“Oh, that’s right. You want to make a bargain with the murderer you tell me is too dangerous for me to go after with my newspaper. Tom, even if you physically survived that encounter, you’d die a different kind of death. You’d die on the inside. That son of a bitch is evil.”
“You have no idea, Cait. Snake Knox is clinically insane, and he comes by it honestly. Forrest can’t have fallen far from the tree, either. But that doesn’t change the fact that Forrest Knox is the only man short of the Louisiana governor who can make that APB go away, or blame someone else for Viola’s murder. And I won’t accept any solution that doesn’t extricate Walt from the trouble I’ve got him into.”
At last one of the main reasons for Tom’s intransigence was sinking in. “I understand how you must feel about that. But Tom . . . Forrest is corrupting the whole law enforcement system of Louisiana.”
“Louisiana has been corrupt for three hundred years, Cait. Forrest Knox is nothing new.”
His voice sounded very like her paternal grandfather’s, filled with both disillusionment and wisdom. But she would not let that sidetrack her. “You knew Forrest’s father, didn’t you?” she asked, watching him closely. “Frank Knox?”
“Yes, Frank was a patient of mine.” Tom’s voice had altered slightly, but she couldn’t read the tone.
“I read in one of Henry’s notebooks that Frank died in your office.”
Tom went still, then regarded her curiously.
She pushed on in spite of feeling anxious. “Did you know that Frank Knox murdered Jimmy Revels in the hope of luring Robert Kennedy down here to be assassinated?”
Tom blinked once, slowly. “I never heard anything like that. Is that true?”
“What if I told you that Frank Knox planned that operation at the request of Carlos Marcello, the Mafia boss?”
“Who told you that?”
“Henry Sexton figured it out. But I think the FBI believes the same thing.” Caitlin decided to go for broke. Maybe that would shake Tom from his delusion of coming to some détente with Forrest Knox. “You were no stranger to Marcello yourself, were you?”
Tom’s eyes had gone flat again. “Leave it alone, Caitlin. Please.”
“I wish I could. But people are dying. And your son is out there risking his life trying to save you. This morning he and Walker Dennis busted every meth cooker and mule in Concordia Parish. And tomorrow morning they’re planning to interrogate the Double Eagles at the Concordia Parish Sheriff’s Office.”
Tom’s face grew so pale that she feared he might collapse. “Why the hell is he doing that?”
“He thinks that by putting Forrest on the defensive, he’ll buy you enough time to do whatever the hell you’re trying to do. He loves you so much that he’s willing to go to war against the Knoxes to save you.”
Tom dug his fingers back through his hair like a man trying to hold his brain inside his skull.
Caitlin decided to press on. “Did you already know Brody Royal was guilty of the murders I wrote about in today’s paper?”
Tom lowered his hands into his lap and spoke without looking at her. “No. Not for sure.”
“Did Dr. Leland Robb tell you that Albert Norris implicated Brody Royal in his murder before he died? Henry believed he did.”
The stunned look in Tom’s eyes told her she was close to the truth. Caitlin kept her eyes on his, not wanting to give him enough respite to disengage. “You knew Dr. Robb well, didn’t you? Before he died in that plane crash, you traveled to gun shows together in his plane.”
“Henry obviously did his homework.”
“He wanted justice for those victims, and their families. He believed you knew that Royal had killed Albert and Dr. Robb, but you never told the police or the FBI. Henry couldn’t square that with what he knew about your character, and neither can I. But now . . . my gut tells me that it’s true.”
Tom seemed to have aged visibly during the past minute. “Maybe I’m not the man you think I am.”
“Maybe not. I’ve tried to imagine what might keep you silent about something like that, but I’ve come up empty. The only thing that seems relevant makes no sense to me. According to Henry, there are FBI records that you treated some of Carlos Marcello’s gangsters during the late sixties and seventies. The report says they would drive up from New Orleans, and you’d treat them for free. There are actually FBI surveillance reports of that.”
“Dear God.” Tom cradled his head in his arthritic hands. “I guess nothing we do ever stays buried, does it?” After half a minute, he looked up, his face heavy with what seemed to be grief—or perhaps guilt. “Caitlin . . . if I go further now, what I say is off-limits. You don’t print it. You don’t speak to Penn about it . . . nothing. Ever.”
She wanted to say, I don’t care about that, but she knew she would be lying. Tom would know it, too. “Never?”
“Not until Peggy and I are dead, anyway.”
“All right, then.”
“Give me your word. On the child you’re carrying.”
His demand sent a chill through her. “I won’t say that. It scares me.” She held up her the little finger on her right hand. “Pinkie swear?”
To her surprise, Tom looked as though he might break down. “My daughter used to say that, when she was little.”
“Come on, Tom. I’m the most sympathetic audience you’ll ever have, other than your wife.”
He stared at her for several seconds longer, like a man pondering jumping from a bridge. Then he said, “Viola killed Frank Knox. And I helped her.”
Caitlin felt as though she’d levitated off the chair. “You . . . what?”
“Viola murdered Frank Knox. Out of revenge. And I helped her. I covered it up for thirty-seven years. Henry never figured that out?”