The Bone Tree (72 page)

PEGGY CAGE HAD
watched her son endure tragedies before, but she had never seen him come unhinged. During the past few minutes, Penn had started to do just that. She already regretted not calling Drew Elliott so that he could sedate Penn; but in truth, Drew would have refused to do such a thing unless Penn requested it, and Penn would never request it. Yet sedation was exactly what he needed.

If watching Caitlin die in his arms had not driven Penn beyond the point of endurance, having to tell his daughter about it had. Peggy had done all she could to help, and more than half the battle had been fought before Penn ever arrived. Peggy had never suffered as she had while watching Annie’s face as she absorbed the news that the woman she’d viewed as a second mother would never walk into this house again. Peggy had worried that Annie might not believe the news, but she had—instantly. She had, in fact, been waiting for it. Apparently, Annie’s fears for Penn, for Peggy, and for Caitlin had been so great that she had scarcely slept the past few nights. She had covered it well, but once Peggy confirmed one of her worst fears, Annie had begun a sort of high-speed infantile regression.

Peggy had never forgotten the effects of Annie’s mother’s death. The then three-year-old had developed severe separation anxiety, which was the main reason Penn had moved her to Natchez. Prior to that move, Annie had refused to leave her father’s side, and even insisted on sleeping in his bed, one little hand always in contact with his wrist or arm, an early-warning system of impending loss. After that move, Peggy had taken Penn’s place to some extent—as had Tom—until over time the child had grown secure enough in their love and constant attention that she learned to be independent again.

But Caitlin had played an important role as well. She had entered their lives as soon as Penn and Annie arrived in Natchez, and despite
being only twenty-eight and career-oriented, Caitlin had proved amazingly intuitive at earning Annie’s trust. The depth of their bond had been displayed tonight, when Annie shattered before Peggy’s eyes.

After the first tears of shock, Annie had voiced an almost obsessive concern with Caitlin’s body. Where was she now? Was she alone? Why wasn’t Daddy bringing her home with him? The rational answers did nothing to allay her concerns, and once Annie realized that Caitlin’s body was almost sure to be autopsied, she had grown even more distraught. After a very difficult hour, Peggy had given her a couple of teaspoons of Benadryl, with the excuse that it would make her burning eyes feel better. The adrenaline-depleted child had almost instantly collapsed in her lap and gone to sleep.

Annie still lay there now, while Penn steadily vented the emotions boiling in his mind and heart. At first he had spoken softly, but as he revealed more of his feelings, he got louder, and Peggy grew worried that he would awaken Annie. On the advice of their FBI guards, they had moved down to Penn’s basement office. Thankfully, that isolation also prevented the guards from hearing what Penn was saying now, which was a blessing. Peggy didn’t want anyone to know how angry he was at his father, or how irrational he sounded when he spoke about the Knox gang—particularly Forrest Knox. She worried that Penn actually might take it on himself to go after the state police officer with a gun. Part of her was glad to see Penn’s anger diverted from Tom, but she knew his focus on others was probably some sort of transference. His deepest anger was reserved for Tom, and there Peggy was at a loss. She didn’t know how to argue without appearing to be giving her husband the blind support of an ignorant or deluded wife. She was looking down at Annie when the best solution came to her.

“Penn, would you take Annie from me? My legs have gone to sleep. She’s way too big for my lap now.”

He stopped pacing and glared at her, but then his face softened, and they made the transfer with the smoothness imparted by long practice.

“I’m going to make you a drink,” she said.

“I don’t need a drink.”

“Yes, you do. If you don’t slow that brain down, you’re going to talk yourself into something crazy. You
have
to calm down, son.”

He sighed heavily and looked over at his desk. “All right, one drink.”

“Gin and tonic?”

He nodded.

Peggy swished up the stairs before he could think twice, then went to the kitchen cabinet where Penn kept the liquor. A young FBI agent sat at the kitchen table, but he merely nodded to her and smiled encouragingly.

“Is there anything I can do for you, ma’am?”

“No, thank you.” Peggy quickly poured a triple serving of gin.

“Don’t hesitate to ask.”

“I won’t,” Peggy said, covertly reaching into her purse for the bottle of the temazepam she took to help her sleep. She swallowed one of the yellow capsules, then quickly pulled apart three others and stirred the white powder into Penn’s drink with her forefinger. It didn’t dissolve very well, but she thought the bitter gin would cover the taste.

“I wish my husband would call,” she said, just to keep the agent focused on what she was saying rather than what she was doing.

“I think Agent Kaiser wishes the same thing.”

“Oh,” Peggy said brightly, “I’m sorry, I forgot to offer you a drink.”

The agent smiled. “I’m on duty, Mrs. Cage.”

“
Peggy,
I told you. Please.”

“I’m fine, ma’am.”

She smiled, then picked up the glass and carried it back to the basement, the ice tinkling as she negotiated the stairs. She thought she might have to press Penn to drink, but when she got to his office, she found Annie asleep on the couch and Penn standing by his desk with his hand out. He took a big gulp from the glass, then gave her a hug so tight she could feel him shuddering against her. As she hugged him back, she spied a suede zip bag lying on his desktop. It hadn’t been there when she left to get the drinks. Tom owned several bags like that one. Every one contained a pistol.

“Mom . . . last night Dad was hiding at Quentin’s house in Jefferson County. I didn’t know that, but Caitlin did. She found him somehow. She went to see him, she talked to him, but she never told me about it. I think Walt knew, but he held it back to protect her. I only found out because I called Melba to check on her. She let it slip by mistake. If Caitlin had told me last night where Dad was . . . none of this would have happened. Don’t you see? It’s like she killed herself. Because she wanted an
exclusive story
. Can you believe that?”

Peggy was stunned, but she didn’t want to play into Penn’s anger. “I imagine Tom made her promise not to tell us about it.”

“Of course he did, but still. You’ve got to draw the line somewhere with loyalty. That’s what I was telling you yesterday.”

Peggy just hugged her son and willed the drug to take effect.

“Can you believe Dad just walked out of that hospital? Caitlin was dead upstairs, and he just . . . walked out. Like he didn’t even care.”

“He couldn’t have known she’d died, honey.” Peggy prayed this was true.

Penn drew back, his bloodshot eyes like those of an angry and disillusioned teenager. “If he didn’t, then it’s
worse
. He knew she was barely holding on.”

“Don’t talk that way!” Peggy snapped.

“Why not? I’m sorry, Mom, but I have to say it: how many chances has Dad had to do the right thing?”

Peggy went and sat beside Annie, stroked her silken hair. All she’d withheld from Penn roiled in her stomach like something she needed to vomit up, yet still she did not speak.

“I wonder if he’ll even come to Caitlin’s funeral?” Penn asked bitterly.

A wrenching abdominal ache nearly doubled Peggy over. She almost couldn’t bear to hear these words come from her son’s mouth. When would those three pills take effect? Penn’s face had grown steadily redder, but he showed no sign of collapsing. As she stroked Annie’s hair, Penn spoke with almost fearful softness.

“Mom . . . do I know everything you know?”

Peggy closed her eyes and thought of Tom running through the night. Every fiber of her heart urged her to stand, take Penn in her arms, and do all she could to make him understand the true stakes of their situation. But she had sworn to Tom not to reveal her knowledge without his permission, not even to save his life. She hadn’t wanted to make that promise, but she had. Earlier she’d considered breaking her oath, but now, with Penn like this . . . she knew Tom had been right.

“I can’t help you,” she said simply. “I wish I could, but your father is the only one who knows what really happened back in those dark days.”

“I’m not talking about the old days,” Penn said, his eyes leveled at her.

Peggy’s heart fluttered with fear. After taking a slow breath, she folded her hands together and spoke with absolute conviction. “Son, the
violence that exploded this week was like the bombs the work crews used to find in Germany when they worked on the streets after the war. It’s been waiting in this ground ever since the sixties, rusting away. Sooner or later, somebody was going to sink a shovel into the wrong place. That was Henry Sexton. And once he shoveled out enough dirt . . . nothing was going to stop the explosion.”

Penn shook his head, his eyes unmerciful. “That’s not what happened, Mom. Henry had been digging around that bomb for years and it never went off. It was Viola Turner who triggered it. And why? Why did she come home? To die? Maybe. More likely, it was to make Dad—”

“
Stop!
” Peggy hissed, and a door slammed shut in her mind. “I won’t listen to that kind of talk. Even if you’re right, I don’t care to discuss it.”

“Mom, we have to—”

She shook her head and looked resolutely down at Annie’s face. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. If we do.”

“If we’re not going to discuss that, why are we even talking?”

Peggy took another deep breath, then slowly exhaled. “I know there’s a pistol in your bag. What are you planning to do with it?”

He looked over at the suede pouch. “I’m not going to hurt myself, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“It’s not. I’m worried you’ll try to hurt someone else with it. Because of what happened to Caitlin.”

Penn shrugged angrily. “I don’t know who killed her.”

Peggy gave him a long look.

“Mom, I’ve been carrying that gun since Monday. None of us has any business leaving this house unarmed.”

“None of us has any business leaving this house period. Not tonight. And especially you. Your daughter needs you.”

Penn walked up and stood over Annie, looking down with a mixture of love and grief in his eyes. “Where’s Dad, Mom?”

“Dear God, son. If I knew, I would tell you. Don’t you know that?”

Penn looked over at her then, his eyes more lost than she could ever remember. “I don’t,” he said. “That’s what all this has done to us. What Dad has done to us. And now Caitlin’s dead.” He started to continue, then checked himself. His mouth opened and closed as though he were testing the function of his jaw.

Thank God,
Peggy thought, seeing confusion in his eyes.
The drug is finally working.

“Tom still might not know what’s happened to Caitlin,” she thought aloud. “He could be lying unconscious beside a road somewhere. He could have been kidnapped from that hospital.”

Penn made a contemptuous sound and flipped his hand in the air. “The security cameras filmed him walking out. He put on a doctor’s coat and . . .
sneaked out
.”

Penn sounded like Tom after four or five whiskeys. Peggy started to worry that he might hurt himself if he simply passed out.

“Why don’t you sit down? You’re exhausted.”

“Dad knows what happened, all right. Earlier today Walt and I were working together. He was glad to take my calls. But now . . . he won’t answer. That tells me he’s hooked up with Dad again.”

“I hope that’s true! I just pray they’re not dead in a ditch somewhere.”

A snort of laughter came from Penn’s nose. “No chance of that,” he slurred. “If those two get killed in this mess, they’ll be the last to die. No . . . he and Walt are sitting pretty somewhere . . . playing whatever game they’ve been playing from the start. Unless Walt doesn’t know the game either. He might be just like the rest of them, acting out of blind loyalty to a man who doesn’t exist . . . who never really did. Like Drew, Melba, even Caitlin. And . . .”

“And what?”

Penn shook his head. “I forgot what I was saying. I was thinking about the bone creek.”

“You mean the Bone Tree?”

“That’s what I said.”

Penn looked at the floor and shook his head like some despairing drunk. “I had to call her father,” he said, wavering on his feet. “Did I tell you that? I called the estimable Mr. John Masters to tell him his daughter had been murdered.”

“I know that was hard.”

Penn’s glassy eyes found hers again. “Do you know what he said to me? What the great John Masters said to me . . . after I told him I’d let his favorite daughter get killed?”

Peggy shook her head.

Penn opened his mouth but no sound emerged. She was about to slide Annie’s head from her lap when he turned in place and fell across the club chair beside his desk.

He was out.

As carefully as she could, Peggy reached into her pocket, took out her cell phone, and dialed Drew Elliott’s home number.

After three rings, a reassuring voice said, “Dr. Elliott.”

“Drew, this is Peggy Cage.”

“Oh, Peggy. I’m so sorry about Caitlin. Is everything all right over there? Can I do anything to help?”

“Actually . . . you can. Penn isn’t handling Caitlin’s passing very well. I slipped him three of my sleeping pills and got him down, but it’s going to take more than that to keep him asleep until morning. I’m worried he’s going to wake up in the middle of the night and go hunting for someone.”

“Okay. I’ll be right over.”

“Thank you, Drew. We’re in the basement.”

“Have you had any word from Tom?”

“No. Have you?”

“I’m afraid not. But sit tight. I’m on my way.”

“Bring something strong, Drew. Penn’s just like his father. It’s not easy to get him angry, but once he is, there’s no stopping him.”