Mississippi Blood

  Viola is silent for several seconds. Then she says, “Lord, I almost forgot. A few other men came and went during the questioning at the machine shop. Some came just to look at me naked, I think. Others came to see the boys naked. They made a big fuss over Luther’s private parts. But I didn’t know those men. They were familiar, like I’d seen them on the street or at the Woolco, but I couldn’t name them. They were bad men, though. One of them got the idea that Luther and Jimmy should take a turn with me.” Viola shakes her head at the memory. “That’s when they shot Luther. But he still wouldn’t do it. I hope that with God’s help you can bring those men to justice someday. I fear they’ve caused a lot of suffering in the years they’ve trod this earth. For wives and children mostly, I imagine.

  “That’s really all I have the strength for, Henry. It seems strange to me that it’s a white man coming after all these years to dig up the truth. I wish it was a black man, I won’t lie. But maybe that says something about the future. I don’t really understand the world anymore. But maybe there’s some faint hope that the good people on both sides can come together. I appreciate all you’ve done. When things get hard for you, try to be strong, as I have, and don’t be afraid to lean on the Lord. I believe He sent you here for a purpose, Henry. You’ve done good work coming this far, but it won’t mean a thing if you don’t go the rest of the way. I wish I could walk it with you. God bless you and keep you.”

  Viola holds up the remote, and then the screen goes black.

  When the courtroom lights come up, with a harsh glare, the hush is like that in a cathedral during the funeral of a martyr. When Rusty pokes me in the side, I want to slap him. A smart-ass comment from the eternal cynic is the last thing I want to hear. But when his moist breath touches my ear, Rusty says, “If Shad stands up and says a word against that woman, the jury will rise as one and beat him to the floor.”

  “Mr. Johnson,” says Judge Elder, “do you have any questions or points to make?”

  “Your Honor, is there any word from the FBI on whether the Dumpster tape has been similarly restored?”

  “Agent Kaiser?” Judge Elder prompts.

  “Not yet, Your Honor. As the Sony engineers reported, Exhibit S-16 appears to have been much more thoroughly erased than the first. But if they make a breakthrough, clearance has been given to transmit an encrypted version of the tape to me, and I will be able to play it for the court.”

  “Thank you. Mr. Johnson?”

  “Your Honor, I would like to recall Dr. Cage to continue my cross-examination.”

  Joe Elder glances at his watch. “Very well.”

  Chapter 66

  “Let’s go back to the night Viola Turner died,” Shad says, rising from his table and looking hard at my father. “Not your fantasies, just provable facts. We know that you were at Cora Revels’s house that night. We know you were alone with the victim. You have admitted injecting morphine into her. We know that you always carry adrenaline in your ‘black bag,’ as you call it. We also know that when Cora Revels returned to her house, she found her sister dead. We have no evidence indicating that anyone else was in that house between the time you left and the time Cora Revels arrived. No witnesses to intruders, no forensic evidence that arouses suspicion of anyone else. Just the dead body of a woman whom you admit you went to that house to kill.”

  “Another soliloquy, Your Honor?” Quentin asks in a seemingly bored voice.

  “Get to your question, Counselor,” Judge Elder admonishes.

  Shad’s jaw tightens, but he focuses his anger on Dad. “On the hard-drive recording of the victim’s death, she cried out your name. Can you explain that?”

  “I was her physician. I had been coming to the house almost every night for weeks. I was her former lover. I think it’s natural that she would call out to me in a moment of terror and pain. Her mother was dead. Her son was far away, at least in her mind—”

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Doctor. Did you always take your medical bag with you when you visited Cora Revels’s house?”

  “Not always. I kept some supplies at her house.”

  “But you took it with you on that night.”

  “Yes. Obviously that night was different from any other.”

  “Because you intended to kill your patient.”

  “To help her commit suicide,” Dad clarifies.

  “Was there any adrenaline in Cora Revels’s house?”

  “Not that I knew of. Viola had signed a Do Not Resuscitate order, so I didn’t keep any there.”

  “Have you ever given any patient a lethal injection of drugs, Dr. Cage? I’m talking about during the usual practice of medicine, not in wartime.”

  There are only two acceptable answers to this question: “No” and “I decline to answer on the grounds that it may incriminate me.” But my father says, “On very rare occasions, I have.”

  This unexpected gift stuns Shad speechless for a moment. “What occasions would those be?”

  Dad takes his time with this, and he addresses the jury, not Shad, when he speaks. “When the line between agony and consciousness disappeared. When pain and terror could no longer be controlled. That doesn’t often happen, but when it does . . . it’s an awful thing to witness. I have hastened the death of a few patients in those dire circumstances, usually only by a few hours. A day or two, at most.”

  “Are you aware that is a crime, Doctor?”

  Dad returns Shad’s indignant glare with a physician’s disdain for mincing lawyers. “What do you think, Counselor?”

  “Your Honor?” Shad prompts.

  “Answer the question, Doctor.”

  “Yes, I know that’s against the law.”

  I cringe at my father’s words, but after four days of trial, his frank answers are like cold, refreshing water thrown in the faces of the jury. It’s plain to everyone that Dad could easily have denied assisting patients to die, just as he could have denied having adrenaline with him on the night Viola died. He is making statements against his own interest, and this ultimately bolsters his claim that he’s telling the truth regardless of the risk to himself. And that, of course, is the behavior of only two kinds of people: the insane and the innocent.

  “But despite having euthanized patients before,” Shad presses, “you did not attempt to euthanize Mrs. Turner on the night in question?”

  “That’s correct. I pushed the needle through her vein to be sure I did not inject a lethal dose. My goal was simply to buy time, for myself and for Viola.”

  It’s all about that Dumpster tape, I think. Shad is waiting for that recording to appear like God from a machine, literally, to do his work for him.

  Shad pauses, head cocked and eyes on my father, as he decides which interrogatory path to take next. He might be a surgeon choosing a scalpel. As he stands there, all eyes upon him, my phone vibrates in my pocket. As covertly as possible I take it out and read the text, which is from John Kaiser.

  Classified Tech Division of the Crime Lab reports they are unable to restore tape S-16 to usable form. Particles too scrambled for any coherent reconstruction. I’m about to give Johnson the news.

  The sensation of watching John Kaiser walk up to the assistant DA seated behind Shad’s table, and then that ADA walk to his boss and whisper in his ear, is one of the more delicious experiences I’ve had in a long time. Shad’s mouth goes slack, then he whips his head to the side in search of Kaiser, who is kneeling by the prosecution table. Leaving his assistant, Shad hurries to his table and engages Kaiser in a frenzied exchange of whispers.

  “Mr. Johnson?” asks the judge. “Would you share with us what is going on? Are we about to see another tape?”

  “I’m not sure, Your Honor. There’s some confusion about that. Would the court grant me sixty seconds to verify something with the FBI by telephone?”

  “Is Agent Kaiser unable to give you the information you need?”

  Shad grimaces, his eyes burning. “The State requests sixty seconds, Your Hon
or.”

  Joe Elder sighs with resentment. “If you must.”

  While everyone in the courtroom stares, Shad texts someone, then makes a call. A moment later, he’s speaking in angry whispers once more. His voice is punctuated by brief silences, but his volume increases after each one. With five seconds remaining of his allotted minute, he hangs up and stands to face the judge.

  “Mr. Johnson?”

  “Your Honor, the FBI reports that the crime lab will be unable to restore the tape found in the St. Catherine’s Hospital Dumpster. The magnetic information was too scrambled to repair.”

  Judge Elder listens with interest, then purses his lips in thought. “Would more time increase the odds of a successful outcome?”

  Shad looks like a schoolboy about to either break into tears or punch somebody in the mouth. “I’m told it would not, Judge. That information is gone. The magnets in that MRI machine basically obliterated it.”

  I shift my focus to my father, who once again is wearing a mask of sober reflection. But in his posture I sense a change that I can only describe as relaxation. He appears not to have changed position, but I’ve known him so long that I see things in him others can’t. Thirty seconds ago, there was a profound tension in him, an electric current holding his muscles rigid, his face immobile. He was like a gambler with all his holdings sitting on the table, waiting for the turn of a single card. Now he looks like that gambler after the card turned his way.

  My God, I think, watching Shad try to adapt to this new reality. Shad was the gambler on the other side of that bet, and he must feel he has lost everything. He stands there with every eye upon him, making a silent inventory of his remaining assets. I can’t see that he has many.

  “Mr. Johnson, please proceed,” says Judge Elder.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Shad said the words, but it takes him a few seconds to get his feet moving. Once he does, he walks to within about eight feet of the witness box and addresses my father again.

  “Dr. Cage, what’s the purpose of the adrenaline you carry in your black bag?”

  “I carry a one ten-thousandth dilution, for IV administration, and also a one one-thousandth dilution for intramuscular injection. Adrenaline has many uses in emergencies. Treating anaphylactic shock, for example. Allergies to things like bee stings or peanut oil. And of course, treating cardiac emergencies. I’ve always kept an ampoule of adrenaline nearby because of my own cardiovascular disease. Sort of my own personal crash cart. A lot of older doctors do that.”

  “And did you have adrenaline with you on the night Viola Turner died?”

  “I did. As Melba Price testified was likely, I believe.”

  “Did you inject that adrenaline into Viola Turner on the night she died?”

  “I did not.”

  Shad breaks his rhythm here, and I realize he’s not sure where to go from here. He looks into the gallery, then up to the balcony. In the end he seems to settle on the face of Lincoln Turner, who’s watching him with desperate hope in his face. Almost imperceptibly, Shad nods, then turns back to my father.

  “Dr. Cage, I believe a lot of what you’ve told us is true. The most effective deceptions are always based on truth, after all. But let me suggest an alternate scenario to you. After a lifetime of keeping secrets, Viola Turner wanted to unburden herself. She’d left a brief record of certain events for Henry Sexton, a reporter, that included her romance with you, your paternity of her son, and the murder of Frank Knox. And she told you she had done this. Why? Because like a lot of people in this room, Viola believed you were a better man than you are. And you played right along, didn’t you? Because all you had to do was carry out your side of the pact. She would be dead in a few minutes, and you’d have that tape, and once you erased it, no one would ever be able to prove what was on it. What could be more perfect? She’d asked you to kill her yourself, after all. The irony is almost unbearable.”

  Dad seems to be focused on a spot on the floor, not his questioner.

  “But something happened that you didn’t expect. Something made you panic. And I think it was the moment you realized there was a tape in Henry’s video camera, recording everything.”

  Dad looks up slowly, like a tired old bear noticing some distant figure that might be either predator or prey.

  “Who put that tape there, I don’t know,” Shad admits. “Maybe Viola’s sister, as Cora Revels testified. Maybe even Lincoln Turner. But once you realized that tape was there, you knew you weren’t as alone as you’d believed. Someone was watching you, setting a trap for you. How did you respond? Maybe you shut the camera off, or maybe you tried to brazen things out with Viola, thinking you could take the tape when you left. However it happened, suddenly time was your enemy. You wanted to run, but you couldn’t risk leaving Viola alive. Maybe she was fighting you by that time . . . but probably not. My guess is that she believed in you right up until the final seconds.”

  Quentin looks as though he wants to interrupt this hypothetical, but something holds him back. I only hope his instincts are as good as they once were.

  “You started to inject the morphine,” Shad says, moving closer to the witness box, “the morphine Viola wanted. But as you depressed the plunger, she saw something alien in your eyes. Something only an old lover would see. You meant to kill her, all right, but not out of mercy. You meant to silence her forever, so that the sins she wanted to get off her chest would never see the light of day. And that’s when you botched the injection. Maybe she struggled, or maybe you just lost your nerve. Either way, most of the lethal dose went astray, into her muscle tissue.”

  Shad pushes on breathlessly, unable to do anything but play out the scenario running so vividly through his mind. The terrifying thing is, something tells me he might not be far from the truth.

  “Now, you’re in trouble,” he postulates. “Viola’s sedated, but not for long. Her sister’s only fifty yards away, at a neighbor’s house. Your illegitimate son is at a motel in town—”

  “I didn’t know that,” Dad protests, but Shad plows on like a fever-blind horse.

  “You open your black bag in the hope of finding some answer to your problem . . . and that’s when you see the adrenaline.”

  Shad steps even closer to my father, who has gone very still. The image hurls me back to my eighteenth year, when Dad was being sued for malpractice. The lawyer who cross-examined him after months of depositions moved in just as Shad is doing, and on the night of that cross, my father had his first heart attack.

  “You know a large dose will overload her weak heart,” Shad pushes on, “and if anyone raises questions”—he flips up his fingers like a magician after making something disappear—“you can say you made a failed attempt to resuscitate her. Under normal circumstances, of course, no one would raise any questions. After all . . . you’re Tom Cage. You’ve ‘helped’ patients into the hereafter before, and no one ever questioned you.”

  Dad now refuses to look Shad in the face. Disgust is written deeply in his features, in the very angle of his head.

  “You cross over to the camcorder and take out the tape,” Shad continues, “to make absolutely sure there’s no record of your final injection. Only you missed something. There’s a hard drive attached to that video camera, set to take over when the tape runs out. Unaware of this, you go back to the sickbed and inject Viola with an overdose of adrenaline. Then you step back into the shadows.

  “Seconds later, the woman you claim you loved is jolted from sedated sleep in terror—terror powered by a drug that bursts blood vessels throughout her disease-ridden body. In her struggles, Viola rolls over the remote control lying in her bed, switching on that hard drive and creating the record that will ultimately lead us all to this courtroom. In her final death throes, she calls out your name, but you remain in the shadows, waiting for her to fall silent forever. Once she does, you leave the house, two videotapes tucked safely in your bag.”

  Shad is breathing hard when he finally stops
speaking. He looks as if he’s forgotten there’s anyone else in the room but himself and the man he hopes to break.

  “Isn’t that what happened, Dr. Cage?” he asks with surprising conviction.

  Shad’s tale has gained some traction in the jury box. Several faces show clear signs of emotional upset: flushed skin, pale lips, sweat on the forehead.

  When Dad answers, it’s in a voice I recognize from my youth—the one he used to chide me with when I let my imagination run a little too wild.

  “You should have been a screenwriter, Mr. Johnson. That’s a dramatic story you just told. But like a lot of movies, from a medical perspective, it’s absurd.”

  Shad seems taken aback by Dad’s matter-of-fact tone. “Absurd? How is it absurd?”

  “Had I botched an injection of morphine, as you suggested, and I still wanted to kill Viola, I could have used the fentanyl I had ready to hand.”

  “Fentanyl?” Shad echoes, rifling his memory for every possible association with that word.

  “It’s a potent narcotic analgesic,” Dad informs him. “A painkiller—only it’s one hundred times more powerful than morphine. If I’d needed to finish off Viola in a hurry, as you suggested, I could have given her a little fentanyl, and that would have been the end of her. No pain, no muss, no fuss. That’s what a devious doctor would have done.”