“No, goddamn it.” Quentin glares at me like an impatient father himself. “I’m saying you’ve been doing all you can to keep your distance from your father, and I know why. He’s hurt you. Bad. But when you see him in here, something’s gonna break in you. You’re gonna revert back to Penn Cage, crusader for justice. But boy . . . in this situation, you can’t do anything to save your father. This time, that’s my job. Your job is to give him the strength to get through the month we have until the trial. Can you do that?”
Because Quentin seems so upset, I give his question some real thought. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know how I’ll react until he walks through that door.”
After a while, Quentin says, “Just leave the past alone. If you still blame your father for Caitlin’s death, you’re way behind Tom himself. It damn near killed him when he heard that girl died.”
I fold my hands on the scarred table. “Yeah, well. That’s between him and me.”
Quentin reaches out and catches my sleeve again. “Just remember one thing. We’re all mortal. We all sin. We’re all guilty. That’s why I could never be a prosecutor.”
“Unlike me, you mean.”
“Just don’t be too quick to judge, that’s all I’m saying. Or too harsh.”
He releases my sleeve. “By the way, I want you to know it was me who leaked the DNA test proving Tom’s paternity of Lincoln Turner.”
A sudden numbness comes into my face.
“You know why I did that, right?” he asks.
My answer is automatic, a law student’s reply. “You didn’t want Shad dropping a big revelation on the jury. Goes to motive. If Shad had sprung that during the trial, the effect would have been explosive. You wanted the shock to dissipate during the months of lead-up.”
Quentin gives me a grateful nod, as if I’ve absolved him. “I know the publicity couldn’t have been easy for you.”
“I hope you gave Mom some warning, at least.”
“Tom spoke to Peggy before I let it out.”
“Small mercy.” Suddenly, I’m almost boiling with exasperation. “Do you two really plan to keep up this closemouthed, blood-brothers act all the way to the trial?”
Quentin shrugs. “Tom’s my client. I have to be guided by his wishes. If you can change his mind, I’m happy to have you on the team.”
“Screw it. I’m through trying to convince him to do the right thing. Or anything. I’m here because Annie is at risk—end of story.”
Quentin studies me a few moments with deep sadness in his eyes. Then he says, “I love you, Penn. Don’t ever forget that.”
He touches the joystick on his chair arm, whirs to the door, and knocks twice on it. A corrections officer opens the door and holds it for him to exit.
After Quentin disappears, the officer continues holding the door for a tall, emaciated man with white hair and a beard who shuffles unsteadily into the room, his hollow eyes squinting at me.
My father.
Chapter 5
“You’ve lost weight,” my father says, shuffling to the table where I sit. “A lot of weight.”
“About twenty pounds,” I say awkwardly. “Don’t have any appetite.”
“Me either.”
His progress toward me is shockingly slow. The arthritis in his feet must be worsening. Despite aging rapidly over the past few years, due to various comorbid conditions, my father has always projected a deep vitality that patients sensed and drew on for comfort. But now he seems shrunken, gray and desiccated, like a monk emerging from a solitary cell, unused to human contact.
“Jewel Washington’s been bringing me casseroles about every other day,” I tell him. “Melba, too. Annie and Mia and the security team have been living off them.”
“At least the food’s not going to waste. Jewel and Melba are good women.”
He grips the back of the empty chair with his clawlike right hand, then slowly lowers himself toward the seat. With ten inches to go, his knees give out and he drops into the chair with an explosive grunt.
“A lot has happened since we last saw each other,” he says.
“There’s no need to get into all that.”
His eyes find mine and peer deeply into me. “Maybe not. But I want you to know something about Caitlin.”
I hold up my hand in the universal sign for STOP. I cannot bear to talk about Caitlin’s death with my father.
“Son,” he goes on, “I need you to know I did everything I could to save her. I had no instruments, my hands were cuffed, but still we came close, working together. Caitlin did things some soldiers couldn’t have done—”
“I know all that,” I cut in, my voice cracking. “Look—I’m sure you did everything you could. But that’s not the point, okay? She shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was the choices you made early on—refusing to speak about Viola’s death, jumping bail—that’s what killed Caitlin. Not failing to drain her goddamn pericardium.”
Dad stares back at me, his mouth and chin quivering. “All right,” he says finally. “You’re right. But no matter how you feel about me, we have to talk. For the family’s sake.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Yes. And I’m glad. Also surprised.”
“Snake Knox sent you a message. Through me.”
“John Kaiser told me that. But he said you never got the message.”
“Huh.” I give Dad a subtle wink. “He must have forgotten.”
Dad blinks slowly, then motions for me to come closer and whisper. Leaning forward, I tell him exactly what I told Quentin.
Dad looks perplexed by the words. “Wives and children?” he echoes. “No immunity?”
“That’s what the biker said. And he seemed especially concerned that I get the exact words. I figured you might get more out of the message than a simple warning.”
“No. That’s what it sounds like to me. A threat.”
“Yeah. Except when did the Double Eagles ever shy away from hurting wives? They raped and beat women as a standard tactic.”
“Black women,” Dad says. “Maybe that’s the difference. He’s talking about our wives. White women.”
I watch him in silence for several seconds. “Maybe.”
“What did you and Quentin talk about?” he asks.
The change of subject irritates me. “Not his damn trial strategy, that’s for sure.”
Dad makes a sound of contempt. “Don’t worry about the trial. The trial isn’t important.”
This statement is so patently absurd that it takes me a few seconds to respond. “If you’re convicted, you will die in the Parchman penitentiary. How is that not important?”
My father winces, then begins scratching at a scaly patch of psoriasis on his arm.
“Penn, what if the charges against me were dismissed today? What would that accomplish?”
“You’d be free.”
“True enough. But as long as Snake Knox is breathing and roaming loose, we live under threat. All of us.”
“Why is that, Dad? Because you and Viola killed his brother?”
For the first time, he looks surprised.
“Yes, I know about that. Caitlin mentioned it in the phone recording she left behind at the Bone Tree.”
He sighs, then shakes his head. “Snake doesn’t know about Frank. He couldn’t.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Because if he did, he wouldn’t have simply left me at the Bone Tree to die. He would have put a bullet in me. Or worse. Torture is his specialty, remember.”