The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  “Jesus, Penn. I’m sorry. I always heard Brody had some kind of million-dollar collection down there. Never saw the place, though.”

  For an instant the two putative assassination rifles flash behind my eyes. “A million might be low,” I murmur. “Royal was trying to find out who had visited Pooky Wilson’s mother before she died. He knew there was a witness who could place him at the scene of Albert Norris’s death.”

  “How did he know that?”

  “Between you and me . . . I told him, earlier tonight.”

  Walker gives me an angry glare. “Damn it, Penn.”

  “I know. I’ll pay for that the rest of my life. But it’s done now. During the torture, Henry Sexton and Sleepy Johnston busted in to try to save us. We heard gunshots upstairs. They pretended to be SWAT, but Royal didn’t fall for it. When Sleepy Johnston came through the door, Brody got the drop on him. After Brody figured out who he was—by calling his lawyer, Claude Devereux—he shot Johnston in cold blood.”

  “So this Sleepy Johnston was the guy who went to see Pooky Wilson’s mother before she died?”

  “Right.”

  “And he was the one who called in tips to me as ‘Gates Brown’?”

  “That’s right. And visited Henry at the hospital.”

  “How the hell did Johnston know that Royal had kidnapped you?”

  “He was watching Brody’s house when we were brought there. He’d been following Royal ever since he got down here from Detroit. That’s why he was in a position to see Royal and Regan burn the Beacon building. He just didn’t get up the nerve to call your office until today. Or yesterday, I guess. Technically. Even after living in the North for forty years, Sleepy was still scared shitless of Royal and the Knoxes. He didn’t think Brody would ever pay for what he’d done.”

  “Why did he use a baseball player’s name as an alias?”

  “After Sleepy moved to Detroit, he was lonely. Gates Brown was a black star of the Tigers, and he’d had some trouble in his youth, just like Sleepy. But he helped the Tigers win the Series in ’68, and Sleepy saw him as a role model. But his luck ran out tonight.”

  Sheriff Dennis, an old baseball player himself, nods with understanding. “Pretty damn sad when you think about it.”

  “Worse than sad.”

  “So who died next? Henry?”

  “Henry was already wounded from the earlier attacks, but I think he’d got hit again in the gunfight upstairs at Royal’s. He could barely hold himself upright. Brody knocked him down and taunted him, then basically forgot him. But when Brody was about to fry Caitlin with that flamethrower—and I was chained to the wall—Henry crawled over there, got to his feet somehow, and protected her with his body.”

  “Henry did that?”

  “You haven’t heard the half of it. He went after Brody then. Brody was trying to fire that flamethrower, but once Henry lunged at him, he couldn’t fire without risking the flame blowing back on him. Then Henry closed with Brody, and after a brief struggle, Henry pulled the trigger and immolated them both.” I pause to get my voice back under control. “It was the most terrible and heroic thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

  “God almighty. And Randall Regan?”

  After a few seconds of silence, I say, “I killed Regan.”

  Sheriff Dennis grunts. “Well . . . I guess you can give me the details at the station.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But tell me this: if Sleepy Johnston was shot down in the basement, how’d he wind up outside on the ground?”

  “I carried him out.”

  The sheriff looks back at me, his eyes skeptical. “Dead?”

  “No. He was hit in the spine. I knew moving him might paralyze him, or even kill him, but he’d have burned alive otherwise.” I force back the images of Sleepy Johnston’s face as he resigned himself to death in those flames. “I didn’t even feel the weight, Walker. It was like lifting a little kid.”

  Dennis nods slowly. “That’s how it is when shit like that goes down.”

  “All I know is, two good men are dead. Three, if that Natchez cop guarding the Examiner was killed.”

  “I don’t envy you the call to Chief Logan. Unless you want me to make it.”

  I shake my head. “No, I owe Logan that.”

  “Well, at least Royal and Regan are dead. I won’t say I’m sorry to hear that news.”

  But at what cost? “Caitlin blames me for what happened tonight,” I say dully, voicing my deepest conviction. “She’ll never say it, but she does. She blames my father, too, of course.”

  “What about you? Do you blame your old man?”

  After a long silence, I hear myself say, “I guess I do. If he’d done anything but what he did, you know? If he’d opened up to me from the beginning, about Viola’s death? If he hadn’t jumped bail? How many people would still be alive?”

  “I don’t know, Penn. But wait till you can talk to him before you judge. Your daddy’s a good man. I feel sure there are things you don’t know. Things that will make all this make sense.”

  “I tried to write him off tonight, Walker. After Henry died. And Sleepy Johnston. But I can’t.”

  Sheriff Dennis turns and gives me a look of pure empathy. “He’s your father, man. He’s blood.”

  There it is. Blood. The empirical, evolutionary imperative. What more can be said? “Walker . . . tonight I asked Brody if he killed Viola Turner, or ordered her killed.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said no. He admitted that he’d raped Viola, along with some other Double Eagles. Snake Knox and the others. But he said he didn’t kill her. He said . . .”

  “What?”

  “I’ll deny I ever said this, Walker. But Royal said my father killed Viola.”

  Sheriff Dennis seems to freeze behind the wheel. Then he bites his lip for a few seconds. “Did he give you any details?”

  “He said Dad saved Viola’s life forty years ago, but he killed her two days ago. He laughed at the irony of it.”

  “Do you really believe that sick son of a bitch?”

  “He had no reason to lie, Walker. He thought Caitlin and I were about to die, and he’d already admitted ordering the murder of Pooky Wilson.”

  Dennis watches Highway 84 and takes his time before speaking. “But do you believe it? In your gut?”

  “I don’t know. Could Dad have killed Viola to ease her suffering? Yes. But murder her . . . Not one person I’ve talked to this week believed that’s possible. And in the end, I guess I don’t either.”

  “What did Henry think?”

  “Henry believed the Double Eagles killed her. They’d threatened to do it if she ever came back to Natchez, and she did. Henry didn’t have any doubt that they fulfilled their threat.”

  “That’s good enough for me, bub.”

  “I wish it were for me. I’ve come up with at least three different theories over the past three days. There are so many possibilities. It might even be that Lincoln Turner killed Viola, Dad knows that, and he’s covering up for him.”

  “Lincoln Turner, who accused your old man of murder in the first place? You’re saying he killed his own mother?”

  “Maybe. Possibly by accident, either in a botched mercy killing, or a layman’s effort to revive her with adrenaline.”

  “But . . . if that’s the case, why the hell would your father cover for that asshole?”

  “Because Dad thinks Lincoln is his son.”

  This silences Dennis for half a minute.

  “Jesus,” he says finally. “This is Tennessee Williams shit, here.”

  I’m surprised Walker Dennis knows enough about Tennessee Williams even to make that remark. “More like Faulkner, I’d say. Absalom, Absalom!”

  “Same difference. You know what I think?”

  “What?”

  “All this crap with Royal and Regan and the Double Eagles is a good thing. For your father, I mean. It’s obvious that there’s a whole lot more going on than the murder o
f one old nurse. And Viola was related to that civil rights kid, Revels. If you can just get your dad safely into custody—in Mississippi, not Louisiana—he’ll go to trial for killing Viola. Right?”

  “Aren’t you forgetting the dead Louisiana state trooper?”

  Dennis waves his hand dismissively. “Just forget that for a minute. I’m no lawyer, but I’ve watched my share of murder trials. If your father goes to trial for killing Nurse Viola, all you need is one thing—reasonable doubt. Am I right?”

  “You’re not wrong.”

  “Are you going to defend him yourself?”

  “Hell, no. Quentin Avery’s his lawyer.”

  “Even better. Avery could talk twelve dogs off a meat truck.”

  “We’re light-years from a courtroom, Walker.”

  “Maybe we are, and maybe we ain’t.” The sheriff looks back at me, his eyes glinting beneath his Stetson. “All this trouble goes back to the Knox family: Frank and the Double Eagles in the old days, and Forrest and his drug operation now. I say we go back to our first plan. Hit the Knoxes as hard as we can. Bust every meth cooker and mule in this parish. Turn up the heat on the Knox organization, big-time. Before you know it, we’ll have a couple of Double Eagles in the frying pan. And once they start singing, I’ll have Forrest by the balls. And Quentin Avery will have all he needs to stuff your dad’s jury full of reasonable doubt. When Quentin’s done preachin’, those jurors won’t be sure whether they’re right-handed or left.”

  “None of that matters,” I say in a flat voice, “if the state police kill Dad as a fugitive.”

  Dennis shrugs. “They haven’t got him yet, have they?”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Sure we do. If they’d caught him and Garrity, my radio would be chattering like my wife’s church group. No, my money says that old Texas Ranger has the trail smarts to keep your daddy loose for a while yet.”

  I don’t hold out much hope that any Double Eagles would give up enough information to save my father from police execution. But as the security lights of various businesses flash past in the darkness, a new strategy begins to take shape in my mind.

  “How soon could you organize a parishwide sweep of the meth dealers?” I ask.

  Dennis looks at his watch. “I can have my people ready to go six hours from now. Just before dawn.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I did ninety percent of the groundwork today. I told you that yesterday, and now we’re here.”

  The prospect of hitting the Knoxes hard in such a short time frame is tempting. “What about Agent Kaiser? Would you tell him about it?”

  The sheriff rolls his shoulders, then sets them as though to take a blow—or deliver one. “After I saw Kaiser tuck his tail between his legs when Captain Ozan showed up at Mercy Hospital? No way in hell. This is you and me, Penn. I’m tired of standing by while the Knoxes shit all over my parish. My cousin’s two years gone, and I know in my bones it was Forrest Knox’s outfit that killed him. I’m through sitting on my hands.”

  “Henry didn’t believe any Double Eagle would break his oath of silence under police pressure. Kaiser, either.”

  Walker snorts with contempt. “Forgive me speaking ill of the dead, but Henry Sexton didn’t know shit about law enforcement. And Kaiser’s a big-picture guy. It’s time to keep it simple. I’m a cop, you’re a prosecutor. Meth trafficking carries a mandatory fifteen- to thirty-year sentence in this state. Somebody on the Knox payroll will give us a Double Eagle or two to keep their asses out of Angola. And once we have an Eagle in my jail, it’s Katy-bar-the-door. Those old bastards are in their seventies now. You think they want to die on Angola Farm with a bunch of black lifers? Hell, no. Think about Glenn Morehouse facing cancer. He cracked, didn’t he?”

  “That’s different.”

  “You think so?” A bitter laugh escapes the sheriff’s lips. “Given a choice between dying of cancer in a nice hospital and rotting in Angola with a bunch of pissed-off soul brothers who know I used to be in the Ku Klux Klan? I’ll take the cancer every time, bubba. At least you get morphine to cope.”

  The sheriff just might be right about this. Some accused criminals live in mortal terror of incarceration—dirty cops, for example—but given the racial demographics of American prisons, I imagine former Ku Klux Klansmen rank right up there with child molesters when it comes to those who have real reason to fear going to jail.

  “All right,” I say softly. “I’m with you.”

  Walker glances at me, excitement in his face. “Seriously?”

  “Let’s do it.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  Since Dennis is going out on a limb for my father, I feel I owe him the truth. “Battle tactics. Forrest Knox is driving the manhunt for Dad and Walt. If we hit the Knox organization as hard as we can tomorrow, and keep hitting them, Forrest will have to devote a lot of energy to defending himself. And every minute he puts into fighting you and me is one less he has to track down my father.”

  “Damn straight,” Walker says. “When in doubt, run it up the middle. Don’t even give Forrest time to think about your daddy. I just wish we could get Agent Kaiser out of the way somehow, so he can’t interfere.”

  As soon as Walker says this, a memory of Brody Royal describing the murder of Pooky Wilson at the Bone Tree comes to me. “I might just be able to do that. Though not in the next six hours.”

  “Anything will help. Hey, look.” Sheriff Dennis points across the westbound lanes at the jarringly modern silhouette of the 1970s courthouse. “We made it. And no state cops in sight.”

  As Walker gives me a thumbs-up, I turn in my seat to make sure Walker’s brother-in-law is still behind us, and that Caitlin is still his passenger. Thankfully, I can see both their heads silhouetted by the headlights of the vehicle behind them.

  “Hey,” Walker says sharply. “Earlier today you said you wanted to ride with me on the busts. Do you still want to do that? Or should you lie low and let me take the heat?”

  I don’t even have to think about this question. “I’ve got my mother and daughter well hidden. What’s the point in letting you have all the fun?”

  The sheriff smacks his steering wheel and smiles. “All right, then. In six hours we hit those sons of bitches. And I’ll lay odds that in twenty-four hours we’ll have at least one Double Eagle in my jail, begging to tell us everything he knows.”

  Dennis pulls around to the left side of the courthouse, the site of his motor pool.

  “I’d better call Chief Logan now,” I say, the weight of dread and guilt in my voice. “He needs to know he probably lost a man tonight.”

  The smile melts off Walker Dennis’s face. “You tell him we’re going to get to the bottom of that tomorrow, too. Tell Logan I promised him that.”

  “I will.”

  Dennis switches off the engine, then looks at me. The eyes in his fleshy face burn with fearsome conviction. “Before I’m done, Forrest Knox is gonna wish his family never set foot in my parish.”

  Forrest Knox’s ancestors probably arrived here generations before Dennis’s did, but the sheriff could not care less about that. Subtlety isn’t his strong suit. Special Agent John Kaiser is like a Predator drone, circling high above Forrest Knox and the Double Eagle group with an array of precision-targeted missiles. Sheriff Dennis is more like the iron bombs that dropped from the bellies of B-17s during World War II: dumb and heavy, but deadly enough to bring down a city block. And for my new purpose, Walker Dennis is just what the doctor ordered.

  CHAPTER 5

  CAITLIN MASTERS HAD wasted no time after getting into the cruiser. The deaths she’d witnessed, the torture she’d endured—all that was working its way through her like slow poison, she knew, but there was no quick antidote. And if what Brody Royal had said about having a mole at her paper was true, then every passing minute might mean more deleted computer files. She prayed that if there was a mole, he had not located the digital scans of Henry Sexton
’s journals. The fire wasn’t even out of sight when she said, “I need to call my editor, Deputy. May I use your cell phone?”

  Deputy Grady Wells pulled a Nokia from his shirt pocket and passed it over. “Walker said you could. I just hope to hell the state police don’t find out about this.”

  “Don’t worry, you’re on the side of the angels tonight.”

  Wells grunted skeptically.

  Her editor’s cell phone rang four times, but then he answered. “Jamie Lewis. Who’s this?”

  “It’s me, Jamie.”

  “Christ, I was afraid you were dead.” Lewis’s crisp northern speech sounded alien compared to the drawl of Deputy Wells.

  “I almost was. And some people are sure going to wish I was.”

  “One minute you were here arguing with Penn, and the next you were gone. Now the police scanner’s going nuts about an explosion on Lake Concordia.”

  “I was in the damned explosion. Or next to it, anyway. Don’t say anything more, Jamie. Just listen and do what I say.”

  “Go.”

  “Shut down our computers, right now. The servers, everything.”

  “What?”

  “Our system’s been breached. Somebody’s in our intranet, wiping out information. Brody Royal had a mole on our staff. Henry’s scanned backup files are probably gone, and God knows what else. You haven’t noticed anything weird going on?”

  “I did accidentally delete a story about an hour ago.”

  Caitlin’s stomach did a queasy roll. “No, you didn’t. They already stole the physical copies of Henry’s journals and backup files, right out of our fire cabinet. Have you shut down the system yet?”

  “I’m trying to now. We’re going to lose unsaved stories people are working on.”

  “Pull the fucking plug, Jamie! We’ve got to start the whole edition over anyway.”

  “Okay, okay. When will you be back here?”

  “I don’t know. I need to read over the hub story I wrote before this happened—I can access the copy I sent to Daddy’s other papers via e-mail. Then I’ll call you back and try to dictate a new one from here.”