The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

Unless she told Kaiser about the papers before she was killed. But if she had, surely Kaiser would have found them after Henry escaped from the hospital.

  “I suppose I’d better go to her funeral,” Mrs. Sexton said, “if only for her boy.”

  “Do you have any idea when Henry’s service will be?”

  “I reckon Saturday. We have some people up in Kansas who’ll probably want to come. I haven’t even been to the funeral home yet.”

  For a moment Caitlin thought the poor woman would finally collapse, but she didn’t.

  “Mr. Early told me there’s really nothing left of Henry,” Mrs. Sexton said softly. “Bones and ashes. It’s like he was cremated already.”

  Caitlin didn’t need to be told this; she’d seen it happen. “If there’s anything you need done, or taken care of—anything at all—please call me. I mean that, Mrs. Sexton. If there’s any question of funds—”

  “Henry had a little insurance,” the old woman said, lifting her chin with pride. “I know you mean well, but we’re not destitute. We bury our own.”

  Caitlin blushed again, but as soon as Mrs. Sexton left the office, she closed the door and hurried back behind the advertising desk. With Kaiser in the building, the journey to her office was too risky. This office door had no lock, but with FBI agents and techs roaming the newsroom and halls, this was as safe a place as any in the building.

  Caitlin heard the blood rushing in her ears as she opened the manila envelope and spread its contents across the desk. There were only a few sheets of paper inside. An inkjet-printed photograph grabbed her attention and held it. A craggy-faced man with hollow eyes and cracked, tanned skin stared out at her with unsettling intensity. He reminded her of John Brown, the wild-eyed abolitionist. Or maybe Abraham Lincoln without a beard. She turned over the page and saw block letters written in pencil: ELAM KNOX. After looking once more into the wild eyes, she checked the rest of the pages.

  One long, folded piece paper turned out to be a hand-drawn Knox family tree, beginning in the late 1800s. An FBI document that looked to be the heavily redacted version of the 302 detailing Jason Abbott’s 1972 interview about the Double Eagles and Forrest Knox came next. Then finally she found four sheets of notepaper covered with Henry’s now-familiar script, though in this case it looked as though he’d been drunk while he wrote. The first page began “Dear Caitlin.” She centered the letter before her and began to read at lightning speed.

  Dear Caitlin,

  Forgive me if I ramble. I’m weaning myself off the pain drugs, but my mind’s still foggy. Sherry’s dead, and the FBI’s put me in an office they converted to a hospital room. But I’m not going to stay here. I’ve thought a lot about the last three days, and either Royal or Forrest Knox had to be behind this attack. I believe it was Royal, and I’m going to confront him tonight. I’ve sat on the sidelines too long. I don’t know if I’ll survive the encounter or not, so I’m leaving this for you.

  John Kaiser came to see me earlier today, before you. I trust his motives, for the most part, even though he’s FBI. He told me some things about the Knox family, which you’ll find in a separate note, and I told him most of what Glenn Morehouse told me on Monday. About Jimmy and Luther being murdered as part of a plan by Carlos Marcello to kill RFK, about Brody’s part, Frank Knox’s death, all of it. Kaiser looked shocked, but when he answered, he shocked me even more. He asked whether I thought Carlos could have hired Frank Knox to kill John F. Kennedy in 1963.

  As dumb as it may seem to you, I’d never really considered this possibility. You’ve read my files, so you know that on the day Frank founded the Double Eagles, he talked about killing JFK, RFK, and MLK. It seems obvious now, but at the time Morehouse told me about the RFK plan, I was totally focused on Brody Royal. For so many years I’d been working to find out who killed Albert Norris that I missed the bigger picture.

  Once Kaiser raised the JFK idea, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The relationship between Frank Knox and Carlos Marcello dated to well before the Bay of Pigs. If Marcello wanted the president dead, Frank would have been a natural choice, so long as Carlos trusted him. Carlos obviously did, because he went to Frank when he wanted to murder Robert Kennedy in ’68.

  Now we come to the point. Though I suspected Kaiser was right, I didn’t tell him any more than I originally had. But I knew more. When Morehouse called me back Monday night, he told me something I didn’t even put in my journal. After he told me about the RFK plan, he told me Frank Knox had something on Marcello, something he’d kept as insurance, to protect himself in case things ever went bad between them. Remember, Brody used to lend the Double Eagles to Marcello as muscle on Florida real estate deals, so there was a long history there. And it was when I went to New Orleans to check out those deals that somebody sent me the photo with the rifle scope printed over my face. At the time, I figured that was Royal protecting his crooked deals, but now I think he or Forrest was keeping me away from the old conspiracy.

  When I asked Morehouse what Frank had kept for “insurance,” he said it was a letter or document of some kind. Morehouse had seen it once, but he couldn’t read it because it was written in a foreign language. Snake once told him it was Russian, but he didn’t know for sure. Whatever the paper was, he said, it dealt with something so big that everything else paled in comparison—even the RFK plot. I thought that was bullshit, and I told him so. If there was anything bigger than the RFK plan, nobody would have left any paperwork. Morehouse told me that whatever the paper was, Frank kept it at the Bone Tree, so nobody could find it.

  The night I talked to Morehouse, I made my first and only contact with Toby Rambin, who promised he could take me to the Bone Tree. But at that time I wasn’t thinking about Frank’s “insurance.” I was thinking about all the bodies that might have been dumped at the Bone Tree. Jimmy and Luther, Joe Louis Lewis, Pooky. It was only after Kaiser talked to me today that I realized how important Frank’s “insurance” might be, and that it must have to do with John Kennedy.

  You’ve got Toby Rambin’s number now. I was stoned on Dilaudid when I told you about it, but I know you got it, because when I checked my cell phone, I saw you’d changed his last name and number in my contacts list. You’ve been a naughty girl, but I’m in no position to criticize. I held back a lot from Kaiser myself. If I’m honest, I guess down deep I’m as ambitious as you are.

  If these pages reach you, then I’m probably not around anymore. If so, take them with my blessing and do what you can to get to the bottom of all this. If Kaiser finds them I guess that’s the second-best outcome. I’m tired now, and I’ve got a journey ahead of me. Maybe a fight, too. However it goes, you take care of yourself.

  Henry

  P.S. Don’t try to find the Bone Tree alone. You’ve got too much to live for.

  Caitlin looked up from the papers, her eyes wet and her heart beating fast. The letter in her hands was a voice from the grave. Henry had felt alive to her as she read his words, but he was not. He was dead, now and forever. He had foreseen the possibility, and he had passed his torch to her. No one else alive knew about Toby Rambin and his offer, and no one else would—

  Her heart lurched as the door opened and Jackie Cullen stuck her head inside.

  “Agent Kaiser is looking for you,” she said. “I told him I hadn’t seen you, but I wouldn’t count on privacy for long.”

  “Thanks, Jackie. Go.”

  Caitlin gathered up the pages and photos and slid them back into the envelope. Then she flattened the brass closure tabs, went out into the lobby, and opened the door to the hall that led to her office. She was ten steps away when John Kaiser came around the corner beyond her door and waved.

  “You look like you just translated the Rosetta stone,” he said. “Want to let me in on it?”

  He stopped and waited beside her office door. Flustered speechless, Caitlin went into her office and dropped the folder on her credenza as if it meant nothing, then sat behind her desk.

  “Everything
okay?” Kaiser asked. “Seriously. What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she said, too sharply. “I’m just functioning on zero sleep.”

  “What’s in the envelope?”

  “Business crap. Advertising reports. The paper shuffling doesn’t stop just because I’m working on the story of a lifetime.”

  “That’s for sure,” Kaiser said, taking a seat in the chair opposite her. “I’ve got one of my agents doing nothing but filing reports for the rest of us. A total waste.”

  “What can I do for you?” Caitlin asked. “Have you found my mole?”

  “No. But we will. I should tell you that the original deleting of files was done by ‘User 23,’ and that ID belongs to your editor, Jamie Lewis—”

  “Jamie!”

  “Relax, he didn’t do it. He’s a rich, liberal Yankee, and I questioned him myself. Somebody hacked into Lewis’s intranet account, which I’m pretty sure is well beyond the abilities of your missing press operator, Nick Moore.”

  “Do you have any idea who it could have been?”

  “Not yet. It could be an employee, but it could also have been someone who hacked in from outside. You just leave the mole hunt to us. Why don’t you go home and grab a nap?”

  “Are you kidding? This town’s filling up with reporters so fast that we’ll run out of hotel rooms. I’ll sleep when this story’s finished.”

  The FBI agent crossed his legs and toyed with a shoelace as if he had all day to sit there.

  Caitlin shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “What’s on your mind, John?”

  “Henry Sexton’s journals.”

  She kept her features immobile.

  “I’ve been watching our tech try to reconstruct your server’s drives, which is a bit like watching children try to reconstruct shredded pages one strip at a time. We’re making progress, and getting a pretty good idea of how the journals lay out. There’s just one problem.”

  “What’s that?”

  “None of the pages seem to describe any of Henry’s work over the past two months. I can only conclude that we must be missing a journal.”

  Caitlin pursed her lips and pretended to think about this.

  “Did Henry say anything to you about his most recent one?” Kaiser asked bluntly.

  “No,” she answered truthfully. After all, she’d discovered that journal on her own. The Moleskine had been in Henry’s pocket when he was attacked outside the Beacon, and she’d found it in the ashes of the Beacon fire later that night.

  “It just seemed to me from reading your stories this morning that you had a lot of detail on the Jimmy Revels case. The RFK plot, all of that.”

  “I’ve got a good memory.”

  Kaiser smiled. “Also the murder of Pooky Wilson. The crucifixion. Royal told you that happened at the Bone Tree?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But he didn’t say where the tree was? Other than the Lusahatcha Swamp?”

  “It wasn’t that kind of conversation.”

  A thin smile. “No. I imagine not.” The FBI agent looked at her for a long time without speaking. “I spent seven years in the ISU, Caitlin—what they used to call the Behavioral Science Unit. And this just doesn’t add up. Henry Sexton was a creature of habit, like all of us. There has to be a last journal, and it’s got to be somewhere. It’s too bad that sniper’s bullet killed his girlfriend.”

  Caitlin made a sympathetic noise and blanked her mind. As impossible as it was, she felt strangely sure that if she thought of the slightly scorched Moleskine lying atop the tall credenza behind her, Kaiser would see it too—in his mind. As he studied her, she thought, I should be put in jail. I’m like a raging id with a body—no governing conscience at all.

  “Was there anything else?” she asked.

  Kaiser’s eyes stayed on hers. She could almost feel the pressure of his gaze. “Have you talked to Penn recently?” he asked.

  “Only for a second. It sounded pretty bad across the river.”

  “Penn’s not too happy with me right now. Nor I him. We both think each other’s priorities are screwed up.”

  Caitlin shrugged. “We’ve all got different agendas. The way of the world, right?”

  “Jordan said the same thing.”

  “Smart woman. Wait, that was redundant.”

  Kaiser rolled his eyes.

  “I figured I’d see a lot of Jordan today,” Caitlin said, fishing.

  “You probably would have, if I weren’t here. She’s a little upset with me right now.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s still a pro, though. She’s photographing everyone who shows up at Glenn Morehouse’s funeral as we speak. Did you know she’s scheduled to go to Cuba tomorrow, to photograph the Castro brothers?”

  “She mentioned it.”

  “She said something about maybe pushing back the trip for a day, which I couldn’t believe. Any idea why she’d do that?”

  Caitlin remembered giving Kaiser’s wife a backhanded offer of employment, but she never thought the photographer would really consider it. Jordan Glass had multiple Pulitzers in her bag, and a Robert Capa award to boot. Is this story getting that big? she wondered.

  “None. You’d better ask her that.”

  “You’ll probably see her before I will,” Kaiser said. “I’m heading out to take care of some other business. I’ve rented an empty warehouse in Vidalia to use as an evidence storage site. So much stuff came out of the Jericho Hole that we’re going to sort, identify, and tag everything we can here, then ship selected pieces to the crime lab in Washington.”

  “Can I send a photographer over for some shots?”

  Kaiser gave her a wry smile. “No, but I’ll have Jordan shoot a few snaps for you.”

  “Thanks. And keep your eyes open. I don’t think your credentials would stop the Knoxes from taking a shot at you.”

  Kaiser got to his feet. “You’re right about that. But I’d be a lot more worried if I were Penn or Sheriff Dennis. Or you,” he added, giving her a meaningful look.

  He went to the door, but after he passed through, he turned back and said, “Don’t try to solve this thing on your own, Caitlin. What you wrote this morning was read by a lot of people, some of whose lives are now at risk because of you. And every one of those bastards knows where you live and work.”

  She nodded as though this were old news to her. “I’ll be careful.”

  Kaiser gave her a casual salute, then walked down the hall.

  Caitlin desperately wanted to read the rest of the papers inside Mrs. Sexton’s envelope, but she opened her top right drawer to put them away until she could be sure Kaiser would not return. A shining new silver Treo 650 lay inside the drawer. Stuck to the smartphone was a yellow Post-it with a note from Allison Oswalt, the advertising sales girl she’d sent to replace her favorite device.

  Here’s your new phone. You can find your new number inside. Your security code is the year I came to work here. Enjoy!

  Caitlin picked up the gleaming phone and gave it a grateful kiss. At last she had a secure line she could count on, at least for a while. Now she could call Toby Rambin from inside the building—and talk to him if she reached him!

  While the Treo powered up and searched for a tower, she thought about Henry’s letter. Was it really possible that the Bone Tree—which the FBI didn’t believe existed—concealed evidence of Double Eagle involvement in the assassination of John Kennedy? Henry Sexton had never been a muckraker or sensationalist; on the contrary, his reputation as a serious journalist had been above reproach. And Henry seemed to believe that Morehouse had told him the truth. Of course, Henry had been under the influence of Dilaudid while he wrote that letter—

  The Treo had acquired a tower. Caitlin glanced at her office door, then dialed Toby Rambin’s number—which she had memorized—and waited. Yet again it rang in vain, as it had the previous three times. She wondered whether Rambin might have fled the state after hearing about Henry’s death. She couldn’t blame him if he had.
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  “Come on,” she muttered. “Do poachers really work that hard?”

  How long until Kaiser leaves the building? she wondered. She was dying to take Henry’s Bone Tree journal down from atop the credenza. Instead, she removed a page at random from the manila envelope, a piece of hospital stationery. At the top Henry had written ELAM KNOX in bold pencil lines. She started to read the tightly packed paragraphs, but a knock at her door made her jump. She shoved Henry’s stuff into her drawer, then went to the door. Though she’d expected Kaiser again, she found Jamie Lewis waiting in the hall.

  “I’ve got some news,” her editor said. “Can I come in?”

  She backed up and motioned him in. Lewis shut the door behind him.

  “On the mole?” she whispered.

  “No, sorry. But something pretty radical just came over the wire. The Baton Rouge Advocate is reporting that a highly credible source inside the state police Criminal Investigations Bureau is claiming that Colonel Griffith Mackiever, the superintendent of state police, has been downloading explicit child pornography onto his work computer for months. There’s been no official confirmation, but several politicians are calling for a public investigation, and one state congressman has already demanded Mackiever’s resignation. Do you think that’s related to Dr. Cage’s story in any way?”

  Caitlin thought about it. “It’s bound to be. Forrest Knox wants that job, and he’s already the chief of the CIB. He’s got a certain amount of support across the state, especially in New Orleans. He’s also behind the hunt for Dr. Cage, and he’s the son of the founder of the Double Eagles. You dig into that, Jamie. Don’t give it to somebody else.”

  Before he could reply, another knock sounded at the door. Caitlin rolled her eyes, and Jamie opened the door a crack as though to send the supplicant away. But then to her surprise he pulled it wide.

  Keisha Harvin stood there, her face glowing with vitality, her eyes with quick intelligence. “Have you got a sec?” Keisha asked. “I want to pitch you something.”

  “Take a seat,” Caitlin said, beckoning her inside. “Pitch away.”

  As Keisha perched on the edge of the chair across the desk, Caitlin reflected that there was a world of difference between twenty-five and thirty-five. Harvin wore her hair in a tight, no-nonsense bob, but she still managed to look glamorous. The Alabama native wore practical shoes, yet her jeans were Sevens, and her top expensive silk. Caitlin knew from the months she’d spent training Harvin that the reporter pinched her pennies to be able to afford such style. Keisha had always possessed the same fire Caitlin did—the desire to make her mark in her chosen field—but now she seemed driven by an even more powerful passion, the hunger to right a wrong against her people.