The Bone Tree (45 page)

CAITLIN WAS WORKING
alone in her office when Jordan Glass knocked, then slipped inside with two go-cups from Hammer’s Drive-Thru in Vidalia.

“Vodka and cranberry,” she said. “You up for it?”

Caitlin hesitated, suddenly remembering her pregnancy, but a perverse instinct, combined with her deep anxiety, made her reach for the sweating plastic cup with the colored umbrella sticking out of it.

“How’d your errand work out?” Jordan asked.

“Awful and wonderful at the same time, I’d say. Does that make sense?”

“In my experience, it’s always that way. Nearly every great photo I ever shot cost me dearly, one way or another.”

“This is costing me, all right. I’ve never been as torn about something as I am tonight.”

“Should we go back to the ladies’ room?”

“No need. I just had this room swept by someone who knows what he’s doing.”

“Good. So . . .” Jordan slid into the seat opposite Caitlin’s desk. “You’re holding things back, right?”

Caitlin hesitated, then nodded.

“From John and the Bureau? Or from Penn?”

“From everybody.”

Jordan turned up her palms. “Well, that’s the job, isn’t it? At least until it’s time to publish. The question is, who and what gets hurt by you holding back? Is it just a matter of bruised male pride? Or will trust be damaged long term? Are you risking someone’s life by withholding information?”

“I honestly don’t know. I’m definitely risking Penn’s trust. As for the rest . . . haven’t we all been at risk from the moment we took on the
Double Eagles? After what I saw last night, how do you even gauge the risk? You know the stakes in this story. How much risk is justified?”

“I’m afraid only you can answer that. Or your loved ones, if you wind up getting killed.”

Caitlin looked deeply into the photographer’s eyes. “John did something that really shook your faith in him, didn’t he?”

Jordan took a deep breath and sighed. “Yes. It was an end-justifies-the-means kind of problem.”

“I can relate.” Caitlin drank her first swallow of vodka, puckering from the cold sting. “Right now I’ve got a problem with conflicting promises. To keep one, I have to break another. The question is, do I keep the one to my future husband, because he is my future husband? Or do I keep the one that I feel is right?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“Do I?” She thought of Tom and Melba hiding in the forest in Jefferson County. “The thing is, the path I think is right could lead to disaster. Unforgivable disaster.”

Glass rattled the ice in her cup. “You’re in a war. There are going to be casualties. The real question is motive. What is it you’re working in service of? Justice? The truth? Revenge for Henry Sexton? Or is it just the story?”

“All the above. But the story means a lot to me, I won’t lie about that.”

Jordan smiled knowingly. “No need, girl, not with me. But I warn you, not everyone else will be sympathetic to that choice.”

Caitlin sagged in her chair. “I know.”

“You told me you had a plan for tomorrow. A lead of your own. Are you still going to follow through with that?”

“Will my answer leave this room?”

Jordan gave her a conspiratorial shake of the head. “Not via me. Scout’s honor.”

“Were you a Girl Scout?”

“For about five minutes. Oxford, Mississippi.”

Caitlin laughed, and the laughter felt good. “I can’t believe it.”

“I can build a fire in the rain like
that,
” Jordan said, snapping her fingers. “That’s what I got out of that experience.”

“Good thing to know.”

“It saved my ass more than once.” Jordan hung her hands over her knees and leaned forward. “So are you up for company on this quest of yours?”

Caitlin sipped her vodka to hide her expression. The plain truth was, she needed somebody with her on tomorrow’s trip. She’d promised Henry Sexton she wouldn’t go into the Lusahatcha Swamp alone, and she’d be a fool if she did. Yet some juvenile compulsion urged her not to tell a soul about her trip. The lure of whatever Henry had called Frank Knox’s “insurance” against Carlos Marcello made her heart beat faster, and she swallowed some more vodka. Then, before she could second-guess herself, she said, “Be here at five thirty tomorrow morning if you really want to know. If we find what I’m hoping to find, you’ll be hanging another Pulitzer on your wall.”

Jordan waved her hand dismissively. “I’m over that crap, honey. But I’d like to see you get a second one. That’s when you know you’ve proved yourself.”

Caitlin couldn’t help but grin.

“The only problem,” Jordan said, “is my Havana trip. I need to get to the New Orleans airport by four thirty
P.M
. Can I go with you and still make that?”

Caitlin nodded. “The place we’re going is south of here, so it’s on the way. I can ride with you, then call one of my reporters to pick me up while you drive on to New Orleans.”

Jordan tilted her head and pursed her lips in thought. “I know of two interesting things south of here. The Lusahatcha Swamp and the Valhalla hunting camp.”

Caitlin ignored this bait. “What are you going to tell John?”

Jordan looked into her drink and thought about it. “That I got an earlier flight to Havana. The Castro brothers can’t wait to see me again.”

“Again?”

“I met Fidel about twenty years ago, and he flirted shamelessly with me.”

Caitlin laughed, wondering what it would be like to move in Jordan’s journalistic circles.

“John will want to send an escort with me, so I may have to get creative.”

Caitlin drank off the last of her drink. Then, emboldened by the
alcohol buzz, she asked, “Did John say anything about his meeting with Dwight and Penn?”

The photographer shook her head. “John’s still at Dwight’s hotel. I think he’s afraid Dwight won’t survive tomorrow’s surgery. And even if he does, he’s facing a liver transplant.”

Caitlin shut her eyes, trying to push away premature grief. “God, I hate that. Dwight’s one of the good guys. Maybe that’s why Penn was so upset tonight.”

“What do you mean?”

“He kind of flipped out earlier. He tried to pick a fight with Sheriff Byrd, and there was no real reason to do it. Something had pushed him to a place where he was ready to lash out, regardless of the consequences.”

“You couldn’t find out what it was?”

Caitlin shook her head. “He wasn’t in the mood to answer questions. We made love, and he worked his anger out that way. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever seen him this tense.”

Jordan looked thoughtful. “John, too, in his own way. I’ll tell you something you might find interesting. John gave me a couple of questions to ask Fidel if he shows up at the shoot.”

A fillip of excitement went through Caitlin. “Seriously? About what?”

“The Kennedy assassination. What else?”

Caitlin’s pulse picked up and stayed there. “Jordan, what the hell’s going on? Are they really close to breaking new information about the assassination?”

“I don’t know. John’s pretty good at his job, and Dwight’s no slouch.”

“What were the questions he gave you?”

Jordan winked at her. “Sorry. I can’t go that far. Even if we are partners.”

Caitlin groaned in frustration.

“I may only see Raúl, depending on Fidel’s health. Rumor is, the maximum leader is drifting toward the minimum state. But I hope I get both of them.”

“You’ll really ask Castro about the JFK assassination?”

All the levity went out of Jordan’s face. “What year were you born, Caitlin?”

“1970.”

“I was born in 1960.”

Caitlin had a feeling she knew where the photographer was headed. “Surely you don’t remember anything about President Kennedy?”

Jordan shook her head. “No. But do you know who my father was?”

“Sure. Jonathan Glass. He disappeared while on assignment in Vietnam. In . . .”

“1972,” Jordan finished. “He was actually in Cambodia, just over the Mekong River. But he started as a photojournalist at the age of twenty. He was actually in Dealey Plaza the day Kennedy was shot.”

Caitlin sat up. “Really?”

“Mm-hm. He took a famous photograph of two Secret Service agents guarding Jackie Kennedy at Parkland Hospital.”

A brief black-and-white image flashed through Caitlin’s head: the Praetorian Guard and their widowed queen. Caitlin no longer knew where Jordan was going.

“Daddy wasn’t home much when I was growing up,” Glass said. “He was always on assignment somewhere, from Asia to the Congo. But after that day in Dallas, he came home to Oxford and stayed almost a month. All he did was drink. I remember him lying on the couch, stinking of gin, unshaven, his eyes glued to the TV while the phone rang and rang. I asked my mother about it when I was older, and she said everything I described was accurate. She also told me that he’d been within two hundred feet of the limo when Kennedy was shot. I don’t know exactly what he saw . . . but whatever it was wounded him in some way. We’re talking about one of the best war photographers in the world, remember—a man who’d seen everything. But something went out of him that day. He was collateral damage of those gunshots. Daddy was no gullible romantic; he was as cynical as they come. But he’d believed in Kennedy and the possibilities he represented.”

Jordan stared into her cup as if at a screen playing footage from her past. “When I was older, I found a cache of pictures from that trip. JFK and Jackie getting off the plane, the president speaking at the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth the previous day. Daddy didn’t save many prints, but he kept those. And every shot communicated either resolve or optimism, which definitely wasn’t what he usually memorialized on film.”

Caitlin expected the story to go on, or to end with some insight or
revelation, but Jordan simply stopped speaking. As she stared into the cup, Caitlin said, “Did you ever get to ask him about it?”

Jordan shook her head. “He’d already been missing for four years when I discovered the pictures. I found out a few years ago that he survived his wound and lived on until 1979. Over there. But I never saw him again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. He wasn’t the same man. I doubt he even remembered me.” At last Jordan looked up, her jaw set tight. “As for your question . . . yes, I will ask Fidel Castro John’s questions. This new line of inquiry could be bullshit, but somehow I don’t think so. And if I can help get to the truth, then I intend to.” Jordan reached out and set her empty cup on Caitlin’s desk. “Do you keep any vodka at the office?”

Caitlin shook her head. “Sorry.”

“That’s a tragedy.”

Caitlin smiled, but her brain was racing. As soon as Jordan left, she was going to get out Henry’s letter and journals and highlight every fragment of information about John and Robert Kennedy, Carlos Marcello, Marcello’s contacts with Brody Royal, and the “insurance” Frank Knox had kept to protect himself against Marcello. Perhaps most tantalizing of all was Snake Knox’s statement to Morehouse that the “insurance” document had been written in Russian. Something told Caitlin that while she’d been focused on the civil rights murders that had preoccupied Henry Sexton for so many years, the real story had been unfolding at a much deeper level.

“We’d better get some sleep,” she said. “We’re pulling out before dawn.”

Jordan closed her eyes for a moment, then stood and zipped her jacket. “Maybe I can get to sleep before John gets back to the hotel. I don’t fancy a long night of lying.”

“But you’ll do it if necessary?”

Glass gave her a crooked smile. “Same as you, right?”

TOM AWAKENED IN
a fog of pain and terror. A swarm of black, insectile faces hovered above him, peering down as if they meant to devour him any second. He fought to get off his back, but a flurry of strong hands pressed him back down. When his eyes adjusted to the backlighting, he saw one human face in the alien crowd. A boy, earnest and sweating, leaning over his left shoulder. The boy was working on his gunshot wound.

A syringe floated into his field of view, then stung his shoulder. Blessed relief washed through him. He hadn’t realized how painful his wound had been until the local anesthetic took effect. With relief from pain, his surroundings took on more detail. An IV line ran fluids into his right wrist. For a few seconds he wondered if he was in some kind of ambulance, but then he remembered that the black masks belonged to a SWAT team—the same killers who had broken into Quentin’s house and shot Melba.

“Melba,” he croaked.

“Don’t try to talk,” the boy advised. “You’re severely dehydrated, and your heart’s in bad shape. Let me take care of this wound.”

“Is she dead?”

“What’s he saying?” asked one of the masked faces.

“I think he’s asking about the nurse,” answered another.

“Don’t worry about her,” said the first man. “She’s fine.”

They’re lying,
Tom thought.
Melba’s dead.

He jerked as the boy medic probed flesh that was not quite numb. Then his stomach rolled as the chopper began to descend rapidly. He wanted to ask the boy a question, but it kept drifting out of his head, like a flashlight fading into darkness. Then all was night once more.

“IS MELBA ALIVE OR DEAD?”

“Does it matter what I say? You won’t believe me either way.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“She’s fine, Doc. They just darted her, same as they did you.”

Hope flamed in Tom’s chest, but he tamped it down, wary of being manipulated.

VOICES IN THE DARK
.

One more powerful than the others . . .
An officer being deferred to by noncoms and enlisted men.

This time Tom kept his eyes closed.

“What’s his status?” asked the officer’s voice.

“He needs to be in a hospital, Colonel. No shit. We’re lucky that dart didn’t stop his heart.”

“What about his bullet wound?”

“I pumped him full of antibiotics. If his heart doesn’t give out, he should be okay for a couple of days. But he’s also diabetic. Somebody needs to be checking his sugar regularly.”

“For the next twelve hours, that’s your job. Clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Give me a minute with him. Then we’ll move him out of the chopper.”

There was a shuffle of boots on metal, and then someone squatted on his haunches beside Tom. Tom heard the knees creak.

“Hey, Doc,” said the officer. “You can quit playing possum. I got your message. If you want to make a deal, open your eyes.”

Tom did.

He saw a dark, intense face and a deformed ear that barely qualified as one at all, in the cosmetic sense. Beneath the face he saw a lieutenant colonel’s oak leaves on the epaulettes of a state trooper’s uniform. The uniform threw Tom back to the borrow pits, and Walt killing the trooper beside the van.

“Do you know who I am?” asked the man.

“I don’t recognize you. But I’m guessing you’re Frank Knox’s son.”

The trooper smiled. “That’s right. Forrest Knox.”

“What happened to the ear? War wound?”

Knox looked almost pleased by Tom’s frankness. “Lost it in the Vietnamese Highlands.”

“You didn’t want to fix it?”

Knox shrugged. “I like keeping the civilians off balance. You know?”

Tom didn’t answer. He knew the type all too well.

“So, you want to make a deal,” Forrest said.

“That’s right.”

“You offering to guarantee I stay squeaky clean if I can get you out of hot water on this cop killing? Is that about it?”

“Not just that. I want you to close the Viola Turner murder, too.”

Forrest nodded as though intrigued. “I suppose you didn’t kill her?”

“That no longer matters. The only question now is who gets blamed for it.”

Forrest smiled. “You have a suggestion?”

“I say blame the dead. Easiest for everybody.”

Now Knox grinned. “A man after my own heart. I like that plan, Doc.”

“So what do you think?”

Knox shifted his weight onto his haunches. “I think I need to get in touch with your son. The problem is, I can’t find him.”

“I don’t know where he is,” Tom said. “And vice versa. Safer that way.”

“Maybe up till now. But the thing is, Doc, while I trust your motives—and your follow-through, up to a point—your word doesn’t mean a damn thing if you can’t call off your son and his fiancée at the newspaper. Right?”

“I can do that. I talked to Caitlin tonight.”

“And she said she’ll drop the story?”

Tom tried to hold his facial expression neutral. “She’s open to it. I think Penn and I together can persuade her.”

“I hope so, Doc. For your sake.” Forrest leaned down over him, his gaze disturbingly intimate. “My daddy always liked you, Doc. He respected what you did in Korea. Do you remember him?”

Tom let himself think back to the early sixties. “I remember Frank, all right.”

“Nothing good to say, though? Even now?”

“We were more different than alike.”

Forrest grinned again. “No doubt about that.” He raised his hand and tapped his forefinger hard on Tom’s forehead. “I’d hate to have to hurt you, Doc. I really would. I remember you giving me my football
physicals back in the day. But if you and your boy can’t straighten out that Masters cunt before she goes too far . . . she’s gonna pull the same train Viola Turner did back in ’68. Only she won’t come out of it alive.”

While Tom tried to suppress his memory of Viola’s wrecked state after those events, Knox signaled through the chopper’s wide hatch. “Let’s get him out!”

Three masked SWAT team members clambered through the hatch. Forrest moved aside so they could slide Tom onto a stretcher. They lifted him easily, then manhandled him through the door and out under the starry sky.

Tom smelled the stink of old crude oil and the sticky mud some men called gumbo. Turning his head to the right, he saw the long black arm of a pumping unit rising and falling like a black bird drinking from a puddle, the cyclic hum of its engine strangely comforting in the dark.

“Oil field,” he murmured, as the men carried him through the night.

“Yep,” Forrest said from above him. “Brody Royal owned this land, but he won’t have much use for it now. There’s an old well-checker’s shack through the trees. I was going to leave you there, but considering your present condition, I think we’ll give you the better alternative.”

Tom followed Knox’s pointing hand.

Parked in the dark about forty yards from the well was Walt Garrity’s silver Roadtrek van. They must have sent someone to collect it from Drew’s lake house garage.

“Where’s Walt?” Tom asked.

“I was hoping you could tell me that.”

Tom shook his head. “I lost touch with him a long time ago.”

“Come on, Doc. You’re going to make me doubt you’ll stand by any deal.”

Tom felt angina tighten the muscles of his back as they neared the big van. Forrest opened the Roadtrek’s rear doors. The sound made Tom think of Walt threatening Sonny Thornfield in this van only two nights ago. How swiftly the tables had turned. The stretcher banged against the van, and he tensed against the pain.

“Hold it,” Forrest said, and then he leaned over Tom once more. “You were with my daddy when he died, right?”

Tom nodded, wondering where this was going.

“Did he say anything at the end? I was only sixteen, and nobody
ever mentioned any last words. But Snake said Daddy was in and out of consciousness when they took him to your office, and I’ve always wondered.”

Tom shut his eyes and saw Frank Knox gasping on the floor of the little surgery room as his blood poured onto the tile and the air embolism hit his heart like a sledgehammer. For the first time in his life, Tom took pleasure in the memory.

“No,” Tom said, opening his eyes. “He passed out when I started working on him, and never regained consciousness. Frank was tough, but his injuries were catastrophic.”

Forrest stared into Tom’s eyes for a few seconds, then nodded slowly. “That’s what I figured.”

Tom heard the men holding the stretcher breathing harder.

“I’ve gone out on a limb for you, Doc. The easiest thing would have been to take you down and hang Viola around your neck. I hope your son wants you back as bad as I’d like to see my daddy. If he doesn’t, this RV’s gonna wind up at the bottom of the river. And you’re gonna be in it.”

Forrest gave the stretcher-bearers a hand signal, then walked away. Tom felt a hitch as the SWAT troopers lifted the stretcher high, then slid him into the tomblike darkness of the van.