This time he looks down at the tray below the window and says nothing.
Faced with the yawning void of his deepest motives, I grasp at a niggling detail that’s bothered me for two days. “What about that hair-and-fiber evidence tampering? When Jewel told me Billy Byrd’s deputies were messing with that evidence, you had Quentin shut me down quick.”
“Of course I did. Because I knew exactly what was going on. That’s another irony of this screwed-up case. Byrd’s deputies probably destroyed or replaced Caucasian hairs that might have turned out to match Snake or Sonny, but by doing so, they inadvertently protected Peggy. I wasn’t about to let you open that can of worms. The FBI might have gone in there and found a dozen more gray hairs from your mother’s head.”
For the first time in a while, I feel like laughing, at the thought of my father exploiting Billy Byrd’s corruption to protect my mother. But Dad isn’t smiling.
“Of course, I couldn’t be sure that Snake hadn’t told Byrd everything,” he goes on. “That was one more thing I had to sweat. Did Billy Byrd have Peggy’s hair sitting over there in an envelope, ready to drop into the case file on command from Snake if it looked like I was going to be acquitted?”
“Christ. But they didn’t do that. They thought they had you. And once things began turning your way, it was too late to drag Mom into it.”
Dad’s eyes settle on me with disturbing intensity. “Was it?”
“What are you saying?”
“If I’d been acquitted, couldn’t someone else have been charged with Viola’s murder?”
I feel as though my father just sucked the gravity from the entire building and I might float up off the chair. “Are you saying you changed your plea because they threatened to charge Mom with Viola’s death?”
He looks back at me without answering for several seconds. Then he says, “No. I was afraid of that, sure, but that wasn’t my reason.”
Again we’ve come to the question of why he changed his plea to guilty. This time I don’t steer away from it. “Shad got to you with that parable of his, didn’t he? That’s what triggered your change of plea.”
Dad acknowledges this with a single nod. Then he says, “What do you think about Shad’s theory that everything I did for black people over the years was motivated by guilt?”
“I don’t think it matters. They needed help, and you helped them. Few others did.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
“Didn’t you start all that long before you knew Viola?”
“A couple of years before, I guess. It’s hard to remember now.”
“So forget it.”
He doesn’t look like he’s going to stop second-guessing himself anytime soon, and in prison there’s not much else for a man to do.
“Dad, I need to ask you two questions. And I need you to answer them. No matter how much you think it might hurt me.”
“All right. You’re entitled, after the hell I put you through these past months.”
“Did you know Lincoln was your son all along? Is that why you sent the money all those years?”
His eyes narrow, and then he hooks the fingers of his right hand in the wire screen and shakes his head without a trace of deception. “No. I told the truth about that. I never even suspected Lincoln was mine. And Viola confirmed that on the tape, remember?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what . . . ?”
“Back in October, when you had your last heart attack, Caitlin and I were out on the river in a boat. When Mom called us, she told me you kept saying there was something you needed to tell me. Something you could only tell me. After you recovered, you denied ever saying that. I’ve been thinking that might have been about Lincoln. That you were going to tell me I had a brother.”
Dad’s eyes fill with pain and something else, maybe shame. “No, Penn. That was about Viola, though. I was going to tell you to make sure she didn’t want for anything during her last years. See, at that time I didn’t know Peggy knew about her, so I couldn’t put anything in my will. That kind of thing needs to stay between father and son. But after I got better, I thought I could procrastinate a little longer. I guess one of these days I’m going to have to face the fact that I’m not going to live forever.”
Before I lose my nerve, I say, “If Viola had wanted you to leave us, would you have gone to Chicago with her?”
My father’s eyes widen like those of man slapped without warning. He swallows, then drops his hands and looks away from me, pondering the question. I’m not sure I want to hear the answer. Maybe his delay is the answer.
“I think your mother worries about that a lot,” he says softly.
“She does.”
He sighs with infinite regret. “The answer is . . . she did.”
“Wait a second. Who did what? I don’t understand.”
Dad looks straight into my eyes. “Viola broke her promise to Peggy. She did ask me to come to Chicago. I lied on the witness stand, Penn. About the notes I sent with my checks.”
“I’m confused. What do you mean?”
“About four years after she got to Chicago, Viola sent one of my notes back to the clinic. She sent it in an envelope marked ‘personal.’”
My heartbeat is accelerating. “Was there a letter in it?”
“No. Just two words, written above my note asking whether she was all right.”
“What were the words?”
Dad looks down and takes a deep breath, as though summoning the strength to answer. Then he looks up with wet, bloodshot eyes.
“Save me.”
Chapter 74
I started drinking gin as soon as I got home from the jail. I had no limes, but it didn’t matter. I had tonic. I ran out a half hour ago, having spent the hours until sundown padding through my Washington Street house wondering exactly when everything started going off the tracks for our family. Until three months ago, the Cages had a pretty blessed run. Excluding the death of Annie’s mother, of course. But on balance, we’d been far more lucky than not.
Now it’s all gone to hell. Caitlin dead. Dad in prison. Mom in the hospital. Annie in protective custody a hundred miles away. Friends dead—some because of what they did to try to help us. Henry Sexton, Walt Garrity, even Viola. Lincoln Turner poisoned by lies and hatred. And yet, as my mother pointed out . . . Snake Knox still roams free.