“Where was this taken?” I whisper.
“At the Klan rally advertised on that poster. Or just outside it. July 1965. This was shot by an FBI agent. Do you recognize anyone in the picture besides your father?”
“The man standing with Dad looks like … holy shit. Ray Presley.”
After an awkward silence, Henry says, “Ray was never in the Klan. He kept his hand in everything, though. This could have been a chance meeting.”
“Who’s the Klansman talking to Dad?”
“Frank Knox,” Henry says evenly. “The founder of the Double Eagle group.”
My face feels numb. “Goddamn it, Henry. What is this?”
“Frank Knox was a patient of your father’s. All the Double Eagles were.”
“They must have worked at Armstrong Tire or Triton Battery.”
“They did. Recognize anybody else?”
I study the photo more closely. “Yeah … me.”
“What?” Henry leans down over the photo.
I point to a little towheaded boy with a flattop, talking to two other kids. “That’s me, right there. Age five. And that kid is Jackie Steele. He pitched for my Dixie Youth baseball team a few years later. Dad took me to this rally when I was a kid. I didn’t realize it was this one until now. All I really remember is that the horses were wearing robes and hoods, like the people. They reminded me of the horses in Ivanhoe.”
“Why would he take you to that rally?”
“I think he wanted to show me history while it was happening, even if it was terrible. Do you believe there was more to it?”
Henry stands with his hands on his hips, looking like a man who just climbed out of a ditch after digging for twelve hours straight. “I don’t know, Penn. This is a rough group he’s talking to. But I’ll tell you this. These sons of bitches here”—he sweeps his hand to his right, taking in a row of photos on the wall that looks like a mug book of convicts culled from 1950s-vintage chain gangs—“they murdered the man who was more of a father to me than my own blood. They burned him alive. These same bastards would love to send your daddy to Parchman for killing an old woman that they did terrible things to—terrible things—and almost certainly killed last night.” He fixes me with a single-minded stare. “I mean to take them down, Penn. I mean to make them pay.” Henry’s jaw quivers from the force of his passion. “If it’s the last thing I do on earth, I’ll make them face their just punishment.”
“I believe you, Henry. Why are you showing me all this?”
The reporter wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. “If you stay to hear the rest, you’ll understand. I think I’ve been on my own too long. People are dying so fast … too fast. I don’t know who I can trust, or whose life I can justify putting in danger. These are some bad boys. There’s young ones involved, too. I called you because I know you’ve been in this kind of scrape before. You’ve got connections I don’t. You’ve fought the FBI before, and won. You can keep them off my back while I walk the last mile of this thing. But more than that, you’ve got a stake in this. One way or another, your father is involved in every important murder case I’ve been working these past years.”
“What?” I break in, another chill racing along my skin.
Henry nods soberly. “And Dr. Cage has consistently refused to let me interview him. Your daddy knows things about this time, Penn. Things he’s afraid to talk about. And I imagine some of them have to do with Viola.” Henry waves his hand around the room again, taking in the artifacts of a more troubled decade. “This is our legacy, brother. It’s not easy for me to do, but I’m asking for your help.”
I lay my hand on his shoulder and squeeze tight. “I’m with you, bud. Tell me what you know.”
CHAPTER 18
SNAKE KNOX AND Sonny Thornfield stood beneath a leafless oak, dripping cold water from a brief shower they’d endured with the grim silence of old soldiers. The pin oak stood beside a gravel drive that led to the house where Glenn Morehouse was dying. Sonny wore a camouflaged nylon shoulder pack slung across his chest. Snake’s hands were empty, but he had a pistol tucked in his waistband at the small of his back. They’d driven in from the dirt road back by the levee, then parked behind the trees and walked in, so that no one would see their truck. For twenty-five minutes they’d been waiting for a signal that had not come. The porch light of the solitary house should have gone dark long ago.
“What the hell?” Sonny whispered. “We’re gonna have dogs barking in a minute.”
“That’s why I brought my pistol,” Snake said.
“You fire that hogleg, they’ll hear it all the way to Frogmore.”
Sonny wondered what a passerby would think if he saw two white men in their seventies standing under a tree after an icy rain, not even smoking cigarettes. Of course, there were no passersby out here. Even if there were, he supposed nobody would think twice about two old men standing by the road. Once you passed seventy, no one really saw you unless you put yourself in their way. This rankled Snake, especially where women were concerned, but Sonny didn’t mind. He liked anonymity.
“You think the dumb slut forgot?” Snake asked, pointing toward the lone yellow porch light of the small ranch-style house.
“Not Wilma. Maybe Glenn won’t take his pill or something.”
Snake hiked up his jacket collar to dry his neck. “This is bullshit. Let’s just go in there and do it.”
“Wait,” Sonny said nervously. “Are you sure we shouldn’t call Billy first? I’m pretty sure he didn’t want us to go ahead until he okayed it.”
“Wrong. What he said was, make sure you were convinced Glenn was ratting us out. Shit. Him and Forrest’ll never get past that Martin Luther King thing. Frank always said a man’s biggest enemy is his mouth.” Snake spat. “Well, boss man? Are you convinced?”