The Bone Tree (Penn Cage #5) - Greg Iles Page 0,279

a dual DC-controller for the unit, which meant that you could hook a car battery to it and operate the doors in an emergency. He suspected that someone with advance knowledge of the bombs and their targets had done just that. Spanky Ford had claimed this was practically impossible—and Kaiser planned to hook Ford up to a lie detector as soon as possible—but the damage was already done.

He was about to go down to the garage-level holding pen where Snake and the remaining Double Eagles had been moved when he heard boots approaching the cellblock door. A few seconds later, the broad silhouette of Walker Dennis filled the space, and then the sheriff stumped down between the cells and stopped outside Sonny’s. He didn’t even nod to Kaiser, but only stared down at the body with what looked like cold fury.

“Where the hell have you been?” Kaiser asked between gritted teeth.

“None of your goddamn business,” Dennis muttered.

Kaiser shook his head in amazement. “You’re going to have to do better than that, Sheriff. Four bombs go off at your courthouse, your department falls apart, a star witness is murdered in your jail, and you don’t show up until a half hour after the fact?”

“I don’t answer to you, Kaiser.”

“No. But that begs the question: just who do you answer to?”

Dennis looked up at last, his eyes burning with rage. “Fuck you.”

Kaiser fought to control his temper. When he spoke, it was in a low voice that almost any man would recognize as dangerous. “Sheriff, either you come clean and tell me everything that’s going on, or I’m going to federalize your department. In all frankness, I may have to do that regardless of your actions.”

Dennis studied Kaiser for several seconds. Then he turned and walked out of the cellblock.

CHAPTER 69

CAITLIN SCRAMBLED OUT of the pirogue with her pistol in her right hand and clambered onto the grassy earth beneath the Bone Tree. Her left hand held a cheap flashlight Harold had passed to her.

“Which way?” she asked. “Where’s the opening?”

“Go to your right. Around to the other side. And quiet down. Jesus. We ain’t the only ones out here.”

“Sorry,” she panted. Fear and excitement were making her hyperventilate.

She kept her eyes on the wet ground as she moved around the great legs of the trunk, watching for cottonmouth moccasins, which were plentiful out here. She felt like she was moving in slow motion, but she knew this was only adrenaline distorting her sense of time.

The trunk of the Bone Tree was so vast that the johnboat disappeared as she worked her way around it. Again she thought of the Tree of Life in the Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World. But this tree had been made by God, or nature. And it was no tree of life, but of death.

As she worked her way to her right, a black opening like a cave mouth showed between two of the cypress’s elephantine legs. Her breath stopped in her throat. The inverted V was more a crack than a door, but certainly wide enough for men and animals to pass through.

“Harold!” she cried, forgetting all caution. “Come around here. Hurry!”

“Shut up!” hissed her guide. “Them bones ain’t going nowhere, if they even in there.”

He appeared about five feet behind Caitlin, his old .22 rifle clutched in his hands.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry. This is just freaking me out. This is a major deal, Harold. You have no idea what’s going to happen behind this. Do you think it’s safe to go inside?”

“Prob’ly safer in there than out here.”

She started to venture in, but Harold held up his hand.

“What is it?” she whispered.

“I heard that motor again.”

“Shit. It’s just hunters, right?”

“You think that’s good news?”

“I don’t care anymore. Just stand guard while I check out what’s inside. Five minutes is all I need.”

Harold turned and scanned the darkness under the canopy of trees. With his dark skin and the primitive atmosphere around the Chain Tree, Caitlin couldn’t help but picture a runaway slave from 150 years ago, afraid of being lynched.

“If you want to stay five minutes,” he said, “give me your gun.”

Caitlin hugged the pistol to her belly. “My gun? Why? You’ve got a rifle.”

He snorted. “This lil’ .22 ain’t worth spit against the deer guns them hunters carry. They’ll blow a pound a meat out of me. I need some firepower.”

Caitlin thought about it. “What if there are animals inside the tree?”

Harold took the stock of his rifle and banged it