The Quiet Game by Greg Iles

Catherine’s Hospital,” Dad informs me from the door. “I see her all the time. And I’ve treated Miss Georgia for thirty-five years now.”
    â€œYo’ daddy a good doctor,” the elder Mrs. Payton says from the sofa, pointing a bony finger at me. “A good doctor.”
    My father has heard this ten thousand times, but he smiles graciously. “Thank you, Miss Georgia.”
    â€œI remember you makin’ house calls late at night,” Georgia Payton goes on, her voice reedy and difficult to follow as it jumps up and down the scale. “Givin’ shots and deliverin’ babies. Had you a spotlight back then to see the house numbers.”
    â€œAnd a pistol in my black bag,” Dad adds, chuckling.
    â€œSho’ did. I seen it once. You ever have to use it?”
    â€œNo, ma’am, thank God.”
    â€œMight have to one of these days, with all this crack in the streets. I told the pastor last Sunday, you want to find Satan, just pull up to one of them crack houses. Sheriff ought to burn ever’ one to the ground.”
    We all nod with enthusiasm, doing our best to foster a casual atmosphere. Blacks visiting socially in white homes—and vice versa—is still as rare as snowfall in Natchez, but this is not the reason for the general discomfort.
    â€œMr. Cage,” Althea says, focusing her liquid brown eyes on me, “we really appreciate you speaking out like you did in the paper.”
    â€œPlease call me Penn,” I implore her, embarrassed by thanks for a few lines tossed off without any real feeling for the victims of the crime.
    â€œMr. Penn,” says Georgia Payton, “ain’t no white man in thirty years said what you said in the paper today. My boy was kilt outside his job in nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and all the po-lices did was sweep it under the rug.”
    Her statement hangs suspended in crystalline silence. I sense my father’s reflexive desire to answer her charge, to try to mitigate the behavior of the law enforcement figures of the period. But the murder remains unsolved, and he has no idea what efforts were made to solve it, if any, or how sincere they might have been. Althea Payton looks momentarily disconcerted by her mother-in-law’s frankness, but then her eyes fill with calm resolution.
    â€œAre you still a lawyer, Mr. Cage?” she asks. “I mean, I know you’re a writer now. Can you still practice law?”
    I incline my head. “I’m still a member of the bar.”
    â€œWhat that mean?” asks Georgia.
    â€œI can still practice law, ma’am.”
    â€œThen we wants to hire you.”
    â€œFor what?”
    â€œI think I know,” Dad says.
    â€œTo find out who murdered my baby,” the old woman says. “The po-lice don’t want to do it. FBI don’t want to. The county lawyer neither.”
    â€œThe district attorney,” Althea corrects her.
    â€œYou’ve spoken to the district attorney about this?”
    Althea nods. “Several times. He has no interest in the case.”
    Dad emits a sigh easily interpreted as, Big surprise.
    â€œWe hired us a detective too,” Georgia says. “I even wrote to that man on Unsolved Mysteries , that good-looking white man from that old gangster TV show.”
    â€œRobert Stack?” asks my mother.
    â€œYes,” Althea confirms. “We got back one letter from the show’s producer expressing interest, but after that nothing.”
    â€œWhat about this detective?” I ask. “What happened with him?”
    â€œWe hired a man from Jackson first. He poked around downtown for an afternoon, then told us there was nothing to find.”
    â€œWhite man,” Georgia barks. “A no-good.”
    â€œThen we hired a detective from Chicago,” Althea says in a tense voice. “He flew down and spent a week in the Eola Hotel—”
    â€œColored man,” the old