“Who’s Billy Knox?”
“Snake’s son. About your age. He’s a legitimate businessman, according to his 1040. He’s into everything from timber to TV production. He uses old Eagles in the meth operation, probably because he knows he can trust them. Guys like Snake and Sonny Thornfield own front businesses that shield the operation. Car dealerships, Snake’s crop-dusting operation, that kind of thing.”
“Perfect for laundering drug profits. Also for purchasing and moving precursor chemicals. We might just have to give this operation a little scrutiny, depending on how things go.”
Henry shakes his head like a man trying to come to grips with a new world. “We’ll have to be damn careful. Morehouse said the drug operation has powerful protection.”
“From whom? Brody Royal?”
“In part, maybe. You may not know this, but the district attorney of this parish is married to one of Brody Royal’s nieces.”
“Oh, God. Have you checked the court record for any signs of corruption on his part?”
Henry shrugs. “He seems pretty clean. I don’t think he’s the heavyweight protection for the meth trade. The Knox people are never even arrested.”
“Who’s shielding them?”
Henry’s eyes lock on to mine. “Remember Forrest Knox?”
This takes me a minute. “The kid who witnessed the plane crash? Frank’s son?”
“Right. You know what he does for a living now?”
“No idea.”
“He’s a lieutenant colonel in the Louisiana State Police. Director of their Criminal Investigations Bureau.”
This seems too absurd to believe, yet it must be true. Henry’s eyes are shining with perverse satisfaction. “How the hell could Forrest Knox rise so high in law enforcement with his family pedigree?”
“This is Louisiana, brother. The land of Edwin Edwards and David Duke.”
“It can’t be that simple.”
“No. Forrest was a war hero, for one thing. Vietnam, Silver Star. For another, he worked his whole life to distance himself from his relatives—at least in public. The Double Eagle connection always dogged him, but his political instincts are so good that he managed to rise above it. Forrest and Snake supposedly hate each other, and have no recorded contact except at family funerals. But Billy and Forrest sometimes get together at a fancy hunting camp they own in Lusahatcha County. And it seems awful coincidental that a big-time drug dealer never seems to get arrested in a state where his cousin is chief of the most powerful criminal investigative agency.”
“Bottom line, if we push the Knox family, they’ll push back.”
Henry nods slowly.
We sit in demoralized silence for a bit, but beneath my disappointment about Morehouse’s death, I can’t help but feel anxious to speak to both Shad Johnson and my father. If Henry is right, and Lincoln Turner mistakenly believes he’s my father’s son, then I know what Shad is using as motive to make the case for premeditated murder. He actually believes my father killed Viola to hide Lincoln’s paternity. This theory has more than one hole in it, but I can see how Shad would latch on to it. I need to explode that notion as soon as possible.
“You’re thinking about your father, aren’t you?” Henry says, almost accusingly.
“I am. You’ve been a tremendous help to him tonight, Henry.”
“Are you still going to confront him about the Brody Royal connection?”
“Absolutely.”
“And will you tell me what you find out?”
“If it bears on any of these murders, I will. I promise you that.”
He gets up and pours what’s left of the coffee out of the carafe, his right hand trembling. “The sheriff sure seems to be taking his time sending that deputy. You think we’re okay?”
“I’d feel better if I had a pistol. But I think we’re all right.”
He nods dispiritedly.
“Henry, I’m not going to abandon you on these cases. Not even if I get Shad to drop the case against my father.”
No response.
“Tell me something,” I say, trying to distract him. “If there was one thing you could have tomorrow, as if by magic, what would it be? I don’t mean Glenn Morehouse brought back to life. I’m talking about the realm of the possible. What would be most valuable to you? Nonredacted FBI files?”
The reporter pooches out his lower lip, then rubs his mustache. “Anything?”
“Anything.”
“I’d want the Jericho Hole drained. Or dragged, anyway.”
This surprises me. “Tell me why.”
“If we had the missing bodies, the FBI would be forced to reopen all the cases and go at them full bore. The political pressure would be unbearable if they didn’t. I consider two dump sites ground zero for these cases, forensically speaking. One is the Jericho Hole. The other is a place called the Bone Tree, in the Lusahatcha Swamp. The Bone Tree is probably the better spot, and there’s some chance that it might stand on federal land.”
“That would mean federal jurisdiction. That’s always the better path in these kinds of cases.”
“I know, but we won’t find the Bone Tree without a battalion of National Guard troops. And today Morehouse told me I’d hit pay dirt at both places.”
“Who do you think was dumped in the Jericho Hole?”