The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  He knelt over the supine form, certain that Nurse Price was dead, but when he touched her arm he felt warmth in her skin, not the marblelike otherness of death. Encouraged, he patted her cheek, then pinched it.

  Melba flinched, then began to cough.

  “Melba?” he said. “It’s Walt Garrity. You’re safe now. Can you hear me?”

  Her eyes opened, bloodshot and filled with fear.

  “It’s me, ma’am, Tom’s friend.”

  “Captain Garrity?” the nurse rasped.

  “That’s right. Do you know where Tom is?”

  She shook her head, then gripped at her right breast. “Oh, Lord, it hurts. They shot me, I think.”

  “Move your hand,” Walt told her, noticing something odd on her blouse. As carefully as he could, he tugged at a small bloom of orange and red. As soon as he touched the filaments, he knew he was holding a tranquilizer dart.

  “They shot you,” he told her, “but not with a bullet. They darted you, like they would a dangerous animal.”

  She blinked in confusion for several seconds. “I guess I didn’t turn out to be very dangerous.”

  Walt tugged out the dart, and the nurse barely noticed. “Did you see anybody before they got you?” he asked, tossing the dart against the wall.

  “A man in black. He had a black mask on, and he was holding a gun. That’s all I know. I didn’t even have time to shout a warning.”

  “Sounds like a police SWAT team. And I know there’s one working for the other side. I was pinned down less than fifty yards away from them last night.”

  Melba carefully raised herself on one elbow. “Tom’s not here?” she asked, clearly afraid to hear the answer.

  “No. They took him. But since they darted you, I’m hoping they only did the same to him.”

  “God, I hope I didn’t lead them to him.”

  Walt didn’t care what had led Knox’s storm troopers here. It had always been a matter of time, and he told Melba as much, not that it made her feel better.

  Getting to his feet, Walt helped the nurse up and into the living room. He laid her on a large sofa, then quickly searched the rest of the house, but he found nothing useful.

  “I hope they took his medicine,” Melba said when he returned to the living room.

  “I didn’t see any, so I assume they did.” What should I do now? Walt wondered, fighting the exhaustion that last night’s tense hours had caused.

  “Have you talked to Caitlin Masters?” Melba asked.

  Walt’s eyes popped wide open. “Caitlin? What would she know about Tom?”

  “She was here last night.”

  He couldn’t believe it. “How did she find this place?”

  “She had somebody following me. Tom asked her not to tell anyone where he was, not even Penn.”

  “I’ll bet she didn’t. Otherwise Penn would have been here long ago.” Walt took out his safest burn phone and called the Natchez Examiner. The receptionist told him Caitlin wasn’t available. It took some time, but he finally persuaded Caitlin’s editor to call her wherever she was and tell her to call the number Walt gave him.

  While Walt waited, he got Melba a tall glass of water.

  She took a long sip. “What do they mean to do to Dr. Cage, Captain? He seemed to think they wanted him dead.”

  Walt wanted to reassure her, but he found that his breath wouldn’t come. His diaphragm felt paralyzed. After years of thinking of his friend as invincible, he suddenly realized that this time Tom’s luck might have run out. “I hate to say it, Melba, but . . . depending on Forrest Knox’s plans, Tom could be dead.”

  Melba covered her eyes with her free hand and shook her head.

  “But don’t count him out yet,” Walt added. “Not till you see him laid flat in a coffin. Tom could talk a fox out of eating a chicken if he put his mind to it. If he can get in front of Knox, face-to-face, then maybe he can talk his way into a deal. I’ve been in some pretty tight spots with him, and we always found a way out.”

  “He’s old and tired now, though, Captain. Bone tired. I saw it in his eyes.”

  Walt gave her a fierce grin. “He’s no older than I am, girl. We still got some kick left in us.” He squeezed Melba’s hand. “You watch and see.”

  Walt jumped when his burn phone rang, but it was only Caitlin calling him back.

  “Tell me it’s not bad news,” she said.

  “It’s not the worst,” Walt said. “Not yet, anyway. But I’m where you were last night, and our mutual friend is missing.”

  “Oh, God. What about Melba?”

  “She’s here. Hurt, but not permanently. It sounds to me like a SWAT team took Tom, but I’ve heard nothing about any arrest. What about you?”

  “No. Oh, Walt . . . this was my worst nightmare.”

  “I’ll bet it was.”

  “Real cops would have arrested Melba, too, wouldn’t they?”

  “That’s affirmative.”

  “Jesus. Have you spoken to Penn yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Walt, please . . . don’t tell Penn I was there last night. I haven’t told him, and if he finds out I kept that from him, he’ll never forgive me. Never. It was a hard decision, but Tom made me promise not to tell Penn anything.”

  “I won’t tell him you were here, if I can avoid it.”

  “God, thank you. What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve got a line on Forrest’s location, so I’ll probably go to where he is. If Tom is still alive, he may be with or near that bastard. Where are you now?”

  “Almost down to the Lusahatcha Swamp. John Kaiser’s wife is with me, but Kaiser doesn’t know that. I don’t want Penn to know, either, unless you’re forced to tell him I’m down here.”

  “Got it. But what are you looking for? I was just down there myself. You don’t need to go anywhere near that Valhalla camp.”

  “I’m not. But I am following a story. Are the Knoxes at their hunting camp?”

  “They were last night. Some have left, but others could still be there. Don’t go near that place. And wherever you go, keep your eyes wide open and one hand on your gun.”

  “Walt, I feel so guilty about Tom. Do you think I should turn around? Is there anything I can do to help the situation?”

  “Not really. But if you want to be safe, you’ll turn around. I know you better than that, though.”

  “Guilty as charged, I’m afraid.”

  Walt’s mind moved to an obvious but unpleasant reality. “As soon as I get Melba squared away, I’m going after Forrest. If you or Penn don’t hear from me in”—Walt glanced at his watch—“four hours, assume Knox got me. In that case, tell Penn I said to cut his losses and take care of his family.”

  “Walt, wait—”

  “I mean it, darling. We’re up against it, now. Don’t take stupid risks. And don’t trust anybody.”

  “I won’t. Call me if you hear anything important. They tell me cellular reception is crap down here, but try anyway.”

  Walt said he would, then hung up.

  Melba was watching him like someone afraid to hope for even small mercies. He felt a desperate compulsion to race out to his truck, but somehow he suppressed it.

  “Caitlin doesn’t know anything about Tom,” he said. “Now, tell me the truth, have you got the strength to drive back to Natchez? Or do I need to drive you myself?”

  “Aren’t the police still looking for you, too?”

  “They are. But I’ve got no choice.”

  “I can get myself back. Where is that Forrest Knox?”

  “A GPS tracker I’ve got tells me he’s on the shore of Lake Concordia in Louisiana, fifteen miles from Natchez. Probably at a lake house like the one we were hiding in on Lake St. John.”

  “You think he’s holding Tom prisoner there?”

  “I hope he is. Because the alternatives are too depressing to think about.”

  Melba nodded. “Whatever you find out, I want you to call me.
Good or bad, I have to know. All right?”

  Walt squeezed her shoulder. “I know. Now, get your things together. Every minute counts now.”

  Melba stood, but instead of moving, she looked hard into Walt’s eyes. “What will you do if you find they have Dr. Cage prisoner over there? Can you call the police? Or the FBI?”

  Walt debated whether to answer honestly. In the end he decided the nurse wanted the truth. “It’s the police who have Tom, Melba. If I find them, and they’re holding him . . . I’m gonna kill ’em.”

  The nurse stared at him in silence for several seconds. Then she said, “I’ll be praying for you, Captain. God help me, but I think that’s the only way now.”

  Then she turned and went to gather her things.

  CHAPTER 49

  THE TRIP FROM Natchez to the Lusahatcha Swamp took only an hour, yet it had already proved an adventure, not only for Caitlin, but also for Jordan Glass. John Kaiser had insisted on having an FBI agent drive his wife to the New Orleans airport. Jordan had resisted so strongly that they’d fought over it, and ultimately Kaiser had agreed to let her go on her own. But soon after leaving her hotel that morning, Jordan had noticed an FBI tail behind her, with two agents in the car. At that point she’d called Caitlin and asked for an address that had a back driveway out. After a couple of minutes’ thought, Caitlin told her about an antebellum home that butted up against a 1950s-era neighborhood. Armed with this information, Jordan had driven into the place as though for a visit, pulled around the mansion as if to park, then zipped down a narrow lane that cut through to the residential neighborhood. The agents tailing her didn’t figure out her scheme until after Jordan texted her husband that if she was capable of flying to Cuba and meeting the Castro brothers on her own, she could damn well drive herself to the airport. After picking up Caitlin from a street corner two blocks away from the Examiner, Jordan had started south on Highway 61 at the speed limit, confident that her tail was frantically driving south ahead of her, trying to “catch up” to its quarry.

  Caitlin spent the first twenty-five miles giving Jordan a detailed history of the Bone Tree, describing the part it had played in the history of the Double Eagle group and recounting Henry’s abortive attempts to find it. Jordan had smiled upon learning that Caitlin had kept the secret of poacher Toby Rambin to herself. When Caitlin paused her narrative, Jordan almost tentatively asked exactly what she hoped to find at the Bone Tree. By this time they were far enough from Natchez that Caitlin decided to trust her new friend with the crown jewels.

  “It’s not just the bones anymore,” she said. “Not just the civil rights cold cases. I mean, that’s a huge part of it, absolutely. But after Henry died, his mother brought me some other material she found. And some of that had to do with what John and Dwight are working on.”

  “You mean the Kennedy assassination?”

  Caitlin nodded.

  “Can you tell me about it?”

  For the next five miles, they traded the information they’d gleaned from their respective sources, which merged to form a compelling scenario in which Carlos Marcello had hired Frank Knox to serve as a primary or backup shooter in Dealey Plaza on the day Kennedy died.

  “But what does that have to do with the Bone Tree?” Jordan asked.

  “Glenn Morehouse told Henry that Frank Knox didn’t trust Marcello. Knox supposedly kept some souvenir from Dallas, a document or trophy of some kind, and that totally fits with the Knoxes’ psychology. This artifact was something Frank must have felt he could use against Marcello if he ever needed to, so it protected him.”

  “Do you have any idea what it was?”

  “Snake Knox told Morehouse that it was a letter or document of some kind. But the crazy part is . . . it was in Russian.”

  Jordan’s eyes went wide. “Russian!”

  Caitlin nodded, her pulse picking up. “Last night I read everything I could find about the assassination, and Russia can only come into it two ways. First, if Russia or the KGB played some part in the killing. But I totally discount that as fantasy. The second way is through Oswald.”

  Jordan simply waited for her to continue.

  “Lee Harvey Oswald lived in Russia for two and a half years after he defected. He’d taught himself the language, and at least some letters that he wrote—like those to his Russian wife—he wrote in Russian. You can see them on the Internet.”

  Jordan remained silent, processing what she’d heard. “But how could a letter or document stay hidden in a tree for forty years?”

  Caitlin shrugged. “No idea. The best I can come up with is something like a mason jar.”

  “No. Water always finds a way in. I once hid some pot in a mason jar and buried it. One month later, the jar was half full of water.”

  “Well . . . within a few hours, we may know the answer. I wanted you to know that we’re not just out here looking for Jimmy Revels’s bones, as awesome as it would be to find them. We may actually find the key that Dwight spent half his life searching for. We might even find proof that Frank Knox killed John Kennedy.”

  Jordan drove in silence for several seconds. Then she said, “I know that cost you. You don’t really know me well.” Glass looked to her right. “I won’t tell John about it. I promise you that.”

  Caitlin felt a rush of gratitude and relief. “Thank you.”

  Soon after this, they left Highway 61. Following a map Caitlin had printed from Google Earth, they turned west toward the Mississippi River on MS 24, a narrow asphalt lane barely wide enough for two cars. Then they turned south on something called Lusawatta Road, which turned out to be a neglected gravel lane worn down to red clay. After leaving that, they found themselves on a dirt track hemmed in by trees and undergrowth. They still had not seen water, but Caitlin sensed the swamp was near. Ever since leaving Highway 61, they’d been going downhill, and the oak, elm, and pecan trees had gradually given way to cottonwood and cypress. Caitlin had rarely experienced a more startling transformation of landscape than she had during the last few miles.

  Despite the winter month, many of the trees in this area were still choked with kudzu and other undergrowth, and now and then a rusted truck or tractor would peek out of the foliage like some sentient observer. The most surreal moment of their journey had come when ten- or eleven-foot wire fences had risen out of the grass on both sides of the road, giving them the feeling they were traveling through a prison compound. Soon after, they’d begun to spy strange animals through the wire. Caitlin had seen moose, antelope, buffalo, and other creatures that looked only vaguely familiar. With her African work experience, Jordan had recognized several as oryx, springbok, gemsbok, and impala, but other species left even her stumped. Caitlin was reminded of a story she’d read as a child—Jules Verne, perhaps—in which the farther the heroes traveled upstream on a certain river, the deeper back in time they progressed. This trip felt exactly like that.

  At least it had until Walt called her. When Caitlin heard that Tom had probably been kidnapped, a black dread had begun to ooze from someplace within her. What she felt was guilt—guilt that she’d known where Tom was but had kept it to herself, and away from Penn. Last night, after they’d made love at Edelweiss, Penn had sensed that she was holding something back, and she’d denied it. If Tom died now, and Penn discovered that she might have prevented it . . . he would never forgive her.

  She might never forgive herself.

  “Look!” Jordan cried, pointing out the windshield. She hit the brakes and moved slowly into a dirt turnaround. Forty feet from the car, greenish-black water lay across the ground, and farther on, it led back into a forest of cypress knees and overhanging branches.

  They had found the swamp.

  Caitlin had Jordan drive almost to the water’s edge and park. This was the place Toby Rambin had described to her. A rusted old school bus that had once been yellow protruded from the trees to her right. Dying kudzu vines lay across the bus like strangling ropes. Caitlin reached into her bag and pulled out t
he red bandanna that Rambin had requested she wear.

  “Where’s our poacher?” Jordan asked, climbing out of the car.

  Caitlin shrugged and tied the bandanna around her neck. Then she got out, her mind still on Walt’s terrible revelation. The sulfurous stink of the swamp struck her with surprising force, filling her nose and lungs. She hadn’t expected that noxious fume in the chilly weather, but then, she had no experience of swamps. Jordan, on the other hand, was scanning the clearing like a professional surveyor.

  “He was supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago,” Caitlin said.

  “I’ve been in this situation a hundred times,” Jordan said. “I set up a guide to take me into a war zone, and he shows up four hours late, if at all.”

  “Let’s hope this isn’t a war zone,” Caitlin said, half under her breath.

  Jordan peered into the shadows under the distant trees. “After all you told me about the Bone Tree, this feels like some kind of elephant graveyard thing.”

  “After what we saw on the way in, an elephant wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Wait.” Jordan cocked her head and held up her hand. “Do you hear that?”

  Caitlin listened hard, but she heard only birds and frogs. “What is it?”

  “Motorcycle. Was Rambin coming on a motorcycle?”

  “I don’t see how. He’s supposed to bring a boat.”

  Jordan reached into the car and brought out a 9 mm pistol.

  Caitlin could hear the motorcycle now. It was definitely coming toward them, probably on the same road they’d traveled. The whining engine rose and fell like a chain saw cutting up a fallen tree, but soon the whine became constant and steadily ascended the scale. Then suddenly the cycle flashed out of the trees and skidded to a stop beside their vehicle.

  The rider wore a silver helmet, but he took it off immediately, revealing the face of a black boy who looked no older than fifteen. He jumped when he saw Jordan’s pistol, but then he settled down, as though accustomed to being around handguns.

  “Which one of you’s Masters?” he asked, his eyes curious.