The Bone Tree (82 page)

Forrest barks a laugh. “So? What could I possibly care about that?”

“You’re as guilty of corrupting your race as anybody else. That’s my point.”

Knox leans sideways and spits in a trash can. “The difference is, I don’t give a shit whether some nigger whelp lives or dies. A man takes his pleasure where he will and moves on, same as the buck.”

“You’re full of shit, Knox.”

Startled from his rant, he regards me as he might some a mentally defective child. “How’s that?”

“You think you fucked Viola Turner, but she fucked you ten times over.”

Suspicion comes into his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Viola Turner killed your father, dipshit. She killed the great Frank Knox.”

At last my words have struck home. The whites of Forrest’s eyes have grown larger. “Are you drunk?” he asks softly.

“I wish I was. It’s hard to think about this shit sober. But I’m going to, because you need to hear it. See, two days after you and your father’s crew raped Viola, Frank was brought into my father’s office, hurt. Viola saw her chance at payback and took it. She injected him with enough air to stop his heart. That doesn’t sound much like a sheep, huh? I’ll tell you something else, too. My father saw it happen, and he didn’t do a damned thing to stop it. He watched your father die like a dog, Forrest. Not a lion. A
dog
. Or a sheep, maybe.”

Knox’s Adam’s apple bobs in his throat.

“Frank Knox died in terror on a cold tile floor,” I press on. “He died helpless and begging for mercy from a black woman who cursed him while he bled out.”

Forrest has gone so still that I wonder if he’s even breathing. The blood has finally drained from his face. He raises a callused hand and rubs his jaw, the sound like the scrape of sandpaper.

“Doesn’t sound like the death of a Hun to me,” I say simply. “Sounds like one more broke-dick factory worker too dumb to see death coming for him.”

Knox’s eyes have narrowed to slits, yet I sense that he no longer sees me. Rather, he sees his father dying under the hand of a woman they both raped nearly forty years ago. Suddenly his eyes clear, and I feel the single-minded stare of a true predator upon me.

“You just signed your daddy’s death warrant,” he whispers. “Your mother’s, too. And your kid. And last of all . . . you. You’re going to watch them all die, Cage. And then, when you least expect it . . . I’ll step out of the shadows and gut you.”

In the wake of Caitlin’s death, his threats mean nothing to me. Perhaps this is a sign that my mind has come unmoored from reality.

“I’d like to do it now,” he says. “But too many people know you’re here.” His eyes suddenly flash with comprehension. “Or do they?” He raises a hand and points at me. “You came here to kill me, didn’t you? You want to cut my fucking throat. Only you can’t do it without going to jail.” A weird glint comes into his eyes. “Shit, Cage, you might just have some potential after all. Same as your old man. I guess Daddy was right. The blood never lies.”

I take a deep breath, then slide back my chair and get to my feet.

“You going somewhere?” Forrest asks.

“Yes. But you haven’t seen the last of me.”

“Oh, I know that. Well . . . there’s one thing I forgot to mention. I’d spare you, but the medical examiner’s going to tell you anyway, so I might as well enjoy it.”

Something in me rises to his goad, like iron filings to a magnet. “What are you talking about?”

Just before he answers, I feel a sickening dread that he’s going to tell me he raped Caitlin—which I could not bear. Because of her past experiences, Caitlin had a special hatred for rape, and it was an ever-present fear.

“Your fiancée was pregnant,” Forrest says. “Ain’t that a shame? You thought you just lost one person, but you lost two.”

For a moment I lose track of his voice, so loudly is my blood rushing in my ears. “How do you know that?”

“She told the nigger who killed her, when she was pleading for her life. She figured he might spare her, I guess. And the truth is, he
might’ve. He was awfully upset about shooting her when he came out of that swamp. He was talking crazy. Scared to death.”

“But you killed him,” I say in a flat voice.

Knox laughs again. “Alphonse did. Stuck a knife in his gizzard, to make sure he stayed quiet. You know what Daddy always said: a man’s worst enemy is his mouth.”

My next breath is a gasp, and I realize I haven’t breathed for so long that I’m dizzy from oxygen deprivation.

“He was right,” I whisper, more to myself than to Knox. Without looking away from his eyes, I gauge the distance to the holster hanging in the corner.
Twelve feet.
Knox’s knees are still under the desk. . . .

Two backward steps cause me to bump into the giant razorback standing on its pedestal. Turning as though surprised, I lay my hands on the shaft of the spear.

“That’s no toy,” Forrest says. “That’s a man’s weapon. You think you could kill a monster like that?”

“What do you call this thing?” I ask dully.

“A spear, or a dart. But you throw it with an atlatl, which comes from a Nahuatl word, which is Aztec.”

My eyes go once more to the pistol in the corner. It’s too far away.

“That’s gotta hurt about your girl,” Knox says with mock sympathy. “She could’ve been carrying a son. Guess you’ll never know now, unless you ask the M.E. to check.”

He’s pushing me to go for the gun
. With the speed and power of a man with everything to lose, I yank upward on the shaft of the spear. For a sickening moment the whole animal rises, and I sense Forrest aiming a gun at my back—but then the shaft slips free and I’m whirling with the gleaming black point before me.

Forrest is moving too, shoving back his chair and reaching for something below my line of sight. I lunge toward him, but the distance is too great. Then, just as his bright pistol clears the desktop, the wheeled chair skates backward and he grabs for the edge of the desk with his free hand. In that instant of uncertainty, I drive the spear into the hollow at the base of his throat. His blinding muzzle blast scorches my face, but I cling to the shaft and drive forward until the point strikes bone.

Knox’s hands fly to his throat, and his gun caroms off the wall
behind him. His eyes follow its path, but instead of chasing that pistol, he hurls his body toward the corner, reaching for the gun on the coatrack. The spear point goes with him, but the shaft remains in my hands. As his right hand closes on the holster, I twist the shaft with all my strength and jab it forward. There’s a sharp crack, then Knox drops like a puppet whose operator has snipped its strings.

His weight tugs the spear from my hands, but the threat is no more. My final thrust must have severed his spinal cord. Forrest Knox lies on his side, the spear lodged in his neck, blinking mechanically and gasping like a catfish dying on a riverbank. His gray lips are fast turning blue, and the only emotion I see in his eyes is horror.

The sound of the door behind me registers too late.

By the time I turn, Alphonse Ozan is aiming his pistol at my chest. He takes two steps into the room, far enough to see what’s happened to his boss. When he looks back at me, his eyes blaze with rage.

“You just killed a cop,” he says. “You die for that. And nobody will even question why.”

I’m weaponless, but it hardly matters. He’s got me cold. All I can think about is Annie wondering why she had to lose her father as well as her mother. But I can’t simply stand helpless and wait for his bullet.

As my legs tense to spring, a soft creak comes from behind Ozan, and he whirls. Before he can fully turn, a silver blade flashes down, slicing through his shoulder and deep into his chest. The blasts from his pistol deafen me, but the rounds blow harmlessly through the floor.

When Ozan falls, I see Walt Garrity standing framed in the doorway behind him. He looks as dazed as a sleepwalker awakened in the midst of traffic. The curved blade of the
katana
jutting from Ozan’s back pulses for a few seconds, then goes still.

“Walt! Are you okay?”

“Is Knox dead?”

Forrest’s eyes are closed, his face gray.

“He’s dead.”

“Come on, then.” Walt beckons me forward. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“What’s the point? There’s no running from this.”

He starts to reply, but then he touches the back of his head. When his hand comes away, I see blood. Lots of it.

“Ozan hit me with his pistol,” he explains. “I’m foggy, Penn. We’ve got to move.” Walt rolls Ozan over, wipes down the hilt of the sword with his shirttail, then pulls me to the door. “Did they take anything that belongs to you?”

“I didn’t bring anything but my gun.”

“Find it. I’m going to do what I can in here.”

As I hunt through the main room, Walt calls from the study: “I saw game cameras on my way in. Mounted on trees. I avoided them, and I took the memory cards on the ones I saw. We’ll just have to hope I got them all.”

At last I find my .357 in the drawer of a maple cabinet. “We can’t get away clean on this,” I shout. “You need a hospital.”

The old Ranger marches out of the study and grabs my shirt front, his eyes wild. “Listen to me, goddamn it. Think about your kid, okay? Even if Tom gets out of jail, he doesn’t have long to live. Which means you’re the only one left to take care of the women. You get it? So get your ass moving!”

“Okay,” I tell him, following toward the front door. “But you’re hurt, man. You need a doctor.”

“All that matters now is getting clear of this place. We don’t know who else might be out there.”

He stops me at the door, then opens it a crack and peers through. “We’ve got to run for it. We’ll take the car you brought and drive to mine. I’m down the drive a ways. I don’t know if anybody’s out there, but we’ve got no choice. You ready?”

“I’m right behind you.”

“If I’m hit, don’t stop. Get the hell away, and call Kaiser or Mackiever. Nobody else.”

I nod, recalling the night I told Henry Sexton something similar.

Walt shoves open the door and goes flying down the stairs with amazing speed for an old man. I leap off the porch and quickly pass him, racing for my mother’s Camry.

“Go!” he yells. “
Go, go, go! Start the car!
”

When the Camry’s engine roars to life under my hands and feet, a manic exhilaration blasts through me. Then Walt slams into the door, yanks it open, and gets in beside me. Three seconds later, we’re fishtailing down the road toward the highway.

“I’ll tell you where to stop,” he says breathlessly, one hand cupped behind his bloody head. “I’m in Pithy’s maid’s car.”

“Screw that. You’re coming home with me.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to take care of something.”

“What?”

Walt digs in his pants pocket, then opens his hand beside the steering wheel. In his palm lies a small silver key.

“What’s that?”

“I found it in Forrest’s pocket.”

“What does that fit?”

“I don’t know. But I think it may be a padlock. I mean to find out.”

“How?”

“Stop here! I’m parked right through those trees.”

I slam the brake pedal and skid to a stop near where he pointed. “You’re crazy if you go off by yourself now. You could die, Walt.”

When he shakes his head, the look in his eyes tells me it’s pointless to say another word.

“Get back to your mother, Penn. Your mother and Annie. You were never here.”

THE BLOOD WAS
still wet when Billy Knox walked into his office at Valhalla and saw his cousin lying dead in the corner with Alphonse Ozan sprawled across his legs. Billy had asked his pilot to wait down at the airstrip in case he wanted to make a swift exit, and he thanked God he had. But after the first rush of panic eased, he decided to learn what he could before running back to Texas.

Taking a small Walther from his ankle holster, Billy moved quickly through the office. The floor safes behind the desk were open—open and empty. His second instinct was to call Snake, but then it struck him that his father had been out of jail long enough to have done this himself.

Billy propped his butt on the edge of the desk he’d sat at for so many hours and stared at the sword jutting from Ozan’s back.

What’s the smart move?
he wondered.
What would Forrest do?

Then he realized that the man he’d always looked to for guidance was dead. For the first time in his life, he was truly on his own.

Before he could make any decision, he had to know whether his father was behind this or not. This desire triggered the first brilliant idea Billy had had in a long time. Keeping his pistol in his hand, he slipped out through the glass doors and trotted around to the front of the lodge, moving swiftly from tree to tree. There were eight or ten game cameras between the lodge and the main road, and at least fifty more on the larger property. But it was the ones near the drive that interested Billy.

The first three he checked had had their SD cards removed, which made him suspect Snake even more. But in the fourth camera he found a card in the slot. In the remaining six he found four more cards. There were no computers left in the lodge (Forrest had removed them prior to the FBI search), but Billy had a laptop in his bag in the plane.

Racing back to the ATV he’d ridden up from the airstrip, he cranked the engine and took off down the rocky trail that led to the bottomland where they’d graded out a runway. If luck was with him, he would soon know who had killed the most dangerous man he’d ever known.

Billy hoped to God it wasn’t his father.

I HAVEN’T BEEN
inside a jail cell since my time working as an ADA in Houston, and then it was to visit prisoners. Today I’m the inmate, and the unforgettable ambiance hurls me right back to my former career in Houston. I’m sitting on a plastic-coated mattress on the lower bunk of an eight-by-ten cell. The chemical tang of disinfectant can’t mask the reek of mildew, urine, old vomit, and worse things. The toilet is a stainless steel hole with no seat, and I wouldn’t sit directly on it for a thousand dollars. The scarred walls have been scrubbed and painted countless times, but there’s no shortage of artwork. Above a childlike drawing of a massive phallus entering exaggerated labia lined with teeth, a recent occupant scrawled the encouraging missive
Im goin home, but YOUR fucked!

From the mouths of babes.

The Adams County Sheriff’s Department was waiting for me when I finally drove up to my house on Washington Street. The deputies didn’t even let me go to the door before hauling me the six blocks to the jail. Mom and Annie ran out onto the porch as they handcuffed me and forced me into the back of a cruiser, and I could hear Annie’s screams through the glass.

All I remember of the drive home from Valhalla is forty miles of oak and pecan and pine trees covering the rolling land. A few times I flashed back to Forrest Knox lying in the corner of his study like a bag of bones, but I felt no emotion. I now believe I was slowly decompressing from a state of mind that attorneys used to call “irresistible impulse.” At one time this principle was an important component of the insanity defense. Essentially, it was a way for sane people to plead diminished capacity, by arguing that even though they knew the difference between right and wrong, they could not have restrained themselves from killing. It was sometimes called the “policeman at the elbow” defense. In other
words, if I would have killed my victim even with a policeman standing at my elbow, then surely I could not be responsible for my actions. After John Hinckley was declared not guilty by reason of insanity, most states threw out this component of the defense, and it’s a shame. Because I’m a living argument for the validity of that statute.

It was the memory of Walt Garrity that reawakened my emotions: faithful Walt, who despite being badly wounded had insisted on going God knows where to check out the key he’d found in Forrest’s pocket. As he drove away from me, the silver Lincoln he’d borrowed from Pithy Nolan’s maid had weaved all over the road, but then he got the car centered in a lane and disappeared over the hill.

After I reached Natchez, I drove aimlessly around the city, much the way I once had as a teenager. I drove down Broadway and paused in front of Edelweiss, the house that Caitlin will never live in. I suppose I was waiting for some insight, or even a blind impulse to push me in a particular direction. But none came. Walt was right: my only real choice, other than to turn myself in for murder, was to go home.

And there I found Billy Byrd’s welcoming committee. The speed with which they identified me as Forrest’s killer was impressive, and during the booking process Byrd lost no time bragging about what had gone down. Forrest Knox’s cousin Billy had flown into the Valhalla airstrip from Texas and discovered the bodies shortly after Walt and I left the camp. After calling the Lusahatcha County sheriff (yet another Billy, albeit Billy
Ray
), Billy Knox got the idea of checking the deer cameras strapped to pine trees on the Valhalla property. Several had missing SD cards, but in one Billy found not only a card, but also a photograph of me. The photo was dated and time-stamped, which definitively placed me at the scene of the crime near the time the two men were killed. Sheriff Ellis immediately issued an APB for first-degree murder, and based on this, Sheriff Byrd had started combing Adams County for me. Since I drove straight home, more or less, I was an easy catch.

I’m surprised that Shadrach Johnson hasn’t come up to my cell to gloat, but perhaps Shad senses that right now, any punch he lands on me will strike an anesthetized man. Better to wait until the awful reality of my situation has sunk fully into my soul.

My prospects are grim indeed. When I tore out of Clayton, Louisiana, bent on confronting Forrest Knox, I laid my daughter’s future
down on the green felt of God’s roulette table and spun the wheel. So long as that wheel remained spinning, I felt the wild rush of seizing fate in my hands and twisting it to my purpose. When I impaled Forrest on his own spear (and Walt spirited me away from the scene of the crime), the gleaming ball appeared to drop into my chosen color: black. But at the last possible moment—thanks to forces beyond my control—that ball skipped over into a red slot. Now, less than one hour later, I’m locked behind bars, the remainder of my life held in escrow.

Sheriff Byrd gave me my own cell, something I know enough to appreciate even in my deadened mental state. At best, cell mates are an irritating annoyance; at worst, they’re sociopaths who will beat you, rape you, kill you, or provoke you to murder in self-defense. My block has six cells, five of which hold two or more men, a mixture of blacks and whites. Most are here on drug charges, but two have been charged with armed robbery, and one—the lone Mexican—with murdering his wife. My father isn’t housed on this block, and for that I’m grateful. I have no desire to see him now. According to a man two cells down from me, Dad was here for a while, but they transferred him out half an hour before I was brought to my cell. To my knowledge, Walt has not been arrested or even found, so perhaps the deer camera didn’t capture his presence at Valhalla.

A harsh buzz announces that the block door is about to open, and with a low clang, it does. A big black deputy enters and walks slowly down the line of cells as though checking for mischief. The closed-circuit TV system monitoring the cellblock doesn’t show every inch of every cell.

“What you lookin’ at, mook?” he challenges someone down the block. “Lemme see them hands. Both of ’em! Thass right.”

He moves steadily up the block, getting closer to me.

“Miss Francine say we gon’ have chicken and greens tonight, boys. What you think about that? Maybe even a biscuit for every man this time.”

The whoops and hollers that greet this news tell me fried chicken and biscuits is a rare treat in these environs. As excited conversation breaks out, the deputy pauses in front of my cell and focuses heavy-lidded eyes on me.

“Come here,” he says. “Move.”

I get up from my cot and shuffle warily toward the bars, expecting some kind of taunt. But when I near him, the guard whispers, “I got a message for you. Quentin say don’t say nothing to nobody, no matter what they tell you. He’ll be up here soon as he can.”

My pulse kicks up several beats. “Who told you that?”

“Mr. Q.,” he whispers.

I start to ask the deputy for more detail, but before my first word emerges, he bellows, “I can’t do nothin’ ’bout that, dumbass! I don’t care if you the governor’s
brother
!”

For emphasis, he whangs the bars of my cell with his billy club and marches back toward the door, mumbling, “Man wants to see his kid. Everybody
up
in this motherfucker got kids.”

“No shit!” shouts someone down the block. “Who that motherfucker think he is? The president?”

“He be Dr. Cage’s son,” says a wiseass voice. “Little Lord Fuckleroy.”

Scattered laughter reverberates through the cells. Then another voice says, “He’s the mayor, man. I guess his power don’t quite extend to the
jail,
though.”

“I guess it don’t!” hollers someone else, as the block door clangs shut.

I walk back to my cot and sit, hoping to lessen my silhouette in the consciousness of my jail mates.

So . . . Quentin Avery has enough juice to send me covert messages via Billy Byrd’s own deputies. I shouldn’t be surprised. Quentin has contacts all over the South. If I asked about this, he would only laugh and say something about the “soul-brother network” or something similar. And I have no doubt that the black deputy feels far more allegiance to Quentin than to a redneck like Billy Byrd, despite working for Byrd. If he’d passed me a more substantive message, I might doubt its authenticity. But “don’t say nothin’ to nobody” is the first law of the jailhouse, and I’m surprised Quentin felt he needed to send that advice to a former assistant district attorney. Then it hits me: if Quentin felt he needed to tell me that, then he seriously doubts my present mental state.

Maybe he should,
says a voice in my head.
You couldn’t have fucked up much worse than you did.

But once Forrest told me what he did about Caitlin, I had no choice in what followed. I don’t think I even made a conscious decision to kill him. At some level I realized that Caitlin had known she was pregnant
but had decided to spare me that pain by omitting that information from her last message to me. And in some unquantifiable fraction of time after that realization flashed through my brain, every nerve and muscle fiber in my body fired.

The buzz and clang of the cellblock door don’t signify anything at first, or else I think it’s my imagination. But then the clack of expensive shoe heels sounds between the cells, and Shadrach Johnson appears before my cubicle.

“How are you doing, Mayor?” he asks, straightening the lapels of his expensive suit.

I remain on my cot and say nothing. Whatever Shad has to tell me will be calculated to hurt me in some way, so I might as well sit and take it and give him the least possible amount of pleasure during the process.

“I just gave a press conference on the courthouse steps,” he announces. “Two Jackson TV stations were there, a half-dozen print reporters, and producers from the BET network and Court TV.”

“Congratulations. Next stop, CNN.”

“With any luck. Anyway, I informed those outlets that the prosecution of your father for the murder of Viola Turner will proceed as scheduled in three months. March first on the court docket—just in time for Spring Pilgrimage.”

Despite my familiarity with Shad’s boundless ambition, this surprises me. “I thought my father had been placed in protective custody by the FBI.”

Shad gives me a knowing look. “I don’t know what kind of strings you pulled with the Bureau, but we both know that they can’t grant him immunity on a state murder charge. They may find some way to shake him and Garrity loose from that dead state trooper, but not even the president can make Viola Turner go away.”

“So you’re a happy man. I really appreciate you coming by with the bad news.”

The DA shrugs. “I wanted you to hear it from me first. This is going to be a high-profile case, Penn. Historic.”

“Maybe you can kick-start your mayoral campaign for the special election they’ll be having after they throw me out.”

Shad snorts with what sounds like derision. “I’ll be shooting a lot higher than that, after this case is over. But that brings up the real
reason I came. The Lusahatcha DA will probably want to try you in his county. Since they’re in our judicial district, you’d normally get one of our circuit judges. But since you know them all so well, the attorney general will probably bring in an outside judge. My office could prosecute your case, but I haven’t yet decided whether to take it on. Given our history, the AG may decide to appoint a special prosecutor.”

“That must really rankle, Shad. You’d probably rather convict me than my father.”

He looks philosophical. “A week ago, I’d have said yes. But given the issues in your father’s case? No. You killed a dirty cop who’s going to be looking like a world-class dirt bag by tomorrow. I’m happy to leave you to the special prosecutor. By the way, my condolences on Caitlin’s passing.”

I can’t tell if he’s feeding on my pain or hoping I’ll give him some sort of absolution. “Seriously?” I whisper. “You do realize that if you hadn’t grabbed onto Lincoln Turner’s accusation and turned it into a three-ring circus, she’d still be alive?”

“That’s absurd,” he snaps, but he knows it’s true. “Caitlin was killed by her own ambition. You know that as well as I do.”

“Get out of here, Shad. While you still can.”

His dark face cycles through several changes of expression I can’t quite read. Then he says, “I have something else to tell you, but you’ll have to come closer if you want to hear it.”

He’s worried about the closed-circuit cameras. “Not interested,” I tell him.

“It’s about Forrest Knox and your father.”

Forrest and my father . . .
What could Shad know about Knox and my father? Whatever it is, I’d rather find out now than sit here wondering about it for the next few hours. After a long sigh, I get to my feet and move up to the bars. Shad’s eyes become clearer as I get closer, and in them I see a strange, hyperexcited light.

“I’m telling you this,” he says in a near whisper, “because you’re one of the few southern white males I’ve met who’s capable of appreciating irony. Two days ago, Forrest Knox came to me and told me he was either going to kill your father or let him go free. If Dr. Cage went free, he said, I was to drop all charges and leave the crime unsolved. If I didn’t, Knox would destroy me. I don’t know if that bastard had the power to do it, but he talked like he did.”

Shad’s eyes flicker in the shadows between us. He’s watching me for signs of emotion. “Do you see?” he whispers. “If you’d let Forrest live today, I’d have had no choice but to drop the charges against your father. And
you would never have been charged with killing him
. That almost beggars belief, doesn’t it?”

I can tell from Shad’s voice that he’s telling the truth. And what he said fits with what I know. Forrest probably went to see Shad before he offered me the deal for my father’s safety. He wanted to be sure the district attorney could and would kill the case against Dad. Which means that Forrest meant to stand by that deal, if he believed I could compromise my principles and do the same. This terrible irony sinks into me like the spear I drove into Forrest’s throat, and this time I can’t hide the pain.

Shad’s eyes devour my anguish the way death row convicts in solitary drink in their allotted hour of sunlight. “Strange, isn’t it?” he asks. “I’ve dedicated so many hours to paying you back in kind, and in the end I didn’t have to do anything. You’ve destroyed yourself. It’s positively
Greek,
isn’t it?”