The Bone Tree (Penn Cage #5) - Greg Iles Page 0,24

and only they know what happened.”

“Who was the nigger?”

“His name was Marshall Johnston, Junior, but I don’t know what the hell he was doing there. Fire department says there was some kind of explosion, and everything smells like tar.”

Forrest instantly thought of Brody Royal’s flamethrower, the weapon Forrest’s father had used on Albert Norris and his store in 1964. The deadly antique fired a mixture of gasoline and tar, propelled by inert nitrogen gas. I should have taken care of Brody last night, he thought. Or even before that.

“Where are Cage and the girl now?” he asked.

“Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”

Forrest was tired of dealing with old men. They were as reckless and sensitive as teenagers. Because of the bruised ego and paranoia of Brody Royal, he now had to contend with a seismic shift in battlefield conditions.

“Alphonse?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Get your ass over to the sheriff’s department and take over the investigation.”

“Which one? Brody’s house blowing up?”

“No. Everything going back three days. We can’t afford to have Walker Dennis poking around in our business any longer.”

“You think Dennis will stand for that?”

“You’re not going to give him any choice.”

“Okay. And the FBI?”

“If Kaiser backs off like he did at the hospital, then we’ll know we’ve got it made.”

“And if not?”

“We’ll sandbag that blue-flame son of a bitch before he knows what hit him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t call me again.”

“I won’t.”

Forrest switched off the phone and dropped it on the seat beside him. Despite his best efforts to control the situation, the bodies were piling up fast. With Henry Sexton dead and the Masters girl involved, one thing was sure: a media storm was coming. Any hope of solving his problems quietly would vanish with the publication of tomorrow’s Natchez Examiner. Forrest pulled the red bubble light from his glove box and set it on the dash, then switched it on and floored the gas pedal. He needed to get to headquarters. Speed was everything now.

CHAPTER 7

I’M SITTING ON a bench outside an interrogation room in the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office, with Special Agent John Kaiser staring down at me with a mixture of fury and disappointment. The trim and usually well-dressed agent looks like someone shook him awake from a nap in his car: hair sticking up, clothes askew, eyes bloodshot and heavy-bagged. Sleep deprivation is finally taking its toll on him.

There’s nothing in the corridor but a battered vinyl couch, a metal chair, and a card table with a plastic Christmas tree and a dying Mr. Coffee standing on it. The coffee in the carafe looks like river mud mixed with tar, but that didn’t stop Caitlin from pouring herself a full cup before going into the interrogation room. She’s obviously prepping for a marathon of work once she gets out of this place.

Ten minutes ago, I finished my statement to Sheriff Dennis and his video camera, while the sheriff’s brother-in-law stood guard over Caitlin in a nearby office. As agreed with Caitlin, I mostly told the truth, while omitting a few dangerous facts, among them Brody Royal’s assertion that my father murdered Viola Turner three days ago. By the time Sheriff Dennis called Caitlin into his office, she was nearly crazy to get back across the river to the Examiner. She’d been talking to her editor on a departmental landline, and she’d managed to assemble her full staff, which now awaits her arrival. Sheriff Dennis promised to finish with her as soon as possible, but his intentions meant nothing unless we could get clear of this building before the state police or FBI arrived to detain us further. And that was exactly what happened. Five minutes after Caitlin disappeared into Walker’s office, Agent Kaiser walked up the hall from the front entrance and called out my name.

In response to the FBI agent’s questions, I’ve given a reasonably detailed summary of the night’s events. About seventy percent of what I told Kaiser is true. Twenty percent was lies, and another ten percent I omitted altogether. In the silences between my words and his, I fought to drown out internal echoes of gunfire, Caitlin’s screams, and the bone-chilling hiss and roar of Brody Royal’s flamethrower.

“I’m glad you’re alive,” Kaiser tells me, obviously working hard to keep his anger under control. “But we both know that if Henry Sexton and Sleepy Johnston hadn’t broken into Royal’s house and sacrificed their lives, you and Caitlin would be dead now.”

I don’t look up from the floor tiles. “That’s all I’ve been thinking about since it happened.”

“I