“Then get out of my face and go find me some!”
“Jewel’s trying. But I’ve thought about it, and one thing seems clear. If those guys did any kind of tampering with hairs taken from the scene, the hairs had to be Caucasian.”
“Why?”
“Because that house would have been full of African-American hairs. From fifty different people, I’d bet. And Sheriff Byrd’s priority is nailing Dad. We know Dad was there, so what kind of tampering could those deputies have done?”
“I’m too tired to guess.”
“They’d have destroyed other Caucasian hairs found at the scene. There wouldn’t have been many, not in Cora Revels’s house. I’m guessing they got rid of some Caucasian hairs and, if necessary, replaced them with others, maybe even their own, which wouldn’t raise any red flags.”
“Why replace them?”
“Even in Billy Byrd’s sloppy operation, there might have been some written or photographic record of Caucasian hairs being found. Records Jewel had seen and would remember.”
Quentin’s eyes look a little brighter now. “They replaced hairs belonging to Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield. That’s what you’re thinking?”
“If those bastards were in that house, they left trace evidence. Unless they wore hairnets, they would have left hairs at the scene.”
“Gray hairs,” said Quentin, grinning. “Maybe the deputies substituted their daddies’ hair for Knox’s and Thornfield’s.”
“Maybe so. But it certainly seems worth pursuing.”
Quentin nods noncommittally. “I’m going to see your father once more tonight. There’s a deputy there who’ll let me in. You met him when you were in the jail.” Quentin cuts his eyes at Serenity. “As a resident.”
“Are you going to talk to Dad about the hair and fiber stuff?”
“Yes. I’ll call you when I leave the jail. Now, get out of here. I’ve got a meeting to go to, thanks to you.”
“How about we give you an escort?” I ask, not joking at all.
Quentin shoos us toward the door. “Didn’t you hear what I said to Joe? This is brother to brother. No honkies allowed. Now if you want to send Miss Black Universe here with me for protection . . .”
“That’s not happening,” Doris says from the shadows behind him.
“Then I’m going alone.”
Chapter 45
Deke Devine’s Winnebago squeaked to a stop at the end of my block just as promised, and Serenity and I stepped through the side door into the cramped RV. Deke sat behind the wheel, and his face darkened when he saw Serenity climb the steps.
“You were supposed to come alone!” he snapped.
“I’m not walking into a meeting with any Double Eagles—or their families—alone. You’re lucky I didn’t bring my main security team.”
“Get somebody else,” said his mother from our left. “Not her.”
Nita Devine stood in the narrow aisle of the RV, clinging to a handle above her head to maintain balance.
“Mrs. Devine,” I said evenly, “the federal government—including the Justice Department—is staffed with thousands of black employees. If you plan to cut a deal to save your family with witness protection, you’d better get used to black faces.”
She chewed her lower lip for several seconds. Then she said, “Get moving, Deke. Head for the bypass.”
As the RV lurched forward, Nita steadied herself, then squeezed herself into the space between a leatherette bench and a removable table attached to a post stuck into the floor.
“Well, sit down,” she said. “Let’s get to it. They’ll get suspicious if I don’t get back quick.”
“Who will?” I asked.
“Those motorcycle gangsters. They’re watching our house again. All the Eagles’ houses. They switch up.”
“Your husband is at home?”
She nodded. “My other son’s with him. You met him.”
We pulled two small plastic chairs from the “den” of the RV up to the little table. Nita Devine took a pack of cigarettes from her purse and lit one without asking if we minded. Her hands shook, and her eyes held more emotions than I could separate—chief among them desperation.
“You told me the government would give Will a good deal. That they could keep him safe. Keep us all safe.”
“I’m reasonably sure of that, yes. But it always depends on the information the witness can provide.”
“You don’t have to worry about that. Will knows everything. About the Double Eagles, I mean. He was there from the beginning. Or almost the beginning.”
“He saw them kill people?”
A bitter laugh comes from her throat. “He still has nightmares to this day. The older he gets, the worse they get.”
Serenity holds up her hand and says, “Why is your husband suddenly willing to talk after all these years?”
At first I don’t think Mrs. Devine is going to deign to speak to the black interloper in her Winnebago. But at length she says, “Because he finally knows what I been telling him all along is true. Snake Knox don’t give a damn about Will or any of the others, except to the degree he can use them. Him and Sonny killed Glenn Morehouse, their childhood friend. Then Snake killed Sonny—his best friend—in the Concordia jail. Strangled him with a towel while they all held him still. Then he ordered Silas Groom killed to frame him for bombing that FBI plane, when we all know Snake done that.”
“You know that for a fact?” I ask.
“Will does.”
“What else does he know? Does he know anything about Viola Turner?”
Nita grimaced and blew out smoke. “He knows everything, I told you. Most all the Double Eagles raped that woman, you know. Two different times. The first time it was just a small group, at her house. Snake and Frank and Forrest, a couple more. But that second time, in the machine shop . . . Lord, they tore that girl up. If Ray Presley hadn’t got her out and back to Dr. Cage, she’d have died up in there.”
I feel as though Serenity’s body temperature has dropped ten degrees. I don’t risk turning to look at her. I need to hold Nita Devine’s gaze to my own. If she feels Serenity’s fury, she might clam up.
“Will said that himself?”
“The machine shop? Oh, yeah. He took his turn like all the rest. Cheatin’ bastard.”
“What else do you know about Viola?”
“Dr. Cage got her out of town somehow, but Snake and Sonny found her in Chicago later. They wanted to kill her, but the big boss said no.”
“The big boss?”
“Carlos Marcello. The mob boss of New Orleans. I think he had some kind of understanding with Dr. Cage. Marcello said they couldn’t kill Viola unless she broke the deal she’d made and came back to Natchez.”
My heart begins to pound. “Will told you that?”
She nods, then takes a long drag from her cigarette. Smoke floats slowly from her mouth as she continues speaking. “They told her then they’d kill her if she ever came back.”
“What about later?” Tee asks. “After she got back here? Did they threaten her then?”