Thornfield is hesitant to begin, but Kaiser finally convinces him we have no way to record what he might do. That’s the beauty of this method. The revelation only exists for a moment, and once the puzzle is completed, Sonny can simply toss the rectangles in the air, obliterating all evidence of what he’s “told” us.
After staring at the collection of names and words for a while, Sonny finally sets to work. His wrinkled hands move tentatively across the page, trembling as though he’s in the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. Time seems to slow as the quivering hands slide the rectangles across the page, and every second that ticks by feels like weight being piled on my heart. At any moment Carl Sims could call back and say they’ve found my father dead.
I feel trapped in some bizarre, real-world demonstration of the physics paradox known as Schrödinger’s cat. At this moment, while an old murderer uses a child’s puzzle to reveal the knowledge that resides in his aging brain, a body floats facedown in the Lusahatcha Swamp. At this moment, that body both is and is not my father. It exists as a superposition of probabilities, and I must somehow hold myself together while accepting both outcomes as possible. But soon Caitlin—or Carl Sims, or Jordan Glass—will turn that body over, and all possible states will collapse into the single observed reality: the corpse will either be my dead father or it will not. And even if one believes that this choice has already been made, or is known, until it is made known to me, both realities must be endured.
“Look,” Kaiser whispers, pointing over Sonny’s shoulder.
Thornfield hasn’t filled in the second column—the killers’ identities—but the third and fourth columns: the weapons and methods of torture or killing, and the dump sites.
Albert Norris
flamethrower
Pooky Wilson
flamethrower
Bone Tree
Joe Louis Lewis
flayed
Bone Tree
Jimmy Revels
shot
Bone Tree
Luther Davis
shot, drowned
Jericho Hole
Viola Turner
overdose
Home
Glenn Morehouse
overdose
Home
“You haven’t filled in the killers’ column,” Kaiser points out. “I get you leaving the dump site blank for Norris, because he died in the hospital. But if you want lifetime protection for your family, you’ve got to give me every name of the killers.”
Sonny looks up like a reluctant child. Then, slowly, he tears off a new sheet of paper, writes about twenty names on it—many of them repetitions—and asks Kaiser to cut them into rectangles. Once Kaiser has complied, Sonny slides most of the new squares onto the paper. After he’s finished, Kaiser stands so still that I’m sure he’s stopped breathing. The first two columns of the puzzle now read:
Albert Norris
Frank
Royal
Snake
Glenn
Pooky Wilson
Frank
Snake
Royal
Joe Louis Lewis
Frank
Snake
Glenn
Jimmy Revels
Snake
Glenn
Forrest
Royal
Luther Davis
Snake
Viola Turner
Glenn Morehouse
Royal
Snake
Forrest
As I stare at the gridded page, I note that our prisoner has not only omitted his own name from every murder, he’s listed no killers beside Viola Turner’s name. Before I can comment on this, he lifts the makeshift puzzle and shakes it in the air, creating a snowstorm of paper. While the rectangles flutter to the floor, he puts his head down on his desk like a schoolboy.
I give Kaiser an angry, questioning look.
“All right, Sonny,” he says, “we’ve got two problems. First, if you’re not willing to implicate yourself, this is worthless. You’ll be given immunity, but you have to tell the whole truth. And second, we need to know who killed Viola.”
“I need to know my grandkids are safe,” Sonny replies without looking up. “I ain’t saying nothing else, or doing no more damn puzzles.”
Crouching beside the table, I look into Thornfield’s one exposed eye. “Did you love your father, Sonny?”
The eye widens, then blinks slowly. “My father?”
“You see . . . if that corpse in the swamp turns out to be my father, my mother won’t be able to stand it. My little girl, either.”
“They can stand it,” he says. “People can stand almost anything, when they have to.”
Kaiser taps my shoulder, but I don’t move. “I’m not letting myself believe that corpse is my dad, Sonny. Any minute, I’m going to get a call saying it was some other poor bastard who crossed the Knox family. And when that happens, you’re going to go back into the cellblock and find out where Snake took my father.”
“Get up, Penn,” Kaiser says sharply.
As I stand, I say, “If you don’t, I’m going to flush this deal you two are making straight down the toilet.”
“No, he won’t,” Kaiser says, pulling at my arm. “He can’t, Sonny.”
“You don’t think so? All I have to do is let Forrest Knox know who’s been blabbing in here. I talked to him face-to-face less than an hour ago, and I’ve got a phone that’ll put me right back in touch with him.”
Thornfield’s eyes have locked onto mine, and the terror in them gives a measure of the fear Forrest inspires in his ranks.
“Get your ass out of here, Penn!” Kaiser explodes, his face bright red. “Now!”
“Not until I find out whether my father’s dead or alive.”
WHEN MOSE FINALLY BROUGHT his boat within reach of the corpse, Caitlin felt no relief. She had hoped for some distinguishing mark that would tell her the dead man wasn’t Tom, but she saw nothing like that. The skin of the back was pale, as Tom’s was, and since most of the corpse was jammed under some limbs, she couldn’t turn it over. She looked for the red marks of psoriasis she had sometimes seen on Tom’s back, but the water had probably soaked the skin to the point that they wouldn’t show, especially under the surface.
Mose cut the motor.
“Do you have a pole or something?” Caitlin asked.
“Pole no good for that. You need a hook. Grappling hook.”
“I think we’re going to have to wait for Carl,” Jordan said. “Maybe even for divers. Or at least waders.”
The longer Caitlin stared at the submerged corpse, the more terrified she became. She had to know whether that was Tom or not. Carl was probably going to call Penn on the way over here, and the first question he would ask would be who the dead man was.
“We have to identify him,” Caitlin said.
“How?” Jordan asked. “He doesn’t have a head.”