The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  “Trust me, Sheriff,” Kaiser says. “If I make it plain that Sonny’s going to spend the last years of his life in Angola if he doesn’t turn state’s evidence—and at the same time offer him and his family federal witness protection—Thornfield will crack.”

  Kaiser is right. In terms of planning his interrogation, Walker Dennis probably never got much past walking in, slamming the meth down on a table, and giving Snake an ultimatum. And that would be effective enough to accomplish my initial goal—distracting Forrest from hunting my father. But if Kaiser is willing to use the fear created by the planted meth, and pile what he knows on top of that, then Sonny might actually agree to flip on his comrades. If he does that, we might learn not only where Dad is, but also who killed Viola—not to mention getting enough testimony to send Forrest and Snake to prison. Closing deals like that often takes days, of course, not hours; but if I don’t at least admit the logic of Kaiser’s argument, he’ll suspect I was part of the planted meth gambit from the start.

  “He’s making sense, Walker,” I say, still wondering if Sheriff Dennis condemned himself to prison by planting meth at Billy Knox’s residence.

  Perceiving my wavering support as a betrayal, Walker launches into an impassioned defense of his jurisdiction and his need to prove to the people of his parish that the era of police corruption has come to an end. While Kaiser suffers patiently through this, my cell phone vibrates. Slipping it partway out of my pocket, I see a text message from a number I don’t recognize. I almost ignore it, but then a little voice tells me I can’t afford to ignore anything today. Sliding the phone farther out of my pocket, I see this message:

  This is Walt. Ur father’s been taken. I’m on my way to Natchez. ETA 8 mins. If we don’t find Tom quick, he’s dead. He could be already. (Yeah, it’s me, boy. We first met on the Alvarez case.)

  The final parenthetical sends a chill across my neck and scalp. Someone trying to lure me outside might claim to be “Walt” or “Walt Garrity,” but no one involved with this case could possibly know that Walt and I first met during a murder case in Houston, when he worked as an investigator for DA Joe Cantor.

  If we don’t find Tom quick, he’s dead. He could be already. . . .

  Walker is still pontificating to Kaiser, who quietly responds in logical counterpoint that has no effect whatever on the sheriff. While this clumsy dance continues, my mind slips quietly but inexorably free from its moorings. Too much has happened too quickly over the past few days, and I’ve had too little rest to process this new information with anything like objectivity.

  “Penn?” says Sheriff Dennis. “Did you hear me?”

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  Kaiser is watching me with an inquisitive gaze, and I can’t summon a mask to put him off. All I can think about is marching back to the cellblock and sticking a gun in Sonny Thornfield’s mouth and forcing him to tell me where my father is. Given the circumstances and the time frame, it seems the only logical thing to do.

  “Penn?” asks Kaiser. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m fine,” I lie, blood pounding in my ears. Walt’s desperate text message is unspooling continually across my field of vision, like the news crawl on CNN. “I just hit a wall. All this talk . . . not enough sleep.”

  Sheriff Dennis is watching me with equal concern from behind his desk. Before Kaiser can say anything else, Walker leans forward and says, “Agent Kaiser, you’ve gathered a lot of valuable psychological information. And you seem to have had it for quite some time. I suppose you were going to act on it sometime in the future, but in the meantime, Henry Sexton is dead. Sleepy Johnston is dead. And two of my deputies are, too.”

  Kaiser tries to interrupt Dennis’s flow, but I don’t hear a word he says. If we’re going to find my father, neither Kaiser’s tactics nor Walker’s will be fast enough. I need answers now. After closing my eyes a moment to settle my nerves, I take out my cell phone and text Walt:

  Understood. Wait for me or Sheriff Dennis in the Conc. Parish sheriff’s west parking lot.

  Then, after a covert glance at Kaiser, who’s speaking earnestly to Sheriff Dennis, I text Walker the following:

  You have to let Kaiser question Snake. I just got a life or death message about my father. Hostage situation. I need instant answers or he’s dead. As soon as Kaiser gets going with Snake, isolate Sonny where no one can hear him scream. Retired Texas Ranger Walt Garrity will be waiting in west pking lot in 5 mins. Bring him inside to assist. Text me when it’s set up. Walt is old school, tough as a boot heel. Help me, buddy. I’d do it for you. P

  Walker may not want to comply with my demand, but he can’t refuse the only man who knows that he planted drugs on the prisoners now locked inside his jail. While Kaiser continues his impassioned plea, I hold up my cell phone where only Dennis can see, then quickly lower it. Sheriff Dennis isn’t the most subtle man alive, but he manages to cover his confusion quickly enough to prevent Kaiser from noticing our exchange. When his cell phone pings a few seconds later, Walker takes it out casually and glances at it as if dealing with some routine request from one of his men. Then his big eyebrows knit like those of a wise old hound pondering some unfamiliar animal.

  “John,” I say, to distract Kaiser, “you’re crazy if you don’t use the meth against the Double Eagles. You’ll never have more leverage than you do right now.”

  Before Kaiser can reply, Walker sighs heavily, as though in surrender, then says, “I tell you what, Agent Kaiser. You’ve convinced me to give you a shot. One shot. Let’s walk over to the interrogation room, and I’ll have Snake Knox brought in. I’ll give you your chance to play him the way you want. We’ll see how you do. After that, we’ll reevaluate the situation.”

  Kaiser blinks in surprise, but he loses no time getting to his feet and following Walker into the hall. As he leaves the office, I pick up the vibe of a man who feels he’s been manipulated but isn’t quite sure how. I shut the door and call Walt’s cell phone back.

  “Talk to me, Penn,” he says. “What’s your status?”

  “I’m still inside the CPSO. We were about to interrogate Snake Knox and his crew.”

  “I’m real close to you. There isn’t time to catch you up on everything. From the signs I saw, I think Tom is probably being held by some of Forrest Knox’s SWAT guys, but I don’t know where. Snake Knox might, though.”

  “We can’t get to Snake. But Sonny Thornfield might know, and we can get to him. Where’s Forrest now?”

  “Less than five miles from you, at a house on Lake Concordia. But that Redbone’s with him, Ozan. I sneaked into the house and searched it. Tom’s definitely not there.”

  “Do you think Dad could be at that hunting camp in Lusahatcha County?”

  “Not likely. I just got out of there myself.”

  “It’s a big place, though, right?”

  “A few thousand acres, at least.”

  “Then we need to get a look at it.”

  “You’ll never get a warrant fast enough. These guys have connections all over Mississippi and Louisiana. We’ve got to twist the truth out of somebody who knows.”

  “I’m on it. I want to check out Valhalla. With some luck, maybe I can arrange an overflight of the property. One that won’t require a search warrant. Meanwhile, you get your ass into the CPSO parking lot and wait. I’ll either come out to get you or send Sheriff Dennis out. And you be ready to twist somebody hard.”

  “I’m past ready, son. Just get me in the room.”

  FORREST KNOX THREW HIS StarTac phone against the wall of the lake house so hard that Alphonse Ozan jumped, and one of the two Black Team officers inside came running to the glass door.

  “That double-crossing old son of a bitch,” Forrest shouted, turning to Ozan. “He told me to go fuck myself!”

  Ozan didn’t know what to say.

  “Snake’s taken Tom Cage!”

  “What?”

  “I had trouble reaching the Black Team guys in Garrity’s van this morn
ing, but I put it down to the crappy reception down near Monterey. I guess you’d better send those two inside back down to the oil field and see what the damage is.”

  Ozan’s face had gone dark. “You don’t think they shot any of our guys. . . .”

  Forrest thought for a moment. “I don’t think Snake is that crazy, but you never know.”

  “If he snatched Cage from the Black Team, there’s no way they’re gonna let that pass. They’ll kill his ass.”

  Forrest snorted. “They had their chance last night, apparently, and they didn’t manage it. It never pays to underestimate Snake Knox.”

  Ozan started to open the glass door, but Forrest said, “You know what? I’m worried Dr. Cage is already dead. Snake’s wanted him dead since Monday afternoon.”

  “Yeah,” Ozan agreed. “I got that feeling myself.”

  “We’ve got to find out. If he is alive, we can still use him. We have to think about where Snake could stash him and feel like he was safe on ice.”

  “You don’t think the FBI could have the doc, do you?”

  Forrest felt a chill run up his back. “Hell, no. If they did, why would Snake tell us he had him?”

  “He might be working with ’em.”

  Forrest considered this for exactly three seconds. “No chance. He’d castrate himself first. But that doesn’t mean he wouldn’t fuck me if he thought I betrayed him. And he said I’d better have him and his crew out of jail in an hour.”

  “Ain’t no way,” said Ozan. “Not with that much dope hanging around their necks. Not unless we take over the whole damned department.”

  Forrest nodded. “I was considering that last night, but now that Dennis has pulled this meth switch, and with the FBI involved—and Snake being my uncle—there’d be too damned much scrutiny.”

  Ozan grunted in agreement.

  “Still no word on Mackiever resigning?” Forrest asked.

  The Redbone shook his head. “Nobody’s texted or e-mailed me.”

  “All right, then. If we’re going to bust Snake out of there soon, we’re going to have to think outside the box. We need reliable people, but they have to be several layers removed from us.”

  Ozan nodded but offered no names.

  Forrest looked out over the lake and considered the problem for a while. The low December sun had finally hit the water, and he could see fish jumping among the cypress knees. As he watched them, an ironic idea came to him. Ironic, and inspired.

  “I think I know just who to call,” he said.

  “Who?” asked the Redbone.

  “You’ll find out. But we need to keep up the appearance of playing by the rules. You don’t have any word on Claude Devereux yet?”

  “Nothing.”

  “That lying Cajun. I’m going to roast him over a slow fire when this is all over.”

  “Amen to that,” said the Redbone. “He’s always gotten on my nerves.”

  “Then find him, Alphonse.”

  Ozan nodded and punched a new number into his phone.

  CLAUDE DEVEREUX WAS HALFWAY to Lafayette, Louisiana, driving a careful seven miles over the speed limit. It had taken him longer than he’d hoped to pack, but that came from not preparing sooner. He should have known that after Brody Royal’s death, the old order would start to break apart, with all the attendant chaos and risk that accompanied such changes.

  He was taking a risk going to Lafayette, but he couldn’t bear to leave the country without seeing his grandchildren one last time. Given the crimes in which his employers had embroiled him, he might have to stay away for some time, years even, and at his age, he could easily die before he got a chance to return. In case of that eventuality, there were certain papers Claude wanted to give to his daughter. He could have mailed them, of course, but it wouldn’t be the same. He wanted to see Adeline’s lovely face when he told her there were millions that she had no idea existed, and that every dollar would pass to her someday.

  The problem was, traveling from Vidalia to Lafayette meant driving through Baton Rouge (unless you wanted the trip to take twice as long as necessary), and Baton Rouge was Forrest’s home base. Still, Claude figured he had a couple of hours before Forrest realized something was really wrong. By then, he would have hugged his family, given them their gifts, and headed west to Houston, where he would board a plane bound for the Cayman Islands.

  Devereux’s Catholic faith had lapsed more than six decades ago, but as he reached the outskirts of Baton Rouge, Claude began a litany of Hail Marys that would not cease until he had passed over the Atchafalaya Swamp to the west.

  CHAPTER 56

  THE CPSO INTERROGATION room looks pretty much like the ones in Houston, only without the sophisticated video system. It does have a camera though, trained on the table from a tripod in one corner. Deputy Spanky Ford led me to the soundproof observation room on the other side of the traditional one-way mirror, where I stand now. Through it I see John Kaiser sitting on one side of the interrogation table, studying a file. His large leather briefcase stands beside him on the floor. In a few moments, Snake Knox will be led into that room and chained opposite him. Kaiser has the confident look of a soldier who’s just won an important skirmish. If only he knew that somewhere in this building, Sheriff Dennis is separating Sonny Thornfield from his fellow prisoners and moving him to more private quarters, where he can be questioned without constitutional restraint. Under any other circumstances, I would be ashamed, but with my father in the hands of Forrest Knox, I can’t afford to observe the rules.

  As soon as Spanky Ford left me, I dialed Carl Sims, a deputy I know in Athens Point, Mississippi, forty miles south of Natchez. A former marine sniper, Carl was born and raised in Lusahatcha County. He’s done security work for me in the past, during off-duty hours, but he has two more important qualifications. One, he’s a good friend of the Lusahatcha County sheriff’s chopper pilot. If anyone can organize an aerial search of the Valhalla hunting camp, Carl can. Second, Carl has a bit of a crush on Caitlin, as well as carrying some guilt about a mistake he once made in protecting her. Carl’s phone rang eight times, but he didn’t answer. It didn’t seem that luck was on my side, but Lusahatcha County is rural and infamous for spotty cellular coverage.

  While I wait for Walker Dennis to let me know that Sonny Thornfield is ready for me, a CPSO deputy leads Snake Knox into the interrogation room. Kaiser doesn’t look up as the old man takes his seat, or even when the deputy chains Snake’s hands to a steel ring set in the metal tabletop.

  I don’t know how Snake got this nickname, but at that table, separated from his aged subordinates, he does exude the cold-blooded menace of a venomous serpent. He might be asleep, for all the signs of life he shows. But like a cottonmouth moccasin coiled beside a pond, he’s ready to strike. With his slit eyes, pale skin, and stringy muscles, Snake seems a strange crossbreed of mammal and reptile. If emotion could be measured externally, he would likely register zero. The totality of his indifference to Kaiser reminds me of some killers I encountered in Houston—the ones who immediately went to sleep after being arrested for the most heinous of crimes. And yet . . . staring through the one-way glass, I also perceive the face of a young soldier and pilot beneath Knox’s sagging, weathered skin.

  “I know you,” Snake says in a flat voice. “You’re John Kaiser, out of New Orleans. You’re married to that photographer.”

  This knowledge worries me a little, which is exactly the response Snake intends to arouse in Kaiser. But Kaiser doesn’t look up from his file.

  “You know that fatass planted that meth on us,” Snake goes on. “So you’d better say your piece while you have a chance. I won’t be here long.”

  “I don’t care about the meth,” Kaiser says, setting down his file at last. He picks up the case and sets it flat on his lap.

  “No?” Snake sounds surprised.

  “No.” Kaiser opens the briefcase, takes out the rusted Nambu pistol that his agents removed from Luther Davis’s sunken Pontiac, and se
ts it carefully on the table between them.

  Snake regards it like a pile of dog shit.

  “Been a while since you’ve seen Frank’s gun, eh?” Kaiser asks.

  Snake looks up, amusement in his eyes, but he says nothing.

  Kaiser reaches into the briefcase and takes out the rusted handcuffs his divers found locked to the Pontiac’s steering wheel. These he sets beside the Nambu.

  Snake studies the cuffs without touching them. Then he says, “Fond memories, my man.”

  Given Kaiser’s sober demeanor, it’s hard for me to remember that he’s merely acting out a ruse for Snake Knox. He knows he has no chance of making this man talk by any legal means. Every move is designed to buy him equal access time to Sonny Thornfield. But nothing about Kaiser’s posture or facial expression communicates this. In this moment, Snake must feel he is the prime target of an experienced interrogator.

  The FBI agent’s silent presence is so compelling that I’ve forgotten to try Carl Sims again. As I dial, Snake says: “Tell me something, Mr. FBI man.”

  Kaiser inclines his head slightly to the side. “What’s that?”

  “How do you know Adam and Eve weren’t black?”

  When Kaiser refuses to rise to the bait, Snake says, “You ever try to take a rib from a nigger?” A slow grin spreads across the old Double Eagle’s face, the first real expression I’ve seen from him.

  “What’s with this comic book racist act?” Kaiser asks. “I know you’re just putting on a show. Don’t you ever look around and realize you didn’t accomplish a damned thing with all your violence?”

  Snake smiles expansively. “Oh, you’re right about that. We lost the war, all right. Yes, sir. The world we got now is the proof of that. How do you like it, Agent Kaiser? The liberals got what they wanted, and everything we feared came true.”

  After six rings, Carl’s phone kicks me to voice mail again.