The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

“Something to do with Dr. Cage?”

  “No. Brody’s dead.”

  Forrest gripped the phone harder. “Brody Royal?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Dead how? Natural causes?”

  “Nobody’s exactly sure what happened, but his lake house burned up. It may have blown up. He’s not the only one dead, either. It’s a mess out there. Son-in-law’s dead, too.”

  Randall Regan? Dead? Forrest felt himself brace for further shocks. “Who else?”

  “Three of Royal’s security people, plus Henry Sexton and an old black guy named Johnston.”

  And the hits just keep on coming. Forrest tried to picture what sequence of events could have led to such a nightmare. “This doesn’t make any sense, Alphonse. What the hell happened?”

  “You ain’t heard the worst of it. Somehow, Mayor Penn Cage and his fiancée, the Masters girl, wound up in Brody’s basement, and—”

  “Don’t tell me they’re dead.”

  “No, no,” Ozan said quickly. “But they were in there. Looks like Royal may have kidnapped them, or ordered it done.”

  “Goddamn it!” Forrest gritted his teeth.

  “I know. I think maybe Henry Sexton and the old nigger went in there to try to get Cage and the girl out. What happened after that, I don’t know. Only Cage and the girl came out alive, and only they know what happened.”

  “Who was the nigger?”

  “His name was Marshall Johnston, Junior, but I don’t know what the hell he was doing there. Fire department says there was some kind of explosion, and everything smells like tar.”

  Forrest instantly thought of Brody Royal’s flamethrower, the weapon Forrest’s father had used on Albert Norris and his store in 1964. The deadly antique fired a mixture of gasoline and tar, propelled by inert nitrogen gas. I should have taken care of Brody last night, he thought. Or even before that.

  “Where are Cage and the girl now?” he asked.

  “Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”

  Forrest was tired of dealing with old men. They were as reckless and sensitive as teenagers. Because of the bruised ego and paranoia of Brody Royal, he now had to contend with a seismic shift in battlefield conditions.

  “Alphonse?”

  “Yeah, boss?”

  “Get your ass over to the sheriff’s department and take over the investigation.”

  “Which one? Brody’s house blowing up?”

  “No. Everything going back three days. We can’t afford to have Walker Dennis poking around in our business any longer.”

  “You think Dennis will stand for that?”

  “You’re not going to give him any choice.”

  “Okay. And the FBI?”

  “If Kaiser backs off like he did at the hospital, then we’ll know we’ve got it made.”

  “And if not?”

  “We’ll sandbag that blue-flame son of a bitch before he knows what hit him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And don’t call me again.”

  “I won’t.”

  Forrest switched off the phone and dropped it on the seat beside him. Despite his best efforts to control the situation, the bodies were piling up fast. With Henry Sexton dead and the Masters girl involved, one thing was sure: a media storm was coming. Any hope of solving his problems quietly would vanish with the publication of tomorrow’s Natchez Examiner. Forrest pulled the red bubble light from his glove box and set it on the dash, then switched it on and floored the gas pedal. He needed to get to headquarters. Speed was everything now.

  CHAPTER 7

  I’M SITTING ON a bench outside an interrogation room in the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office, with Special Agent John Kaiser staring down at me with a mixture of fury and disappointment. The trim and usually well-dressed agent looks like someone shook him awake from a nap in his car: hair sticking up, clothes askew, eyes bloodshot and heavy-bagged. Sleep deprivation is finally taking its toll on him.

  There’s nothing in the corridor but a battered vinyl couch, a metal chair, and a card table with a plastic Christmas tree and a dying Mr. Coffee standing on it. The coffee in the carafe looks like river mud mixed with tar, but that didn’t stop Caitlin from pouring herself a full cup before going into the interrogation room. She’s obviously prepping for a marathon of work once she gets out of this place.

  Ten minutes ago, I finished my statement to Sheriff Dennis and his video camera, while the sheriff’s brother-in-law stood guard over Caitlin in a nearby office. As agreed with Caitlin, I mostly told the truth, while omitting a few dangerous facts, among them Brody Royal’s assertion that my father murdered Viola Turner three days ago. By the time Sheriff Dennis called Caitlin into his office, she was nearly crazy to get back across the river to the Examiner. She’d been talking to her editor on a departmental landline, and she’d managed to assemble her full staff, which now awaits her arrival. Sheriff Dennis promised to finish with her as soon as possible, but his intentions meant nothing unless we could get clear of this building before the state police or FBI arrived to detain us further. And that was exactly what happened. Five minutes after Caitlin disappeared into Walker’s office, Agent Kaiser walked up the hall from the front entrance and called out my name.

  In response to the FBI agent’s questions, I’ve given a reasonably detailed summary of the night’s events. About seventy percent of what I told Kaiser is true. Twenty percent was lies, and another ten percent I omitted altogether. In the silences between my words and his, I fought to drown out internal echoes of gunfire, Caitlin’s screams, and the bone-chilling hiss and roar of Brody Royal’s flamethrower.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” Kaiser tells me, obviously working hard to keep his anger under control. “But we both know that if Henry Sexton and Sleepy Johnston hadn’t broken into Royal’s house and sacrificed their lives, you and Caitlin would be dead now.”

  I don’t look up from the floor tiles. “That’s all I’ve been thinking about since it happened.”

  “I warned you to stay out of this, Penn. But you went ahead, and now six people are dead—maybe more.”

  The guilt I’ve felt since the fire is so lacerating that Kaiser’s words add nothing to the pain. I look up at him without a hint of apology. “As long as we’re telling the truth, John, I’d say you’ve given me mixed messages from the start. This morning at the Jericho Hole I told you I was going to poke a stick in a rattlesnake hole, the same as you. Did you tell me not to? No. You also knew I’d tangled with Regan in the restroom of that café. You warned me to be careful, but that’s it. I think you were hoping I’d stir things up just enough to get Royal and Regan to incriminate themselves, but not enough to cause a disaster—which, admittedly, is what we have now.”

  Kaiser returns my gaze with a stony stare. “Okay, I bear some blame for this. But in any case, you’re done now. You’re the mayor of Natchez, not the district attorney of Adams County. You have no jurisdiction whatever.”

  “Obviously. If I was the DA of Adams County, the Double Eagles would already be in a cell in Natchez, begging for a plea bargain.”

  “Then thank God you’re not. Because that would be exactly the wrong thing to do.”

  “How do you figure that?”

  Kaiser walks to a folding metal chair opposite me, then sits beside the card table and hangs his hands over his knees. “Penn, we’ve held a lot back from each other over the past two days, but I’m going to be straight with you now. I knew more about Brody Royal than I let on to you. About Forrest Knox, too. Some I knew before I got here, and the rest I got from Henry Sexton.”

  “I can’t believe Henry told you much.”

  “Henry had a certain amount of bitterness toward the Bureau, granted. For our civil-rights-era failures, and for the way a lot of agents treated him over the years. But after Glenn Morehouse was murdered, Henry decided that safety demanded he pass me a certain amount of information. It was Henry who told me about the link between Royal and the Double Eagles going back to 1964
. He also told me his suspicions about Forrest Knox protecting the Eagles’ drug business, and possibly even being a partner. I’d heard a few rumors prior to that, but Henry had more facts than the Bureau did.”

  I say nothing, still trying to process the fact that Henry confided so much in Kaiser.

  “He didn’t tell me about his backup files,” says the FBI agent. “His change of heart didn’t extend to that. I think he worried that if he gave his journals to the Bureau, they might disappear forever. He wanted a journalist to have them, so Caitlin got it all. A bad decision, considering what’s happened to them.”

  Earlier tonight Caitlin told me she intended to let Kaiser view Henry’s files tomorrow, but given what happened at Brody’s house, I don’t want to speak for her.

  “I visited Henry one last time this afternoon,” Kaiser says, “only a few hours before the sniper tried to finish him off. He was pretty depressed, but he told me what Glenn Morehouse said about Jimmy Revels’s murder.”

  I give Kaiser a puzzled look, but he’s having none of it.

  “The RFK assassination plan?” he says. “Carlos Marcello, all that? Don’t play dumb, for God’s sake. Not after what’s happened tonight.”

  Before I can reply, Kaiser says, “We need to talk about what you told me about your father when I first called you from New Orleans.”

  He’s referring to me saying that Brody Royal and my father might possess information about the major 1960s assassinations. I only told him that to lure him to Natchez, and now I regret it. I need to sleep and be ready for the drug raid at dawn. But one thing Kaiser does need to know, no matter how crazy it may sound.

  “Do you have any agents at the fire scene?” I ask.

  “Three. Why?”

  “Can they stop the state police from taking evidence away from it?”

  “Absolutely. Brody Royal’s lake house and property are now a federal crime scene.”

  To my surprise, relief washes through me. “As soon as the ruins cool, your guys need to grid-search the place and sift the ashes.”

  “What are we looking for?”

  Something makes me put off revealing the most explosive information. To stall him, I lay out some bait that could get him out of my way tomorrow. “Depending on the heat of the fire, you might find the remains of a one-of-a-kind letter opener. Royal told us that Frank Knox carved it from one of Pooky Wilson’s arm bones. The blade was bone, and the handle was covered in the tanned skin of Wilson’s penis. Or so Royal claimed. He admitted that murder to us, John. He gave the order, Snake and Frank Knox carried it out, and all this happened at the Bone Tree.”

  “The Bone Tree?” Kaiser says softly. “Most of our agents don’t believe that thing even exists.”

  “It does. Royal was there when Wilson was killed. And his bones are bound to still be there.”

  Kaiser can’t hide the interest in his eyes. “Did he say anything about Jimmy Revels’s murder?”

  “No. But he admitted taking part in the gang rape of Viola Turner.”

  “What made Royal so damn talkative?”

  “Henry and Sleepy showing up. Brody just had to tell them how pointless their lives had been.”

  “What a guy.” Kaiser slowly shakes his head.

  “Could you extract DNA from something like that letter opener?”

  “Possibly. But you’re deflecting me, Penn. What does a trophy from Pooky Wilson’s murder have to do with the 1960s assassinations?”

  “Nothing.” I prop my elbows on my knees and rub my temples. “This is going to sound crazy, but . . . just before everything went to hell in Brody’s basement, he showed us two rifles in one of his gun cabinets. There were brass plaques beneath the guns.”

  “And?”

  I look up, letting Kaiser see that I’m not personally invested in what I’m about to tell him. “Unlike all the other plaques, which gave the make of the weapon, et cetera, these only had dates on them, plus a small American flag.”

  Kaiser shrugs. “So?”

  “The dates were November twenty-second, 1963, and April fourth, 1968.”

  I expect the agent’s face to show incredulity, but what I see is a hunter’s excitement glimmering in his eyes. “Did you believe they were real?”

  “Brody believed they were real. Did I? No. I think Snake Knox sold that old man a pig in a poke. Twice. And I told him so.”

  Kaiser mulls this over. “Was that truly your gut reaction?”

  Thinking back to a story my father recently told me, I reconsider. “I can’t say that one hundred percent. Not about the JFK rifle.”

  “Tell me why.”

  The realization that Kaiser is more interested in this than in my father’s plight makes me want to smack him in the face. “While my father’s being hunted down like an animal by corrupt cops?”

  The FBI agent studies me for a few seconds, then speaks with maddening calm. “I know how hard you’ve been trying to save your father. I know what you did tonight, too. You got hold of some leverage against Brody and tried to force him to help your father. After you left me, you went to St. Catherine’s Hospital. You offered to bury what you know and keep Brody’s name from the cops, and out of the newspapers. Right?”

  Kaiser didn’t get where he is by being slow on the uptake. “I might have tried that, if Henry Sexton would have gone along with—”

  “Oh, bullshit. It was Caitlin holding the sword over Brody’s head, not Henry. She made some kind of recording of Katy Royal earlier this evening, didn’t she?”

  I don’t answer, but I can’t for the life of me figure how Kaiser found out about that tape.

  “Does it still exist?” he presses. “Or did Brody take it from you tonight?”

  My expression tells him all he needs to know.

  Kaiser’s face betrays genuine empathy. “Look, speaking as a man, I don’t blame you. Your father’s life was on the line, and you had Royal by the short hairs. But look what’s happened because of what you did.”

  I stare at the floor, wishing Caitlin would emerge from the interrogation room.

  “If it’s any consolation, I think your old man and Walt Garrity have gone to ground somewhere. We’ll never find them, and with luck, the Knoxes won’t either. Those old coots are safe as houses. That’s why your next plan is stupid.”

  “What plan?” I ask, wondering if he somehow knows that Dennis and I intend to bust the Knoxes’ meth operation.

  “The deal with Royal didn’t work, so now you’re thinking about approaching Forrest Knox. Right?”

  This assumption actually stuns me. “Hell, no!”

  Kaiser rolls his eyes. “Just tell me you haven’t already reached out to him.”

  For once the FBI agent is wrong, so I let my anger fill my eyes. “I’m not that stupid, John.”

  “Not normally. But you’re not thinking straight now. So let me enlighten you. Brody Royal was like a cranky old dog lying under a porch. Forrest Knox is a purebred wolf that will smell you coming from five miles away. Do not fuck with him.”

  I get up from the bench and start pacing the hallway. “Why are you so concerned with those old assassinations? I would think you’d be organizing a search of the Lusahatcha Swamp, trying to find the Bone Tree. You’re bound to find the remains of Pooky Wilson, and maybe even Jimmy Revels. That’s the way to nail the Knoxes, if you won’t go after them from the meth angle. You could arrest Snake on Brody’s statement alone.”

  Kaiser is already shaking his head. “Brody Royal told you Snake Knox killed Pooky Wilson. But there’s a 302 report in our files from the 1970s in which a Double Eagle named Jason Abbott swears that Forrest Knox killed Pooky. Also at the Bone Tree, by the way.”

  “That’s got to be bullshit. Forrest was what, twelve years old the year Pooky died? Royal was telling the truth tonight. He had no reason to lie.”

  “You’re probably right. But that doesn’t make that 302 disappear. Do you know how Henry Sexton first discovered that Pooky Wilson had probably bee
n crucified?”

  “From that 302, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.”

  “That’s right. Jason Abbott was an older cousin of Forrest Knox, and also a Double Eagle. In 1972, he found out that Forrest had been screwing his wife, both before he left for Vietnam and after he got back. Abbott stood being cuckolded for as long as he could. Then one night he got blind drunk and went to the hotel room of an FBI agent who’d once questioned him. He told that agent that the Double Eagles had intended to skin Pooky alive, but they didn’t have the right kind of knife, so after some effort, they gave up and nailed him to the Bone Tree. He said Forrest hammered in the nails.”

  “That’s the way Brody described it, except Frank and Snake were in the lead roles.”

  Kaiser intertwines his fingers around one knee and speaks like a thoughtful college professor. “My guess is that Forrest was present but only witnessed Pooky’s death. Abbott wouldn’t admit to being at the Bone Tree himself. He claimed he’d heard the story from another Double Eagle who’d been there. He tried to hang a bunch of other crimes around Forrest’s neck, as well—all unverifiable—but he also revealed a lot of valuable information about the Knox family. The FOIA version Henry got was heavily redacted.”

  “Did the Bureau do anything about Abbott’s stories?”

  Kaiser suddenly looks uncomfortable. “That was problematic. After he sobered up, Abbott tried to recant. And since Forrest had been screwing his wife, the man had an obvious motive to make false accusations. Even so, two agents set up an interview with Forrest at a military base, to check out the story.”

  “And?”

  Kaiser leans back against the wall and savors his next words. “While the agents were questioning Forrest, Jason Abbott was run over by a truck two hundred miles away. Hit and run, never solved.”

  My stomach rolls over. “During Knox’s interview?”

  “That’s right. And Forrest was only twenty years old at the time, Penn. I’m telling you, he’s as cold as they come.”

  “Was Dwight Stone one of those two FBI agents?”

  “No. Dwight was being railroaded out of the Bureau at that time, so he couldn’t help. There is one interesting footnote, though. Once Abbott sobered up, he denied he’d ever been a Double Eagle. But during his wake, someone dropped a JFK half-dollar on his body in the casket.”