Free The Bone Tree by Greg Iles Page B

trouble.”
    “Something to do with Dr. Cage?”
    “No. Brody’s dead.”
    Forrest gripped the phone harder. “Brody Royal?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Dead how? Natural causes?”
    “Nobody’s exactly sure what happened, but his lake house burned up. It may have blown up. He’s not the only one dead, either. It’s a mess out there. Son-in-law’s dead, too.”
    Randall Regan? Dead? Forrest felt himself brace for further shocks. “Who else?”
    “Three of Royal’s security people, plus Henry Sexton and an old black guy named Johnston.”
    And the hits just keep on coming. Forrest tried to picture what sequence of events could have led to such a nightmare. “This doesn’t make any sense, Alphonse. What the hell happened?”
    “You ain’t heard the worst of it. Somehow, Mayor Penn Cage and his fiancée, the Masters girl, wound up in Brody’s basement, and—”
    “Don’t tell me they’re dead.”
    “No, no,” Ozan said quickly. “But they were in there. Looks like Royal may have kidnapped them, or ordered it done.”
    “Goddamn it!” Forrest gritted his teeth.
    “I know. I think maybe Henry Sexton and the old nigger went in there to try to get Cage and the girl out. What happened after that, I don’t know. Only Cage and the girl came out alive, 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 ofBrody 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