“No. But he might tell Sonny Thornfield.”
Kaiser drew back, his face darkening. “Oh, no. If I sent Sonny into that cellblock to try to trick that information out of Snake, Snake would tip to what’s going on in two seconds flat. I can’t take that risk.”
“John—”
“I’m sorry, Penn. This isn’t the way I wanted it, but I now have a chance to turn a Double Eagle. With that tattoo, I can break Sonny Thornfield. And I have to try it. Now. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.”
“You wouldn’t even have the chance without that tattoo.”
“Probably not. And I’m grateful for it.”
“John . . . I could walk out of here and tell the world that Walker Dennis planted that meth on the Eagles. And I could say I never saw that tattoo in my life until you pulled it out of your briefcase.”
Kaiser looks like he doesn’t believe I’d do it, but then doubt enters his eyes. “You’d blow the chance to turn a Double Eagle and solve a dozen murders on the off chance of saving your father?”
“If that’s my only option.”
“Two can play that game. I could jail you for obstruction. Under the Patriot Act.”
“You’d have to take me to a black site to keep me from telling what I know.”
Kaiser groans angrily. “Goddamn it.”
I look at my watch. “Okay, let’s say you succeed in flipping Sonny. If he agrees to a deal with you, will you send him back and ask him to see if he can find out where Snake sent Dad?”
The FBI agent runs his fingers along the rolled towel that contains the tattoo. “Maybe. If you can come up with an approach for Sonny that will convince Snake he’s not a traitor.”
“Okay, I’ll think about it. Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“I’m going to watch you try to flip Sonny. That tattoo’s my ticket, and you know it.”
“From the observation room,” Kaiser says. “That’s as close as you get.”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
BEYOND THE ONE-WAY WINDOW of the observation room, Sonny Thornfield stares anxiously at the rolled white towel in Kaiser’s hands. It probably reminds him of the towel Walt slung over the pipe in the utility closet. If he knew what that towel contained, it would scare him more than being hung from a pipe.
“Sonny?” Kaiser says gently. “Mayor Cage and the sheriff just searched a fishing cabin over on Old River. They didn’t find Dr. Cage there. But they did find two bottles of his medicine, and signs of a struggle.”
Sonny blinks and swallows involuntarily. “If the doc ain’t there, I don’t know where he’s at. Snake must have moved him. Or else Forrest found him again.”
“Once you get back to the cellblock, I’d like you to find out which.”
Sonny looks at Kaiser like a little boy whose father has asked him to stand up to a bully in the schoolyard. “You got no idea what you’re askin’, mister.”
“Yes, I do, Sonny. But before you go back to your comrades, we need to address a different issue. Mayor Cage also discovered a footlocker in your cabin.” The old man’s chin begins to quiver, and the blood slowly drains from his face. He looks like a patient waiting to hear a terminal diagnosis from his oncologist. Kaiser posted a deputy trained as a paramedic outside in case Sonny has another heart attack, and it’s looking like that was a good idea.
“Apparently, your footlocker contained all sorts of memorabilia. Your marine forage cap and battle ribbons, a Ku Klux Klan hood, an old pistol, and a Playboy magazine from 1953.”
Beads of sweat have popped out on the old man’s wrinkled forehead. “That locker ain’t mine,” he says.
“No? It has your name on it, and your marine discharge inside it.”
Sonny’s pale lips move, but no sound emerges.
Kaiser lays the rolled-up towel on the table between them. “I’m going to unroll this cloth, Sonny,” he says gently.
“Don’t,” the old man whispers.
“I have to.”
“How come?”
“You know why.”
Thornfield wipes his eyes. “I can’t help you. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”
Kaiser sighs softly. “Yes, you can, Sonny. You can send Billy and Snake to death row. Forrest too, unless I miss my guess. And you can spend all the years you have left with your family. Safe from harm.”
Sonny bends his head and covers his eyes with a shaking hand.
As a prosecutor, I saw many men confronted by the evidence of their most secret sins. Some showed no emotion; others, those like Snake Knox, actually laughed at photographs of dead or mutilated victims. But a few, like Sonny Thornfield, enter something like a fugue state. The knowledge that their most depraved act on earth will be revealed to all is more than they can endure.
He’s going to break, I realize. When he sees that tattoo, he’s going to fall apart. The only problem is, he’s the wrong target. Sonny doesn’t know where my father is. Only Snake knows that.
Kaiser slowly unrolls the cloth.
“Please don’t,” Sonny whispers again, begging now.
Why did Sonny keep that tattoo? I wonder. An FBI agent asked the same thing when I showed it to Kaiser in Dennis’s office. Because that’s what men do, Kaiser answered. Didn’t you ever keep something that belonged to a girl you had sex with? A lost earring? An article of clothing? Blood rose into the agent’s cheeks when Kaiser said that, but the old profiler was already rolling the swatch of skin into the towel.