The Bone Tree

Caitlin stares at the burning wreckage as though she can’t quite grasp what’s happening. Five minutes ago we both believed we were dead, yet here we stand. Covered with ash and streaked with sweat, her face has a burn scar to match my own. I want to speak to her, but I don’t quite trust myself.

Beyond her, the lake’s mirrored surface reflects back an image of the tower of flame, and with a rush of fear I see our future in it. Like the pillar of fire the Israelites followed across the desert, this beacon too will lead men to us.

“Is that a siren?” Caitlin asks, looking away from the raging flames, and toward the narrow lane at the edge of the light.

“I think so.” My older ears belatedly pick up the distant whine.

“That way,” she says, pointing westward, away from the lake.

I peer through the darkness, but I can’t make out any police lights through the orange glare and waves of superheated air.

“What about Henry’s files?” Caitlin asks. “I should hide them.”

The charred box that Caitlin salvaged from the burning basement stands a few feet from Sleepy Johnston’s body. From the looks of the ashes inside, little of Henry Sexton’s journals remains.

“There’s nowhere to hide them,” I tell her.

“What about the boathouse?” she asks, a note of hysteria in her voice.

“They’ll search that. It’s too late anyway. A neighbor’s coming. Look.”

The nearest house is seventy-five yards away, but a pair of headlights has separated from the garage and begun nosing down toward the lane that runs along the lake here. Perhaps emboldened by the siren, the car’s driver has finally decided to investigate the fire. Must have heard the gunshots earlier, I think, or they’d have been here long before now.

The siren is growing louder and rising in pitch. “That’s probably the Ferriday fire department,” I think aloud. “But the law won’t be far behind. I hope it’s Sheriff De

Bewilderment clouds Caitlin’s eyes. “We both lived through the same thing, didn’t we?”

I take her hand, and the coldness of it startles me. “I don’t think it’s quite that simple.”

“Everything you did in Brody Royal’s basement was self-defense. They were torturing us, for God’s sake!”

“That’s not what I mean. The tough questions won’t be about what happened in the basement. They’ll be about why it happened. Why did Royal kidnap us? Why did he want to kill us? We’ve held back a lot over the past couple of days.” And not just from the police, I add silently.

“What if we just say we don’t know?”

“That’s fine with me, so long as you don’t plan to publish any stories about it in the Examiner.”

At last, realization dawns in her eyes. “Oh.”

A half mile from the lake, the whirling red lights of a fire engine break out from behind the trees that line the levee, then veer onto the narrow lane that runs along the shore of Lake Concordia. A half mile behind it, three vehicles traveling in train quickly follow. The flashing red arcs are much closer to the road on those vehicles, which means they’re police cruisers. Our window of opportunity to shape history is closing fast.

“I found Brody Royal’s name in Henry Sexton’s journals,” Caitlin says, spi

This fairy tale might convince the Concordia Parish sheriff, but probably not the FBI. “Too many people saw me go into St. Catherine’s Hospital,” I say. “They know I spent twenty minutes alone with Brody. Now that he’s dead, his family’s liable to make all kinds of accusations about me going after him. Kaiser will find out sooner or later.”

“Surely you can explain that conversation somehow?”

“I sure can’t admit that I tried to cut a deal with him.” Under the pressure of the approaching authorities, my mind ratchets down to the task at hand. “What if I pick up where your story leaves off? I went to St. Catherine’s Hospital to make sure Royal wasn’t going to take some kind of revenge against you for his daughter’s suicide attempt. I suspected that he’d ordered several murders during the 1960s, and Katy had verified that to you. I also believed Royal had ordered the hit attempts on Henry at the newspaper and the hospital, and I was worried he’d do the same to you. That makes sense, right?”

Caitlin nods quickly, her eyes on the whirling lights.

I step closer to her. “Are you going to tell the cops about your recording of what Katy said?”

“I might as well, since Brody burned both copies. They’re going to read about it in tomorrow’s paper anyway.”

Closing my eyes, I see Caitlin’s Treo smartphone and my borrowed tape recorder being consumed by the fearsome blast of a flamethrower. “You really don’t have another copy at the newspaper?”

Her look of desolation is my only answer.

The fire engine has reached the head of Royal’s driveway. We only have seconds now.

“What about Brody’s confessions?” Caitlin asks. “That he was behind Pooky Wilson’s death? That Frank and Snake Knox killed Pooky at the Bone Tree?”

“We tell the cops all of that. Every bit of it helps justify what we did tonight.”

Caitlin looks strangely hesitant, which I don’t understand. Even if we tell the police about those confessions, she can still publish the story before any other media outlet gets the information.

“For God’s sake,” I say, “until tonight, no one was even sure the Bone Tree was real. And Royal admitted taking part in the gang rape of Viola Turner. We’ve got to tell them that.”

Caitlin gives me a pointed look. “Brody also told us your father killed Viola. Do you want to tell the police that?”

“Of course not.”

“All right, then. That’s why I’m asking what we hold back. Is there anything else?”

I can’t read her eyes. We’ve kept so much from each other over the past few days that it’s hard to know where our stories might diverge if compared to one another.

“The rifles,” I say softly. “Those two rifles in the cabinet that he showed us just before you held the razor to his throat. Did you see them?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was waiting for my chance to attack him.”

“There were identifying plaques beneath every other rifle in the gun collection. But on those two plaques there were only dates. Dates, and a small American flag emblem.”

Caitlin shrugs. “So?”

“The dates were November twenty-second, 1963, and April fourth, 1968.”

She blinks in confusion for a couple of seconds, but then her eyes go wide. “No way. I mean . . . do you really—”

“I don’t think so. But if we don’t tell Kaiser about them, whatever’s left of those guns might disappear tonight. And we’ll never know.”

Caitlin gingerly touches the burn on her cheek. “Let’s hope Sheriff De

I reach out and squeeze her shoulder. “Whoever it is, act more disoriented than you are. You really are in shock, but play it up more. When they question you, try to stick to the past hour, nothing more. Act exhausted, and play up your injuries.”

Caitlin doesn’t appear to like this plan. “I don’t want to spend the night in a damned hospital. This is the biggest story I’ve ever been involved in. I’ve got zero time to waste.”