“Mom!” I cry, dropping to my knees. “What happened?”
She blinks her right eye repeatedly, as though trying to clear something from it. Then she speaks in a guttural voice: “I was trying to get to your room. Penn, I can’t . . . I think I’m having a stroke.”
Adrenaline flushes through me, bringing me fully alert. “Why do you think that? You’re not slurring your speech. What’s going on?”
“My right arm . . . numb. My foot, too. And . . . I can’t see out of my right eye. I’m sorry.”
Jesus Christ. “When did this start? Just now?”
“No. I was seeing flashes of light earlier, when we were watching TV with Annie.”
Frustration balloons in my chest. “Why didn’t you say anything then?”
“I thought it was stress. I didn’t want anybody telling me not to go to the courthouse tomorrow.”
“Mom, I’m calling Drew.”
“No!”
“I’m going to pick you up and carry you into my room.”
“Don’t. I’m too heavy. You’ll hurt your back.”
“Here we go.” Sliding my arms beneath her, I lift the woman who brought me into the world into the air and carry her bodily to my room. There I set her on the foot of my bed, grab my cell phone from the bedside table, and dial Drew Elliott’s cell phone. I do not pray, as a rule. Like my father, I don’t believe there’s any deity out there to hear such things.
But I am praying now.
Monday
Chapter 20
At five thirty a.m., my cell phone rang at the hospital. Serenity had just received a call from the Cat Lady, during which the old woman asked for Serenity’s word that neither she nor I would ever reveal the name or location of her former daughter-in-law, if she passed it to us. Serenity instantly agreed, and thirty seconds later she had a name, a time, and a New Orleans address.
I spent Monday morning at St. Catherine’s Hospital with my mother while Drew ran a battery of tests to confirm or rule out a stroke, including an angiogram and an MRI. Throughout this process—which was mostly hurry-up-and-wait—I received a steady stream of updates from the courthouse describing the voir dire process. The texts were authored by Rusty Duncan, a local lawyer whose friendship with me dates back to nursery school at St. Stephen’s Prep. Rusty’s a funny son of a bitch, as well as smart, and he peppered his texts with quips and sarcastic commentary about Quentin’s unusual questions for the potential jury members. The basic picture Rusty painted was of a circus in which citizens who normally tried everything short of self-mutilation to avoid jury duty were lying through their teeth to get a chance to hear the lurid details of my father’s case and ultimately decide his fate.
About midday Drew Elliott came to me in the cafeteria with what he believed was good news. “Earlier I believed Peggy had a TIA,” he said, “a transient ischemic attack. But now, believe it or not, I’m thinking her symptoms may have resulted from a complex migraine headache. They can mimic the symptoms of stroke. Peggy has no history of migraines, but God knows she’s under unbearable stress.”
Despite his optimism, Drew insisted on additional tests, and also on keeping Mom in the hospital overnight. When Mom told him she planned to be in court tomorrow for the beginning of the trial proper, Drew absolutely forbade it.
“Peggy, I could be wrong about the migraine,” he said. “And if there was a clot—and we missed it or it was reabsorbed—then there could be another one coming down the pike. And statistically, the next one would be bigger and more damaging.”
“I don’t care,” Mom said flatly. “And if the big one is coming, what’s the difference if I’m lying in bed or sitting in court downtown?”
“Your odds of survival. That’s the difference, Peggy.”
Even this made little impression on my mother, of course. I almost wept with relief later, when my sister arrived after her drive up from the Baton Rouge airport. Jenny was jet-lagged from her London flight, but she agreed to stay with Mom while Serenity and I flew to New Orleans to interview someone I described as “an important witness who might be able to help get Dad acquitted.”
After an exhaustive discussion of the risks, Tim Weathers and one of his men drove us to a grass airstrip south of Natchez, where Danny McDavitt’s Cessna 182 awaited us. Tim had bought into the notion that Serenity and I flying secretly to New Orleans while our security team remained on station in Natchez might provide the best possible cover for our trip.
I’d gotten to know Danny McDavitt through Carl Sims, and the pilot has proved invaluable to me more than once. It was Danny who dropped Carl and me into the swamp beside the Bone Tree during our attempt to rescue Caitlin. While he helped Serenity get aboard, I got another call from Rusty, who was leaving the courthouse.
“They finished the voir dire,” he said, panting as befitted his bulk.
“And?”
“For a while I was worried it would go into tomorrow.”
“What was the delay?”
“Well, like I texted you, we had a reversal of the usual dynamic. We’ve got thirty-five thousand people in Adams County, and every damn one apparently wants to serve on this jury. They think it’s going to be the biggest show of the decade.”
“Great.”
“Judge Elder took more time than usual to cull out the ‘habitual drunkards’ and ‘low gamblers.’ Shad burned a couple of peremptories to cut out preachers. He doesn’t want anybody especially forgiving of human frailty on that panel. And he tried his best to cut older black women. He got right up against the Batson rule. He knows those black ladies love your daddy.”
“Yeah, but do they still love him after this Viola-Lincoln thing?”
“Come on, man. Outside kids ain’t no big thing to them.”
“I’m not so sure, Rusty.”
“I couldn’t tell who Quentin’s ideal juror was. And he didn’t ask my advice a single time. At one point he muttered something about Mississippi needing a set of peremptory challenges for white men with big silver belt buckles. I think I saw Judge Elder smile at that, but he coughed to cover it, so I’m not positive.”
This prompts a favorable grunt from me.
“Anyway, after they narrowed it down, Quentin started checking family relations. He told the crowd he once tried a murder case in which the opposing lawyer—who was from out of state—hadn’t realized until the trial was over that four of the jury members were cousins. He got a big laugh. He’s a natural with juries, Penn. A real performer.”
“No doubt. So, how’d it wind up?”
“They settled on seven blacks and five whites, with one alternate from each race. Four of the blacks are women, and three whites.”
Seven women and five men. “What do you think, Rusty?”
“Hard to know with this case. I don’t know what else might come out that we haven’t heard yet. Has your daddy got any other big secrets that could break in the next week?”
“Who the hell knows? Not me.”
“I hear you. You gonna be in court tomorrow?”
“Barring unforeseen emergencies—which have been the rule up till now.”