“He told me to mind my own business.”
“Huh.” Henry pooches out his lower lip. “Well … I’m sure Doc knows what he’s doing.”
“Don’t count on it. When it comes to the law, he’s about as na?ve as a seventh grader. He believes the law is about justice.”
Henry shakes his head slowly. “It ought to be, but it ain’t. I’ve sure learned that these past few years.” He looks over at the door of the public library, where a heavy woman with three small children tries to herd them up the steps. “I hate to say this, Penn, but I need to go. Do you want me to drop you back where we were?”
“You don’t need Shad to see you doing that. I’ll run from here.”
Henry takes the computer from my lap and sets it on the backseat. “I appreciate it. Good luck to you.”
As I jog back toward the courthouse, Henry puts the Explorer in gear and roars past me, making for the river.
SHADRACH JOHNSON NORMALLY SITS behind his antebellum-period desk with the condescension of an Arab potentate. Today, however, his customary arrogance is tempered by a watchfulness I’ve rarely seen in him. Shad’s wary demeanor can only be explained by his awareness that I have the power to destroy his political career, and I see no reason to let him forget that during this conversation.
“Before we begin,” he says, “I want us to be clear about something.”
“What’s that?”
“We both know two months ago, you had a certain photograph in your possession. A photograph with me in it.”
“Mm-hm,” I murmur in a neutral tone, my gaze playing over Shad’s jacket, which looks like a Zegna. The DA has always been a clotheshorse. He dresses as precisely as he grooms himself, which is rare among our lawyers and city officials these days. His keeps his hair cut close to his skull and his nails manicured, another unusual touch. The county coroner—an African-American woman with keen observational skills—once quietly suggested to me that Shad is gay, but I’ve never heard this confirmed. And since Natchez has long been a haven for gays in Mississippi, it seems odd that Shad would remain in the closet.
The photograph that so worries him has nothing to do with sexuality—not so far as I know, anyway. Rather, it shows the district attorney in the presence of a professional football player and a pit bull dog. The dog in question is hanging by its neck from a tree limb, and the football player has a cattle prod in his hand. Both men look fascinated, even excited, by the brutality in which they are taking part.
“You told me you gave me the original JPEG file,” Shad goes on, as though each word causes him discomfort. “On that SD card.”
“That’s right.”
“Was that …?”
“The only copy?” I finish helpfully.
“Yes.”
I shrug.
His face darkens. “Now, see? Goddamn it, this is just what I expected. A veiled threat.”
“Shad, you ought to know me by now. If I make a threat, there won’t be any veil. Why don’t you just tell me why you summoned me? I thought maybe you were going to introduce me to Lincoln Turner.”
The DA barks a laugh. “You don’t want that, believe me. That guy’s angry enough to punch you out. Your father, for sure.”
“If the man’s so upset, why did he only get to town a half hour after his mother died?”
“Always the lawyer,” Shad says drily. “I don’t know much about Lincoln Turner yet, and I don’t much care to. Right now I just want to make sure things are clear between you and me. Because I’m going to have to move forward in this matter, Penn. I’ve got no choice.”
I expected this, but not quite so soon. “What exactly do you mean by ‘move forward’?”
Shad steeples his fingers and leans back in his chair. “When we spoke this morning, I thought we were dealing with a case of assisted suicide. Maybe just plain suicide, okay? I just wanted it to go away. And I believed there was some chance that it would.”
“But now?”
“This thing isn’t going away, Penn. No way.”
“What’s changed?”
“We’re looking at murder now.” The DA’s voice is like a wire drawn taut. “First-degree murder.”
I have to struggle to hold my face immobile. Even with the video recording, I don’t see how he gets to first-degree murder. “What are you talking about?”
“Since we spoke this morning, new evidence has surfaced.”
“What kind of evidence are we talking about?”
“You know anybody else sitting in this chair would refuse to answer that question.”
“No other DA’s future would be hanging by a thread that I hold.”
Shad’s eyes blaze with frustrated anger. “I can’t give you the state’s case, damn it! Nobody knows that better than you. And based on the evidence I’ve seen so far, anybody sitting in this chair would proceed against your father. They’d be negligent not to.”
“What’s your evidence, Shad?” I ask patiently. “I need to know what my father’s facing.”
He angrily expels a rush of air. “The sheriff’s department took your father’s fingerprints off two empty ampoules of morphine and a large syringe found at the scene.”
I slowly digest this. Viola didn’t appear to have died from a morphine overdose on Henry’s recording. “They traced his fingerprints in less than a day?”
“Four years ago, your father registered for a concealed-carry permit. The Highway Patrol fingerprints all applicants for that. When the sheriff’s department fed the prints from the syringe into AFIS, Dr. Cage’s name popped right out.”
“All that proves is that my father held that syringe at some point prior to it being collected at the scene. It doesn’t even put him in the house.”
“Viola’s sister put him in the house. Cora Revels.”
“She says she left Dad alone with Viola?”
“That’s right. She went to a neighbor’s house and fell asleep on the couch.”