The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  I can hardly get my mind around this revision of reality. “Mackiever’s going to stand by that?”

  “He’s drafting his statement as we speak. Spear-versus-sword makes pretty compelling news. The media’s going to eat it up.”

  My brain has gone into overdrive. “Okay, but . . . even if Dad and Walt are cleared of the Dunn killing, and I go free as well, that still leaves Dad charged with the murder of Viola.”

  Kaiser nods with somber deliberation. “Mackiever’s got no control over that, Penn. Neither do I. Your father was always going to have to face that on his own. That’s why attacking Shad Johnson wasn’t the best idea you had today.”

  “Oh, but I enjoyed it.” I sigh heavily, then lay my hands on the scarred table. “How soon can I get out of here?”

  “It shouldn’t be long. I’m about to go downstairs and give Billy Byrd a heads-up on what to expect. He won’t like it, but I’ll make him take it. Also, Mackiever tells me that he may have some leverage against Shad Johnson.”

  This takes me by surprise. “What kind of leverage?”

  “I don’t know. But he told me to tell you, ‘Every dog has its day.’”

  A slow smile spreads across my face. “I think I know.”

  “All right. Well, just sit tight and don’t assault anybody else, no matter how badly they provoke you.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  He reaches up to the wire screen and flattens his hand. “I know this is a fucked-up time, but I’m glad for you, Penn. And as for Forrest . . . I wanted to be the one to take him down, but if I’m honest, what happened was probably the best thing in the end. That guy had too much power. He could have had every one of us hit while he was awaiting trial.”

  With an almost overwhelming rush of emotion, I raise my hand and press my palm against his. “Thanks, John.”

  “I’m so sorry about Caitlin,” he says, his jaw set tight. “But you know what? She went down swinging. What more can any of us do?”

  I nod but say nothing. I don’t trust myself to speak.

  CHAPTER 92

  THE NEXT TIME a deputy tells me I have a visitor waiting, I assume it’s Quentin Avery and follow him without question. But this time my surprise guest truly stuns me speechless. The black man sitting in the adjacent room is not Quentin, but Lincoln Turner. Lincoln offers us an expansive smile.

  “I’ve got nothing to say to this man,” I tell the deputy, a comically skinny white man of about thirty. “Take me back to my cell.”

  “Can’t do it. Sheriff says you gotta stay here ten minutes.”

  Thanks, Billy. “The sheriff can’t make me see a civilian I don’t want to see.”

  “He’s your goddamn brother,” says the deputy, backing through the door with a smirk on his face. “You don’t have to say nothin’ to him if you don’t want to. But you gotta sit there.”

  “What about these?” I ask, holding up my handcuffs.

  The deputy grins, then closes the door.

  Lincoln’s smile has vanished. Now he simply watches me through the wire screen, his face inscrutable. Just as I did in the black juke out by Anna’s Bottom, and beside Drew Elliott’s lake house, I find myself searching his face for similarities to my own. But now I don’t really expect to find them. All my instinct tells me Caitlin was right: if this man’s father wasn’t Sonny Thornfield, it was Forrest Knox.

  “I don’t know why you’re here,” I tell him. “But you pushed that case against my father for the wrong reason. He’s not your father, no matter what your mother told you. You’re going to find that out eventually.”

  Lincoln shakes his head as though he’s dealing with an idiot. “I guess you haven’t heard.”

  “What?”

  “Dr. Cage had a DNA test done on some baby teeth of mine that Mama kept. He got the results back today. It was positive. He’s my father for sure.”

  I don’t want to believe him, but I see no a trace of deception in his face.

  Lincoln’s eyes play over my face like those of a man trying to read a hidden code. “I had a feeling he might not have told you. You never really believed it, did you? That you and me were brothers.”

  “Half brothers, you mean. No. I guess I didn’t.”

  He shrugs again. “Blood don’t lie, man.”

  “Well . . . now you’ve told me.”

  Lincoln just sits there staring as though he has all day to study me. “Maybe you know how I feel now,” he says at length. “That Knox guy killed your woman, and you killed him right back. Well . . . Dr. Cage killed my mother, and I feel that same hole. I want him to pay, too.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say in a flat voice. “I know you’re hurting, but you’re hiding something. I’ve dealt with too many witnesses in my day, Lincoln. Dad may be your father . . . I can believe that. But there’s more to it somehow. I know there is. And if you push this thing, the rest of the story’s going to come out, I promise you. I hope you’re ready for that, because it always does.”

  A resentful hardness comes into his eyes. “Well, you won’t have to worry about it. You’ll be on trial yourself, for murder.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What do you mean?”

  As if on cue, the door to the visitation room bangs open behind Lincoln. I first see the big deputy who first brought me into this room, but with surprising grace he steps sideways so that the man behind him can see into the room. That man is Quentin Avery, seated in a motorized wheelchair with two stump supports jutting out from the seat. Quentin’s wearing a beautiful three-piece suit, the pant legs sewn shut beneath what remains of his legs. For a moment there is only silence. Then Quentin raises his right hand and points a long forefinger at Lincoln.

  “Get this bum out of my sight, Larry.”

  Black rage darkens Lincoln’s face. “You don’t talk to me like that, you Tom motherfucker.”

  The big deputy leans into the room and glowers at Lincoln. “Don’t be callin’ Mr. Avery names, now. I’m the one gon’ escort you out, remember.”

  “You kiss my ass, too, Larry,” Lincoln spits. “I’ll kick your fat ass down those stairs and sue you out of a job.”

  The deputy shakes his head without rancor, but I remember him charging into the cellblock like a blitzing linebacker, and I wonder about Lincoln reaching the exterior of the jail without injury.

  “Don’t pay that chump any mind, Larry,” Quentin says affably. “Just make sure he gets outside in one piece.”

  “All right, Mr. Q.”

  “Yassa, boss!” Lincoln mocks. “Anything the house nigger say do, I gwine to hop right to it!”

  Quentin’s deep-set eyes focus on Lincoln. “Like I said, Larry . . . ignore him.”

  “I’m a lawyer, too, old man,” Lincoln says. “Just like you.”

  A rumbling chuckle comes from Quentin’s chest. “There aren’t many lawyers like me left, boy. And Lord knows you’re not one of them.”

  “I’m glad of it. You’re long past your prime, dog. I checked you out. You sold out a long time ago, and you’re in this fight for the wrong reason. You’ve made a lot of enemies over the years, too. And when you go down in flames on this case, a lot of people are going to be glad to see it, you old crip.”

  For the briefest instant I see doubt in Quentin’s eyes, and it frightens me. I expected a deft riposte from him, but what I hear instead is the ringing impact of Lincoln’s head being slammed against the wire screen by Larry. Lincoln is a muscular man, but his struggles against the deputy are like the thrashing of a toddler against a full-grown man. Lincoln tries to yell, but Larry mashes his mouth against the steel and jams a knee as thick as a tree stump against his spine.

  Quentin lets this go on for perhaps eight seconds, then calmly tells Larry to let Lincoln go. When my half brother finally slides off the screen, he gasps like a winded fighter on his last legs.

  “That’s battery, goddamn it,” he croaks.

  “I guess he is a lawyer,” Quentin says, his equ
animity restored.

  “Disbarred,” I inform him.

  “Good to know. Take him out, Larry. And don’t worry. If he sues, I’ll defend you in court.”

  Ignoring Lincoln’s parting threats as Larry drags him out, Quentin carefully navigates his black wheelchair through the door.

  “One thing you never are,” I say to the old lawyer, “is boring.”

  Quentin smiles, but his once proud and handsome face is lined with pain and care. “I’ve got good news for you.”

  “Your face doesn’t show it.”

  “Well, things aren’t so good for your father.”

  I let this slide past me. “Kaiser told me that Griffith Mackiever was working on getting me out.”

  Quentin nods. “They ought to have you processed in a few minutes. I was surprised that Brother Shadrach would go along with this little maneuver. Do you have any thoughts on why our esteemed district attorney would accede to this?”

  “I can think of one. Shad told me that Forrest threatened to destroy him unless he agreed to do certain things. That means Forrest had some sort of leverage over Shad. He and Mackiever were both state cops. I’m betting they have a file on Shad dating back to the dogfighting stuff in Louisiana. Maybe they have a photo like I had, or even a videotape. Sheriff Byrd neutralized mine by saying he’d testify that Shad had been working undercover for him, but Billy Byrd’s not going to line up against the Louisiana State Police and commit perjury. Not to save Shad’s ass.”

  “You have the FBI to thank as well,” Quentin adds. “Agent Kaiser has spoken up for you where it counts.”

  I raise my eyebrows at that. “Kaiser’s a good man.”

  “Good for you. But none of that helps your father.”

  “Bullshit. Mackiever is clearing him and Walt of the cop-killing charge, and John has spared him the hell of Billy Byrd’s jail by taking him into protective custody. I think that’s about the best Dad could hope for, considering.”

  “You sound like you want to see him go to trial over Viola Turner.”

  I look down, trying not to let my anger engage. “I think that may be the only way we’ll ever find out the truth of what happened in Viola’s house that night, Quentin. In a court of law, under oath.”

  Avery closes his eyes and sighs like a weary old wizard. Then he opens them and shows me his irritation. “Don’t be naïve, Penn. That’s like saying we’re going to measure the position of an electron by having twelve scientists watch it for a week and then take a vote. No jury ever found out the truth of any damned thing. Not the kind of truth you mean.”

  “That’s a pretty remarkable statement for a trial lawyer. If you really believe that, you’ve stayed in the profession too long.”

  “If you think I’m wrong, you were right to get out when you did. Now”—Quentin claps his hands and wrinkles his nose—“let’s get the hell out of this dump. That stink reminds me of my wayward youth.”

  AFTER BILLY BYRD’S FUNCTIONARIES process me out of the lockup—a ritual at which the sheriff chooses not to appear—Quentin stops me in the corridor that leads to the ground floor lobby of the sheriff’s department.

  “What is it?” I ask, itching to get out of the building before someone realizes they’ve made a mistake and set a cop killer free. Through a glass window to my left I hear a dispatch radio and the clicking of an actual typewriter being pecked with painful slowness.

  Quentin looks up from his wheelchair with some trepidation. “Don’t be angry, but your mother and daughter are waiting out there for you.”

  A ball of ice forms in my chest. “Where? Outside the building?”

  “In the lobby.”

  “With the pimps and hookers?”

  “Ain’t you high and mighty for a jailbird? Look, Peggy hasn’t left that lobby since they brought you in. It’s like she’s standing vigil in a surgical waiting room, waiting to hear the worst. Even Walt Garrity’s out there, and he ought to be in a hospital bed.”

  “Annie hasn’t been down there all that time, has she?”

  “No. She’s been at home, with Kirk Boisseau and half a dozen Natchez cops. But she’s here now. An FBI agent drove her over.”

  To my embarrassment, hot tears are rolling down my face. They’re tears of shame, a special variety I saw on the faces of many men in my former life. “Just tell me one thing,” I say, wiping my face on my shirt sleeve. “And don’t bullshit me. Did Dad run a DNA test on some baby teeth of Lincoln’s?”

  Quentin mutters something under his breath. “Goddamn that boy.”

  “What was the result, Quentin?”

  The lawyer looks up like a man who’d rather be anywhere but here. “Viola was telling the truth. Tom fathered Lincoln Turner.”

  I nod slowly, taking it all the way in. “All right, then. So now we know. Let’s go see Mom and Annie.”

  “Wait.” Quentin grips my wrist with surprising strength. “You don’t want to hear this, but I’ve got to say it. Right this minute, your father’s sitting in a cell exactly like the one you just left. And he’s in a lot worse shape than you, physically speaking. He wants to see you, Penn. He wants to talk to you.”

  The ice in my chest has begun climbing up my throat. “After a week of running from me? Quentin, I told you—”

  “I’m not asking you for Tom’s sake! I’m asking for Peggy’s. If your mother asks you to go across the river with her, you need to go.”

  “Quentin, I’m not—”

  “I ain’t flappin’ my gums to hear myself talk, boy!”

  His shout stuns me into silence. A shocked face appears in the window to my left. I signal that we’re okay.

  “You know what’s going on here?” Quentin asks. “You’re like the angry parent who thinks the best thing for a wayward child is to spend a night in jail. But this is your father, Penn. He probably won’t even live until his trial date. He might not live to see next Sunday, if he doesn’t get something to hope for soon. And Sunday is tomorrow, in case you forgot.”

  I look down at the floor, Caitlin’s last message playing in my head. You have to forgive your father, she said.

  “What can Dad want from me but absolution, Quentin? And I’m not empowered to give him that. That’s up to Mom.”

  Quentin drops his hand from my wrist. “Penn, you’ve got a lot of growing up to do yet. Your mother forgave that man the day she married him. You’ve got to swallow your pride and face the world as it is. You just lost the woman you loved, and you feel like you’ve lost your father, too. You’ve also got a brother you never knew about. A soul brother, as it happens. That’s not the end of the world, but you want to blame all that on somebody. Well, that’s natural. But there’s plenty of blame to go around. You’ve got to be a man now.”

  “I’m forty-five years old, Quentin.”

  The old man shakes his head sadly. “Age got nothing to do with it. I know eighty-year-old men still obsessed with the slights of their youth. They wouldn’t know forgiveness if they stepped in it. You’ve got to open your heart to let the pain out. Ask any nurse, she’ll tell you. Doesn’t matter what you’re talking about. Better out than in.”

  I haven’t the energy to resist Quentin’s gift for persuasion. “You know, sometimes I really do believe you spent time in jail with Martin Luther King.”

  “Hell, that’s established fact. Now— Hang on.” He takes his cell phone from his coat pocket and checks it. “Doris just sent me a text message. The reporters out on the steps just left. Must have gone to get something to eat. Let’s get out while the gettin’s good.”

  His whirring chair leads me to the wide swinging door monitored by a video camera. When the door buzzes open, Quentin rolls through the door like an aged black knight on a charger, ready to do battle with anyone who would obstruct us. Beyond him I see a motley crowd lining the seats against the walls, wearing clothes that look like they were snatched out of a Goodwill bin and worn directly to the jail. Half the people in the crowd are talking on cell phones, while seve
ral toddlers bound through the lobby as if playing in their own backyards.

  In the midst of this chaotic scene my mother stands like a duchess at the center of a Renaissance painting. With her perfectly coiffed silver hair and sky-blue pantsuit, she clutches a purse under one arm and holds my daughter’s hands in hers. Walt Garrity stands beside them like a tired cowboy who mistakenly wandered into the painting and can’t find his way out.

  Annie sees me first, and her eyes light up like diamonds in the beam of a spotlight. With no regard for the propriety so important to my mother, she shouts “Daddy!” then jerks her arm free, sprints toward me, and leaps into my arms. This barely elicits glances from the veteran visitors, but my mother raises her chin to get a better look at me. After convincing herself that I am indeed her son, she sags against Walt as though her storied strength has finally given out. Walt hooks a comforting arm around her, then raises his other hand and gives me a thumbs-up and a wide grin.

  CHAPTER 93

  DURING OUR WALK from the jail lobby to the courtyard outside the sheriff’s department, Quentin must have communicated to my mother that I now know the results of the DNA test. Otherwise, she would have already asked me to ride over to Vidalia with her and visit my father. She hasn’t, and after a few awkward moments, I realize she doesn’t intend to. She will cross the river with Walt as an escort and only asks that I take care of Annie while she’s “busy.”

  Quentin straightens in his wheelchair to accept a bent-over hug from my mother, then follows Doris to their Mercedes van. Backing his wheelchair onto the mechanical lift, he watches me while it raises him into the van’s belly. His reproving eyes tell me he expected more compassion from me than this. My last image of him is of a proud man looking determinedly forward as his younger wife and de facto nurse drives him away from a block where he’ll be spending a great many hours during the next six months.

  We four who remain exchange hugs, but as we separate, John Kaiser walks briskly through the main lobby doors, scans the sidewalk, then turns directly toward me. I can see from his face that something has changed, and not for the better. At this point, having tasted freedom, my greatest fear is that Billy Byrd has decided to keep me in jail until a judge orders him to release me. Giving Annie’s shoulder a squeeze, I meet Kaiser at the foot of the steps leading down to the sidewalk. Up close, I see his face is deathly pale.