“My God,” he breathes, leaning over the photo. “Where did you get this?”
“From Henry. Tell me about Brody Royal, Dad. According to Henry, he was behind the deaths of Albert Norris, Pooky Wilson, Jimmy Revels, Luther Davis, and Dr. Robb. This morning I’d have said this guy was a typical Louisiana businessman, only richer. An upper-echelon Rotary type. Now I hear he’s a sociopath who plotted with Carlos Marcello to assassinate Robert Kennedy.”
Dad looks up, obviously startled.
“In this photo you seem to be deep-sea fishing with Royal and two other world-class bastards.” Mindful of my mother, I prevent myself from raising my voice. “What’s the deal?”
He leans back and regards me with what looks like regret. “Penn … why are you digging into all this?”
I want to lean across the desk and shake him by his shirt. Instead, I take a deep breath and force my voice lower. “The moment I saw Henry’s video, I knew you didn’t kill Viola. But since you wouldn’t tell me who did kill her, I set out to find the answer myself. I now believe the Double Eagles killed her, either for their own reasons or to protect Brody Royal. After what Henry told me today, I think that no matter what happens with your case, I’m going to have to help him solve those cases he’s been working. In fact, tomorrow morning, I’m having a friend dive the Jericho Hole to search for bodies.”
I pause to let Dad absorb what I’m saying. “The past is coming up to the surface, one way or another. I’ve come here to give you a chance to warn me if we’re likely to find something that implicates you in any way.”
He looks around his study as if searching for something. “Penn,” he says finally, “this isn’t like the Del Payton case. As important as that was, it was basically a case of greed. The race angle was only incidental.”
I feel my face flush with frustration. “You’re avoiding my question. This picture isn’t all Henry has, you know. I saw FBI surveillance records that document Marcello’s hoods driving up from New Orleans to visit your office in the 1970s. Can you explain that?”
To my surprise, he shrugs as though he has nothing to hide. “I probably did treat some of Ray’s friends from New Orleans. God knows I treated enough Ku Klux Klansmen among the workers at Armstrong and Triton and IP. But there’s nothing evil in that. Assholes need doctors, too.”
“But why would mobsters drive the three hours from New Orleans to see you? In at least one case, a visit was after hours, and Ray Presley showed up at your office at the same time.”
Dad looks confused for a few moments, but then he seems to recover his composure. “I remember that! Some of Ray’s old cronies tried to bribe me to write fraudulent prescriptions for amphetamines. That was the big-demand drug back then. I said no, and that was that. Honestly, I didn’t see it as any different from Natchez lawyers asking me to pad my bills to fatten up their personal injury lawsuits. Human beings are avaricious, Penn. You know that.”
He’s responded to all my questions with calm assurance, yet amid all the words I sense a different kind of concealment. “Dad … so far as I know, in all my life, you only refused to open up to me about one thing—Korea. But today I discovered there’s a whole other chapter you kept back. This afternoon you lamented not doing more to help during the civil rights struggle, but it sounds like you were neck-deep in it. Henry says he’s been trying to interview you about that era for years, yet you’ve constantly put him off. Why?”
He focuses in the middle distance for a few silent seconds. Then he looks at me and answers in a low, earnest voice. “I never told you about the war because you can’t tell anyone about war, any more than you can tell a virgin what it means to go through labor. But make no mistake: what happened here during the 1960s was a war, too. A civil war.” He thumps Shelby Foote’s thick history. “Maybe the true end of this one. And as in any war, there were casualties. Viola was one of them.”
“Viola was gang-raped in 1968. I’m thinking you already know that.”
His jaw tightens and flexes. If there’s such a thing as an offended silence, that’s what I’m listening to now. “I’m not going to discuss that,” he says. “Viola’s gone, and she’s finally out of pain. That’s all that matters now.”
I lean forward, my eyes accusing. “Is it? A lot more people who survived that era need peace just as badly as she, and preferably while they’re still alive. Many of the men who committed those crimes are still walking around. They’re still hurting people. Do you think men who gang-raped Viola twice deserve to live out their days in peace?”
Dad looks up sharply, his face pale. Then he closes his eyes, and his head sags forward. I start to go on, but he raises a hand to stop me. “Don’t say any more. I’ll answer your three questions. Then I want you to drop all this.”
“I can’t promise that.”
He sighs heavily. “Leland Robb was a good man. He was a good physician, too, and he died badly. Aircraft fires are always terrible. They called me to identify his body. I had to use X-rays.”
“I don’t think Henry knows that.”