“I think Brody Royal scrapped it after Frank died. He didn’t trust Snake to carry out an operation of that magnitude, or keep his mouth shut if he did. Brody ordered Snake to kill Jimmy, Luther, and Viola, and make sure their bodies would never be found, no matter how hard the FBI might search for them.”
“Then how the hell did Viola survive?”
“According to my Eagle source, Ray Presley and your father saved her.”
My frustration is compounding every minute. “How the hell could they have done that?”
“I don’t know. Remember the machine shop? Snake went nuts when his brother died. He started torturing those boys out of grief. At some point they kidnapped Viola again and brought her out there, and she was brutalized some more. I’m afraid even Jimmy might have been molested. But that was probably trivial compared to his ultimate fate.”
“How the hell could Viola escape? You think Ray got her out?”
“My source didn’t give me the details of that. We got cut off. And since Ray is dead, probably no one but your father and the Double Eagles know the answer.”
I take another drink of bourbon, but I can hardly taste it. My mind is well and truly blown. “Two things I don’t understand. One, if all this happened the way you said, then Viola knew enough to send serious criminals to the gas chamber. Why would she keep her mouth shut, after they’d killed her brother? The Bureau had agents in Natchez in 1968. Why didn’t she talk to them?”
Henry sighs. “That’s like asking why a Sioux squaw didn’t go the U.S. Cavalry for help in 1880, after white settlers had terrorized her and killed her family. Viola knew exactly what Snake Knox and his buddies were capable of, and she knew the FBI couldn’t protect her from them.”
“They killed her brother, Henry. They gang-raped her. Do you really believe she would have kept quiet about that?”
The reporter’s eyes smolder with an emotion I can’t quite read. “Maybe. By the time the Eagles found her in Chicago, she was pregnant. What if they threatened her child? Her brother was already dead. Would a mother risk her infant’s life to put her trust in white men who’d failed to convict the Klan in almost every single murder case in Mississippi up to that time?”
Henry has a point. “But if the kid was a result of the gang rape?”
The reporter shrugs. “We don’t know enough to guess, Penn. What’s your second objection?”
“If Brody scrapped the RFK assassination plan, how did he square it with Marcello? Godfathers don’t generally take ‘no’ for an answer.”
“My source didn’t tell me. Maybe Brody told him straight: ‘Without Frank Knox in charge, we can’t take the risk.’ But the timeline suggests another answer. Del Payton was blown up just weeks after Revels and Davis disappeared, right? What if I told you that Brody Royal and Judge Leo Marston were occasional business partners back in the sixties?”
“I picture two rattlesnakes in a sack.” Leo Marston is the father of a woman I once thought I would marry. He now resides in Parchman Penitentiary.
“Brody and Leo lived on opposite sides of the river, but they had greed in common. Brody was far wealthier than Marston, but Leo had more political clout. He also had the blood pedigree that Royal didn’t. Leo invested in quite a few Royal Oil wells, and he made some real money. I think they were pretty tight.”
“Del Payton was murdered to intimidate black union members,” I think aloud. “You’re thinking Brody Royal had advance knowledge through Leo that a crime like that was about to happen? If he did, he could cancel the Revels hit and claim Del Payton had been killed to lure Kennedy down here.”
“Exactly.”
“And three weeks after Payton died, Sirhan Sirhan made the whole question moot. Any real chance of another Kennedy taking the White House died at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.”
Henry looks pleased that his story led me to the same conclusion.
“The Viola angle still doesn’t play,” I argue. “From what you’ve told me, Brody Royal is a monster. Even if Viola didn’t know about his involvement in all this, the Double Eagles did. If Viola was a threat to the Eagles, then she was a threat to Brody Royal through them. I can’t believe anything would have stopped Royal from killing her.”
Henry taps the photo of my father in the boat with Brody Royal. “Which brings us right back here. Maybe your father pledged something in exchange for Viola’s life. Maybe he guaranteed her silence. I don’t know. You’ll have to ask him.”
“I will,” I mutter, trying not to give rein to the anger I feel at Dad’s silence earlier today. “You said the FBI found Viola in Chicago?”
“One agent questioned her. I’ve got his 302 in my files. According to him, Viola believed Jimmy and Luther had been murdered, but she offered no proof. The agent noted that she behaved like someone in shock, or perhaps even sedated by drugs. He also noted that she was pregnant.”
I lean back and consider this. “Given all you’ve told me, it’s pretty hard to believe that Viola had the nerve to come back here, even to die.”
“I think she knew she could trust your father to give her a painless death. To her, that was worth the risk of retaliation by the Eagles. It’s about as sad as anything I ever heard.”
“But she didn’t get a painless death,” I point out. “And that’s how I know my father didn’t kill her. We’ve got to explain all this to Shad, Henry.”
Henry’s skepticism is plain. “Without proof?”
“We have to get him proof. A statement from your Double Eagle source. Did you tape any of the stuff he said today?”
The reporter shakes his head. “I took good notes.”
“Christ, man. You should have taped the bastard on the sly. That may have been a once-in-a-lifetime chance.”
“No. He wants to talk to me again.”
“When?”
“As soon as he can get his sister to leave the house again.”