The Bone Tree: A Novel

As Keisha perched on the edge of the chair across the desk, Caitlin reflected that there was a world of difference between twenty-five and thirty-five. Harvin wore her hair in a tight, no-nonsense bob, but she still managed to look glamorous. The Alabama native wore practical shoes, yet her jeans were Sevens, and her top expensive silk. Caitlin knew from the months she’d spent training Harvin that the reporter pinched her pennies to be able to afford such style. Keisha had always possessed the same fire Caitlin did—the desire to make her mark in her chosen field—but now she seemed driven by an even more powerful passion, the hunger to right a wrong against her people.

 

“Right now Jamie has me working background on Sheriff Billy Byrd, and that’s cool. I get it.”

 

Caitlin almost blushed with guilt. She’d texted Jamie to assign Keisha that job on her way back from Byrd’s office. “But you really want to work on something else.”

 

Keisha inclined her head.

 

“Which is . . . ?”

 

“I’ve reviewed everything that’s been reported so far, and I’ve talked to the staff about the angles they’re working. And given that . . . it’s become clear to me that one part of the story is being completely ignored.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“The crime that started it all. The murder of Viola Turner.”

 

Caitlin felt her cheeks heat up. She felt shock, anger, embarrassment . . . and each emotion had hit her on at least two levels. Various replies to Harvin’s request rose in her throat, but Caitlin clamped her mouth shut before any could escape. Because Keisha was right: Viola’s story was being ignored. And there could only be one reason for that. Caitlin’s staff had sensed that she’d marked it off-limits. Silently perhaps, but absolutely. Otherwise people would have been all over that story. The chief murder suspect in the Viola Turner case was the mayor’s father, for God’s sake. The problem for her staff was, because Caitlin and Penn were engaged, the mayor was the boss’s future husband.

 

It struck Caitlin then that Jamie had known what Keisha was going to say before she walked through the door. He might even have advised her to do it, thinking Caitlin would be reluctant to blast a young black reporter for raising the sensitive subject. Not that it mattered, of course. Now that they’d brought the unpleasant reality to her attention, she could not ignore it.

 

“Okay,” she said to Keisha. “How do you want to handle it?”

 

“I’d like to interview Dr. Cage. Obviously that’s not possible at this time, so my first fallback would be to interview Mayor Cage.”

 

Caitlin took a deep breath and kept her voice under control. “I honestly don’t know if Penn will talk to you. Even though you work for me, he’ll probably take the same position he would with any reporter. While his father’s life is on the line, he won’t discuss it.”

 

“Will you at least ask him?” Keisha pressed.

 

God, this girl has balls, Caitlin thought. She wondered if she’d had that kind of courage at twenty-five. Yes, she decided, I did.

 

“I’ll ask him,” she said. “But I’d get busy finding a second fallback, because I don’t think Penn will talk to you.”

 

“I’m trying to reach Viola Turner’s family right now.”

 

“Who? The sister?”

 

“And the son. Lincoln Turner.”

 

Caitlin’s stomach fluttered. She forced a smile, then tapped her hands on the desktop. “That sounds like a plan. Anything else, guys?”

 

Keisha gave her an emotionless smile. “Nope. Thanks.”

 

After the reporter went out, Caitlin tried to pretend like nothing unusual had happened, but after a few seconds, she gave up. She stood and looked Jamie in the eyes. “You set that up, didn’t you?”

 

“No.”

 

Caitlin held the eye contact for a few uncomfortable seconds, then went to her refrigerator for a Mountain Dew. After taking a long drink, she said, “She’s right, of course. We have been ignoring the story, and it’s no accident. I don’t like being a pawn in the political games of Shad Johnson and Billy Byrd. But . . . we have to cover it.”

 

“I agree. If we don’t, we look biased.”

 

She gave a reluctant nod. After another sip of Mountain Dew, she said, “Tom didn’t murder Viola, you know.”

 

“Of course not,” Jamie said, much too quickly.

 

“You’ll see. It may take some time, but you’ll see.”

 

Jamie sighed as if letting out a long-held breath. “I hope you’re right, boss.”

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 23

 

 

 

 

AFTER LEAVING THE Concordia hospital, I checked in at City Hall and took stock of the work I’d ignored for the past three days. In the face of that, I decided to go over to the district attorney’s office and see how the events of the past twenty-four hours had affected our DA’s view of the pending murder prosecution against my father. The TV trucks parked outside the courthouse and DA’s office should have told me what to expect. After I brusquely marched through the knot of journalists, Shadrach Johnson made me wait half an hour to see him, and now I wish I hadn’t wasted my time. According to Shad, Dad has the same chance of reaching his custody alive as any other cop killer—about one in a hundred—but if he somehow survives, Shad intends to try him for Viola’s murder as though the events of the past three days have no bearing on that case. The man knows how to hold a grudge, I’ll give him that.

 

As I leave the DA’s office building, the cold wind brings me wide awake. I trot down the steps through the shouting reporters without a word, turning left toward City Hall, which abuts the southeast face of the courthouse. Just as I think I’ve cleared the feeding frenzy, someone catches hold of my arm. I whirl in anger, then find myself facing an elderly black woman huddling in a jacket.

 

“Yes, ma’am?” I say. “How can I help you?”

 

“Isobel Handley,” she says with a smile. “I want to know when you’re going to do something about the schools, Mayor. You got elected saying you were gonna fix ’em, but right now it’s a crying shame how few children who go into the first grade make it through the twelfth for graduation. And you’ve been in office two whole years!”

 

The reasons for this state of affairs are both simple and unimaginably complex, and I certainly don’t have the resources to go through them on a cold sidewalk. Not today, anyway. But conversations like this one are the daily fare of a mayor.

 

“I’m talking about the public schools,” the woman goes on. “Not the private white schools where the only black kids are football players.”

 

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