The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  “You auditioning for Fox News?” Kaiser asks, still expressionless.

  Snake laughs. “They could use me, that’s for sure. See, I figure the niggers have had civil rights—for real, not just by law—for about three decades now. And they’re probably worse off as a group than they were during slave times. It’s plain as day, man, but nobody wants to talk about it. Every city with a high concentration of blacks has the worst statistics in the country on crime, education, unwed mothers, infant mortality. And don’t give me that poverty bullshit, because no other ethnic group has disintegrated like that.”

  Kaiser rolls his eyes.

  “You think I’m wrong?” Snake asks. “Last weekend, black gangs in Chicago and Detroit killed more niggers than the whole Ku Klux Klan killed between 1960 and 1970. Last weekend. Most of ’em can’t read any better than a white fourth grader. They won’t work half as hard as a Mexican—not even at drug dealing—and the black family pretty much ceased to exist when the black church women who kept them together started dying off.”

  “I see. And you think they were better off as slaves?”

  “Well, sure. Hell, son, the black male just ain’t equipped to handle freedom. It discombobulates him. Look at Africa. Once the European powers pulled out, the whole place went to hell. The black revolutionaries became everything they claimed they hated. The only country on the whole continent worth a spit is South Africa, and that’s because it was the whitest the longest. You sure don’t hear American jigs yelling, ‘Back to Africa,’ anymore, do you? No, sir. Before long, starvation and AIDS will empty that whole damned landmass, and somebody with real genetic potential can start over.”

  “You’re a walking artifact, Snake.”

  “Hey, you asked. And don’t kid yourself: half the people north of the Mason-Dixon line have asked themselves what their ancestors were thinking when they fought a civil war to free the slaves. See, back then, the niggers were all down here. But once they started moving north, those Yankees started singing a different tune.”

  “Speaking of a different tune,” Kaiser says, “why don’t you tell me why your brother Frank didn’t take that second Mannlicher-Carcano with him to Dealey Plaza back in ’63?”

  This question hits Snake like a blindside punch. He works his mouth around for a few seconds, absorbing the possible implications of the question. Then, instead of answering, he turns to the one-way mirror and looks right into my eyes. “How you doing, Mayor? Yeah, I saw you earlier, when Sheriff Fatass was choking me. Your daddy’s in a world of shit, ain’t he? Spent his whole life helping coons, and now he’s going to jail for killing one. Don’t seem fair, does it? In jail for doing the world a goddamn favor.”

  As I feel my blood pressure rise, I can’t help but admire Kaiser for remaining so cool before Snake Knox.

  “My files tell me you’re a Holy Roller, Snake,” Kaiser says, trying to bring Knox’s attention back to him. “Like your old man.”

  Snake slowly looks back at the FBI agent, his eyes flat and cold again. “Well, I don’t know. I’ve prayed mighty hard on occasion. One night, about ten thousand Chinese communists in quilted pajamas came pouring over the wire in my sector, and my squad had exactly five hundred bullets between us. That night I prayed like a man trying to polish coal into diamond with his asshole.”

  Snake glances in my direction again. “You can ask your daddy about that, Mayor—if you ever see him again. Dr. Cage knows all about that kind of religion.”

  Snake is speaking of my father in the present tense. But is he doing it unconsciously or not? Whatever the case, Kaiser doesn’t take the bait.

  “You want to tell me about the night you crucified old Elam?” Kaiser asks in a neutral tone. “How does it feel to kill your own father?”

  Snake’s face slowly ratchets around to Kaiser again, like a sniper returning his aim to his primary target. “Who you been talking to, boy? It don’t pay to listen to liars.”

  “I don’t. That’s why I’m not asking you about killing Martin Luther King. I know that’s whiskey talk. But I know you killed Elam, Snake. You and Frank both. Oh, you killed a lot more than that, I know. But you must have felt something when you killed your own father, even if he did molest you. Unlike when Frank killed Kennedy. I’m betting that killing a president—that president—was one of the high points of Frank’s life.”

  To my surprise, Snake is smiling again, as though at some private joke. “You obviously found those rifles in Brody’s basement, huh? You ought to sell ’em on eBay. I always wanted to.”

  “I could use the money,” Kaiser admits, “but selling evidence is illegal. I know one of those rifles is real, Snake. Just like the Carcano Brody kept upstairs. I know Frank was supposed to use that to lay part of the blame on Eladio Cruz, the Cuban student from New Orleans, but he decided not to take the risk.”

  For the first time doubt flickers in Snake’s eyes, and Kaiser cannot mask his satisfaction. “How does it feel, Snake?” he asks. “That fear? Been a while since you felt that?”

  “I’m a crop duster, son. You can’t make it in my business if you’re the nervous type. So you just wear yourself out. You’ve got till my lawyer gets here, and not a second longer.” Knox’s expression slowly morphs from a good-ol’-boy smile to a cobralike spreading of the lips, and there’s only death in his eyes. “But if you ain’t scared, you’ve misunderstood the situation. Them pretty girls you and the mayor sleep with at night? You ought to stick closer to ’em. Because I know some boys who’d love to spend a few hours in that company. And they’d never be the same afterwards.”

  Kaiser stares back at Snake without expression. Jordan Glass is supposed to be headed to Moisant Airport in New Orleans, but I know Kaiser is wishing he could call her and verify that right now.

  “Planting that meth on us was breaking the rules,” Snake goes on. “It surprised me, I’ll admit. But it also got my attention. So I’m gonna be giving you both some thought after I get out of here. Yes, sir. A lot of thought.”

  Kaiser appears to be reading a file without the slightest concern for Snake’s words, but I can tell the old Klansman has gotten to him.

  The door behind me suddenly opens, and Sheriff Dennis pokes his head in, puffing from exertion. “Thornfield’s cooling his heels in a utility closet, and your man Garrity’s babysitting him. You ready?”

  “Do the other Eagles know we have Thornfield?”

  “They know he’s not in the cellblock. No way to avoid that.”

  “Okay, I’m coming. But let me go in with Snake for a sec, so Kaiser thinks we’re out here watching his every move. That’ll buy us the time we need.”

  “Well, get to it. Thornfield looks scared shitless to me. I think he’s ready to crack.”

  Walking up to the one-way mirror, I lay my fingers against the cool surface and listen to the conversation. Kaiser has gone back to tapping at Snake, searching for weak spots. The name Carlos Marcello crackles out of the speaker above me, but Snake simply stares across the metal table like a man reconciled to waiting all day at the DMV to get a new license plate. Kaiser is maddeningly patient, like all good interrogators, but it’s plain that he was right about the futility of trying to break Snake Knox.

  It’s time to make my play.

  Before walking into the interrogation room, I try Carl Sims once more. I’m about to hang up when I hear a click, a burst of digital static, and then a familiar voice speaking out of a rhythmic pounding that sounds like nothing so much as a helicopter.

  DANNY MCDAVITT HAD SLOWED the JetRanger down to a figurative crawl. He had been having trouble matching up what he’d seen on the hand-drawn map to the monotonous topography below him. Beneath the chopper lay a vast stretch of black water and cypress trees that reached westward to the glittering line of the Mississippi River. Carl had moved up to the copilot’s seat to try to help, but both of them seemed to have lost the game fence Danny had been following. The trees were especially thick here, and Caitlin saw no sign of the fence.<
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  The chatter between the two men suddenly stopped, and Carl removed his helmet to take a phone call. Caitlin watched him listening for a few seconds. Then he turned back to her with wide eyes.

  Caitlin glanced over at Jordan, who had missed nothing.

  Carl moved back into the cabin and motioned for Caitlin to remove her headset. Once she had, he covered the mouthpiece of the phone and leaned very close to her.

  “This is Penn on my phone.”

  She flushed. How the hell had Penn found her?

  “He doesn’t know you’re here,” Carl whispered. “He called because he wants me to organize an overflight of Valhalla. Without a search warrant, if possible. He thinks Dr. Cage might be being held prisoner there. I’m going to talk it over with Danny, but I figured I’d ask if you wanted to talk to him.”

  Caitlin took a deep, fearful breath, then expelled it. This morning she had told Penn that she would be working in Natchez all day. Admitting that lie might make him furious, but given that this was about Tom and Valhalla, she couldn’t refuse. She only hoped that their discussion wouldn’t require her having to tell Penn she’d met Tom secretly last night.

  She held out her hand to Carl.

  Carl passed her the phone, then clambered forward again to talk to Danny.

  “Penn, this is Caitlin.”

  At first there was only silence. Then Penn asked her to hold on, thinking she’d somehow called him and broken in on his connection with Carl. It took a while to convince him that she was in fact with Carl, and already in a helicopter not far from the land Penn wanted searched. She could hear the anger in his voice, but she also knew that was nothing compared to the rage he would feel if he learned she had kept Tom’s location from him.

  “Did you drive down there by yourself?” he asked.

  “No. Jordan came with me. It was on her way to the New Orleans airport.”

  “Jesus. You realize Kaiser has no idea she’s with you?”

  “Yes, but is that really the issue right now?”

  “You’re right. Has McDavitt decided whether he’ll do the flight for me?”

  She gestured forward at Carl, and he came back into the cabin and took the phone from her.

  “Penn, Danny says he’ll do it. But this is a big favor, bro. I don’t think I’d do it except that I don’t think you’ll ever get a warrant to search that place. Not unless it’s a federal one, and you might not even get that.”

  Carl nodded at whatever Penn answered.

  “We can’t take the girls with us,” he went on. “Danny says no way. If we find something and have to set down, they can’t be any part of it. Even if we don’t set down, we might have to fly straight back to the departmental helipad. . . . Right. I’ll call you when we’re on our way. You want Caitlin back? . . . You sure? . . . Okay. Out.”

  Carl stuffed the phone back into his pocket and shrugged in apology.

  “It’s all right,” Caitlin said. “Finding Tom’s more important than anything else right now.”

  “The problem,” Danny said in the headset, “is what to do if we find him. He’s still wanted for killing a state trooper.”

  “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” Carl said. “Let’s get these ladies back to their vehicle.”

  “Just a second,” Jordan said.

  “Yeah?” Carl asked.

  “We don’t have to go all the way back to the car. Set us down by that fisherman—Mose. He can help us find the X on the map while you guys search Valhalla.”

  Carl didn’t look wild about this idea. He did not want to have to explain to Penn that he’d let her go searching for the Bone Tree with only Jordan and an old man to protect her. “It’d take too long to find Mose.”

  “No, it won’t,” Danny said from the cockpit. “He keeps a two-way radio with him for emergencies. I can call him right now. If Mose answers, I can set down on a little tussock, and you can hop right into his boat.”

  “Great,” Carl muttered.

  FIVE MINUTES LATER, DANNY McDavitt flared the chopper and settled his skids onto a little hummock of earth at the center of a big black pool. Mose Tyler stood his boat off at a safe distance while the JetRanger’s rotors buffeted the mirrored surface into a stinging hail of icy droplets.

  As they prepared to exit the chopper, Carl said, “I don’t think Penn will appreciate me dropping you two into this swamp with only Mose Tyler for protection.”

  “Penn’s not in charge of this hunt,” Caitlin told him. “I am. And we’re both carrying guns.”

  “Show me.”

  Caitlin reached into her bag and pulled out the 9 mm Springfield Penn had bought her a month earlier.

  “You know how to use that?”

  “Yep. Dr. Cage taught me.”

  Carl looked at Jordan. “I guess you’re an expert with that nine mil I saw earlier?”

  Jordan smiled. “I hit what I aim at.”

  “Well, then. I guess you two can handle anything but a platoon-sized assault. But I’m still going to give you one of our departmental walkie-talkies. About all you can do with your cell phone down here is play games on it, or run down the battery while it pings for a tower every minute.”

  “I’ve gotten a couple of bars down here before,” Danny interjected. “Depends on where you are, weather conditions, who your carrier is, a lot of things. Leave them on just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Jordan asked. “In case we find ourselves in a Deliverance-type situation?”

  Carl laughed appreciatively. “I’ve got a feeling you could handle that just fine.”

  Jordan jumped out of the chopper, and Caitlin followed. The shock of the ground jolted her bones, but she managed to keep her feet. As Danny lifted off and beat away toward the west, Caitlin waved for Mose Tyler to bring his boat in.

  CHAPTER 57

  STANDING OUTSIDE THE room where John Kaiser probes in vain at Snake Knox, I try to maintain my composure in the face of a painful reality: yesterday, when Caitlin made love to me at my house on Washington Street, she did not do it out of desire, but because I had raised the possibility of sending Stone and Kaiser in search of the Bone Tree. Instead of answering me, she removed her pants and made sure that my newest brainstorm evaporated quickly and completely. She knew then that she planned to spend today searching the Lusahatcha Swamp, and she would only be doing that if she had a lead on the Bone Tree that she didn’t tell me about. I suppose I can’t resent this, since I’ve held back most of the Kennedy information, but the idea that she could—and did—manipulate me so easily is more than a little troubling. It begs the question, how many times has she done that before?

  Taking a deep breath, I open the door to the interrogation room, walk through, and become part of the movie being recorded on the video camera’s cassette.

  “Hello, Snake,” I say amicably.

  Knox looks over at me with the flattened lips of a smile, but his eyes are ice cold. “Well, well, Mayor Cage is in the house. You look more like your daddy every year. Minus the beard, of course.”

  Kaiser glares at me, waiting for an explanation of my interruption.

  Now that I’m physically in the room with Snake, it’s difficult to remember that our real target is Sonny Thornfield. Because this smug bastard clearly knows everything we want to know. He knows where my father is, at this moment. He knows who killed Viola Turner. He knows who murdered all those civil rights victims, because he was there himself when most of them died. He may even know who really killed John Kennedy.

  But he’s never going to tell us.

  Ignoring Snake’s chatter, I motion for Kaiser to follow me outside so I can tell him about Jordan and Caitlin’s airborne adventure. When he hesitates, Snake says, “Did you hear Mister Kaiser say he thinks my crew killed President Kennedy? I think he’s angling for a book deal, Mayor. Can you help him out any?”

  “I can probably get you one, Snake. But you’d better write it quick. You can’t keep the profits from a book written in pri
son.”

  Kaiser follows me into the hall and shuts the door behind us.

  “This better be serious,” he says. “Don’t tell me Claude Devereux has shown up to spring the Eagles?”

  “No. But you’re not going to like this. Jordan isn’t on her way to New Orleans right now.”

  Kaiser tenses himself for bad news. “Where is she?”

  “She and Caitlin sneaked down to Lusahatcha County to hunt for the goddamned Bone Tree. They’re flying around in a chopper with two guys I know.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me.”

  “You know I’m not. Don’t worry, these guys are deputies. Carl Sims is a former marine sniper, and Danny McDavitt was a decorated chopper pilot in Vietnam.”

  Kaiser shakes his head in exasperation. “I had a feeling she was up to something, but she played it damned cool.”

  “Same here. Well . . . now that you know, why don’t you get back in there and finish up with that asshole so you can move on to Sonny Thornfield?”

  “I will. But remember what I said: I can’t rush it with Snake. Every minute I spend with him buys me another minute with Sonny. I’m going to spend at least fifty more minutes with him.”

  I try to look downcast, and it works.

  “I’m sorry, Penn. I know you want your father home. But you know a plea bargain is a slow process.”

  I nod. “Yeah, I get it.”

  The FBI agent pats me on the shoulder. “Thanks for telling me about Jordan. Snake got to me a little with that threat.”

  “I saw.”

  Kaiser clucks his tongue. “That means Snake saw, too.”

  After he returns to the interrogation room, I count to ten, then hurry to find Sheriff Dennis’s utility room.

  The big man is waiting for me two corners down the hallway. Drafting behind his broad back, I move down a second hallway, then take a sharp turn into a concrete-floored area that stinks of disinfectant and old vomit. Dennis turns right, into a cul-de-sac, then opens a door to a dim, ten-by-ten room crowded with cleaning supplies, paper towels, toilet paper, and mops. Unshielded pipes and conduit run along the walls and hang from the ceiling. It is to one of these ceiling pipes that Sonny Thornfield has been chained by his wrists. His dark Creole skin cannot hide the nearly bloodless state of his face. This man is a quivering mass of fear, which makes me wonder what Walt said to him during Sheriff Dennis’s absence. Thornfield actually looks relieved to see me as Walt looms at his side. Does Sonny think I’ve come to rescue him? Walker closes the door behind us, then takes up a position behind me.