A flush of surprise and humility comes into my father’s cheeks. With a grating screech, he pushes his chair away from the table, comes slowly to his feet, and raises two rigid fingers to his brow with a faint echo of military precision. I feel my mother squeeze my right arm with her shaking hand.
As with the spitting incident, no one seems sure how to react. Shad stifles an objection as Colonel Eklund gives Dad an encouraging smile, then marches down the aisle. As he passes through the crowd, Walt Garrity stands and snaps out a salute. Colonel Eklund returns it, then marches on, to the big doors at the back of the room.
“I wish the jury had to vote right now,” Rusty whispers in my left ear. “Twelve to zero for acquittal, I guarantee.”
“Don’t be too sure,” I whisper back. “Pundits thought Bush père was untouchable after winning the Gulf War in ’91, and Clinton beat him.”
“A year later.”
Rusty is probably exaggerating the colonel’s impact, but one thing is sure: if anything can erase the memory of Major Powers spitting on Dad’s chest, Colonel Eklund’s salute comes closest.
For a moment I wonder if Quentin stage-managed that whole scene, but then I dismiss the idea. Neither my father nor Colonel Eklund would taint the memory of their service by trying to sway a jury in that way. Not even with the stakes as high as they are.
“Mr. Avery?” prompts Judge Elder. “You may call your next witness.”
“Your Honor, I’d like to recall Cora Revels, the victim’s sister, to the stand.”
Shad Johnson looks as surprised as I am by this move, but when I turn, I realize that our reaction is nothing compared to that of Viola’s sister.
Cora Revels looks terrified.
Chapter 50
Snake Knox was looking out over a field of kudzu in Rodney, Mississippi, when his burner phone rang for the first time that morning. He had no idea who the caller might be, and he was surprised when Toons Teufel identified himself in the exultant voice of a man happy to be delivering news.
“What the hell do you want?” Snake asked warily.
“We got back to surveilling your old Klan buddies, and just in time, too. Because one of them just flew the coop.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Will Devine and his family disappeared sometime between last night and sunrise. Cleaned their place out.”
Snake processed this news in silence. As his mind worked, he noticed the way the kudzu vines threw runners into the open air, searching for purchase like starving serpents, climbing and eventually strangling even the tallest trees.
“You there, Grandpa?”
“What do you mean, ‘cleaned the place out’?”
“Clothes, money, files, family albums . . . they left the place a wreck. We talked to the neighbors, but nobody heard nothing.”
“Devine has kids. Grown kids.”
“They’re gone too, baby. It’s a clean sweep.”
Snake felt the ground shift beneath his feet. “Then I don’t guess you got back on the job in time, did you?”
“Hey,” Toons said, his voice hard. “You still want those shooters today or not?”
“Everything stays the same. Eleven a.m. at the ruins.”
Snake ended the call and ran back toward the house. Alois was walking down the concrete porch step, and the second he looked up he read the anger and worry in Snake’s face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Get the boat key,” Snake ordered.
“What’s happened?”
“The FBI flipped Will Devine.”
Alois blanched. “Motherfucker. Where we going? Are we bailing?”
“Hell, no,” Snake barked, slapping his son’s shoulder as he passed him. “We’re going to Natchez.”
Alois let out a rebel yell and ran toward the International Harvester pickup that held the key to the boat.
Snake watched his son for a few seconds, thinking about how in the end, everything came down to blood. There was your family, and then there was the rest of the world. Snake would have given a lot to have Frank at his side for what was coming, but Alois would have to do. He would be enough.
Alois was blood.
Chapter 51
When Cora Revels took the stand two days ago, she looked like a grieving church matron reluctantly testifying about her family scandal in the hope of getting justice for her sister. Today she’s equally well dressed, but her eyes are those of a frightened woman with something to hide.
When Quentin speaks, his words are courteous, but his tone isn’t as solicitous as it was the last time he questioned the victim’s sister. “Ms. Revels, I’m sorry to bring you back up here. I only have a few questions for you.”
“All right.”
“Did your sister leave an estate behind when she died?”
“Estate? All we had was Mama’s house, and that weren’t no estate. It doesn’t even have central air.”
Muffled laughter comes from the rows of lawyers.
“I don’t mean the house only, Ms. Revels. I mean whatever property your sister might have had left in her name when she died, after the medical bills were paid. It could be a checking account, a savings bond, stocks or bonds.”
“Oh. Yes, Vee did have a little bit of money put back.”
“Approximately how much did she have?”
“Objection,” Shad says, later than I would have expected him to. “I fail to see the relevance of this line of questioning.”
Quentin looks at Judge Elder without the slightest hint that he might back away from this. “We will all see the relevance very soon, Your Honor, I assure you.”
“Overruled,” Elder declares.
“Exception.”
“Noted.”
“May I approach the bench, Your Honor?” Quentin asks.
Judge Elder nods.
Shad practically scrambles out of his seat to reach the bench at the same time Quentin does. After Judge Elder covers his mike, an indistinct hum of discussion follows, lasting about thirty seconds. Then Shad returns to his seat with a grim look, and Quentin wheels himself back over to the podium.
“Now that that’s settled,” he says, “would the witness answer the question?”
Cora is looking at someone in the spectators’ seats, I realize. Someone to my left. She was focused on the same spot throughout the sidebar. It’s Lincoln. He’s sitting one row behind the prosecution table. Cora is searching for guidance, and so clumsily that Quentin turns and stares at Lincoln himself, so that the jury will see what’s happening. Under this scrutiny, Lincoln cannot risk coaching her with the slightest signal. He sits with his jaw clenched tight, staring straight ahead.
“Ms. Revels?” Quentin repeats.
“Um . . . Vee had about seventy-two thousand dollars in an account up in Chicago.”
Quite a few spectators gasp at this figure, and I sense that most of them are black.
“Seventy-two thousand dollars,” Quentin echoes. “And the house?”
“The house was mine.”
“Was it always yours?”
“No, that was Mama’s house. But she deeded it over to me after I got hurt at work.”
“Where did you work?”
“At the tire plant. I fell and hurt my back, and since then I can’t do no work. All I got is my disability check. Mama gave me the house so I’d always have somewhere to stay.”
“Did she give Viola anything at that time?”