The Bone Tree (12 page)

My heart leaps at this new tack. “Are you saying you’ll take him into protective custody?”

“I don’t know yet. I was trying to set it up with the director, but after all the deaths tonight, it’ll be a hard sell.
However
—if Dr. Cage can link the Double Eagles to the Kennedy or King assassinations, I will
make the case and spirit him out of harm’s way before the Louisiana State Police even know what happened.”

Why does Kennedy’s death mean more than all the civil rights martyrs put together?
“What about Dad’s fishing boat story? The Frenchman talking about Dallas? Is that enough?”

“Too thin. We need more.”

“I’ve got a photograph taken on that trip. Henry gave it to me. It shows Dad, Presley, Royal, and Devereux in the stern of the boat.”

Kaiser’s eyes widen. “Is the Frenchman in the shot?”

I shake my head.

“Damn. Where is this picture?”

“Caitlin has it. It’s probably at the
Examiner
.”

“Okay. I’m going to be grilled by the director once more tonight, and I’ll do what I can to push protective custody for your father. For now, let’s hope I’m right about him and Garrity lying low somewhere safe. But between now and tomorrow morning, I want you to wrack your brain, talk to your mother, do anything you can think of to locate your father and Garrity. And if you do, tell Dr. Cage that information about Carlos Marcello and the Kennedy assassination is his salvation.”

“Honestly, John, there’s no way he’s sat on that kind of information for forty years.”

“He kept quiet about Brody Royal and the murders of Albert Norris and Dr. Robb, didn’t he? Why should the Kennedy stuff be any different?”

I’m not sure I can articulate my feelings about this. “Because that’s not . . . personal. Not local. It’s history. And history is almost like a religion to my dad.”

“All history is personal,” Kaiser replies. “I’m betting Dr. Cage knows that.” For the first time tonight, the FBI agent’s voice sounds almost kind. “Your father was close to Ray Presley for most of his life. Before Presley moved to Natchez, he was a New Orleans cop on the pad for Carlos Marcello.”

“I know that.”

“Henry told me he told you about the Bureau surveillance reports that mention your father. On at least four occasions, Marcello soldiers drove north to Natchez to get medical treatment from your father in the late sixties and early seventies. Why would they drive a hundred eighty miles for treatment?”

I start to repeat my father’s explanation for this, but another answer comes to me—the one Brody Royal supplied. “Whatever Dad did, John, he did it to protect Viola. After her rape, and the murder of her brother, he made some kind of a deal to save her. He must have. The Eagles would have killed her otherwise. Maybe that deal was with Marcello.”

“I think you’re right,” Kaiser concedes. “But we need to know for sure.”

After several seconds of silence, he leans across me and reaches into his glove box for a folded sheet of paper. This he patiently unfolds, then hands to me and switches on the Crown Victoria’s interior light.

I’m holding a low-resolution grayscale photograph printed on copy paper. It looks like a telephoto image of a man in profile, driving a light-colored sedan that dates to the 1960s. Something about the car is familiar, or maybe the man, but the photo is too blurry for me to figure it out.

“That was taken outside the entrance of Churchill Farms,” Kaiser informs me, “a sixty-four-hundred-acre tract of Louisiana swampland owned by Carlos Marcello. Churchill Farms was Marcello’s most secluded hideaway.”

“Okay. Who’s driving the car?”

“You don’t recognize him?” Kaiser asks softly. “Or the vehicle?”

“The car looks familiar. The man, too. But it’s too blurry.”

“That’s your father, Penn. He’s thirty-six years old in that photo. Nine years younger than you are now.”

My heart lurches in my chest.

“And the car,” Kaiser goes on, “is—”

“A 1966 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight,” I finish, as a rush of scents and feelings from my childhood pass through me. “Our old family car.”

Kaiser nods. “That’s right. Your father visited Churchill Farms for sixty-two minutes on April eleventh, 1968. The Bureau’s organized-crime unit had routine surveillance set up out there at the time. Also, you can’t see him in this photo because of the angle and the graininess, but Ray Presley was sitting in the passenger seat. He went down there with your dad. And Carlos was definitely in residence at the time.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“What the hell does this mean?”

“I don’t know. But we need to find out.”

“How long have you had this? Henry never saw this, did he?”

“No. I saw it myself for the first time today. It came in a big transmission of the Bureau file on Carlos Marcello, which is a massive collection.”

I’m trying to focus on the micro, not macro. “April of ’68 was the month Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis were killed.”

“Close enough. They probably died on March thirty-first.”

“That’s right. And Viola had been raped in March, as well. She was abused again when they were tortured, but Presley saved her. So my father
must
have made some kind of deal with Marcello shortly afterward, to protect Viola.”

“That’s why I need to talk to him. He knows a lot more than you think he does about all this.”

I close my eyes before I ask the next question. “John, what the hell’s going on? Seriously. How did we get from Viola Turner and euthanasia to the assassination of John Kennedy?”

“You know how. Through the Double Eagles. Specifically, the Knox family. Remember what I said about history? It’s all personal. In 1963, Carlos Marcello ordered the assassination of John F. Kennedy. It wasn’t the CIA, or Castro, or Cuban exiles. It wasn’t the Russians or the military-industrial complex. It was Carlos Marcello. The Little Man used the Knox family to carry out the hit, and he did it for the oldest motive in the world.”

“Money?”

“No. Survival.”

Another question was forming in my mind when the sight of a white pickup truck parked down the block drove it from my head. A few seconds of watching shows me an exhaust plume coming from the tailpipe.

“What’s the matter?” asks Kaiser. “Are you looking at that truck?”

I nod. “That’s Lincoln Turner’s truck. The son of a bitch has been following me again.”

“Again?”

“He’s been stalking my house.”

Kaiser cocks his head, his eyes on the truck. “I tell you what. I’ve given you a lot to absorb. You go on up to your office and get your keys. I’ll take care of Mr. Turner for you. He won’t be here when you come back out.”

“Really?”

“No problem. You just think about what I said. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Should I just go?”

Kaiser smiles. “Yep. Take off. I’m going to abuse my authority for a minute.”

He opens his door and begins marching down the block like a military officer on a mission. Though I’m tempted to watch the confrontation, I exit the car and trot up to the door of City Hall. Lincoln Turner has a big chip on his shoulder and a lot of nerve, but something tells me Kaiser can handle him. For the first time since arriving at the sheriff’s office, I think about Annie and my mother hiding out at Edelweiss. They’re probably mad with worry by now, and as much as I’d like to check on Caitlin at the newspaper, I know she can take care of herself. I need to hug my daughter, and I need sleep. Tomorrow’s battles will be here all too soon.

IN THE END
, Caitlin decided to enter the
Examiner
by her usual route, the employees’ door at the rear of the building. If Billy Byrd had a deputy lying in wait, Jordan Glass was ready to snap fifty pictures of the arrest with her motor-drive Nikon. As Caitlin walked through the rear parking lot, noting the familiar cars of her reporters, she spied the door that had been locked against her by one of her own staff. Without warning she flashed back to the kidnapping with a clarity that made her pulse pound and her breath go shallow. She saw Penn being held on tiptoe with an arm around his throat and a pistol to his head. Then came a rush of images from all that had followed, from the basement, and the fire.

How close we came to dying,
she thought, touching her burned cheek for the first time since the lake.
And if I had died, the child I’m carrying would have died with me, and no one would have known—not unless they discovered it in the autopsy.
Caitlin had only known about the baby herself for twenty hours or so, and she’d only told one soul on the planet about it: Tom Cage, via text message.
Tom hasn’t even seen that message,
she thought.
He doesn’t have his cell phone on. If he did, they’d have caught him by now. Killed him, probably. In fact, he could be dead already.
As much as Caitlin blamed Tom for the events of the past days, the thought of him lying facedown in a ditch somewhere stopped her breath in her throat.

Sensing her distress, Jordan took Caitlin’s hand and squeezed, bringing her back to the present. As her heartbeat slowed, Caitlin started toward the door again. A Natchez Police Department squad car was parked in the handicapped space to the right of it, exhaust rising from its tailpipe. Caitlin waved at the young cop behind his fogged window glass, thinking of the officer who had probably been murdered by Brody Royal’s men. She’d known him only as a prone form lying on the floor of the van that had carried them to Royal’s house. Stopping at the
back door, she raised her hand and turned the knob. Against all logic, it opened.

“I called ahead, remember?” Jordan said, sensing her confusion. “One step at a time, girl.”

“Thanks.”

THE
EXAMINER
BUILDING SEEMED
eerily quiet as Caitlin and Jordan moved up the back hall, but the moment Caitlin walked into the newsroom, the place erupted in applause. She raised her hands to quiet the grinning staff, but new people kept coming in from other rooms, photographers and service people and even one of the advertising girls. They were obviously happy to see her alive, and she was glad to be that way, so she let the clapping go on for a bit.

They were a young group, she realized. Almost no one over thirty. For many years the
Examiner
had served as a sort of farm program for the larger papers in the Masters chain, but during her tenure as publisher Caitlin had changed that. She’d managed to assemble a bright cadre of journalism majors from all over the country, most from top schools. She paid them well and did her best to keep them busy. Whenever she’d lost one to a larger paper, she somehow managed to replace him or her with someone of equal talent. This eclectic group she had supplemented with some of the brightest liberal arts graduates from Natchez, kids who’d wanted to return to their hometown after college.

Now they stood before her, gathered between the computer workstations that lined the walls, fourteen kids with all the talent in the world and a desperate hunger to work on something important. They’d known since Tuesday that something big was afoot. The initial attack on Henry and the burning of the
Beacon
had galvanized them into action, and Henry’s backup files had given them something to sink their teeth into. But according to Jamie Lewis, the assassination attempt on Henry in the hospital—followed by the attack on Penn and Caitlin—had stunned them into a kind of paralysis. They’d read about attacks on reporters in places like Colombia and Myanmar, but murderous attacks on journalists in America seemed incomprehensible. The discovery that the
Examiner
’s press operator had disappeared after probably assisting
in Caitlin’s kidnapping only added to their collective sense of shock. Yet not one had refused to come in when Jamie called in the middle of the night; indeed, few had left the building during the past forty-eight hours, except to catch four or five hours of sleep.

Caitlin looked at each face in turn: taut lips, worried eyes, the young men with arms folded across their chests, the women biting fingernails, everyone gathered closer together than they normally would. The silence truly was eerie, and then she realized why: the computers had been shut down. She couldn’t remember ever having heard the newsroom so quiet.
I must have,
she thought,
during electrical storms
. But of course then there was the drumming of rain and the roll of thunder. Now there was absolute silence—the silence of expectation.

Into that silence, she began to speak.

“Thank you for that,” she said. “Every one of you. First, let me say that I’m all right physically, except for this burn on my cheek, and Penn is, too. But it was a near thing, and if Henry Sexton and a heroic man who worked for Albert Norris as a boy hadn’t sacrificed their lives for ours, we would both be dead. That’s one of the stories we’ll be printing tomorrow. We will honor those men as they deserve. But that’s only a small part of a much larger duty we have tonight.”

She took a moment to gather herself. “It’s axiomatic that people in small towns don’t get their news from newspapers. They never have. Local papers print stories about Little League baseball and garden clubs and the press releases from the local factory. But the real news—the reasons for layoffs or why someone lost an election or the facts behind a murder—usually travel by a different route: word of mouth. Long before Myspace and blogging, the real news traveled over backyard fences and via telephone, around watercoolers and on golf courses. The newspaper functioned as a Chamber of Commerce billboard advertising the town, while the real story lived behind the glossy sign, off the page, or at best, between the lines.

“My father’s newspapers have been as guilty of this irrelevance as any other chain. And even before Dad bought it, the
Examiner
was one of the worst offenders. The old Wise family made sure of that. If you go back and check the week that Delano Payton was murdered in 1968, you’ll find a perfunctory story about the bombing, then a follow-up announcing the offer of a reward by his national union—and very little
else. If you go back to the week Albert Norris was burned to death, you’ll find nothing.

“During my time as publisher, I’ve tried to change that policy. All of you have helped me. Seven years ago, our Del Payton stories carried the message of justice delayed to the entire world. Now, tonight, we’re going to break the biggest story that any of us are likely to touch in our entire lives. As you know, it spans over a dozen civil rights murders committed during the 1960s. The perpetrators of those crimes have been allowed to roam free for forty years, and now they’ve killed again in their efforts to avoid being exposed and punished for their crimes. The death toll tonight is unprecedented in the history of this area, and a Natchez police officer will probably be added to the list before dawn.”

Several people gasped.

“We’re going to be dealing with next-of-kin issues, so I’m not sure if we’ll be printing names in all cases. But beginning now, we’re going to devote every waking minute to doing justice to this epic story. A single edition of the paper can’t possibly contain it. So, after physical publication this morning, I hope that those willing to remain will do so and continuously update our online edition. I fully expect that by noon tomorrow—or today, rather—we’ll be in the eye of a media storm. This is what we live for, people. For about twelve hours, we’re the only news staff in the country in possession of the facts of this story. Television, radio, the blogosphere—they’ve got nothing. But tomorrow that will change. So . . . right now, I want everyone in this room to take thirty seconds and think about Henry Sexton, who was murdered for his courage and convictions. For those of you who don’t know, on the first night he was attacked, Henry had already agreed to write for this paper, so he is your colleague in more ways than one.”

Caitlin bowed her head and silently counted to thirty. In the elegiac silence of held breaths and closed eyes, she realized that she blamed herself more than anyone else for Henry’s death. For in the end it was her forcing Katy Royal to unburden herself of her secrets that had sent Brody Royal into a homicidal rage. Of course, nothing she could do now would bring Henry back. Sleepy Johnston, either. All she could do now was carry on Henry’s cause and try to do justice to their memories. Stealing a glance upward, she saw a few people staring at Jordan to her right.

“Amen,” she said in a firmer voice, and every face in the room rose
to hers. “By the way, the woman to my right is Jordan Glass, a legend in our business, and I assume she needs no further introduction.”

The room burst into applause again, and a couple of the guys whistled.

“Easy, dudes, she’s married.”

“And I’m too old for you,” Jordan added.

After the much-needed laughter subsided, Caitlin said, “Sadly, I also need to bring you up to speed on a very upsetting matter. I know the silent computers have probably freaked you all out. They do me. It’s like a 1950s horror movie or something. But there’s a good reason for it. We’ve experienced a major breach of security at the
Examiner
. Earlier tonight, when Penn and I were kidnapped, Nick Moore, our press operator, probably helped the kidnappers commit their crime.”

A murmur of consternation and anger rose at this confirmation of the rumor.

“The FBI is hunting Nick now. But I must tell you, I have reason to believe that Nick might not be the only one of our staff who took a bribe from the people we’re investigating.”

This time there were gasps of disbelief.

“Henry Sexton’s files and journals—the files that you spent so many hours painstakingly scanning into our computer system—have been deleted by someone working for Brody Royal.”

Many in the audience groaned as though in physical pain, and Caitlin saw more than a few reporters cursing under their breath.

“Worse yet, the physical files and journals have been stolen and destroyed. However, all may not be lost on that front. The FBI is going to lend us some computer experts who might be able to reconstruct those deleted files.”

Caitlin saw incredulity on Jamie Lewis’s face. He probably considered this sleeping with the enemy, but he would have to live with it.

“The truly upsetting thing is that the person who deleted those files might still be among us. He or she could be standing next to you right now.”

Total silence descended on the newsroom.

“I don’t want to create some kind of McCarthy atmosphere of paranoia, but we’d be fools not to take rational precautions until we get this sorted out. So—here’s what we’re going to do. Our stories are going
to be written on three or four notebook computers in the conference room. We will restore limited Internet access out here for research, but that’s it. Everyone will take their instructions directly from Jamie or me, and you’ll work only on what you’re assigned. If you see something suspicious, or feel strange about anything, come to us. Again, I don’t want a bunch of tattletales running around. Use your common sense. But make no mistake—we’re in a war, folks. They burned the
Concordia Beacon
last night. Now, we’ll be looking after your physical safety; we’re going to have some serious security around this building going forward. But be smart and be safe. And remember: for those of you who became journalists because of a David-versus-Goliath fantasy, this is your chance.”

She saw a few grins at this.

“One thing: you may see Sheriff Byrd show up and arrest me. If you do, just keep on working—after you snap a few shots of the proceedings.”

A few more laughs broke the tension.

“As for the news stories, I don’t care who you have to roust out of bed for comments or confirmations, or what resources you have to commit—just do it. We will probably be sued over some of this, so try to get it right. But the final responsibility rests with me, so be fearless. Do what Henry Sexton would have done.”

Caitlin knew her last assertion was not quite true: final responsibility rested not with her but with her father, who owned the chain. But if he didn’t trust her instincts by now—and back her with the full resources of the company—then she needed to find work elsewhere anyway.

“That’s it,” she said. “Make me proud.”

The crowd dispersed slowly, but as a couple of computers were switched on, the newsroom slowly became the fully engaged hive that Caitlin so loved. She pulled Jamie’s sleeve until he was following her down the corridor to her private office.

“What now?” he asked. “Gather the conference room team?”

“In a minute,” she said, walking faster. “I’ve used this newspaper as a weapon before. A sort of artillery piece, I suppose. But tomorrow’s edition is going to detonate like a dam buster.”

“A what?”

Caitlin laughed low in her throat, thinking of her grandfather.
“That’s a kind of bomb from World War Two. Tomorrow we’re going to crack the foundations of a dam that’s held back terrible truths for forty years. And once that tide is let loose, a lot of people and careers are going to be washed away.”

Her editor’s eyes narrowed. “Not ours, I hope?”

Caitlin didn’t answer. They’d reached her office door. In the awkward silence that followed, Jamie’s eyes filled with an unspoken question.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Did you have to kill anybody?” he asked softly. “You didn’t tell me when you dictated the lead story. Who killed who down in that basement?”

Caitlin looked into his hungry eyes for a few seconds, then shook her head. “No. Penn did, though.”

Jamie went pale. “Oh, man.”

“I’d just as soon forget it, but I know I never will.” She took a sharp breath, then exhaled slowly. “Have you thought about who you want in the conference room? Who you really trust?”