“I tried to write him off tonight, Walker. After Henry died. And Sleepy Johnston. But I can’t.”
Sheriff Dennis turns and gives me a look of pure empathy. “He’s your father, man. He’s blood.”
There it is. Blood. The empirical, evolutionary imperative. What more can be said? “Walker . . . tonight I asked Brody if he killed Viola Turner, or ordered her killed.”
“What did he say?”
“He said no. He admitted that he’d raped Viola, along with some other Double Eagles. Snake Knox and the others. But he said he didn’t kill her. He said . . .”
“What?”
“I’ll deny I ever said this, Walker. But Royal said my father killed Viola.”
Sheriff Dennis seems to freeze behind the wheel. Then he bites his lip for a few seconds. “Did he give you any details?”
“He said Dad saved Viola’s life forty years ago, but he killed her two days ago. He laughed at the irony of it.”
“Do you really believe that sick son of a bitch?”
“He had no reason to lie, Walker. He thought Caitlin and I were about to die, and he’d already admitted ordering the murder of Pooky Wilson.”
Dennis watches Highway 84 and takes his time before speaking. “But do you believe it? In your gut?”
“I don’t know. Could Dad have killed Viola to ease her suffering? Yes. But murder her . . . Not one person I’ve talked to this week believed that’s possible. And in the end, I guess I don’t either.”
“What did Henry think?”
“Henry believed the Double Eagles killed her. They’d threatened to do it if she ever came back to Natchez, and she did. Henry didn’t have any doubt that they fulfilled their threat.”
“That’s good enough for me, bub.”
“I wish it were for me. I’ve come up with at least three different theories over the past three days. There are so many possibilities. It might even be that Lincoln Turner killed Viola, Dad knows that, and he’s covering up for him.”
“Lincoln Turner, who accused your old man of murder in the first place? You’re saying he killed his own mother?”
“Maybe. Possibly by accident, either in a botched mercy killing, or a layman’s effort to revive her with adrenaline.”
“But . . . if that’s the case, why the hell would your father cover for that asshole?”
“Because Dad thinks Lincoln is his son.”
This silences Dennis for half a minute.
“Jesus,” he says finally. “This is Tennessee Williams shit, here.”
I’m surprised Walker Dennis knows enough about Tennessee Williams even to make that remark. “More like Faulkner, I’d say. Absalom, Absalom!”
“Same difference. You know what I think?”
“What?”
“All this crap with Royal and Regan and the Double Eagles is a good thing. For your father, I mean. It’s obvious that there’s a whole lot more going on than the murder of one old nurse. And Viola was related to that civil rights kid, Revels. If you can just get your dad safely into custody—in Mississippi, not Louisiana—he’ll go to trial for killing Viola. Right?”
“Aren’t you forgetting the dead Louisiana state trooper?”
Dennis waves his hand dismissively. “Just forget that for a minute. I’m no lawyer, but I’ve watched my share of murder trials. If your father goes to trial for killing Nurse Viola, all you need is one thing—reasonable doubt. Am I right?”
“You’re not wrong.”
“Are you going to defend him yourself?”
“Hell, no. Quentin Avery’s his lawyer.”
“Even better. Avery could talk twelve dogs off a meat truck.”
“We’re light-years from a courtroom, Walker.”
“Maybe we are, and maybe we ain’t.” The sheriff looks back at me, his eyes glinting beneath his Stetson. “All this trouble goes back to the Knox family: Frank and the Double Eagles in the old days, and Forrest and his drug operation now. I say we go back to our first plan. Hit the Knoxes as hard as we can. Bust every meth cooker and mule in this parish. Turn up the heat on the Knox organization, big-time. Before you know it, we’ll have a couple of Double Eagles in the frying pan. And once they start singing, I’ll have Forrest by the balls. And Quentin Avery will have all he needs to stuff your dad’s jury full of reasonable doubt. When Quentin’s done preachin’, those jurors won’t be sure whether they’re right-handed or left.”
“None of that matters,” I say in a flat voice, “if the state police kill Dad as a fugitive.”
Dennis shrugs. “They haven’t got him yet, have they?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Sure we do. If they’d caught him and Garrity, my radio would be chattering like my wife’s church group. No, my money says that old Texas Ranger has the trail smarts to keep your daddy loose for a while yet.”
I don’t hold out much hope that any Double Eagles would give up enough information to save my father from police execution. But as the security lights of various businesses flash past in the darkness, a new strategy begins to take shape in my mind.
“How soon could you organize a parishwide sweep of the meth dealers?” I ask.
Dennis looks at his watch. “I can have my people ready to go six hours from now. Just before dawn.”
“Are you serious?”
“I did ninety percent of the groundwork today. I told you that yesterday, and now we’re here.”
The prospect of hitting the Knoxes hard in such a short time frame is tempting. “What about Agent Kaiser? Would you tell him about it?”
The sheriff rolls his shoulders, then sets them as though to take a blow—or deliver one. “After I saw Kaiser tuck his tail between his legs when Captain Ozan showed up at Mercy Hospital? No way in hell. This is you and me, Penn. I’m tired of standing by while the Knoxes shit all over my parish. My cousin’s two years gone, and I know in my bones it was Forrest Knox’s outfit that killed him. I’m through sitting on my hands.”