“I’ll tell you something Shad doesn’t know,” he says. “The Eagles are no stranger to drugs. I’d heard rumors, but today my source confirmed it. The Eagles are heavy into the crystal meth trade statewide. They could easily have gotten ahold of something that would kill Viola.”
“Why haven’t you told Shad this?”
“Because I promised I wouldn’t reveal anything my source told me until after he’s dead. And because he’d deny it, if I did.”
“They’re into the drug trade now?”
“Yes, with their sons. And they would be far more likely to make a mistake with them than your father.”
The idea of the Double Eagles dabbling in the drug trade tickles something deep in my mind, but Henry’s mention of my father blanks out all intuition. The logical flaw in Henry’s theory of Viola’s murder is flashing like an electrical scoreboard behind my eyes.
“Henry, we’re missing the forest here.”
“What do you mean?”
“If the Double Eagles killed Viola, then why is my father acting the way he is? If he’s innocent … why is he acting guilty?”
This stumps the reporter. He reaches out and gives one of the National’s tuning pegs a twist, then answers in a thoughtful voice. “What if the Eagles framed your father? They knew Dr. Cage was treating her, they saw a chance to blame him for their hit, and they seized their chance.”
“Then why isn’t Dad screaming from the rooftops that he’s innocent?”
Henry’s sad eyes move from the tuning pegs to my face. “They must have something on him. Something from the past that your father doesn’t want exposed.”
“Something he’d go to prison over? No way.”
Henry doesn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? Such things certainly exist, depending on a man’s concern over how people see him.”
“What could be that bad, Henry?”
The reporter clucks his tongue. “Let me tell you something my source said today. First, he inadvertently let slip that Viola had witnessed the torture of her brother and Luther Davis. When I asked why on earth the Eagles would have let her live after that, guess what he told me.”
“No idea.”
“‘If it hadn’t been for Ray Presley and Dr. Tom Cage, she wouldn’t have lived.’”
A chill of presentiment races along my back and shoulders, and I can see Henry knows I know the significance of Presley’s name.
“Ray was the dirtiest cop who ever set foot in Natchez,” he says, “and maybe even New Orleans. I know from your book that Presley was up to his neck in the Del Payton murder. And from other sources, I’ve gathered that Presley had a long-standing relationship with your father, which has always puzzled me. I can’t imagine what that was based on.”
My thoughts and memories swirl without coherence. Ray Presley was one of the worst human beings I’ve ever known, and I’ve met some deeply disturbed men in my career. Presley not only disgraced his badge and murdered men for money; he also raped my high school sweetheart, something I didn’t discover until almost twenty years after the fact.
“Henry … I can’t give you details, but when I was a kid, a woman in our family was in real danger. This was in another state, and the police refused to help. In fact, they were part of the problem. In desperation, Dad turned to Ray Presley. Ray took care of the problem, but as you might guess, he went outside the law to do it. And he held that over my father’s head until his own death.”
Henry thinks for a moment. “I see. Well … if your dad got Ray to help him in that case, then I guess he could have turned to Presley when Viola was in trouble. There’s no way Ray would have intervened to save Viola on his own hook.”
“Would my dad really have gone that far to save Viola?”
“She was his nurse for five years.”
I give Henry a searching look. “And maybe more than that?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you’ve been thinking it. I have, too, ever since this morning.”
Henry sighs and taps the shining metal face of the National. “Was Dr. Cage the straying kind?”
“Not that I know of. But God knows every man’s capable of it, if the right temptation comes along.”
“Granted. But even if he and Viola were lovers, I don’t see how it would alter cases. I think your father cared about Viola and wanted to protect her, whether he’d slept with her or not.”
I can no longer keep my darkest fear buried in my brain. “It might alter cases quite a bit if it turns out that Dad fathered Viola’s child. That Lincoln Turner is his son. That might be a secret worth going to prison to keep hidden. In my father’s mind, anyway.”
Henry sits as still as a stone Buddha, watching me cautiously. “Maybe,” he concedes finally. “But I’ve already gone down that road, and I don’t believe it. I do believe Lincoln Turner is the son of a white man—but not your father. I checked Lincoln’s age, and he was surely conceived around the time Viola left Natchez.”
I’m actually trembling. “And?”
“I staked out Shad Johnson’s office for a while this afternoon, and I got a good look at the man himself. Lincoln, I mean.”
“Lincoln was at Shad’s office again?”
“Yes. And he’s a very dark-skinned fellow. About three times as dark as Shad Johnson, I’d say, and twice as dark as his mother. Your father is Scots-English, a very light-skinned man.”
“Is that scientific proof?”
Henry looks at the floor, then seems to take some silent decision. “I want to show you something, Penn.” He looks up, his face vulnerable. “But before I do, I need one promise. I’ve worked too long and too hard on these cases to hand it all over to other people now.”
“I know you have, Henry. Nothing you tell me will leave this building. And I expect the same discretion from you.”