The Bone Tree (Penn Cage #5) - Greg Iles Page 0,30

takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly. “Your father put himself where he is now. Dr. Cage has always had the option of turning himself in.”

“Bullshit. Knox’s troopers would shoot him down before he could even raise a white flag, and you know it.”

Kaiser neither answers nor looks away.

It takes several seconds to get my temper under control. “The Treasury Department didn’t show these scruples when they went after Al Capone. Income-tax evasion was good enough.”

“This is different. When you combine the unsolved civil rights murders with Forrest’s modern-day crimes, and then tie that in to the Kennedy and King assassinations through Brody Royal and Carlos Marcello, you’re talking about one of the most important conspiracy cases in American history. And if anyone but your father were involved, you’d be making my argument for me.”

The realization that Kaiser truly means to move at a snail’s pace while the men he claims to be hunting close in on my father engenders a kind of crazed panic in me. Compared to Walker Dennis and me, Kaiser has unlimited power at his control. He can tap the NSA, the DEA, and any number of other resources for support. One of the few things he cannot do is control my actions—

“I don’t like what I see in your eyes, Penn. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

I hold up both hands and back away from him. “Hey . . . you hold all the cards. I’m just the mayor of Nowhere, USA, and I want to go home.”

His eyes remain on me, but the suspicion in them slowly wanes. “Are your mother and daughter okay? I assume you’re hiding them somewhere?”

You’re damned straight, I reply silently.

“So long as they’re not with your father.”

“Fuck you, John.” I glance anxiously at my watch. “Walker’s got to be nearly done with Caitlin. She’s been in there longer than I was.”

“Maybe she’s more talkative than you. Is Dennis videotaping the questioning?”

“Why? You want a copy?”

As if on cue, we hear the sound of sliding chairs from the interrogation room. Kaiser takes out his cell phone and sends a quick text message.

“Jordan’s sitting up front,” he informs me. “She thought she should come along, in case Caitlin was upset. Do you think it would help Caitlin to see her?”

Jordan Glass is Kaiser’s wife. A famous conflict photographer from my generation, she was one of Caitlin’s idols as a young woman. Now fate or chance have thrown them together in the midst of the kind of story they both live to cover. It was Jordan who earlier tonight convinced Caitlin to turn over a copy of Henry Sexton’s backup files to the FBI instead of fighting a federal subpoena—or so Caitlin claimed, anyway.

“It probably would,” I say, my mind back on tomorrow’s drug raid.

The door of the interrogation room opens abruptly, and Caitlin walks out, her face still smeared with ash. Behind her I see Walker Dennis shutting off the video camcorder he used to record our scripted charades in that little room.

“My God,” say Jordan Glass, rounding the corner of the hall and catching sight of Caitlin. “I think we need a trip to the bathroom.”

“I’m fine,” Caitlin says, giving me a worried look. “What I really need is to get to the newspaper. Like an hour ago.”

“I’ll drive you over,” Jordan offers.

“Hold on,” says Kaiser, stepping up to Caitlin. “I wouldn’t advise you to cross the river into Mississippi just yet.”

“Why not?” she asks, cutting her eyes at me again.

“Because the Royal family has already filed complaints against both of you with the Adams County Sheriff’s Department. They’re claiming that you caused Katy Royal to take those pills, and that Penn harassed their father at St. Catherine’s Hospital.” Kaiser looks at me. “They’ll undoubtedly claim that you went to Royal’s house to persecute him for a crime he never committed.”

“And killed a Natchez cop on the way?” I ask.

“Tell them good luck with that,” Caitlin says. “Tomorrow’s Examiner will explode that little illusion.”

“I’m sure. But be aware, you’re almost certain to be sued over anything you print about Brody Royal in your newspaper. Even if they lose, that family has the money to burn.”

Caitlin waves her hand as if swatting a mosquito. “That still doesn’t explain why I shouldn’t go back to Mississippi.”

“Sheriff Billy Byrd,” I say in a flat voice, naming one of the three men behind the prosecution of my father for murder. “And Shad Johnson. Right?”

Kaiser nods. “I doubt Sheriff Byrd will miss this chance