The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  Forrest felt something shift in his gut—a familiar sensation that always accompanied the discovery of a fresh track. “Who made those calls?”

  “Some came from what looks to be the office of the mayor. This past Monday.”

  “Quentin Avery must be Tom Cage’s lawyer,” Forrest thought aloud. “The Viola Turner case was just unfolding then. It’s natural that they would try to get hold of Avery.”

  “Yes, sir. But I’ve also been analyzing the call patterns on the Jefferson County house, and also the Internet traffic.”

  “And?”

  “I can’t see the searches, but this morning about three A.M. somebody logged on to the Internet and stayed on for two and a half hours. That’s totally anomalous, relative to the normal pattern.”

  “You can’t see the actual searches that were done?”

  “Not yet, sir.”

  Forrest thought about this. “What do you know about this house?”

  “I checked it on Google Earth. It’s very isolated. Practically a mansion, for that area. It’s sitting on eighty acres of forestland.”

  Certainty clicked in Forrest’s mind like a trap snapping shut. He thought about Tom Cage’s last known position—dumping that stupid cop Grimsby in a northeast Louisiana cotton field. To reach Quentin Avery’s Mississippi estate, Cage would have had to pass through one of the roadblocks guarding the bridges over the river. Motorists had complained so much about the bottleneck those barriers had created that he’d finally had to take them down, but there were still the bridge cameras.

  “Have you guys been working the relatives of Dr. Cage’s wife, like I told you to?”

  “Yes, sir. Augustin handled that. He spoke to all the known relatives, then went home around fifteen minutes ago. He didn’t think anybody acted suspicious.”

  Lazy prick, Forrest thought, marking his underling for later punishment. As he thought about the geography of Jefferson County, a new thought struck him. “Sergeant, I want you to find every vehicle registered to any of Mrs. Cage’s relatives, then see whether any have crossed the bridge at Vicksburg in the past twenty-four hours.”

  “Not at Natchez?”

  “Natchez and Vicksburg, but give Vicksburg priority. How long will that take?”

  “I’m not sure. We’ve been having trouble getting the records of the camera data from Homeland Security. They say it’s a technical glitch.”

  “Do you have the data now?”

  “Let me check Augustin’s box. Yes, sir, it came in twenty minutes ago.”

  “Run the plates.”

  “Yes, sir. You want me to call you back?”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Forrest put the phone on speaker and got up from his desk. He didn’t know much about Quentin Avery, but he knew enough not to rule out the possibility that Cage had run to his lawyer’s house for sanctuary. The two men were close in age, and while Avery was a rich lawyer now, he’d been a civil rights activist in his youth. At one point the regular Klan had been hunting him across the state. Forrest remembered his father talking about it.

  “Colonel, I’ve got it!” said the excited voice. “I got a hit.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “A plate belonging to a John McCrae crossed west to east last night at one twenty-two A.M. That’s the wife’s brother.”

  Forrest’s blood quickened. “What kind of vehicle is that?”

  “It’s not a vehicle, sir. It’s a horse trailer.”

  Forrest smiled. “That’s it. Has it crossed back over into Louisiana?”

  “Yes, sir. It crossed back in fifty-eight minutes after it left.”

  “We’ve got him,” Forrest said softly.

  “What was that, sir?”

  “Forget everything you just told me, Sergeant. Sequester that data. We may need it, or we may need it to disappear. I want you to prepare for both eventualities. Understand?”

  “Understood, sir.”

  Forrest pressed END, then picked up his encrypted phone and called Alphonse Ozan.

  “Hey, boss,” said the Redbone. “What you got?”

  “I think I found Dr. Cage.”

  “Where is he?”

  “His lawyer owns a house in Jefferson County, Mississippi, near Fayette. It’s way out in the woods. I think he’s there. Deploy the Black Team.”

  “What’s the mission? Snatch or terminate?”

  “I’ll call you back. Just get ’em in the air and headed north.”

  TOM HAD SPENT MOST of the afternoon and evening sleeping. He rested a lot better with Melba Price watching him. The knowledge that his nurse was awake and alert meant that he didn’t have to start at every unfamiliar noise, of which there were many in Quentin’s mansion. After enough sleep, a good meal of bacon, eggs, and toast, and a generous regimen of various drugs, he’d begun feeling human again. Melba had even gotten him off the couch to make several circuits of the house. Thankfully, he managed this without getting angina, and his shoulder pain had been dulled to an endurable throb.

  After they settled themselves on the living room couch again, Tom had told Melba she needed to think about heading back to Natchez. She’d done more than he had any right to ask of her, and he assured her that he was feeling better. But Melba wouldn’t hear any talk of leaving. She’d abandoned him the night before, she said, and he’d nearly died because of it. Tom pointed out that she might have been killed at Drew’s lake house as easily as he when the gunmen arrived. But Melba argued that the killers never would have sneaked up on Tom while she was there to keep watch.

  After a few minutes, he took a rest from trying to persuade her and clicked on his current burn phone to see whether Walt had sent him any further messages.

  There were none.

  Melba got up and made a trip around the darkened interior of the house, peering out of each window until her eyes adjusted and she felt confident that no one was outside. Tom appreciated her effort, but Caitlin’s earlier visit by car proved just how quickly someone could appear at one of the doors. If Knox’s people showed up to storm the place, there’d be nothing he or Melba could do to stop them.

  “Why won’t you leave, Mel?” he asked, after she’d returned to the sofa. “At a certain point, loyalty becomes foolish. Your first loyalty has to be to yourself.”

  His nurse smiled wistfully. “A minute ago,” she said, “I probably couldn’t have told you why. But when you asked me just now, I realized the answer.”

  “Will you tell me?”

  “Back when Roderick left me—for that girl—and I sunk so low that I was just a shadow of myself . . . when I was drinking so much and thinking crazy thoughts . . . Do you remember that?”

  “I remember.”

  “That night you came to my house to keep me from doing something stupid? And I threw myself at you?”

  “Oh, Mel, no you didn’t.”

  She looked up sharply. “Hush. You know I did. We never talked about it after, but I never forgot it.”

  “Mel—”

  “Would you let me say my piece?” She folded her hands together and stared off into space, as though looking deep into the past. “Lord, that was back when I still looked good, and you were young enough to do something about it.”

  Tom’s shoulder throbbed when he laughed, but he couldn’t help himself. “Those days are long gone, I’m afraid.”

  “For you and me both, baby.”

  “You’ve got some good living left, Mel.”

  “Just be quiet, old man. That night, when I let you know you could have whatever you wanted . . . you were nothing but a gentleman. I don’t think many men would have walked away from me in that state, to tell you the truth. But you did.”

  Tom recalled the night with perfect clarity. Melba had been a very attractive woman then. But her most alluring quality—to him—was that she’d reminded him of Viola. When she unbuttoned her robe and walked to him, trying to kiss him, for the briefest moment he’d relived the feeling of falling into Viola’s embra
ce. But then he’d smelled the reek of gin, and the memory evaporated.

  “That wasn’t what you needed,” he said.

  “I know. But I thought it was.” Melba reached out and laid a warm hand on his arm. “I knew about Viola even then. From what the older nurses had said. I think I wanted you to love me the way you loved her.”

  Tom wanted to comfort her, but Melba raised her hand to keep him silent. “I don’t think you ever loved anybody like you did Viola. And I say that with all the respect in the world for Mrs. Cage.”

  Tom sagged back against the sofa pillows, his mind drifting. “There are different kinds of love. That’s one thing I’ve learned in this life. I don’t know if concepts like more come into it.”

  “Yes, they do,” Melba said earnestly. “Sooner or later, it always comes to a choice. My Roderick made his, and I learned what a fool I was.”

  “Well, I made my choice, too.”

  Melba’s luminous brown eyes and peered deeply into his. “Did you?”

  Tom nodded. “I did. I don’t want to say more than that.”

  “All right, then.”

  Tom rubbed his eyes to break the spell of remembrance. “Are you planning to spend the night here or what?”

  “I think we’re both legal,” Melba said, smiling again. “And it’s not like Quentin’s short of space. Are you sleepy yet?”

  “Actually, I feel pretty good. Thanks to the drugs, the sleep, and your nursing.”

  “How about we watch some TV then?”

  “Fine by me.”

  “What you want to watch?”

  “Anything but a medical show. What about you?”

  “Anything but the news or reality TV. I’d love to see one of them old shows that takes my mind off things, like The Rockford Files.”

  Tom couldn’t hide his amazement. “The Rockford Files? You’re a fan of that show?”

  Melba tucked her chin into her chest and fanned her face with her hand. “I love me some James Garner, now. That’s one handsome white man.”

  Tom laughed so hard that he thought he might have to take another Vicodin.

  “Go back and watch him in The Great Escape,” Melba said, “when he was young and pretty. Even my mama thought so.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can find.” Tom picked up the remote control and clicked on the widescreen television.

  Before he could press the GUIDE button, a news crawl at the bottom of the screen scrolled: Three-state manhunt continues for accused cop killers Walter Garrity and Thomas Cage, M.D. Both men are considered armed and extremely dangerous. Do not approach these fugitives or seek to apprehend them. They may appear elderly, but are suspected of murdering an armed Louisiana state trooper. If you have any information, contact the Louisiana State Police or dial 911 Emergency. . . . The crawl went on to announce a severe thunderstorm alert in northeast Mississippi.

  “Dear Lord,” Melba said. “What you gonna do, Doc?”

  Tom swallowed hard and made himself press the buttons on the remote. “Wait for Walt. That’s all I can do, at this point.”

  “Do you really believe he’s still alive?”

  “His message said he’s okay.”

  “Are you sure that was real?”

  Tom sighed and gave her a pleading look. “Please go home, Melba. You don’t have any business being here for whatever the next act is.”

  “And you don’t have any business being here alone. Find us a TV show. I told you I didn’t want no reality.”

  WALT GARRITY HAD NOW lain beneath the bed for so long he was worried about getting a blood clot. At some point he was going to have to try to get out, because it didn’t look like the Valhalla lodge was going to be empty for a long time.

  He was about to switch on his burn phone to test for reception again when he heard a metallic thunk outside, and then the big turbo sitting atop the helicopter began to spool up. With painful effort Walt dragged himself out from beneath the bed and pulled himself up to the curtained window. This time he saw the scene he’d watched earlier played in reverse. Black-clad SWAT troopers ran from the far building to the chopper’s door, their German shepherd alongside them. Every man carried at least one assault weapon.

  Gut-churning fear awakened in Walt. He saw no reason for this kind of action unless someone had located Tom. Every fiber of his being told him the time had come to bolt and find someplace with cellular reception, but it would be stupid to try before the chopper left. Worse, he could see the goddamn pit bull leaping and barking at the cops as they boarded the helicopter.

  Walt rubbed his forehead and cursed quietly, thinking of his wife back in Texas. If he were ten years younger, and single, he would make his break as soon as the chopper departed. He’d kill the dog if it made a sound, and then rely on his wilderness skills to get him to his vehicle ahead of any pursuers. But there was no point kidding himself. He wasn’t that man anymore. He would have to make the best of the situation and the skills he still had.

  And Tom would have to do the same.

  CHAPTER 41

  THE EMOTIONAL TRANSITIONS I’ve made today have left me shaky and hypersensitive to almost all stimuli, but the past few minutes have gone a long way toward healing that. Annie and I are eating sandwiches and watching TV in the bedroom she commandeered in our makeshift safe house, the Abramses’ old place on Duncan Avenue. My mother made the sandwiches: tuna fish with apple slices, like those she used to make for my friends and me when we were kids. Since Annie was unable to find an episode of Grey’s Anatomy or House, M.D., she settled on Logan’s Run, the sci-fi movie starring Michael York and a boyhood crush of mine, Jenny Agutter.

  “How come they chose thirty to be the oldest you could get?” Annie asks, munching on a triangular half of her sandwich. “I mean, you turn thirty, and then you walk into this thing where they kill you?”

  “The people in the bubble city don’t know they’re going to die. They think they’re going to be recycled, sort of.”

  “But the people who run don’t believe that.”

  “Right. The writer probably chose thirty because at that age you still feel pretty much like you did as a teenager. Also, there used to be a saying: ‘Never trust anyone over thirty.’”

  Annie knits her brows. “Huh. Weird.”

  Despite all I’ve been through today, I can’t help but laugh.

  While a young Farrah Fawcett welcomes Michael York to a plastic surgeon’s office, Annie says, “This no-school deal is pretty sweet.”

  “Don’t get too used to it.”

  “I know. But I miss talking to my friends. Are you sure I can’t call anybody? Just for a couple of minutes?”

  “I’m sorry, babe. You can’t risk it.”

  She stares at me for several seconds without speaking, then turns her attention back to the movie. Soon she’s lost in the drama of Sandmen chasing Runners, and my mind wanders back to the brief conversation I had with my mother when I arrived.

  Despite the drama of the confrontation at Edelweiss, what dominated my mind after reaching the safety of this house was my memory of the Ford Fairlane my parents owned when I was a toddler. The more I thought about that gleaming car, the more I realized how incongruous it was, given my mother’s tales of penny-pinching frugality and part-time jobs during the early years of their relationship. While Annie went upstairs to find us something to watch, I sat Mom down in the banquette in the corner of the Abramses’ kitchen and asked where she and Dad had got “the old Ford that’s in all the family pictures.”

  “The Fairlane?” she asked.

  “The car with the tail fins.”

  “Oh, Lord. We got that when we were in New Orleans.”

  A wave of heat flashed across my neck and shoulders. “Really? I thought you only got it after you got back from Germany.”

  “Oh, no. We needed a car long before that. And back then the army would carry your car over on a ship. I’m so glad we had it overseas. I’d have never made it to the hospital to have you without
that car.”

  “So where did you buy it? That was a pretty flashy car for that time. You didn’t get it new, did you?”

  Mom’s eyes widened. “New? Lord, no. But it was only a year or two old, and in really good shape. I think it was a 1957. Maybe a ’58. That’s one of the few great deals Tom ever made. He actually saved his money without telling me, and then one day he brought it home as a present. It was our anniversary, I’m sure of it. 1959.”

  “The anniversary you told me about last night? When you guys went to that Italian restaurant?”

  “Yes!” A smile of authentic pleasure revealed her still-white teeth. “Oh, that was such a grand time. You don’t know what something like a car really means until you’ve been poor and had to walk everywhere, rain or shine.”

  I could scarcely keep my mind on what she was saying. All I could see was squat, saturnine Carlos Marcello with his arms wrapped around them both at Mosca’s, asking how they liked the spaghetti with clam sauce.

  “You know what I remember most?” she asked, her voice laced with nostalgia. “In Germany they told us never to let our gas tank get below half full, in case the balloon went up and the Russians invaded.”

  “Wow,” I said dully. “That must have been scary.”

  “Oh, your father wasn’t scared. He said his army unit had nuclear artillery shells, and they could stop the Russians. But I didn’t believe that. Neither did the Germans. If you even said the word ‘Russian,’ those women would shiver.”

  “So you don’t know where Dad got the car?”

  “I guess I don’t.” Her smile faded into concern, then worry. “Why are you so concerned with that car?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mom watched me in silence for a few seconds. “Is it something to do with Carlos Marcello?”

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “Because you were asking about him last night. But he didn’t have anything to do with that car. Tom saved up and bought it.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’re right. Forget about it.”

  But I knew she wouldn’t. No more than I would.

  Before I went upstairs—while Annie helped Mom make the tuna fish—I walked into the backyard and made two phone calls on my burn phone. The first was to Dr. Homer Dawes, a Natchez dentist who’d been in dental school in New Orleans while my father attended med school. They became good friends, and later, by chance, ended up settling in the same town. After Dr. Dawes’s wife brought him to the phone, I told him I was working on a novel and needed to know what Dad’s salary might have been for working in the Orleans Parish Prison in 1959. Dr. Dawes laughed and said he knew exactly how much that job paid, because he’d been the dental extern for the prison in 1958. “Most of our compensation was room and board,” he said. “Beyond that, they gave us a stipend of fifty dollars a month.”