The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  Walt had hoped Mackiever could explain how Forrest Knox had risen so high in his organization, but with every hour that passed, his faith that he would see his old buddy faltered. Tossing and turning on the hotel bed, Walt dreamed of his wife, who had begged him not to leave home to try to help his old friend. The night before Tom called, Carmelita had actually dreamed of Walt’s funeral. But Walt felt he had no choice about helping Tom, and he’d told her as much. As he drove away from their house, Carmelita had watched with her face forlorn and her arms folded, like a woman sending her husband off to war. Walt had felt an ache like an ulcer in his belly, but he hadn’t turned around.

  Yesterday, when some Knox-controlled asshole shoved photos of a beheaded family under Carmelita’s door to frighten her, it had taken all of Walt’s self-restraint not to walk up to Forrest on the street in front of LSP headquarters and blow his brains out. Though Walt now had three old Ranger buddies covering his house in Navasota, every second of fear his wife had suffered stung him like a hornet. Before this mess was through, he would exact retribution for each sting.

  Picking up his derringer from the bedside table, Walt rubbed his eyes and headed for the toilet to take a leak. He was zipping up his pants when the landline rang beside the bed. Walt walked out and stared at the phone for three rings, then picked it up and put it to his ear.

  “Cap’n McDonald?” said a familiar voice.

  Walt said nothing, but his rapid pulse began to subside. “Bill McDonald” was the alias that Colonel Mackiever had instructed him to use when he registered at the hotel. McDonald had been one of the toughest and wisest Texas Rangers ever to wear the star, but he’d died in 1918. It was unlikely anyone else would think to use such a code. Nevertheless, Walt said, “Name a president that Bill McDonald guarded.”

  “Teddy Roosevelt.”

  Walt sighed with relief. “Where are you, Mac?”

  “Coming up the hall. Sorry to make you wait.”

  “I’m opening the door.”

  Walt took his derringer to the door, opened it, then extended the bolt and backed away so that his visitor would have to push open the heavy door to gain entry. Then he stood just inside the open bathroom door and aimed the derringer at head level.

  Someone knocked three times, then slowly pushed open the door while a voice behind it said, “At ease, Cap’n. I know you’ve got a gun back there.”

  Walt kept his derringer cocked and ready until Mackiever came in and locked the door behind him. One of the colonel’s hands was empty; the other carried a bottle of Macallan Fine Oak, which gladdened Walt’s heart. Mackiever’s hair had gone nearly white since Walt had last seen him, though his trimmed mustache still had a little pepper in it. His old eyes looked dazed, and he shook Walt’s hand like a man grasping at a life preserver.

  “Damn, I’m glad to see you,” he said. “I was up to my ass in alligators before you ever called. But this time I think they’ve got me. Can I pour you a scotch? I need one bad.”

  “I won’t turn it down.”

  Mackiever went to the bathroom sink and unwrapped two water glasses. Walt watched him pour—both hands shaking—then took the proffered glass and drank the whisky neat. He savored the burn as it sank toward his stomach, then took a seat on the end of the bed while the colonel poured himself another.

  “Dark days,” Mackiever said hoarsely.

  Walt grimaced. “Let’s hear it, Mac.”

  The colonel sat heavily in a chair by the table before the curtained window. As Walt raised his glass in a silent toast to his old friend, he realized he was looking at a man close to breaking.

  “Forrest Knox just issued me an ultimatum,” Mackiever informed him. “Step down for health reasons, or he’ll ruin me. I’ve got forty-eight hours.”

  “Ruin you? How?”

  “The son of a bitch has had one of our tech experts—one of my own officers—planting kiddie porn in my computers, both at work and at home. If I don’t resign, he’ll go public with child pornography charges and drag me through the mud until I choke. You know how it goes with accusations like that. It’s almost impossible to prove a negative. You never shake ’em.”

  “That’s bullshit, Mac. A man with your record? He’d never make that stick. You can prove that stuff was planted.”

  “Not this time. Knox has been setting this up for months. Day by day, in real time. There’s an extensive search history, thousands of photographs of young kids, even online conversations. They’ve already printed out reams of computer logs and placed them secretly into evidence.”

  “Jesus. I still think—”

  Mackiever stopped him with a raised hand. “You haven’t heard the worst of it. Forrest’s got two underage prostitutes from New Orleans who’ll swear under oath that I paid them for sex. Male prostitutes.”

  “What?”

  The colonel nodded, his haunted eyes glancing at the floor. “He just paraded one of them in front of me in a New Orleans hotel room. The boy was no more than fifteen, if that. I’m screwed, partner. I’ve got no play.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  Mackiever took another sip of scotch and closed his eyes. “There isn’t anything.”

  “Help me understand this. How the hell did a man like Knox climb so high in your outfit?”

  The colonel shook a cigarette from a pack of Salems and lit it. “Forrest joined the force long before I came over from Texas. He worked his way up, making strong connections all along the way. Everybody knew he was Frank Knox’s son, but nobody in power gave a damn about that, not back then. Hell, most don’t care now. But I wasn’t any better. I initially sized Forrest up as a straight shooter. A hardass, sure, but fair—or so it seemed. And he appeared to have no relationship at all with his extended family.”

  “What changed your mind about him?”

  “That’s hard to say. After a while, the little man inside just started telling me something was wrong with him. For one thing, he used to keep a samurai sword hanging behind his desk. Like we used to see in Texas sheriffs’ offices, remember? Forrest claimed his daddy had taken it off a Japanese officer during World War Two. One day I asked him to tell me the story, and he did. But first he took a couple of photos out of his desk. They were in a frame he kept in his bottom drawer.”

  “And?”

  “The first one showed this Jap officer brandishing a samurai sword. The guy had two human heads tied to his belt. Caucasian heads. I kid you not, Walter.” Mackiever gulped some more scotch. “Why don’t you look surprised?”

  “I was in Korea, remember? I know about shit like that.”

  “That’s right. Well . . . according to Forrest, these two heads on the Jap’s belt belonged to American marines. But the second picture showed a U.S. Marine sergeant holding the same sword with a headless body at his feet. The dead man was the Jap officer from the first picture. The marine was a tough-looking bastard, a real leatherneck. He looked like Forrest, only twice as mean.”

  “Was it Forrest’s old man?”

  Mackiever nodded. “Frank Knox. In that photo, he’s holding the Jap officer’s head up for the camera. By the hair. Forrest said when his daddy found the first photo on that Jap officer after an island battle, he cut the guy’s head off with his own sword. Forrest kept the photo in his desk. He’d take it out and show it to people when they asked about the sword. And they loved the guy for it.”

  “I’ve known guys like that,” Walt said, thinking of the photos of the beheaded family that had been shown to Carmelita to frighten her.

  “Don’t be so sure. It’s easy to underestimate Forrest Knox. God knows I did. He’s a smooth character. I hear he’s done some sick stuff to hookers he’s arrested—blacks and Asians, mostly—and I’ve heard talk of even crazier things going on at a hunting camp his cousin Billy runs just over the Mississippi line. The official name is the Valhalla Exotic Hunting Reserve, but they call it ‘Fort Knox’ amongst themselves. But hell . . . that’s not what you’re here for.”
/>
  “I’m here to help you, buddy,” Walt said, “and to get your help in return. Tell me what you need, and I’ll do the same. My request might overstep the bounds of friendship, but we is where we is.”

  Mackiever sucked at his cigarette as though it were a narcotic. “Walter, by the end of the day, I’m going to be a private citizen. I won’t be able to help you. And there’s nothing you can do to help me.”

  “You’re wrong on both counts. When you’re in the kind of fix we’re in, you do what you’ve gotta do to get the ox out of the ditch. Tell me more about Forrest. A guy that dirty has to have a weak spot. All of God’s creatures have an underbelly.”

  “If Knox has one, he’s wearing armor over it.”

  “Why’s he got such a hard-on to move you out?”

  Mackiever lit a second cigarette off the first one and poured himself another scotch. “Walt, you may not believe this, but there are people in this state who saw Hurricane Katrina as a blessing. Divine intervention, even.”

  “I’ve heard the talk.”

  “But do you know what’s beneath it? For the past twenty years, New Orleans has been shrinking. Major companies have been pulling out, and white workers have been fleeing across Lake Pontchartrain. The trend seemed unstoppable—until Katrina. The storm destroyed the homes of huge numbers of blacks, and they were bused out of the city in the so-called evacuation. About four days too late, by my count, but that’s not my point. That ‘evacuation’ looked more like the relocation of the Indian tribes in the 1800s to me. That’s how it’s worked out, too. And the money boys don’t mean to let ’em back into the city. They want to raze the Lower Ninth Ward and demolish the housing projects elsewhere, then put up new developments for their kind of people.”

  “White people?” Walt grunted.

  “Or rich colored. They aren’t that particular, so long as you’ve got the green. Point is, the state’s elite doesn’t see me fitting into this new utopia. They want an enforcer with their own ideology heading up the state police.”

  “What’s the LSP got to do with the city of New Orleans?”

  “More than you think. The fat cats have got puppet politicians standing for all the municipal offices, but political authority is still subject to the whim of the voters. The man with my job isn’t subject to election. We have a lot of power and discretion, and with the right superintendent—or the wrong one—the state police can function like a paramilitary force. The governor can use us as an intimidation tool, sort of how Nixon used the FBI and the IRS against his enemies.”

  “I see.”

  “I first started to suspect what Forrest was up to about two years ago. I suspected he had my Internal Affairs division compromised, so I handpicked a mean son of a bitch named Alphonse Ozan to infiltrate the Criminal Investigations Bureau. Ozan’s a big Redbone, so I figured he’d be immune to Knox’s influence, Knox being such a racist, and half Cajun to boot. There’s no love lost between those two groups.”

  “Bad bet?”

  “Apparently. Ozan’s fed me steady reports ever since, claiming Knox is clean. But about two months ago I started smelling something. I ran a little test, the way the SOE used to do during World War Two, to test the integrity of their people. And I confirmed my worst fear.”

  “Why didn’t you bust Ozan?”

  “Better the devil you know, right? Since then I’ve been quietly trying to scope out just how big Knox’s operation is.”

  “And?”

  “He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies around the state. He’s taking cuts from various crooks to leave their operations alone. Coyotes moving illegals through the Port of New Orleans, drugs coming into the country on speedboats down around the barrier islands, prostitution. You name it, Forrest skims it. And after Katrina hit . . . I think he used a team of SWAT guys to selectively take out some of the competition.”

  “Man alive. This is the guy the moneymen want to put in your job?”

  “Most of Forrest’s supporters don’t know about the criminal stuff. All they know is, Knox did them some favor or other. Got ’em LSU tickets on the fifty-yard line or sprung their drunk kid from some backwoods parish jail. Hell, I still can’t prove anything against him. Nobody will testify against the guy. Everybody either loves Knox or lives in terror of him.”

  Walt swirled some scotch around in his mouth, then swallowed. “Some of his thugs threatened my wife earlier today. Out in Navasota.”

  Mackiever shook his head. “I’m sorry, Walt. But it doesn’t surprise me. She okay?”

  “I’ve got some retired buddies covering her now.”

  “Good.” The colonel looked around the room like a man startled from a dream. The daze Walt had seen when he entered the room had never really left his eyes. “Well, I think you see my problem. How exactly can I help you?”

  “You know that trooper you lost up in Concordia Parish Tuesday evening?”

  “Darrell Deke Dunn.”

  Walt nodded. “He wasn’t yours. He was Knox’s.”

  The colonel quickly gulped from his glass. “Are you positive?”

  “I was there. Your APB’s right about that, but he was about to murder my best friend in cold blood.”

  Mackiever looked at the ceiling and cursed.

  “I don’t know how much pull you still have in this state,” Walt said, “but I need you to make that APB go away. If you don’t, I can’t help you or myself either.”

  The colonel looked as if Walt had asked him for a million dollars cash. “How the hell can I do that? All the evidence points to you and Cage killing Dunn, and I can’t prove Dunn was dirty. I can’t pull the APB on suspected cop killers without good reason.”

  “I did kill Dunn,” Walt said bluntly. “So you’ll need to make up a reason.”

  Mackiever’s eyes had gone wide. “Christ, Walt. How the hell did you get caught up in this?”

  Walt shrugged. “Helping a friend. How else?”

  Mackiever leaned back in his chair. “Tell me something. If Dr. Cage is innocent, why did he skip bail on that first charge? Murdering the nurse.”

  Walt kept his face blank. “All I can tell you is this: if the DA and sheriff up in Natchez had gotten Tom into jail, he’d have died there. The Knoxes aren’t the only ones who want him dead. Tom Cage and Sheriff Billy Byrd have bad blood from way back.”

  Mackiever looked less than satisfied, but Walt had no intention of elaborating. He drained his glass and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Here’s my proposal. You get rid of that APB, I’ll take down Forrest Knox for you. That’s the only solution that’s gonna work for both of us.”

  “You can’t do it, Walt. Short of killing him, there’s nothing you can do.” The LSP chief dropped his gaze and let the pregnant silence drag. Then he looked up with a strange glint in his eyes. “Are you willing to go that far?”

  Walt looked at his old friend for a few moments, then walked to the window, parted the curtain, and stared down at the street between the hotel and the casino that sat outside the Mississippi River levee. “No. I can’t do that, Mac. Knox’s men threatened my wife yesterday, and I was about ready to kill him. But I’m not the hothead I once was. I’ve got a lot to lose now. If Knox comes directly at me or mine, I’ll smoke him. But I can’t kill him in cold blood. I can’t risk leaving Carmelita alone while I rot in Angola. She deserves better than that. So do I.”

  “Then you might as well go home tonight.”

  “Home?” Walt turned angrily from the window. “I’m wanted for killing a cop. Look, anybody as dirty as you say Knox is has got records of what he’s doing. He has to, just to keep up with his money.”

  Mackiever waved his hand as if too exhausted to explore this. “Have you searched his home?” Walt pressed.

  “Hell, no. The only guys I’d trust to do that and keep quiet about it are my nephew and my son-in-law—both troopers—and I don’t want to put either of them that far into harm’s way.”

  “Well, then. I’m your man. And what abou
t that hunting camp you mentioned? If it’s way out in the woods, and the Knox family owns it, it sounds like a damned likely place to cache incriminating records.”

  “You’d need an army to get in and out of there alive.”

  “Or a warrant.”

  Mackiever shook his head. “It’d have to be federal. Any local judge is liable to pick up the phone and tip one of Forrest’s people. He’s that connected.”

  “There’s other ways, then.”

  The colonel took a deep drag on his cigarette, then held the smoke in his lungs for so long that by the time he started talking again, there was hardly any left. “In theory, I’ve got five hundred and eleven troopers serving under me. But in practice? Tonight? I trust you and maybe a half-dozen others. And as for going after Forrest, you’re an army of one.” Mackiever gave Walt an ironic smile. “Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?”

  Not long ago, Tom Cage had quoted to Walt the unofficial Ranger motto: One riot, one Ranger. “There’s some truth in that saying,” Walt said. “Sometimes one man can accomplish what a whole platoon can’t.”

  Mackiever looked doubtful. “Times have changed, Cap’n.”

  Walt thought about the situation for half a minute. “You know, two can play the game Knox is running on you. You need to throw away the Marquess of Queensberry rules and look at this thing like our lives depend on it—which they do.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “If I’m willing to go into the jackal’s den, what about planting some evidence on him?”

  Mackiever’s mouth worked around as though he had something struck in his teeth. “What are you thinking?”

  “Come on, Mac. Are you that squeaky clean? Drugs, dirty money, other contraband—I ain’t particular.”

  “Getting hold of something like that would take some time.”

  “Time’s what we don’t have. If you can’t get something damning in my hands in an hour, it’s no use to me.”

  The colonel thought about it, then shook his head. “If I or any of my loyalists go into the evidence room at this hour, Knox is going to hear about it.”