In truth, the news of Viola’s death had rattled him badly. And with Shad Johnson focused on Tom Cage as a suspect, Henry felt obliged to plumb Morehouse’s knowledge of Viola’s death as well as the historical Double Eagle crimes. Unless Morehouse mentioned Viola first, however, Henry planned to proceed as though he knew nothing about the nurse’s death. Her name would naturally come up when he raised the subject of her missing brother, and at that time he could read Morehouse’s face and voice for his true knowledge.
The old man coughed as though his lungs might come up. Henry tried to hide his revulsion at the stench of the room. A small fire crackled in a fireplace on the left wall, but even the burning pine knot in it couldn’t mask the stink of salves, urine, vomit, and reheated country cooking—vegetables boiled to a salty mush. In black-owned homes it would have been a sugary mush.
Henry felt unsure how to begin the interview. While he considered the options for his all-important first question, Morehouse said, “Were you ever in the service, Mr. Sexton?”
Henry was tempted to fib, but he never lied if he could help it. He shook his head. “I was One-A during Vietnam, but I got a college deferment. My daddy served, though.”
Morehouse silently gauged Henry’s age. “Pacific or the ETO?”
“North Africa.”
The old man nodded and gave another ragged cough. “Do I have your word not to print anything I tell you until … until I’ve passed?”
“That was the deal.” Henry fought the urge to scoot back from Morehouse’s chair. The man looked like he had an infection in his left eye, which was inflamed and leaking an opaque fluid. “And I plan to abide by it. Is there anything you won’t talk about?”
Morehouse opened and closed the inflamed eye. “There may be a lot I won’t say this first time. I’ll tell you a bit, and we’ll see if you can hold your peace past Thursday’s edition. If you can, then we’ll meet again. And no tape recorders, remember? I want your word on that.”
A murderer asking me to give my word? Henry held up the Moleskine notebook in his hand. Viola Turner had been equally adamant about not recording anything, but she had good reason to fear a reprisal. He wondered who Glenn Morehouse feared during this last stage of his journey to the grave.
“First off,” Henry said, consciously dropping into the syntax of his youth, “I’ll ask you to provide me some bona fides. How do I know you were really a member of the Double Eagles?”
“Ain’t no were to it,” the old man said. “Once in, never out—that’s the rule. Just like the IRA.” He lifted the comforter and held out a shaking arm to Henry. When Morehouse opened his hand, Henry saw the dull gleam of gold. The still-huge palm held a twenty-dollar gold piece, minted in 1927. A hole had been drilled or shot through the upper half of Lady Liberty and a leather strap wound through the hole, so that the coin could be worn around the neck.
Henry had heard the legend of the Double Eagle gold pieces long ago, but this was his first glimpse of one. “When did you get that?”
“Frank Knox give it to me in August of sixty-four, the day he founded the Double Eagles. Five days after the FBI found them three bodies up in Neshoba County. Frank’s long dead, so tellin’ that don’t hurt nothin’.”
Henry felt his heart skip. He’d always heard that Frank Knox had created the Double Eagles, and now an actual member had given him the exact date: just twenty-two days after the firebombing of the man that Henry had cared most about in the world. Henry wanted the truth about Albert Norris’s murder more than anything else Morehouse could give him, but he couldn’t let his subject know that. Like all good hunters, Henry would have to be patient. “Will you name the other members of the Double Eagle group?”
Morehouse hacked up some phlegm and spat into his puke bucket. “Not today, I won’t.”
“Why not?”
“Most of those men have families, for one thing. Wouldn’t be right for me to ruin their lives just to ease my conscience. Second, our vow was a rough one, with a specified penalty. I wouldn’t want to put my family through that.”
“What’s a ‘rough’ vow?”
“Kind of like the Masons’ oath, but simpler. We all swore that if we betrayed a brother, our firstborn child would be killed. Whatever else you got was up to Frank. And that weren’t no Tom Sawyer bullshit, neither. You ever hear of Earl Hodges, up toward Eddiceton?”
Henry nodded. “A Klan informant. He was beaten to death in Franklin County. The flesh was ripped off him by a strap with roofing tacks in it.”
Morehouse’s eyes went cold. “Strap, my ass. We used two-by-fours with nails hammered through ’em. When it was over, you could see Earl’s teeth through the back of his skull.” A look of pain entered the old man’s face. “Frank had no mercy on informants. Which is what I am now, I reckon.”
Henry felt a strange numbness creeping through him, as though he’d been bitten by some venomous creature. He’d thought he’d been prepared for this interview, but he was wrong. Morehouse had just confessed to first-degree murder, yet the detachment with which he spoke of human butchery was beyond Henry’s experience. The men who’d debriefed Death’s-Head SS men after World War II must have felt a similar horror.
Morehouse gave him a disturbingly direct look. “And Earl wasn’t even an Eagle, you know? I need to know whether you can keep a secret, Henry, like you promised. At least until I’m gone. Frank always said, ‘A man’s biggest enemy is his mouth.’ And God knows he was right.”
“I can keep a secret.”
“Well, get on with it, then.”
Henry consulted the notes he’d made prior to the interview. “I know the Double Eagle group was founded by Frank Knox. Twenty men, organized into wrecking crews. I’m curious about Frank Knox’s younger brother, the one they call Snake. He seems to have been the most violent of all the Eagles, and he’s made some pretty fantastic claims in the past three years. About Martin Luther King’s assassination, for example.”
Morehouse bit his lower lip, and his pale face lost some color. “We won’t be talking about Snake Knox today. Move on.”