Quentin rotates his wheelchair slowly in place, allowing him to make eye contact with not only the jury, but also every spectator in the courtroom.
“And while we’re on the subject of motive, let me pose a very simple question, one so simple that I don’t believe our ingenious prosecutor even thought of it. How could killing Viola Turner protect Dr. Cage’s reputation from what most threatened it? Killing Viola Turner would not erase Lincoln Turner from the earth. Lincoln Turner is a living fact. A simple DNA test would prove that Dr. Cage is Lincoln’s father, as it did three months ago. So . . . what could Dr. Cage gain by killing the mother of his child? If he meant to cover his sin with Viola and hide the existence of his illegitimate son, he would have had to kill Lincoln Turner as well. But if that was his plan, why did he not wait for Lincoln to ‘arrive from Chicago’? Dr. Cage had drugs ready to hand that would have killed Lincoln stone dead. A few drops of fentanyl in a cup of coffee . . . But wait”—Quentin slaps his forehead like a cartoon character—“Lincoln Turner wasn’t on his way from Chicago, was he? He was on his way from Mr. Patel’s motel, thirty miles from his mother’s sickbed! He’d been hiding out by the county line for several days, under an alias, waiting to put his schemes for theft and revenge into motion.”
I glance over at the prosecution table. Shad looks as though he might be on the verge of vomiting. What must it feel like to sit mute under a barrage like this? To be made to look foolish by one of the masters of your profession? As a prosecutor in Houston, I experienced some bad days in court, but I never faced an attorney of Quentin Avery’s caliber with a case like this one. If Shad is going to get a conviction today, he’s going to have to turn iron into gold during his final close.
Quentin presses on relentlessly. “Anyone who watched Lincoln Turner on the stand saw that he also harbored a deep desire to revenge himself upon Dr. Cage. And the circumstances of his mother’s illness and death offered him a perfect chance to do that.”
Quentin takes a deep breath, then releases a long, sad exhalation. “Lincoln Turner,” he says in the tone of a sorrowful pastor. “It’s been a while since I heard anything as tragic as that boy’s childhood. Born from an unwanted pregnancy, with a mother who did what she thought was best to get by, but who chose deceit as her tool, and ultimately caused more pain than she averted. That poor boy didn’t even know who he was growing up, and he was taken under the spell of an amoral criminal before he had the wits to know right from wrong.
“There can be no doubt that, had Lincoln been raised in the loving home of Tom Cage, with all the advantages of our mayor, his life would have turned out much differently. That is a tragedy. But we all know now that this was not the fault of Tom Cage. For no man can offer to raise a son that he does not know exists.
“Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Cage took the stand this morning and told you the unvarnished truth, as I promised you that he would. He didn’t shy away from the truth to make himself look better than he is. He told you hard truths. He said things that could put his very freedom in jeopardy, apart from this proceeding. But he did that because he is a truthful man. The few lies Tom Cage told in his life, he told to prevent pain, and they have haunted him ever since. Today he tried to make them right.
“This trial has proved two things about Dr. Cage. First, as he told you himself—with his wife here to hear it, God help her—that he loved Viola Turner. And second, had he known that he had a son by Viola, he would have done everything in his power to help that boy get raised right. As it was, he sent Viola money for thirty-seven years. What more would he have done had he known the truth? We can only guess.
“But all this is speculation. Lincoln Turner was raised where he was, and he grew into the man who testified before you. A man who admitted that he lied on the stand in an effort to steal his own mother’s life savings. But far more disturbing is that, even when given an opportunity to come clean before you, he chose to hide his deepest lie. Despite telling you a heartbreaking story about a prodigal son racing from Chicago to Natchez to reach his dying mother in time to forgive her—and failing because of the alleged crime of the defendant—Mr. Turner was actually in Natchez four days prior to his mother’s death. Yet he deliberately chose not to speak to her at all. What reason Lincoln Turner might have for lying about his presence here, I leave to you good ladies and gentlemen, and to the law enforcement authorities of this county.”
Up come Quentin’s hands with their long and graceful fingers, and he begins enumerating points upon them. When he speaks this way, every assertion he makes takes on a tone of unassailability.
“Did someone murder Viola Turner? Yes, indeed. Cruelly and without mercy, as we all saw on the grisly recording accidentally captured on the camera belonging to the late Henry Sexton. Do we know who inflicted that terrible suffering and death on Viola Turner? We do not. Can we guess who might have done it? I submit to you that we all have a pretty good idea.
“Ironically, though, our ideas may be different. Some of you may think Lincoln himself did it. From the testimony in this trial, it’s manifestly clear that he possessed the motive, the means, and the opportunity to kill his mother. We know he was in Cora Revels’s house on the morning of her death. He claimed to have arrived at the house after she died, but he made similar claims about his arrival in Natchez, did he not? Who is to say when he really got there? Cora Revels?”
Quentin shakes his head with sadness and contempt. “What did I tell you my daddy used to tell me? ‘Half the truth is a whole lie.’ Well, forget half the truth. Cora Revels and Lincoln Turner convicted themselves as liars out of their own mouths. What weight should a reasonable person give to the words of proven deceivers? I know what my mama used to say: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’
“We also know that, like his aunt Cora, Lincoln wanted his mother’s money—money that Viola had decided to spend in the quest to find justice for her martyred brother, Jimmy Revels.
“We don’t know where the adrenaline that killed Viola Turner came from. Nurse Melba Price testified that Dr. Cage had adrenaline in his office, and also in his black bag. But that could be said of many doctors in Natchez. The State did not find any adrenaline ampoule at the crime scene, or anywhere else.