“I remember this picture,” I tell him. “I was in first grade. I thought you used it as a bookmark.”
“I did,” Dad says, his eyes hard. “For a specific reason. One week after that Gulf fishing trip, Ray Presley visited my office. He told me that Carlos Marcello had heard Brody’s CIA guest had gotten drunk and said a little too much. Marcello wanted me to know the guy was a nut job, and that nothing he said should be believed.”
“If that was true, why would Marcello bother sending Ray to tell you that?”
Dad nods slowly. “Exactly. And here’s the thing: Ray was close to Jim Garrison’s investigation of the JFK assassination in New Orleans. He said witnesses were vanishing, and some had already been murdered. Making yourself a potential witness in the investigation of the JFK assassination was the equivalent of suicide. Ray was telling me this as a favor, believe it nor not. Then he gave me that picture of you. He apologized, and he swore he hadn’t taken it himself, but the implication was clear.”
“I’ll bet Ray shot this himself.”
“I imagine so. And now you know why, when Leland Robb came to me in 1969, I didn’t want to hear his story. They’d already let me know what crossing Brody Royal or Carlos Marcello would cost me. You.”
Me? Only a few hours ago, Henry Sexton suggested as much—though he figured it was the Double Eagles who’d threatened my life. The truth is even more disturbing. Without knowing it, I once functioned as a hostage to the Mafia, not the Ku Klux Klan, and to prevent my father from speaking out, not about the atrocities of Brody Royal but the drunken boasts of a CIA operative.
“Is there a particular reason you kept this picture in Will Percy’s book?”
Dad looks away, his jaw tight. “Perhaps. But that’s a conversation for another night.”
“So that fishing boat picture with Royal … it’s just a fluke?”
“Essentially, yes. I never had any kind of relationship with Brody Royal. If there was justice in the world, that bastard would be dying of ALS, instead of the sweet young mother I diagnosed three months ago. But that kind of justice is a child’s dream. The evil prosper, and the innocent pay the bills for them. I’ve seen it all my life, and so have you.”
“Why haven’t you told Henry Sexton any of this?”
Dad holds up both hands, as if raising an invisible wall between us once more. “I have my reasons, and I’ve said my piece. I want you to keep all this between us, Penn. I admire what Henry’s done these past years, but I’m afraid that if he continues, he’ll end up like Glenn Morehouse. I worry about you, too,” he says, his voice thickening. “Don’t start poking into the Double Eagles or Brody Royal. That’s not your war.”
Unreasonably upset, I find myself on my feet. “So that’s it? This is your cross to bear alone?”
“I’m afraid it is. I’ve got a path to walk, and there’s no turning off it. Not yet, anyway.”
“Why won’t you let me walk it with you?”
“Will you be in court tomorrow if they arrest me?”
“You know I will,” I say grudgingly.
He turns up his palms. “Then I won’t be alone, will I?”
“You’re not the only one who’s going to pay for this martyr act! Annie’s scared out of her wits, and God only knows what this is doing to Mom.”
He nods, his lips tight. “I realize the next few days may be tough. But I’ve given this a lot of thought. If the state chooses to jail me for my silence, then so be it.”
I pace away from his desk, then back, trying to put my incredulity into words. “How long can you survive in jail? A week? A month?”
Dad looks to his right, where a bust of Abraham Lincoln stands beside his window. “You know, few people remember that Lincoln offered Robert E. Lee command of a Union army when the war began. Lee wanted to hold the Union together. His family’s sympathies lay with the Union. But he was a Virginian, and in the end, he couldn’t take up arms against his home state. He tried to sit out the war, and they wouldn’t let him. He knew it would end in defeat for the South, but he fought to the limit of his abilities in spite of that. He fought with honor and brilliance, despite the wrongness of his cause.”
What is he trying to tell me? “What’s your point, Dad?”
“Fate doesn’t let men choose their wars. Or even their battles, sometimes. But one resolute man can sometimes accomplish remarkable things against overwhelming odds.”
Why is he speaking in code? Did my father commit some great evil in the past to protect our family? Or keep silent about one? Or is he doing that now?
“Dad … this afternoon, when I asked you about the videotape missing from the camera Henry left at Viola’s place, your reaction made me think you might have it. Or know where it is.”
He studies me in silence for a few seconds. “I don’t think anybody’s going to find that tape. I wouldn’t worry about it, if I were you.”
Jesus. “Has somebody threatened our family? Please tell me. Is that why you’re walking willingly into this buzz saw?”
He stares at me a long time before answering. “Not overtly, no.”
“But a threat is implicit in the situation. Look, if that’s it, we can handle this. We can protect ourselves against Royal and the Eagles. Don’t let any threat dictate your actions.”
He looks at me the way I’ve looked at people who have little understanding of the true workings of the justice system. “There are only two ways to protect yourself against people like that. One is to go into witness protection—permanently. Do you want to yank your mother out of her present life? Walk away from the mayor’s office and never come home again? Do you want to pull Annie out of school and Caitlin away from her newspaper? All to live in Kansas under false names?”