“Bullshit I won’t. Don’t you want me to come down there and brief you on what the witness knows about Viola?”
“No. I’m not going to start getting excited about a witness who may or may not appear tomorrow. I’d be a fool to rely on that. Good night.”
As I drop the phone on the sheet, Serenity says, “Did that sound right to you? About the hair and fiber?”
“It sounds like the same bullshit Quentin’s given me from the start.”
“I just don’t see the logic of your father’s position, other than he’s acting out of fear. And that doesn’t fit with what I know of him.”
“I know. It’s not fear for himself, though. It’s fear for others.”
I can tell Tee is ready for an intense discussion, but after today, I simply haven’t the patience or stamina for it. What I want to do is what she suggested before Quentin called—finish what I started before. Luckily, Tee is quick to read my mood, and once more she climbs astride me, this time sitting on my thighs so she can use her hands first.
“Any more silly white-boy questions before we resume?” she asks with a teasing smile.
“I learned my lesson.”
“Good.”
She reaches between us to slide me into her, then freezes.
“Penn?” says my mother. “I couldn’t sleep for thinking about—”
At that moment I realize Mom isn’t outside the door, but inside the room with us. Whipping my head left, I see her standing motionless with one hand on the doorknob, her mouth hanging slack, her eyes glassy. All three of us seem transfixed by some external force. The first person to move is Serenity, who reaches down and raises the comforter to cover her gently swaying breasts.
“I should have knocked,” Mom cries, snapping out of her trance like someone hit her with heart paddles.
“Mom, it’s okay!” I call, but the door closes on my words.
Cursing under my breath, I lift Serenity off my midsection, roll out of bed, and grab for my pants, but she catches hold of my arm and says, “Penn, don’t do it.”
“Don’t what?”
I look back angrily, but Tee’s face holds only sadness and warning.
“Your mama didn’t see us just then,” she says softly. “She saw your father and Viola.”
Her words suck the breath out of my chest. Thinking about the pain my mother must be enduring right now is almost impossible to bear. On top of the trial and the gossip and all the rest of it—
“Don’t,” Tee whispers. “Don’t do that to yourself. You can’t change their past. You can only change the future. Your future. Come back to bed.”
“I don’t think I—”
“Yes, you can.” Her dark eyes are no longer trying to pull something from me. They are pouring something into me. She reaches out and takes my hand, pulls me back onto the mattress. “Remember how we started?”
“How?”
“No talking.”
After a few seconds I nod, not at all certain that we want or need the same things in this moment. But she pulls me to her, threading one leg around mine and running her fingers through my hair, her eyes never leaving my face. “Tonight let’s try something new,” she says, softly kissing my shoulder. “Tonight, you talk all you want.”
She pulls the covers up to our necks, then over our heads.
Thursday
Chapter 49
On Thursday morning, when Judge Elder asks Quentin to call his first witness, a retired army colonel named Karl Eklund walks into the courtroom from the back door and strides to the witness box with a soldierly bearing that would put Major Matthew Powers to shame. Eklund stands about an inch under six feet, but he has the chiseled features of a martial bust whose sculptor left no spare material on his work, and the colonel’s eyes have plainly seen more than most men ever will. It’s only after looking at Eklund for half a minute that I realize that something isn’t quite right about his face. It’s been worked on extensively by plastic surgeons, not to enhance his beauty, which is limited, but to reconstruct whatever existed before whatever happened to it happened. When Colonel Eklund takes the oath with his hand on the Bible, he gives the impression of a man who would cut off his right arm before breaking a vow.
I half expect Shad to try to disqualify Eklund at the start, but the DA seems to sense that he would lose more points with the jury by trying to silence this man than by letting him speak. As Quentin rolls toward the podium, Shadrach looks worried.
Looking from Shad back toward the witness box, I happen to catch sight of my father. For most of the trial I’ve seen only the back of his head, but now he has turned to face Quentin by the podium, and his face is almost bloodless. Dad knew that Colonel Eklund would be testifying this morning, yet he looks like he never expected to see the man walking and talking again.
“Colonel Eklund,” Quentin begins, “do you know the defendant, Dr. Thomas Cage?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“How do you know him?”
“He served under me in Korea.”
“Was he a physician then?”
The colonel gives a soft chuckle. “No, he was a private. An eighteen-year-old medic, fresh out of high school. I was twenty-three.”
“During this trial, we’ve heard a lot of testimony about Private Cage’s actions on the night of November thirtieth, 1950. Were you with him on that night?”
“No, sir. I’d been wounded and flown to a hospital in Japan.”
“I see. So when was the last time you saw Private Cage?”
“The night the Bugout began.”
“I’m sorry? The Bugout?”
“The American retreat from the Yalu River area in Korea. It started the night of November twenty-fifth, when the Chinese revealed their true strength and went through our lines like Hitler’s panzers through the Polish cavalry.”
“I see. What was your rank and assignment on that night?”
“I was a second lieutenant in charge of J Company, one of the northernmost American units in Korea. Love Company was stuck out the farthest. They were an all-black unit commanded by a Japanese-American officer. Love Company usually got the most dangerous probing assignments, for the obvious reason. And then there was us, Company J, to the east on Hill 403.”
“What was your assignment on that night?”
“To hold the hill.”
“Did you succeed?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Because at midnight the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army attacked us with overwhelming force. The odds were in the neighborhood of fifty to one. We weren’t dug in very well, either. I’d been on Peleliu in the Pacific, so I knew how important good foxholes were, but the men were wet and tired when we got to the hill, and the ground was frozen. Deeper holes wouldn’t have mattered, though, given what the Chicoms threw at us that night.”
“Was Private Cage on Hill 403 that night?”
“He was. He served as one of my company medics.”
“Do you remember how he performed his duties during the Chinese assault?”
“I’m not likely to forget it.”
“Why is that, Colonel?”