The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  The first three he checked had had their SD cards removed, which made him suspect Snake even more. But in the fourth camera he found a card in the slot. In the remaining six he found four more cards. There were no computers left in the lodge (Forrest had removed them prior to the FBI search), but Billy had a laptop in his bag in the plane.

  Racing back to the ATV he’d ridden up from the airstrip, he cranked the engine and took off down the rocky trail that led to the bottomland where they’d graded out a runway. If luck was with him, he would soon know who had killed the most dangerous man he’d ever known.

  Billy hoped to God it wasn’t his father.

  CHAPTER 90

  I HAVEN’T BEEN inside a jail cell since my time working as an ADA in Houston, and then it was to visit prisoners. Today I’m the inmate, and the unforgettable ambiance hurls me right back to my former career in Houston. I’m sitting on a plastic-coated mattress on the lower bunk of an eight-by-ten cell. The chemical tang of disinfectant can’t mask the reek of mildew, urine, old vomit, and worse things. The toilet is a stainless steel hole with no seat, and I wouldn’t sit directly on it for a thousand dollars. The scarred walls have been scrubbed and painted countless times, but there’s no shortage of artwork. Above a childlike drawing of a massive phallus entering exaggerated labia lined with teeth, a recent occupant scrawled the encouraging missive Im goin home, but YOUR fucked!

  From the mouths of babes.

  The Adams County Sheriff’s Department was waiting for me when I finally drove up to my house on Washington Street. The deputies didn’t even let me go to the door before hauling me the six blocks to the jail. Mom and Annie ran out onto the porch as they handcuffed me and forced me into the back of a cruiser, and I could hear Annie’s screams through the glass.

  All I remember of the drive home from Valhalla is forty miles of oak and pecan and pine trees covering the rolling land. A few times I flashed back to Forrest Knox lying in the corner of his study like a bag of bones, but I felt no emotion. I now believe I was slowly decompressing from a state of mind that attorneys used to call “irresistible impulse.” At one time this principle was an important component of the insanity defense. Essentially, it was a way for sane people to plead diminished capacity, by arguing that even though they knew the difference between right and wrong, they could not have restrained themselves from killing. It was sometimes called the “policeman at the elbow” defense. In other words, if I would have killed my victim even with a policeman standing at my elbow, then surely I could not be responsible for my actions. After John Hinckley was declared not guilty by reason of insanity, most states threw out this component of the defense, and it’s a shame. Because I’m a living argument for the validity of that statute.

  It was the memory of Walt Garrity that reawakened my emotions: faithful Walt, who despite being badly wounded had insisted on going God knows where to check out the key he’d found in Forrest’s pocket. As he drove away from me, the silver Lincoln he’d borrowed from Pithy Nolan’s maid had weaved all over the road, but then he got the car centered in a lane and disappeared over the hill.

  After I reached Natchez, I drove aimlessly around the city, much the way I once had as a teenager. I drove down Broadway and paused in front of Edelweiss, the house that Caitlin will never live in. I suppose I was waiting for some insight, or even a blind impulse to push me in a particular direction. But none came. Walt was right: my only real choice, other than to turn myself in for murder, was to go home.

  And there I found Billy Byrd’s welcoming committee. The speed with which they identified me as Forrest’s killer was impressive, and during the booking process Byrd lost no time bragging about what had gone down. Forrest Knox’s cousin Billy had flown into the Valhalla airstrip from Texas and discovered the bodies shortly after Walt and I left the camp. After calling the Lusahatcha County sheriff (yet another Billy, albeit Billy Ray), Billy Knox got the idea of checking the deer cameras strapped to pine trees on the Valhalla property. Several had missing SD cards, but in one Billy found not only a card, but also a photograph of me. The photo was dated and time-stamped, which definitively placed me at the scene of the crime near the time the two men were killed. Sheriff Ellis immediately issued an APB for first-degree murder, and based on this, Sheriff Byrd had started combing Adams County for me. Since I drove straight home, more or less, I was an easy catch.

  I’m surprised that Shadrach Johnson hasn’t come up to my cell to gloat, but perhaps Shad senses that right now, any punch he lands on me will strike an anesthetized man. Better to wait until the awful reality of my situation has sunk fully into my soul.

  My prospects are grim indeed. When I tore out of Clayton, Louisiana, bent on confronting Forrest Knox, I laid my daughter’s future down on the green felt of God’s roulette table and spun the wheel. So long as that wheel remained spinning, I felt the wild rush of seizing fate in my hands and twisting it to my purpose. When I impaled Forrest on his own spear (and Walt spirited me away from the scene of the crime), the gleaming ball appeared to drop into my chosen color: black. But at the last possible moment—thanks to forces beyond my control—that ball skipped over into a red slot. Now, less than one hour later, I’m locked behind bars, the remainder of my life held in escrow.

  Sheriff Byrd gave me my own cell, something I know enough to appreciate even in my deadened mental state. At best, cell mates are an irritating annoyance; at worst, they’re sociopaths who will beat you, rape you, kill you, or provoke you to murder in self-defense. My block has six cells, five of which hold two or more men, a mixture of blacks and whites. Most are here on drug charges, but two have been charged with armed robbery, and one—the lone Mexican—with murdering his wife. My father isn’t housed on this block, and for that I’m grateful. I have no desire to see him now. According to a man two cells down from me, Dad was here for a while, but they transferred him out half an hour before I was brought to my cell. To my knowledge, Walt has not been arrested or even found, so perhaps the deer camera didn’t capture his presence at Valhalla.

  A harsh buzz announces that the block door is about to open, and with a low clang, it does. A big black deputy enters and walks slowly down the line of cells as though checking for mischief. The closed-circuit TV system monitoring the cellblock doesn’t show every inch of every cell.

  “What you lookin’ at, mook?” he challenges someone down the block. “Lemme see them hands. Both of ’em! Thass right.”

  He moves steadily up the block, getting closer to me.

  “Miss Francine say we gon’ have chicken and greens tonight, boys. What you think about that? Maybe even a biscuit for every man this time.”

  The whoops and hollers that greet this news tell me fried chicken and biscuits is a rare treat in these environs. As excited conversation breaks out, the deputy pauses in front of my cell and focuses heavy-lidded eyes on me.

  “Come here,” he says. “Move.”

  I get up from my cot and shuffle warily toward the bars, expecting some kind of taunt. But when I near him, the guard whispers, “I got a message for you. Quentin say don’t say nothing to nobody, no matter what they tell you. He’ll be up here soon as he can.”

  My pulse kicks up several beats. “Who told you that?”

  “Mr. Q.,” he whispers.

  I start to ask the deputy for more detail, but before my first word emerges, he bellows, “I can’t do nothin’ ’bout that, dumbass! I don’t care if you the governor’s brother!”

  For emphasis, he whangs the bars of my cell with his billy club and marches back toward the door, mumbling, “Man wants to see his kid. Everybody up in this motherfucker got kids.”

  “No shit!” shouts someone down the block. “Who that motherfucker think he is? The president?”

  “He be Dr. Cage’s son,” says a wiseass voice. “Little Lord Fuckleroy.”

  Scattered laughter reverberates through the cells. Then another voice says, “He’s the mayor, man. I guess his power don’t quite extend to the ja
il, though.”

  “I guess it don’t!” hollers someone else, as the block door clangs shut.

  I walk back to my cot and sit, hoping to lessen my silhouette in the consciousness of my jail mates.

  So . . . Quentin Avery has enough juice to send me covert messages via Billy Byrd’s own deputies. I shouldn’t be surprised. Quentin has contacts all over the South. If I asked about this, he would only laugh and say something about the “soul-brother network” or something similar. And I have no doubt that the black deputy feels far more allegiance to Quentin than to a redneck like Billy Byrd, despite working for Byrd. If he’d passed me a more substantive message, I might doubt its authenticity. But “don’t say nothin’ to nobody” is the first law of the jailhouse, and I’m surprised Quentin felt he needed to send that advice to a former assistant district attorney. Then it hits me: if Quentin felt he needed to tell me that, then he seriously doubts my present mental state.

  Maybe he should, says a voice in my head. You couldn’t have fucked up much worse than you did.

  But once Forrest told me what he did about Caitlin, I had no choice in what followed. I don’t think I even made a conscious decision to kill him. At some level I realized that Caitlin had known she was pregnant but had decided to spare me that pain by omitting that information from her last message to me. And in some unquantifiable fraction of time after that realization flashed through my brain, every nerve and muscle fiber in my body fired.

  The buzz and clang of the cellblock door don’t signify anything at first, or else I think it’s my imagination. But then the clack of expensive shoe heels sounds between the cells, and Shadrach Johnson appears before my cubicle.

  “How are you doing, Mayor?” he asks, straightening the lapels of his expensive suit.

  I remain on my cot and say nothing. Whatever Shad has to tell me will be calculated to hurt me in some way, so I might as well sit and take it and give him the least possible amount of pleasure during the process.

  “I just gave a press conference on the courthouse steps,” he announces. “Two Jackson TV stations were there, a half-dozen print reporters, and producers from the BET network and Court TV.”

  “Congratulations. Next stop, CNN.”

  “With any luck. Anyway, I informed those outlets that the prosecution of your father for the murder of Viola Turner will proceed as scheduled in three months. March first on the court docket—just in time for Spring Pilgrimage.”

  Despite my familiarity with Shad’s boundless ambition, this surprises me. “I thought my father had been placed in protective custody by the FBI.”

  Shad gives me a knowing look. “I don’t know what kind of strings you pulled with the Bureau, but we both know that they can’t grant him immunity on a state murder charge. They may find some way to shake him and Garrity loose from that dead state trooper, but not even the president can make Viola Turner go away.”

  “So you’re a happy man. I really appreciate you coming by with the bad news.”

  The DA shrugs. “I wanted you to hear it from me first. This is going to be a high-profile case, Penn. Historic.”

  “Maybe you can kick-start your mayoral campaign for the special election they’ll be having after they throw me out.”

  Shad snorts with what sounds like derision. “I’ll be shooting a lot higher than that, after this case is over. But that brings up the real reason I came. The Lusahatcha DA will probably want to try you in his county. Since they’re in our judicial district, you’d normally get one of our circuit judges. But since you know them all so well, the attorney general will probably bring in an outside judge. My office could prosecute your case, but I haven’t yet decided whether to take it on. Given our history, the AG may decide to appoint a special prosecutor.”

  “That must really rankle, Shad. You’d probably rather convict me than my father.”

  He looks philosophical. “A week ago, I’d have said yes. But given the issues in your father’s case? No. You killed a dirty cop who’s going to be looking like a world-class dirt bag by tomorrow. I’m happy to leave you to the special prosecutor. By the way, my condolences on Caitlin’s passing.”

  I can’t tell if he’s feeding on my pain or hoping I’ll give him some sort of absolution. “Seriously?” I whisper. “You do realize that if you hadn’t grabbed onto Lincoln Turner’s accusation and turned it into a three-ring circus, she’d still be alive?”

  “That’s absurd,” he snaps, but he knows it’s true. “Caitlin was killed by her own ambition. You know that as well as I do.”

  “Get out of here, Shad. While you still can.”

  His dark face cycles through several changes of expression I can’t quite read. Then he says, “I have something else to tell you, but you’ll have to come closer if you want to hear it.”

  He’s worried about the closed-circuit cameras. “Not interested,” I tell him.

  “It’s about Forrest Knox and your father.”

  Forrest and my father . . . What could Shad know about Knox and my father? Whatever it is, I’d rather find out now than sit here wondering about it for the next few hours. After a long sigh, I get to my feet and move up to the bars. Shad’s eyes become clearer as I get closer, and in them I see a strange, hyperexcited light.

  “I’m telling you this,” he says in a near whisper, “because you’re one of the few southern white males I’ve met who’s capable of appreciating irony. Two days ago, Forrest Knox came to me and told me he was either going to kill your father or let him go free. If Dr. Cage went free, he said, I was to drop all charges and leave the crime unsolved. If I didn’t, Knox would destroy me. I don’t know if that bastard had the power to do it, but he talked like he did.”

  Shad’s eyes flicker in the shadows between us. He’s watching me for signs of emotion. “Do you see?” he whispers. “If you’d let Forrest live today, I’d have had no choice but to drop the charges against your father. And you would never have been charged with killing him. That almost beggars belief, doesn’t it?”

  I can tell from Shad’s voice that he’s telling the truth. And what he said fits with what I know. Forrest probably went to see Shad before he offered me the deal for my father’s safety. He wanted to be sure the district attorney could and would kill the case against Dad. Which means that Forrest meant to stand by that deal, if he believed I could compromise my principles and do the same. This terrible irony sinks into me like the spear I drove into Forrest’s throat, and this time I can’t hide the pain.

  Shad’s eyes devour my anguish the way death row convicts in solitary drink in their allotted hour of sunlight. “Strange, isn’t it?” he asks. “I’ve dedicated so many hours to paying you back in kind, and in the end I didn’t have to do anything. You’ve destroyed yourself. It’s positively Greek, isn’t it?”

  As he stands mulling over my fate, the irrational rage that possessed me a few hours ago lights up my nerves like copper wires, and my muscles fill with blood. Shad perceives the change, but he doesn’t recognize it for what it is.

  “I never thought I’d see you like this,” he goes on, a distinct note of pleasure in his voice, like that of an oenophile drinking a rare wine. “Not in my wildest fantasies. Your father, yes. But you? . . . Never. Just goes to show you. I suppose your mother will have to raise your daughter. Unless your sister takes her back to England. I only hope Mrs. Cage lives long enough to—”

  Without even thinking I grab Shad behind the neck and snatch his head against the bars with a muted clang. The security footage of this assault might tack attempted murder to my charge sheet, but at this point, what does it matter?

  As Shad screams and tries to jerk himself free, the other residents of the cellblock shriek like crazed zoo monkeys. Before Shad can get away, I bring up my right fist and drive it against his skull with all the follow-through I can muster.

  The impact hurls him against the opposite cell, where another prisoner kicks him in the back, knocking him to the floor. When he rolls over, I see pure
terror in his eyes. Something crunched when I struck him—either my hand or his skull—and rather than try to get up, he covers his face with his hands and lies there shuddering.

  Ten seconds later, two white deputies rush into the block and help Shad to his feet while a bigger black one charges my cell with a Taser. I back against the wall with both open hands held high. The deputy roars something at me, but his warnings are drowned by those of Shad Johnson, who’s now yelling that I’m going to get the death penalty for killing Forrest Knox, just like my dad will for killing Viola.

  My fellow inmates’ cacophony has reached such a frenzied ecstasy that I expect a half-dozen armor-suited deputies to flood in and blast us with pepper spray, but no one else appears. The two deputies with Shad help him limp to the steel door, while the black one remains in front of my cell. Just before exiting the block, Shad turns back to me, his face dark with rage and shame.

  “I told them about Lincoln,” he says. “The reporters at the press conference. I told them you two are brothers, and that your father killed that boy’s mother. You should have seen them eat it up. Like dogs gobbling raw hamburger. Your life is over, Penn. Life as you know it, anyway. Your mother won’t even be able to walk down the street. They’ll hiss her out of church. And your daughter? Wait till she gets back to St. Stephen’s. Can you imagine what they’ll be calling her?”

  Shad strides out of the cellblock door under his own power, the deputies flanking him. Only then do I realize that the black deputy with the Taser is the one who brought me the message from Quentin Avery. Amid the prisoners’ rabid screams, he looks at me sadly and shakes his head.