“Harmless? A lethal dose of morphine?”
“Yes. Cancer patients like Viola build up huge tolerances for narcotics. To kill her with morphine, I would have had to inject the full dose directly into the vein, and in a reasonably short time. Otherwise, she wouldn’t absorb the drug rapidly enough to send her into respiratory failure. The rate of absorption is everything in that equation.”
“How could you be positive you had pushed through the vein before completing the injection?”
“I’ve been practicing medicine more than forty years. My judgment’s pretty accurate about such things. And the final proof is that Viola did not in fact die from a morphine overdose. The autopsy showed just what I described, a seemingly botched IV morphine injection, and a subsequent death by adrenaline overdose.”
Shad is furiously taking notes at the prosecution table.
“Did you at any time that night inject Viola Turner with adrenaline?”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“All right. What did you do after Viola fell unconscious?”
“I looked around the house for an audiotape she had told me about, one she had made for Henry Sexton.”
So Dad knew all along about the audiotape Lincoln tried to sell me— “Did you find this tape?”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“I found the videotape she had made for Henry Sexton. It was in the bedside table, where she had said it would be. I decided to take that with me when I left.”
Another rush of whispers passes through the gallery.
“With what intention?” Quentin asks.
“I wanted to watch it before I passed it to Henry. I was worried it contained information I’d prefer not to be made public. Things I wouldn’t want my family to see.”
“Such as mention of your paternity of Lincoln Turner?”
“Yes.”
“All right.” Quentin steeples his fingers and tilts his face upward, as though pondering abstract matters of great import. “While you were doing all this, did you feel under any time constraint?”
“No.”
“But Cora Revels testified that on the night her sister died, she told you that Lincoln Turner was on his way to Natchez from Chicago.”
“She never told me that. And besides, we now know Mr. Turner was in Natchez four days prior to his mother’s death. All I knew about Lincoln Turner was that he hadn’t visited his mother in all the weeks she’d been back in Natchez, despite the fact that she was dying.”
A quick glance at Lincoln shows me rage in his face.
“What was the last thing Cora Revels told you on that night?” Quentin asks.
“That she was walking over to a neighbor’s house to watch television and get some rest, if she could.”
“So you’d found the tape intended for Mr. Sexton. What did you do then?”
“I left the house.”
“Where did you go?”
“To my office. I wanted to think about everything Viola had told me. I didn’t want to go home to do that. I also had a camcorder at my office that I could use to watch the videotape. When I got there, I watched the recording in its entirety, which was only a few minutes of footage.”
“And what did it contain?”
“About what I expected. Some information relating to her brother’s murder, to her own rapes, and also information about my history with Viola.”
“Did you erase the tape at that time?”
“No. I wanted to. But I didn’t feel I had the right. I wanted to discuss it with Viola later, to be sure she understood what could happen if she gave that information to a reporter. At that point I thought Viola would have several more days, perhaps even weeks, to make another tape, one that might be less damaging to me personally but still accomplish what she wanted to with Henry Sexton.”
“She never got to make another tape, did she?”
Dad bites his lip and winces. “No.”
“But you ultimately did erase that tape?”
“Yes. After a murder charge was filed against me, I decided it would be foolish to keep something like that around.”
“How do you feel about erasing that tape now?”
“I’ve wished a thousand times that I never did it. So much pain would have been saved had I not.”
Quentin nods slowly. “How long did you stay at your office, Doctor?”
“Till about five thirty a.m.”
“Cora Revels testified that you called her about five twenty, which we now know was eighteen minutes before her sister’s death.”
“That’s true. I called her cell and asked how Viola was doing. Cora told me she’d fallen asleep at the neighbor’s house, but that she would go home to check on Viola. I asked her to call me back if there were any problems.”
“Do you recall anything else about that conversation?”
“I had a feeling that Cora was worried Viola might have ended her life, with or without my help. I think Cora knew what Viola had been planning, up to a point. But she never raised the issue with me.”
“Did Cora call you back?”
“No. I assumed that Viola was still sedated when Cora got home, so I went home and slept for about two hours, then showered and went to work as usual.”
“How did you learn Viola had died?”
“My son called me about nine a.m. and informed me. He told me that the district attorney had telephoned him and was considering charges of assisted suicide.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“I was stunned to hear that Viola had died, and more shocked that I hadn’t been called about it.”
“Did you know the cause of death at that point?”
“No. At that point, I assumed she had found a way to commit suicide, possibly with help, but I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t worry that she had died from the morphine injection you gave her?”
Dad shakes his head. “I didn’t consider that a serious possibility.”
“And when did you learn she had died from an adrenaline overdose?”
“The next day. Again, from my son.”
“What did you think about that news?”
“It made no sense whatever to me.”
Here Quentin pauses, then rolls his chair to within a few feet of the jury and looks back at my father.
“Dr. Cage, who do you believe killed Viola Turner?”
Dad takes a deep breath, then answers with a cold edge of anger in his voice. “Snake Knox. I believe that Sonny Thornfield was also present, and possibly other people as well.”
“Who are Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield?”
“Members of a violent racist group called the Double Eagles, and the investigative targets of Henry Sexton, as well as the FBI.”
“What reason would they have to kill Viola Turner?”
Shad looks like he’s gearing up to start objecting, but so far he’s held his fire.
“Viola had a long and tragic history with the Double Eagle group. Because of that history, both Knox and Thornfield had come to Viola’s house just days before her death and threatened to kill her if she continued to talk to Henry Sexton. This exchange is what Viola had recorded on the audiotape I had looked for after injecting her with the morphine.”
“Objection,” Shad breaks in. “No such tape has been entered into evidence.”
“Your Honor, the witness is testifying to what the decedent told him—”