Without a word I pull her to me. She’s stiff at first, but after a few seconds, her muscles give way and she sags against me. She feels so light that I know she must have been skipping meals for days, as she does whenever she’s immersed in a story. When she begins to sob, I pick her up and carry her to the guest room on the ground floor, then lay her on the bed and enfold her in my arms.
We hold each other in silence for several minutes, and l lose myself in the smell of her dark hair in my face. After she quiets down, she asks if I’ve had any word of my father. I tell her about Drew and Melba lying for Dad last night, and Caitlin doesn’t seem at all surprised. She guesses at least a few hundred more people would be willing to lie for him, and that the odds of us—or the Double Eagles—finding him and Walt are almost zero. I’m not nearly so sure, but I don’t argue the point with her. I tell her about my trip to the lake, the face-off with the Monroe cops, their story of Dad’s gunfight, my rescue by Lincoln. She listens closely but says little, her mind recording every word with the mechanical dispassion she often shows when she’s working. She does ask if my mother and Annie are adequately protected. I tell her they are, and that I plan to move them somewhere safer still as soon as I can arrange it. Caitlin doesn’t ask where they are or where I mean to take them, and I know why. If she were to be taken during the next few days, she wouldn’t be able to tell anyone where they are.
To lighten the atmosphere, she describes a morning confrontation with Billy Byrd, then updates me on the FBI’s progress in reconstructing Henry’s files. She seems most excited by my news that Kaiser will be staying in town for the next twenty-four hours, tending to Dwight Stone. I assume this is because she hopes to see and possibly interview Dwight, whom she got to know during the Del Payton case. I soft-pedal the JFK stuff, making it sound as though Stone has a pet conspiracy theory about the assassination and because he’s ill, Kaiser is humoring him. Caitlin does ask whether Dwight might be willing to answer some questions from her, but I tell her it’s doubtful. I use his cancer and impending surgery to avoid giving my real reason, which is keeping Caitlin out of Kaiser’s JFK quest altogether. If she gets her teeth into a story that sensational, she’ll lose whatever remains of her perspective, and everything else could go by the wayside. But she will not be deterred.
“How seriously is Kaiser taking the Kennedy stuff?” she asks, lightly touching my mouth. “Does he think those rifles we saw last night were real?”
“He’s doing his due diligence, treating them as though they might be. Honestly, I think he may share some of Dwight’s conspiracy theories.”
Caitlin’s finger stops moving. “What makes you say that?”
I can’t find it in myself to lie to her completely. “Well, the director has refused to offer Dad protective custody for information on any of the civil rights cases, but Kaiser told me that if Dad has knowledge pertaining to the JFK assassination, he probably could get him protection.”
“What?” Her eyes have filled with disbelief. “What the hell could Tom know about the JFK assassination?”
“Nothing. I think Stone and Kaiser have convinced each other that the Double Eagles had something to do with killing Kennedy, and since Dad was their doctor, he might know something.”
“Oh.” Caitlin lies back on the covers. “That sounds like nothing but a shot in the dark.”
“Exactly.”
“Unless . . .” She rolls over and looks at me. “How could the Double Eagles be tied to the JFK assassination?”
Now there’s no avoiding it. “Stone believes Carlos Marcello, the New Orleans godfather, ordered Kennedy’s death. And the Double Eagles apparently did occasional muscle work for Marcello over the years. Through Brody Royal, I guess.”
“I see.” Caitlin’s bright green eyes are impossible to read. “And is there any indication that Tom knew Carlos Marcello?”
This is where I draw the line. I’m not going to have Caitlin digging into my father’s past in New Orleans, upsetting my mother and making me crazy. I’ll be doing enough of that myself. “Dad and Mom lived in New Orleans while he was at LSU med school. Dad did an externship at the parish prison, and Marcello was the don of the city at that time. But that’s all they’ve got. The flimsiest imaginable connection.”
Caitlin watches me in silence for several seconds, then says, “If that’s all they have, then Tom’s got nothing to worry about. On that score anyway.”
“Exactly.”
“Him treating the Double Eagles who worked at Triton Battery and Armstrong Tire is something else, though. I can imagine him hearing things about the civil rights murders that might be important.”
“Well, if we ever find him, we’ll ask him about that.”
Lying on our backs, staring at the ceiling, we fall into an exhausted but companionable silence. After only a couple of minutes, I feel myself jerk at the edge of sleep.
Caitlin laughs softly. “I’m tired, too. What if we set an alarm and sleep for two hours? Do you think we’d feel better or worse?”
“Worse. I need sleep, but I’ve got to get Mom and Annie moved before I can rest.”
“Okay. You’re right.”
“I wish Stone weren’t coming down here. Not in the middle of all this. I’ve been trying to think of a way to persuade Kaiser to head down to the Lusahatcha Swamp and hunt for the Bone Tree. That would keep him out of my hair for at least a couple of days. Walker and I would have a lot more freedom to pressure the Knoxes that way.”
After a couple of seconds, Caitlin makes a sound of acknowledgment but offers no comment.
I feel my breathing deepen. As consciousness begins to dim, I fight against sleep. “The Bone Tree is out there somewhere,” I murmur. “Brody wasn’t lying when he told us about Pooky dying there. And Kaiser has the resources to find it. Surely Dwight would love to find it, too. Have you found any clue in Henry’s notes as to where that tree might be?”
Caitlin doesn’t answer. At first I think she’s asleep, but then I hear the sound of a zipper. As I blink my eyes against the light, she arches beside me, then works her jeans down over her feet.