When we arrive at the courthouse, which appears to be under siege, I learn from the circuit clerk that court has been delayed for an hour by agents of the BATF, who want to make a final sweep of the courtroom prior to allowing people inside. When I announce my intention to take my mother to City Hall to wait out the delay, the clerk offers to bring us to his private office in the courthouse, where Quentin is preparing for the morning’s proceedings.
Quentin and Doris greet my mother warmly, but when Doris tries to take her into another room “to get some coffee,” Mom demands to know what to expect once court is in session. In a somber voice, Quentin tells us that Judge Elder has decided the trial should move forward regardless of the FBI’s efforts to restore the videotapes. Before I can feel relief at the prospect that Quentin might be able to rest his case before the Dumpster tape is restored, he adds that Dad will be taking the stand as his first and only witness of the day.
I expect Mom to faint or stroke out at this news, but she hardly reacts at all, other than to go to the window and look out at the mass of people hoping to be admitted to the courthouse today.
“Look at this,” says Doris, turning up the sound on a small TV in the corner of the office.
I naively assumed that only the attorneys would be aware of the side drama of the videotapes, but Shad Johnson has taken advantage of the delay to address the reporters gathered at the foot of the courthouse steps. The first thing I hear when the sound comes up is Shad opining that the “St. Catherine’s Hospital Dumpster tape” might break the case wide open.
“That won’t endear Shadrach to Judge Elder,” I mutter.
“He doesn’t care,” Quentin says. “He’s decided that the potential upside of this is worth any sanction Joe might impose on him.”
Shad looks positively ebullient on camera, and if he knew for sure that Quentin is about to call my father to the stand, he might pop open some Dom Perignon on the courthouse lawn.
By the time the BATF gives the all clear and everyone reaches their assigned places in the courtroom, the spectators in the gallery have somehow intuited that Dad means to take the stand. After all, didn’t Quentin Avery promise that he would?
Dad certainly looks ready for his turn in the spotlight. He’s wearing a charcoal suit, and thanks to my mother’s relentless insistence, his white hair and beard have been carefully trimmed. He looks about as distinguished as it’s possible to look after three months in jail, yet the signs of his failing health can’t be missed.
His skin is as pale as that of an Arctic researcher after long months of night, and a fine sprinkling of dandruff already powders the shoulders of his jacket, as though he’s just come in from a snowfall. Hollow cheeks make his weight loss obvious, while crooked fingers and pitted, spooned nails reveal the extent of his psoriatic arthritis. If he were wearing shorts, the edema in his legs would betray the severity of his heart failure, but thankfully his legs are covered. Even his wise eyes appear dull today, their luster gone, and when he finally enters the witness box to be sworn in, the powerful baritone that always reassured his patients is barely a whisper.
The circuit clerk holds an old Bible beneath his hand, then says without the slightest drama, “Do you, Thomas Jefferson Cage, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under penalty of law, so help you God?”
“I so swear.”
A religious oath is rarely used in American courts nowadays, but this is Mississippi. We have the highest per-capita number of churches and the lowest literacy rate (as Caitlin never tired of reminding me), and such traditions die hard. My father long ago abandoned the simplistic religious beliefs of his childhood, and after forty years of practicing medicine has found no real comfort in any of the world’s faiths. Yet today he gave the prudent answer when the Bible was held beneath his hand.
Was that, I wonder uncomfortably, his first lie?
As Quentin rolls slowly forward, I hear no electrical whir, and I realize with a shock that he’s in a manual wheelchair, not his motorized one. Did he have an electrical problem? I wonder, surprised that I didn’t notice the change back in the clerk’s office. But then instinct tells me that Quentin must be making a subtle play to elicit sympathy or respect from the jury. When the legless old lawyer’s still-powerful shoulders grip those big wheels and turn them, you can’t help but feel you’re in the presence of a man of great fortitude.
Quentin elects to begin his questioning from his customary spot by the lectern, but I have no doubt he will have rolled a half mile or more before he finishes this afternoon.
When he clears his throat, the whispers of the standing-room-only crowd behind me fall silent. Just before he speaks, Quentin glances my way, and I give the smallest shake of my head, letting him know I’ve heard nothing more from Kaiser about the Dumpster tape.
“Dr. Cage,” he says, “did you treat Viola Turner during the last weeks of her life?”
“I did.”
“Were you her only doctor?”
“I was.”
“What was her chief illness?”
“Metastatic carcinoma of the lung.”
Quentin pauses for this to sink in; even for a lay audience, “metastatic” carries the awful weight of mortality. “And what was the prognosis?”
“Terminal.”
“So you were not trying to cure her?”
“No. I was providing palliative care. Trying to ease her suffering as much as possible.”
“Until her death?”
“Yes.”
“Did Mrs. Turner clearly understand this?”
“Yes. She’d been a nurse all her life. She knew her prognosis as well as any doctor would.”
“I see. Did she come to your office for treatment?”
“No. I generally saw her at her sister’s residence, where the front room had been converted to a sickroom.”
“I see. How often did you make house calls on Mrs. Turner?”
“Almost every day.”
“That’s uncommon these days, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I did that because Viola had once been my employee, and also because we had once had an intimate relationship.”
A collective intake of breath from the crowd charges the atmosphere in the courtroom.
“An extramarital affair?” Quentin asks, as though asking for clarification of some dull point of cost accounting.
“That’s correct,” Dad replies, just as clinically.
“I see. Dr. Cage, it has been said in the courtroom that you had a pact of sorts with Mrs. Turner, that you would help her to commit suicide before the pain from her cancer became too bad. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
A hundred people shift on their chairs at the same moment.
“Could you elaborate on that?”
“Yes. The issue wasn’t just pain for Viola. It was personal dignity. Viola Turner was a proud woman, and as a nurse she had watched countless patients die over the years. There were certain indignities to which she did not want to subject herself—or others.” Dad pauses, inwardly reflecting. “Viola also had religious qualms about committing suicide. She was a devout Catholic. She didn’t simply want me to provide a lethal dose of drugs. She wanted me to perform the injection.”
My pulse has begun to race. I can’t believe Quentin is letting Dad wrap a rope around his own neck.