Текст книги "The Bone Tree"

Автор книги: Greg Iles

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 37 (всего у книги 58 страниц)

“I guess we’re standing our ground?” I ask Walker.

As the doorknob of the utility room rattles, I whirl, and the sheriff jams something into my back pocket.

Kaiser steps out of the room and glares at Dennis. “Sheriff, I’m taking custody of all your prisoners until such time as the governor can make a determination about your fitness to continue in office. You will either confine yourself to your office or go home for the day. I suggest the latter.”

“You’ve got no authority over me,” Walker says. “It’s your word against mine, and unless you call the state police, you can’t do a thing. And you don’t want to call them.”

An odd smile touches Kaiser’s lips. “Sheriff, a wanted cop killer just fled the premises and you made no attempt to arrest him. That’s dereliction of duty. You may have noticed that Forrest Knox is not here to challenge federal authority today. I suggest you take a page from his book.”

Without waiting for Walker to respond, Kaiser turns to me and says, “You’re done here, Penn. Go home to your daughter.”

“John, they’ve—”

“I don’t care what they’ve done! You can’t torture people. You know that. This is a perfect illustration of how unhinged your father’s situation has made you. Don’t make me jail you, Penn. Go home.”

“I didn’t see any cop killer in here,” Sheriff Dennis says.

“Louisiana,” Kaiser mutters. “I guess it never changes after all. Get out of my sight, both of you.”

WALT, SHERIFF DENNIS, AND I huddle between a CPSO inmate van and a mobile crime-lab trailer. Sheriff Dennis is burning with rage and frustration, but Walt looks ready to roll.

“I’ve got Dr. Elliott’s truck and plenty of guns,” he says. “Let’s go get Tom.”

“Did you get the phone I put in your pocket?” Dennis asks me.

Reaching into my back pocket, I pull out a StarTac cash phone. “Whose is this?”

“I took it off Deputy Hunt this morning. I think he was using it to talk to Knox’s people. I’m thinking it might be a line to Forrest himself.”

“Did you try any of the numbers in it?”

“There’s only one. Nobody answered.”

“Where’s Deputy Hunt now?”

“I had my nephew lock him up at the gun range. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to handle him.”

“Go get him. Take him somewhere that no one could possibly find him. If Forrest knows he’s been taken, he’s already got men trying to kill him. We may need Hunt before we’re finished.”

“Don’t you want me to come to Thornfield’s cabin with you?”

“Walt and I can handle it.”

Walker hesitates, then nods. “If that’s how you want to play it, okay. Call me if you need me. And be careful.”

As the sheriff trots away, Walt starts toward Drew’s truck.

“I’m going to take my car,” I call to him. “You’re still a fugitive, and depending on what Kaiser has done about our little hanging party, you may need to rabbit one more time.”

“Okay.”

Adrenaline flushes through me as I sprint for my Audi.

“THIS THING’S GOING OFF the rails,” Forrest said, pulling his coat around him as the wind over the deck picked up. “I can feel it.”

“What you want to do, boss?” Ozan asked.

Forrest shook his head and wished he had a cigarette. He couldn’t move any faster than he was already. He’d hoped to reassure Snake by phone—and also to ask for a proof of life on Dr. Cage—but when the mole offered Snake a cell phone, Snake’s only answer had been to point at his watch. Forrest understood that message well enough. But now that so much time had passed, he was starting to worry that his worst fear was true.

“I think Dr. Cage is dead, Alphonse. There’s no other reason for Snake to put off talking to me like this. Not that I can see, anyway. And if Dr. Cage is dead . . . there’s no deal to be made with Penn Cage. Not one that’ll hold, anyway.”

Ozan pulled his hands from his pockets and rubbed them together in the wind. “I reckon not.”

“I’ve got to know, one way or the other. But Snake’s the only person who can tell me. Claude’s bugged out, and I’m not bringing in a new lawyer this late in the game. We’re going to have to get Snake out of that jail regardless of the risk.”

“Just Snake?”

“No. All of them. Otherwise, somebody’s going to start thinking about cutting a deal. But getting all of them out is going to take some precision timing combined with reckless daring.” Forrest sucked his teeth, reflecting on his choice of manpower.

“You know that Black Team can handle it,” Ozan said.

“I’m not so sure anymore. They’d better handle their end.”

“Who was that you called earlier?”

“Glenn Morehouse’s sister. Wilma Deen. She’s as cold as they come. Not many women would stand by quiet while you killed their brother, much less help you do it.”

“She done that?”

Forrest nodded. “This past Monday. She’s old school, boy. Like that Madame Defarge in A Tale of Two Cities.”

Ozan looked blank.

“I also called Billy about a bastard child of Snake’s. Alois Engel’s his name. The kid’s only twenty-five but he’s a mean little fucker. He’s already affiliated with a couple of white supremacist groups. Cold as ice. Reminds me of a Hitler Youth poster. He’s done work for Billy in the meth trade, too. Anyway, the point in using him and Wilma is that, if anything goes bad with the end of the op—which is the biggest risk—Kaiser will think Snake brought ’em in. Not me.”

Ozan gave a malevolent grin. “Now you’re talkin’, babe.”

“Let’s start assembling the team. We’re going to need the whole goody bag, too.”

“It’s time, boss. Waiting never helped anything.”

CHAPTER 58

AS WALT AND I race toward Old River, a dead-end channel still connected to the Mississippi River by a narrow chute, the atrocities Kaiser wrote me about spin through my mind like curling strips of black-and-white film. To accept that men capable of such acts have control of my father is tantamount to resigning myself to his death. For while Snake Knox and his crew are behind bars at this moment, they had half the night to work their will on my father, and Forrest—the feared ghost of the Vietnamese Highlands—had him before Snake did.

As I focus on holding the wheel steady on the gravel road, Walt points along the row of bizarre stilt houses that line Old River. This part of the parish always floods when the river rises, hence the tall metal stilts beneath every structure. The little cabins look like ugly cranes on long, thin legs, waiting for an unwary fish to swim down the brown channel behind them. Most of the cabins have a crude elevator system, fashioned from a welded iron cage and an electric truck-winch to lift it.

I’m suspicious of Sonny’s claim that Dad is unguarded, but Walt insists that speed is everything now. As soon as I pull into the driveway he tells me to, Walt leaps out with his pistol and boards the cage that will carry him to Sonny’s raised deck. Walt tests the machine by gripping the rail and heaving himself from right to left, then lays his hand on the lever that will start the winch.

“You take the staircase,” he says. “If somebody comes out, start shooting, because I’m a sitting duck in this thing.”

I look at the four flights of steps that lead the thirty feet up to the cabin. “My fire will be blocked as I near the top.”

“Then get up there before I do, and if they start shooting, kick in the back door and kill them from behind.”

“Okay.”

Walt flips the start lever on the winch, and with a grinding hum he begins rising toward the tree house–like structure. I sprint for the base of the staircase, then start pumping my legs as I did running the bleachers as a high school football player. In seconds my chest is pounding and my throat burning, but the door isn’t far away. I’ll beat Walt to the cabin by ten seconds.

Once I reach the deck behind the cabin, I tiptoe to the back door, my ears tuned to the slightest sound. I hear nothing. A clang from the winch around front tells me Walt has reached the front platform. The fact that no one has opened up on him must be a sign that Sonny was telling the truth about no guards.

The back door is locked. As I raise my foot to kick it in, Walt yells, “Front door’s open!”

Worried that someone might be lying in ambush for him, I kick open the flimsy back door and burst into the den of the little structure. The cabin stinks of mildew and looks to have been furnished with cast-off pieces or actual junk. A plywood square has fallen from a footlocker that served as the base of a makeshift coffee table, and the Naugahyde sofa against the wall has been patched all over with silver duct tape.

“I’ll check the back,” Walt says, gesturing at a narrow doorway with his pistol.

I nod, but my belief that Dad might still be here is evaporating fast. Two medicine bottles lie on a square of shag carpet that looks like its purpose is to serve as a toilet for an incontinent dog. Picking one of them up, I read the label: PATIENT: Thomas Cage. PHYSICIAN: Drew Elliott, M.D. Nitroglycerine, 0.4 mg.

“He’s not back there,” Walt says, emerging from the doorway. “Maybe he got away?”

I shake my head. “He’d never have left his drugs. There’s nitro and pain pills on the floor. He couldn’t do without either. Not for long, anyway.”

Walt kicks the plywood sheet against the wall, plops down on the patched sofa, and kicks his feet up on the footlocker. “You think they knew we were coming?”

“How? Sonny couldn’t have told them. More likely, Forrest figured out where they were and took them back.”

“Damn it. What about Sheriff Dennis? Could he have warned them by phone?”

“No fucking way. Dennis hates the Knoxes.”

“Yeah. I was reaching.”

“It had to be Forrest, Walt. Unless . . .”

“What?”

“Unless Snake came back here and moved him somewhere else. I think Sonny was telling the truth. He believed Dad was here. But you heard him. He said Snake was worried about a setup. He wanted insurance. Maybe Snake worried that Sonny was too weak to stand much interrogation, so he made sure that nobody but him knew where Dad really was.”

“Well, we can’t question Snake. Kaiser won’t let us near him.”

I think back to Snake’s smug countenance. “Nope. And questioning Forrest is pointless, unless we’re willing to do what we just did to Sonny. And even if we were, that’s easier said than done with him.”

Walt nods thoughtfully. “I know where Forrest is. The Bouchard lake house, Lake Concordia. Forrest and Ozan were on the outside deck, and I searched the whole place.”

“Could you have missed Dad?”

“No. Tom could’ve been in the boathouse, I suppose, but I just don’t think Forrest would keep a hostage that close to him. Much more likely Tom would be out at Valhalla.”

“But you were there, too.”

Walt shrugs. “They could have moved him back to either place since I left. If we can’t talk to Snake, then Forrest is our best chance. But we’ll have to fight our way in there, unless either Sheriff Dennis can get us a warrant—”

“That won’t happen.”

“—or you set up some kind of negotiation with Forrest.”

“The way I did with Brody Royal? That didn’t end too well.”

“I didn’t say it was a good plan. But it might be the only one.”

“No matter what happens, Forrest could order Dad killed, then say he died while resisting arrest. Not only that, he could arrest you as a fugitive, and me for interfering on your behalf.”

“Can you get a warrant for Valhalla?” Walt asks.

“Lusahatcha County is in our court district, and I know the circuit judge in Natchez. I can probably get a warrant, but I don’t know that Sheriff Ellis would serve it. From what I’ve heard, he’s pretty cozy with the local hunting camp owners, including the Knoxes. Plus, Valhalla is known to be connected with the Knoxes. I don’t think they’d stash him in a place we could find using common knowledge, paperwork, or computers.”

“Shit,” says Walt, spitting on the floor.

“You just left your DNA here,” I observe.

“Fuck some DNA. We’re way past that now.”

We sit in silence for several seconds, and in the strange vacuum, a profound fear begins to flow through me. “Walt,” I say in a flat voice. “What does your gut tell you? Do you think they’ve killed him?”

“I’ve worried from the start they meant to kill him so he’d go down as Viola’s killer, and that investigation would stop. And with the trooper hanging around our necks . . . we just made it too easy for them.”

Walt’s tone of despair leaves me feeling hollowed out. Short of getting Snake Knox in that CPSO broom closet with Walt and a wet towel, I don’t see that we have an option.

“Hey,” Walt says, shoving the old footlocker with his foot.

“What?”

“You see this? This is a marine footlocker, World War Two vintage. It’s made of wood. I saw a few of ’em in Korea.”

“So?”

“So it’s got a brand-new padlock on it. A Chubb. Take a look.”

Looking down, I see a pitted, flimsy-looking latch with a heavy, shining padlock on it. Above the circular latch is a metal nameplate with the letters CPL. SONNY THORNFIELD stamped on it. The same letters are stenciled on top of the oblong box, but they’ve faded to near invisibility.

Walt taps his thighs, his eyes on the padlock. “Why does an old gomer like Sonny lock up his piece-of-shit footlocker like it’s holding the crown jewels?”

“Maybe it’s all he’s got in the world.”

Walt slides up to the edge of the sofa and leans forward. “Let’s find out.”

Reversing his pistol in his hand, he hammers at the latch and lock, but they refuse to yield.

I get up and go through the drawers beside the plastic sink against the wall, hunting for a screwdriver. I don’t find one, but in the back of the drawer I find an old rat-tail file, as rusty as some tool left behind by the slaves who built the pyramids. Taking it in my hand, I go to the footlocker, wedge it into the latch, and with one savage twist snap the latch free from the lid of the case.

“Good man,” says Walt. “Let’s see what that old fool thinks is worth protecting. Probably ten years’ worth of Hustler.”

My stomach feels strangely hollow as I lift the lid, just the way it did when as a boy I secretly unpacked my Christmas presents after finding them hidden in a closet. In the dim light of the cabin, I see mementos of Sonny Thornfield’s younger life stacked carefully in layers. A woman must have packed this locker. Digging patiently through it, I find war ribbons and medals; a pistol and bayonet; an ancient tube of Barbasol shaving lotion; a marine forage cap; a Ku Klux Klan hood and several Klan pins—one a fiery cross wrought in gold—lying on what appears to be a folded white robe; a stack of baseball cards from the early 1940s, bound by a dry-rotted rubber band; a cup of multicolored marbles; a Playboy magazine from 1953; a snapshot of a Ku Klux Klan rally in Natchez, probably the big one held in the summer of 1965; two hand grenades that have been emptied of explosive; Thornfield’s birth certificate, along with several other yellowed legal papers, including his honorable discharge from the Marine Corps. But at the bottom of the footlocker, pressed between two ancient hymnals, lies a memento of a different sort—the sort that Kaiser dealt with in his previous life.

What I first think is just a chamois cloth is actually a soft swatch of leather with the letters USN needled into it with dark blue ink. Above these letters are an anchor and a rope. About five inches long, and brown as stained walnut, the skin has rolled a little at the edges. Fighting the urge to gag, I lift the thing from the bottom of the footlocker. The obscene trophy is soft and buttery, like the finest grain leather. It is leather, I remind myself. Tanned to perfection by someone with a deep knowledge of such things.

“Son of a bitch,” Walt intones.

I try to speak, but my throat has sealed shut. The ragged edges of the thing in my hand make it plain that it was cut from Jimmy Revels’s arm. I only hope he was dead when it happened.

“This is my ticket back into the sheriff’s office,” I finally whisper. “To talk to Snake Knox.”

“Is that where we’re going?”

After hastily repacking the footlocker, I fasten it shut, then look up at the old Ranger. “No. Not yet. Kaiser won’t let us do what we’d need to do to Snake.”

Walt nods gravely. “Where then?”

“It’s time to talk to Forrest Knox.”

His eyes narrow. “You gonna call him on that cell phone Dennis gave you? Try to cut a deal with him?”

“There’s no deal to be had. We’re going to find out where Dad is, no matter what that takes.”

An unspoken question rises in Walt’s eyes. I lay the tattoo in his callused hand, then get to my feet and check my pistol. The old Ranger looks down at the tanned skin for several seconds without speaking, feeling it between his fingers. Then he brings it closer to his face so that his aging eyes can focus on the inked letters.

“Jesus wept,” he says finally. “I had a brother who served in the navy. No matter what happens at Knox’s place, I’m gonna kill the motherfucker who done this.”

CHAPTER 59

THE BOUCHARD LAKE house sits on the side of Lake Concordia farthest from the Mississippi River. A modernist, metal-skinned anomaly, it stands out among the older ranch houses and contemporary McMansions. At my request, Walker Dennis waited for us four miles up the road in the parking lot of a small grocery store that serves the lake residents. There I parked my Audi and climbed into Drew’s truck, while Walker followed us in his marked Tahoe.

During the drive here, Walt told me two things I could scarcely believe: first, that he’d planted the derringer that killed Trooper Deke Dunn inside Forrest Knox’s Baton Rouge home; and second, that while exploring Forrest’s computer, he’d discovered a video of a state police SWAT unit murdering what appeared to be black drug dealers during Hurricane Katrina. Walt rather unwisely turned this video over to Colonel Griffith Mackiever, but so far as he knows, the derringer still remains in Knox’s house. The implications of this information are too explosive for me to predict, yet I will be facing Forrest himself in less than five minutes.

When we reach the driveway of the Bouchard house, Walker Dennis pulls in after me and blocks the drive with his Tahoe, then climbs out with an AR-15 mounting an ACOG sight on its top rail.

“What’s the fire signal?” he asks.

“If I raise my right forefinger, blow him away.”

“Forrest first?”

“Whoever’s the most immediate threat.”

Dennis nods, then walks behind the Tahoe and rests his rifle on the hood, making a bench rest of his vehicle.

Walt drives slowly up the driveway: thirty meters, forty . . . I lay my hand on his arm and wait for him to turn to me. When he does, I say, “Tell me one thing, Walt. Did Dad kill Viola? I don’t care either way at this point. I just need to know.”

The old Ranger’s eyes don’t waver. “I honestly don’t know. I just came to help the man, because he’s my friend.”

I actually believe this. Walt and my father are from a different era, almost a different nation. The code by which they live probably precluded Walt from even asking the question.

“What if they just open up on us from the house?” he asks.

“They won’t. If they’re watching, they’ll have seen Walker’s bubble lights already.”

Walt doesn’t look reassured. “You sure you don’t want to try to call Knox on that cell phone?”

“Nope. I’ve got other plans for that phone.”

The brakes squeak as Walt rolls to a stop twenty meters from the house. I can just see the corner of the rear deck jutting out from the second floor. As I stare, a head appears, silhouetted against the sky. After several seconds, it withdraws.

“We just lost the element of surprise,” Walt deadpans, glancing into the backseat, where the veritable arsenal of firearms he brought from Texas lies in a padded duffel bag.

“I don’t think we ever had it. I’ll get out and wait for them. You stay in here until I clarify the situation. We don’t want them shooting you before they understand the price.”

Climbing out of the truck, I stand with my .357 hanging in plain view against my leg. In less than a minute, the side door of the house opens and two men emerge, one of average height, but well built and with the grace of an athlete; the other shorter and built like a small refrigerator. As they approach, the second man’s brick-colored skin becomes obvious. Alphonse Ozan.

“Hello, Mayor,” says the taller man, whose dark face has now resolved into recognizable features. Forrest Knox looks like the actor Kenneth Tobey, but with a dark suntan, pocked skin, and black hair. He’s square jawed and almost handsome, but a badly disfigured ear and his disturbingly direct eyes make me uneasy. “What can I do for you?”

“Tell me where my father is.”

Forrest gives me a bemused smile. “How would I know that?”

“You kidnapped him last night, and then your uncle snatched him from you. Now something tells me you’ve taken him back. In any case, I don’t have time for a long explanation. Just tell me where he is now.”

Forrest drums the fingers of his right hand against the knuckles of his left. “Who’s that in the truck, Mayor? Looks like he might be a wanted cop killer.”

“He is. And he’s going to get out. But before he does, I want you to note the sniper at the end of your driveway. He’s got you zeroed right now.”

Forrest chuckles softly. “Can that clown hit me from there?”

“The deer heads on his office wall tell me he probably can.” I turn to Drew’s truck and motion for Walt to get out. As he does, I give Alphonse Ozan a warning glance. “I don’t want either of you touching a cell phone. If you do, Sheriff Dennis will fire and I’ll swear you went for your guns.”

Forrest laughs softly. “You’ve got some balls for a lawyer, don’t you?”

“You called this play. I’m only doing what I have to do for my family.”

Knox gives me a measuring look. “What do you really know about me, Mayor?”

“I know you used to leave JFK half-dollars in the mouths of men you killed in Vietnam.”

“That Kaiser does his homework, doesn’t he?”

“It wasn’t all book work. He was at FSB Ripcord when you were there.”

“No shit?” The intelligent eyes narrow with curiosity. “Well, now. If we’re going to speak any further, I need you wanded.”

Without further prompting, Ozan takes a black wand from his pocket and runs it the length of my body. I can imagine Walker Dennis tensing for a shot, thinking Ozan is making a move on me. The wand beeps when it passes the cell phone in my back pocket, but I show Ozan that it’s switched off.

When the Redbone wands Walt, the instrument begins beeping loudly near his ankles.

“My throwdown,” Walt informs him. “Try to take that, and I’ll beat you to death with it.”

Ozan chuckles like Walt’s a funny old codger.

As he straightens up, Forrest says, “Who planted the meth on my relatives?”

“This conversation’s drifting off point, Colonel. I’m only concerned about my father.”

“Your daddy murdered a state trooper, Mayor. That makes this a problematic conversation.”

“Bullshit,” says Walt. “I killed that asshole Dunn, and he was no cop. He was a disgrace to his badge. I stopped him from committing murder.”

Forrest gives Walt a hard look, then motions for me to follow him away from the other men. “Let’s move downwind and keep this civil,” he says. “Otherwise there may be casualties.”

When we’re out of earshot, Forrest turns to me. “You tried to cut a deal with Brody Royal, didn’t you? That was your mistake right there. Brody was a megalomaniac. I’m a pragmatist.”

“Is that right?”

“You can find out right now. Let’s hear your offer.”

“I’m not here to make an offer.”

“That’s too bad. Because I did speak to your father last night, and his main hope was that we can all come to a mutually satisfactory arrangement. His idea is to blame the casualties up to this point on dead people—Brody, Regan, and Morehouse, say—and you and your fiancée back the fuck away from this stupid Double Eagle story, and everything you think goes with it.”

Trying not to read anything into his verb tenses, I say, “Where did you speak to my father?”

“That doesn’t matter. But we had a good visit last night. Talked about the old days—and my old man, of course. Daddy thought a hell of a lot of Dr. Cage.”

“I don’t imagine the feeling was mutual.”

Forrest barks a laugh. “Are you kidding? Your dad and mine got along great. They’d both been through the same meat grinder in Korea. They had different politics, sure, but they respected each other. Hell, Daddy even knew Dr. Cage used to patch up the black agitators when they got hurt, but he didn’t care.”

I try to imagine my father respecting Frank Knox, but I can’t see it.

“Doc got into some trouble over in Korea,” Forrest says in a confiding tone. “He ever tell you about that? Bad trouble. He nearly went to prison, I believe. Daddy said he got fucked over by the army for doing the right thing, whatever that means. But I guess old Tom didn’t want you worrying he might not be the hero you thought he was.” Forrest smiles with what appears to be genuine nostalgia. “You know, Dr. Cage had to stitch me up five or six times when I was a kid.”

“Do you remember Viola assisting him?” I ask quietly.

The nostalgia goes out of Knox’s face, but his eyes still gleam as though from an inner heat. “I sure do. She wasn’t the kind of woman you forget.”

Could he possibly be Lincoln’s father? I wonder, noting the dark color of his skin, which looks like the result of Creole blood and not a suntan in December. He’s actually darker than Sonny Thornfield, but I won’t accomplish anything here by going down that road.

“I made a mistake with Brody,” I tell him. “I thought he was the man behind all this. But I was wrong. It’s been you all along.” I step closer to Forrest, and as I do, I get the feeling not many people invade this man’s personal space. “I’m not here to cut a deal. I don’t know whether you’ve got Dad right now or not. But if you don’t, you’ve got the best chance of finding out where he is. So I’m giving you until six this evening to put him safely in my care. After that, if he’s not back in the bosom of his family—”

“Are you seriously about to threaten me, Mayor?”

“Not physically. But let me finish. If you don’t get my father back safe in the bosom of his family, I’m going to do what I do best.”

“Which is?”

“There’s an old saying, Colonel. The mills of the gods grind slow, but they grind to powder. You know that one?”

Forrest cocks his head, which gives me a better look at the scarred nub of his ear. “I suppose you’re God in this hypothetical?”

“No, I’m the grinding wheel. I sent sixteen killers to death row in Houston. Thirteen have been executed. I’m no longer very proud of that, but it’s a fact. So . . . you return my father, and I won’t much care what happens to you. But if you don’t, I’m going to resign the mayor’s office and turn all my attention to you. All my legal ability and experience, my law enforcement and political connections, all the resources of my future father-in-law’s media conglomerate—all that I will relentlessly focus on you. I’ll peel you open, layer by layer. I’ll dig up every enemy you ever made, every woman you betrayed, every cop you ever paid off, every lie you told, every corpse you buried, every dollar you moved offshore, every tax return you ever filed. Then I’ll grind you to powder, bone by bone. I won’t stop until there’s nothing left.”

Forrest Knox is looking at me as though seeing me for the first time. He doesn’t speak for a while, but when he finally does, he sounds anything but rattled. “That might be tougher than you think, Counselor. You see, my enemies are dead. Their bodies no longer exist, my women know better, my brothers in uniform are brothers, my money is safe, and I’ve paid my taxes. I’m basically bulletproof.”

“Nobody’s bulletproof.” The time has come for my bit of theater. “To illustrate my point, I’ve got a message for you.”

“Yeah? From who?”

Moving very slowly, so as not to trigger a shot by Sheriff Dennis, I take Deputy Hunt’s cell phone from my back pocket.

While Forrest watches, I power up the phone and wait for it to acquire a signal. Knox is squinting at the device as though it looks familiar. When two bars show on the screen, I pull up the number last called and hit REDIAL. After a pregnant pause, during which Knox leans forward to better see the phone, a cell phone in his pocket begins to ring. At the second ring, his eyes widen like those of an ice fisherman who realizes he’s walked too far out on the lake.

“Technically,” I say, “I guess this message is from Deputy Hunt. But in a larger sense, you could say it’s a message from God. He’s telling you to cut your losses while you can.”

Forrest looks like he’s thinking about snatching the phone from me.

I nearly wag my finger at him, but then I remember that would trigger a shot from Sheriff Dennis. “Six o’clock,” I repeat. “After that, I’m giving Deputy Hunt to the FBI, turning Caitlin and her father loose on you, and going to work myself. If that happens, you can forget taking over the state police. They’ll be processing you into Angola within six months, I guarantee it. And I can’t imagine a much worse hell for a dirty cop who uses snipers to take out his black competition. That would be a fitting end, but it’s one you have the power to avoid.”

Forrest hasn’t blinked for maybe a minute. He probably looked like this when he staked out trails at night in Vietnam. After a few more silent seconds, a tight smile broadens his mouth, and he reaches out as though to shake my hand in acceptance of my terms.

Don’t do it, says a voice in my head. He’s playing you. Raise your finger and have Dennis blow his brains out. Any other choice is giving this man a chance to tear your life apart. If Walt weren’t already wanted for killing a state trooper, I might raise my finger and take my chances in court. But that’s not really an option now.

Suppressing my revulsion, I take Forrest’s hand and shake it. “We’re going to leave now,” I say evenly. “If either of you touch your weapons, Walker will fire. He won’t hesitate, trust me. He lost a cousin to one of your men, and he’d love some payback.”

Again Knox’s dark eyes glint with interest. “This has been an enlightening visit, Mayor. I look forward to our next meeting.”

“One more thing, Forrest. I’m not your problem. The federal government is. Special Agent Kaiser is running Sheriff Dennis’s department now, and he wants your ass bad. I think he’s wanted you for a long time. You need to get my father back, so you can focus on staying out of federal prison.”