She’s staring at the foot of the hall staircase, and she looks strangely preoccupied.
“Mom? I’m getting the distinct impression that you know more than I do about all of this. Do you?”
She doesn’t answer. I’m not even sure she heard me.
“Dad’s message said remember all he told you on Monday. What did he tell you?”
She slowly shakes her head. “Nothing that would help you. Just that Viola’s life had been tragic, and her death was, too. He didn’t want to burden me with anything I might have to lie about.”
Great. Realizing I’m going to learn nothing further about Viola, my mind skips back to my disturbing conversation with John Kaiser. “Mom?” I say gently. “Did Dad ever talk to you about knowing a man named Carlos Marcello?”
For a moment her face remains transfixed, but then the tiny webs of wrinkles move, and her eyes focus on me. They’re filled with surprise.
“Uncle Carlos?” she says.
“Uncle Carlos?” I echo. “Mom . . . are we talking about the same man?”
“The boss of New Orleans?”
Stunned speechless, I can only nod.
“Oh, I don’t know anything. Just a story your father told me. You know Tom did an externship at the parish prison in New Orleans during his final year of medical school. He was the jail doctor, and there was a lot of excitement. He once saw a crazed prisoner shot right in front of him.”
“Mom . . . what about Marcello?”
“Oh, yes. Well, Tom once told me a story about Carlos Marcello serving time in the prison. He said New Orleans policemen delivered his meals every night, from the best restaurants in New Orleans. Marcello even had women visit him in his cell. The godfather lived better in jail than most people did at home, and everybody called him ‘Uncle Carlos.’ The whole thing was like a big joke.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, but this is anything but funny. “What year would this have been?”
“Nineteen fifty-nine, of course. The year Tom graduated from LSU med school.”
The year before I was born. I’d forgotten that my mother and father lived in New Orleans for four years. This means that Dad could have met Carlos Marcello as early as . . . 1955. In any case, he surely met the don in 1959, and not as a random student, but as the parish prison physician. My father treated Carlos Marcello. What the hell would Kaiser make of that information?
“Did Dad mention Marcello any other times?”
An almost wistful look comes over my mother’s face. “No, but . . . I actually met him a couple of times. Both times in restaurants. Tom and I couldn’t afford to eat out back then, you know. I was teaching across the river, just to pay the rent on our little apartment in the French Quarter. But one night Tom took me to Felix’s Oyster Bar, and this short, grinning man came over to our table and asked if everything was all right. He spoke like an illiterate tradesman, but after he left the table, Tom told me he was the Mafia boss of Louisiana.”
I can scarcely take this in as my mother continues.
“The second time was near Waggaman. A nice, homey Italian restaurant called Mosca’s. The same thing happened. And I think Tom may have told me that Mr. Marcello owned that place. I’m not sure.”
“Do you remember whose idea it was to go there?”
“Oh, Tom’s, of course. It was our anniversary. Seventh, I think.”
“I see,” I tell her, which is a lie.
“Why are you asking about Carlos Marcello?” Mom asks, suddenly worried. “He’s been dead for ages, hasn’t he? What could he have to do with anything?”
For a moment my mind fills with the blurry image of my father visiting Carlos’s swamp hideaway in 1968, but it would be pointless to ask my mother about that. Whatever really took my father to Churchill Farms in 1968, he’d have told Mom nothing about it. And it would serve no purpose for me to tell her now. While I ponder this, my mother squeezes my right hand in both of hers.
“I wish I could help you, Penn. I wish I knew more. And I especially wish you could trust your father.” She wipes tears from the corners of her eyes. “And don’t you wear a hair shirt over that man you shot tonight. I’ve heard plenty over the years about Randall Regan, and how he abused his wife. You only did what any husband would have done, considering what they did to Caitlin. What any man worth the name would have done.”
This is exactly what I’d expect to hear from my mother, who carries genes and mores forged in the Scottish Highlands. I wonder how many mothers said similar things to their handcuffed sons in the Houston jail while I was preparing to prosecute them?
I lay my hand on her shoulder. “Tomorrow’s going to be a big day, and you and Annie need to be ready for it. Sheriff Dennis is going to hit the Knox family hard, and I’m going to help him. They’re involved in a major crystal meth operation in Louisiana, and Walker’s going to arrest as many low-level people as he can. By threatening them with mandatory prison sentences, he hopes to force a Double Eagle to turn state’s evidence. If one of them knows who killed Viola Turner, we might be able to force Shad to drop the murder charge. Then hopefully Dad’s jumping bail will seem more defensible.”
Mom is looking at me like she doubts either my sanity or my intelligence. “But isn’t that exactly what your father said not to do? He said it was pointless for you to try to get to the bottom of this mess.”
All I see in her eyes is adamant refusal to question her husband. “Doesn’t that make you even the slightest bit suspicious? Don’t you get it, Mom? What Walker and I are doing tomorrow may be Dad’s only hope.”