“And were you willing to do that?” Quentin asks.
“I thought I was. I didn’t want to do it. But because of our personal history, and a feeling that I had let Viola down badly back when she worked for me, I felt I owed it to her.”
Quentin nods thoughtfully. “So . . . when you entered Cora Revels’s house in the early hours of December twelfth, you intended to accede to Viola Turner’s wishes and inject a lethal dose of a drug into her body?”
“Yes.”
The crowd reacts with sharply cut-off breaths.
“Had Mrs. Turner requested a particular drug?” Quentin asks.
“She asked for morphine sulfate, a narcotic pain reliever.”
“Dr. Cage, did you in fact administer the fatal dose of morphine that Viola Turner had requested?”
“No. I did not.”
Stunned silence envelops the courtroom.
“Why not?”
Dad takes his time with this. “For several reasons. One, when I arrived, Viola and I had a conversation. During that talk, she told me several things that disturbed me. One was about a videotape she had made for a reporter, Henry Sexton. She wanted Sexton to have the tape after her death, to assist him with his investigations into the crimes of the Double Eagle group, who had murdered her brother. But the most important revelation was that I was the father of Viola’s grown son, Lincoln Turner.”
“You did not know that information prior to that night?”
“I did not.”
“But Mrs. Turner’s sister testified that you’d known this for many years.”
“She lied about that.”
Turning to my left, I realize that while Lincoln is in court today, Cora Revels is not. Not unless she’s sitting back in the more anonymous rows.
“But Dr. Cage,” Quentin continues, “the district attorney has established that you sent Mrs. Turner money every month from 1968 until she moved back to Natchez to die. What man would do that if he had not fathered an illegitimate child by that woman?”
“I would. And I did.”
“But why? Why did you do that?”
“Because I loved her.”
The truth embodied in these words—and in my father’s voice—is absolute. No one can doubt it. I don’t want to look at my mother, but I can’t help myself. Dad’s answer must have struck her like an arrow through the heart, yet she shows no more emotion than an effigy filled with sand.
“When and why did you first begin sending money to Viola?” Quentin asks.
“A few weeks after she left Natchez, a letter from Viola arrived at my clinic. It wasn’t addressed to me, but to the other female employees. I copied down the return address. It was a P.O. box in Chicago. I knew Viola probably needed money to make a new start, so I sent her a check. She didn’t cash it right away, but about a month later she did. That told me she needed the funds, so I just kept sending the checks. And she kept cashing them.”
“For thirty-seven years?”
“That’s right.”
“Dr. Cage, why would you send money for that long, if you did not know that Viola had borne a child by you?”
“I knew she wouldn’t have cashed those checks unless she needed the money badly. Viola had too much pride to take charity. I also felt responsible for the fact that she’d had to leave town. I felt guilty. Giving her financial help was the very least I could do.”
“I see. All right. Let’s return to the night of Viola’s death. After she told you that you had fathered her son, what happened?”
“The discussion became very emotional, as you might imagine. I couldn’t believe she had withheld that from me all those years. But I soon realized she’d done it to protect me and my family. She felt responsible for our affair, and while she knew I shared that guilt, Viola didn’t believe my wife and children should suffer because of our sin. Those are her words.”
Again Quentin pauses to let this sink into the minds of the jury. “What happened next?”
“Viola asked me to make her a promise.”
“What promise?”
“That after her death, I would make sure that our son was provided for in the future. At first I thought she meant that I should give him a large sum of money, but she didn’t want that.”
“Why not?”
“Viola believed that Lincoln had been twisted in a moral sense by his stepfather. Also by her negligence, due to her drinking. She felt he wasn’t yet mature enough to handle a large amount of money. She suggested that I might establish a trust of some sort for him.”
“Did you agree to do that?”
“Yes. But I was hardly rational at the time. All I could think about was that this woman I had loved so long ago had asked me to end her life, and now she was telling me that we had a child together. It was simply too much to handle.”
“How did you react?”
“I wanted time to think, to consider what she’d told me. But I knew that if I told Viola I couldn’t go through with the pact, two things were likely to happen. One, she’d get very angry, even distraught. She appeared calm, but some people near death—if they’re not sedated or unconscious—often experience a great deal of stress, especially over unresolved family issues. Second, I suspected that if I simply left her there, Viola might find a way to inject herself and end her own life, regardless of my wishes.”
“So what did you do?”
Dad takes a deep breath, and his eyes glaze with the effort of recollection. “I decided to pretend that I was going through with the pact. I remained calm and agreed to everything Viola said. I kissed her once, as she asked me to. I bowed my head while she prayed.”
“What prayer did she pray?”
“I believe she said, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.’”
“All right. Then what happened?”
“I injected her with morphine.”
Several sharp expulsions of breath break the silence of the courtroom, and some spectators begin whispering. A glare from Judge Elder quickly puts an end to the rushing sound.
“But, Doctor, you earlier said you didn’t inject a lethal dose of morphine.”
“I did and I didn’t. You have to remember something about Viola. She was an experienced nurse. She wasn’t going to let me draw up a syringe of saline and inject her. She watched me draw a lethal dose of morphine and tie the tourniquet around her upper arm. Then she watched the needle go into her antecubital vein. I knew she would do that. Her veins were in terrible shape because her PICC line was clogged and she’d been getting needle sticks directly in the veins. Hitting her antecubital required great skill. It was a lot like bluffing in a card game. I injected the drug very slowly, all the while trying not to give away my plan. After about ten seconds, Viola finally lay back on her pillow, certain that the morphine was going into her. Two seconds after that, I pushed the needle completely through her vein and injected the remainder of the dose into the tissue beneath the vessel, essentially rendering the drug harmless.”