The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  But for now . . .

  I reach out and take the cold hand of the woman I would have married next week, had my father not taken leave of his senses, and gently squeeze it as I did in life. She does not squeeze back, but I still remember with absolute clarity what the reciprocal squeeze felt like: the proof of love returned.

  The OR’s double doors open behind me, but I do not turn. A nurse gently suggests that I rejoin my friend outside.

  I ask her to leave.

  Perhaps I was not as polite as I should have been, for I hear voices just outside the door. Some male, others female. Someone is talking about shock, suggesting I might need to be seen by a doctor.

  Shock.

  Am I in shock?

  “Penn?” says a hesitant voice from behind me. “It’s Carl. Can I talk to you?”

  “Talk,” I say without turning.

  Carl walks slowly up beside me.

  “I’m sorry we couldn’t save her, man. I did everything I could.”

  “I know you did.”

  “I think I broke her ribs, doing CPR. I’m so sorry about that.”

  “That means you did it right.”

  “You don’t—” Carl’s voice catches, and he has to pause to regain his composure. “You don’t think I made her worse, do you? That pericardial thing?”

  In truth, he probably did, but nobody could have wanted Caitlin to live more than Carl Sims in those moments. “She wasn’t going to make it, man. You did all you could.”

  Carl sobs once, then wipes his nose on his sleeve. “You heard what that doctor said? Your daddy tried hard to save her. And Caitlin did all she could to save herself. She did shit even a combat soldier might not do.”

  My throat constricts painfully, cutting off a single wracking sob.

  “Your daddy’s awake now, they said. Down in the ER. He went into sugar shock. A few more minutes and he would have been dead.”

  I grunt but say nothing.

  “I didn’t tell them who he was, but that trauma doctor knows. And I mean . . . he’s still a fugitive. You better think about how you want to handle that. State police could show up any time.”

  “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Well . . . I just thought I should tell you. They’re getting kind of antsy out there. The hospital folks.”

  “It doesn’t matter, Carl.”

  The deputy makes a sad sound deep in his throat. “Look now, Sheriff Ellis ordered me and Danny back to Athens Point. We told him you didn’t have a ride back, but he said you weren’t our problem, that we had a job to do out in the swamp. But then I got a call from Agent Kaiser. Kaiser said we weren’t to leave this hospital without you on board, and he would take care of the sheriff. And I guess he did, ’cause the sheriff ain’t called back once.”

  I nod but don’t take my eyes from Caitlin’s placid face.

  “Penn,” Carl says, stepping closer to the table, then turning to look up at me. “I never got a chance to ask you. Why’d she go back out there, man? She didn’t say nothing to me about it, I swear. Did she tell you she was going back?”

  “No.”

  “Lord, I just can’t believe it. I feel for you, brother. I know that don’t mean nothing right now. You just tell me and Danny what you want us to do, and we’ll do it. I don’t care what it is.”

  “I want to take her back to Natchez.”

  Carl says nothing for a few seconds. Then he says, “I don’t figure the local law would look too lenient on that. But if that’s what you want . . . then say the word. We’ll put her on a gurney and roll her down to the chopper and fly her back home.”

  As insane as this would be, it’s what I want. Though Natchez was never really Caitlin’s home, taking her back would spare her the impersonal butchering that awaits her here—at least for a little while. Her father and mother might be able to see her as she is now, tranquil and relatively whole.

  “I’m afraid you can’t do that,” says a deep voice from behind us.

  I turn. Behind us stands a man in his sixties, wearing the uniform of the Louisiana State Police. The sight of that uniform sends me into a rage. Blood pounds in my ears, and I surge toward the stranger, but Carl hooks his muscular arms beneath mine and locks his hands behind my neck.

  “Easy, Penn! Easy now! Listen to what the man’s saying.”

  “He’s one of Knox’s people!”

  The newcomer holds up both hands and shakes his head. Then he steps closer, apparently confident that Carl can restrain me. The old trooper’s eyes look more sad than angry or gloating, and his voice communicates empathy when he speaks.

  “Mayor Cage, my name is Griffith Mackiever. I understand why you’re angry, so I’m going to tell you something that’s not to leave this room. A long time ago, I used to be a Texas Ranger. And I’ve been in contact with Captain Walt Garrity for the past two days. I’m also in contact with Sheriff Walker Dennis. We’re all trying to work together to handle the shitstorm that Forrest Knox and his people have unleashed in this state. Forrest does work for my agency, yes, but I’ve been investigating him for some time, and I am most assuredly not one of his people. In fact, he’s trying to destroy me as we speak.”

  Mackiever pauses, as if to ensure that what he’s saying is sinking in. Apparently satisfied, he continues. “This is a tragic thing that’s happened, and it’s not the only murder of the day.”

  His words are registering about the same emotional response as if he’d told me a dump truck ran over an armadillo on the highway.

  “I’m still trying to ascertain what happened out in the swamp,” Mackiever goes on, “and I’d like to speak to you for a few minutes before the media descends on this hospital. If you’re up to it, that is. Now, obviously Ms. Masters is going to have to remain here for the time being. There’ll have to be a postmortem, as you know.”

  “She died in Mississippi,” I say flatly. “They can do the autopsy there.”

  Mackiever gives Carl a worried look, as though he’s uncertain of my sanity. “She was declared dead in Louisiana, Mr. Cage. That puts the autopsy here.”

  I say nothing.

  “I think you can let the mayor go, Officer,” Mackiever tells Carl.

  “You okay?” Carl murmurs in my ear.

  “Yeah.”

  Carl lets me go, and my hands tingle and ache as the blood flows back into them.

  “The FBI is about to pour massive resources into Lusahatcha County,” Mackiever informs us. “Agent Kaiser has already dispatched Bureau choppers from New Orleans to secure that Bone Tree and whatever was inside it. Apparently your fiancée uncovered a trove of bones and other evidence that could solve up to a dozen murders.”

  “Then you don’t need me.”

  “Mayor Cage—”

  “Please don’t call me that.” With careful movements, I pick the sheet up off the floor and lay it over Caitlin’s body, leaving only her face exposed.

  “Mr. Cage, I think you’d better come with me,” Mackiever says gently. “Pay your last respects, and then meet me outside in the hall.”

  The colonel nods once, then leaves the way he came.

  “I know it doesn’t make you feel any better,” Carl says, “but Caitlin did find what she was looking for, and I know she’d be proud she did.”

  “Proud?” I echo. “Yes, she would have been proud. And for what?”

  “For the families, man. All those boys that got killed, and the families that suffered. They can finally have some peace.”

  I look back and find his earnest eyes. “Is that why she did it, Carl?”

  The young ex-marine shrugs awkwardly. “I think so, yeah. She wanted to do good.”

  A strange laugh comes from my throat. If only Carl had known her as I did.

  “Well,” he says. “You knew her a lot better than me. All I know is, she was the prettiest woman I’ve seen in a long time. She still is, even now. Ain’t she? Even lying there now.”

  I turn back to the table. “Yes. She is that.”
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  Taking two short steps forward, I lean over and kiss her forehead. She’s not as cold as stone, not yet, but the skin beneath my lips sends a shudder of revulsion down my back. The woman I loved is no longer present. Death has taken her, and it mocks me now from within her. The tears I leave upon her face might as well have fallen on the floor. When at last I turn and walk from the room, part of me is as dead as she is.

  CHAPTER 74

  TOM HAD BEEN awake for less than five minutes when he saw the first cop walk past his door. It looked like a city uniform, not the brown of the state police. A nurse had asked him his name, and he’d acted as though he was unable to hear her, but he knew the troopers wouldn’t be long in arriving. A man with a gunshot wound would always trigger a message to the police. At least he wasn’t handcuffed to the bed yet.

  From staff chatter he’d gleaned that he’d suffered diabetic shock and gone into a coma. It couldn’t have lasted long, he figured, because he felt reasonably alert, and his wounds looked just as they had when he last checked them, albeit cleaner. His memory was sketchy, but he clearly remembered trying to save Caitlin beside the huge cypress tree in the swamp. He had no idea how she’d gotten there, nor had he even thought to ask her. He had no idea whether she’d survived her wound or not. The only thing he was sure of was that if Caitlin had not appeared at the Bone Tree, he would be dead by now.

  The next time a nurse came through, he asked how Caitlin Masters was doing. The woman told him she’d been taken into the OR and a trauma surgeon was working on her. Tom would have given all the money in his name to rest on that bed and wait to hear the outcome of Caitlin’s surgery, but if he did, he would almost certainly be arrested by cops who reported to Forrest Knox.

  He rolled onto his side, then slowly sat up on the treatment table and waited to regain his equilibrium. Once he had, he pulled the IV out of his wrist, held his thumb against the hole, and walked over to a chair, where a white coat had been left by the ER physician. After struggling into the dirty clothes they’d removed from his body, he slipped on the lab coat, then opened drawers until he found a surgical mask, which he placed over his nose and mouth.

  He knew he should check his appearance in a mirror, but he didn’t have time. A nurse or tech could come in at any moment. He walked to the door and paused long enough to steel himself against the pain signals pouring into his brain from every extremity. Then he marched through the ER as he had ten thousand times in Natchez, walking with the purposeful tread that nurses would instantly read as the gait of a physician in a hurry to get somewhere he was needed.

  Though Tom had never been in this emergency department, he’d worked in enough of them to sense the flow of people, and within seconds he was in the ambulance bay and walking through the parking lot. A spray of rain hit him as he moved out under the gray clouds, but he didn’t break stride. The lone security guard was staring at what appeared to be an illegally parked car as Tom approached. When the guard looked up, Tom gave him a quick salute and kept walking.

  “Yo, doc,” said the guard, “have a good one.”

  PEGGY CAGE STOOD AT the kitchen stove of Penn’s Washington Street town house, watching Annie and waiting for the six o’clock TV news. Kirk Boisseau had finally agreed to go to the hospital for treatment, and after that she and Annie had been moved here, where they would be surrounded at all times by at least a dozen cops and FBI agents. The Natchez police chief had told Peggy that a prisoner had either died or been murdered in the Concordia Parish jail, but he knew few details. As for Penn, Peggy knew only that he had raced out of town to try to find Caitlin in the swamp near Athens Point.

  Peggy had tried to persuade Annie to rest, but all her efforts were in vain. Annie meant to sit up until her father returned. Peggy had thought she knew Annie pretty well, but right now she couldn’t tell whether the eleven-year-old was on the edge of cracking, or whether she was stronger than her own grandmother. Peggy was feeling pretty fragile after the events of the afternoon. Had Kirk Boisseau not reacted as quickly and selflessly as he had, she might have been badly burned. And there had been no word, neither open nor via a secret channel, about Tom or Walt.

  When Peggy was stressed, she cooked, even if there was no real need. She’d decided to prepare chicken jambalaya for Annie, even though the child had claimed all she needed was a peanut butter sandwich. The policemen outside would certainly appreciate it. As Peggy stirred the chicken and rice mixture, she wondered whether the time had come to trust her son above her husband. During their life together, Tom had rarely made a bad decision about the big things. But this time, Peggy had come to believe, he was wrong. Even if he was right, he was wrong, in the sense that his choices might cost him and Walt their lives—not to mention what might happen to the rest of the family.

  “Come sit down, Gram,” Annie said, beckoning her to the kitchen table.

  “I’m cooking, sweetie.”

  “What will Mr. Abrams think about his house? It smelled pretty terrible when we left, and some of the windows got knocked out by the fire.”

  “Mr. Abrams’s son and your father are good friends. Your father will pay to fix it like it was before.”

  “The news is on!” Annie cried, pointing at living room. “I hear it. Come on! Should we watch Baton Rouge or Alexandria?”

  “I’m not sure we should watch either. You can’t be sure they have accurate information.”

  As the announcer gave a précis of the night’s report—which included a possible murder in the Concordia Parish jail—the house phone began ringing, triggering a rush of fear in Peggy. She forced herself to calm down, then picked up the kitchen extension.

  “Penn Cage’s residence.”

  “Mrs. Cage?”

  The voice sounded familiar, but Peggy wasn’t sure she recognized it. “Yes. Who is this?”

  “Special Agent John Kaiser. I met you this afternoon, with Penn.”

  “Yes, I remember.” Peggy’s throat tightened in dread. “Do you have any news?”

  “I do. And I’m afraid it’s not good.”

  Peggy stopped breathing, and her gaze flew to the kitchen door, to be sure Annie wasn’t eavesdropping from the den.

  “Is my husband all right?” she whispered. “And my son?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Penn’s alive and well. Dr. Cage, too, as far as I know. But . . . I’m afraid that Caitlin Masters has been killed.”

  The world seemed to distort around Peggy, and a claustrophobic silence blanked out the sound of the television from the den. “Are you certain?” she whispered.

  “I’m afraid so, Mrs. Cage. She was airlifted to a hospital in Baton Rouge, but she expired before she arrived. Penn was in the helicopter with her.”

  Peggy shut her eyes against tears. Dear God, could things get any worse? But she had lived long enough to know the answer to that question: things could always get worse. Much worse.

  “Where’s Penn now?” she whispered.

  “He’ll be headed home soon. But, Mrs. Cage, there’s more.”

  Peggy’s hand went to her mouth, and she felt her heart pounding. She knew before the FBI agent said anything that it had to do with Tom.

  “Tell me,” she said.

  “Dr. Cage was apparently with Ms. Masters either when or after she was shot. He tried to save her, but he wasn’t able to. He went into diabetic shock.”

  “Oh, God.” Peggy closed her eyes. “You said he was all right!”

  “Yes, ma’am. He was on the chopper when they flew into Our Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge. They stabilized him, but after he regained consciousness, he walked out of the ER. Nobody knows where he is now.”

  “Oh, no. Are you sure? How do you know he wasn’t kidnapped?”

  “Security camera footage shows him walking out under his own power. I believe he knew he was going to be arrested by the Louisiana State Police, so he fled the scene.”

  Peggy didn’t know what to say.

  “Mrs. Cage, I called you for two reasons.
First, I’m concerned about Penn’s state of mind. According to two officers who were on the scene, he was extremely upset. I was thinking you might even want to call one of Dr. Cage’s partners to check him out. I know that may sound extreme, but Penn’s going to be feeling a lot of anger—at your husband, unless I miss my guess—and grieving men in shock can be pretty unpredictable.”

  “I understand,” Peggy said, thinking of all the widows and widowers Tom had been forced to sedate over the years in the first hours after a death.

  “Obviously the question of telling Penn’s daughter the news is going to come up. I don’t know how you feel about that. But given what I’ve heard tonight, you might want to handle that job yourself. Penn may not be in a condition to do it.”

  “Of course,” Peggy said automatically, though dread had begun to fill her heart. Annie had lost her biological mother at the age of four, and she hadn’t handled it well. Now—on the verge of gaining a new one—she too had been snatched away?

  “I didn’t want Penn driving a car,” Kaiser was saying. “That’s why he’s returning by helicopter. He left his Audi on a highway in Wilkinson County, so I sent agents to retrieve it and bring it back to the house. Don’t be alarmed if you see his car pull up outside. I’ve alerted my men there.”

  “Thank you, Agent Kaiser,” she mumbled, even as her ears picked up the news announcer in the next room saying: “We’re getting news of a breaking story in Lusahatcha County, Mississippi, one that involves yet another death and possibly a break in the unsolved civil rights murders being investigated in the Natchez–Concordia Parish area. . . .”

  “Oh, I’ve got to go,” she said.

  “Wait, please,” said Kaiser. “There’s a good chance your husband will try to contact you. It’s time to bring this circus to an end, Mrs. Cage. I’m doing everything I can to arrange protective custody for Dr. Cage. If he should contact you, please try to persuade him to call me. Any FBI office can patch him through to me. Tell him to identify himself as Dr. McCrae. Which I believe is your maiden name.”