The Bone Tree (31 page)

As he tiptoed back across the floor, he realized that, depending on what the men below did next, he might have to spend quite a while in this place. Lowering himself to his knees, he rolled onto his back and slid slowly under the bed.

“THIS HOUSE LOOKS
just like it did twenty-seven years ago,” Mom says, looking around the living room of Sam Abrams’s parents’ Duncan Avenue home. “I remember coming to one of your senior parties here. My god, you and Sam were just boys.”

“How come I’ve never been here before?” Annie asks, looking wide-eyed around the unfamiliar house. “If you’re such good friends with Mr. Sam?”

“His parents are older than Gram and Papa, punkin. That’s why they moved to Florida.”

“But they kept this house? And the furniture?”

“That’s right. So they can come visit their kids during holidays.”

“Jewish holidays?”

“I imagine so. Why don’t you run upstairs and check out the bedrooms? That’s where they all are.”

Annie looks toward the ceiling, then sniffs suspiciously. “It
smells
like old people.”

“Well, they lived here fifty years, at least.”

As Annie wraps her mind around this, I know my mother must be thinking of the house she and my father lost to arson seven years ago.

“Come on, Gram,” Annie says. “Let’s see where we’re going to be living this time.”

Mom waves her toward the front foyer and stairs. “You go on, honey. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Annie rolls her eyes, then takes my mother’s suitcase from her. “I’ll carry your bag up.”

“Thank you, muffin.”

At age eleven, Annie must be pretty tired of being addressed as
punkin
and
muffin,
but she rarely protests so long as none of her friends are around. She disappears in search of the stairs, and then I hear the
clunk-clunk-clunk
of a heavy case being dragged up carpeted steps.

My mother gives me a look that communicates many things: guilt and regret most of all. “I hate losing the Abramses. But we’ve lost most of Natchez’s Jewish families over the last twenty years. All their children settled elsewhere.”

“Like most of my classmates.”

“Won’t the neighbors think George and Bernice have come back to town?”

I can’t help but chuckle at this. “Sam called the nosiest one and told her he’s rented the house to a visiting professor from Alcorn State University.”

“That was smart.”

“The only question the neighbor asked was whether the professor was white or black.”

Mom smiles and shakes her head. “The closed garage is nice. I was a little worried people would recognize your car downtown, even tucked back behind the fence and bushes.”

“This is a better safe house by every measure. It’s totally untraceable, so long as you and Annie stay inside and keep the curtains closed.”

I walk into the kitchen and pull the curtains almost shut. The Abramses’ house stands on Duncan Avenue, facing a park donated to the city in the nineteenth century by one of the “nabobs of Natchez.” It’s one of the most peaceful streets in the city, since it faces the back nine of the golf course and thus has houses only on one side. Beyond the links, I can make out the Little League ball fields where Drew Elliott and I played Dixie Youth baseball.

Mom walks up behind me and squeezes my upper arm. “It’s going to be all right, Penn. I really believe that.”

Before I can answer, my new BlackBerry rings. After seeing Caitlin’s Treo earlier, I realized I couldn’t live without at least occasional access to my e-mail accounts. As soon as I set up the phone, I gave the number to Caitlin and Walker Dennis, telling them to use it only if they couldn’t reach me on one of my new TracFones.

“Who’s calling?” Mom asks anxiously.

“Sheriff Dennis, from Vidalia.”

She looks grave, and I realize she must fear the worst every time the phone rings.

“What you got, Walker?” I ask. “How are your deputies doing?”

“The second one just died. Terry Stamper was about to go into the
OR over in Alexandria. Turns out his aorta was torn, and he bled out while he was on the gurney.”

“Jesus, Walker. I’m sorry.”

“Three kids, Penn. Oldest is six.”

“Is it about Tom?” my mother whispers, probably terrified by my expression.

I shake my head and cover the microphone hole. “Nothing to do with Dad. I may be a while. Why don’t you check on Annie?”

Mom nods and heads for the staircase.

“I’m so sorry, man,” I repeat, sitting at the banquette in the corner of the kitchen. “I wish we hadn’t gone to that warehouse.”

“That’s the job,” Dennis says stoically. “My men knew that. And we’re gonna finish this particular job.”

“I’m with you.”

“Good. I finally got ahold of Claude Devereux. I told him I wanted the Double Eagles in my office at seven
A.M.
tomorrow. All of them I could get, but for sure Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield.”

“What did he say?”

“That he’d pass on my request—if he could find them.”

“He’ll pass it on, all right. He probably called Forrest Knox two seconds after you hung up. But Kaiser’s right. I wouldn’t expect to see the Eagles tomorrow.”

“Well, I’m going to question them one way or another, even if I have to extradite them from Texas. You could probably help me with that, huh?”

“Yes, but that’s a slow process. Have you found anything useful in what you confiscated during the busts?”

“Nothing against the Double Eagles. Going through the computers is slow work. But if we find something, it’s gonna be there.”

“What about your interrogations of the people you busted this morning?”

“Not one of them’s talked yet. They’re scared to death, Penn.”

“That tells me they know their employers well.”

“Yeah. But I’ve never seen anything like this. I feel like I could walk in there with a blowtorch and they wouldn’t say a word.”

This takes me back to my days as an ADA in Houston. “Have you checked out their families?”

“What do you mean?”

“I was thinking about hostages. Sometimes you see that in the drug trade. The Double Eagles might be holding some wives or kids, to ensure silence.”

“Oh. I get it. But tracing these families could be tough. Quite a few of these folks are illegals.”

“Do what you can. What about Leo Spivey’s death? Anything come from that?”

“It was probably murder, but there’s nothing pointing to anybody in particular. I’ll tell you something peculiar, though. I noticed it when I talked to Claude Devereux.”

“What’s that?”

“Claude sounded scared, too. Especially for a cocky old lawyer.”

I remember Pithy Nolan telling me that calling Claude Devereux a snake would be a slander to the serpent. “Lawyers who walk the line between both sides of the law tend to build up liabilities over the years. Maybe Devereux’s afraid that his note’s about to come due.”

“It is, if I have anything to do with it.”

“Are you going to tell John Kaiser you called Devereux?”

“I will if I hear the Eagles are coming in. Short of that, I got no use for Kaiser.”

“The FBI could help you with those computers you confiscated.”

Walker pauses for a moment. “I’ll think about it. What’s your plan?”

“I need to sleep, like you said. I’m about to pass out. But I can come over to the station if I can help you with anything.”

“Nah. Get some rest. If the Eagles do come in tomorrow, it’s gonna be a long day, and I want you there.”

“Thanks. And again . . . I’m sorry about your deputy.”

“Tough times, bud.”

Sheriff Dennis hangs up.

The sound of Annie’s footsteps comes through the ceiling. As I walk back into the den, television voices float down from the upstairs. Then my TracFone rings as I’m walking to the garage door to be sure it’s locked.

This time it’s Jewel Washington, the coroner. For a second I wonder if the final toxicology report has come in on Viola Turner, but that process usually takes weeks.

“Hey, Jewel,” I answer. “What’s up?”

“Are you close to a radio?”

“Uh . . . I don’t know. Hang on. What’s happening?”

“Just tune in to WMPR in Jackson. 90.1 on the FM dial.”

Walking back into the kitchen, I find no radio. But in the den stands an ancient console sound system, the kind where you lift the heavy wooden lid and find a turntable and radio. I switch on the system and wait for the tubes to warm up.

“I’ll have it in a few seconds, Jewel. Won’t you tell me what’s going on?”

“I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

A crazy thought hits me. “It’s not Dad, is it?”

“God, no. The opposite.”

Turning the big dial to 90.1, I hear a disc jockey’s voice, rich with the rhythms of black Mississippi.

“. . . folks will tell you times have changed down here, but no sooner do the movers and shakers get that out of their mouths than something happens to give the lie to their words. To illustrate my point, we’ve got Mr. Lincoln Turner with us. Mr. Turner is the son of the victim in that doctor murder down in Natchez. He was born in Chicago, but his family goes way back in this town. And it’s a good thing he came back home to Mississippi when he did, because otherwise the powers that be would have swept his mother’s death right under the rug. Yes, sir, that big white rug they spread out to cover anything they don’t want the world to see. Well, it’s out again, my brothers and sisters. So let’s hear firsthand what’s going on down there in the old slave capital of the Magnolia State. . . .”

“Has Lincoln been on the air yet?” I ask Jewel.

“Oh, yeah, baby. They’re running it in a continuous loop. I just caught the end of it, but they said they were going to run it again.”

“How bad is it?”

“It’s not good. He’s saying there’s a huge cover-up to protect your father, and he aims a lot of his anger at your better half.”

“Great. Does Caitlin know?”

“I texted her a minute ago.”

Lincoln Turner’s voice rises from the old speakers.

“The problem down here,” he says, “is that the accused, Dr. Tom Cage, is the father of the mayor. And the mayor is set to marry the
publisher of the newspaper. So even though the Natchez DA is supporting this prosecution, the citizens know almost nothing about it.”

“I’ve read their online edition,” says the disc jockey. “There’s a lot of stuff in there about old civil rights cases, which is admirable. The publisher seems to support getting justice for the cold cases worked by that reporter that got killed across the river, Henry Sexton.”

“Yes,” says Lincoln, “but those crimes are forty years old. And to Caitlin Masters, the hero of all those cases is the dead white reporter. There’s hardly anything in there about Sleepy Johnston, who came all the way from Detroit to nail Brody Royal for killing his friend. And there’s no story focusing on my murdered mother, or the case against Dr. Cage, or any more than a passing mention that he’s jumped bail and remains on the run from the law.”

“Amen,” says the disc jockey. “She treats that like a minor detail.”

As I listen, a female arm slips around me and switches off the console.

“That’s enough of that,” says my mother.

“Who was that talking?” asks Annie from behind us.

“A disc jockey in Jackson,” I tell her. Then I say to Jewel, “I’ll talk to you later. Thanks for the heads-up,” and disconnect my call.

“Was he talking about Papa?”

“Yes,” Mom says. “But it’s all lies. And we don’t listen to lies.”

Mom’s response does little to reassure Annie. “This is the kind of thing that goes on during big legal cases,” I explain. “People try to use the media to sway people who might become jury members down the road.”

Annie nods but says nothing.

“Did you find a good bedroom up there?”

She nods. “The bedrooms smell like old people, too, but they’re nice. Gram gave me the one with the TV. Do you want to come watch a show with me?”

“Sure. What about your schoolwork, though? Are you keeping up?”

Annie smiles. “Piece of cake. I’ve never had this much free time before.”

I wonder how long the story of a vacation with my mother is going to hold the St. Stephen’s administration at bay.

“Come on, Dad,” Annie says, taking my hand. “Let me give you a tour.”

Mom says, “I’ll get the groceries from the car and make some sandwiches.”

“I’ll get the groceries,” I tell her, but she shakes her head and pushes me after Annie.

“I’m not so old I can’t carry two grocery bags.”

By the time Annie and I reach the top of the stairs, Lincoln’s voice has faded from my mind. In its place I hear Walker Dennis telling me that another of his deputies has died. By the time Annie gets the TV tuned to a documentary on the Discovery Channel, my eyelids are at half-mast. Instead of penguins marching across the Arctic tundra, I see John Kaiser and Dwight Stone on their knees, scrabbling through the ashes of Brody Royal’s house, searching for scorched artifacts from the fall of Camelot.

“Are you that sleepy, Dad?” Annie asks, poking my shoulder.

“Um . . . I haven’t been sleeping at night.”

“You’re going to miss your sandwich.”

“Sandwich? Oh, yeah. I’ll eat it when I get up.”

In less than a minute I’m sinking into oblivion again, but something startles me back to alertness. It’s my internal body clock. Kaiser told me that Dwight Stone, my old savior, would be in town by six, and I promised I’d meet them at Stone’s hotel.

“Boo,” I mumble, “I need to wake up at six.”

“Tonight?”

“Mm.”

“That’s only like an hour and a half from now.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

She groans in frustration and disappointment, but after a moment she says, “Okay. I’ll get you up.”

I feel myself sinking again. “Don’t forget.”

“Don’t worry. You sleep. I’ll watch over you.”

TOM’S HEART THUDDED
when he heard the car engine outside Quentin’s house, but two short blasts on a horn told him his visitor was probably Melba. A minute later, the same pattern was repeated from behind the house. It took Tom longer than that to reach the back door, but the more he moved, the more his stiff muscles relaxed. By the time he looked through the peephole and saw his nurse, he felt half human again, and when he opened the door, he hugged her as if he were a prisoner being visited on death row. The upwelling of emotion surprised him, but Melba was squeezing him as tightly as he was her. After they separated, he wiped his eyes and led her back to the living room sofa that had become his home.

“Is Quentin here?” Melba asked.

Tom could tell she’d hoped to find the lawyer at home. He shook his head. “If the police found him here, he’d lose his law license. I can’t let that happen, especially now.” Tom eyed the Walmart bag in her hand. “Did you get the phones?”

“I bought four.”

“Thank god. Let’s get one activated. I need to let Walt know where I am. He gave me a kind of code, and I can text him where we are using that.”

“How did Captain Garrity’s meeting go?” Melba asked. “With that state police man?”

“I don’t know yet. Apparently, that fellow’s got his own problems, and with the same people who are trying to kill Walt and me.”

Melba shook her head almost hopelessly.

“Can you open up one of those phones for me, Mel?” Tom asked. “My arthritis is kicking up bad.”

“Sure.” She got out one of the plastic packages and began to explore its seams. “I need to tell you something, Doc.”

“What?” he asked, sensing trouble.

Melba looked up, her eyes filled with guilt. “Dr. Elliott and I went and talked to Penn.”

Tom’s chest ached suddenly, and his breath went shallow. “Why did you do that?”

“We were afraid something had happened to you. Dr. Drew had been calling his lake house all morning, and nobody picked up. We figured the best thing would be to send Penn over there.”

“Did you tell Penn where I am now?”

“No, no. I didn’t tell Dr. Elliott, either.” Melba was clearly in distress. “I promised Penn I would call him if you got back in touch with me, but . . . I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

Tom placed a nitro tablet under his tongue. “Okay,” he said, trying to breathe deeply. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Melba said. “This is hard, Doc. I’m scared for you. I knew I shouldn’t have left you before, and I was right. It’s a miracle you’re even standing here now.”

Tom gave her a reassuring smile. “You know I’m hard to kill, Mel. I’ve outlived at least two serious diseases already.”

“I’m not talking about disease.”

“I know. But . . . this is one of those times when we just have to hold our nerve. I know you don’t understand, but you’re better off not knowing more than you do. I’m asking a lot of you, I know. And you can go back home, now that you’ve brought me these supplies. I’ve already asked too much.”

Melba sat on the arm of the sofa, folded her arms, and looked at him like an angry sister. “You think I drove out here just to leave you with no help? In the shape you’re in? I know you know better than that.” The nurse sighed and looked around the opulent living room. “Lord, Quentin Avery’s got more money than anybody has a right to. You can’t make this kind of money doing the right thing.”

“Maybe not,” Tom conceded. “But he’s done more good for more people than most of us ever will. I figure he’s earned the right to sell out just a little at the end of his life.”

Melba gave Tom a chiding look. “That’s not how it works with right and wrong, Dr. Cage. And you know it.”

Tom looked back at her for a few seconds, wanting to explain himself. But in the end he turned away without speaking.

CAITLIN WOKE FROM A
dead sleep on her office sofa with no idea what time it was. She’d switched off the ringers on her phones, but still her dreams had been troubled: she’d been frantically treading cold, black water as dark figures with yellow eyes floated around her in an obscene ballet. Cypress knees like gnarled wet knuckles jutted from the water, giving her the feeling that a great hand waited to snatch her below the surface, and when she looked up to escape this sight, she saw twisted limbs and feathery leaves hanging over her like the hair of some terrible witch.

“Caitlin?” said a voice.

Someone poked her shoulder, then shook her, and bright light burned away the dark world that had enveloped her.

Jamie Lewis stood beside the sofa, staring down at her. “Are you okay?” he asked, starting to kneel.

“Don’t get too close. I have bad breath.”

Lewis straightened up. “Gary Valentine’s on the landline for you. He said he had a private message for you.”

“Okay,” she said, rolling groggily off the sofa. Gary Valentine was the computer technician she’d dispatched to watch Drew and Melba after Penn told her that both had seen Tom and then lied about it.

“I told him we didn’t have time for games, but Gary still wouldn’t tell me what he wants.”

“Blame me, not him.” Caitlin got to her feet and gave Jamie a smile that triggered a shock of pain from the cheek burn. “Some things you don’t need to know. Hand me the cordless phone, would you?”

Jamie flipped her the bird, then picked up the phone and gave it to her. “Don’t do anything crazy, okay? You nearly died last night. Let’s not go for an encore.”

Caitlin motioned for him to get out.

From the door, Jamie said, “Oh, did you see my text about the state police thing?”

“No.”

“Man, you really were out. The
Advocate
is reporting that a fourteen-year-old male prostitute from New Orleans claims he was paid for sex by Colonel Mackiever on multiple occasions. Mackiever’s home has been under siege by the media. Some officials are already calling for his resignation.”

“Forrest Knox has got to be behind that. Stay on it, Jamie. Keep digging into Knox’s background. You’ll find something we can use against him.”

As Jamie went out, she thought about Forrest Knox. The man was obviously making an all-out effort to destroy his superior and consolidate his own power. And that would put him in the best possible position to help the Double Eagles survive the attack by Penn and Sheriff Dennis—not to mention protect himself from Mackiever or the FBI. Pushing these thoughts from her mind, she put down the cordless phone, took her Treo from her pocket, and called Gary Valentine.

“Hello?” she said, after the door had closed. “Gary?”

“Thank God,” said the tech’s excited voice. “I think I hit pay dirt.”

“What do you mean?”

“I followed one of the people you asked me to watch. She just went into a place that my gut tells me is what you’re looking for.”

Melba must have gone to Tom again
. . . . “Where is she?”

“I probably shouldn’t say on the phone, right?”

Damn,
Caitlin thought, realizing she must not be fully awake. “I think this line is safe, but can you give me a clue nobody else could decipher?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. She’s at a private residence. It’s a house that belongs to somebody I’m pretty sure you know. Here’s the clue: the owner’s initials are the same as those of the first two words of the TV show that Gabriel Vance used to rave about.”

Gabriel Vance was a gay reporter who’d worked at the
Examiner
until he moved to the New Orleans
Times-Picayune
. He’d done heroic coverage of Hurricane Katrina, but what popped into Caitlin’s mind almost without thought was Gabe’s favorite cable show:
Queer as Folk
.

“Have you got it?’” Gary asked.

Caitlin almost said “Q-A” aloud, but checked herself. Despite her exhaustion, it had taken her less than five seconds to arrive at
Quentin
Avery
. “I think I have it,” she said. “I’ve never been there, though. Are you looking at it now?”

“You can’t see it from the road. I figured out the owner using Google. You ought to check Google Earth.”

Caitlin glanced at her watch, calculating how long it would take her to reach Quentin’s wooded compound in Jefferson County. Twenty minutes, minimum, and at least twice that to be sure she had no tail.

“I’ll be there in an hour. Forty minutes if I’m clean when I leave here.”

“I’ll be cruising up and down the nearest main road.”

“Thanks, Gary. And don’t tell a soul. Not Jamie, not anybody.”

“I know, boss.”

“Thanks.”

Caitlin hung up and opened the purse on her desk. The .38 Tom had given her years ago was inside it. For a few seconds she considered calling Penn, but in truth her decision was a foregone conclusion. Like Drew and Melba, she would not betray Tom’s location without his permission—not even to his son. Not until she’d heard what he had to say, anyway. Pulling on her jacket, she slung her purse over her shoulder and opened her door.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she found Jordan Glass standing less than a foot away from her.

“Hey, hey!” Jordan said, catching hold of her arm. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, no,” Caitlin said, flustered. “I just wasn’t expecting anybody.”

“Obviously. Looks like you’re headed out, huh?”

Caitlin forced a smile and tried to think of a credible lie. Glass was wearing a black down jacket over a white
Synchronicity
tour T-shirt splashed with red, blue, and yellow—a relic of the mid-1980s. “I’m just headed home to get a shower,” Caitlin said lamely. “This is the first time things have slowed down at all.”

Jordan’s understanding smile both noted and forgave the lie. “I came by to talk to you,” she said. “Have you got a minute?”

Caitlin didn’t, but she backed up and motioned for Glass to enter her office.

Jordan shook her head, then pulled her close. “Not in there,” she whispered. “Let’s go to the ladies’ room.”

It took Caitlin only seconds to realize what was worrying Jordan. Nodding once, she followed the photographer down the hall and into the female employees’ restroom. It held two stalls, two sinks, a tampon machine, and nothing else.

“Is my office bugged?” Caitlin asked.

“I don’t know. It could be.”

“FBI?”

“I really don’t know.”

“But you’re obviously worried.”

Jordan anxiously ran her hands through her hair. She was clearly conflicted about something, and Caitlin guessed it had to do with her husband.

“Last night I asked if you ever hold things back from John. You said you did.”

Glass nodded. “Of course. And he does the same. More than I suspected, I’m afraid.”

Caitlin saw pain in the older woman’s face. “Can you be more specific?”

“Not without damaging things I still care about.” Jordan turned on the cold water tap and let it run. “But I’ll say this . . . one of the downers in life is finding out that people you thought you knew well can always surprise you, and not in a positive way.”

A worm of anxiety was turning in Caitlin’s stomach. Jordan Glass wasn’t the type to worry about trivialities. “You’re positive you can’t talk about it?”

“There are things I can’t say. I don’t want you to think John isn’t on your side, because he is. But he takes this case—or cases, plural—very seriously, and he’s not about to give up any advantage he might be able to get over the Knoxes.”

“I wouldn’t either. Is that what you came to tell me?”

Jordan swallowed and looked at the floor. “No. Do you know where Penn is now?”

Caitlin looked at her watch. “Probably meeting your husband and Dwight Stone.”

Jordan looked up sharply. “So he told you about that?”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“What did he say they were meeting about?”

“He said Dwight has some conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assassination. Penn didn’t know if John is humoring Dwight because he’s ill, or if John believes the same theory.”

Jordan nodded slowly. “That’s not exactly the truth.”

Caitlin thought about Henry Sexton’s letter to her, and Kaiser’s theory about Carlos Marcello and JFK. “What is?”

“Dwight Stone is part of a group of retired agents who work cold cases.
Major
cases. Jimmy Hoffa, JFK, like that. Something they learned in the last two days has convinced them that the Double Eagles here were involved in the Kennedy assassination. I don’t know many specifics, but they seem to think the whole plot was run out of New Orleans.”

“By Carlos Marcello.”

Jordan’s eyes widened. “Did Penn tell you that?”

“Not exactly. He made it sound like a fringe theory.”

Jordan smiled with what looked like bitter resentment. “Look, you were obviously headed somewhere. Were you taking advantage of Penn and John being busy to follow whatever lead you hinted at last night at the hospital?”

Caitlin was tempted to tell the truth, but she didn’t dare—not with Tom’s life at risk. “Why have you told me this, Jordan? Are you and John having problems or something?”

The photographer shrugged. “Not exactly. Maybe I want you to have a level playing field. We’re both journalists, and I’ve been exactly where you are, only without help. I wanted you to know you need to be careful about more than your enemies. You might be an intelligence target.”

“I appreciate it. So . . . is John going to simply abandon the civil rights cases that remain unsolved?”

“No way. He’s trying to get approval for a massive search for the Bone Tree, and he’s doing overflights of the Valhalla hunting camp in the hopes of finding it empty.”

Caitlin almost gulped at the mention of the Bone Tree, but she quickly moved away from the subject. “Why would Valhalla need to be empty for him to search it?”

“It wouldn’t, for a normal search. But he wants to do what they call a sneak-and-peek search under the Patriot Act. That way Forrest Knox won’t know how much scrutiny he’s under.”

“Man. The gloves are off, aren’t they?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“Well, what’s your plan?” Caitlin asked, glancing at her watch again and thinking of Melba and Tom.

“I haven’t got one. I spent way too long today photographing geriatrics at Glenn Morehouse’s funeral. No Double Eagles showed up, by the way. Not known ones, at least. Now I’m pretty much at loose ends. Tomorrow evening I fly to Havana to shoot Fidel Castro and his brother, but till then . . . nothing.”