The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  Fifty dollars a month. A month.

  I thanked Dawes and got off as quickly as I could, assuring him that Dad was doing fine and his “trouble” would soon be straightened out. Then I called Rose, my secretary, and asked her to find out how much a 1957 or ’58 Ford Fairlane would have cost in the year it was made.

  “Daaad,” Annie almost whines. “You’re not paying attention, are you?”

  She’s right, but a quick scan of the TV screen and my memory tells me where we are in the movie. “The central computer just changed Logan Five’s life clock to flashing red early. Now he has no choice but to become a Runner himself.”

  “You’re right. But doesn’t he kind of like that Jessica Six girl enough to run anyway?”

  “I think he probably does, yeah.”

  Annie’s eyes settle on me. “Are you sure I can’t call my friends?”

  “Sorry, babe. It’s only for a few days, hopefully. Is there somebody you really miss talking to?”

  “All my friends, really. But something happened just before you pulled me out of school, and I want to know what the teachers did about it.”

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody stole Jody Campbell’s cell phone. I think it was Haley Winters, the meanest girl in my class. But when the teachers finally went through the lockers, they found it in Maria’s locker.”

  “Maria Estrada?”

  Annie nods. “She’s the only Mexican girl in our whole school. I think Haley put it in her locker to get Maria in trouble. I think that’s the whole reason she took the phone.”

  “Do you have any proof?”

  Annie frowns and sighs angrily. “No.”

  “Did somebody tell you Haley did it? Or did she brag about doing it?”

  “No. I just know Maria wouldn’t have done that. She doesn’t have a cell phone, but she’s not stupid. She’d know she couldn’t use it without getting caught, even if she would steal it—which she wouldn’t.”

  “Does Haley Winters have a cell phone?”

  “Please. She’s got every gadget a kid can have. She’s spoiled rotten. That’s just it. She knew nobody would suspect her because of that. See?”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “I just hope Maria’s not in trouble.”

  “Tomorrow I’ll call somebody on the school board and check on it.”

  Annie smiles. “Good. Thanks.”

  Having rid herself of this psychological irritant, Annie returns her attention to the movie. I try to do the same, but I cannot. Something about her story has disturbed me, like a fish displacing sediment at the bottom of a pond. While Michael York leads Jenny Agutter down a long tubular corridor that reminds me of a gerbil cage, a blast of pure instinct hits me.

  “Will you excuse me for a couple of minutes, Boo? I need to make a phone call.”

  “Noooo. You’ll miss the movie. There’s no PAUSE button on this old TV.”

  “I’ve seen this one enough times to know what happens.”

  Annie folds her arms and pouts. “Well, how come you get to make calls if I don’t?”

  For this question I have no answer she will accept. “I know it’s not fair, but it has to be this way for now. I’ll be as quick as I can, I promise.”

  Out on the landing of the staircase, I speed-dial Walker Dennis, and he answers on the second ring.

  “Make it fast,” he says. “I’m busy as hell, still out at Frogmore. Looks like it was precursor chemicals that blew. Definitely arson, though.”

  “Nobody hurt this time?”

  “Thank God.”

  “Who owns that warehouse?”

  “A front corporation, but Leo Spivey had a part interest.”

  “Can you connect it to the other Eagles at all? The Knoxes maybe?”

  “Tough to do with the courthouse closed. Why’d you call, Penn?”

  “To save your ass, maybe.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking about the Eagles agreeing to come in for questioning tomorrow. Kaiser’s right. It makes no sense that they’d do that. Not while they’re safe in Texas. They know you lost two deputies today and you’ll be loaded for bear.”

  “I don’t have time to second-guess those assholes.”

  “You’d better make time, buddy. The Knoxes know I spent time with Brody Royal last night. And they know from Caitlin’s articles that Royal confessed some things before he died. They also know Caitlin and I spoke to Henry before he died, and Henry spoke to Morehouse before they killed him. Plus they’re scared of what Dad might know, because he was treating Viola at the end, and I could be in contact with him. Finally, they know I’m working with you. Bottom line, there’s no way they’re walking into your office tomorrow like steers to the slaughter.”

  Walker barks an order to someone, then returns to our call. “I figure they’ll be lawyered up and ready to post bond on any charges I might make. They gotta be thinking I’ll be forced to show ’em my hand, maybe jump the gun on charges, like Kaiser’s worried about.”

  “I don’t think that’s it.”

  “Well, shit. What do you think?”

  “I think they’re buying time while they hunt Dad down and push Mackiever out of his job. And I think Forrest has figured a way to take you out of the equation. If he can do that, the state police can take over the investigation. And Forrest might well be running the state police by tomorrow.”

  “Take me out how? You mean kill me?”

  “They could, but I’d bet it’s more subtle than that. Forrest may have some way of making you look incompetent, or even guilty of a crime. If he could do that, maybe someone in your department that’s loyal to him could be appointed in your place.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t like the way Ozan was talking last night.”

  “Exactly. I think they’re planning to sandbag you, buddy.”

  “But how?”

  “Well . . . I was watching a movie with my daughter, and she told me a story about something that happened at school. One girl framed another, purely out of meanness. If I were Forrest Knox, and I wanted you out of the way, that’s what I’d do.”

  “Spill it, man.”

  “Have you got a K-9 unit?”

  “Sure, yeah. My cousin’s old dog.”

  “Okay. If I were you, I’d get that dog and run him through my house, my yard, and any other property I owned, like a storage room or fish camp.”

  The silence that follows this is absolute. “You think they’re gonna try to plant something on me?”

  “They’re in the meth business, bud. And it sure would be an easy sell, wouldn’t it? A parish known to have meth problems turns out to have a sheriff that’s neck deep in the trade? Especially with the recent history in your department.” I pitch my voice like that of one of the old bench-sitters at the farming co-op. “‘Well, I reckon old Walker was always as dirty as the rest of ’em. It just took longer to smoke him out.’”

  I can almost see Dennis snap to attention in the flame-streaked darkness over Frogmore. “Christ, Penn, I’m twenty miles from home, with nobody there but my wife and boy!”

  “Take it easy, man. Just send a deputy you trust to watch your house, then head this way and pick up that drug dog.”

  “I will,” he says, his voice tremulous. “Goddamn, this is a hell of a note.”

  “You’re going to be okay, Walker. We’ve been a step behind these guys up till now, but maybe this time we’re one step ahead.”

  “Are you home or what?”

  “No comment. I’ve got my burn phone with me. Call if you find anything.”

  “Count on it. Hey, should I take a deputy with me on the search? As a witness or something?”

  “No.” My answer came out of instinct, not legal analysis.

  “Well . . . you’re the lawyer. I’ll call you back.”

  “I hope I’m wrong, Walker.”

  “If you’re not, I’m going to break some heads tomorrow.”

  “Just keep cool, man. This is a ch
ess game now, not a street fight.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  Dennis hangs up.

  I start to walk back into Annie’s bedroom, but as I slip my burn phone back into my pocket, it bumps my BlackBerry, and I decide to check my e-mail. There’s some risk in doing it, but I want to know if Rose has answered my query about the Fairlane.

  As soon as I open my inbox, I find her reply.

  In 1957, Ford made several models of Fairlane, and the price would depend on various options. But if the car wasn’t a convertible, figure $2,000 being the minimum price. If it was a ’58, up to $2,500 is possible for a nonconvertible sedan. Hope that helps. If you give me more specific details, I can get closer to the actual price.

  Two thousand dollars, I think, switching off my BlackBerry. On a salary of fifteen dollars per week? My mother was teaching then, but by her own admission she knew nothing about the car, so she wasn’t helping save for it. Some very quick math tells me that, even allowing for some depreciation, it would be like buying a forty-thousand-dollar car on a salary of a thousand dollars per month. That’s a serious stretch, especially given the proposition that Dad somehow saved up that money without Mom feeling the pinch and realizing he was up to something. And I know from my father’s stories that none of my grandparents ever helped them buy a car or home.

  With a queasy feeling in my belly, I walk up to the second-floor bathroom and sit on the commode. Where could Dad have gotten the money to buy a two-thousand-dollar car in 1959? I know how John Kaiser would answer that question.

  Taking my tape recorder from my pocket, I look at the tiny reels behind its plastic window. After Caitlin interrupted me at her office, I never listened to the final minutes of the hotel conversation. I don’t want to hear my farewell to Stone, but the denouement of the assassination plot still haunts me. It’s got nothing to do with my parents’ Ford Fairlane—nothing overt, anyway—but the implications of that final act weigh upon me like a funeral shroud. When I press PLAY, Dwight Stone’s weary voice echoes through the tiled room like a voice from the grave. I turn the volume wheel to 1, then hold the little speaker to my right ear.

  STONE: Carlos’s deportation trial was winding down fast. The lawyers were set to make closing arguments on the morning of November twenty-second. On that day in Washington, Bobby Kennedy was chairing a meeting of district attorneys from around the country. They were strategizing in their war against organized crime. Bobby hoped to come back from lunch and announce the conviction and imminent deportation of Carlos Marcello. Instead, a bailiff walked into the federal court in New Orleans and gave the judge a note. Judge Christenberry then announced that President Kennedy had been shot. Less than an hour later, the jury acquitted Carlos Marcello on all charges and allowed him to stay in America.

  ME: Jesus.

  STONE: Do you know who was sitting at the defendant’s table with Carlos and his lawyer? Guy Banister. I’ve got the pictures to prove it.

  ME: Where was David Ferrie?

  KAISER: About to leave for Houston, which was five hours from New Orleans, in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm. Supposedly to go ice skating.

  ME: I remember that from the movie.

  STONE: He went to a skating rink but didn’t skate at all. He spent the whole time on a pay phone. Calls untraceable. He died in New Orleans four years later, within days of Jim Garrison’s JFK investigation being made public. He may have died of a berry aneurysm, but we can’t rule out murder. In any case, although he told Garrison there was a conspiracy, there’s no question why he would have remained silent about the details while pushing the DA toward the CIA. No one alive knew better than David Ferrie that the price of betraying Marcello was death.

  Here I said nothing. What could I say?

  STONE: The last tragic act on November twenty-second was that Robert Kennedy canceled the afternoon session of his anti-crime unit, and it never met again. Once JFK’s funeral was over, J. Edgar Hoover never spoke to Bobby again in his capacity as attorney general. Not once. Robert Kennedy might as well have been a janitor at the Justice Department. His anti-mob crusade went nowhere. He’d lost all his fire, and he had no backing from the Bureau.

  KAISER: Carlos’s strategy had proved sound. He’d cut the head off the dog, and the tail was dead forever after. At least until Bobby announced for president in 1968.

  STONE: Without that second Carcano being found—which meant no link between Dealey Plaza, Eladio Cruz, and Castro—the picture that emerged of Oswald became the lone-nut theory. If that rifle had been found—a direct link to a Cuban agent—I think LBJ would have invaded Cuba within sixty days.

  ME: You’re saying we might owe Frank Knox for saving us from nuclear war?

  STONE: We just might.

  I click off the recorder to avoid the final exchange. Dwight asked me once more to press my mother to reveal any line of communication she might have with Dad. If she denied it, he said, would I consider allowing either him or Kaiser to question her? I gave him a flat no, and he did his best to hide his disappointment. As I walk back to Annie’s room, Kaiser’s final words play in my mind. I had dropped Stone’s feverish hand and started for the door, and Kaiser said, “What about tomorrow? The Double Eagles coming in for questioning. What are you going to do?”

  I stopped at the mouth of the little passage that led to the door, turned back, and said in a low voice: “I’m going to pin those bastards to the wall and squeeze their balls until they beg for mercy. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  Kaiser’s face darkened, but before he could say a word, I walked to the door and made my exit. I no longer cared what he had to say, and as for Stone . . . there’s no good way to say farewell to a dying friend.

  As I leave the bathroom to return to Annie’s room, my mother calls my name from the landing halfway down the stairs. She stares up at me, her eyes freighted with deep concern. Could she have heard any of that tape? I wonder.

  “What is it, Mom? Are you okay?”

  “Why did you ask me about our old Fairlane? Is it something to do with Carlos Marcello?”

  “I honestly don’t know. The thing that confuses me about Marcello is that you told me Dad treated him in the Orleans Parish Prison back in 1959, but as far as I can find out, Marcello didn’t serve a day in jail while you and Dad lived in New Orleans.”

  Her eyes narrow, and she rubs her hand over her mouth, but even before she speaks I know my mother is not trying to deceive me. I’ve seen that look ten thousand times. She’s simply thinking back, trying to be sure of her memory.

  “I guess I could have been mistaken,” she says finally. “But I don’t think so. Tom told me some story about treating Marcello at the jail, because when we saw him later on at those restaurants, Tom said that was the only reason ‘Uncle Carlos’ knew who he was.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. Don’t keep worrying about it.”

  The concern carved into her features tells me how little chance there is that she’ll follow my advice.

  “Is Annie all right?” she asks.

  “She’s doing good. We’re watching a movie.”

  “You spend all the time with her you can. I think she’s more upset than she’s letting on.”

  Aren’t we all?

  “I will. You try to get some sleep. I’ll wake you up if I have to go out again.”

  “Is there any chance of that?”

  “I hope not. But if I have to, I’ll wake you. I promise.”

  Mom nods, but her eyes are still troubled. “We needed that car, Penn,” she says softly. “But there was nothing improper about it. I’d tell you if there was.”

  “I know you would.” If you knew about it. “Don’t sit up thinking about it. I know how you are.”

  She sighs heavily, then turns and walks back toward the kitchen.

  “Dad?” Annie calls from the top of the stairs.

  CHAPTER 42

  DESPITE TOM’S EDICT that they not watch any medical show, he and Melba were o
n their second episode of House, M.D., a program that his granddaughter had always begged him to watch. While some of the social situations were outrageous, Tom had to admit that the medical dilemmas were real enough, and Hugh Laurie’s sarcastic disdain for bureaucratic meddling was something every doctor in the world could relate to.

  About twenty minutes ago, during a commercial break, Melba had thought she’d heard a helicopter in the distance. Tom had been unable to hear it, but that was no surprise, given his progressive hearing loss, and she’d heard nothing since. He told her it was probably nothing to worry about. Statistically, Mississippi had some of the worst drivers in the nation, so LifeFlight helicopters were common at all hours, even over rural counties.

  Tom had thought Melba felt reassured, but five minutes ago she’d left him on the sofa and begun her long circuit of the ground-floor windows again. Waiting alone was starting to bother Tom. He wanted to switch on his old burn phone and check to see if Walt had sent any additional messages. The cell phone was in his hand when he heard a strange, muted phtt sound from the garage side of the huge house.

  “Mel?” he called.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Melba!”

  Nothing.

  With his heartbeat picking up, Tom switched on the new burn phone and waited for the device to find a tower. As soon as it did, a single text message came through, and popped up on the tiny screen.

  Almost sure trouble’s headed your way. SWAT team deploying. Get out ASAP. Sorry I’m late. Phone jamming here. Listen for chopper on your way out. Good luck. Text me when safe. Walt.