The Trees

Sheriff Jetty receives the call for help just as Ed, Jim, and Herbie return to his station. Brady and Digby cry out, and shots are fired. Sheriff Jetty asks for Ed, Jim, and Herbie’s help. The three of them agree.

When they arrive at Digby and Brady’s last known location, they find Digby and Brady hanging from a tree, dead, their scrotums removed. Near the tree on which they hang, the bodies of two unidentified Black men lie on the ground, Digby and Brady’s scrotums in their hands.

Copycat murders sweep throughout the country. White people in the areas these murders occur become even more racist and paranoid toward Black people in response, and Black men in particular. In Conway, South Carolina, a mob of Black men rioted in the streets and killed six white men. Police call the murders a hate crime. The governor of South Carolina holds a press conference in which he says that the actions of a small group should not be applied to everyone yet emphasizes that the rioters and murderers were all Black men. Police responded to the scene and shot the rioters, yet their bullets did not seem to have any effect.

Herbie, Ed, and Jim stake out Bluegum. They see a white man who resembles Chester Hobsinger enter the building. They note the irony that in murders targeting white men, their main suspect is a white man. They enter Bluegum and head toward the back, where they find Chester, the only white man among a group of Black people. They chase Chester outside and catch him. During the chase, the Black people in Bluegum disappear.

In Rock Springs, Wyoming, a group of men are drunk in a bar and ignoring the news on CNN. Thirty Chinese men come into the bar to kill the men. The bartender’s gun is unable to protect the drunk white men.

Herbie, Ed, and Jim arrest Chester and bring him to Jetty for interrogation. Sheriff Jetty uses intimidation to make Chester afraid of him.

In Wyoming, detectives scour the bar for evidence of who could have killed, mutilated, and burned the bodies of the eight white men. One witness steps forward, a man from the Shoshone tribe, who claims that a large group of Chinese men were the culprits. The police laugh at him, but the man points out that there’s a dead Chinese man in the weeds outside.

Herbie, Ed, and Jim go to Mama Z’s house. Herbie is sure Mama Z is involved somehow, and Jim is still suspicious of Gertrude. Mama Z introduces them to Damon, who is nervous. They leave the house without new information beyond Damon’s presence. They decide to find Gertrude.

The President of the United States (implied to be Donald Trump) appoints several other high-level FBI agents to go to Hattiesburg, including the elderly and excessively racist Hickory Spit. Herbie gives them the latest information on the case. It turns out that Gertrude was hired by Dinah under a false name and address. When Ed, Jim, and Herbie leave the room, Spit continues a racist diatribe and describes a lynching he was involved in, in which the Black victim promised that he would be back. Then, Hickory has a stroke and dies in front of everyone in the conference room.

Secret Service agents rush to the West Wing of the White House. Reginald Reynolds, the Secretary of the Treasury, is dead, the President is hiding under his desk. As the Secret Service agents and the Vice-President coax the President from under his desk, the President petulantly asks for his hairdresser and to be taken to Camp David.

In Indiana, white men who own guns start patrolling the streets. Cable news organizations like Fox News call it a race war after the death toll of white people climbs to 25. In Michigan, a white supremacist group meets to organize their plans for the race war. They’re interrupted by an attack.

Jim heads to Money while Ed and Herbie take their turn interrogating Chester. He denies anything, but they catch him when they give him a false fact from the scene of the crime, and he corrects them.

Chester gives up the address to a house his organization uses. Jim goes to the house and finds Gertrude alone. He asks if she’s really related to Mama Z. She confesses that she’s not. Gertrude says she wasn’t present for any of the murders and reveals that her organization was responsible for Milam’s death in Chicago but only meant to scare Granny C by putting the Black corpse in her room. She confirms that Mama Z is part of the organization. She says that Chester got involved because Mama Z is his great-grandmother, that Chester’s Black grandfather was lynched for being with Chester’s white grandmother. Gertrude insists that her organization of 16 people was not involved in the murders besides the one she’s confessed to and can’t comprehend how anyone was able to do it from within the White House. Gertrude doesn’t reveal the names of the other people in the organization, who she says have run away and gone into hiding.

The murders and massacres continue unabated throughout the United States. They start to become larger and more confusing. An entire town is wiped out. Eyewitnesses of the massacres describe groups of Black or Asian men who look dirty and dead-eyed.

Gertrude shows Jim the freezer, where corpses from Chester’s stolen trunk remain frozen. Someone closes the door behind them, locking them in the freezer.

A list of towns and states highlights the murders and massacres continuing unabated all over the country. Mississippi is repeated heavily throughout and the chapter ends with a long repetition of “Mississippi.”

The President of the United States holds a press conference in which he claims that centuries ago, white people “saved” Africans from their “inter-tribal” wars by enslaving them and bringing them to America. He accuses the Black community (whom he refers to as “the Blacks”) of being terrorists and un-American. He calls on his supporters to take arms against Black people. He uses the n-word to refer to Black people, and when a reporter calls him out on it, he denies it by repeatedly using the n-word.

The airing of the press conference is interrupted with breaking news. The Senate Majority Leader has been murdered.

Jim tries to unlock the freezer door from inside by shooting at it with no success. He and Gertrude are getting too cold for survival, so they huddle close together.

Ed and Herbie find Jim and Gertrude in the freezer.

A group of around 500 people descend into town and kill selected white people, chanting the word “Rise.”

Herbie, Ed, and Jim go to Mama Z’s house. Damon is typing out the names of every victim of lynching from Mama Z’s records. Mama Z asks the officers if she should tell Damon to stop. The cries of “Rise” grow louder outside. There is no conclusion to this final confrontation.