The Inside Ring Read online

  He was relieved when the boat finally emerged from the tunnel of cypress trees and he entered another open area. Relief soon turned again to panic. He had been paddling almost three hours. He knew from the timing of last night’s events that he should have been less than an hour from dry land. He thought he was still heading east but somehow he must have gotten off course, winding between the cypress trees. He realized later he was following the sun, and as the sun moved from east to west, it was traveling in an arc. Should’ve joined the Scouts.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do next. He was lost and getting more lost. He knew the Okefenokee Swamp covered more than six hundred square miles and he could paddle around in circles until he starved to death. Once again some deity—DeMarco was beginning to worship all of them—came to his aid.

  He came out from behind a small stand of magnolia trees and saw, a hundred yards from him, a flat-bottomed boat and two kids fishing. He had never before loved the sight of children as he did at that moment.

  “Hey, there!” he yelled. “You boys!”

  The kids looked over at DeMarco in panic. They probably weren’t supposed to be fishing in the swamp.

  “Yeah,” one of them said, his voice leery, probably wondering if he and his buddy could outrun DeMarco in their boat.

  “Heh, heh,” DeMarco said. “I’m a tourist. I’m lost. Which way’s the highway that takes you to Folkston?”

  They looked at DeMarco as though he was deranged, then one of them said, “Thataway. About a quarter mile.” He pointed in a direction that was ninety degrees from the direction DeMarco had been heading.

  When DeMarco reached the highway he held the canoe down to sink it—he didn’t want somebody finding Estep’s boat too soon—then walked up to the main highway. He realized he looked a sight. His clothes were wrinkled and dirty, his hair was plastered to his scalp, and his pants were torn where Estep had stabbed him. And he was barefoot.

  He didn’t know which direction Folkston was, so he flipped a mental coin and started walking. A car came by and he stuck out his thumb. Naturally, since he looked like a serial killer, the driver didn’t stop. He thumbed at two more cars before a man driving a battered Toyota stopped for him.

  As DeMarco started to get into the car he saw the driver look down suspiciously at his bare feet.

  “Heh, heh,” DeMarco said, looking sheepish. “Met myself this gal last night and she took me back to her place. She didn’t tell me she was married. Lucky the only thing I lost was my shoes.”

  The driver smiled broadly and said, “Yeah, I been there before. Where ya headed?”

  37

  Emma was still missing when DeMarco returned to the motel.

  He wanted to get out of Charlton County and he wanted to get out now. It wouldn’t be long before Max Taylor would wonder why Dale Estep hadn’t reported in, and then Taylor and his friend Morgan would come looking for DeMarco. DeMarco didn’t want to be found sitting in a room with no back door. He changed clothes, thankful he’d had the foresight to bring a second pair of shoes, and threw his suitcase into the trunk of the Mustang and peeled out of the motel parking lot.

  Since he knew the way this time it only took him half an hour to get to Hattie McCormack’s place. Emma’s car was still parked in front of Hattie’s house and the house was empty. He knew he had to find Emma but driving around the county looking for her seemed futile. And he couldn’t ask the Charlton County sheriff’s office for help; not only were they under Taylor’s control but Taylor could have them out looking for him. He’d drive to Waycross, call the Speaker again, and get state or federal authorities involved. And Mahoney had damn well better help.

  DeMarco took a slip of paper from his wallet and wrote: “Emma, I hope to hell you get this message. I almost got killed last night. I’m stopping at Jillian Mattis’s house to ask her a question then I’m getting out of this county as fast as I can to get some help. Call me on my cell as soon as you read this.” He put the note under the windshield wiper of Emma’s car.

  Emma had to be alive, DeMarco told himself. She was too tough and too smart to kill, and he was certain she had been in situations more dangerous than this during her career. A bunch of Georgia yokels didn’t stand a chance against her—at least he hoped so.

  IT WAS EARLY evening and the light was starting to fade when DeMarco arrived at Jillian Mattis’s house in Uptonville. Uptonville was on the way to Waycross and DeMarco was going to try one last time to find the links between Taylor and Donnelly and Billy Mattis. Jillian Mattis was the only hope he had left.

  He knocked on the screen door but no one answered. The inner door was open and through the wire mesh of the screen he could see Jillian sitting on a sofa in a darkened living room. DeMarco let himself in and walked over to where she was seated and said, “Mrs. Mattis, I need to talk to you.”

  Jillian had a glass in her hand and DeMarco could see a half-empty bottle of bourbon on the end table next to the sofa. Her fine features were distorted from alcohol and grief. Her thick, gray-streaked auburn hair was tangled and she had on the same shapeless, faded gray housedress she had worn the day DeMarco met her.

  Jillian didn’t acknowledge DeMarco’s presence even though he was standing directly in front of her. She sipped from the whiskey glass, then reached up and absentmindedly began to twist a tendril of hair in a tight coil around her finger. DeMarco touched her shoulder gently to get her attention and said, “I’m sorry about Billy, Mrs. Mattis, but I have to talk to you.”

  Without looking at him, Jillian said listlessly, “You’re that fella was here the other day. What’s your name again?”

  “It’s Joe DeMarco, Mrs. Mattis. I’m an investigator who works for Congress. I’m investigating the assassination attempt on the President, ma’am. And your son’s death.”

  Jillian nodded but DeMarco wasn’t sure she had understood him.

  She sighed and said, “Well, you’ll just have to excuse my manners, Mr. DeMarco.”

  “What?” DeMarco said.

  “For not offering you a drink. I’m afraid I’m gonna need everything in that bottle there to see me through the night. And I really don’t care who you work for; I’d just appreciate you leavin’. I don’t want to talk. I want to get drunk and cry and mourn my baby.”

  DeMarco nodded sympathetically but he didn’t leave. He pulled a chair close to the couch and sat down facing her, his knees almost touching hers. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Mattis, but we have to talk.”

  He waited for Jillian Mattis to acknowledge his statement but she didn’t. She just sat staring off into that place where her mind was, twisting a lock of hair.

  “Mrs. Mattis,” DeMarco said, “I think Max Taylor was responsible for your son’s death.”

  Jillian Mattis made eye contact with DeMarco for the first time since he had entered the house. There was a look of shock on her face combined with numb confusion, like an accident victim moments after the crash.

  “What did you say?” Jillian said.

  “I said I think Taylor had your son killed, ma’am. I’m sorry to tell you this, but I think Taylor and Dale Estep—”

  “Dale’s a snake with feet,” Jillian said.

  “Yes. And he and Taylor forced Billy to help them plan the assassination attempt on the President. Your son gave them information about the President’s schedule and security arrangements. Billy also used the Secret Service’s files to locate a man they could frame for the shooting.”

  Jillian shook her head violently. “You’re a damn liar,” she said. “Billy would never do something like that and you’re a bastard for saying so.”

  “I’m telling you the truth, Mrs. Mattis,” DeMarco said softly.

  He quickly told her the whole story: about the warning note, and how he and Emma had followed Billy and questioned him, and how Billy had reacted, calling Taylor and running to Estep. At first Jillian just shook her head, emphasizing her refusal to accept what DeMarco was saying, but by the time he finished she sat w
ith her eyes closed, her head hanging, deflated by the strength of DeMarco’s conviction.

  “Mrs. Mattis, I need you to tell me anything you know about all this. It’s important; you must see that. Taylor might try to kill the President again.”

  Jillian responded in a soft voice, a voice that was almost musical, like a whispered lullaby. “He was so beautiful, my Billy. You should have seen him, mister, when he was young. Sweetest little boy God ever made. Curly blond hair, soft as a kitten’s fur. And an angel’s smile. Didn’t have a mean streak in him.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t, Mrs. Mattis. I know he was a fine man, a genuine hero. He didn’t want to help them but Taylor and Estep made him.” DeMarco didn’t know this for a fact but it was the only thing that made sense.

  Jillian tried to say something but she couldn’t form the words. Then her face contorted into a mask of tragedy. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out, and two tears spilled from her eyes leaving parallel trails through the stricken landscape of her features. To regain control, she hugged her arms to her chest and began to rock her upper body gently back and forth.

  “God, how I hate him,” she said.

  “Who Mrs. Mattis?”

  “That bastard, Max. He ruined my life, then he ruined Billy’s.”

  He didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “I’ve seen Billy’s phone records, Mrs. Mattis,” DeMarco said. “The month before the assassination attempt he called you more than a dozen times. What did you talk about? Why did he call so much?”

  Still rocking, she said, “He was trying to get me to move up north, to Virginia, to live with him and Darcy. Said he was worried about me and wanted me to move away from here. I told him I couldn’t. I told Billy I didn’t want to live in a big city and be a burden to him and his wife. But Billy was just frantic to get me to move. That’s why he called so much; he was trying to get me to change my mind. I couldn’t understand why he was so insistent but now I guess I do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Max must have told Billy he’d . . . he’d hurt me if Billy didn’t do what he wanted. The only way Billy would have done what you said, was if Max had threatened me or Billy’s wife. Billy wouldn’t have been afraid for himself. He probably thought he could protect me if I came to live with him.”

  It was nice to know Billy’s motive but it didn’t help all that much. DeMarco still didn’t understand the links between the players in this bizarre game.

  “The last time I was here, I mentioned a man named Patrick Donnelly. You said you didn’t know him.”

  “That’s right. I never heard of him. Who is he again?”

  “Head of the Secret Service, Billy’s boss. He’s involved in all this somehow.”

  She shrugged and said, “Well I don’t know him.”

  “How did Billy get a job with the Secret Service in the first place?” DeMarco asked.

  “His daddy helped him. The bastard.”

  “His daddy? You mean Estep?”

  “Dale? No, I don’t mean Dale. I mean Max. Max is Billy’s daddy, mister.”

  DeMarco sat back in the chair in shock. It was hard enough to believe Taylor was Billy’s father and even harder to believe he had had his own son killed, but Jillian Mattis wasn’t through with her revelations.

  “He’s Dale’s daddy too,” she said.

  “What? You mean Taylor—”

  “I mean Max Taylor’s a damn king in these parts!” she said, her voice rising to a shriek. “He owns everything. Everything! And if he sees something he wants, he just takes it. And you know what Max wants most? Pretty young girls, that’s what.”

  She didn’t seem particularly drunk, but she wasn’t making sense.

  “Mrs. Mattis, do you mean—”

  “And if she’s young and poor like I was, then she can’t move away when Max starts sniffin’ after her. And if she’s got a man, God help him, Max just sends Morgan after the poor bastard.”

  “Did Taylor rape you, Mrs. Mattis?” DeMarco asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  Jillian Mattis’s eyes flared like a match igniting, and then just as quickly went cold again. “I was fifteen when Max took an interest in me. He was almost forty at the time. Would you call that rape?”

  “Wasn’t there anyone who tried to stop him?”

  Jillian Mattis shook her head at the stupidity of DeMarco’s question. “My daddy told Mr. Taylor he’d sure appreciate it if he’d stay away from me, me bein’ so young and all. And Daddy was as firm as you can be when you’re talkin’ to the man who owns the mill you work at. Well, Max didn’t have Morgan then but he had a man named Cooper, who was just like Morgan. Cooper shot Daddy’s dog to make his point.” Jillian laughed, a metallic sound devoid of humor. “Truth is, I think Daddy was more upset about that dog than he was about me. I was sixteen when I had Billy and by the time I turned seventeen Max was tired of me. He set me up in this little house and I’ve been here ever since.”

  Her lips twisted into a bitter smile. “I’ve had a lot of truck drivers in my bed,” she said, “men just passin’ through, because no one in these parts was going to have anything to do with me. Max didn’t want me anymore but he didn’t want anyone else to have me either.”

  DeMarco couldn’t begin to imagine the emptiness of Jillian Mattis’s life: a life that had effectively ended when she was fifteen years old, trapped forever in this stifling backwater, waiting tables, used and discarded by a man so powerful that other suitors were too frightened to approach her.

  “Did Billy know Maxwell Taylor was his father?”

  “Yeah. So did everyone else in the damn county but Billy wasn’t allowed to talk about it. Max was proud of the children he’d sired, like a damn stud bull, but he didn’t want anyone having legal claim to him. He let Billy call him Uncle Max, but that’s as far as he’d go toward acknowledging his son.”

  “Was Dale Estep’s mother taken against her will also?”

  “I don’t know. Max was young when Dale was born; he wasn’t rich and powerful then. But I do know that Dale turned out just like his daddy. He was bad enough as a boy, but when he came back from that war he was crazy—and meaner than a copperhead. Dale’s the heir to Max Taylor’s throne.”

  DeMarco didn’t bother to tell her that the only thing Dale Estep would inherit was a swampy half acre of hell. “Have there been other women, Mrs. Mattis? I mean young girls like you were at the time?”

  “Will you quit callin’ me Mrs. Mattis!” she said. “There ain’t no Mr. Mattis. My name’s Jillian.”

  “What about other women, Jillian?”

  “You’ve met Max. What do you think?”

  She still hadn’t answered his question. “I saw a young girl at Taylor’s house the other day,” DeMarco said. “He called her Honey. Do you have any idea who she is?”

  “Max calls us all Honey. But yeah, I know that poor simple child. Her name’s Cissy Parks. Max will burn for what he’s doing to that girl.”

  “And for what he did to you, Jillian.”

  “No, you don’t understand. Cissy’s his own daughter.”

  “Ah, Christ,” DeMarco said, his stomach tightening in a spasm of revulsion.

  “Max took a shine to Cissy’s mamma fifteen, sixteen years ago, and got her pregnant. When Cissy gets to the same age, he goes after her. Even Max has never stooped this low before. The older he gets, the crazier he gets. Crazy and evil. And like I said, the child’s simple. I doubt she even knows what’s happening to her.”

  This was something DeMarco could use. Taylor was committing statutory rape and incest. Maybe he could get somebody that wasn’t local to investigate the matter. If Jillian would come forward, and if there were other women like her, they could put the bastard away until he was dead.

  DeMarco realized he had gotten sidetracked by the news that Taylor was Billy’s father. “Jillian, you said Taylor arranged Billy’s job with the Secret Service. How did he do that?”

&nbs
p; “When Billy got out of the army he got it into his head that he wanted to join the FBI. He also wanted to get away from here. Well, I’d never asked Max for any favors before but I went to see him about Billy. I asked him, him being so rich, if there was anything he could do to help Billy get a job with the FBI.”

  She glanced over at a photograph of Billy on the television set. He was wearing an army uniform, his chest decorated with rows of medals, and he looked about twelve years old. DeMarco was again struck by the handsome purity of Billy Mattis—Lancelot in olive drab. He should never have been dragged into this sordid mess.

  “Max said he didn’t know anybody in the FBI but he knew a fella in the Secret Service. He told Billy to send in an application and a couple weeks later he had a job. I don’t know who Max talked to.”

  DeMarco did, but he still didn’t understand why Taylor had a special relationship with Donnelly.

  DeMarco looked at his watch. He needed to get going; the longer he stayed, the greater the chance that Max Taylor or his pet police force would find him. But there was something else he had to know.

  “I can’t believe nobody’s ever tried to stop him, Jillian. I can’t accept that the people here just allow him to drag a young girl to his bed like he’s some kind of feudal lord.”

  Jillian looked at DeMarco in disgust. “You don’t get it. I didn’t say nobody ever tried to stop him. My daddy did, and he got a dead dog for his trouble and the message that it coulda been him. Another fella, fella named John Chism, he tried to get the state attorney’s office interested. They sent this lawyer down from the capital. Well, Max paid off the lawyer and after the lawyer left, Morgan beat John so bad it put him in a wheelchair. Handsome man, he was. Drools down his chin now while he sits in that chair.

  “’Nother time,” she continued, “a young man named Tom Hendricks shot at Max with a pistol ’cause Max was sniffin’ around Tommy’s wife. They’d only been married a year, them kids, neither of ’em over seventeen.”