The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  CHAPTER 78

  CLAUDE DEVEREUX HAD waited nearly two hours before the FBI agreed to admit him to the visiting room in the Concordia Parish jail. In the end it took not constitutional arguments, but threats to go public with the Bureau’s use of the Patriot Act to supersede the Bill of Rights to gain him access to his clients. An agent confiscated Claude’s cell phone at the door of the visiting room, then patted him down for weapons, but as Forrest had anticipated, they left the cigarette pack in his briefcase alone.

  Claude had worried that an FBI agent would stay in the visiting room with them, but after searching it thoroughly, the agent posted himself outside the door. As Claude waited for Snake, he cursed himself for trying to see his daughter and grandkids before fleeing the country. Forrest had put out a statewide APB, and they’d caught him easily. Had he run north to Memphis—through Mississippi—they never would have found him.

  The door opened behind him, and two deputies ushered Snake into the room. The Double Eagle looked down at Claude, gave him a game wink, then sat in the chair across the scarred old table. Claude got out his legal pad as if to take notes, then looked up at the deputies and waited for them to leave.

  The two men glared at him as though they’d like to kill him—which was no surprise, considering they’d lost two fellow deputies in the past thirty-six hours—but at length they turned and left the room.

  “So what are you doing here?” Snake asked. “I’m supposed to be out of here.”

  “We’re working on it. Somebody wants to talk to you.”

  Snake chuckled softly. “You got smokes in that pack?”

  “Four.” Claude lowered his voice. “But I’ve got something else for you in there.”

  Claude ripped off the taped-down top of the pack and brought out an analog flip phone and a thin wire with an earpiece wrapped around it.

  “It’s encrypted,” he whispered. “Hit star-one, and Forrest will pick up.”

  Snake smiled.

  FORREST JUMPED WHEN THE burn phone finally rang. He and Ozan had been waiting two hours in Forrest’s home office in Baton Rouge, and he’d just about given up hope that Devereux would be allowed into the CPSO jail. But the caller ID told him that, unless the FBI had discovered the cell phone hidden in Claude’s briefcase, the man on the other end of the call was his Uncle Snake.

  Forrest clicked SEND and said, “Identify yourself.”

  “This is Jerry Lee Lewis. The Killer.”

  Despite the circumstances, Forrest laughed. It was just like Snake to cut up at the very moment the world was crashing around him. Snake had known Jerry Lee his whole life, and he’d often used that connection to get bar sluts to sleep with him.

  “I’m going to talk fast,” Forrest said, clicking on the speakerphone, “in case they figure out what you’re doing. Keep your answers short, and don’t use names.”

  “Well, get with it, Tahyo.”

  Ozan scowled in confusion, but Forrest smiled. “Tahyo”—a Cajun expression that meant “big, hungry dog”—was a childhood nickname that only Snake and very few others would remember.

  “Did your lawyer bring you up to speed on recent developments?”

  “I hear the girl’s dead, shot at the Bone Tree.”

  “That’s right. And she met somebody else there. Somebody she didn’t expect.”

  “And he lived?”

  “He walked out of the hospital under his own power.”

  “He’s a tough one, I’ll give him that. Do you know where he is now?”

  “No.”

  “Find out. He knows way too much about too many people in our past. If that doesn’t pucker your asshole . . .”

  “I’m working on it. There was a fire at the Bone Tree. You understand? Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to destroy whatever evidence was there.”

  Snake chuckled. “That was mighty nice of somebody.”

  “That same person also cleared out the safe. Everything that was there is somewhere else.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “It’s not going to be enough. That’s why I’m calling you. I wish I could tell you you’re going to be okay, but the FBI isn’t going to let this go. Neither is Penn Cage. You were part of everything the Eagles ever did, and no matter how much evidence was destroyed, they’re eventually going to tie you to one of those killings. And one’s all it takes. If that doesn’t happen, somebody’s going to flip on you. Whichever it is, your days are numbered.”

  Snake grunted but didn’t comment.

  “At least here they’re numbered.” Forrest watched Ozan’s expressionless face for clues to how his pitch was playing. “It’s time to use your golden parachute, Uncle.”

  Snake still did not reply.

  Forrest thought he heard his uncle blowing out cigarette smoke. Right now the old man was thinking about the arrangements Forrest and Billy had been perfecting for the past five years: new identities, clean passports, three separate properties in Andorra—one of the few nonextradition countries left in the world where a white man could live well. But something told Forrest that his uncle wasn’t itching to retire in the Pyrenees.

  “You still there?” Forrest asked.

  “I’m here. And I hear what you’re saying. But all in all, I think I’d rather take my chances where I’m at. I got no desire to spend my last years with a bunch of foreigners. I don’t ski or hike or hang-glide, and I don’t care to live with a bunch of Pernod-sippin’ faggots who do.”

  Ozan groaned softly.

  “Do you realize what you’re saying?” Forrest asked. “How long do you think you can—”

  “What you don’t seem to understand,” Snake cut in, “is that I don’t give a shit what they accuse me of. They’ve been calling me a killer for forty years. So what? A few more accusations ain’t gonna matter. Proving guilt in forty-year-old murders is a tough job, and it gets tougher with every passing day. I don’t think they got the evidence to do it.”

  “Maybe not, but half a dozen people have died in the past week.”

  “I don’t know nothing about those killings. Do you?”

  Forrest shook his head at Ozan, who cursed in exasperation.

  “You sound nervous, nephew,” Snake said. “Take it easy. Have a drink. I’m not nervous. See, I’m not in the position you’re in. With me, they can either prove a crime or they can’t. But you? Even the appearance of wrongdoing could end your career. So maybe it’s time for you to pull that golden ripcord.”

  “Goddamn it, Snake.”

  Snake laughed softly. “Have you shoved your boss out of his job yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “That doesn’t sound promising. What’s your next play?”

  “I’m not going to get into that on the phone. We’ll talk when you get out.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Soon. Tomorrow, probably.”

  “Probably? Shit, boy. Sounds to me like you don’t know whether you’re going or coming.”

  Forrest slammed his hand down on the table. “What the fuck were you thinking taking the doc like you did?”

  “Covering my bets, Tahyo, the way Frank taught me. Now, seriously, when do you see me walking out of this dump?”

  Forrest forced himself to try to calm down. “That depends. The meth disappeared during the bomb scare, so they have no drug evidence to hold you on. In theory, you could be released tomorrow morning. But I don’t know what forensic evidence they may get from Sonny’s corpse.”

  “Don’t worry about it, nephew. I’ve figured my own way out of this place. All five of us will walk out before noon tomorrow. You watch. I’ll give Claude instructions on how to pick us up.”

  Forrest didn’t like the sound of this. “What are you planning?”

  “That’s my business. Now listen. You need to calm down. Things are actually falling our way. The girl’s gone. So’s our latest traitor, and none of my crew’s gonna open his trap to the government again. The next thing that needs to happen is for
Doc to be shot as a fugitive. And that Texas Ranger needs to die with him. As for the FBI, you just get your ass into Mackiever’s job and the federal hassle will die down quick.”

  Forrest was far from sure about this. Worse, Snake was right about one thing: he could endure anything the FBI threw at him and laugh, while Forrest could not. If the moneymen in New Orleans decided he was a magnet for scandal, they’d cut him off like a gangrenous limb.

  “I know you’re thinking about pulling in your horns,” Snake said, “but Frank would have done the exact opposite right now. When the enemy comes for you, you don’t turn tail or lie low, you hit back so hard that nobody will ever think about fucking with you again. Right?”

  “I told you I’m not going to talk about tactics.”

  “You don’t have to. I know how your mind works. If I’d agreed to retire into the sunset, you’d have made sure all the loose crimes around here got blamed on me. Since I’m refusing that option, you’re gonna start exploring other options. But you know me well enough to know I’ll see bad news coming. So be real careful if you’re tempted to think in that direction. You could wind up on the row yourself.”

  Ozan actually rose from his seat at that remark.

  “Don’t worry, Uncle,” Forrest said. “You want to stay in Louisiana and take the risk, be my guest.”

  “Always a pleasure, Tahyo. I’ll see you tomorrow, when I get out.”

  Snake clicked off.

  Forrest tossed the phone on the table and joined Ozan standing to pace.

  The conversation hadn’t gone anything like he’d hoped. He hadn’t actually had much faith that it would. Where Snake was concerned, nothing could be predicted. It had been that way for as long as he could remember. That was why Carlos Marcello had canceled the RFK plan after his father died in ’68; the pragmatic old mobster had known Snake was too crazy to trust with an operation like that.

  “That didn’t sound too promising,” Ozan said.

  “He’s not going to leave the country, that’s for sure.”

  “Then they’re going to get him. And sooner rather than later. He’s popped too many people, boss. They’re going to find some forensic evidence, or somebody will flip, and then he’ll be sitting in an interrogation room playing Let’s Make a Deal.”

  Forrest sat on the edge of his desk. “There’s only one thing to do now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let Snake do what he wants.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not going to sit still and wait for the Bureau to come at him, no matter what he said on the phone. And with Caitlin Masters dead, her paper might come at us twice as hard as they did before. Snake won’t sit still for that. He figures we’ll take Tom Cage and Walt Garrity out of the equation—as fugitives—so he’ll move against the mayor, and maybe even Kaiser.”

  “Bullshit. You think he’d hit an FBI agent?”

  “Alphonse, Snake would kill the pope and twelve nuns if he thought it would keep him out of jail. He does not give a fuck.”

  “And you’re saying we should let him do that? The heat would be unbearable.”

  A tight smile came to Forrest’s lips. “You’ve forgotten the plan I brought up the night Snake missed killing Sexton and Brody got killed instead.”

  “Which was?”

  “We let Snake hit the people he wants to hit. Then we paint him as an out-of-control psycho. Once the pursuit starts up, he’ll come to me for an escape route. I’ll send him to what he thinks is a safe house, then when he’s cornered, I’ll go there myself to ‘arrange a surrender.’ Once I’m inside . . . I’ll blow him away. After that, I’m not only washed clean—I’m a hero. I was willing to kill my own uncle in the name of justice.”

  Ozan nodded steadily. “That’s a cold play, boss, and a ballsy one. Which pretty much makes it perfect. But Snake has to be out of jail to make that work. Do you really think he can get himself out?”

  “If he says he can, I believe it.”

  “You think he’s planning on busting out?”

  “I hope so. The bloodier it is, the better.”

  Ozan looked like he was thinking hard.

  “What is it?” Forrest asked.

  “I had another idea. Didn’t you say our hotel bugs told you the FBI’s planning to fly their evidence up to D.C. on that Bureau plane out at the airport?”

  “They’re still discussing it.”

  “If you tipped Snake about that flight . . . he’d probably go after the plane.”

  Forrest shook his head. “We don’t want that. For one thing, the feds might capture Snake alive. For another, Snake might actually succeed in destroying the evidence.”

  It took a while, but a smile slowly spread on the Redbone’s face. At last he understood the reason Forrest had thrown more than fifty bones into the water near the Bone Tree before they’d set it afire.

  “Once Snake’s dead,” he said, “you’re gonna bury him in blood and bones.”

  “That’s right.” Forrest snapped his fingers. “I want him to look so demonic that I look like a saint by comparison.”

  Ozan rubbed his eyes, then shook his head. “One thing. I’ve read up on the mayor a little bit. He’s been in some scrapes before, and he did what he had to do to get out of them. He’s killed some people. And after what happened to his girl today, he’s never going to stop trying to nail us. Never.”

  “That’s what Snake is for,” Forrest said. “It was probably always coming to this. Sometimes you just have to wait and see which way things break.”

  JOHN KAISER STOOD IN the study of the Valhalla hunting lodge and stared into the eyes of the seven-hundred-pound hog that stood opposite the desk. He’d spent most of the night working beneath the Bone Tree, in shadows thrown by klieg lights like the ones Londoners had used during the Blitz. Kaiser had visited countless crime scenes during his career, especially during his time with the Investigative Support Unit, but few could compare in scale or horror to the Bone Tree. From the Civil War–era chains hanging from the limb outside to the inverted skeleton wired to the wall within—now badly charred by the diesel fire—the whole scene forced you to contemplate the essential savagery of the human species.

  The tree had still been burning when Kaiser arrived. From the helicopter it looked like a colossal column of flame burning on a vast landscape. After bringing in some pumps on airboats, a fire department team from Baton Rouge had managed to douse the flames. Even so, Kaiser and his team had been forced to wait to get inside the tree. He lost no time getting divers into the water around the gigantic cypress, and they’d already brought up more than a hundred human bones. Once the interior of the tree cooled sufficiently, an evidence team began using archaeological picks and brushes to sift through the layers of bone and human remains buried beneath the new ash.

  All that time, he had been haunted by an image of Tom Cage trying desperately to save Caitlin Masters, sucking blood from her wounded heart with his hands cuffed behind him. Kaiser found it hard to view a man who would do that in a negative light.

  A half hour ago, he’d tired of slogging around in hip waders, so he’d air-boated to their base of operations on the shore, then ridden an ATV to the main Valhalla lodge, which stood on a high ridge over the Mississippi River.

  The search team here had already uncovered two floor safes in the study, but they had been cleaned out. A file cabinet contained some corporate papers from Billy Knox’s media company, the one that produced an outdoors show for cable TV. They found no computers in the lodge (despite it having a Wi-Fi connection), and no other papers that could implicate Forrest Knox in any crime. As far as weapons, there were some samurai swords mounted on the walls, and there was a gun room that held about thirty hunting rifles, but Kaiser didn’t see anything that looked suspicious. Still, he would have them checked against any unsolved murders in the state.

  The real question now was whether the Bone Tree stood on federal land or property owned by the hunting camp. If you
judged by the game fence, then it was on Valhalla land, which meant the corpses inside the tree were automatically tied to the men on the Valhalla deed. But there was apparently some question about the real property line, and Kaiser had a feeling that the great cypress might actually be on federal land.

  “Sir?” said one of his agents from the study door. “Somebody to see you.”

  “Who is it?”

  Before the agent could answer, a trim man wearing the uniform of the Louisiana State Police walked into the study. For a second Kaiser thought Forrest Knox had decided to show up and make a turf battle of it, but then he saw gray hair, deep wrinkles, and heavy black bags like bruises beneath the man’s eyes.

  “I’m Colonel Griffith Mackiever,” said the newcomer. “Superintendent of the Louisiana State Police.”

  “You’re out of your jurisdiction, aren’t you?”

  “Technically, yes.”

  Kaiser got up and shook Mackiever’s hand. “How can I help you, Colonel?”

  “I’m hoping we can help each other. I’m here to talk to you about Forrest Knox.”

  CHAPTER 79

  TOM WASN’T SLEEPING but floating in a fog of oxycodone and Ativan. His limbs felt no contact with the bedclothes, and only the pulsing memory of his shoulder wound kept him from sinking into oblivion. A few minutes ago his mind had cleared enough for him to see Walt sleeping beside him on a cot, as he had half a century ago in Korea. But Tom’s mind had now turned inward, slipping beneath the surface, into a layer of awareness where time had no meaning.