The Bone Tree (22 page)

Her heart lurched as the door opened and Jackie Cullen stuck her head inside.

“Agent Kaiser is looking for you,” she said. “I told him I hadn’t seen you, but I wouldn’t count on privacy for long.”

“Thanks, Jackie. Go.”

Caitlin gathered up the pages and photos and slid them back into the envelope. Then she flattened the brass closure tabs, went out into the lobby, and opened the door to the hall that led to her office. She was ten steps away when John Kaiser came around the corner beyond her door and waved.

“You look like you just translated the Rosetta stone,” he said. “Want to let me in on it?”

He stopped and waited beside her office door. Flustered speechless, Caitlin went into her office and dropped the folder on her credenza as if it meant nothing, then sat behind her desk.

“Everything okay?” Kaiser asked. “Seriously. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said, too sharply. “I’m just functioning on zero sleep.”

“What’s in the envelope?”

“Business crap. Advertising reports. The paper shuffling doesn’t stop just because I’m working on the story of a lifetime.”

“That’s for sure,” Kaiser said, taking a seat in the chair opposite her. “I’ve got one of my agents doing nothing but filing reports for the rest of us. A total waste.”

“What can I do for you?” Caitlin asked. “Have you found my mole?”

“No. But we will. I should tell you that the original deleting of files was done by ‘User 23,’ and that ID belongs to your editor, Jamie Lewis—”

“Jamie!”

“Relax, he didn’t do it. He’s a rich, liberal Yankee, and I questioned him myself. Somebody hacked into Lewis’s intranet account, which I’m pretty sure is well beyond the abilities of your missing press operator, Nick Moore.”

“Do you have any idea who it could have been?”

“Not yet. It could be an employee, but it could also have been someone who hacked in from outside. You just leave the mole hunt to us. Why don’t you go home and grab a nap?”

“Are you kidding? This town’s filling up with reporters so fast that we’ll run out of hotel rooms. I’ll sleep when this story’s finished.”

The FBI agent crossed his legs and toyed with a shoelace as if he had all day to sit there.

Caitlin shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “What’s on your mind, John?”

“Henry Sexton’s journals.”

She kept her features immobile.

“I’ve been watching our tech try to reconstruct your server’s drives, which is a bit like watching children try to reconstruct shredded pages one strip at a time. We’re making progress, and getting a pretty good idea of how the journals lay out. There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“None of the pages seem to describe any of Henry’s work over the past two months. I can only conclude that we must be missing a journal.”

Caitlin pursed her lips and pretended to think about this.

“Did Henry say anything to you about his most recent one?” Kaiser asked bluntly.

“No,” she answered truthfully. After all, she’d discovered that
journal on her own. The Moleskine had been in Henry’s pocket when he was attacked outside the
Beacon,
and she’d found it in the ashes of the
Beacon
fire later that night.

“It just seemed to me from reading your stories this morning that you had a lot of detail on the Jimmy Revels case. The RFK plot, all of that.”

“I’ve got a good memory.”

Kaiser smiled. “Also the murder of Pooky Wilson. The crucifixion. Royal told you that happened at the Bone Tree?”

“That’s right.”

“But he didn’t say where the tree was? Other than the Lusahatcha Swamp?”

“It wasn’t that kind of conversation.”

A thin smile. “No. I imagine not.” The FBI agent looked at her for a long time without speaking. “I spent seven years in the ISU, Caitlin—what they used to call the Behavioral Science Unit. And this just doesn’t add up. Henry Sexton was a creature of habit, like all of us. There has to be a last journal, and it’s got to be somewhere. It’s too bad that sniper’s bullet killed his girlfriend.”

Caitlin made a sympathetic noise and blanked her mind. As impossible as it was, she felt strangely sure that if she thought of the slightly scorched Moleskine lying atop the tall credenza behind her, Kaiser would see it too—in his mind. As he studied her, she thought,
I should be put in jail. I’m like a raging id with a body—no governing conscience at all.

“Was there anything else?” she asked.

Kaiser’s eyes stayed on hers. She could almost feel the pressure of his gaze. “Have you talked to Penn recently?” he asked.

“Only for a second. It sounded pretty bad across the river.”

“Penn’s not too happy with me right now. Nor I him. We both think each other’s priorities are screwed up.”

Caitlin shrugged. “We’ve all got different agendas. The way of the world, right?”

“Jordan said the same thing.”

“Smart woman. Wait, that was redundant.”

Kaiser rolled his eyes.

“I figured I’d see a lot of Jordan today,” Caitlin said, fishing.

“You probably would have, if I weren’t here. She’s a little upset with
me right now.” He glanced at his watch. “She’s still a pro, though. She’s photographing everyone who shows up at Glenn Morehouse’s funeral as we speak. Did you know she’s scheduled to go to Cuba tomorrow, to photograph the Castro brothers?”

“She mentioned it.”

“She said something about maybe pushing back the trip for a day, which I couldn’t believe. Any idea why she’d do that?”

Caitlin remembered giving Kaiser’s wife a backhanded offer of employment, but she never thought the photographer would really consider it. Jordan Glass had multiple Pulitzers in her bag, and a Robert Capa award to boot.
Is this story getting
that
big?
she wondered.

“None. You’d better ask her that.”

“You’ll probably see her before I will,” Kaiser said. “I’m heading out to take care of some other business. I’ve rented an empty warehouse in Vidalia to use as an evidence storage site. So much stuff came out of the Jericho Hole that we’re going to sort, identify, and tag everything we can here, then ship selected pieces to the crime lab in Washington.”

“Can I send a photographer over for some shots?”

Kaiser gave her a wry smile. “No, but I’ll have Jordan shoot a few snaps for you.”

“Thanks. And keep your eyes open. I don’t think your credentials would stop the Knoxes from taking a shot at you.”

Kaiser got to his feet. “You’re right about that. But I’d be a lot more worried if I were Penn or Sheriff Dennis. Or you,” he added, giving her a meaningful look.

He went to the door, but after he passed through, he turned back and said, “Don’t try to solve this thing on your own, Caitlin. What you wrote this morning was read by a lot of people, some of whose lives are now at risk because of you. And every one of those bastards knows where you live and work.”

She nodded as though this were old news to her. “I’ll be careful.”

Kaiser gave her a casual salute, then walked down the hall.

Caitlin desperately wanted to read the rest of the papers inside Mrs. Sexton’s envelope, but she opened her top right drawer to put them away until she could be sure Kaiser would not return. A shining new silver Treo 650 lay inside the drawer. Stuck to the smartphone was a
yellow Post-it with a note from Allison Oswalt, the advertising sales girl she’d sent to replace her favorite device.

Here’s your new phone. You can find your new number inside. Your security code is the year I came to work here. Enjoy!

Caitlin picked up the gleaming phone and gave it a grateful kiss. At last she had a secure line she could count on, at least for a while. Now she could call Toby Rambin from inside the building—and talk to him if she reached him!

While the Treo powered up and searched for a tower, she thought about Henry’s letter. Was it really possible that the Bone Tree—which the FBI didn’t believe existed—concealed evidence of Double Eagle involvement in the assassination of John Kennedy? Henry Sexton had never been a muckraker or sensationalist; on the contrary, his reputation as a serious journalist had been above reproach. And Henry seemed to believe that Morehouse had told him the truth. Of course, Henry had been under the influence of Dilaudid while he wrote that letter—

The Treo had acquired a tower. Caitlin glanced at her office door, then dialed Toby Rambin’s number—which she had memorized—and waited. Yet again it rang in vain, as it had the previous three times. She wondered whether Rambin might have fled the state after hearing about Henry’s death. She couldn’t blame him if he had.

“Come
on,
” she muttered. “Do poachers really work that hard?”

How long until Kaiser leaves the building?
she wondered. She was dying to take Henry’s Bone Tree journal down from atop the credenza. Instead, she removed a page at random from the manila envelope, a piece of hospital stationery. At the top Henry had written
ELAM KNOX
in bold pencil lines. She started to read the tightly packed paragraphs, but a knock at her door made her jump. She shoved Henry’s stuff into her drawer, then went to the door. Though she’d expected Kaiser again, she found Jamie Lewis waiting in the hall.

“I’ve got some news,” her editor said. “Can I come in?”

She backed up and motioned him in. Lewis shut the door behind him.

“On the mole?” she whispered.

“No, sorry. But something pretty radical just came over the wire. The
Baton Rouge Advocate
is reporting that a highly credible source
inside the state police Criminal Investigations Bureau is claiming that Colonel Griffith Mackiever, the superintendent of state police, has been downloading explicit child pornography onto his work computer for months. There’s been no official confirmation, but several politicians are calling for a public investigation, and one state congressman has already demanded Mackiever’s resignation. Do you think that’s related to Dr. Cage’s story in any way?”

Caitlin thought about it. “It’s bound to be. Forrest Knox wants that job, and he’s already the chief of the CIB. He’s got a certain amount of support across the state, especially in New Orleans. He’s also behind the hunt for Dr. Cage, and he’s the son of the founder of the Double Eagles. You dig into that, Jamie. Don’t give it to somebody else.”

Before he could reply, another knock sounded at the door. Caitlin rolled her eyes, and Jamie opened the door a crack as though to send the supplicant away. But then to her surprise he pulled it wide.

Keisha Harvin stood there, her face glowing with vitality, her eyes with quick intelligence. “Have you got a sec?” Keisha asked. “I want to pitch you something.”

“Take a seat,” Caitlin said, beckoning her inside. “Pitch away.”

As Keisha perched on the edge of the chair across the desk, Caitlin reflected that there was a world of difference between twenty-five and thirty-five. Harvin wore her hair in a tight, no-nonsense bob, but she still managed to look glamorous. The Alabama native wore practical shoes, yet her jeans were Sevens, and her top expensive silk. Caitlin knew from the months she’d spent training Harvin that the reporter pinched her pennies to be able to afford such style. Keisha had always possessed the same fire Caitlin did—the desire to make her mark in her chosen field—but now she seemed driven by an even more powerful passion, the hunger to right a wrong against her people.

“Right now Jamie has me working background on Sheriff Billy Byrd, and that’s cool. I get it.”

Caitlin almost blushed with guilt. She’d texted Jamie to assign Keisha that job on her way back from Byrd’s office. “But you really want to work on something else.”

Keisha inclined her head.

“Which is . . . ?”

“I’ve reviewed everything that’s been reported so far, and I’ve talked
to the staff about the angles they’re working. And given that . . . it’s become clear to me that one part of the story is being completely ignored.”

“What’s that?”

“The crime that started it all. The murder of Viola Turner.”

Caitlin felt her cheeks heat up. She felt shock, anger, embarrassment . . . and each emotion had hit her on at least two levels. Various replies to Harvin’s request rose in her throat, but Caitlin clamped her mouth shut before any could escape. Because Keisha was right: Viola’s story
was
being ignored. And there could only be one reason for that. Caitlin’s staff had sensed that she’d marked it off-limits. Silently perhaps, but absolutely. Otherwise people would have been all over that story. The chief murder suspect in the Viola Turner case was
the mayor’s father,
for God’s sake. The problem for her staff was, because Caitlin and Penn were engaged, the mayor was the boss’s future husband.

It struck Caitlin then that Jamie had known what Keisha was going to say before she walked through the door. He might even have advised her to do it, thinking Caitlin would be reluctant to blast a young black reporter for raising the sensitive subject. Not that it mattered, of course. Now that they’d brought the unpleasant reality to her attention, she could not ignore it.

“Okay,” she said to Keisha. “How do you want to handle it?”

“I’d like to interview Dr. Cage. Obviously that’s not possible at this time, so my first fallback would be to interview Mayor Cage.”

Caitlin took a deep breath and kept her voice under control. “I honestly don’t know if Penn will talk to you. Even though you work for me, he’ll probably take the same position he would with any reporter. While his father’s life is on the line, he won’t discuss it.”

“Will you at least ask him?” Keisha pressed.

God, this girl has balls,
Caitlin thought. She wondered if she’d had that kind of courage at twenty-five.
Yes,
she decided,
I did
.

“I’ll ask him,” she said. “But I’d get busy finding a second fallback, because I don’t think Penn will talk to you.”

“I’m trying to reach Viola Turner’s family right now.”

“Who? The sister?”

“And the son. Lincoln Turner.”

Caitlin’s stomach fluttered. She forced a smile, then tapped her hands on the desktop. “That sounds like a plan. Anything else, guys?”