Текст книги "The Bone Tree"
Автор книги: Greg Iles
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Текущая страница: 54 (всего у книги 58 страниц)
I was born by the river, in a little tent . . .
Oh, and just like the river I’ve been runnin’ ever since . . .
Sam Cooke’s immortal anthem is one of those songs that few singers are really up to, but the restrained power of Swan’s voice brings chills to the back of my neck. One senses that, like a dammed river, it could break loose at any moment and wash away all before it. Swan doesn’t ruin the song with exhibitionist melismas, the way so many modern singers do, yet her sinuous phrasing easily matches Cooke’s original. When she pauses after the second verse, her grandson’s piano fills the space like an eddy of water. Then she goes on, catching the main current again.
In the third verse her timbre changes, morphing into a more angelic tone, one reminiscent of a boys’ choir. Then I realize that Swan is no longer singing; she’s watching her grandson carry on what she started. As James Revels sings of being denied help from his brother, his voice seems to float above the crowd, into the high spaces of the church. But just as it seems in danger of drifting away, Swan’s rich, earthy alto fills the building from the floorboards to the apex of the ceiling.
It’s been a long, a long time coming,
But I know a change is gonna come.
Oh, yes it will.
When the last resonant echoes of the piano fade into silence, awe fills the church. For the natives of this area, a prodigal has returned—two, in this case—one a daughter, and the other the descendant of a man they believed martyred long ago, and without children. All I can think of is how profoundly moved Caitlin would have been to know that Jimmy Revels left a child in the world, and by Swan Norris. Then a piercing question comes to me: Did Henry ever know?
As Swan returns to her seat, the elder Reverend Baldwin rises once more, presumably to dismiss the mourners. But when he reaches the podium, he looks out and says, “Brothers and sisters, our final guest today was asked to speak by Henry’s mother. Almost all of you know him, and I ask that you remain seated and give him the courtesy of silence.”
In the front pew, John Kaiser gets to his feet. Several FBI agents do the same. When the door behind the altar opens, I half expect a black celebrity to walk to the podium, but to my surprise the man who appears is white—with white hair, a clean-shaven face, and piercing eyes.
“My God,” whispers my mother, clutching my arm so hard it hurts.
“Brothers and sisters,” says Reverend Baldwin, “Dr. Thomas Cage.”
I start to get to my feet, but a strong pair of hands presses me back down. When I turn, I find Walt Garrity’s face only inches from my own, his eyes filled with empathy.
“Just sit tight,” he says softly. “Hear him out. Then decide what you want to do.”
CHAPTER 87
AS MY FATHER walks to the lectern, obviously bent with pain, Walt keeps one hand on my shoulder. The whispers in the church rise like a wind before a storm, but Dad looks unfazed. My mother is blinking in openmouthed shock, but Annie is smiling broadly, Caitlin’s cell phone still held tight in her hand.
“What the hell is he doing, Walt?” I whisper.
“You’ll see. Just wait.”
I quickly scan the pews behind me. “A hundred people are using their cell phones. Forrest Knox will have men here in ten minutes, and we’ll have a war on our hands.”
“No, he won’t. Check your phone.”
I slip my mobile from my inside coat pocket. The LCD reads NO SERVICE.
“Jammed,” Walt says with satisfaction. “Courtesy of the FBI. Your father’s turning himself in, Penn. But he’s doing it in his own way.”
“To who? Kaiser?”
“That’s right.”
“Jesus. Does the FBI know you’re here?”
“Officially? No. In reality, yes.”
A flood of confused emotions is surging through me. Dad stands silently at the lectern, a gray pinstripe suit with high, wide lapels hanging off his frame. He looks as though he barely has the strength to hold himself upright.
“I don’t believe this.”
“Penn—”
“What the hell is he wearing?”
“A suit that belonged to Pithy Nolan’s husband,” Walt hisses. “It was made in 1940.”
Pithy Nolan, I think, stunned by my stupidity. Of course! Where else would they be hiding?
“He’s lost his mind, Walt. This is insane.”
“Just listen, for God’s sake.”
Dad looks down at the lectern, but he has no notes. He seems to be considering what he wants to say. When at last he begins speaking, his usually strong voice sounds weak, but his words are clearly audible.
“I know some of you are surprised to see me here,” he says. “I haven’t come to disturb this service. I’ve come to pay my respects to Henry, and to the cause for which he worked so hard.”
Dad looks out over the crowd, and recognition is the dominant expression on his face. His eyes pause as they take in Annie and my mother, but they slip right over me and move on. He can’t bear to look at me, I realize. When he speaks again, his voice seems to have gained strength.
“This morning, I told Henry’s mother that he had given the last full measure of devotion to his cause, which was justice. I was quoting Abraham Lincoln describing the fallen at Gettysburg. But Henry’s bravery wasn’t the kind I saw demonstrated by my fellow soldiers in Korea, charging into bullets and dying in a foreign land. Henry proved his courage alone, in the face of apathy, resentment, and open hostility. Having experienced battle myself, I wonder whether Henry’s bravery isn’t a higher form of courage. There’s nothing harder than fighting alone, with no one to keep you company in your foxhole. There ought to be a special medal for that. But like most soldiers I knew during my service, Henry wasn’t looking for medals.”
“Amen,” says a soft voice behind me.
In the pew reserved for family, I see an old woman who must be Henry’s mother nod and wipe her eyes.
“It says in the Good Book,” Dad goes on, “‘No greater love hath any man than he who lays down his life for his friends.’”
“That’s right,” says a bass voice from the rear of the church.
Dad bows his head as though paying homage to this principle. “Henry laid down his life to save my future daughter-in-law, Caitlin Masters, who I’ve thought of as a daughter for years now. As Reverend Baldwin told you, Caitlin was murdered yesterday, despite Henry’s sacrifice. She died following a trail that Henry blazed, and her greatest hope was to complete his work. If she hadn’t managed to discover that Bone Tree, I wouldn’t be standing before you now, but lying on a cold slab somewhere. Instead, that brave young girl is the one awaiting burial.”
Dad pauses to catch his breath, and I can tell this speech is costing him dearly in physical terms. Then I see his chin quivering with emotion, and a knife of pain goes through me.
“To paraphrase what President Lincoln said in 1863: We here cannot consecrate or hallow the ground in which those honored dead will lie, for their actions stand far above our power to add or detract. The world will not remember what we say here today. But it will remember the battles that Henry and Caitlin fought. What remains for us is to rededicate ourselves to the task for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. We must resolve that they shall not have died in vain.”
All the whispered conversations have ended. Everyone in the church sits with rapt attention. Something is coming, and the congregation senses it like a flood swelling one bend up the river.
Dad looks around the church, taking in each face in its turn. “How can we do that, you ask?”
“Tell us, Doc.”
My father raises his right hand, his finger pointed skyward, and the spirit of the crowd rises with it. As angry as I am at him, he somehow radiates the conviction of a prophet when he continues.
“Hear me now,” he rumbles. “For the hour of justice has come.”
Excitement sweeps through the church like a strong wind.
“That I, a white man, stand here and speak to you, the descendants of slaves, about justice is almost absurd. Yet speak I will. Because someone must. The wound that slavery dealt this country has never healed. Speaking as a physician, the efforts to heal it have been pathetic. Four months ago, a hurricane swept through New Orleans and revealed just how broken this country is, how deep the divide between black and white. The scenes we saw play out after that storm would not—could not—have happened in a white city in the North.”
“You’re damn right,” murmurs a voice from the crowd, and Reverend Baldwin glares at his congregation.
“Some people argue that your community is destroying itself,” Dad goes on. “Your children are killing each other, accomplishing a genocide that the Ku Klux Klan never could. The terrible truth is, all that death is a legacy of the great crime that came before, that shattered families and stained these rich fields red for generations. But nothing is simple. I wish I could tell you that the enemy is all of one tribe, but I’d be a liar if I did. It seems that the young man who killed my daughter was black, a drug user manipulated by white men to do their dirty work for them.”
A few sharp inhalations cause me to start.
“We in the South know just how complex and porous the boundary between black and white truly is. Our communities touch each other in a thousand ways, but not always in the light. We try to bridge the great gulf between us at our peril. In my life, I came to know and love people on your side, but I don’t know whether I helped or hurt them.”
Dad pauses to wipe sweat from his brow. I suppose this is as far as he will go toward acknowledging his relationship with Viola. After gathering himself again, he continues, speaking as intimately as he would to his own family.
“Some of you here today, I delivered into the world. Others watched me hold the hands of your parents or brothers or sisters, or even your children, as they passed out of it. I relieved pain where I could. But in the last analysis, I’ve been nothing but a conductor on the train of life. I took people’s tickets as they boarded, attended to a few needs while they rode, then punched their tickets as they got off. In my own life, I did things I should not have done, and I left undone things that will haunt me to my grave. For the most part, other people paid the price for my sins. Henry Sexton was one of them, and I can’t change that.
“But the lesson of Henry’s life is that you don’t cure the great ills of the world by grand gestures. You start small. Like all great men, Henry began in his own backyard. He saw injustice and tried to remedy it. He knew that murder—especially the murder of those who had no voice, no champion—could not be allowed to stand. So he took up the work that his government had failed to do. He lit the lamp for the rest of us. Henry pointed the way.”
“Amen,” says Reverend Baldwin.
“If we’re to follow Henry’s path, then we must be as brave as he was. We must risk his fate, and Caitlin’s, too. There are always a thousand reasons to do nothing. We tell ourselves the past is better left undisturbed, that stirring up old trouble will hurt everybody, white and black. That only when the oldest among us have died will change be possible. Even the Bible warns of the terrible price of looking behind us. ‘Don’t look back,’ said the angel to Lot’s family, ‘lest you be swept away.’ But Lot’s wife did, and she became a pillar of salt.”
“Sho’ did,” says a woman’s voice.
“Unlike Lot’s family, we live in the modern world. And in this world there is only one path to healing. As a physician, I learned long ago that denial, no matter how fervent, will not cure the afflicted. Nor will prayer, I’m sad to say. If prayer could cure cancer, that scourge would long ago have been wiped from the earth. No . . . if we hope to leave a better world for our children, we must cut deep into living flesh and rip out the tumors we’ve left alone too long.
“That’s hard and bloody work. Practicing medicine over the years, I came to know secrets that might have altered the future of our little postage stamp of America. But I feared what might happen to my family if I exposed the terrible deeds of which I had knowledge. I did small things to ease my conscience along the way. I even wrote to Henry—anonymously—and tried to point him in the right direction on some cases, but that was far too little. Henry lying dead in that casket is the proof, and also my reprimand. Today I am shamed by his example.”
This time no one calls out in support or affirmation.
“But I will be ashamed no longer,” Dad says with an edge of anger in his voice. “I will live in fear no longer. They’ve shot me once already, and if necessary they can shoot me again, because I’ve already lost a daughter. But no matter what they do, the crimes of the men who killed Henry and Caitlin will not stand.”
“Praise Jesus!” calls an older woman.
“Two nights ago I was kidnapped by Colonel Forrest Knox of the state police—not legally arrested, but kidnapped and taken to a secret place to be held hostage. A few hours later, I was kidnapped from Forrest by his uncle, Snake Knox, who meant to murder me.”
The name Knox has silenced the church. Not one breath do I hear, and to the side of the altar, John Kaiser’s face has gone white. But Dad has no intention of stopping. He was always a commanding speaker, but now, despite his obvious physical frailty, his voice is gaining power like a heavy rocket leaving the gravitational pull of the Earth.
“You all know these men. You know their history, and that of their family and fellow travelers. None of that’s a secret anymore—if it ever was—thanks to Henry Sexton and his newspaper. Like Brody Royal, these men not only mock the law, but wear its mantle and twist it to their own selfish purposes. You in those pews know more about that kind of injustice than I ever will.”
I hear bodies shifting, angry whispers, and murmurs of resentment, but Dad pushes on with irresistible force.
“Today, in the shadow of Henry’s coffin, I call you all—not to arms, for this is a house of worship—but to witness, to speak the truths you know, and to demand the justice for which Henry gave his life. Set aside your fear. Refuse to be silent one minute longer. For justice delayed is justice denied. Force those who come in the night to terrorize and kill to flee in terror themselves. Deny them the sanctuary of silence. Deny them all refuge but the bars of a prison cell. Deny them all rest but the grave. And by so doing, let Henry, and all the grieving families for whom he sought justice, rest in peace at last.”
Dad sags forward on the lectern, and half the people in the church lurch forward as though to prop him up. But after a moment, he pushes himself erect again and gazes out over the congregation with empathy and sadness.
“Thank you for hearing me out. And now . . . I go to answer for those things I’ve done and left undone. I go to speak the truth as I know it, and pray there’s still time for redemption. But please . . . remember my charge to you: do not let them die in vain. God bless you all.”
With that, my father turns and shuffles to Henry’s coffin, then lays his hand on it, head bowed.
My mother sobs once beside me, overcome with emotion, and then her quivering hand closes around mine. “That’s your father,” she says, her voice filled with vindication.
“I know that,” I mutter, more confused than I’ve ever been in my life.
After his silent communion with Henry, Dad straightens up and walks back through the door whence he came, this time escorted by two FBI agents.
The buzz of voices that rises in his wake sets the walls of the church to vibrating. The energy in this building is palpable, electric, a living force that craves a balancing of the scales. If the surviving members of the Double Eagle group were brought through the doors behind me now, I doubt they would escape this crowd alive.
“Does Kaiser have men out back?” I ask Walt as the pallbearers slowly walk to the bier.
“He’s got everything covered.”
“Are they taking Dad into custody now?”
“Probably. Quentin Avery’s back there, too. Kaiser’s coordinating this with Colonel Mackiever, the Concordia Parish DA, and the big boys in Washington. It’s going to run like clockwork.”
“You’re forgetting the Knoxes, aren’t you?”
Walt squeezes my shoulder again. “I’ll talk to you outside, Penn.”
He starts to rise, but I turn and grab his arm. “What did Dad trade for this, Walt?”
“I don’t know.”
“The JFK stuff?” I whisper. “Or is he going to come clean about Viola?”
“I don’t know, man. And I don’t care. This was the only way to end this nightmare with him alive.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be okay. He’s seen to that.”
I shake my head, then release Walt’s arm.
As the old Ranger hurries through the back door, Mom clenches my knee. “Penn, what’s happening? Did Walt say Tom is turning himself in?”
“Yes.”
She nods and shudders with conflicted relief. “Do you think the FBI would let me see him? Just for a minute?”
I can hardly answer, so profoundly shaken has this turn of events left me.
“Penn?” Mom says again.
Henry’s funeral is over. The coffin has departed, Reverend Baldwin has released the crowd with a barely audible prayer, and the doors at the back of the church have been thrown open, letting in a broad shaft of gray-white light.
“Walt said Quentin’s out back,” I tell her. “Go through the door behind the lectern and find him. He’ll help you.”
Mom grabs my hand and places it over Annie’s, then rushes through the door beside the altar.
As the excited mourners stream outside, and a couple of the journalists scrawl in notebooks produced from their suit jackets, Annie tugs at my sleeve. When I look down, I see her holding Caitlin’s cell phone to her ear. Her eyes are wide with an emotion I cannot read.
“Daddy, you need to listen to this.”
“What, Boo?”
“I finally broke Caitlin’s passcode! She left a message on her phone.”
Only then do I remember that Caitlin originally bought the Treo because it had a Voice Memo function that allowed up to an hour of voice recording, an invaluable tool for a journalist. “That’s a new phone, Boo, but she’s probably got an hour of memos on there already. I’ll listen to them after we get home.”
As Annie speaks again, a commotion erupts outside, so loud that I can hear it through the back wall. Several voices shout out for someone to stop something, and then “Leave him alone!”
“Daddy?” Annie asks worriedly.
“Dr. Cage!” someone screams.
Caitlin’s cell phone forgotten, I grab Annie’s hand and race through the door by the altar, into the blinding sunlight.
“Over there!” Annie cries, pointing at the crowded parking lot.
A burly man in a black T-shirt is gripping my father’s arm with one hand and aiming a pistol at him with the other. Four FBI agents and Walt Garrity have surrounded the gunman, but they seem helpless as the big man yells, “This man’s a fugitive! I’m making a lawful arrest!”
Only when I get close enough to read BAIL RECOVERY AGENT on the T-shirt do I understand what’s happening. Half of Kaiser’s men have their weapons out, but they’re not aiming them at the bounty hunter yet.
“Penn, do something!” cries my mother, who’s being restrained by an FBI agent.
“Everybody back off!” the big man yells. “This man’s wanted for the capital murder of a Louisiana State Police officer! I’m taking him into custody.”
As I let go of Annie and run toward the group, Walt’s hand disappears under his jacket. A voice that sounds like Kaiser’s yells for Walt to stop, but Kaiser might as well have shouted for a meteor not to fall. Out comes a black semiautomatic, and Walt orders the bounty hunter to release my father. Recognizing the steel of an armed lawman’s voice, the bounty hunter turns toward Walt and finds the barrel in his face.
“Texas Rangers,” Walt says. “Just take your mitts off him, junior. Nice and easy.”
“Take it easy, Captain Garrity,” Kaiser says in a level voice, motioning for his agents to holster their weapons. “Put that gun away.”
The bounty hunter stares back at Walt, and then his eyes narrow in suspicion. “Texas Ranger, my ass. This son of a bitch is wanted, too! What the hell’s going on around here?”
“You’re disturbing a funeral,” Walt says with eerie calm. “And that’s bad manners in any jurisdiction.”
“Manners?” the big man scoffs. “I just made a lawful arrest. There’s a hundred witnesses here. You’ll get the death penalty if you shoot me in front of all these people.”
Walt shakes his head so slightly that only the men who have witnessed lethal violence realize how close they are to it.
“I’m Special Agent John Kaiser, FBI,” Kaiser says to the bounty hunter. “I’ve already taken Dr. Cage into protective custody. If you don’t holster that weapon and leave now, you’ll be spending tonight in a federal lockup.”
This threat should be sufficient to defuse the situation, yet somehow it doesn’t. I can’t understand why the bounty hunter would disobey Kaiser unless . . . unless he’s waiting for some kind of backup.
“John, you need to get Dad out of here,” I say in a taut voice. “Right now. Walt, too, if you can. Something’s wrong about this.”
“Put down that gun, Garrity,” Kaiser orders.
“Him first,” Walt says, and for the first time I sense that Walt may be the sanest one of us.
I step closer to Kaiser. “This guy could be working with Forrest, John. He could be waiting for state SWAT to show, or for a kill shot to come out of the trees across the road.”
This prospect galvanizes Kaiser beyond anything I expected. He whips out his service weapon and plants its barrel on the temple of the bounty hunter. “You’re under arrest for violation of the USA PATRIOT Act. Drop your weapon now or I will fire. You have three seconds. One, two—”
“Wait! Shit!” The bounty hunter’s gun hits the ground and his hands fly skyward, his eyes bugging in shock and fear.
Two FBI agents hustle him through the crowd, while another jerks Walt’s pistol from his hand. One agent starts to arrest Walt, but Kaiser waves him off. Then I hear tires spinning as an FBI vehicle leaves the lot, hurling gravel behind it.
The standoff has stunned everyone within sight of it. The faces in the crowd run the gamut from green looks of seasickness to fascinated stares. As I pull Annie into my arms, a black Suburban with tinted windows rumbles up beside Dad, who is hugging my mother like he’ll never see her again. Kaiser gently separates them, then shepherds my father toward an open door halfway down the passenger side. Dad turns, possibly looking for me, but I look down and put an arm around Annie’s shoulders so that I don’t have to endure whatever he wants to communicate to me.
After he’s been closed into the SUV, it waits only for Kaiser to board. The FBI agent climbs in, then rolls down the window and addresses us through it. “We’ve federalized the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office. I emptied out the jail. Let us get Dr. Cage processed into custody, and then you can see him.”
My mother clenches Kaiser’s hand and thanks him, and then the Suburban speeds away. As Mom falls into my arms, I hear a strange whir to my right. Turning, I see Quentin Avery rolling up in his motorized wheelchair. Despite missing both legs, he manages to look more debonair than any male present, thanks to his still-handsome face and his five-thousand-dollar suit.
At least a hundred people stand behind him, watching expectantly. Beyond them I see Swan Norris on the church steps, looking serene and resigned as people mob her with what politeness they can manage. Her grandson, too, is shaking hands with well-wishers. Quentin rotates his chair to face the mourners and, in the voice of a man with an enviable ability to stop and smell the roses, says, “That Swan sure sang Sam Cooke pretty, didn’t she?”
“She sho’ did,” someone agrees.
Annie tugs anxiously at my trousers. “Daddy, where were they taking Papa?”
I lean down and give her a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry, Boo. Mr. Quentin’s going to take care of Papa.”
“How? That man with the gun looked really mean. The guys in the black truck looked scary, too.”
Quentin leans toward her with a confident smile and then winks. “Don’t you worry, pretty girl. Bullies are my specialty.”
“But they were a lot bigger than you are. And . . .”
The old lion’s smile broadens. “And they’re not in a wheelchair?” Quentin reaches out and taps Annie’s forehead. “Looks can be deceiving, darling. That’s an important lesson. Ask your daddy about it on the way home.” He gives me a mock salute. “I’m off, my brother. Keep your chin up, and remember what’s important.”
“Which is?”
“Those women on either side of you.”
As Quentin’s wheelchair hums off toward a white Mercedes van, Doris Avery climbs out and opens the side door, then deploys the ramp. She sees me watching, but she does not wave. This is exactly the kind of situation she wanted to avoid when she urged Quentin not to take Dad’s case, which already seems a lifetime ago.
Looking around for Mom, I see that Walt has taken her aside to explain what happened with the bounty hunter. For a brief moment I feel released from the weight of supporting her, and into that vacuum rushes all my grief and anger at my father. The logistics of getting to Henry’s funeral—and the intensity of the event itself—had distracted me from it for a while, but now the nearly unendurable reality returns with shattering force: Caitlin is still dead, and two days from now we have another funeral to attend.
“Daddy?” says Annie. “You need to listen to that message now.”
“I told you, babe, I’ll listen to it when we get home. I promise.”
“Now,” she insists, her face angry. “It’s important!”
There’s a desperate note in my daughter’s voice that I can’t ignore. “All right. Okay. You start it for me.”
Annie goes to work on the keypad with fingers as deft as her mother’s once were—and Caitlin’s, too.
“The passcode was ya’ll’s wedding day,” she says. “Or what it was supposed to be. All numbers. Lean down by me to listen.”
I do.
Annie presses a button, and then—as though calling from some plane beyond the grave—the second love of my life begins to speak in a strained whisper:
“Penn . . . this may be the last time you hear my voice. I’ve been shot. In the heart, according to your father.” The rasp of labored breathing comes from the phone’s tiny speaker. “Tom was . . . trying to help me, but his hands were cuffed, and . . . now he’s passed out. I’m afraid he may be dead. I’m going to try to save myself, but . . . in case something goes wrong . . . I want to tell you some things—”
“Daddy?” Annie asks, her eyes wide. “Daddy, are you okay?”
