The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  Dennis takes an ominous step forward, and I step between him and the desk. Kaiser is right, of course: Dennis is guilty of planting evidence; but no human being is more self-righteous than one who’s been caught committing a crime.

  “Sometimes a pitch just breaks the right way,” Walker says, trying to regain his equanimity.

  “At exactly the right time?” Kaiser asks, a mocking tone in his voice.

  Dennis draws himself up a couple of inches. “This ain’t none of your business, Mr. Kaiser. We local yokels have got this one under control. Why don’t you get back to draining ponds, or whatever your main business is?”

  Kaiser looks to me for help, but I’m not inclined to give him any. This meth bust gives us irresistible leverage against the Knoxes, who would otherwise be uncrackable as a unit.

  After taking several seconds to collect himself, Kaiser says, “Sheriff, I’m sorry if I was out of line. But these cases involve some of the most important unsolved crimes in this country. And if any . . . overzealousness on the part of law enforcement endangers the convictions we might otherwise get, that would be a tragedy for a lot of people.”

  The stubbornness in Dennis’s face looks almost bovine. Kaiser isn’t going to change this man’s mind.

  “What exactly are you suggesting I do?” Dennis asks at length.

  “Don’t arrest the Eagles for those drugs. Not yet, anyway. Let me talk to them. They came in voluntarily. They’re feeling cocky. So far, they don’t even have an attorney present. We have a lot of information that they don’t know we possess, and we might learn a lot that could help our cause. But if you arrest them for that meth, they’re going to lawyer up. And it’ll be a very long time before we learn anything that could help anybody.” Kaiser looks at me again. “I include Dr. Cage in that.”

  It was a good try, but he can’t sell me. Not with the Knoxes holding almost all the cards. Dennis is watching me for some kind of signal. When Kaiser looks back at him, I give my head an almost imperceptible shake.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Kaiser,” Dennis says. “But I didn’t lose good men just to shoot at the hump. I’m arresting those bastards right here and now.”

  Kaiser raises his hands to protest, but Dennis is already yelling down the hall for some men. When they come running, he tells them to draw their weapons.

  Kaiser and I follow this hyped-up posse down the narrow paneled hall to a small dining room where the Double Eagles are waiting. By the time I stand on tiptoe and get a look into the room, I see pure shock on the faces of the six old men gathered inside. This is clearly the last thing they expected to happen.

  “Sonny Thornfield?” Dennis says loudly. “Snake Knox? You are under arrest for possession of and trafficking in crystal methamphetamine. You other boys are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic in methamphetamine. And I’ll tell you this right now: the first son of a bitch to come clean with me gets to walk, but the rest are gonna die on Angola Farm.”

  Snake Knox looks defiant, but several other pairs of eyes widen in fear.

  “Get off your asses and hold out your hands!” Dennis shouts. “Now, by God. I ain’t got all day!”

  “I want a telephone,” Snake says calmly.

  “I want a blow job from Angie Dickinson,” Walker replies. “Don’t mean I’m gettin’ it.”

  “You’ve got to give him a phone call,” Kaiser says from behind us.

  Dennis barks out an abrupt laugh. “Thank God you boys got the FBI lookin’ after you, Snake. Next best thing to the ACLU. I’ll bet you never figured the Bureau would be pickin’ up your slack, did you?”

  “Fuck you, Dennis,” Snake growls. “You’re a dead man. You and yours, boy.”

  Sheriff Dennis crosses the room in two bounds and seizes Snake Knox by the throat with one hand. Snake tries a judo chop on the sheriff’s massive forearm, but his blow barely leaves a pink mark on the muscle.

  “You can threaten me all day long, scum,” Dennis says softly, backing Snake against the wall. “But if you threaten my family again, you’ll be eatin’ through a straw the rest of your life, if you live.”

  Snake’s eyes bore into the sheriff’s with no fear in them at all. For a moment they almost seem to have the vertical irises of his reptilian namesake. In a raspy whisper, he says, “Both your boys, dipshit. And your old lady, too. Though that’d be a mercy fuck, from what I’ve seen.”

  Walker Dennis closes his hand like a man crushing a beer can.

  Snake’s eyes bulge, and his face goes red, then purple.

  “Sheriff!” yells Kaiser. “Release that man!”

  Two deputies bolt forward and try to pull their boss’s crushing hand from Snake’s throat, but they can’t do it. The old crop duster’s eyes have gone glassy. One deputy holds his nightstick over his boss’s head as a last resort, but Dennis finally comes to his senses and releases Knox.

  “Throw that fucker in the drunk tank,” Dennis says, stumping toward us with blood in his eye. “Put Thornfield in there with him. Process the rest and put ’em in the main cellblock. We’ll separate ’em later.”

  “What about that phone call?” Kaiser asks.

  “Fuck him,” Dennis mutters, walking past the FBI agent without even a glance. “And fuck you, too. Stay out of my way.”

  AFTER TWENTY MINUTES OF flying over the Lusahatcha Swamp, Caitlin realized that hunting for the Bone Tree in a boat would have taken weeks without a guide like Toby Rambin. From five hundred feet in the air, the swamp appeared vastly larger than it had on Google Earth, which Caitlin had used to scan the terrain this morning. The cypress forest seemed endless, and the thick undergrowth was caught in the transition from fall to winter, an uncertain process in the South. Though it was late December, a lot of green still dotted the landscape below, and a greenish-brown scum floated at the edge of the black water between the big trees. Caitlin now understood why Henry and the FBI had not found the Bone Tree during their relatively brief searches. With half a million trees between the east and west borders of the swamp, the odds of finding a single one by pure luck were practically zero.

  “The X on your map,” Danny McDavitt said over the headset, “appears to lie in the borderland between the federal wildlife preserve and the private hunting club in this area. Some of it’s disputed borderland.”

  “What do you mean, disputed?” Jordan asked.

  “I’ve always heard that fence down there is in the wrong place,” Danny replied. “Some say the hunting club fenced in more land than they own. But they claim they actually own more than they’ve fenced. I never heard of any litigation over it, though. Too many senators hunt at that place.”

  Caitlin figured this was her chance. “Have either of you hunted at the Valhalla camp?”

  “I went once,” Carl said. “Sheriff Ellis took me. He’s tight with the people who own it.”

  “The Knoxes?” Caitlin asked as casually as she could.

  “That’s right,” said Danny. “Some of them are old Klansmen, but one is a big dog in the state police. I think that Brody Royal was a member, the one who died the other night.”

  Caitlin wondered if Danny knew that she’d been in the room when Henry Sexton immolated the old multimillionaire. Of course he did. That would have been the talk of the county this morning, and certainly the sheriff’s department.

  “I didn’t care for the place,” Carl said.

  “Big surprise,” Danny cracked. “You’re definitely the wrong color.”

  “Yeah. The sheriff only took me over there to show those assholes he’s got the best rifle shot in the state on his payroll.”

  Caitlin looked over at Jordan, who was gazing out the window as though this were a commuter shuttle from New York to Boston.

  “What the hell is with those huge fences?” Jordan asked. “We saw them on the way in. The whole place felt like a goddamn concentration camp.”

  “That’s what it is,” Carl said glumly. “But for animals.”

  Danny tilted the chopper
so that they could see more landscape below. Caitlin scanned the swamp for cypresses noticeably larger than the others.

  “What’s it cost to belong to one of those hunting clubs?” she asked.

  “Ten grand a year for some, others ten times that much. Depends on what you’re after.”

  “Unless you’re a senator or a titan of industry,” said Danny. “Then you can order what you want off a menu, just like going to a restaurant. They take you out to an electric feeder where the game of your choice eats every day, and you execute the animal while he’s having dinner.”

  “Real sporting, huh?” Carl said. “It’s like hunting in a zoo.”

  “Pathetic,” Jordan said. “You see how those deer run when we roar over them? That’s exactly how people run from choppers in some countries I’ve been to. Only slower.”

  “Yeah,” Carl said, his voice suddenly somber. “I’ve seen that myself.”

  “Is that the way Valhalla is run?” Caitlin asked. “Like a hunting zoo?”

  “For the customers, yeah. But the owners do some crazy stuff, like the spear hunting.”

  “There are politicians who have wet dreams about being asked down to those camps for a weekend,” said Danny. “They’ve got chefs and waiters and whores on call for those boys. It’s redneck heaven down here.”

  “And Sheriff Ellis is tight with the owners?” Caitlin asked.

  Carl nodded. “The sheriff’s okay. He’s a redneck, but he’s basically a decent man.”

  “Are we getting close to the X?” Caitlin asked.

  “Not long now,” Danny said. “This map wasn’t exactly drafted by the U.S. Geological Survey.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  The pilot laughed, then looked over his shoulder at Caitlin. His eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses. “You ladies going to let us in on what’s supposed to be waiting under that X?”

  Caitlin felt a chill of suspicion.

  “It’s not Jean Lafitte’s pirate treasure, is it?”

  “How did you know?” Jordan said with a laugh. “If it’s there, we’ll cut you in for five percent.”

  Carl laughed. “I think this chopper rates a four-way split, don’t you?”

  Caitlin forced herself to laugh, but she wondered how the pilot would react if they actually discovered the Bone Tree this morning. As a young black man, Carl obviously sympathized with her cause, but Sheriff Ellis wasn’t going to be happy to have his county become the new epicenter of civil rights cases that would draw the attention of the whole world.

  Out of nowhere, an image of Tom Cage rose in her mind. Without intending it, Caitlin prayed as she never had before. She prayed for Tom’s deliverance, of course, but more than that, she prayed that Penn would never discover that she’d known where Tom was and kept it from him.

  She started as Jordan’s hand fell on her knee.

  “I’m okay,” she said, looking up at her new friend. “Just a little airsick.”

  Jordan smiled, but she wasn’t buying it.

  CHAPTER 54

  WALT STOOD WITH his back to the wall of the rearmost upstairs bedroom of the Bouchard lake house and listened to the muted hum of voices from the deck. Only a glass door covered by a curtain separated him from Knox and Ozan now. He had accomplished a minor miracle in getting this far. After the Redbone arrived, Walt had put on some rough clothes he’d found in the neighbor’s house, then crossed the open ground wearing a gardener’s cap and gloves and carrying a short shovel. Once he’d gained the house undetected, he’d quickly searched the garage. After determining that Tom wasn’t inside Ozan’s pickup truck, Walt had taken out his pistol and begun searching the house, room by room.

  With every room he cleared, the embers of hope in his heart burned lower. After ten minutes, he found himself standing here, in the final room, which was as empty of human beings as the others. This huge house contained only Walt Garrity, while Forrest and Ozan talked in low tones on the deck. Walt clenched his pistol against his chest and tried to make out what the men were saying.

  He couldn’t do it.

  Unless he put his ear to the glass window, there was no point in even trying. His only hope now was to confront the bastards directly. At two to one, the odds were against him, but he’d faced worse as a Texas Ranger. Much worse, in fact, and he’d survived.

  Truth be told, the safest plan would be to shoot Ozan outright and then force Knox to give up Tom’s location. But if he did that, he’d have little choice but to finish off Knox as well. Both men certainly deserved to die, but Walt found the idea of blowing Ozan away without any warning more difficult than he would have expected. Perhaps he could get the drop on them so cleanly that they wouldn’t go for their weapons. . . .

  “No,” he whispered. “Right now, I’m Tom’s only chance.”

  Walt edged over to the window, where a thin crack of light offered a view of the deck. He could just make out Ozan standing in profile, while Forrest remained out of sight. Throwing open the door before firing was out of the question, a sucker’s play. Better to slide the curtain aside and fire through the glass—multiple times, if necessary.

  Walt tried to calm himself the way he did before shooting at a distant deer. But no matter what he did, his heartbeat grew louder, and his ears began to pound.

  One shot, he thought, focusing on Ozan’s brick-colored face. For all I know, Tom is dead already, and that bastard killed him. . . .

  FORREST HAD FELT SOME relief after Ozan joined him. Having a man who was willing to follow any order without question gave you a certain confidence. But the plain fact was, they were in a tough spot. Something had clearly gone wrong with his plan to bust Sheriff Dennis. He didn’t know what it was, but he wanted Snake and his crew out of the sheriff’s office. Somehow, a dumb ex–baseball player had turned the tables on him. Forrest wasn’t really worried about Walker Dennis; he was worried about the sheriff giving Penn Cage and John Kaiser access to the Double Eagles. Forrest had reviewed the records of both men, and both had proved themselves expert at wringing the truth out of hardened criminals. If he couldn’t find a way to get Snake and his crew out of that jail, Cage and Kaiser would get a real shot at turning somebody. The fallout from Glenn Morehouse’s deathbed confession had yet to be controlled, and if one more Eagle decided to unload the sins of his youth, Forrest could say good-bye to all his ambitions for the future.

  He cussed his own stupidity when it hit him that he’d been wasting time waiting for Claude Devereux to come through. The simplest solution was just to call Snake and tell him to walk the Eagles right out of the building. After all, they hadn’t been arrested. They were free to leave anytime they chose. They could flip Sheriff Dennis the bird as they walked out! Instead, they were sitting there—on Forrest’s orders!—patiently awaiting an interrogation they were confident would never happen, because they expected Dennis to be busted by his own men at any moment.

  Forrest picked up his burn phone and speed-dialed Snake’s cell phone. The phone rang several times, then kicked him to voice mail. Ozan asked what he was doing, and Forrest explained. Then, while Forrest tried Sonny Thornfield’s phone, Ozan began dialing the other Eagles at the station.

  None answered.

  Something began to thrum in Forrest’s chest, like a wire stretched taut between his heart and his voice box.

  “What do you think happened?” Ozan asked.

  “Nothing good.”

  “Where the fuck is Claude Devereux?” muttered the Redbone. “He should’ve been down there by now. He should’ve called you back, at least.”

  Forrest licked his lips and thought about Devereux. Given Brody Royal’s death, and the manner of it, the crafty old Cajun might just have bolted. . . .

  “Maybe Claude is down there,” Ozan suggested.

  “I don’t think so. I want you to alert every trooper in the southern half of the state. Claude’s daughter lives in Lafayette. Tell them to look out for Claude’s car. If they see it, pull him over and tell hi
m to get his ass back to his office and wait for instruction.”

  “Do you think he—”

  Forrest’s StarTac was ringing.

  “That’s probably him now,” Ozan said, grinning.

  Forrest shook his head and answered the phone. The caller was his primary mole at the sheriff’s office.

  “Talk,” Forrest said.

  “Sheriff Dennis just arrested everybody, Colonel.”

  Forrest balled his left hand into a fist. “Define ‘everybody.’”

  “Snake, Sonny, and the other four old guys.”

  “On what charge?”

  “Meth trafficking. Dennis and two deputies found a shitload of crystal under Sonny’s and Snake’s houses. He’s strutting around here like goddamn rooster.”

  Forrest’s pulse began to pound. “What about Billy’s houses?”

  “I haven’t heard anything about Billy. But Mayor Cage and that FBI guy are here, too. This is some serious shit, Colonel. I gotta go, but I knew you’d want to know.”

  “Hold on! As soon as you can get word to Snake, make sure he knows I had nothing to do with this. I don’t want him thinking it was some kind of setup.”

  “Ten-four.”

  “And tell him I’ll get them out. Today. You hear me? Tell them I’ve got a lawyer on the way.”

  “Yes, sir. Will do.”

  The connection went dead.

  “What the hell happened?” Ozan asked.

  Forrest told him.

  The Redbone shook his head, his eyes bright with outrage. “Why would Sonny and Snake have meth at home? You think they been skimming or something? Putting back a nest egg?”

  “Hell, no! Don’t you see? Sheriff Dennis found the meth we planted under his house and planted it on our guys. Goddamn it!”

  “How the hell could he have found that? A K-9 unit?”

  Forrest nodded. “Had to be. But he’d never think to look for it. Not Walker Dennis. Kaiser, maybe. But an FBI agent would never risk planting dope like that. They leave that kind of shit to the DEA.”