The Bone Tree by Greg Iles Read Free Book Online Page B

was the guy who went to see Pooky Wilson’s mother before she died?”
    “Right.”
    “And he was the one who called in tips to me as ‘Gates Brown’?”
    “That’s right. And visited Henry at the hospital.”
    “How the hell did Johnston know that Royal had kidnapped you?”
    “He was watching Brody’s house when we were brought there. He’d been following Royal ever since he got down here from Detroit.That’s why he was in a position to see Royal and Regan burn the Beacon building. He just didn’t get up the nerve to call your office until today. Or yesterday, I guess. Technically. Even after living in the North for forty years, Sleepy was still scared shitless of Royal and the Knoxes. He didn’t think Brody would ever pay for what he’d done.”
    “Why did he use a baseball player’s name as an alias?”
    “After Sleepy moved to Detroit, he was lonely. Gates Brown was a black star of the Tigers, and he’d had some trouble in his youth, just like Sleepy. But he helped the Tigers win the Series in ’68, and Sleepy saw him as a role model. But his luck ran out tonight.”
    Sheriff Dennis, an old baseball player himself, nods with understanding. “Pretty damn sad when you think about it.”
    “Worse than sad.”
    “So who died next? Henry?”
    “Henry was already wounded from the earlier attacks, but I think he’d got hit again in the gunfight upstairs at Royal’s. He could barely hold himself upright. Brody knocked him down and taunted him, then basically forgot him. But when Brody was about to fry Caitlin with that flamethrower—and I was chained to the wall—Henry crawled over there, got to his feet somehow, and protected her with his body.”
    “Henry did that?”
    “You haven’t heard the half of it. He went after Brody then. Brody was trying to fire that flamethrower, but once Henry lunged at him, he couldn’t fire without risking the flame blowing back on him. Then Henry closed with Brody, and after a brief struggle, Henry pulled the trigger and immolated them both.” I pause to get my voice back under control. “It was the most terrible and heroic thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
    “God almighty. And Randall Regan?”
    After a few seconds of silence, I say, “I killed Regan.”
    Sheriff Dennis grunts. “Well . . . I guess you can give me the details at the station.”
    “Thanks.”
    “But tell me this: if Sleepy Johnston was shot down in the basement, how’d he wind up outside on the ground?”
    “I carried him out.”
    The sheriff looks back at me, his eyes skeptical. “Dead?”
    “No. He was hit in the spine. I knew moving him might paralyzehim, or even kill him, but he’d have burned alive otherwise.” I force back the images of Sleepy Johnston’s face as he resigned himself to death in those flames. “I didn’t even feel the weight, Walker. It was like lifting a little kid.”
    Dennis nods slowly. “That’s how it is when shit like that goes down.”
    “All I know is, two good men are dead. Three, if that Natchez cop guarding the Examiner was killed.”
    “I don’t envy you the call to Chief Logan. Unless you want me to make it.”
    I shake my head. “No, I owe Logan that.”
    “Well, at least Royal and Regan are dead. I won’t say I’m sorry to hear that news.”
    But at what cost? “Caitlin blames me for what happened tonight,” I say dully, voicing my deepest conviction. “She’ll never say it, but she does. She blames my father, too, of course.”
    “What about you? Do you blame your old man?”
    After a long silence, I hear myself say, “I guess I do. If he’d done anything but what he did, you know? If he’d opened up to me from the beginning, about Viola’s death? If he hadn’t jumped bail? How many people would still be alive?”
    “I don’t know, Penn. But wait till you can talk to him before you judge. Your daddy’s a good man. I feel sure there are things you don’t know. Things that will make all this make sense.”
    “I tried to