“What do you mean? Why would she be afraid of us?”
“Because she’s hiding something.” A surge of certainty blasts through me, and I switch off the engine. “Let’s go find out what.”
The second I start back up the gravel drive, the Cat Lady’s composure collapses in on itself. The mask of the doddering old woman falls away, and fear and calculation flash from her eyes in equal measure. By the time we reach the porch steps, her whole body is quivering.
“Don’t come back up here,” she begs. “Please.”
“Why not?” Serenity asks from beside me.
Mrs. Booker sighs wearily, almost in surrender. “I knew you’d come back. Dr. Cage was no fool. Still, I fooled him like the rest. But maybe the son’s just a little sharper than his father.”
“What are you talking about?” Serenity asks. “What did you do?”
“Dolores isn’t dead,” I say, keeping my eyes on the Cat Lady. “She never killed herself. They told everyone that to protect her. So the Eagles would never go after her, the way they did Viola. Right?”
Serenity is staring at the Cat Lady in disbelief.
“Right?” I press.
“It was the only way to be sure,” the old woman says. “God forgive me, but I’d do the same thing again.”
“Where is she?” I ask. “Still in Detroit?”
“I’ll never tell you. Never.”
But I know she will. I have a secret weapon to make people talk. Her name is Serenity Butler.
Chapter 18
Despite Serenity’s best efforts, Cleotha Booker did not tell us where her daughter-in-law is living. But she did eventually agree to contact Dolores by phone and ask if she’d be willing to talk to us about what happened at the Bone Tree back in 1966. During the ride back to Natchez, I can tell that Serenity has developed a new respect for me, and I feel some pride at that. It’s good to know my instincts about people haven’t completely deserted me during my long night of grieving Caitlin.
By the time we reach home, my mother has arrived from Pollock. We find her sitting at the kitchen table with Annie and Mia, looking more frazzled than I’ve ever seen her. She has swollen bags under her eyes that makeup can’t fully mask, and a look of bone-deep fatigue that can only be the result of severe sleep deprivation. When I hug her, she feels as though she’s lost five more pounds in the week since I’ve seen her.
When I introduce Serenity, Mom nods courteously, but she doesn’t manage to raise a smile. This, more than anything, tells me that her dread of what might happen to Dad once he falls under the control of Sheriff Billy Byrd in the county jail is consuming her like a disease.
Sheriff Byrd forbade Mom from being present in the ACSO building during the transfer, claiming that would constitute special treatment. Byrd told Quentin Avery he didn’t want anyone getting the idea that a physician would be treated any different than a yard man in his jail. This is likely only a hint of things to come. Annie and I have passed a few hours trying to keep Mom calm, with Annie carrying the bulk of the load, but nothing short of my father’s acquittal is going to ease her burden, and the trial is sure to last at least a week, if not longer.
Quentin Avery and his wife, Doris, arrive in Natchez about four. Serenity and I drive down to the bluff to help get them settled in Edelweiss, which I offered to Quentin as a base of operations during the trial. Despite having three stories, the house is perfect for him, because the widow I bought it from installed an elevator a couple of years before she moved to a group care facility. It’s a primitive, wire-cage-type lift, but it will hold the weight of Quentin’s motorized wheelchair, and that’s all that matters.
At Quentin’s request, Doris makes Serenity some coffee in the kitchen while he and I go out to the broad front gallery “to discuss strategy for tomorrow’s voir dire,” according to Quentin. Quentin rolls his wheelchair to the rail, from which you can survey fourteen miles of the Mississippi River. I sit in one of the large rocking chairs Caitlin always said she wanted up here to watch the sunsets.
“Are we really going to discuss the voir dire?” I ask. “Or do you have something else to tell me?”
A faint smile touches the old man’s lips. “Still quick as ever. We’ll get to the jury list. Housekeeping first. I’m officially listing you as part of your father’s defense team. Your father doesn’t want that, but your mother insists, and you know who wins that argument.”
Oh, yeah.
“Peggy wants to know you can check on your father at any hour of the day or night, and with Sheriff Byrd being a prick, the only way to accomplish that is for you to be one of your father’s lawyers.”
“I get it.” I try to keep my tone neutral, but I know Quentin’s powers of perception.
“Penn, you’re a great lawyer,” he says. “I’d give my left arm to have you sitting with me at the defense table. But your father wants you excluded. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. There’s nothing personal about it.”
“It’s purely personal. And I don’t get it.”
“I know. But your father’s the client, and I’m following his wishes.”
I sigh heavily. “Is there anything else?”
“A couple of things, actually. First, this case isn’t going to be like any I ever tried before. I’m going to take a very unconventional approach to get your father acquitted. I might even get a little crazy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure myself yet. But whatever I do, I won’t be able to explain my strategy to you. So I’m asking you to promise me now that whatever I decide, you won’t be pestering me every minute to explain my tactics.”
“I’m not going to be your main problem, brother. Mom is going to expect me to explain every step of the trial to her. And if you keep me in the dark, then you do the same to her. And you know that’s not going to fly.”
Quentin gives me a look of world-weary confidence. “You let me handle Peggy.”
“You’re welcome to it.”
“So we’re good?” Quentin asks, a note of challenge in his voice.
“Actually, no. But what the hell can I do about it?”
“Hell, boy, can you think of anybody you’d trust more than me to defend your father?”
In truth, I know some genius-level criminal attorneys much closer to the primes of their careers than the legless old man sitting in the wheelchair beside me. But in a murder case involving race in Mississippi . . . those lawyers would be like novice sailors adrift in a hurricane compared to Quentin Avery.
“No,” I concede after a resentful silence.
“Just keep the faith, Penn. No matter how crazy you think I might be. We have a deal?”
Something keeps me from giving him my unqualified trust. “What about Judge Elder? Are you still worried he’s leaning to Shad’s side in this thing?”