The shocks are coming almost too fast to process. “Just a minute, Quentin.” I cover the mouthpiece, but Caitlin’s already nodding that she understands.
“I’m heading back to the office,” she says. “Call me as soon as Drew calls you.”
“Do not go over to that hospital,” I tell her. “Security’s a major issue now. Stay at your office, and call me when you’re ready to come home. I’ll drive over and follow you back.”
It takes a few seconds, but she finally nods.
“Wait—could you take Annie in the kitchen for a couple of minutes before you go?”
She hesitates, then pulls Annie up from the sofa. “Come on, squirt. Your dad needs to take this call alone.”
As Annie disappears into the kitchen, Caitlin nods at the autopsy report on the back of the sofa, then raises her eyebrows—an obvious request for permission. Though I know I’ll pay for it later, I shake my head. She glares at me for two ominous seconds, then turns and follows Annie into the kitchen.
“Sorry, Quentin,” I say, trying to gather my thoughts. “Thanks for getting back to me.” At last, I add silently.
“I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. Apparently, I missed some of today’s action.”
“I wouldn’t bother you if we didn’t have a desperate situation here.”
“Let me stop you right there,” he says, and I brace myself for protests that his declining health prevents him from being able to help me. “I’ve already talked to your father.”
“What? When was this?”
“That’s neither here nor there, Brother Penn. Like everything else relating to this matter, that falls under the attorney-client privilege. But I know most of the details of the case, and there’s no need for you and your mama to get worried. Not yet, anyway.”
After I get my wind back, I ask, “Are you telling me you’ve agreed to represent Dad in the murder of Viola Turner?”
“Obviously.”
“But Doris said—”
“My wife don’t run my practice, boy! Your father needs a lawyer. I’m it.”
“But … he told me not to call you, not to bother you. Had he already called you by then?”
“That’s a family matter, son, not a legal one. But I wouldn’t press him too hard right now. What matters at this point—and what I got directly from Tom—is that he wants me handling this case. Alone.”
“Alone” in this case means only one thing: without me. “Why, Quentin?”
“You’ll have to ask your daddy that. But again, I wouldn’t yet. He’s carrying a heavy load just now.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It’s not my place to tell you.”
“Jesus, man. Did he confess or something?”
An incredulous laugh makes me pull back from the receiver. “Boy, you know I’d never ask a client that. Not even Tom Cage.”
“I know. I just … I don’t know. It’s like Dad has become someone else overnight.”
“Well,” Quentin says in a sage voice, “that happens to everybody sooner or later. Every son eventually learns his daddy has feet of clay. You just happen to have a father of singular rectitude, so it took until you were forty-five. That doesn’t make it any less painful.”
Echoes of Pithy Nolan. “I need to tell you something, Quentin.”
“I’ll just sip this glass of whiskey while you do.”
“Doris must have gone out to the store.”
He laughs softly. “Speak on, brother.”
I tell him what happened to Henry Sexton, then give him a quick summary of Shad Johnson’s moves, news of the FBI’s pending involvement, and the findings in the preliminary autopsy report. As I conclude, I get up and take that report from the sofa back, then sit back down.
“Good work getting hold of that report,” Quentin says. “You haven’t lost your touch, I see. And we could have got a lot worse judges than Joe Elder. The Sexton thing is disturbing, though. Makes me think the Double Eagles are night-riding again.”
“Are you familiar with that group?”
Quentin’s chuckle is a low rasp. “I knew some of those crackers all too well, my boy. This is like Old Home Week for me. You just keep me apprised of any developments in that line. If I’m unavailable, you can tell Doris anything you would me. Almost anything, anyway. I’ll trust your judgment on that.”
Quentin is a lot like the traditional FBI; he prefers a one-way flow of information, with him on the receiving end. Feeling like I’ve surrendered to fate, I start to hang up, but concern for my father overrides my decorum. “Quentin, I have to ask you a hard question.”
“They’re the only ones worth asking, most times.”
“I know you haven’t been doing well. Can you handle a major murder trial, if it comes to that?”
There’s a long pause, during which I hear the high wheeze of an old man breathing. “I won’t lie to you,” he says finally. “The Lord has taken a lot from me since my prime. I’ve had some low days. I can’t walk, can’t eat anything worth eating, and I can’t give my woman what she needs. And no matter what a woman tells you to comfort you, that eats you up inside. It’s enough to make a man lie down and never get up again.”
I hear the sound of careful sipping, then the pained groan of an old man shifting position. “But they’ll have to lay me out dead on the courtroom floor before I let anybody put Tom Cage behind bars.”
For the first time since yesterday morning, I feel the burden of defending my father partly lifted from my shoulders. The relief of having a lawyer with Quentin Avery’s gifts in Dad’s corner—even if his powers aren’t what they once were—is enough to bring tears to my eyes. I want to say, “I never doubted you,” but Quentin knows better. “Thank you” is all I can manage.
“Don’t feel bad for asking what you did. There’s no room for sentiment when family’s on the line.”