The reporter holds up his palms. “You’re here talking to me because your father is keeping secrets from you. When you first came in, you told me you thought he might have killed Viola.”
“Technically. Under the law.” My cheeks are burning. “But I don’t consider mercy-killing murder. This is something else altogether.”
“Let me finish my story. Then make up your own mind. I think that when Dr. Robb came to him, your father instantly realized how dangerous the information was. He probably urged Robb to talk to somebody with real authority. I think Robb chose Orrin Dixon, a young congressman from Tennessee. Robb and Dixon had been fraternity brothers at Vanderbilt. Dixon had recently started voting moderately on race, and he’d also become close to President Johnson. Plus, Robb and Dixon had kept up their friendship over the years, and they’d been on several fishing trips in various states.”
“Accompanied by young women?”
“Let’s just say that the girls who died in the crash had both worked as interns for Congressman Dixon in Washington in the past.”
“Democracy in action.”
“On this occasion,” Henry goes on, “the girls were already in Louisiana. Dixon was scheduled to fly in on another plane, then the whole party would leave for Arkansas the next morning. A private camp up in the Ozarks.”
“Five people, total?”
Henry slowly shakes his head. “No. One other person was scheduled to fly that morning.”
My mind races to fill in the blank. “Brody Royal?”
“No.” Henry is fairly bursting to enlighten me, but at last the picture is starting to come clear.
“Claude Devereux.”
“Right. After the crash, Devereux claimed that Congressman Dixon had a last-minute scheduling conflict, so Robb had decided they’d fish in Tennessee instead. So Dixon could still get in some fishing, right? Devereux told reporters that he’d had no desire to fish in Tennessee, so he begged off, and that decision saved his life.”
“How did he explain the girls?”
“Claimed they’d been doing PR work for the congressman down here and were simply being given a plane ride back to Knoxville as a favor. Dixon’s office denied this, but it supported the rest of the story, and the FAA wasn’t concerned with who was sleeping with whom, only the mechanics of the mishap.”
I take a minute to mull this over. “Claude Devereux’s a sharp lawyer. You think that when Robb changed their flight destination at the last minute, he figured Robb was planning to spill his guts to Dixon?”
“I do.” Henry’s perpetually sad expression has morphed into the alert stare of a hunter closing on his prey. “And Claude couldn’t let that happen. Frank Knox was dead by this time, but Brody Royal was still Devereux’s richest client—not to mention the source of his political power.”
“Do you think Devereux ordered the hit? Or that he told Royal about Dr. Robb, and Royal ordered it?”
“Devereux would have told Royal about the danger, to keep the blood off his own hands. He knew what Royal would do. We’re talking about a man who’d ordered the crucifixion or flaying of an eighteen-year-old boy.” Henry’s face has flushed with emotion. “All Royal had to do was call Snake Knox and tell him how things stood. Snake was always at the airport, because of his crop-dusting business. Snake probably laughed and told Devereux he’d better find an excuse to get off that plane—which he did. Eight hours later, Dr. Robb was dead.”
“Along with a pilot and two young girls.”
“Snake wouldn’t have hesitated a second over that. Unlike Ku Klux Klansmen, he was all cow, no hat.”
“No hood, you mean. I’m still not hearing proof, Henry. But I did hear several unsupported suppositions. What did the NTSB find at the crash site? Anything suspicious?”
“I told you, they accepted Snake’s story at face value.”
“You also said Snake sabotaged the plane. Any proof of that?”
“Three different pilots have told me the surest way to bring down Robb’s plane undetected would have been to put water in the fuel tank. It wouldn’t take much, and the evidence would burn away in the fire.”
“Can’t a pilot check for water in his tanks?”
“There’s a sump they can check, but some pilots don’t. Snake Knox knows everything there is to know about small planes. If he wanted to use water and be sure it wouldn’t be picked up in the sump, he could have filled a few condoms with it and dropped them into the tank. It would take the fuel a while to eat through the rubbers, but once it did, that plane was coming down. And remember—Dr. Robb’s plane had already taken off, then unexpectedly returned to land, which caused the accident. Nobody ever explained why that plane came back so fast. Robb’s pilot had thousands of hours of experience. I think he felt his power going and tried like hell to make it back. He almost did, too.”
Henry is making this murder sound plausible, but as an assistant DA, I learned that you can almost always construct a scenario to fit a preconceived result. “Do you have anything else to make this case? Do you have your source on tape?”
“No.” Henry looks embarrassed. “He wouldn’t let me record him during our first session. But goddamn it, Penn. First principles, right? Cui bono? Who benefited from the crash? Dr. Robb’s death didn’t simply remove the threat of exposure from Brody’s life. Six months after the plane went down, Brody Royal married Dr. Robb’s widow.”
And the circle closes. Gooseflesh has risen on my arms. “Royal had a double motive for wanting Robb dead.”
Henry gives me a silent nod, knowing that this last piece of information has convinced me. “She was a stunning redhead. I wanted to interview her, but she died of a stroke before I could get her to agree to talk.”
“Have you talked to Congressman Dixon?”