At least a dozen people behind me mutter “Mm-mm-mm” under their breath.
“Let the record show that these checks were stipulated into evidence on Monday,” Shad says. “Now, were there any other clues in the box?”
“There was a Polaroid snapshot of Mama with a man.”
“What man?”
“That man right there. Dr. Tom Cage.”
“What did it show?”
“They were standing in a room with a sheet wrapped around them.”
“Were they clothed beneath the sheet?”
“They didn’t appear to be, no.”
“Judge, we’d like to enter this photograph into evidence and let the jury examine it.”
If Quentin is ever going to object, now is the time. But he doesn’t. Even as Joe Elder looks expectantly at him, Quentin simply watches Shad carry the old Polaroid snapshot over to the jury and give it to the woman seated at bottom left in the box. Her eyes narrow, then widen, and then her whole face goes red. I can’t bear to turn and look at my mother’s face. Ahead of me, my father simply stares straight ahead, at the judge’s bench. My mother might as well be a mannequin posed beside me, for all the life she shows.
“What did you do with what you’d found in the box?” Shad asks.
“I confronted my mother with it.”
“How did she react?”
“She finally told me the truth. The real truth.”
“Which was?”
“She said my father was Dr. Tom Cage, from Natchez, Mississippi. She’d known it from the beginning. She’d been protecting him all those years. That was why she’d lied to me, and to Jelks.”
“Did she say anything else about Dr. Cage during that conversation?”
“She told me that a lot of the money that put me through school had come from him.”
“This is very important, Lincoln. Did she say whether or not Dr. Cage knew he was your father?”
Lincoln’s brown face darkens with blood. “Of course he knew!”
“Did your mother tell you that?”
“Yes. That’s why he sent the money all those years. Mama said Dr. Cage had kept us going during the times that Daddy was spending every dime she made. And she begged me not to do anything to disrupt his family life.”
“He’s lying,” Mom whispers in my ear.
“About what?”
“Tom never knew he had a son by that woman.”
Shad says, “How did that make you feel?”
“Sick,” Lincoln replies. “That man had ruined our lives, and Mama still worshipped him. She said most other men would have left her high and dry with her baby, but Dr. Cage had always provided for us. I couldn’t make her see different.”
“Can you prove Dad didn’t know about the child?” I whisper to Mom.
“How can I prove a negative?”
“You can’t. And the jury will see him sending that money for so long as proof.”
Mom’s voice grows louder in my ear. “Tom could have been sending that simply out of guilt over the affair! Or because she was raped and had to leave town. It doesn’t mean he knew.”
She sounds so certain that a question occurs to me. “Mom . . . did you know Dad was sending that money?”
My mother gives me a glare that could freeze vodka, and I face forward again.
Shad has moved closer to Lincoln, and now he really does his best to imitate Dr. Phil. “How did that make you feel, Lincoln?”
Again Quentin should be objecting—feelings have little to do with facts—yet again he remains silent.
“I hated her,” Lincoln says bitterly. “I never wanted to see her again. That’s what I thought then, anyway.”
“Did you tell your mother that?”
He nods, and tears run down his face. “I told her I was glad she was dying.”
Lincoln Turner may be tailoring the truth to fit his goals, but on this point I believe he is telling the truth.
“How did you feel about Dr. Cage at that time?”
“I wanted to kill him.”
If I were about to cross-examine Lincoln, I would begin by creating the impression that by pushing hard for a murder charge against Dad in the beginning, he was attempting to use the legal system to carry out this desire for revenge. But will Quentin do the same?
“What did you actually do?” Shad asks.
“I broke off all contact with my mother.”
“Even though she was dying?”
“Yes. I told you, I’ve got some anger issues. Back then, I blamed her for everything bad that had ever happened to me.” Lincoln’s dark eyes move from the district attorney to the defense table, where my father sits beside Quentin. “And him, of course. Dr. Cage.”
“Did you have any idea how your mother’s illness was progressing?”
“After she came back to Mississippi to die, my auntie—Cora Revels—would call and tell me how she was doing.”
“Did you tell Cora that you knew Dr. Cage was your father?”
“I did after she told me it was Dr. Cage taking care of Mama down here.”
“Did you ever come visit your mother again, Lincoln?”
“No, sir. But I got to feeling worse and worse about the things I’d said to her. After a while, I wanted to tell her I’d forgiven her before she passed—even if it wasn’t quite true. I knew it would make her passing easier. Personally, I think it was telling all those lies for so long that gave her the cancer. It poisoned her.”
“Did you get to tell your mother you’d forgiven her?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“One night, Auntie Cora called and told me she thought Mama didn’t have much time. She didn’t tell me about the assisted-suicide pact, but she told me she was pretty sure Mama wouldn’t last more than twenty-four hours.”
“What did you do?”
“I jumped into my truck and drove straight through from Chicago to Natchez.”
“Where were you when your mother died?”
“Thirty minutes north of Natchez.”
Shad bows his head and lets this terrible irony sink in. After a few seconds, he says, “Why didn’t you call your mother during that long drive?”
“I was getting updates from Cora, telling me to hurry, you know? Then suddenly she stopped calling me. I called Cora a few times, but I kept getting her voice mail.”
“But you didn’t call Cora’s house and talk to your mother?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“Part of me was afraid he would be there. Dr. Cage. Another part wanted him to be there when I got there.”
“Is that the only reason you didn’t call your mother?”
“No, sir. You don’t say the kind of things I needed to say to her over the telephone. Not to your mama. You need to hold somebody’s hand to say that.”
Several women in the jury nod, both black and white.
“Do you wish now that you had called her that night?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“What would you have said?”
Lincoln Turner swallows hard and looks toward the ceiling. “Hold on just a little longer, Mama. I’m coming home.”
Three women in the jury box take handkerchiefs from their purses and wipe their eyes. The rest are looking daggers at my father. The men don’t look too happy with him, either.