Quentin is enjoying this like a law professor watching a student wrestle with a difficult case. “And which story would you choose, Counselor?”
“Easy. Viola tried to inject herself with a lethal dose of morphine but only partially succeeded, due to physical impairment. That explains the botched injection. Maybe Dad was there when she did that, maybe not. But once he was in her presence, she suffered a heart attack. Naturally, Dad used adrenaline to try to revive her. In his zeal to do everything possible to save her, he administered a fatal overdose. Maybe that was excessive zeal, or maybe he picked the wrong syringe. But either way, if you tell that story right, no jury in Natchez is going to convict him of murder.”
Quentin has steepled his long fingers. “You might be right about that. But here’s the problem. If that’s the way things happened, then why the hell didn’t Tom say that immediately after her death? Why didn’t he sign Viola’s death certificate and call for the ambulance or the coroner? Why refuse to speak? And worse . . . why skip bail?”
This, I have no facile answer for. “Can you tell me?”
“I’m afraid not, my young brother.”
“Do you know?”
“I do not.”
“Good God, Quentin. What is he playing at? Is he really on some self-sacrifice trip?”
“For the last time, Penn . . . I can’t discuss it.”
“What about change of venue? Surely you can tell me about that. Have you made your motion?”
Quentin shakes his head.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because Judge Elder let me know in no uncertain terms that he would deny it.”
“Without even considering it?”
This earns me a sober nod. “Joe’s being surprisingly difficult. Like backing up Billy Byrd on not letting Tom attend Caitlin’s funeral. If I didn’t know him pretty well, I’d be worried about judicial bias going forward.”
“So you know Elder?”
Quentin chuckles. “He’s a black Mississippi judge, ain’t he? Joe worked for me one summer when he was in law school.”
“Well, surely he’s cut from better cloth than Shad or Billy Byrd.”
Quentin clucks his tongue. “Joe’s a good boy. We’ll get a better idea of where he stands when he starts ruling on pretrial motions.”
“But you can’t afford to wait on the change-of-venue motion. You should at least file and make him deny it.”
“I know that. My problem is my client. Tom actually believes that Natchez is where this case needs to be tried. Natchezians are the people most affected by the case, and he’s content to put his fate in their hands.”
More suicidal logic. “Then why did you discuss moving the case with Elder at all?”
Quentin’s eyes harden. “Because I’m worried about Tom’s safety once he’s moved to the Adams County jail.”
“No shit. That alone ought to be grounds for a change of venue.”
“Joe Elder promised me Tom would be at no risk while in Billy Byrd’s custody.”
“He can’t guarantee that!”
Quentin shrugs, then touches his joystick and spins his wheelchair ninety degrees left. “Listen,” he says, his face in profile, “your father’s gonna be escorted through that door in a minute. You’ve had a lot of experience in the criminal courts. You’ve seen a lot of men and women in jail. Put a lot of them there yourself. But seeing your father in jail is a whole different thing.”
“I know that.”
“No, you don’t. This would be like Tom having to operate on you in an emergency. He might think he could handle it, but once he stuck that scalpel into your body, I promise you, his hands would be shaking. This kind of situation hits you in a soft place, where you ain’t ready for it. And I want you to be ready when Tom comes in here.”
“I can handle it, Quentin.”
The old man’s eyes soften, but the look in them is not comforting. “It’s not you I’m worried about. I don’t want Tom thinking you’re coming apart because of this situation. While he’s locked in this place, he sees you as the head of his family. And if he’s going to last until the trial, he’s got to know you can hold everybody together. Keep them safe.”
“He knows that.”
“Reinforce it.”
There’s so much gravity in Quentin’s voice that I find myself peering deep into his eyes for some clue to his thoughts. Rather than endure my gaze, the lawyer looks down at the comforter draped over his knees.
“I had to go see my daddy in jail once,” he says softly. “He was a sharecropper, you remember?”
This tale has long been a staple of Quentin’s courtroom repertoire, and I’m not sure I have the patience to listen to it today. “I know this story, Q.”
“Not all of it, you don’t. The landowner claimed Daddy had stole something, so the sheriff jailed him for a month. Bread and water, just like the old saying. The strap, too.” Quentin taps the right arm of the chair with his long fingers. “Seeing Daddy locked in that jailhouse cut me to the bone, Penn. I’ve never felt more helpless than I did then. That’s probably the reason I’m a lawyer today.”
“Quentin—”
He reaches out and grabs the sleeve of my jacket. “I know I’ve told that story to juries before—milked it when I had to—but I always held something back.”
Something in his voice catches my attention. “What’s that?”
“Daddy didn’t go to jail just once, Penn. And most times, when they took him . . . he was guilty.”
“What?”
Quentin nods soberly. “He stole things from the boss man. Pilferage, you know? Some tack here, a hog there. Sharecropping was practically slavery back then. I think it was Daddy’s way of fighting the system—a corrupt, dehumanizing system. Usually they only kept him in the pokey a couple of weeks. But one time they kept him ninety days. We nearly lost everything that year. Truth be told, we damn near starved. Me and my brother couldn’t hardly get the crop in. We ate our animals and our seed corn. You’d think the neighbors would help out, but they had too damn little themselves, and nobody wanted to risk helping somebody who’d upset the boss man.”
Quentin lets out a bitter chuckle. “Daddy had an attitude, now. Mama was always scared he’d backtalk some gunbull and they’d shoot him. ‘Shot trying to escape.’ You know how it went in those days.”
I nod. “The Ray Presley solution.”
“You got it. I was about twelve when he went in that time. I was so mad I wanted to kill somebody, and so scared I wanted to hide in my mama’s skirts. But no matter how I felt, I couldn’t change how things were.”
There’s a note in his voice that puzzles me. “Why are you telling me this? Are you saying Dad’s guilty?”