She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He spoke about Frank’s death last night, just before he died. Maybe the possibility had crossed his mind. But I don’t think he really got that far. We were talking about Viola’s rumored gang rape by the Double Eagles, and whether or not it had really happened.”
Tom’s reply was hoarse with emotion. “It happened. They raped her two different times, gang rapes both times. Frank Knox ordered it the first time, and Snake the second. The second time was beyond any horror you and I can imagine.”
Caitlin drew in a sharp rush of air.
Tom rubbed his white beard, his eyes brighter than they’d been all night. “But Frank paid in full,” he said. “On the floor of my office. Yes, sir . . . he paid. But so did we all, I suppose.”
“Tell me.”
Tom did.
CHAPTER 36
DWIGHT STONE AND John Kaiser have spent ten minutes trying to persuade me to tell Walker Dennis to call off tomorrow’s questioning of the Double Eagles, but so far I’ve refused. Truth be told, I can’t get my mind off the Triton Battery medical absence form signed by my father. When set alongside the photos I’ve been shown in the past few days, my mother’s admission that Dad knew Carlos Marcello in 1959, and the fact that Dad probably remained silent about the Double Eagle murders of Albert Norris and Dr. Robb for forty years—it surely suggests something unsavory. Of course, the medical excuse could be only what it appears to be, and the only meaningful part of Dad’s contact with Marcello might be whatever deal he made to save Viola Turner. At the moment I’m only thankful that Kaiser and Stone know nothing about my father’s early contact with Marcello in New Orleans.
My dilemma is what to do next. Part of me wants to simply walk out and leave all this behind. But Kaiser and Stone clearly know more about Dad than they’ve revealed so far. How can I leave without knowing just how dark the picture gets? And if I’m going to confront Snake Knox in an interrogation room twelve hours from now, I need to know everything that might help me manipulate him. Otherwise, he’ll be manipulating me.
“I know this looks bad,” I say to Stone. “But there’s nothing I’ve seen in the past three days that can’t be explained by scenarios well short of Dad being involved with the Knoxes or Marcello in any criminal way.”
Stone gives me an understanding smile, but Kaiser looks far from convinced.
“He was a goddamned war hero!” I practically shout.
“Frank Knox was a war hero,” Kaiser says relentlessly. “Snake, too.”
“Dwight,” I press, searching for sympathy from my old friend, “Dad is the least racist white man in this town. He voted for Kennedy in 1960! All this stuff you’ve been telling me is pure supposition. You said yourself, you can’t even prove Frank Knox was in Dallas. For all you know, he really was home with hepatitis.”
“No, he wasn’t,” says Kaiser. “I spent part of this afternoon tracking down Knox’s old neighbors from that era. Most are dead or long gone from here, but I found two women still living in this area. One has Alzheimer’s. But the other I found in the Twin Oaks nursing home. Mrs. Johnzell Williams.”
“Twin Oaks? Dad used to be the doctor for that facility.”
“Mrs. Williams remembers Dr. Cage well. She thinks he walks on water, just like everybody else around here.”
“That’s nothing to scoff at,” Stone says. “Many a man could wish for the same.”
“What the hell could she remember from forty years ago?” I ask.
“Forty-two,” Kaiser corrects me. “We’re talking about the day Kennedy was assassinated, Penn. Everybody remembers where they were on that day. Right?”
I don’t answer.
“Mrs. Williams had another reason to remember that weekend,” Kaiser goes on. “She told me that Frank’s oldest son, Frank Junior, was interested in their daughter, Nancy. He was seventeen, but she was only fourteen. On the night of the day the president was shot, Nancy Williams didn’t come home until three A.M. Mr. Williams was ready to kill Frank Junior, but his wife persuaded him to talk to the father. Well . . .” Kaiser gives me a cagey look. “It seems Frank Knox, Senior, couldn’t be found. Nor could his father, Elam. Mrs. Williams didn’t think too highly of Elam, by the way. But what matters to us is that Frank Senior didn’t appear until late Saturday afternoon. And no one had seen him for days.”
Kaiser takes a small digital recorder from his pocket and starts fiddling with its tiny buttons. “I taped our conversation. Thought you might like to hear this part about Frank Junior. I’ve got it cued up . . . right here.”
The scratchy voice of an octogenarian white female comes from the tiny speaker. “That boy wasn’t right. He was all the time goin’ to the church house, but he didn’t have the Lord nowhere in him. There was something bad in that house. The Knox house, I mean. I was glad when that boy joined the army. I hated he got killed over there, but . . . well, it was a good thing for my Nancy that he never come back. She married a welder from Jonesville, a good Christian man.”
Kaiser’s deeper voice floats from the recorder: “What do you think the bad thing was in the Knox house?”
“I don’t know. And I don’t care to know. We minded our own business on Green Street. Folks ought to do more of that nowadays.”
“Was it the boy only, or his parents?”
“It’s always the parents,” croaks the old woman. “The Good Book says, ‘Train up a child in the way that he should go, and he will not depart from it.’ Well, I reckon the opposite is just as true. Always seemed so to me, anyway. But what do I know? I’m old.”
“Not a day over seventy, I’d swear. But as for Mr. Frank Knox? You’re positive that he wasn’t at home on the weekend the president was killed? Maybe sick in his bed?”
“Didn’t I say that? Why, my husband raised such a fuss on their porch that Frank would’ve come a runnin’ if he was within half a mile. But nobody had set eyes on him in nearly a week. Some people thought he’d run out on his family. But he was prob’ly just off cattin’ around.”