The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

I think he’s right, but I don’t confirm it. I feel like a traitor for revealing any of this. Strangely, Dwight Stone’s face shows none of the excitement of the younger agent’s.

  “What’s the matter?” Kaiser asks him. “Are you okay?”

  Stone raises his hands and plows them through his wispy hair as though trying to force his brain to work better. “No. Because Carlos Marcello wasn’t incarcerated in the parish prison in 1959, or any year that Tom Cage was in medical school. By that time he was untouchable. The NOPD practically worked for him.”

  Stone’s statement stuns me. The old agent obviously knows what he’s talking about, but then what does that say about my mother’s memory? Or her intent? Surely she could gain nothing by telling me a lie that tied Dad to a mobster?

  Kaiser’s face has fallen. “Something must have got lost in translation in the story. Maybe Mrs. Cage was mistaken. Maybe one of Marcello’s guys was the prisoner, and Carlos was visiting him.”

  “Maybe.”

  “He still came to their table and treated Dr. Cage like he knew him. We need to talk to her.”

  Stone nods silently.

  “No way,” I say forcefully. “My mother’s off-limits. You want to know what Dad knows about Marcello, you get him protective custody.”

  “What’s the harm in a conversation?” Kaiser asks.

  “Forget it! She doesn’t know anything.”

  “You don’t know that, Penn,” Stone says sadly. “We haven’t even talked about the deeper New Orleans dimension of the plot. And by that I mean Lee Oswald.”

  “Is that what the ten minutes you wanted is about? Oswald?”

  “And your father. And New Orleans. That’s the one thing Oliver Stone got right. The whole key to the JFK assassination was hidden in New Orleans.”

  “In plain sight, I suppose?”

  “No. This part was as secret as anything ever gets.”

  They’ve got me, and they know it. Though I couldn’t care less about the Kennedy assassination right now, I can’t leave this room without knowing the full extent of my father’s exposure. Besides, I really have nowhere to go. Caitlin is busy for the next few hours, and while Annie would love to have me home, if I were there, all I would be thinking about is what Stone and Kaiser didn’t tell me. Before I agree to hear any more, however, I need to do one thing.

  “Give me five minutes in the hall.”

  “Take your time,” says Stone. “I’m afraid I need another trip to the bathroom. These drugs are killing me.”

  Kaiser looks worried, but I don’t know whether it’s because he’s afraid I’ll take off, or because he’s dreading cleaning up more vomit from the bathroom floor.

  Once in the hall, I move far enough down so that the peephole lens in the door won’t allow Kaiser to monitor my actions. Then I take out my tape recorder and check it. The tape ran out before I left the room. I only hope it recorded Kaiser saying that he believes that Forrest Knox, and not my father, killed Viola Turner.

  Opening the machine’s cover, I flip the microcassette, hit RECORD, and then slip the Sony back into my inside coat pocket. It may not make a great recording, but I’ve used it in that pocket before and gotten usable tape. If Stone and Kaiser are about to reveal classified information about the Kennedy case—or make exculpatory statements about my father—I want a record of it. If they do the opposite, I can always toss the tape into the river as I cross the bridge back to Natchez.

  As I walk back toward Stone’s door, Kaiser leans out and says, “Dwight’s back in the bed.”

  “You thought I’d bolted,” I tell him, walking slowly back toward 406.

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Mine, too.”

  CHAPTER 37

  CAITLIN PERCHED ON the edge of the coffee table, Tom’s hands in her own. He had told her a tale of love and hate and rape and murder that she could not begin to imagine living through.

  “That’s why I could never speak to Henry,” Tom concluded. “Or the FBI, or anyone. I knew Brody Royal belonged in the gas chamber. The Knoxes, too. But I couldn’t risk trying to put him there—for the same reason Viola couldn’t. She had a child, and I had two. But there was something else. Because Frank Knox had carried out the worst of the killings, and because Viola and I had killed Frank, at times I felt like we’d done our part to balance the scales. Something, anyway. Sacrificing ourselves to try to do more wasn’t going to bring anybody back from the grave.”

  Caitlin was almost overwhelmed by emotion. “I understand now,” she said, squeezing his crooked fingers softly.

  Tom pulled back his hands and once again ran them through his white hair with frantic energy. “Earlier today, I think I passed out, from the pain meds or exhaustion. While I was out, I dreamed or hallucinated some things. I think I remembered something Ray Presley told me, years after all this happened. About Viola’s rapes.”

  “What did Ray Presley know about that?”

  “It was Ray who rescued Viola from the Knoxes. The second time, after Frank died. I didn’t know who else to go to.”

  “I remember now. Brody told us that you and Ray Presley had saved Viola.”

  Tom nodded. “Snake went mad with rage after Frank died. He ordered Viola kidnapped and taken to the machine shop where he was holding her brother and Luther Davis. They ran all kinds of rednecks through that machine shop, giving them a peek at the festivities. God only knows what horrors Viola suffered. She saw her brother shot, I know—wounded, not killed. And that tattoo cut off his arm.”

  “Brody Royal was there, too,” Caitlin said. “He told us that. Bragged about it.”

  Tom grimaced like a man suppressing bone-deep pain. “She never told me that. I’d have killed that son of a bitch, if she had. Maybe she knew that. . . . Anyway, Ray found the bastards somehow. He faced them down with a gun. He managed to get Viola out, but not her brother or Luther.” Tom shook his head. “Viola never forgave me for that.”

  “You said you remembered something Ray said, when you passed out today?”

  “Yes. Ray told me there was a kid in there when he went in to get Viola out. A teenager, maybe sixteen, with dark skin, like some Cajuns. Creole blood, you know?”

  Caitlin felt a premonitory tingle on her neck. She reached out and took Tom’s hands again, trying to comfort him as he relived this terrible memory.

  “And earlier, Walt told me he’d learned from a buddy of his that Forrest Knox is a dark-skinned man. As soon as I thought about the ages, it clicked in my head that the teenager Ray saw in that machine shop was Frank’s son. His second son. His first died in Vietnam in the midsixties.”

  “You’re saying Forrest Knox was present when Revels and Davis were tortured and killed?”

  “And for Viola’s rape, yes. I think he was there when they raped Viola in her house, too. The night Viola died, she told me one of her rapists that first time had been only a boy.”

  “My God.” Caitlin squeezed Tom’s hands so hard he jerked them back in pain. “And this is the man you want to make a deal with?”

  “I’ve made deals with worse.” He looked down.

  A rush of butterflies in Caitlin’s stomach told her she was nearing the heart of the whole complex mystery. “Tom . . . who are you talking about?”

  He shook his head, said nothing.

  “Are you talking about Carlos Marcello?”

  “Cait, please leave it alone.”

  “I wish I could. But you know I can’t.” Her mind was racing now, filling in missing connections in the likely sequence of events. Vague memories of what Brody had said about Viola’s survival were coming back to her. “What happened after Ray rescued Viola? Just freeing her physically wouldn’t have saved her.”

  “No.”

  “Even after you got her to Chicago, the Eagles would have found her. Why didn’t she contact the FBI then? Or even years later? They’d killed her brother. She could have put them in the gas chamber.”

  Tom looked at her with somethin
g like pity. “You still don’t get it. The woman Ray brought out of that machine shop wasn’t the same woman who’d been dragged in. She’d seen firsthand what those men would do. She knew there was no protection from them. But the maternal instinct is as powerful as any in this world. She did what she had to do to raise her son. Our son.”

  Caitlin sensed that they’d come to the final knot. “The Eagles found her in Chicago,” she thought aloud. “They warned her they’d kill her if she ever came back to Natchez. But they didn’t kill her there. Why not, Tom?”

  Tom braced himself on the coffee table, then stood, his creaking knees protesting. After steadying himself, he walked over toward the counter, then looked back at her.

  “Don’t you know?” he asked in a voice thick with self-disgust.

  She did. “You cut a deal with Carlos Marcello. The only man with the power to restrain Brody Royal and the Double Eagles.”

  Tom nodded. “Ray had once worked for Carlos, when he was a cop in the NOPD. Ray and I had done each other a few favors back then. I hated being indebted to him, but once Viola’s life was on the line, I had no choice.”

  “Tom . . . what did you do for Marcello in return for protecting Viola?”

  He blew out a long rush of air. “I sold my soul. A little of it, anyway. Mob men need doctors like anybody else, and Natchez is only three hours from New Orleans. I didn’t supply them with narcotics or anything. But I treated some gunshot wounds, stab wounds, that kind of thing. And I didn’t keep any records of it. By the late seventies, when Penn was graduating from high school, Marcello’s power was starting to wane, and the relationship faded away.”

  Caitlin took some time to process this. She wasn’t sure Tom had told her everything, but one thing seemed clear: Tom Cage was a good man who’d gotten himself into a bad situation, and he’d done what was necessary to protect both his family and the mistress he’d loved—a mistress who had desperately needed protection. “Tom . . . I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry, for you and for Viola.”

  Tom seemed lost in his own world. As Caitlin studied him, she suddenly realized why he was willing to bet everything on a deal with a devil like Forrest Knox. Tom had made a similar bargain in the past, and it had achieved the desired result. But this time, she somehow knew, such a deal would not work. The world had changed since the 1960s, and not all for the better. An old-time godfather might have honored such a bargain in his day, but Forrest Knox wouldn’t hesitate to betray or kill anyone who was a threat to him. Tom had said it himself.

  An idea suddenly struck her. She got to her feet and walked to within an arm’s length of him. “Tom, if you had that kind of contact with Marcello—and you knew the Knoxes so well, as their doctor—maybe that’s enough to buy you protective custody from the FBI. They seem to think Marcello was behind the assassination.”

  Tom blinked like a man snapping out of a trance. “I don’t know anything about the Kennedy assassination.”

  “Maybe not, but they don’t know that! Just play what you do know for all it’s worth, get to safety, and then straighten out everything else.”

  “That won’t help Walt. Until I can protect him, I’m not going to do anything. I can’t make a separate peace.”

  Christ, Caitlin thought, cursing his integrity for the thousandth time in her life. “Tom, you can’t make a bargain with Forrest Knox. You told me yourself he’s insane.”

  “If Forrest is his father’s son, he has a practical side.”

  “But you have nothing to bargain with!”

  “That’s not strictly true.” He stared at her for several seconds, then walked back to the couch and sat down. The intensity of his gaze triggered deep misgivings within her. “Will you sit down for a second?”

  Caitlin walked reluctantly back to the coffee table and sat down.

  “You’re in a unique position to help me resolve this nightmare,” Tom said. “There’s a solution to this dilemma that can achieve both safety for our family and justice for the dead. A way that I can make a deal with Forrest—and honor it—but still have him go to prison, preferably to death row. Also without you stopping your investigation, by the way.”

  Despite his last statement, she still felt profoundly uneasy. “I’m listening.”

  “It’s simple. Instead of printing the results of your investigative work on a daily basis, you could feed it to the FBI. Let this Agent Kaiser take Forrest down. It’s his job to take that risk, after all. If you’re willing to do it that way, I can promise Knox that you won’t be tearing him apart in the Examiner. Along with Penn and Dennis laying off the Double Eagles, that should be enough to get Forrest to cancel the APB, and possibly even blame one of the dead Eagles for Viola’s death. The FBI can use whatever you’ve uncovered to destroy the Knoxes, but our family won’t be blamed. Walt and I can safely return home, and you and Penn will live to get married and raise children.”

  Caitlin was stunned speechless. She got up and took five steps away from the sofa, her cheeks filling with blood. “You’re asking me to compromise every principle I hold dear.”

  Tom’s eyebrows went up again. “Am I? I don’t think so. I’m just asking you to forgo the glory of breaking the case—and only for a little while, really. You could still write a book about the case, after Forrest was in prison. Or dead.”

  The blood drained from her cheeks. She felt as though he’d slapped her face.

  “I’m sorry to put it so bluntly,” Tom said gently. “I know your work is your passion. It means more to you than almost anything else. Maybe more than everything.” He smiled sadly again. “Only you know the answer to that.”

  Caitlin wanted to argue, but she couldn’t find her voice. Her throat felt like something had lodged in it, blocking the air. But the worst thing was that Tom had read her innermost desires as accurately as a gifted physician diagnosing a disease. She brushed back her bangs and looked around the room like someone seeing the world for the first time.

  “I can see the idea doesn’t appeal to you,” Tom said. “But before you decide, let me make the existential argument. Because despite what happened at Brody Royal’s house last night, you don’t seem to grasp the reality of the danger. Think about your baby, Caitlin. Think about Penn and Annie. Think about Peggy and me. Is anything more important than that?”

  “The truth,” she said in a taut voice, but the word sounded hollow even to her.

  Tom took another deep, labored breath. “Most times I’d agree with you. But please believe me: if you go after the Knoxes as you intend to, they will kill you. Penn will lose his second wife, Annie her second mother.”

  “Don’t do that!” Caitlin snapped. “Don’t put that on me.”

  “That’s where we are,” Tom said sadly.

  “Because of you!”

  “Absolutely. The guilt is mine, inescapably and forever.”

  He said this with such desolation that guilt knifed through her own heart. “Tom—”

  “Melba must be frozen solid by now,” he said, getting to his feet and walking toward the kitchen.

  “Wait.” Caitlin darted after him and grabbed his arm. “What will you do if I won’t help you?”

  Tom shrugged, refusing to meet her gaze.

  A paralyzing fear had bloomed in her belly. “Tell me you won’t just wait here for them to find and kill you. Promise me that right now, or I’m calling Penn.”

  Tom took hold of her hands. “No. That’s not it.”

  Caitlin realized she had tears in her eyes. “Don’t lie to me. Please. Do you think that if you’re shot while on the run, the investigation into Viola’s death will end and everybody else will be safe?”

  Tom sighed heavily. “Last night that thought actually crossed my mind. When those gunmen showed up at Drew’s place . . . I thought about simply letting them finish me.” He squeezed her hands tight again. “Then I got your text message about being pregnant. And it was like a switch being thrown in my chest. I knew I had to survive, Cait, for as long as
I could, anyway. For that child, for you and Penn . . . for Peggy. Less than a minute later, I killed a man because I wanted to live so badly. So, don’t worry that I’m going to throw my life away.”

  As Caitlin wiped tears from her eyes, Tom smiled through his white beard and gripped her shoulders with surprising strength. “I’m glad you’re pregnant.”

  “Without benefit of clergy?”

  He laughed deep in his chest. “I won’t have it said I’m a man of hidebound morals.”

  Caitlin wanted to laugh, but she felt tears running down her face. “Goddamn it, Tom. Can’t we just call Penn? If something happens to you out here, he’ll never forgive me for it. Never.”

  “I’m sorry to put you in that position,” he said. “But I’ve got to remain free until Walt gets back. And there’s no way Penn would allow me to do that. All he sees is his father in danger. Walt’s who I need now.”

  “What do you really think Walt can do? I’ve told you Mackiever can’t even save himself.”

  “It’s not just Walt,” Tom said soothingly. “Think about where you are. It’s Quentin, too. That’s a lot of legal firepower, Cait.”

  “Quentin thinks you’re doing the right thing?”

  Tom nodded, his eyes as steady as she’d ever seen them.

  “Jesus, you make life hard. How long do you expect me to keep this from Penn?”

  “Twenty-four hours. If I can’t do what I need to by then, I’ll go to the FBI and tell them I killed John Kennedy, if that’s what it takes to get protection.”

  A hysterical laugh escaped Caitlin’s throat. She knew she shouldn’t agree to be complicit in his deception, but after refusing his request to hold off on covering the Knoxes in the Examiner while covertly helping the FBI, she couldn’t bring herself to deny him this. “You swear?”

  Tom grinned. “Cross my heart.”

  “God.” She shook her head and broke eye contact with him. Tom Cage had to be the most persuasive man she had ever met. “Let’s get Melba back in here.”

  “Wait,” he said sharply. “What are you going to be doing for the next twenty-four hours? I know you won’t be content just sitting on the sidelines, writing stories based on Henry’s work.”