife dying. How—”

      “That subject’s off limits,” I say curtly, feeling a door slam somewhere in my soul.

      “I’m sorry.” Her eyes narrow like those of a surgeon judging the pain of a probe. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

      “Wait a minute. You asked on the plane if my wife was traveling with me. Did you know then that she was dead?”

      Caitlin looks at the table. “I knew your wife had died. I didn’t know how recently. I saw the ring …” She folds her hands on the table, then looks

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