“Might the adrenaline have come from Chicago? Possibly. Or could Lincoln Turner have broken into Tom Cage’s office sometime during those days he was secretly here, and used that very dose to kill his mother? I tend to doubt this, because Lincoln would have left the incriminating vial for us to find. So . . . there’s no certainty in the end. Not for us. Perhaps months or years hence, some guilty soul will cry out for release, and the truth will come to light at last. Whose soul might that be? We don’t know.”
Quentin pauses long enough for people to get nervous, then changes tack once more. “Did anyone but Lincoln and Cora have a motive to kill Viola Turner? We all know the answer to that. Viola was hated by one of the most racist and violent organizations ever formed in the United States. She was threatened by them forty years ago, before she left Natchez, and she was threatened only a week or so before she was murdered. Members of that group raped Viola in 1968 and most likely murdered her brother as well. Viola had seen them torture Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis on the night she was rescued from captivity by Tom Cage’s emissary, Ray Presley.
“For these reasons, those vicious men warned Viola that if she ever returned to Natchez, they would silence her forever. Well, Viola stayed away as long as she could. But like a lot of black folks who left Mississippi decades ago, she wanted to return home to die. But on her own terms, ladies and gentlemen. This poor woman had led a life of biblical suffering, and she wanted to have her final agony ended by a man she knew had loved her all her life. And what did she find? Dr. Cage offered her exactly what she sought—comfort in the face of pain and death. But the demons of Viola’s past had not been idle in her absence. Not by a long shot. And they lived in fear of being exposed.
“When Viola began talking to a crusading reporter, they came to her bedside and told her once again that she would die if she tried to tell the truth. But did she remain silent? No. She made the tape you saw this morning, and she changed her will to fund Henry Sexton’s investigations into her brother’s murder. Even from her sickbed, Viola Turner was a formidable adversary.
“Who among you believes that the monsters who killed Henry Sexton, Caitlin Masters, Sleepy Johnston, and others—who murdered one of their own, Will Devine, before your very eyes yesterday—would hesitate to snuff out the life of Viola Turner?”
Quentin suddenly goes quiet, like a wind falling deceptively as it gathers before a storm.
“Finally,” he says softly, “I ask you to consider the district attorney, the man who brought us all to this room and asked us to listen to the deceivers he paraded before us. It was Shadrach Johnson who reached back fifty years into the past to try to slander Dr. Cage over his military service to his country. I only thank God that Dr. Cage’s commanding officer survived to tell you of his courage under fire on the night the Chinese broke through the American lines back in 1950. And that Captain Walt Garrity could tell you the truth of how he and Tom Cage were forced to make the toughest choice a medic ever could make in the face of certain torture and death for the hopelessly wounded boys under their care.
“And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is what I want to leave you with. This man, this simple small-town doctor, has spent his life in the gray areas that most of us pretend don’t exist. As a young man, he was thrown into the crucible of war and asked to do the impossible. He acquitted himself with honor. For the past forty years, he has worked every day to heal the sick and afflicted of our community. He has never sought fortune or fame; on the contrary, he has done countless acts of kindness and mercy without anyone ever learning of them.
“There’s an old saying: ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ By that standard, Tom Cage is a fool. A prudent physician would have run a mile when Viola Turner asked him to help her die with dignity. Because the law doesn’t do much to help terminally ill people in this country. It doesn’t do much to help the doctors asked to care for them, either. The law is mighty quick to condemn a doctor trying to help someone in pain, and mighty slow to help those poor patients find peace. A smart doctor’s first thought upon hearing what Viola wanted would have been the potential lawsuit and the possibility of losing his license. But not Tom Cage. Tom did the same thing he did in Korea. He shoved his fear deep down inside, waded in, and did the best he could in the time he had with the resources at hand.”
Quentin raises both hands, palms upturned. “But I’m talking like Dr. Cage helped Viola Turner to die! The fact is, he didn’t. This man who had the guts to help young soldiers die rather than face torture could not bring himself to kill a woman he had loved, and who had borne him a child. Not even out of mercy. But he did bring himself to come here today, take the stand, and tell you the truth, no matter what it might cost him. And as for the assertions of the district attorney, who claims that Tom Cage is playing some sort of con game on us all . . . I ask Mr. Johnson what I asked him at the conclusion of my opening remarks.”
With the slow but inexorable motion of a gun traversing in its mount, Quentin turns to Shadrach Johnson and says: “Have you no shame, brother?”
The ringing silence that follows this question is like the vacuum after an artillery round blasts open the earth. Several jurors sit openmouthed as they stare at Shad, awaiting his response, and even Judge Elder appears struck dumb by the force of Quentin’s question. A low hum begins to grow in the audience behind me, and within seconds it becomes the wild buzz of a junior-high-school auditorium before the teachers take charge.
Judge Elder’s bass voice booms out to the back wall and reverberates through the room. “Be silent, or I will clear this court!”
Turning back toward the crowd, I see the first few rows of spectators blinking in disbelief at the volume the judge summoned without the benefit of his microphone. When I face forward again, I see Quentin rolling to his place behind the defense table, his face looking peaceful in repose.
Can he really be that cool? I wonder.
“Mr. Johnson,” Judge Elder says softly into the ensuing vacuum, “you may conclude your closing argument.”
As Shad stands behind the prosecution table, Rusty’s elbow digs into the ribs on my left side.
“Shad’s got more balls than I do,” he whispers. “You couldn’t pay me to get up after what Quentin just did to him. He looks like Dan Quayle after Lloyd Bentsen gutted him on national television.”
I nod slightly, but as Shad walks to the lectern, I see something in his eyes that sends a wave of sickness through my belly. He still believes Dad is guilty.
“What is it, Penn?” Mom whispers in my right ear. “You just turned pale.”
For a moment I try to suppress my anxiety, but at this point there’s nothing to be gained by shielding my mother. One way or another, the verdict will come soon.
“Shad truly believes Dad killed her,” I murmur. “He believes it in his bones.”
In the span of three seconds, I feel my mother’s hand go cold.
Chapter 70