“He asked that bail be denied.”
“I told you! The gloves are off. Shad thinks this is his golden chance to get back at you. You’ve got to go nuclear. You should have done it last night.”
“I pretty much did. But he chose to ignore the threat.” A tick of worry is biting at me. “I’m concerned that he’s got the photo covered somehow.”
“How?” she asks, incredulous. “How could he possibly protect himself from that picture? He could go to jail over that, right?”
“Probably not. But he’d definitely be disbarred.”
“Are you sure the image is safe?”
“I’ve got the flash drive in my pocket now. But Shad would be crazy to proceed this way unless he’s figured a way to cover his ass.”
“Maybe he thinks he has equally damaging material on you. Or on Tom. Is that possible?”
A cold shiver goes through me. “Not on me. But something’s not right about this. Shad just spoke very cryptically to me outside the courtroom, and he didn’t sound like a man who’s afraid. He asked whether I’d considered whether Dad was really guilty, then suggested I come up to his office later to discuss it.”
“Then what are you doing talking to me?”
“You’d have had a stroke if I didn’t call you first.”
“Granted. Now get up there and find out what cards he’s holding.”
I would, but I have some bones to look at across the river. I start walking toward my parking space at City Hall. “I will. But I want to be sure I’ve thought through every angle before I confront Shad again.”
I give her a quick summary of Lincoln’s unexpected appearance and outburst, then tell her about the photographer.
“That bastard,” she says. “Shad probably asked the Clarion-Ledger to send someone down.”
“Shad claims Lincoln did it, and he may have. I’m afraid the media storm is about to hit.”
“That’s all right. I’m a good sailor. I’ll come by City Hall after lunch. I love you.”
The instant I hit END, a female voice calls out from behind me, “Mr. Mayor?”
I turn, ready to politely brush off a constituent, but I find myself looking at Jewel Washington, the county coroner. Jewel’s office is two doors down from the Justice Court.
“I saw you out here talking to the DA,” she says, beckoning me toward her office door.
“I don’t have much time,” I tell her.
“You have time for this.”
Jewel is an African-American woman of about fifty-five, and a former surgical nurse. Just as Justice Court judges don’t have to be lawyers in Mississippi, coroners don’t have to be M.D.s. But in Jewel’s case, her lack of a medical degree has proved no impediment to the efficient running of her office. A perfectionist in all things, she has an unerring sense of justice. Jewel also happens to love my father, having known him for many years.
“I heard Shad asked for no bail,” she whispers, opening the door to her office suite, which leads into a small, empty reception area.
“News travels fast in this building.”
“You know it, honey. Thank heaven Judge Noyes feels the same way about your daddy that I do.”
“I appreciate that, Jewel. What’s up?”
“Shad’s getting on my last nerve about Miss Viola’s autopsy. He wants me to try to rush the pathologist up in Jackson, and also to use my contacts at the state crime lab to rush the toxicology. He wants everything done yesterday.”
“What does he most want to know?”
“You know. Cause of death. The exact cause.”
“Do you know yet?”
Jewel raises her eyebrows and clucks her tongue once. “She didn’t die from any morphine overdose.”
“I didn’t think so,” I reply, recalling the recording on Henry Sexton’s hard drive. “How sure are you?”
“Miss Viola had a PICC line in place for receiving meds, but she’d developed complications with it. Her sister said she’d been getting direct injections for pain the last couple of days. Whoever injected Viola with morphine pushed the needle right through her antecubital vein. Would have been easy to do, because that vein was shot. Some morphine probably got into her system, but most of it went into the soft tissue beneath the vein. No way that killed her. The home health nurse told me she had a huge tolerance built up.”
“Then what killed her?”
“It’s looking like an adrenaline overdose. But they’re not positive yet.”
I squeeze the coroner’s wrist. “Thank you, Jewel.”
“Wait, baby. That’s not what I came to tell you.”
Glancing through the small windows that frame her office door, I watch an ancient Chrysler trundle down Wall Street with a white-haired woman at the wheel. “I’m listening.”
“Two things. One, I worked alongside Dr. Cage long enough to know he wouldn’t push a needle through nobody’s antecubital vein.”
“Not even under stress?”
Jewel scowls. “He wouldn’t have wasted time trying to hit that old thing. I’ve seen Doc find a deep vein to draw blood from a four-hundred-pound man. He’s got the best touch I ever saw. Either somebody without medical training gave that injection, or Viola tried to inject herself, and she was so far gone that her nurse’s training was useless.”
“Good. What’s the second thing?”
“News flash. Shad Johnson hates yo’ ass, boy. You made him lose one election and beat him yourself in another. Add to that the Del Payton case, Dr. Elliott’s trial, and that casino mess a couple months back … that’s a big account coming due, from Shad’s point of view. That Negro ain’t playing. He means for Doc to die in jail.”
“That’s what Caitlin thinks, too.”
Jewel’s eyes gleam like the precious stones she was named after. “I always said that girl was smart.” She takes hold of my hand and squeezes. “If you need help, call my son, not me. He’s staying in town for a while. Your fiancée can find out his phone number.”