Текст книги "The Bone Tree"

Автор книги: Greg Iles

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 58 страниц)

“No.”

Caitlin held the eye contact for a few uncomfortable seconds, then went to her refrigerator for a Mountain Dew. After taking a long drink, she said, “She’s right, of course. We have been ignoring the story, and it’s no accident. I don’t like being a pawn in the political games of Shad Johnson and Billy Byrd. But . . . we have to cover it.”

“I agree. If we don’t, we look biased.”

She gave a reluctant nod. After another sip of Mountain Dew, she said, “Tom didn’t murder Viola, you know.”

“Of course not,” Jamie said, much too quickly.

“You’ll see. It may take some time, but you’ll see.”

Jamie sighed as if letting out a long-held breath. “I hope you’re right, boss.”

CHAPTER 23

AFTER LEAVING THE Concordia hospital, I checked in at City Hall and took stock of the work I’d ignored for the past three days. In the face of that, I decided to go over to the district attorney’s office and see how the events of the past twenty-four hours had affected our DA’s view of the pending murder prosecution against my father. The TV trucks parked outside the courthouse and DA’s office should have told me what to expect. After I brusquely marched through the knot of journalists, Shadrach Johnson made me wait half an hour to see him, and now I wish I hadn’t wasted my time. According to Shad, Dad has the same chance of reaching his custody alive as any other cop killer—about one in a hundred—but if he somehow survives, Shad intends to try him for Viola’s murder as though the events of the past three days have no bearing on that case. The man knows how to hold a grudge, I’ll give him that.

As I leave the DA’s office building, the cold wind brings me wide awake. I trot down the steps through the shouting reporters without a word, turning left toward City Hall, which abuts the southeast face of the courthouse. Just as I think I’ve cleared the feeding frenzy, someone catches hold of my arm. I whirl in anger, then find myself facing an elderly black woman huddling in a jacket.

“Yes, ma’am?” I say. “How can I help you?”

“Isobel Handley,” she says with a smile. “I want to know when you’re going to do something about the schools, Mayor. You got elected saying you were gonna fix ’em, but right now it’s a crying shame how few children who go into the first grade make it through the twelfth for graduation. And you’ve been in office two whole years!”

The reasons for this state of affairs are both simple and unimaginably complex, and I certainly don’t have the resources to go through them on a cold sidewalk. Not today, anyway. But conversations like this one are the daily fare of a mayor.

“I’m talking about the public schools,” the woman goes on. “Not the private white schools where the only black kids are football players.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I say hopelessly. “I’m working as hard as I can on the issue, I promise you.”

“If your little girl wasn’t in a private school, you’d work harder.”

“Mrs. Handley, I—”

“You don’t have to explain, baby, I understand. But you take a stick to them selectmen and supervisors, if you have to. That’s what they need. Sometimes I think the schools were better before integration. At least we learned the fundamentals, and we graduated knowing how to read.”

There’s no point trying to explain that I have no authority over the county supervisors or the state board of education. “Sometimes I wish I could do exactly what you suggested, Mrs. Handley. Now, you’d better get out of this cold. And Merry Christmas to you.”

At last she smiles. “You too, Mayor. God bless. And don’t pay these reporters no mind.”

I look toward the door of City Hall as I move on, hoping to avoid more conversations, but that’s too much to ask. This time it’s not a journalist or member of my constituency who buttonholes me, but John Kaiser. The FBI agent is sitting on the steps beneath the lamppost, obviously waiting for me.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I ask. “A meeting with Oliver Stone, maybe?”

He makes a sour face. “I’ve got some news for you.”

My blood quickens, more out of dread than hope. “My father?”

“No, the Double Eagles. Leo Spivey is dead.”

“Who the hell is Leo Spivey?”

“The Eagle who owned that booby-trapped warehouse. A hotel maid found his body in a room across the river. He appeared to have put a bullet through his own head. The hits just keep on coming.”

“Was it really suicide?”

“Fuck, no. Knox’s goons got him. Sheriff Dennis’s men are over there now, working the scene as a homicide. To the best of their abilities, anyway.”

“Maybe Spivey killed himself rather than be punished by Knox or his buddies.”

Kaiser shrugs. “Either way, the cause is the same. You and Dennis hit the Knoxes’ drug operations. Soon we’ll have bodies piling up everywhere.”

“I know you wanted everything to keep running nice and smooth while you worked on recruiting a star witness against Forrest, but my dad doesn’t have six months to wait on you.”

I start to move past him, but Kaiser stands and blocks my way.

“One more bit of news. Our Legat agents in Rome tracked down the serial number of the Mannlicher-Carcano from Royal’s house.”

“And?”

“It was shipped into the Port of Los Angeles in 1962, one shipment after the lot that contained Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle. Our next stop will be finding the U.S. retailer. That might take a little time, but the director’s with us now, and we’re pushing hard.”

“The director doesn’t think you’re nuts?”

“It’s pretty hard to deny physical evidence.”

“I told you earlier . . . I’m not interested.”

“And if we track that rifle to Louisiana?”

I turn up my hands in exasperation. “What do you want me to say? My only concern right now is my family. If you want to spend your time trying to crack the Kennedy case, have at it.”

“Do you feel the same way about the murders of Albert Norris, Pooky Wilson, and the others?”

“We know who killed those guys now, or who ordered the hits, anyway. Brody Royal, and he’s dead. If you want to nail Snake Knox and the other Eagles, you need to get on our side. Because Walker and I are going to be squeezing those guys’ balls before you even get your plan into first gear.”

Again I try to move past him, but Kaiser raises the flat of his right hand to my chest. “I know you don’t want to listen to me. But will you listen to Dwight Stone?”

God, is this guy pulling out the stops. “You think a phone call from Stone is going to make me reverse course on busting the Double Eagles?”

“Not a phone call. Stone’s flying in today on a Bureau jet.”

This actually stuns me. “In? Here? For what?”

“To talk to you. He’s been trying to find a way down here since Tuesday night, when I told him about the bones coming out of the Jericho Hole. He was looking into chartering a plane. But you seeing those rifles in Royal’s basement and hearing Royal say the Knoxes killed Pooky Wilson at the Bone Tree convinced the director to authorize a Bureau flight to bring Dwight down here to consult. He’s only going to be here for a few hours.”

“Why such a short stay?”

Kaiser takes a long breath. “Because he’s dying, Penn.”

A sick feeling hits me high in the stomach. “What?”

“Liver cancer.”

“I had no idea.”

“You know Dwight. Old school. A lot like your father, I imagine. He’s scheduled for an operation tomorrow. This visit is the Bureau’s way of giving back a little of the respect Hoover took when he fired Stone in ’72. Before Dwight goes under the knife.”

“Goddamn it, John. When’s he coming in?”

“He ought to be here by six P.M. Can you spare him an hour of your time?”

Kaiser’s revelations are almost too much to process quickly.

“The way I heard it,” he says, “it was Stone who made it possible for you to solve the Delano Payton case seven years ago.”

I nod. “He did more than that. Stone saved my life up in Colorado.”

“So will you come by?”

I have no choice, and Kaiser knows it. “Yeah. But only because it’s him. I think you guys are crazy to believe those rifles are real.”

“The evidence will tell, one way or the other.”

“What does he want to ask me, John? He’s not going to change my mind about anything.”

“I don’t know. I doubt any man alive knows more about the JFK case than Dwight and his colleagues. He was posted in Mississippi and Louisiana multiple times during the sixties, so there’s no telling what he might know about the Double Eagles, Carlos Marcello, or even your father. I suspect Dwight wants to give you the Working Group’s theory of how what happened in Dealey Plaza grew out of Louisiana. Once you hear that, you might be as reluctant as we are to jeopardize any chance of achieving justice in that case.”

“Does Dwight understand the jeopardy my father’s in now?”

“Of course. And he’s trying to convince the director that Dr. Cage should be brought under Bureau protection as a witness in the Kennedy investigation.”

I should have known Dwight would be doing what he could for me. “What are the chances of that happening?”

“Better with Dwight involved. But I won’t lie to you. No sane FBI director wants a public battle with a state police agency over a reputed cop killer, especially with the legal grounds for protective custody being the JFK assassination. That’s a publicity nightmare. The point is, Stone’s doing all he can to help your father. So am I.”

I restrain my temper with some difficulty. “If you really were, you wouldn’t ask me to waste an hour humoring an old man with an obsession.”

Kaiser gives me a sad look. “You’re not seeing this thing straight, Penn. Your fear about your father has distorted your perception. You’re like a guy looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars. Seventy percent of all Americans believe John Kennedy died as the result of a conspiracy. Justified or not, people believe this country swerved into darkness on that day, and we’ve never recovered from it.”

“Sixty percent of Americans believe in UFOs. Fifty percent believe AIDS was invented by the government.”

The FBI man grabs my left arm. “You’re pretty glib, aren’t you? After Dallas . . . almost anything became possible. I lived through one of the results in Vietnam. So did Forrest Knox. So before you discount this as a waste of time, consider what the fuck you’re talking about.”

In the face of his burning intensity, I raise my hands in symbolic surrender, but Kaiser’s having none of it.

“Over the past forty years, the JFK assassination has become the vessel of America’s darkest anxieties. If we can cut through all that crap and give the people the truth—in all its banality, once and for all—then we’ll have done a lot more than atone for the sins of the FBI. We’ll have cut a tumor from the soul of this nation.”

Kaiser obviously feels great passion about his subject, but passion means nothing on the topic he’s discussing. “You’re wrong about the unknown, John. People need a mystery on which to project all their free-floating paranoia. If you pull back the curtain on the Kennedy assassination, people will just project all their angst onto something else.”

“Maybe I’ve got more faith in people than you do.”

“Maybe so. Politics has changed me, I’ll admit that.”

I pull my coat tighter and scan the streets and windows surrounding the courthouse and City Hall. Not much Christmas cheer in the air today. “JFK’s been pretty battered as a symbol, John. He’s no longer King Arthur cut down in his prime. He’s more like a spoiled prince we never really knew. I feel like people are almost angry at him now, for not living up to their dream of him.”

Kaiser shakes his head. “They still want the truth.”

“Heady conversation for the steps of City Hall, huh?” I say, trying to lighten the tension. “I need to get upstairs to work.”

“But you’ll come see Dwight?”

“I will. I owe him that. I’ll call you about five thirty?”

“Thanks. And please give me a heads-up if you and Sheriff Dennis decide to make any more arrests today.”

I nod acknowledgment but make no promises.

As the FBI agent walks back to his car, I walk up the six steps to the door of City Hall, then pass through the lobby and jog up the staircase to my office on the second floor.

“You alone?” asks Rose, my secretary, peering around me at the hallway door.

“Sure, yeah.”

“That FBI agent is gone?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You’ve got visitors,” Rose says in a cryptic tone.

I raise my eyebrows.

“Go back to the lounge. I didn’t want to put them in your office, in case Agent Kaiser came back.”

Irritated by her caginess, I walk back to the little kitchen we call our lounge. There, I find Dr. Drew Elliott and Nurse Melba Price waiting for me. Drew looks very uncomfortable, but Melba appears relieved to see me.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Have you heard from Dad or something?”

They look at each other. Then Drew says, “We’ve got something to tell you, Penn. Your father spent yesterday at my house on Lake St. John.”

At first I think he’s telling me he’s just discovered this, but almost immediately I realize that this is a confession. “When did you find this out?”

“We knew Tuesday night.” Drew’s guilty countenance does nothing to ease my anger or sense of betrayal. “I’m sorry, man,” he goes on. “Tom asked me for help, and he was wounded. I didn’t feel I had a choice.”

My face is hot, and my heart has begun pounding. “Wounded how?”

“Through-and-through gunshot. Left shoulder. I treated him, and Melba nursed him until last night.”

My eyes switch to Melba Price. “And you couldn’t call me?”

Melba closes her eyes in what appears to be shame.

“Tom specifically asked me not to,” says Drew.

“So? You think he’s in his right mind right now?”

“He appeared to be.”

“Jesus . . . we’ve been friends since we were kids.”

Drew turns up his palms. “Tom’s my partner, Penn. I’m sorry. I see now that it was probably a mistake. Especially since . . .”

“Since what? What’s happened?”

“I don’t think he’s there anymore. Melba was with him until last night, like I said, but he sent her away.”

Dad’s nurse looks at the floor and nods.

“Melba?” I prompt.

She looks up at me with eyes no one could argue with. “He needed my help. You know your father. I wasn’t about to say no.”

“Did he give you any idea of his plans?”

“Captain Garrity drove to Baton Rouge to meet with the head of the Louisiana State Police. I know that much.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“I think he was going to try to get that APB revoked. For the killing of that trooper. Captain Garrity knows the head of the state police down there.”

“I see. And what about Dad?”

“He was waiting for Captain Garrity to get back. But the captain was late, way late. Dr. Cage made me leave a little after midnight. He was worried we might be found by those old Klansmen.”

That Drew and Melba would keep Dad’s whereabouts from me when his life was at stake is almost incomprehensible. And yet . . . why would I expect anything else? Their willing deception tells me just how many options my father must have when it comes to finding aid and comfort in his home territory.

“Why don’t you think he’s still there now?” I ask.

“I’ve been calling the house phone all morning,” Drew explains. “No answer. Tom could be there, of course, but my gut tells me no.”

“Mine, too,” Melba agrees.

“Maybe Walt got back and they moved on?”

Melba slowly shakes her head. “I think Dr. Cage believed Captain Garrity was already caught. Maybe even dead.”

“Jesus. I need to get over there.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Drew asks. He reaches into his pocket and brings out a key. “I brought this.”

“No.” I pluck the key from his hand. “You’ve done enough already.”

“Penn—”

“At least you told me now. Christ, you guys. Swear to me that you’ll call me if he contacts you again.”

They both nod with the sincerity of the guilty.

With a heavy sigh, I hurry to my office for the keys to the city car.

CHAPTER 24

WHEN WALT SAW Griffith Mackiever sit down opposite him in the Waffle House on Lee Drive, he knew he was looking at a broken man. The restaurant was nearly empty, and Walt had taken a corner booth, but Mackiever spoke in a cracked whisper so soft that Walt could hardly make out his words.

The gist was that Forrest Knox had leaked the story about Mackiever downloading child pornography, and he’d supplied images to the press. Reporters started calling the colonel’s house immediately, and within half an hour TV trucks had laid siege to his front yard. Mac had only reached this rendezvous by sneaking through his neighbor’s backyard and having his nephew pick him up, and he was anxious to get home to his wife as quickly as he could. He’d only come because he’d put Walt in harm’s way and felt he owed it to him to personally release him from any obligation.

“What do you mean?” Walt asked, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. “You sound like you’re giving up. You’re not going to resign, are you?”

“What else can I do?”

“Fight, goddamn it.”

“How do you fight a fire hose of filth? Knox has been laying this computer trail for months, using my actual computers. How can I prove I didn’t do those searches?”

“Did you do them?”

“Of course not!”

“Then you can prove it. You’ve just got to calm down enough to approach it systematically.”

“Walt, I don’t have that kind of time. If I don’t resign, Knox will have those male prostitutes talk to the press. They’ll swear I hired them. I’m sure Forrest has access to all my movements for the past year, and all the dates will jibe.”

“Fuck him. You need to stab that prick in the gizzard.”

Mackiever cradled his face in his hands. “With what?”

Walt took the flash drive out of his pocket and laid it on the Formica between Mac’s elbows.

“What’s that?”

“A video of snipers murdering three black teenagers during Hurricane Katrina.”

The colonel dropped his hands and blinked in disbelief. “Are you kidding?”

“No. They’re trained snipers, either military or police. I’m betting state police. The shooter used a silencer.”

A light came into Mackiever’s eyes. “Can you see their faces?”

“No. The footage was shot through a scope. Probably a spotting scope. But you can hear voices on the tape.”

“Clearly enough to recognize them?”

Walt thought about it. “I think so. With all the high-tech tools available now. If you’re lucky, one of the voices on the tape is Knox’s.”

Mackiever was clearly tempted. “If that’s true, it would not only destroy Knox, but the reputation of the state police.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Mac.”

Mackiever looked miserable.

“Don’t give Forrest any clue that you have this, or he’ll have time to make up some bullshit story to explain it.”

The colonel looked at Walt a couple of more seconds, then hung his head.

“What the hell did you expect when you brought me into this?” Walt demanded, looking around the restaurant. The fry cook behind the counter was staring at them.

“I thought I had forty-eight hours,” Mackiever said. “That’s what Knox told me in New Orleans. But he didn’t even give me twelve.”

“He’s being squeezed. His drug operations got hit in Concordia Parish this morning.”

“Really?”

Walt nodded. “I’m betting Penn Cage is behind it. Knox isn’t invincible, Mac. But you can’t fight a guy like that halfway. It’s kill or be killed, just like the old days.”

“I just wish we had something lethal, something that would damn Forrest alone.”

Walt thought about the derringer he’d planted in Knox’s house. Then he thought about the man he saw before him. Looking at the bloodshot eyes and resigned face, he saw nothing of the stalwart Ranger he’d once known.

Walt patted his own chest. “You remember what I always keep around my neck here, don’t you?”

Mackiever nodded dully. “A five-shot derringer.”

“That’s right. Let me run something by you. I was thinking . . . if you were to order a search of Knox’s home, and the search team found the gun that killed Trooper Dunn hidden there . . . that would change the game quite a bit. Wouldn’t it?”

Mackiever’s eyes had gone wide. “That derringer was the gun you used on Dunn?”

“You’re asking the wrong question, buddy.”

“You’d go back in and plant it?”

The fucking thing is already planted, you amateur, Walt thought dejectedly. “I told you, this is kill or be killed. Survival.”

“How could I explain telling the team what to search for? How would I know or even suspect the gun was there?”

“Get the judge to write the warrant as generally as you can. You know how to play that game.”

Mackiever’s face told Walt that his old friend was simply overwhelmed. “Walt . . . I appreciate all you’ve done. And I’m going to take the video, get it analyzed. But trying to pin Trooper Dunn on Forrest would be just about impossible. He was nowhere near that crime. And why in God’s name would he keep the gun if it was a murder weapon?”

“Possession’s nine-tenths of being screwed,” Walt said bluntly. “You’re overthinking this.”

“You’re oversimplifying. Knox has been planning his play for months. We’re not going to beat him by improvising at the last second. For one thing, you could get caught going back in there to plant the gun.”

Walt considered telling Mackiever that the derringer was already planted, but he decided against it. “Knox is at headquarters right now. I checked the GPS before I came in.”

“His wife could walk in on you.”

“A meteor could hit the Waffle House. What’s happened to you, Mac?”

The colonel gripped his coffee mug and swirled it on the table. “The world isn’t what I thought it was. I knew things were bad, but . . . shit, forget it. What about your derringer? Is there any way they could trace it back to you?”

“No. I got it from a friend in Texas who used it as a throwdown gun for years. It’s as cold as they come.”

Mackiever considered this for close to a minute. Then he shook his head and said, “I’m not going that way. I’ve still got a couple of allies in my corner, if this porn thing doesn’t drive them away. A senator and I teach Sunday school together.”

Walt reached across the table and squeezed his old friend’s wrist. “You’re hoping for a miracle, Mac. In my experience, those are damned far between in this life.”

Mackiever stared at him in silence for a while. Then he threw a ten on the table, pocketed the flash drive, patted Walt on the shoulder, and walked out of the diner.

THE SECOND TIME TOM awakened, he saw Doris Avery’s lovely face hovering just above his own. She might be an attorney, but he saw the compassionate concern of a natural nurse in her brown eyes.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

Tom tried to say, “All right,” but his throat was parched, and all that came out was a croak.

“I brought you more water.” Doris held a straw to his lips. “How’s that shoulder?”

Tom drank several sips from the straw. After he’d finished, he said, “Not too bad, actually. I woke up earlier and took a pain pill.”

“I saw you did,” said Quentin Avery with a laugh.

Tom turned his head to the right and saw his old friend sitting in his motorized wheelchair on the other side of the coffee table.

“Couldn’t make it to the bathroom, huh?” Quentin asked, pointing at the glass on the floor.

“Sorry about that.”

The lawyer grinned. “Oh, I can relate, baby.”

“Is anything wrong?” Tom asked. “Has anything happened?”

“No. Everything’s quiet.”

Tom breathed a little easier.

“You don’t feel like you have a fever anymore,” Doris said. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat. But I don’t want to be any trouble.”

Quentin laughed heartily. “We’re way past that, old friend.”

Doris said, “How about a grilled cheese sandwich?”

Tom’s stomach growled.

“I’ll fix one,” she said, giving Quentin a meaningful look. “I’ll leave you two to talk.”

“Fix two,” Quentin said.

After she left, the wheelchair hummed, and Quentin piloted it around the table until he sat near Tom’s feet. Now Tom could talk to him without having to crane his neck.

“How are you, really?” Quentin asked. “Medically speaking.”

Very carefully, Tom tried to move each of his limbs. The pain was bad, but if he didn’t have a fever, he was a lot better off than he could have been.

“My heart’s still beating. That’s about the best I could hope for.”

“And the shoulder?”

“Better than I have any right to expect.”

Quentin’s eyes filled with concern. “No shit, man. How bad is it?”

Tom forced himself to smile. “I’ll be all right. After the army, gunshots are something I know a lot about.”

“You’re not a twenty-year-old GI anymore.”

“A lot of grizzled old vets got hit in Korea. They made it.”

“Grizzled old vets of thirty-five.”

This time Tom’s smile was natural. “I treated indigenous Koreans, too. Plenty of old men survived having their legs blown off by land mines.”

“I’d still feel a lot better with you in a hospital.”

As Tom looked back at his old friend, he realized what was about to happen. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Quentin nodded slowly. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment in Jackson, but that’s not the real reason. I read your future daughter-in-law’s stories in the paper when I woke up. A man named Sonny Thornfield has made a statement that he saw you and Walt Garrity kill that Louisiana state trooper.”

“That’s a lie. He didn’t see anything.”

“That’s good to know. But if the police come here and find you, I’ll lose my law license, even if I don’t go to jail. And Doris could lose hers as well. I can’t do you any good if I can’t represent you in court, Tom. And if guns are what you need to protect you, I’m betting you know men a lot better with them than I am.”

“I understand, Quentin.”

“Let me finish. You’re welcome to use my house as long as you need to. If Doris and I aren’t here, no one can argue that we aided and abetted. My deepest wish is that you’d let me arrange a surrender to a district attorney, or even a U.S. attorney. But you’re not ready to do that, are you?”

“Not yet, I’m afraid.”

“All right, then. When you get ready to fight this case, or plead the charges down to something manageable, you call me.”

“I will.”

Doris’s shoes clicked on the floor, and she brought in a plate with a hot cheese sandwich on it. She set the plate on the coffee table, then some iced tea beside it.

“Thank you,” Tom said.

“Where’s mine?” asked Quentin.

“You get a salad.”

Quentin groaned, but then he said, “Doris put your car in our garage, so nobody can see it from the air. And there’s a laptop computer on the floor by your pee glass. We’ve got Wi-Fi in the house. You ought to be safe here for as long as you need to stay. Just promise me you’ll call somebody if that shoulder starts getting bad.”

Tom sat up a little and gave them a brave smile. “I’ve got some people I can call. I’ll have help here soon. You two already went beyond the call of duty. You saved my life.”

Doris laid a warm hand on Tom’s bearded cheek. “You think hard about your options, Tom. Don’t sacrifice yourself for the wrong reason.”

He didn’t know what to say to that.

Quentin reached out and squeezed Tom’s foot beneath the quilt. “I’ll be thinking about you. And you think about me. I’ve still got one good murder trial in me. Two, if there’s no other way.”

“I’m counting on that. You two take care.”

With that, Quentin squeezed his foot once more, then whirred out of sight.

Doris sighed, then stood up straight. “Does your wife know where you are?”

“No. But she knows I’m safe.”

“I doubt she’s resting easy.”

“No. But it’s her I’m doing this for, as much as anyone.”

Doris looked at Tom for a long time. Then she said, “I hope I see you again soon, and in far better circumstances.”

Before he could reply, she turned and walked back into the kitchen.

Tom listened until the back door closed. A minute later, the soft sound of an engine reached him. It grew louder for a few seconds, then faded fast.

He was alone.

His first thought was of Walt. His old friend had not acknowledged receiving the “safe” message, nor had he asked for information on Tom’s exact location. That meant one of three things: either he was busy, he did not trust his or Tom’s current mobile phones, or he was dead. Tom prayed it was not the latter. If so, he would carry the burden of Walt’s death for whatever remained of his days.

Tom’s next thought was for himself. If he didn’t get help soon, he would die in Quentin’s house. Above all, he needed a safe telephone, preferably several burn phones, and he had no hope of getting these himself. Second, he needed more nitroglycerine and antibiotics than Quentin had left on the table.

His options were few.

He could call Penn, but Penn would insist that he turn himself in to the authorities, which was out of the question. Tom couldn’t even consider that until he’d learned the result of Walt’s meeting with Colonel Mackiever. Peggy would do anything he asked, of course, but he wasn’t about to put her in further jeopardy. If he died, or was killed while on the run, at least she would remain to represent their generation in the family. A primitive thought, he reflected, but that was what he felt.

Drew Elliott had helped him once, but Tom had a feeling he’d stretched Drew’s loyalty about as far as he dared. No, what he needed was unswerving loyalty. A hundred patients came to mind, but Tom couldn’t bring himself to put them in lethal danger. Once he faced that reality, only one person remained.

Melba Price.

Melba hadn’t wanted to leave him last night, at the lake. Thankfully, she had finally relented, or the confrontation with Knox’s killers might have gone differently. Tom hated to ask more of her, but the grim truth was, Melba was single, her children were grown, and her loyalty was beyond question. Tom had only to close his eyes to remember what a wreck Melba had become when her husband left her for a younger woman. She’d drunk so steadily and suicidally—with various pills added to the mix—that she put even Tom’s worst excesses to shame. But with Tom’s intervention and help, she had survived. He didn’t think of the present situation in terms of her repaying any debt; he simply knew that if asked, Melba would come.

She was like Viola that way.