The Bone Tree (50 page)

God, let that be the case. . . .

WALT DROVE SLOWLY PAST
the Bouchard lake house for the second time. The GPS tracker had shown this as Forrest Knox’s current location, a fact supported by the state police cruiser parked beside a Mercedes convertible at the end of the home’s long driveway.

Walt paid more attention to the house on this second pass. Though two stories tall, the structure appeared long and low. The modern design stood out strongly from the ranch houses and A-frames that dotted the shore on this side of Lake Concordia, especially its metal-clad walls, which gleamed in the winter sun. The name
Bouchard
had been
painted in a festive script on a sign below the mailbox, which was the custom along this lake. Walt cursed Mackiever for the hundredth time for not bugging the interior of Knox’s cruiser. He wished he’d done it himself. If he had, then he would already know where Tom was being held—or at least his final fate. If he was damned lucky, it might turn out that Knox was holding him inside this luxury retreat.

Since trees obscured his view of the Bouchard house, he shifted his gaze to the house next door. It was a typical ranch-style suburban built on a lot so narrow it didn’t even have a carport. Walt felt a rush of hope as he saw there were no vehicles parked at that house.

An ideal observation post if ever I saw one,
he thought, slowing to turn.

BY THE TIME
Forrest’s phone rang again, he sensed that something was wrong. He wasn’t sure what it might be, but he never doubted his intuition. As soon as he answered, he heard the high pitch of panic in Deputy Hunt’s voice.

“Calm down, son,” Forrest said. “What happened?”

“There’s no stash under the sheriff’s house!”

“Bullshit,” Forrest said, his mind speeding through possibilities. Who the hell would have the nerve to rip off crystal meth from cops? “You must have missed it. Talk to whoever planted it.”

“
I
planted it. That’s how I know. It’s gone! All four bags.”

Forrest thought about this. “How is that possible? Could anybody have seen you plant it?”

“No, sir. No
way.
It was pitch-black.”

“Somebody had to. What about Dennis himself?”

“He was twenty miles away!”

“Where is he now?”

“He left for work ten minutes ago. His wife and kid left at the same time.”

“Was anybody with you when you planted it?”

“Kyle Allard drove me.”

“Then Allard’s got it.”

“I don’t think so, Colonel. Kyle ain’t crazy. And he knows he’d be crazy to cross you.”

“Either Allard’s got it, or he warned Dennis about it.”

“Due respect, sir . . . no way. Kyle hates the sheriff.”

“Well, you talk to him, then. Tell him if he doesn’t come clean, I’ll have Captain Ozan cut it out of him. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir. Loud and clear. But this don’t make no damn sense.”

Forrest hung up and speed-dialed Claude Devereux at his home
in Vidalia. The phone rang six times, and then an answering machine picked up. Forrest listened to the old lawyer’s oily voice and waited for the beep.

“Claude, this is Forrest. If you don’t call me back within five minutes, I’ll make sure you spend the few years you have left handling death row appeals pro bono from your cell in Angola. Have a nice day.”

Forrest hung up.

Twenty seconds later, Devereux returned the call.

“Jesus,” said the Cajun, “you don’t have to get my blood pressure up like that.”

“Take a goddamn pill, Claude. I need you to get down to the CPSO and advise some clients who are about to be questioned.”

“You mean Snake and Sonny and the others?”

“That’s right.”

“But—I thought you had that taken care of.”

“I do. You’re my secret weapon.”

Devereux muttered under his breath. “Are they in custody?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t matter.”

“Shit, Forrest . . . the damned FBI’s in town. And this isn’t 1964. What are you getting me into?”

“You scared, Claude? You used to laugh at the FBI.”

“Thirty years ago. I was young and stupid. Those sons of bitches have more power now than they ever did under Hoover. If the FBI is in on this questioning, I might need a lawyer myself. And the tide has turned against loudmouths like Snake Knox, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“Stop flappin’ your gums and get over there, Claude. You don’t have a choice.”

After some grumbling, Devereux said, “All right, all right. I suppose I can.”

“That tone doesn’t inspire confidence.”

“Forrest, Christ . . . I’m too old for this.”

“The alternative is worse, I promise you.”

Forrest was pretty sure Devereux had stopped breathing.

“You getting your tie on, Claude?”

“As we speak.”

“Call me with a report, soon as you can.”

“I will. Let me get going.”

Forrest hung up, then blew out a rush of air. He didn’t like it when things didn’t go according to plan. It had been years now since anyone had dared to challenge him directly, but Penn Cage, John Kaiser, and Walker Dennis seemed to be intent on doing just that. He wondered whether Claude Devereux still had the stones to handle adversaries of that caliber. Claude had been a slick operator in the old days, as connected as anybody in Louisiana. He’d kept many a sticky-fingered politician out of prison, from sitting governors to U.S. senators. But Penn Cage was an accomplished attorney with a stellar record as a prosecutor, and Forrest didn’t like the fear he’d heard in the old man’s voice.

A disturbing thought struck him. What if Devereux didn’t even go to the sheriff’s office? What if he tried to rabbit? Then it would be up to Snake to handle whatever surprise those three Boy Scouts had cooked up for the Double Eagles. The more Forrest thought about this, the surer he became that he wasn’t the only one who’d arranged a surprise for today. He got up from the table, tossed the dregs of his coffee over the deck rail, and speed-dialed Alphonse Ozan.

DEPUTY HIRAM HUNT HAD
phoned Colonel Knox from underneath Sheriff Dennis’s house, and he was still there, checking for the ninth or tenth time to be sure he wasn’t mistaken about the crystal meth. But he knew he wasn’t. He’d duct-taped the trash bag containing the packets between two floor joists, right where the return air duct descended from the living room floor.

Now nothing remained but the residue of the duct tape. Hunt could feel the tacky glue on his fingertips. Could some scavenging animal like a raccoon have taken the bag? Possibly, but an animal would have ripped it open on the spot to discover whether it contained any food.

“Shit
fire,
” Hunt muttered, knowing his life was on the line.

Pocketing his flashlight, he scrabbled backward out from under the house, emerging near the air-conditioning unit. He hoped to God that Kyle Allard knew something about the missing meth, because if he didn’t, that Redbone bastard Ozan would probably kill him trying to squeeze out the truth.

As Hunt straightened up, he figured he could wait two minutes to call Allard. He wanted to get away from the sheriff’s house before
any neighbors saw him. If something
had
gone wrong, the last thing he needed was Sheriff Dennis asking what he’d been doing under his house that morning. Hunt strode around the corner, then stopped cold.

Walker Dennis stood there with another deputy, a recent hire named Wilkins, a kid fresh out of the Marines.

“What’s up, Hiram?” asked the sheriff, a strange glint in his eyes. “You lost?”

“Uh, no, sir.”

“Well?”

“I was just looking for you, sir. We, ah, got an anonymous tip that there was some drugs under your house. We knew it was bullshit, of course, but we figured somebody ought to crawl under there so we could say we’d checked it out.”

“I see. Who’s ‘we,’ Hiram?”

“Uh, you know . . . Randy, I think.” Randy Frey wasn’t on the Knox payroll, but he was stupid, and the sheriff might believe the deputy was lying if he denied it.

Sheriff Dennis gave Wilkins some kind of head signal, and the new guy drew his pistol and covered Hunt with it.

“Hey now,” Hunt said nervously. “What . . . what’s going on?”

Sheriff Dennis smiled, but the look in his eyes made Hunt’s bowels shift.

“You’re going to get plenty of time to answer that question, Hiram. Yes, sir. Now, hand me your weapon.”

“Listen, Sheriff—”

“
Hand it over!
”

With shaking hands, Hunt drew his weapon with his thumb and forefinger and passed it butt first to the sheriff. Dennis looked down at it, then grimaced and handed the weapon to the new guy. Hunt was trying to think of something intelligent to say, but nothing came to him.

“Give me your phones,” Dennis ordered. “
All
of ’em.”

Hunt unclipped the departmental cell phone from his belt. Then, after some hesitation, he removed the StarTac burn phone from his trouser pocket. It had been his only safe link to Forrest Knox, and now it might just hang him.

Dennis snatched the StarTac from his hand. “Cuff him, Wilkins. Hands behind your back, Hiram.”

Hunt felt tears in his eyes. “Sheriff, please—”

Walker Dennis drove his fist into Hiram’s gut, driving every bit of air out of his lungs. He doubled over, tried to keep his feet, then collapsed on the sheriff’s lawn. He felt the new guy cuffing his wrists behind him, then Dennis’s hot breath in his ear.

“This is my
home,
you cocksucker. The bastards you work for killed my
cousin
and two fine deputies—
unlike you
. You think about that while you’re riding to where you’re going.”

“You taking me to jail?” Hunt asked, gasping for breath.

“Ohh, no,” said the sheriff in a strange voice. “We’re way past that now, Hiram. Yes, sir.”

WALT GARRITY WAS SCANNING
the Bouchard lake house through a 10x Leupold scope when his burn phone rang. After more than a dozen attempts to reach Griffith Mackiever, the man had finally called him back. Walt set down the scope and answered the phone.

“Tell me you’ve done something with that video,” Walt said, skipping the small talk.

“I’m trying,” Mackiever said. “I’m having a hell of a time getting anybody to meet with me. Those damned kiddie porn accusations have made me toxic. No government official wants to have anything to do with me. Most won’t even take my calls.”

“You can always take it to the media yourself,” Walt suggested. “Or scare the hell out of Knox with it.”

“Hell, I haven’t even ID’d the men in it yet.”

“Have you tried?”

“I’m working on it, Walt.”

“Work faster, damn it. There’s a lot more than your reputation on the line, or the image of the state police.”

“I hear you.”

Walt was about to give his old comrade a stern dose of reality when an F-150 pickup swerved into the driveway of the Bouchard lake house and rolled toward the built-in garage.

“I’ll call you later,” Walt said, dropping the phone and picking up the scope again.

He sighted in on the driver as the Ford passed and recognized
Alphonse Ozan behind the wheel. So . . . the servant had come to the master. Walt saw no passengers in the truck, but when the garage door rose and swallowed the F-150, he began to worry that Tom might be lying on the backseat, on the floor, or even wrapped in a rug in the truck bed.

He had to get closer to that house.

FORREST STOOD STIFFLY ON
the lake house deck and stared down at the cell phone he used to talk to the moles he maintained in various parishes around the state. Hiram Hunt should have called back by now. Forrest needed to know what was going on. Something told him not to try to reach Hunt, but that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try one of his other sources in Walker Dennis’s department. Yet Forrest continued to stare at the phone without touching it. He almost felt as though the device had been turned against him somehow, that the tool he used so often to spy on others now made him vulnerable to attack.

As Forrest stared, the cell phone began to ring.

His heartbeat skittered, then stabilized. Odds were, this was Hunt calling to report that he’d discovered the fate of the planted methamphetamine. The phone rang again. Out on the lake, another bass boat skated by with a midrange growl, but Forrest’s eyes remained locked on the cell phone.

He made no move to answer it.

I PULL INTO
the motor-pool bay of the sheriff’s department, which is located beneath the western end of the Concordia Parish courthouse. As I show my ID to a mustached deputy at the basement entrance, I notice a large number of inmates being held in fenced pens beyond the parked cruisers. The pens have a makeshift look, and most of the men inside are wearing street clothes.

“Who are those guys?” I ask. “Trustees about to go work on the highway?”

“Naw,” says the deputy. “Most of ’em are the meth cookers and mules we hit yesterday, the ones who ain’t made bail. Some we just busted this morning. They’re waiting for their initial appearance upstairs. This circus could take all damn day.”

“Why are they out here in those pens?”

“The fed upstairs wanted the jail empty ’cept for the boys they’re gonna question up there.”

The fed upstairs?
“Do you mean Agent John Kaiser?”

“Kaiser . . . yeah, that’s him.”

“Is he with Sheriff Dennis?”

“No, the sheriff ain’t made it in yet.”

I check my watch, trying to mask my worry. If Dennis’s plan was to plant meth on the Eagles before this interrogation, then there could be a lot of bad reasons he’s not here yet. “Have the men he’s going to question shown up?”

“Not that I know of.”

Shit. “Sheriff Dennis told me he was going to be here fifteen minutes ago, if not earlier.”

“He usually is. And we need him this morning.”

The deputy hands me back my ID, and I walk up the staircase beyond the door. The staircase terminates in an open-plan office. About
half the desks are empty, but at the one nearest the front sits a young deputy with the burly build of a baseball player. Unlike the potbellied deputy down in the motor pool, this guy looks like the twenty-first-century version of the southern lawman. He has strapping forearms and wears a mustache and goatee trimmed nearly to the skin, with a baseball-style sheriff’s department SWAT cap pulled low over his blue eyes. Far behind him I see a steel security door that leads to the cellblock, and to the right of that, the mahogany door that Henry and I walked through to visit Sheriff Dennis on Tuesday morning.

“Morning, Mayor,” says the young deputy, half rising to his feet and offering his hand. “Spanky Ford. I used to watch you play ball with Drew Elliott when I was a kid. St. Stephen’s had a hell of a team in those days.”

I walk up and shake his hand, which is thickly padded with muscle.

“That was a long time ago, Deputy.”

“Call me Spanky.”

“Why hasn’t the sheriff gotten in yet?”

Ford’s smile disappears. “Not sure. He called about an hour ago and told me he might be late. Told me to put Snake Knox and his geriatric buddies in the jail dining room till he got here.”

My scalp tightens. “Are they here now?”

“Yes, sir. I put ’em right where the sheriff said.”

This actually brings me some relief, though I’m not sure it’s justified. “Did they bring a lawyer?”

“No, sir. None so far.”

“No sign of Claude Devereux?”

Spanky Ford laughs. “Man, I ain’t seen old Claude in here for two, three years at least. He stays drunk out at the lake or drives up to the casinos for high-stakes poker.”

“Where’s Agent Kaiser?”

The smile vanishes again, and Ford’s eyes go hard. “In the sheriff’s private office. He’s acting like he owns the damn place.”

I nod in sympathy. “Feds are the same all over. I’ll go make sure he’s not rifling through Walker’s files.”

“Good idea.”

A lot of eyes follow me as I cross the office to the mahogany door, but I don’t return anyone’s gaze.

When I open the door, John Kaiser looks up as if I’m exactly the person he expected to see. “Morning, Mayor,” he says. “Your fiancée had quite a few interesting stories in her paper this morning.”

Kaiser doesn’t look like he got much sleep after our intensive session with Dwight Stone last night. “I’ll tell her you enjoyed them.”

“I wouldn’t say that. What I’d say is that she seems to have a lot of information that I don’t. I think she’s been holding back on me.”

Seeing Kaiser behind Sheriff Dennis’s desk is like seeing a trim, combat-blooded colonel take over the desk of a heavyset captain at a stateside army post. When I first saw Walker in that chair, he looked like he’d be happy not to have to get out of it often. Kaiser looks like he could organize and implement a Rhine crossing at a moment’s notice.

“Sheriff Dennis is AWOL,” he says. “Any idea where he might be?”

“None. By the way, thanks for e-mailing me that assessment of the Knox family.”

Kaiser ignores this. “I also find it odd that with six Double Eagles waiting patiently in the jail dining room to be questioned, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of an attorney. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”

“A little.”

“It could only mean one of two things. One, Snake and his crew have nothing to hide—which we know is absurd. Or they don’t really expect to be questioned today. And so far as I know, the only person who could guarantee that outcome is Sheriff Walker Dennis, who appears to be missing.”

“If you think Dennis is going to lift a finger to help Forrest Knox, you’re crazy. He blames Knox for killing a family member. Not to mention two deputies yesterday morning.”

“Then where is he?”

I glance at my watch. “I guess time will tell.”

“You know exactly where he is, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t.” I sit in one of the chairs opposite Walker’s desk. “I thought you were going to skip this little party, John.”

“The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that I couldn’t afford to.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because if the Double Eagles are going to be questioned, I should be the person doing it. You have no legal authority here, and between
Walker Dennis and myself, I’m the more experienced interrogator by far.”

“Didn’t I tell you that Dennis deputized me? Special Deputy Penn Cage. I even get a tin star.”

Kaiser rolls his eyes. “Well, as soon as Marshal Dennis gets finished at the Long Branch, or wherever he is, we need to sort out a batting order for these interrogations—if they absolutely must happen.”

“John, you won’t talk Walker out of questioning these guys.”

Kaiser reflects on this for a few seconds, then veers in a new direction. “Dwight landed in Colorado about midnight last night.”

“When does he go under the knife? Or has he already?”

“He should have, but his blood pressure was too high. If they can get it down, they’re going to cut on him this afternoon.”

I shake my head, seeing no point in belaboring Stone’s plight.

“Yesterday’s trip probably pushed that pressure up,” Kaiser says. “But he has no regrets. He told me to tell you it meant a lot for you to listen to him last night.”

“I wish I could have told him more.”

Kaiser shrugs. “We’ll learn the truth eventually, if you guys don’t blow it today. But I doubt Dwight will live to hear it.”

The bang of a door down the hall makes us both turn toward the office door. Four seconds later it flies open, and Spanky Ford comes in with wide eyes. For a moment I’m afraid he’s about to tell us that Sheriff Dennis has been killed.

“You guys gotta clear the office! Sheriff’s back.”

“And?” Kaiser asks. “You look like the president just got shot.”

Before Ford can answer, I hear the swell of excited male voices. As Kaiser and I look at each other, heavy boots pound up the hall.

Walker Dennis pushes in behind Deputy Ford, his red face grinning, his big hands holding a Ziploc bag taped into a tight brick. “You like my office, Kaiser?” he asks with almost electric good humor.

“I needed some privacy,” Kaiser says warily, his eyes on the bag.

Dennis laughs like a man who no longer has to care what other men think. At least four deputies crowd the hall beyond the door.

“What’s that in your hand?” Kaiser asks.

“You noticed that, huh? This, my federal friend, is four hundred and eighty grams of crystal methamphetamine, enough to put a man in Angola Prison until his curly hairs turn gray, if they ain’t already.”

“Where did you find it?”

Dennis’s grin is so wide it looks painful. “This particular bag came from underneath Snake Knox’s house. I found more just like it under the houses of Sonny Thornfield, Billy Knox, and two other Double Eagles.”

My heart thumps at this last revelation. I told Walker not to try to plant anything at Billy Knox’s house, since it’s probably monitored by armed security, or at least cameras. That thought of digital cameras recording Sheriff Dennis’s felonious mission sends my heart into overdrive. But for now, I have to roll with the punches.

“This is a joke, right?” Kaiser says, looking back and forth between us.

I shrug in feigned ignorance.

The sheriff’s grin has disappeared. He looks back into the corridor and motions for his men to get back to work. Then, with deadly calm, he says, “What do you mean, a joke?”

Kaiser doesn’t shrink from his stare. “Yesterday you guys had virtually nothing on the Double Eagles. Today you find matching evidence bombs on the three perps you’d most love to nail? I’d say that’s more than convenient.”

Dennis takes an ominous step forward, and I step between him and the desk. Kaiser is right, of course: Dennis is guilty of planting evidence; but no human being is more self-righteous than one who’s been caught committing a crime.

“Sometimes a pitch just breaks the right way,” Walker says, trying to regain his equanimity.

“At
exactly
the right time?” Kaiser asks, a mocking tone in his voice.

Dennis draws himself up a couple of inches. “This ain’t none of your business, Mr. Kaiser. We local yokels have got this one under control. Why don’t you get back to draining ponds, or whatever your main business is?”

Kaiser looks to me for help, but I’m not inclined to give him any. This meth bust gives us irresistible leverage against the Knoxes, who would otherwise be uncrackable as a unit.

After taking several seconds to collect himself, Kaiser says, “Sheriff, I’m sorry if I was out of line. But these cases involve some of the most important unsolved crimes in this country. And if any . . .
overzealousness
on the part of law enforcement endangers the convictions we might otherwise get, that would be a tragedy for a lot of people.”

The stubbornness in Dennis’s face looks almost bovine. Kaiser isn’t going to change this man’s mind.

“What exactly are you suggesting I do?” Dennis asks at length.

“Don’t arrest the Eagles for those drugs. Not yet, anyway. Let me talk to them. They came in voluntarily. They’re feeling cocky. So far, they don’t even have an attorney present. We have a lot of information that they don’t know we possess, and we might learn a lot that could help our cause. But if you arrest them for that meth, they’re going to lawyer up. And it’ll be a very long time before we learn anything that could help anybody.” Kaiser looks at me again. “I include Dr. Cage in that.”

It was a good try, but he can’t sell me. Not with the Knoxes holding almost all the cards. Dennis is watching me for some kind of signal. When Kaiser looks back at him, I give my head an almost imperceptible shake.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kaiser,” Dennis says. “But I didn’t lose good men just to shoot at the hump. I’m arresting those bastards right here and now.”

Kaiser raises his hands to protest, but Dennis is already yelling down the hall for some men. When they come running, he tells them to draw their weapons.

Kaiser and I follow this hyped-up posse down the narrow paneled hall to a small dining room where the Double Eagles are waiting. By the time I stand on tiptoe and get a look into the room, I see pure shock on the faces of the six old men gathered inside. This is clearly the last thing they expected to happen.

“Sonny Thornfield?” Dennis says loudly. “Snake Knox? You are under arrest for possession of and trafficking in crystal methamphetamine. You other boys are under arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to traffic in methamphetamine. And I’ll tell you this right now: the first son of a bitch to come clean with me gets to walk, but the rest are gonna die on Angola Farm.”

Snake Knox looks defiant, but several other pairs of eyes widen in fear.

“Get off your asses and hold out your hands!” Dennis shouts. “
Now,
by God. I ain’t got all day!”

“I want a telephone,” Snake says calmly.

“I want a blow job from Angie Dickinson,” Walker replies. “Don’t mean I’m gettin’ it.”

“You’ve got to give him a phone call,” Kaiser says from behind us.

Dennis barks out an abrupt laugh. “Thank
God
you boys got the FBI lookin’ after you, Snake. Next best thing to the ACLU. I’ll bet you never figured the Bureau would be pickin’ up your slack, did you?”

“Fuck you, Dennis,” Snake growls. “You’re a dead man. You and yours, boy.”

Sheriff Dennis crosses the room in two bounds and seizes Snake Knox by the throat with one hand. Snake tries a judo chop on the sheriff’s massive forearm, but his blow barely leaves a pink mark on the muscle.

“You can threaten me all day long, scum,” Dennis says softly, backing Snake against the wall. “But if you threaten my family again, you’ll be eatin’ through a straw the rest of your life,
if
you live.”

Snake’s eyes bore into the sheriff’s with no fear in them at all. For a moment they almost seem to have the vertical irises of his reptilian namesake. In a raspy whisper, he says, “Both your boys, dipshit. And your old lady, too. Though that’d be a mercy fuck, from what I’ve seen.”

Walker Dennis closes his hand like a man crushing a beer can.

Snake’s eyes bulge, and his face goes red, then purple.

“
Sheriff!
” yells Kaiser. “Release that man!”

Two deputies bolt forward and try to pull their boss’s crushing hand from Snake’s throat, but they can’t do it. The old crop duster’s eyes have gone glassy. One deputy holds his nightstick over his boss’s head as a last resort, but Dennis finally comes to his senses and releases Knox.

“Throw that fucker in the drunk tank,” Dennis says, stumping toward us with blood in his eye. “Put Thornfield in there with him. Process the rest and put ’em in the main cellblock. We’ll separate ’em later.”