The Bone Tree (16 page)

I’M STANDING IN
the third-floor bedroom of Edelweiss, the historic house I bought for Caitlin as a wedding present, looking down at my daughter’s sleeping face. There’s just enough light leaking through the cypress shutters to illuminate Annie’s profile against her pillow. I’ve done this hundreds of times in my life. The nights I remember most were those after Annie’s mother was diagnosed with cancer—immediately after getting the news, of course, and then later, after her treatments had failed, and hope failed with them. On those desolate nights, I stared down at my three-year-old daughter and shivered in the strangling grip of mortality, forced to accept that all my hope, faith, strength, intelligence, friends, and money could not even slow the progression of the disease that would take Annie’s mother from her and leave me to do a job for which I felt completely unprepared.

Now, eight years later, having brought Annie through that most terrible of traumas, I feel almost as helpless as I was then. Only this time it’s not an illness I’m fighting, but my father. The man who guided me through most of my life has vanished, leaving chaos and death in his wake, and I am all but powerless to save him. For now, I must focus on protecting the rest of our family. Thinking back on what Kaiser told me about the lethality of Forrest Knox, I’m thankful for this German chalet perched on the bluff above Silver Street and the Mississippi River.
Whenever possible, hide in plain sight,
a wise friend once advised me. Since I kept this purchase secret from everyone but my mother, it has proved to be a serviceable safe house. How strange it is to remember that if Viola Turner hadn’t died early Monday morning, I would be giving Caitlin a key to Edelweiss next Friday—probably with a huge ribbon and bow tied around the massive doors. Now I have no idea when we might be married. In the meantime, my mother and daughter hide here like witnesses in a Mafia trial.

The route I took here from City Hall is testament to the gravity of our situation. First I drove to Walmart and purchased a half-dozen prepaid cell phones. Then I drove through several residential subdivisions, doubling back often to be sure I wasn’t being followed. As I did, I pondered all John Kaiser had told me outside City Hall. The FBI agent’s goal had been to recruit me to the cause of persuading Dad to give himself up to the Bureau, not for my father’s safety, but so that he might reveal to Kaiser whatever he might know about Carlos Marcello. To be fair, he wasn’t the only one with selfish motives. I had hoped to persuade Kaiser to organize a search of the Lusahatcha Swamp, with its object the elusive Bone Tree, and whatever dead bodies lay in its shadow. Such a large-scale effort would have kept him out of my and Sheriff Dennis’s way while we moved against the Knoxes’ meth operations tomorrow. But once I realized that Kaiser’s primary focus had become tying the Double Eagles to the Kennedy assassination, I knew the Bone Tree gambit would have been a waste of breath.

A shadow passes the crack of the bedroom door, then pauses to hover there.
My mother.
She’s floating outside in the maternal holding pattern all women learn after they have children, one that serves them well after grandchildren come along. When I arrived tonight, I found Mom asleep in the chair next to this bed, her hand on a .38 revolver half covered by a crocheted comforter she brought from home to keep Annie surrounded by familiar things. She did not wake until I knelt before her, laid my hand flat over the pistol, and gently touched her shoulder.

Seeing my burned cheek and smelling the smoke on me, she asked what had happened. I assured her that Caitlin and I were all right, and that we’d learned nothing more about Dad’s whereabouts or well-being. Then I gave her an abbreviated summary of what had transpired at Brody Royal’s house. I could tell that my description of Henry Sexton’s death shook her deeply, but she insisted I go downstairs to the newly remodeled kitchen so that she could make me something to eat. I told her I would be down after a few minutes of sitting with Annie.

Mom’s appearance at the door must mean that the food is ready. If so, I’ve been up here longer than I thought. Not wanting to wake Annie, I leave her without a kiss, then join Mom in the hall. She’s holding a drink that looks like a gin and tonic, my tranquilizer of choice when I need one.

“Yours or mine?” I ask.

She holds out the sweating glass. “Yours. It’s strong. Knock-you-nekkid strong. You need it.”

I take a large swallow of the bittersweet mixture, then follow her down to the kitchen, where a plate of scrambled eggs, grits, and toast awaits me. Picking up the plate, I motion for Mom to join me on the sofa in the sparsely furnished sitting room opposite the kitchen. She folds her legs beneath her to keep her feet from the cold floor and watches with maternal satisfaction as I devour the food.

Without makeup, my mother looks closer to her actual age, seventy-one, but even with silver hair and her slightly fallen face, she looks younger than her contemporaries with all their plastic surgery, makeup, and expensive dye jobs. Long before Caitlin’s father bought the
Examiner,
an editor of that paper wrote that when he heard the word
class,
he thought of Peggy Cage. “One part Donna Reed, one part Maureen O’Hara, with a sprinkle of Audrey Hepburn,” the journalist described her, and he wasn’t far wrong. My mother has aged with rare grace, having settled into a fine handsomeness befitting her age and station. Peggy Cage didn’t come from money; she came from a dirt farm in central Louisiana, not far from the land that produced Frank and Snake Knox. But you would never know it to speak to her.

As I finish the meal she prepared, I sense an expectant tension in her. A strange emotion has animated her face. It almost looks like excitement.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I’ve got something to show you, Penn. While I was waiting for you to come downstairs, I checked my e-mail. I’ve been doing it every fifteen minutes since Annie and I got here.”

“Mom, I told you not to do anything like that.”

“Oh, fiddle. I had to, and you’ll be glad I did. Five minutes ago, I got a message from your father.”

“What?”
The last forkful of eggs hangs suspended before my face.

She points to my notebook computer, glowing at the end of the sofa. Grabbing the device, I hit the return button to stop the screen saver. It vanishes to reveal the GUI of Mom’s AOL account, which is currently displaying a list of her old mail. In a box in the upper-right corner of her screen is a message from ENGINEERJACK1946.

“Uncle Jack?” I ask, recognizing the AOL user name of my father’s youngest brother, who lives in California.

“Yes! Read the message, and you’ll understand.”

Trying to get my heartbeat under control, I quickly skim the message.

Peggy,

A few minutes ago I received a phone call from someone who identified himself as “a friend of your big brother.” The caller told me not to mention my brother’s name during the conversation. He said that Tom had given him a message for you, which he was going to read to me, and I was to get it to you however I thought best. I called your house and got no answer, so I’m trying e-mail. The caller told me that he’d seen Tom in the flesh, and he was physically all right. I have no idea who the caller was. From traffic sounds, I’d bet he was standing at a pay phone. I don’t know what’s going on, obviously, but if there’s anything I can do, let me know, and I’ll fly in. Tell Penn to call me.

Love, Jack

Faithfully transcribed message follows:

Peg,

You’re going to hear that some people were killed tonight (Wednesday) and that Penn and Caitlin were there when it happened. It’s a tragedy, and I surely bear some guilt for it. But as far as I can learn, Penn and Caitlin are safe. I want you to know that I’m safe also. I know you’ll be worried to death, but think back to all I told you on Monday, and trust that I’m doing the right thing for our family.

Penn will be very angry. Please explain to him that while he thinks I have a choice in what I’m doing, I don’t. If we try to use the system to solve this problem, our family will suffer terribly. I have a plan to straighten all this out, and I believe it has a good chance of success. If I succeed, the charges over Viola’s death will be dropped and the matter of the state trooper taken care of. That’s the only outcome I’m willing to accept at this point. You’ll understand why later. Obviously there’s a lot I can’t tell you through this medium, but soon I’ll
explain in person. You know me, my girl. I don’t always have the answers. But I’m asking you to trust that I know best in this case.

Tell Penn I’m counting on him to keep you and Annie safe. That’s far more important than him trying to get to the bottom of this mess, which would be pointless. I hope he can protect Caitlin, but that girl goes her own way, and you can’t tell her anything. That’s why she’s good at her work. I’ll get home as soon as I can. I love you, my darling.

Tom

Long before I finish the message, I’m shaking my head in disbelief.

“Do you feel any better?” Mom asks hesitantly.

“No. Mom, I told you what happened tonight . . . who died. A Natchez cop was murdered simply for guarding the
Natchez Examiner
. He died trying to protect Caitlin and me.”

“Surely you don’t blame your father for that?”

“Yes, I blame him. Because the death of Viola Turner set all this off, and all he’s willing to say about it is, ‘Trust me, I know what I’m doing.’ People died because he made the decision to jump bail rather than remain in custody. And jumping bail led to Dad and Walt killing that state trooper.”

“You don’t really believe they did that?”

“I’m afraid I do. Out of self-defense, probably, but that won’t matter to anybody but us. The lead FBI agent in town would actually like to help Dad, but Dad’s making it very tough. It’s hard to help a man with a dead cop hanging around his neck.”

Mom draws her mouth into a tight frown. “I hate to hear you speaking against your father like this.”

“What do you expect? When Dad kept silent about Viola’s death, I told myself he was taking some kind of moral stand on euthanasia. When it looked like murder instead, Henry Sexton convinced me the Double Eagles had killed her. When Dad jumped bail, I told myself he had no choice—that we were dealing with a vendetta by the DA and a redneck sheriff, and there was a method to his madness. But
now
? People are dying every day, and Dad and Walt could be shot on sight at any moment. At the very least Dad should be calling Quentin Avery and
trying to arrange a safe surrender. But he hasn’t. If you want to know the truth, I’m starting to believe that all my faith in Dad—
all my life
—has been misplaced. That I believed in a father who only existed in my head. And yours.”

Her eyes plead for understanding. “Penn, please don’t talk that way.”

“I’m sorry. But anybody looking at what he’s done since Monday would see the actions of a guilty man. I’m starting to think Shad Johnson is right: whatever Dad did in Viola’s house, he did it to keep something buried in the past. And if it’s so bad that he can’t tell us about it, then I’m afraid that once we discover what it is—if we ever do—it
will
change our view of him.”

I’ve never seen such sadness in my mother’s eyes. Very softly, she says, “It would kill your father to know you’ve lost faith in him like this.”

“He’s broken almost every rule he ever taught me. How many chances has he had to do the right thing?”

She closes her eyes and hugs herself. “None of us is the person that others think we are. Not you, and not me. I’m not the woman you think I am.”

“Yes, you are. I know nobody’s perfect, but this goes so far beyond normal human frailty that I can’t even make sense of it.”

“That doesn’t mean there is no sense to it.” Mom’s eyes open and fix me with adamantine conviction. “All I know is the man I married. I know what he’s capable of, and what he’s not.”

“No human being can say that with certainty. Not even about a spouse.”

My mother takes my hand and speaks across the gulf of a generation. “You and Sarah were married nine years before the cancer took her. I know you loved her. But nine years isn’t that long. I’ve been married to your father since 1952. Fifty-three years. I’ve earned the right to say that I know him as well as any human being can know another. And I know this—Tom Cage is going to do the right thing no matter what. He can’t do the wrong thing. It’s not in him.”

What would it take to shake such faith? This is like trying to knock down a granite wall by talking to it. My stomach burns with resentment from holding my tongue about so many things pertaining to my father. The right thing? I want to ask. Lincoln Turner believes that he’s Dad’s son by Viola Turner—and Dad probably believes it, too. This
whole crazy nightmare may be happening because Lincoln Turner screwed up a mercy killing and Dad is covering for him. Risking all our lives because he can’t bear to watch an illegitimate son punished by the courts . . .

But I say none of that. Instead, I say, “I don’t think Dad would ever intentionally do something terrible. But he might deceive himself so badly that he wound up doing something that had terrible consequences. We’re all capable of that. And I’m not sure he could bear the idea that our image of him was going to be shattered, or even tarnished.”

My mother looks down into her lap, then takes the gin and tonic from my hand and takes two big swallows. “You’re right about that much. If Tom thought you’d begun to doubt everything he taught you as a boy . . . it would break his heart. So I want you to promise me something. If you do find him, please don’t try to browbeat the truth out of him, whatever it is. That will come in its own good time—if it’s meant to. Maybe even in a courtroom, if there’s no other way. Will you promise me that?”

I take the glass back from her and swallow some gin. “Yes,” I tell her, knowing it’s a lie. This is no time for truth. “But you’ve got to accept that you can’t help Dad by going along with his plans. His only chance now is a safe surrender into federal custody. If he contacts you again, please try to convince him of that.”