The Bone Tree (21 page)

“Cleared to engage,” said a third voice. “Engage when ready.”

The breathing stopped.

The flat crack of a supersonic bullet told Walt that a rifle had been fired. A silencer had muted the muzzle blast, but the exploding head on-screen relegated that thought to something he would only recall later.

“Reacquiring,” said the shooter.

“Fire at will,” said the second voice.

The two young men carrying the box had whipped their heads around at the sound of the crack, but they had no idea what had happened. By the time they looked down and saw their companion lying facedown in the water, the shooter had fired again. A second man shuddered, then staggered back and fell into the black water.

The third man dropped his end of the box and ran for the driver’s door of the SUV. Walt expected a flurry of shots, but none came. The SUV backed up with frantic speed. As the driver stopped to shift from Reverse into Drive, a third bullet shattered his window and blasted half his head across the passenger seat.

“Targets neutralized,” said the emotionless voice.

“Thirty points,” said the third voice. “Outstanding.”

The picture froze, and the sound stopped.

Walt sat staring at the screen, his heart pumping like a fist squeezing his trachea. What had he just seen? His gut told him military or police snipers operating during Hurricane Katrina, but he had no way to be sure. As his mind whirled in confusion, he heard a noise from the interior of the house.

Reaching down through the neck of his shirt, he pulled out the leather thong that held his derringer around his neck. Then he moved quickly into the hall. He heard the noise again, a loud clunk that he now recognized as the sound of an icemaker.

“
Fuck,
” he breathed, going back into Knox’s office.

Taking his seat again, he rifled through Knox’s drawers in search of a flash drive. In the third drawer, he hit pay dirt. A half-dozen thumb drives lay in a pile of old pens, yellow highlighters, and other office junk. Walt suppressed the urge to pocket them all, and instead inserted an orange one into the USB slot on the Dell. A minute later, he had a copy of the sniping video. He copied the hog-hunting video for good measure, then pocketed the flash drive and carefully replaced everything on the desk as he’d found it.

He was walking to the hall door when he heard a car engine on the street outside. The car seemed to slow near the Knox driveway, leaving Walt frozen like a statue in a cemetery, not daring to breathe.
I’m too old for this shit,
he thought. By the time the car drove on, Walt had abandoned his plan to search the house. He needed to get that video to a safe
place before fate intervened and made it something the police found in a pocket on his corpse.

As he made his way back to the French doors that led to the patio, his derringer in his hand, a breathtaking inspiration struck him. A smile stretched his mouth.
I’m holding the gun I used to kill Trooper Darrell Dunn. The murder weapon. Ballistics can prove it. How perfect would it be for that weapon to be found hidden in the home of Lieutenant Colonel Forrest Knox?

Walt stopped walking and looked around for a place to hide the gun.

CAITLIN HAD HOPED
to find Kaiser gone when she returned from Sheriff Byrd’s office, but as she pulled into the employees’ lot, she saw his black Crown Victoria parked against the wall. Pulling around the building, she parked in the visitors’ lot and headed for the front door.

As she passed through it, she came upon some sort of altercation between a haggard-looking woman of about seventy-five and Jackie Cullen, the paper’s receptionist. Jackie gave Caitlin a quick shake of her head, as though she should hurry past, but before Caitlin could manage it, she heard the overwrought woman say that no one but Caitlin Masters could possibly help her, and she wasn’t leaving what she’d brought with anyone else.

Something plaintive in the woman’s tone made Caitlin pause. Without taking time to think, she said, “Maybe I can help you, ma’am. What is it you need to see Ms. Masters about?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” the old woman said, whirling on her.

As soon as the frustrated eyes lit on Caitlin’s face, they changed. “You’re her,” she said, her face softening. “Aren’t you?”

The old woman hadn’t a dab of makeup on her wrinkled face, and she was clutching a manila envelope to her chest like it held the deed to her ancestral home. She looked like nothing so much as a woman from one of Dorothea Lange’s photographs from the 1930s. A Dust Bowl wife. Caitlin forced a smile and said, “I am. And you are . . . ?”

The woman closed her eyes and wavered on her feet as though about to collapse. Then Caitlin saw tears trickle from the corners of her eyes.

“Virginia Sexton,” said the woman. “I’m Henry’s mother.”

Caitlin froze for a second, then rushed forward and put her arms around Mrs. Sexton to support her. The receptionist’s mouth dropped open, but Caitlin didn’t bother to explain. She was scanning the
newsroom behind Jackie, searching for FBI agents. Seeing none, she took Mrs. Sexton by the wrist and led her into the nearby advertising office, which was about the only room John Kaiser was unlikely to enter.

“I need the room,” Caitlin said to the two salespeople sitting in the office. “Don’t tell anybody I’m in the building, and tell Jackie to say she hasn’t seen me. Got it?”

The younger of the two women nodded as she left the office.

“I’m so sorry you had to wait,” Caitlin apologized, leading Mrs. Sexton to a rather uncomfortable chair. “We get a lot of cranks demanding to see me or the editor, so the receptionist is overly cautious.”

“I understand,” said Mrs. Sexton, breathing too fast. “You can imagine what kind of nuts showed up at the
Beacon
to give Henry an earful.”

Caitlin smiled and nodded, but she felt tears on her own cheeks. For the thousandth time she saw Henry disappear into a roaring fireball, giving his life to save hers. “I can,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Mrs. Sexton, I have more respect for your son than any reporter I ever met.”

As the aged eyes took her measure, Caitlin felt the ruthless appraisal of someone who has nothing to gain or lose. Virginia Sexton had already lost everything, and nothing could compensate her for it.

“I’m sure you do,” said Mrs. Sexton. “I tried to warn him, you know. Two, three times a week I’d try to talk him into letting go of all that history and just getting on with life. But he couldn’t turn it loose. He was like a loggerhead snapping turtle. Stubborn, like me. I wouldn’t admit it while he was alive, but it’s true.”

Caitlin didn’t know what to say, so she simply vocalized what was in her heart. “Mrs. Sexton, Henry gave his life to save mine last night. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him. Literally. I feel so guilty about that.”

The old woman nodded, obviously bereft. “You feel guilty? I took him my car and that shotgun last night. I went to his room and helped him out of that hospital bed . . . helped him fool the monitors.” She dabbed at her eyes, looking away from Caitlin. “I used to be a nurse, you see. So don’t blame yourself. If I hadn’t done those things, my boy would still be alive.”

As Caitlin reassured Henry’s mother, her eyes settled on the manila envelope still clutched in the wrinkled hands.

“What was it you wanted to see me about?”

Mrs. Sexton slowly took the manila envelope away from her chest
and set it on her lap. “I haven’t been able to sleep since last night. I’ve been going from room to room, cleaning up. I’ve always kept Henry’s old room pretty much like it was when he was a boy, even though he’s a grown man. After his father passed, I never really needed the space, so . . . well, I don’t know. I have some happy memories of the things in that room.”

“Is that where you found the envelope?”

The woman looked down as if she’d already forgotten what she held. “No. Henry had this in his weekend bag at the hospital. It was stuffed under the plastic bottom. I found it when I was unpacking the bag, and . . . I made the mistake of looking inside. It’s a letter to you. My first instinct was to go out back and burn it in the trash can.”

Inwardly, Caitlin shuddered.

“But Henry wouldn’t have wanted that. I know he chose you to carry on his work after they beat him up, so I decided to bring it to you. There’s pure evil in this envelope, and no mistake. I don’t think you should fool with it. But I imagine you’re like my Henry was. You’ve got to get at the truth of things, even if it kills you.”

“I’m afraid you’re right.”

Caitlin stepped forward and gently lifted the envelope from Mrs. Sexton’s hands. The old woman seemed to shrink within her skin when she let go of the paper. However much she hated Henry’s work, she understood that giving it up meant giving up the surviving essence of her son.

“I’m so sorry for what happened,” Caitlin said uselessly. “And I’ll never let the world forget what Henry did.”

Mrs. Sexton shook her head. “Henry didn’t care about that. My boy didn’t do what he did to see his name in the paper, like some.”

Caitlin’s cheeks burned, though she didn’t get the feeling the comment had been directed at her.

“He just believed everybody deserves the same break. I don’t know where he got that idea. Not from his daddy, that’s for sure. And I learned a long time ago, if you’re going to wait for this world to be fair, you’re going to be waiting in the grave.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The old woman started to leave, but Caitlin touched her arm and checked the foyer first, to make sure no FBI agents were close. Before
she let Mrs. Sexton go, she said, “Did Henry’s, ah,
partner
know about this envelope?”

“You mean that Sherry Harden?”

Caitlin nodded.

“I don’t know. She might have brought some of those papers up there to him. I don’t know how else he would have got them. But she couldn’t have seen the letter. He wrote it after Sherry was shot, and he woke up in the special hospital room. It doesn’t matter now, does it? She’s beyond doing anything about it.”

Unless she told Kaiser about the papers before she was killed.
But if she had, surely Kaiser would have found them after Henry escaped from the hospital.

“I suppose I’d better go to her funeral,” Mrs. Sexton said, “if only for her boy.”

“Do you have any idea when Henry’s service will be?”

“I reckon Saturday. We have some people up in Kansas who’ll probably want to come. I haven’t even been to the funeral home yet.”

For a moment Caitlin thought the poor woman would finally collapse, but she didn’t.

“Mr. Early told me there’s really nothing left of Henry,” Mrs. Sexton said softly. “Bones and ashes. It’s like he was cremated already.”

Caitlin didn’t need to be told this; she’d seen it happen. “If there’s anything you need done, or taken care of—anything at all—please call me. I mean that, Mrs. Sexton. If there’s any question of funds—”

“Henry had a little insurance,” the old woman said, lifting her chin with pride. “I know you mean well, but we’re not destitute. We bury our own.”

Caitlin blushed again, but as soon as Mrs. Sexton left the office, she closed the door and hurried back behind the advertising desk. With Kaiser in the building, the journey to her office was too risky. This office door had no lock, but with FBI agents and techs roaming the newsroom and halls, this was as safe a place as any in the building.

Caitlin heard the blood rushing in her ears as she opened the manila envelope and spread its contents across the desk. There were only a few sheets of paper inside. An inkjet-printed photograph grabbed her attention and held it. A craggy-faced man with hollow eyes and cracked, tanned skin stared out at her with unsettling intensity. He reminded her
of John Brown, the wild-eyed abolitionist. Or maybe Abraham Lincoln without a beard. She turned over the page and saw block letters written in pencil:
ELAM KNOX
. After looking once more into the wild eyes, she checked the rest of the pages.

One long, folded piece paper turned out to be a hand-drawn Knox family tree, beginning in the late 1800s. An FBI document that looked to be the heavily redacted version of the 302 detailing Jason Abbott’s 1972 interview about the Double Eagles and Forrest Knox came next. Then finally she found four sheets of notepaper covered with Henry’s now-familiar script, though in this case it looked as though he’d been drunk while he wrote. The first page began “Dear Caitlin.” She centered the letter before her and began to read at lightning speed.

Dear Caitlin,

Forgive me if I ramble. I’m weaning myself off the pain drugs, but my mind’s still foggy. Sherry’s dead, and the FBI’s put me in an office they converted to a hospital room. But I’m not going to stay here. I’ve thought a lot about the last three days, and either Royal or Forrest Knox had to be behind this attack. I believe it was Royal, and I’m going to confront him tonight. I’ve sat on the sidelines too long. I don’t know if I’ll survive the encounter or not, so I’m leaving this for you.

John Kaiser came to see me earlier today, before you. I trust his motives, for the most part, even though he’s FBI. He told me some things about the Knox family, which you’ll find in a separate note, and I told him most of what Glenn Morehouse told me on Monday. About Jimmy and Luther being murdered as part of a plan by Carlos Marcello to kill RFK, about Brody’s part, Frank Knox’s death, all of it. Kaiser looked shocked, but when he answered, he shocked me even more. He asked whether I thought Carlos could have hired Frank Knox to kill John F. Kennedy in 1963.

As dumb as it may seem to you, I’d never really considered this possibility. You’ve read my files, so you know that on the day Frank founded the Double Eagles, he talked about killing JFK, RFK, and MLK. It seems obvious now, but at the time Morehouse told me about the RFK plan, I was totally focused on Brody Royal. For so many years I’d been working to find out who killed Albert Norris that I missed the bigger picture.

Once Kaiser raised the JFK idea, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The relationship between Frank Knox and Carlos Marcello dated to well before the Bay of Pigs. If Marcello wanted the president dead, Frank would have been a natural choice, so long as Carlos trusted him. Carlos obviously did, because he went to Frank when he wanted to murder Robert Kennedy in ’68.

Now we come to the point. Though I suspected Kaiser was right, I didn’t tell him any more than I originally had. But I knew more. When Morehouse called me back Monday night, he told me something I didn’t even put in my journal. After he told me about the RFK plan, he told me Frank Knox had something on Marcello, something he’d kept as insurance, to protect himself in case things ever went bad between them. Remember, Brody used to lend the Double Eagles to Marcello as muscle on Florida real estate deals, so there was a long history there. And it was when I went to New Orleans to check out those deals that somebody sent me the photo with the rifle scope printed over my face. At the time, I figured that was Royal protecting his crooked deals, but now I think he or Forrest was keeping me away from the old conspiracy.

When I asked Morehouse what Frank had kept for “insurance,” he said it was a letter or document of some kind. Morehouse had seen it once, but he couldn’t read it because it was written in a foreign language. Snake once told him it was Russian, but he didn’t know for sure. Whatever the paper was, he said, it dealt with something so big that everything else paled in comparison—even the RFK plot. I thought that was bullshit, and I told him so. If there was anything bigger than the RFK plan, nobody would have left any paperwork. Morehouse told me that whatever the paper was, Frank kept it at the Bone Tree, so nobody could find it.

The night I talked to Morehouse, I made my first and only contact with Toby Rambin, who promised he could take me to the Bone Tree. But at that time I wasn’t thinking about Frank’s “insurance.” I was thinking about all the bodies that might have been dumped at the Bone Tree. Jimmy and Luther, Joe Louis Lewis, Pooky. It was only after Kaiser talked to me today that I realized how important Frank’s “insurance” might be, and that it must have to do with John Kennedy.

You’ve got Toby Rambin’s number now. I was stoned on Dilaudid when I told you about it, but I know you got it, because when I checked
my cell phone, I saw you’d changed his last name and number in my contacts list. You’ve been a naughty girl, but I’m in no position to criticize. I held back a lot from Kaiser myself. If I’m honest, I guess down deep I’m as ambitious as you are.

If these pages reach you, then I’m probably not around anymore. If so, take them with my blessing and do what you can to get to the bottom of all this. If Kaiser finds them I guess that’s the second-best outcome. I’m tired now, and I’ve got a journey ahead of me. Maybe a fight, too. However it goes, you take care of yourself.

       
Henry

P.S. Don’t try to find the Bone Tree alone. You’ve got too much to live for.

Caitlin looked up from the papers, her eyes wet and her heart beating fast. The letter in her hands was a voice from the grave. Henry had felt alive to her as she read his words, but he was not. He was dead, now and forever. He had foreseen the possibility, and he had passed his torch to her. No one else alive knew about Toby Rambin and his offer, and no one else would—