LITMIR.BIZ

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are you guys doing?” I ask in the calmest voice I can muster. “Dr. Elliott was clearly defending himself. You heard what he said during the fight.”

      “Judge’ll decide that,” says the young cop. “Step back, sir.”

      “The most you can arrest him for is simple assault.”

      “I’m just doing what the chief told me to do.”

      “The chief of police told you to do this?”

      “That’s right. You got a problem, take it up with him.”

      “I’ll do that,” I reply, but what I’m thinking is, Son of a bitch! This situation is becoming more political by the minute. The police chief should have ordered the patrolman to let Drew go, or at most to arrest him for simple assault, then release him on a recognizance bond. An arrest for aggravated assault can only mean one thing: the chief wants Drew and Steve in his custody. And the only reason I can see for that is the long-running turf war between the police department and the sheriff’s office. In the arena of that conflict, the police chief has been handed a gift from the gods. He can now hold Sheriff Byrd’s two main murder suspects in his jail for at least one night.

      The boys cuss and spit at Drew as the cops haul them to their feet. One’s face is a mass of blood below the nose; the other’s left eye is already swelling shut. For a man defending himself against three assailants, Drew did a lot of damage.

      A second squad car pulls into the lot. As the police herd their charges into the cars, I promise Drew I’ll meet him at the station. Then I pull Susan Salter into the courtyard of Drew’s office building. She’s hyperventilating now, and her tears are flowing nonstop.

      “I don’t understand!” she says in a stunned voice. “This morning everything was fine, and now … everything’s upside down! It doesn’t make any sense. How could they think Dr. Elliott could do anything against the law?”

      Is she talking about the fight? I wonder. Or about Kate’s murder? I take hold of Susan’s thin wrists and speak in a reassuring voice. “Listen to me, Susan. I don’t know how much Drew told you about his situation, but I do know this: he trusted you with his life. He told me you’d worked for him nine years, and that he had absolute confidence in you. What you just saw will be the talk of the town by tonight. If you add to that talk, it can only hurt Drew. Do you understand?”

      She sucks her upper lip into her mouth as though thinking hard, then nods and wipes her nose. “Don’t worry about me saying anything. I hate gossip. That’s why I quit the hospital. All they do over there is cheat on their spouses and gossip about it afterward. I think they like the talking better than the cheating.”

      “Will you tell me what you saw in the parking lot?”

      She nods helpfully. “It happened just like I said. We were standing there talking about recombinant DNA, and this big pickup truck screeched to a stop beside us.” She points at a jacked-up orange pickup parked thirty yards away. “There were three guys inside. They looked like high school kids, but big, you know? I think Dr. Elliott knew them, because he waved and spoke to the driver. But then a guy jumped out of the backseat and started screaming at Dr. Elliott.”

      “What did he scream?”

      “Curse words, mostly.”

      “Try to remember exactly.”

      Susan has a primitive Baptist’s reluctance to utter profanity. “‘You motherfucker,’ I think he said first. “You sick mother-fucker. It was you. It was you all along.’”

      Oh wow. This is only a preview of the community reaction to Drew’s secret private life. “Did Drew say anything back?”

      “No. He looked too shocked to speak.”

      “Go on.”

      “‘You need your ass kicked,’ I think the boy said next, and then he jumped at Dr. Elliott like he was going to hit him. Dr. Elliott called him by name then. He told Steve to calm down and get back in the truck. But the kid just threw up his fists and kept jumping forward like he was going to hit Dr. Elliott. I was kind of freaked out, but not really scared at that point. It was so weird. But then the other two guys jumped out of the truck.”

      “Is that when the bat came into it?”

      “No. That only happened after Drew knocked the other two guys down.”

      “Who threw the first punch?”

      “The first kid. Steve.”

      “Did Drew fight back?”

      “Not at first. He kept trying to calm Steve down. But after Steve hit him five or six times, Dr. Elliott shoved him backward. Steve fell down, and I think that really embarrassed him. He screamed for the other guys to help, and at that point the other two guys jumped Dr. Elliott.”

      “What happened then?”

      Susan shakes her head as though in wonder. “I’m not really sure. I mean, it happened so fast. It was like Dr. Elliott knew how to fight and they didn’t. They were really mad, and they were screaming and throwing punches everywhere, but it looked sort of like my husband wrestling with my ten-year-old son. The second it got serious, it was like, over.”

      “How did the baseball bat come into it?”

      “Steve went down first, but while Dr. Elliott was handling the other two, Steve grabbed the bat from the truck.” Susan shakes her head as if reliving the fight. “It was scary. I’ve never seen Dr. Elliott like that. I saw him once at the hospital picnic. He played softball with his shirt off, and he was like, ripped, you know?”

      “I know. I grew up with him.”

      “But he wasn’t that competitive, not like the other guys. He was just out there for fun. But today … Dr. Elliott did everything he could to stop that fight, but once he knew it was going to happen, he just switched on. I’ve never seen anything like that.”

      I can understand Susan’s awe. Steve Sayers and his buddies have been pumping iron seriously for two or three years. But their steroid-plumped muscles are no match for the speed and strength that genetics bestowed upon Drew Elliott at birth. And their teenage anger couldn’t begin to compare with the deadly resolve of a man who sensed he was fighting for his life.

      “But in your mind, it was the other guys’ fault?” I ask.

      “Oh, totally. Absolutely. They wanted a piece of Dr. Elliott, and they pushed him until they got it. Dear Lord.”

      “All right, Susan. Will you be okay if I go on to the station now?”

      She nods uncertainly. “I think so. Thanks for staying with me.”

      “Glad to do it. And you’re not going to talk to anybody about this? Other than the police?”

      “No, I understand.” She looks suddenly upset again. “Mr. Cage, is Drew going to be all right?”

      The look in Susan Salter’s eyes tells me she’s more than half in love with her boss, but I don’t even want to go there. I nod at her as though any other outcome would be impossible. “You take care, okay?”

      “I will.”

      As I hurry back to my Saab, one thought fills my head: How did Steve Sayers find out that Drew was involved with Kate? But once in the car, another, more frightening thought takes its place: Who else knows about it?

       NINE

      Natchez police headquarters is a one-story building sandwiched between a Pizza Hut and an abandoned strip mall on the north side of town. The PD used to be downtown, but that more stately building was razed to make room for a modern juvenile justice center. By

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