The Bone Tree

by Greg Iles

  “Thank God,” Sonny almost whimpers. “Help me, Mayor. This guy’s crazy! He already tried to torture me a couple of days ago.”

  With his cowboy hat pulled low and his expression grim, Walt Garrity certainly looks the part of the professional torturer.

  “Listen to me, Sonny,” I say. “I’m going to ask you some questions, and you’re going to answer every one. Nobody’s ever going to know where I got my information. I promise you that much protection. But—if you don’t answer, Captain Garrity there is going to do whatever is necessary to make you talk. Is that clear?”

  “Just tell me what you want! My heart can’t take no more strain, Mayor. I don’t know nothing anyway.”

  “I hope that’s a lie, Sonny. For your sake.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to know where my father is.”

  Sonny’s eyes go wide, and he looks from me to Dennis, then back. “I don’t know! The last time I saw him was Tuesday night. Him and this fella here kidnapped me from my fishing camp. They tortured me in a van, and then they killed that trooper!” Spittle flies from Thornfield’s mouth in his panicked state. “I don’t care about that trooper, ’cause Deke Dunn was an asshole anyhow. But this’un here wanted to kill me afterwards! Thank God Dr. Cage made him take me to the hospital. Doc’s a good man, and I know you are, too. Please don’t let him hurt me. I’ve got grandkids, and my heart can’t take it. I already had one coronary this week. I can’t stand no more, I swear.”

  One glance at Walt tells me Sonny is telling the truth about Tuesday. But my gut says he’s lying about my father. Unfortunately, he’s not lying about his heart condition.

  “I don’t want to hurt you, Sonny. But I will. And you’re right: you could have another heart attack at any moment. If you don’t want to die for Forrest Knox, you’d better tell me where Dad is. I don’t care about any of the rest of it. Tell me the truth, no matter how bad it is. Is my father dead?”

  The old man shakes his head, on the verge of tears. “No . . . he ain’t. At least I don’t think he is.”

  My heart leaps and begins to pound. “Tell me where he is!”

  “Forrest took him last night. Doc was hiding out at that colored lawyer’s place in Jefferson County. But Snake didn’t want to come in here without some kind of insurance. He was worried about some kind of setup, something like that planted meth, I guess.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “We took the doc back from Forrest last night.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “You swear to God you won’t tell Snake or Forrest I told you?” Sonny’s eyes go to Dennis. “They’ll kill me, Sheriff. Ya’ll will just go get the doc and say you found him, right? If I tell you where he’s at, will you do that?”

  “There’s no ‘if’ to you telling, Sonny,” Walker says from behind me. “Talk.”

  “Okay, I’m trusting you. Dr. Cage is at my little fishing cabin on Old River.”

  I can scarcely believe this. Old River is less than ten miles from where we stand. “Are you lying, Sonny? Are you trying to stall me?”

  “No! I swear by Jesus!”

  “That’s where we picked this guy up Tuesday,” Walt says. “There’s no legal record of the place. We found it using a GPS tracker.”

  “Who’s guarding my father?” I ask Sonny.

  “Nobody! We’re all here. I swear, Mayor, he’s just tied up good.”

  “Is he hurt?”

  “He ain’t in the best shape, but he’s breathing.” Thornfield’s voice betrays how little confidence he has in his captive’s well-being.

  “My truck’s outside,” Walt says excitedly. “Let’s go get him.”

  “Wait,” says Sheriff Dennis. “What do we do with Sonny meanwhile?”

  “Nothing yet.” I’m surprised by the emotionless tone of my own voice. “I’ve got one more question. Who killed Viola Turner, Sonny? No bullshit. Your life depends on it.”

  The old man’s chin and lips quiver as he shakes his head. “I don’t know. I swear to God, Mayor. Snake might know, but I don’t.”

  I’ve watched too many suspects lie to be fooled by Thornfield’s false sincerity. “You’re lying. Make him tell me, Walt.”

  Sonny’s eyes bulge as Walt grabs a long, wet towel, throws it over the pipe, and quickly ties a knot. With the dangling end he ties a second knot around the hanging cloth, making a functional noose.

  “Oh, no, now,” Thornfield cries, starting to weep. “My heart’ll blow out if you lift me up there! I don’t know nothing about that nurse, I swear.”

  I lean forward until my eyes are only inches from his. “Who killed Viola, Sonny? I know you saw her die.”

  Thornfield is too terrified to retreat from his lie. He shakes his head like a thousand suspects I’ve seen driven into a corner, clinging desperately to what they believe is their only currency.

  “Lift him up there, guys,” I say coldly.

  Walt grabs Sonny by the shoulders and positions him beneath the noose. Sheriff Dennis steps around me in the tight space and grabs the old man by the waist.

  “Jesus, no,” Sonny pleads. “Don’t do it!”

  Sonny screams, but I lose the sound when the door behind me flies open and bangs against the cinder-block wall. When I turn, I see John Kaiser staring wide-eyed at us with a combination of amazement and disgust.

  “Have you lost your fucking minds?” he asks.

  Nobody answers.

  “Let go of him, Garrity,” Kaiser orders.

  Walt doesn’t move.

  With calm deliberation, Kaiser draws a pistol from an ankle holster and aims it at Walt’s head. “Step away, Captain. Anybody reaches for a weapon, I’ll fire. Does anybody doubt that?”

  “Do what he says, Walt,” I say softly. “Walker, you too.”

  “Hey, I’m done,” Dennis says, dropping his hands from Sonny’s waist.

  After a tense few seconds, I hear the slap of wet cloth on Sonny’s head as Walt drops the noose.

  “Everybody out in the hall,” Kaiser says, backing out of the doorway. “Now.”

  We step into the hallway, but Kaiser doesn’t stay with us. Instead, he moves into the utility room and closes the door. I hear muffled voices inside.

  “We done stepped in the shit now,” Walker says. “If only he’d waited another minute before busting in there. Goddamn it.”

  “If we wait here, Kaiser might arrest us,” I think aloud. “We know where Dad is. We’d better get going.”

  “It’s his word against ours,” Dennis snaps. “He can’t arrest us. This is my department.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. He’ll do it. Normally, he’d call in the state police, but Kaiser’s not about to do that. Forrest and Ozan might show up in response. But it doesn’t matter. Walt, you’ve definitely got to get out of here. You’re wanted for murdering a cop. I’ll call you as soon as I’m outside.”

  Walt nods, then trots up the hall and disappears around the corner.

  “I guess we’re standing our ground?” I ask Walker.

  As the doorknob of the utility room rattles, I whirl, and the sheriff jams something into my back pocket.

  Kaiser steps out of the room and glares at Dennis. “Sheriff, I’m taking custody of all your prisoners until such time as the governor can make a determination about your fitness to continue in office. You will either confine yourself to your office or go home for the day. I suggest the latter.”

  “You’ve got no authority over me,” Walker says. “It’s your word against mine, and unless you call the state police, you can’t do a thing. And you don’t want to call them.”

  An odd smile touches Kaiser’s lips. “Sheriff, a wanted cop killer just fled the premises and you made no attempt to arrest him. That’s dereliction of duty. You may have noticed that Forrest Knox is not here to challenge federal authority today. I suggest you take a page from his book.”

  Without waiting for Walker to respond, Kaiser turns to me and says, “You�
�re done here, Penn. Go home to your daughter.”

  “John, they’ve—”

  “I don’t care what they’ve done! You can’t torture people. You know that. This is a perfect illustration of how unhinged your father’s situation has made you. Don’t make me jail you, Penn. Go home.”

  “I didn’t see any cop killer in here,” Sheriff Dennis says.

  “Louisiana,” Kaiser mutters. “I guess it never changes after all. Get out of my sight, both of you.”

  WALT, SHERIFF DENNIS, AND I huddle between a CPSO inmate van and a mobile crime-lab trailer. Sheriff Dennis is burning with rage and frustration, but Walt looks ready to roll.

  “I’ve got Dr. Elliott’s truck and plenty of guns,” he says. “Let’s go get Tom.”

  “Did you get the phone I put in your pocket?” Dennis asks me.

  Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out a StarTac cash phone. “Whose is this?”

  “I took it off Deputy Hunt this morning. I think he was using it to talk to Knox’s people. I’m thinking it might be a line to Forrest himself.”

  “Did you try any of the numbers in it?”

  “There’s only one. Nobody answered.”

  “Where’s Deputy Hunt now?”

  “I had my nephew lock him up at the gun range. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to handle him.”

  “Go get him. Take him somewhere that no one could possibly find him. If Forrest knows he’s been taken, he’s already got men trying to kill him. We may need Hunt before we’re finished.”

  “Don’t you want me to come to Thornfield’s cabin with you?”

  “Walt and I can handle it.”

  Walker hesitates, then nods. “If that’s how you want to play it, okay. Call me if you need me. And be careful.”

  As the sheriff trots away, Walt starts toward Drew’s truck.

  “I’m going to take my car,” I call to him. “You’re still a fugitive, and depending on what Kaiser has done about our little hanging party, you may need to rabbit one more time.”

  “Okay.”

  Adrenaline flushes through me as I sprint for my Audi.

  “THIS THING’S GOING OFF the rails,” Forrest said, pulling his coat around him as the wind over the deck picked up. “I can feel it.”

  “What you want to do, boss?” Ozan asked.

  Forrest shook his head and wished he had a cigarette. He couldn’t move any faster than he was already. He’d hoped to reassure Snake by phone—and also to ask for a proof of life on Dr. Cage—but when the mole offered Snake a cell phone, Snake’s only answer had been to point at his watch. Forrest understood that message well enough. But now that so much time had passed, he was starting to worry that his worst fear was true.

  “I think Dr. Cage is dead, Alphonse. There’s no other reason for Snake to put off talking to me like this. Not that I can see, anyway. And if Dr. Cage is dead . . . there’s no deal to be made with Penn Cage. Not one that’ll hold, anyway.”

  Ozan pulled his hands from his pockets and rubbed them together in the wind. “I reckon not.”

  “I’ve got to know, one way or the other. But Snake’s the only person who can tell me. Claude’s bugged out, and I’m not bringing in a new lawyer this late in the game. We’re going to have to get Snake out of that jail regardless of the risk.”

  “Just Snake?”

  “No. All of them. Otherwise, somebody’s going to start thinking about cutting a deal. But getting all of them out is going to take some precision timing combined with reckless daring.” Forrest sucked his teeth, reflecting on his choice of manpower.

  “You know that Black Team can handle it,” Ozan said.

  “I’m not so sure anymore. They’d better handle their end.”

  “Who was that you called earlier?”

  “Glenn Morehouse’s sister. Wilma Deen. She’s as cold as they come. Not many women would stand by quiet while you killed their brother, much less help you do it.”

  “She done that?”

  Forrest nodded. “This past Monday. She’s old school, boy. Like that Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities.”

  Ozan looked blank.

  “I also called Billy about a bastard child of Snake’s. Alois Engel’s his name. The kid’s only twenty-five but he’s a mean little fucker. He’s already affiliated with a couple of white supremacist groups. Cold as ice. Reminds me of a Hitler Youth poster. He’s done work for Billy in the meth trade, too. Anyway, the point in using him and Wilma is that, if anything goes bad with the end of the op—which is the biggest risk—Kaiser will think Snake brought ’em in. Not me.”

  Ozan gave a malevolent grin. “Now you’re talkin’, babe.”

  “Let’s start assembling the team. We’re going to need the whole goody bag, too.”

  “It’s time, boss. Waiting never helped anything.”

  CHAPTER 58

  AS WALT AND I race toward Old River, a dead-end channel still connected to the Mississippi River by a narrow chute, the atrocities Kaiser wrote me about spin through my mind like curling strips of black-and-white film. To accept that men capable of such acts have control of my father is tantamount to resigning myself to his death. For while Snake Knox and his crew are behind bars at this moment, they had half the night to work their will on my father, and Forrest—the feared ghost of the Vietnamese Highlands—had him before Snake did.

  As I focus on holding the wheel steady on the gravel road, Walt points along the row of bizarre stilt houses that line Old River. This part of the parish always floods when the river rises, hence the tall metal stilts beneath every structure. The little cabins look like ugly cranes on long, thin legs, waiting for an unwary fish to swim down the brown channel behind them. Most of the cabins have a crude elevator system, fashioned from a welded iron cage and an electric truck-winch to lift it.

  I’m suspicious of Sonny’s claim that Dad is unguarded, but Walt insists that speed is everything now. As soon as I pull into the driveway he tells me to, Walt leaps out with his pistol and boards the cage that will carry him to Sonny’s raised deck. Walt tests the machine by gripping the rail and heaving himself from right to left, then lays his hand on the lever that will start the winch.

  “You take the staircase,” he says. “If somebody comes out, start shooting, because I’m a sitting duck in this thing.”

  I look at the four flights of steps that lead the thirty feet up to the cabin. “My fire will be blocked as I near the top.”

  “Then get up there before I do, and if they start shooting, kick in the back door and kill them from behind.”

  “Okay.”

  Walt flips the start lever on the winch, and with a grinding hum he begins rising toward the tree house–like structure. I sprint for the base of the staircase, then start pumping my legs as I did running the bleachers as a high school football player. In seconds my chest is pounding and my throat burning, but the door isn’t far away. I’ll beat Walt to the cabin by ten seconds.

  Once I reach the deck behind the cabin, I tiptoe to the back door, my ears tuned to the slightest sound. I hear nothing. A clang from the winch around front tells me Walt has reached the front platform. The fact that no one has opened up on him must be a sign that Sonny was telling the truth about no guards.

  The back door is locked. As I raise my foot to kick it in, Walt yells, “Front door’s open!”

  Worried that someone might be lying in ambush for him, I kick open the flimsy back door and burst into the den of the little structure. The cabin stinks of mildew and looks to have been furnished with cast-off pieces or actual junk. A plywood square has fallen from a footlocker that served as the base of a makeshift coffee table, and the Naugahyde sofa against the wall has been patched all over with silver duct tape.

  “I’ll check the back,” Walt says, gesturing at a narrow doorway with his pistol.

  I nod, but my belief that Dad might still be here is evaporating fast. Two medicine bottles lie on a square of shag carpet that looks like its purpose is to serve as a t
oilet for an incontinent dog. Picking one of them up, I read the label: PATIENT: Thomas Cage. PHYSICIAN: Drew Elliott, M.D. Nitroglycerine, 0.4 mg.

  “He’s not back there,” Walt says, emerging from the doorway. “Maybe he got away?”

  I shake my head. “He’d never have left his drugs. There’s nitro and pain pills on the floor. He couldn’t do without either. Not for long, anyway.”

  Walt kicks the plywood sheet against the wall, plops down on the patched sofa, and kicks his feet up on the footlocker. “You think they knew we were coming?”

  “How? Sonny couldn’t have told them. More likely, Forrest figured out where they were and took them back.”

  “Damn it. What about Sheriff Dennis? Could he have warned them by phone?”

  “No fucking way. Dennis hates the Knoxes.”

  “Yeah. I was reaching.”

  “It had to be Forrest, Walt. Unless . . .”

  “What?”

  “Unless Snake came back here and moved him somewhere else. I think Sonny was telling the truth. He believed Dad was here. But you heard him. He said Snake was worried about a setup. He wanted insurance. Maybe Snake worried that Sonny was too weak to stand much interrogation, so he made sure that nobody but him knew where Dad really was.”

  “Well, we can’t question Snake. Kaiser won’t let us near him.”

  I think back to Snake’s smug countenance. “Nope. And questioning Forrest is pointless, unless we’re willing to do what we just did to Sonny. And even if we were, that’s easier said than done with him.”

  Walt nods thoughtfully. “I know where Forrest is. The Bouchard lake house, Lake Concordia. Forrest and Ozan were on the outside deck, and I searched the whole place.”