The Bone Tree (60 page)

“It’s not Tom,” she said again, relief flooding through her like a drug.

Jordan knelt above her and looked into her eyes like a doctor examining a patient. Apparently satisfied that she was not seriously hurt, Jordan said, “Not bad, little sister. Not bad at all.”

“Crazy is what dat was,” Mose said. “Craziest damn thing I ever saw.”

Caitlin felt a sudden panic, as in a nightmare when she’d lost something but didn’t know what it was. Then she knew.

The map.

She dug into her pocket and pulled out what remained: a soggy mess like wet toilet paper, faintly stained with blue ink.

“I lost the map,” she said. “Toby’s map.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jordan said, squeezing her hand. “It’s nothing.”

TEN SECONDS AGO, KAISER
took out his phone and summoned two agents to drag me out of the interrogation room. As pounding feet sound in the hall, I see Sonny Thornfield pick up the pen I used to create the puzzle pieces and begin writing on the large page.

“Look!” I cry. “John, look!”

The door crashes open, and two agents rush into the room. Kaiser holds up his hand long enough to look where I’m pointing, then walks to the metal table. After looking down at the page, he motions me forward.

With his trembling hand, Sonny Thornfield has written seven uppercase letters in the blank square next to Viola Turner’s name. My breath goes shallow as I read the childishly written letters:

Sonny lays down the pen and then looks up at me, his eyes filled not with triumph or revenge, but with some unreadable emotion.

“You happy now?” he asks hoarsely. “Is that what you wanted?”

I cannot voice the thought that has arced through my mind like a
rocket against a black sky:
Two nights ago, Brody Royal told me my father killed Viola. Now Sonny Thornfield has told me the same thing.

“Let’s go, Penn,” Kaiser says, signaling the two agents to help me out of the room.

“He’s lying, John,” I insist, as much to myself as to Kaiser. “How could he possibly know that?” I lunge at Sonny, but strong hands yank me back, and a thick forearm locks around my neck. “
How could you know that unless you were there?
” I shout.

Kaiser lays the flat of his hand on my chest. “Penn, I’m on your side, but you need to step out of this room.”

I start to protest when my cell phone rings. “Let me answer, John!”

Kaiser nods, and after a moment the agents release me. I pull my phone from my pocket and answer it. “Caitlin?” I ask, my arm and voice shaking.

“Penn! Can you hear me? Stay on . . . we’re airborne and climbing!”

My heart leaps at the sound of her voice. “I hear you!” I yell into the static. “Whose body was it? Was it Dad? Tell me now!”

“No! It wasn’t Tom! Repeat,
not
your father. It was a much younger man. The sheriff’s office down here thinks it’s one of those missing boys from Vidalia, Casey Whelan.”

“It wasn’t him,” I echo, though my brain has spun into some zone where it feels disconnected from my voice. “It was one of those missing kids . . . Whelan.”

Thornfield’s head whips up at the mention of the name.

“Thank God,” says Kaiser, squeezing my shoulder. “What about Jordan? Is she okay?”

Dizzy with relief, I half fall toward the metal table. Kaiser steadies me by taking hold of my shoulders, and I rest one hand against the table’s edge to regain my balance.

“Tell John Jordan’s fine,” Caitlin says, the connection much clearer now. “We’ll probably be stuck down here talking to Sheriff Ellis for a while, but we’re both good. There’s no other word on Tom?”

“No.”

“Please call me the moment you hear anything.”

Already the euphoria of relief has begun to evaporate. “All right.”

“I love you!” Caitlin shouts.

“Okay . . . okay. I love you, too.”

And then she’s gone.

I look down at my hand, and a shock of revulsion goes through me. I’d thought Kaiser was squeezing my wrist, but the hand wrapped around my arm belongs to Sonny Thornfield.

“I’m glad for you,” the old man says.

Yanking my arm free, I shake my head and speak with open disgust. “You knew who was in that swamp. You killed Whelan, didn’t you? Or you saw it done. I saw it in your face just now.”

Thornfield’s watery eyes go wide. Then he shuts them tight and covers his face with his hands. Kaiser jerks me away from the old man and shoves me toward the door.

“Get out, Penn. You’ve had some luck just now, but don’t push it.”

I plant my feet at the door and stop us. “Luck is for fools, John. Are you going to give Thornfield his deal?”

He looks anxiously back at the old man.

“You’ve got to get him back to the cellblock soon. You already kept him longer than you did Snake.”

“Hold Penn here,” Kaiser say to his agents. Then he walks back and squats beside Thornfield, just as I did earlier. “Why didn’t you put your name by those victims, Sonny? The only way you could know who killed them was to be there yourself. Come on, man. Take the final step.”

The old man’s body is trembling like a scarecrow in a rainstorm.

“Give me something I can believe,” Kaiser pleads. “Then your family can have a new lease on life. New names, a new town, far out of Forrest’s reach.”

Thornfield’s bloodshot eyes slowly focus on Kaiser. “Something you can believe? How about Jimmy Revels’s last words?”

Kaiser glances back at me. “How do you know them?”

Thornfield shakes his head like a sinner facing his maker. “They’ve haunted me for the last forty years . . . that’s how. That boy whispers in my ears when I sleep.”

Kaiser swallows in anticipation. True detectives live for these moments. “What were they, Sonny?”

“‘
I forgive you,
’” Thornfield says with utter desolation. “Can you believe that?”

When Kaiser bows his head, I know Sonny’s confession has rung the bell of truth within him.

“Jimmy tried to forgive me with them words,” Sonny says, weeping openly now. “But he damned me forever.”

TWO MINUTES AFTER THORNFIELD’S
confession, Kaiser and I stand alone in the observation room while two agents flank him at the interrogation table.

“You’ve broken him,” I say. “But you’ve spent too long with him. If you’re going to fly his family in, you’ll have to send him back to the cellblock in the meantime. Send him in with one mission, John. Find out where my father is.”

Kaiser shakes his head. “Not yet, Penn.”

“You’re going to blow it, man. Don’t get greedy. I know what you want, but you can’t spend another hour in there with Sonny asking about the Kennedy assassination. Snake will realize that he’s flipping. You’ve got to question the other Eagles to keep Sonny safe.”

Kaiser shakes his head, his expression adamant. “I can have other agents question the other Eagles. I’ve already separated them from one another. None of them knows what’s going on in here. Snake sure as hell doesn’t know. I’ve got one of my agents questioning him right now to throw him off.”

“But Snake
will
know. You know he will.”

It seems incomprehensible, but Kaiser is deaf to my appeals.

“You’ll get the Kennedy stuff with all the rest of it. There’s no deadline on that stuff. Why is it more important than half a dozen civil rights murders? Why is it more important than my father?”

Kaiser clenches his jaw, and for a moment I believe I’ve shamed him back to sanity. But then he grabs my shoulders, his eyes blazing with passion.

“Why do you think, Penn? Dwight Stone is going under the knife in ninety minutes. Once they put him under, he may never wake up again. If I can give him the peace of the answer he’s sought for twenty years, I’m going to give it to him.”

“At the cost of all the other cases? Of Sonny’s
life
?”

“Sonny’s not going to die.”

“My father might. He’s stuck somewhere without his medicine, if he’s alive at all. He doesn’t have nitro or insulin . . .”

“Fifteen minutes, Penn. That’s all I need. In fifteen minutes Sonny can confirm or deny every critical detail of the assassination. I just want to know whether Marcello was behind it, and whether Frank Knox fired the kill shot.”

“That’s a sixty-second conversation.”

“Christ, can’t you see? After this session, the director will authorize total protection for Sonny’s family, and I’ll bet any amount of money he’ll do the same for your father.”

“Like that matters now?”

Kaiser clutches my arm. “Don’t you want to know whether your father was complicit or not in writing that medical excuse for Frank Knox? Sonny might know that.”

I pull my arm free. “I already know. Whatever’s at the root of my dad’s behavior, it isn’t evil. I know that, even if you don’t.”

“Then at least let’s do this for Dwight. After that, we’ll see if Sonny can wheedle your dad’s location out of Snake.”

At this point, I surrender. Nothing is going to stop him anyway.

WILMA DEEN TURNED
the stolen pickup right on Auburn Avenue, cruised for a quarter mile, then turned left on Duncan Avenue. This took her once more past the house that Penn Cage had pulled out of this morning, and where Forrest Knox had told her Tom Cage might be hiding. For the second time she saw a tall, broad-shouldered man in blue jeans walking in the front yard of the two-story house. Wilma was sure he was a guard, and she’d wanted to know if there was another in back. After she crossed over a rise in the street, she pulled over to a tall stand of hedges and stopped.

A blond, wiry twenty-five-year-old roustabout named Alois Engel stepped out of the hedge and climbed into the backseat of the truck. All Wilma knew about Alois was that Snake Knox had fathered him by some honky-tonk slut, and he worked for the Double Eagles in some capacity. She thought she remembered Sonny Thornfield once telling her the kid was into white supremacy, but he didn’t look like much to her. The most distinctive thing about Engel was the anger that bled steadily from his eyes. He looked hungry for retribution, but Wilma had no idea for what. Nor did she care. She was here for one reason: to make sure her brother had not died for nothing.

“Any guards in back?” Wilma asked, accelerating down State Street, which was lined with expensive cars.

“One,” said Alois. “An old nigger. I think he’s a city cop, or used to be. The guy out front looks like an old hippie or something, doesn’t he?”

“He looks pretty tough to me. I think I’ve seen him doing dirt work across the river.”

“Fuck him. We just need a diversion to make sure we can get the bombs to the door.”

“We don’t have a go order yet, do we?”

“We will. I heard it in the colonel’s voice.”

Alois jerked a dirty towel off the box sitting beside him on the backseat. In the box were three sealed wine bottles filled to the neck with a mixture of gasoline, kerosene, tar, and potassium chlorate. Taped to the side of each bottle were two windproof matches.

“Who did you say designed these things?” Wilma asked. “The Russians?”

“The Finns,” Alois said irritably. The kid fancied himself a connoisseur of World War II weaponology. “They used them in the Winter War.”

“Against the Russians?”

“Against the
Germans
.”

“Okay, okay, BF deal. Somehow they don’t look like real Molotov cocktails without the rag hanging out.”

Alois grunted. “Do you want to look cool while you set yourself on fire, or really hurt the people who wasted your brother?”

Wilma said nothing. This kid had no idea what was really going on. To him Glenn Morehouse had been just a fat old guy who’d lived in her house, not an unstoppable force that could be pointed at a target like a tank.

“How well do you know Forrest?” Wilma asked.

“Well enough to know that when he asks you to do him a favor, you do it. He’s about the baddest son of a bitch I ever met, and I’ve met some.”

Wilma laughed. “I just bet you have, blondie.”

The truck jounced over a speed bump, and the bottles clanked ominously in the box.

“Stuff that fucking towel in there!” Wilma snapped. “Wedge it between the bottles. I don’t plan on burning up in this truck.”

Alois obeyed with surprising delicacy. Then he reached down to the floor and brought up a heavy Sig Sauer pistol.

“You know, if that guy doesn’t go in for a break pretty soon, I’m just going to walk up and blow his shit away.”

“Forrest didn’t say anything about shooting guards,” Wilma said.

“Well, he doesn’t want us waiting on the street all day.”

“Just hold your water. He’ll have to take a leak soon. You got the masks?”

Alois lifted a Walmart bag from the floor. “You get the Harry Potter. I’m taking Spider-Man.”

She shook her head in derision.
Kids.

ONLY ONCE IN HER
life had Peggy Cage had her faith in her husband tested as it was being tested now, and she wasn’t sure she was up to the challenge. Still, she put the best possible face on things, as she’d been taught to do from birth. Despite her protestations to Penn, having Kirk Boisseau close by had improved her sense of security. Like a lot of Natchez men of his generation, Kirk had been taught English by Peggy at St. Stephen’s Prep back in the early 1970s. He’d grown up to be quite an imposing adult, and today she was glad of it. Tom’s elderly patient James Ervin was guarding the back of the house—unless it was his brother Elvin; Peggy could scarcely tell the difference between the retired cops. With both James and Kirk on guard, it seemed that physical security was not a problem, and yet Peggy felt deeply unsettled.

One reason was Annie. As the mayor’s daughter, Annie Cage had become even more adept than her grandmother at putting on a public face, but the girl couldn’t fool Peggy. Though she’d managed an animated discussion with Kirk, Annie was clearly worried about her father and Caitlin—and terrified for her grandfather. Annie had also suggested to Peggy that Penn and Caitlin were having “relationship trouble.” Though she had only her intuition and Caitlin’s continued absence to support this assertion, Peggy suspected she was right.

Early that morning, Annie had sat down in the den and made a great show of reading Caitlin’s most recent articles aloud from the newspaper Kirk had brought with him. Peggy tried to look interested, but the only stories that held her interest anymore were those dealing with the murder for which Tom had been indicted, and there had been precious little information printed on that case after the initial story.

“Gram!” Annie cried, getting to her feet with her cell phone held aloft. “Caitlin just texted me!”

Peggy clenched her abdomen in preparation for whatever might follow. “What does she say, honey?”

Annie read from the screen: “
Hey punk, sorry I haven’t been around much. You can see from the paper I’m working around the clock. Today I’m doing Lara Croft meets Nancy Drew. I may be on CNN tonight, so watch the news. With any luck, I’ll be there to watch it with you. Love, Cait.
”

“Who’s Lara Croft?” Peggy asked, relieved and thankful that Caitlin had thought to reassure Annie.

“Just a character from a video game,” Annie said, her face glowing. “I wish Dad and Papa would text us like Caitlin does.”

“Me, too. I’ll be right back, sweetie,” Peggy said, getting to her feet. “I’m going to check on Mr. Kirk.”

“He’s just plain Kirk,” Annie corrected her. “He told me not to call him mister. He was four years ahead of Dad in school, but they played football together.”

Peggy smiled and went into the den, where Kirk Boisseau was leaning against the wall and watching an old western in black and white.

“Are you all right, Kirk? Can I fix you a sandwich or something?”

“No, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “I’m good.”

Unable to think of any small talk—which was rare for her—Peggy looked at the television. On-screen she saw a black-clad cowboy brandishing a bullwhip, and the sight cut her to the quick. The actor was Lash LaRue, a Saturday matinee cowboy from the 1940s and ’50s. Peggy recognized him because she and Tom had once seen an impromptu performance by LaRue at New Orleans’ Dew Drop Inn, a Negro nightclub that Tom sometimes visited to hear certain black musicians. Tom and Peggy were allowed admittance because Tom had treated several employees while working as an extern. As a boy, Tom had worked as a theater usher during the 1940s, and he’d been ecstatic to find a star from his childhood onstage. He watched spellbound as the black-suited LaRue played his guitar with the Negro musicians, then cut paper from the mouth of a waitress with a bullwhip someone had produced from the back of the bar.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Cage?” Kirk asked.

“What?” Peggy asked, wiping a tear from her eyes. “Oh, yes. This has just been hard. I’m not used to doing without Tom.”

Boisseau smiled. “I’m sure it’s all going to work out.”

“Are you?” she said quietly. “Because I’m not.”

“Penn will get it worked out.”

Peggy somehow summoned a smile. “Do you feel like we’re pretty safe here?”

Kirk smiled back, and Peggy thought his eyes looked too gentle to belong to a real soldier. But when he spoke, his voice held the hard edge of steel.

“I won’t let anything happen to you or that girl. You can count on that. I gave Penn my word. You just try to relax.”

“Thank you. We’ll try.”

“I saw that pistol in your purse,” Kirk said. “You know how to use it?”

Peggy nodded. “Tom taught me. A long time ago. But I hope it won’t come to that.”

“What are you guys doing?” Annie asked from the door. “What won’t come to what?”

“Me eating healthy food!” Kirk said easily. “Your grandmother was trying to sell me on a salad. I want a big old skillet-fried grilled cheese sandwich.”

Annie looked suspicious for a second, but then she started laughing.

“I’m going to make another pass around the house,” said Kirk.

“And I’m going to make you that sandwich,” Peggy said. “Come help me, Annie.”

Annie looked longingly after Kirk as he went out the front door.

ALOIS ENGEL BRAKED AT
the stop sign at the corner of Auburn and Duncan Avenues and depressed the electric cigarette lighter. The hippie who’d been guarding the front of the house was still nowhere to be seen. There were no cars behind Alois, and none on the intersecting streets. Duncan Avenue felt like it had been transplanted from the Garden District in New Orleans. Facing a golf course dotted with black and white men in their seventies, this sleepy lane was due for some excitement.

The cigarette light popped out, ready to go.

Alois removed the little metal plunger with its red-hot eye, then picked up the Molotov cocktail and carefully ignited the windproof match taped to the bottle’s side. Then he wedged the bottle between the passenger seat and the console of his pickup. The match burned with a snakelike hiss.

Alois scanned 360 degrees around the intersection.
Still no traffic.
Picking up his cell phone, he texted a question mark to Wilma Deen, whom he’d dropped off on Ratcliff Place, near a home whose yard abutted the yard of the mayor’s safe house. Ten seconds later, his phone pinged.

Wilma’s text read:
Still in position. Ready 2 rock.

Alois picked up the Spider-Man mask from the passenger seat and pulled it over his head. Then he let his foot off the brake and rolled forward.

The mayor’s house was fifty yards away.

Alois had rolled only ten yards when the blond hippie walked out the front door and surveyed the street.

“Goddamn it,” Alois muttered. “I’m gonna blow your shit away.”

But he didn’t. He snapped off the head of the sizzling match and grabbed for his cell phone.