Mississippi Blood

by Greg Iles

  “For thirty-seven years?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Dr. Cage, why would you send money for that long, if you did not know that Viola had borne a child by you?”

  “I knew she wouldn’t have cashed those checks unless she needed the money badly. Viola had too much pride to take charity. I also felt responsible for the fact that she’d had to leave town. I felt guilty. Giving her financial help was the very least I could do.”

  “I see. All right. Let’s return to the night of Viola’s death. After she told you that you had fathered her son, what happened?”

  “The discussion became very emotional, as you might imagine. I couldn’t believe she had withheld that from me all those years. But I soon realized she’d done it to protect me and my family. She felt responsible for our affair, and while she knew I shared that guilt, Viola didn’t believe my wife and children should suffer because of our sin. Those are her words.”

  Again Quentin pauses to let this sink into the minds of the jury. “What happened next?”

  “Viola asked me to make her a promise.”

  “What promise?”

  “That after her death, I would make sure that our son was provided for in the future. At first I thought she meant that I should give him a large sum of money, but she didn’t want that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Viola believed that Lincoln had been twisted in a moral sense by his stepfather. Also by her negligence, due to her drinking. She felt he wasn’t yet mature enough to handle a large amount of money. She suggested that I might establish a trust of some sort for him.”

  “Did you agree to do that?”

  “Yes. But I was hardly rational at the time. All I could think about was that this woman I had loved so long ago had asked me to end her life, and now she was telling me that we had a child together. It was simply too much to handle.”

  “How did you react?”

  “I wanted time to think, to consider what she’d told me. But I knew that if I told Viola I couldn’t go through with the pact, two things were likely to happen. One, she’d get very angry, even distraught. She appeared calm, but some people near death—if they’re not sedated or unconscious—often experience a great deal of stress, especially over unresolved family issues. Second, I suspected that if I simply left her there, Viola might find a way to inject herself and end her own life, regardless of my wishes.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Dad takes a deep breath, and his eyes glaze with the effort of recollection. “I decided to pretend that I was going through with the pact. I remained calm and agreed to everything Viola said. I kissed her once, as she asked me to. I bowed my head while she prayed.”

  “What prayer did she pray?”

  “I believe she said, ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.’”

  “All right. Then what happened?”

  “I injected her with morphine.”

  Several sharp expulsions of breath break the silence of the courtroom, and some spectators begin whispering. A glare from Judge Elder quickly puts an end to the rushing sound.

  “But, Doctor, you earlier said you didn’t inject a lethal dose of morphine.”

  “I did and I didn’t. You have to remember something about Viola. She was an experienced nurse. She wasn’t going to let me draw up a syringe of saline and inject her. She watched me draw a lethal dose of morphine and tie the tourniquet around her upper arm. Then she watched the needle go into her antecubital vein. I knew she would do that. Her veins were in terrible shape because her PICC line was clogged and she’d been getting needle sticks directly in the veins. Hitting her antecubital required great skill. It was a lot like bluffing in a card game. I injected the drug very slowly, all the while trying not to give away my plan. After about ten seconds, Viola finally lay back on her pillow, certain that the morphine was going into her. Two seconds after that, I pushed the needle completely through her vein and injected the remainder of the dose into the tissue beneath the vessel, essentially rendering the drug harmless.”

  “Harmless? A lethal dose of morphine?”

  “Yes. Cancer patients like Viola build up huge tolerances for narcotics. To kill her with morphine, I would have had to inject the full dose directly into the vein, and in a reasonably short time. Otherwise, she wouldn’t absorb the drug rapidly enough to send her into respiratory failure. The rate of absorption is everything in that equation.”

  “How could you be positive you had pushed through the vein before completing the injection?”

  “I’ve been practicing medicine more than forty years. My judgment’s pretty accurate about such things. And the final proof is that Viola did not in fact die from a morphine overdose. The autopsy showed just what I described, a seemingly botched IV morphine injection, and a subsequent death by adrenaline overdose.”

  Shad is furiously taking notes at the prosecution table.

  “Did you at any time that night inject Viola Turner with adrenaline?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  “All right. What did you do after Viola fell unconscious?”

  “I looked around the house for an audiotape she had told me about, one she had made for Henry Sexton.”

  So Dad knew all along about the audiotape Lincoln tried to sell me—

  “Did you find this tape?”

  “No.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I found the videotape she had made for Henry Sexton. It was in the bedside table, where she had said it would be. I decided to take that with me when I left.”

  Another rush of whispers passes through the gallery.

  “With what intention?” Quentin asks.

  “I wanted to watch it before I passed it to Henry. I was worried it contained information I’d prefer not to be made public. Things I wouldn’t want my family to see.”

  “Such as mention of your paternity of Lincoln Turner?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right.” Quentin steeples his fingers and tilts his face upward, as though pondering abstract matters of great import. “While you were doing all this, did you feel under any time constraint?”

  “No.”

  “But Cora Revels testified that on the night her sister died, she told you that Lincoln Turner was on his way to Natchez from Chicago.”

  “She never told me that. And besides, we now know Mr. Turner was in Natchez four days prior to his mother’s death. All I knew about Lincoln Turner was that he hadn’t visited his mother in all the weeks she’d been back in Natchez, despite the fact that she was dying.”

  A quick glance at Lincoln shows me rage in his face.

  “What was the last thing Cora Revels told you on that night?” Quentin asks.

  “That she was walking over to a neighbor’s house to watch television and get some rest, if she could.”

  “So you’d found the tape intended for Mr. Sexton. What did you do then?”

  “I left the house.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To my office. I wanted to think about everything Viola had told me. I didn’t want to go home to do that. I also had a camcorder at my office that I could use to watch the videotape. When I got there, I watched the recording in its entirety, which was only a few minutes of footage.”

  “And what did it contain?”

  “About what I expected. Some information relating to her brother’s murder, to her own rapes, and also information about my history with Viola.”

  “Did you erase the tape at that time?”

  “No. I wanted to. But I didn’t feel I had the right. I wanted to discuss it with Viola later, to be sure she understood what could happen if she gave that information to a reporter. At that point I thought Viola would have several more days, perhaps even weeks, to make another tape, one that might be less damaging to me personally but still accomplish what she wanted to with Henry Sexton.”

  “She never got to make another tape
, did she?”

  Dad bites his lip and winces. “No.”

  “But you ultimately did erase that tape?”

  “Yes. After a murder charge was filed against me, I decided it would be foolish to keep something like that around.”

  “How do you feel about erasing that tape now?”

  “I’ve wished a thousand times that I never did it. So much pain would have been saved had I not.”

  Quentin nods slowly. “How long did you stay at your office, Doctor?”

  “Till about five thirty a.m.”

  “Cora Revels testified that you called her about five twenty, which we now know was eighteen minutes before her sister’s death.”

  “That’s true. I called her cell and asked how Viola was doing. Cora told me she’d fallen asleep at the neighbor’s house, but that she would go home to check on Viola. I asked her to call me back if there were any problems.”

  “Do you recall anything else about that conversation?”

  “I had a feeling that Cora was worried Viola might have ended her life, with or without my help. I think Cora knew what Viola had been planning, up to a point. But she never raised the issue with me.”

  “Did Cora call you back?”

  “No. I assumed that Viola was still sedated when Cora got home, so I went home and slept for about two hours, then showered and went to work as usual.”

  “How did you learn Viola had died?”

  “My son called me about nine a.m. and informed me. He told me that the district attorney had telephoned him and was considering charges of assisted suicide.”

  “How did you feel about that?”

  “I was stunned to hear that Viola had died, and more shocked that I hadn’t been called about it.”

  “Did you know the cause of death at that point?”

  “No. At that point, I assumed she had found a way to commit suicide, possibly with help, but I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t worry that she had died from the morphine injection you gave her?”

  Dad shakes his head. “I didn’t consider that a serious possibility.”

  “And when did you learn she had died from an adrenaline overdose?”

  “The next day. Again, from my son.”

  “What did you think about that news?”

  “It made no sense whatever to me.”

  Here Quentin pauses, then rolls his chair to within a few feet of the jury and looks back at my father.

  “Dr. Cage, who do you believe killed Viola Turner?”

  Dad takes a deep breath, then answers with a cold edge of anger in his voice. “Snake Knox. I believe that Sonny Thornfield was also present, and possibly other people as well.”

  “Who are Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield?”

  “Members of a violent racist group called the Double Eagles, and the investigative targets of Henry Sexton, as well as the FBI.”

  “What reason would they have to kill Viola Turner?”

  Shad looks like he’s gearing up to start objecting, but so far he’s held his fire.

  “Viola had a long and tragic history with the Double Eagle group. Because of that history, both Knox and Thornfield had come to Viola’s house just days before her death and threatened to kill her if she continued to talk to Henry Sexton. This exchange is what Viola had recorded on the audiotape I had looked for after injecting her with the morphine.”

  “Objection,” Shad breaks in. “No such tape has been entered into evidence.”

  “Your Honor, the witness is testifying to what the decedent told him—”

  “Hearsay, Your Honor,” Shad objects.

  Quentin is prepared for this objection. He smiles and says, “Your Honor, the testimony clearly falls under 803(24). All the criteria are met.”

  Judge Elder opens a small softbound book, licks his finger, and quickly pages through it. After a few seconds, he says, “Present sense impression . . . I’ll allow it.”

  “Please continue, Dr. Cage,” Quentin says with satisfaction.

  “The Double Eagles had traced Viola to Chicago only a year after she left Natchez, and they told her that they would kill her if she ever returned here. Will Devine actually visited her in Chicago and made the threat.”

  “Objection, Your Honor,” Shad says again. “Hearsay. That allegedly happened thirty-seven years ago, and neither Viola Turner nor Mr. Devine can substantiate any such threat.”

  Joe Elder reaches for his book again, but this time does not open it. “I’m going to sustain that.”

  Quentin could argue another exception to the hearsay rule, but he doesn’t. As he and Dad continue, I’m surprised Shad doesn’t object more often. Perhaps he knows that if he does, Quentin will argue that everything Viola said to Dad that night could be considered some sort of exception, as there are so many and Quentin undoubtedly knows them all. But more likely, Shad well knows that he induced his witnesses to break the hearsay rules almost continuously, making discretion the better part of valor now.

  “Despite the Double Eagle threat,” Dad says, “the recent one, Viola told Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield that she would not stop talking to Mr. Sexton, and that they would have to kill her to shut her up.”

  Quentin’s voice conveys surprise and more than a little skepticism. “Did Mrs. Turner call the police about this incident?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she wanted those men to kill her.”

  Chapter 63

  It takes Judge Elder half a minute to silence the gallery after Dad’s assertion that Viola had wanted the Double Eagles to kill her.

  “I beg your pardon, Doctor?” Quentin says. “Are you suggesting that Viola Turner wanted to be murdered?”

  “Yes, sir. She discussed it with me.”

  “Why would she want to be murdered?”

  “So that the men who had destroyed her family would finally be punished.”

  “I think we’re going to need you to explain that, Doctor.”

  Dad folds his hands together and speaks directly to the jury. For the first time, his voice begins to rise in volume, taking on some of its old power and persuasiveness.

  “As has been testified already, Viola was gang-raped in 1968 by five members of the Double Eagle group. They were Frank Knox, Frank’s teenage son Forrest, Frank’s brother Snake, Sonny Thornfield, and Glenn Morehouse. Those men brutalized Viola for hours in her home. The trauma of this experience scarred her forever. Viola was never the same afterwards. She ended our relationship because of that crime, although she must have been pregnant by then. It’s a miracle that the child survived at all, considering what they did to her.”

  Quentin appears to be as shocked as the audience by these statements. “And you’re telling us that, for this reason, Viola was willing to be murdered? To punish the men who had raped her?”

  “It’s not that simple. Viola had suffered much more than rape at their hands. At the time Viola was assaulted, her brother, Jimmy, and another civil rights activist named Luther Davis were in hiding. The Double Eagles raped Viola in an effort to lure them into the open. And their plan worked. Jimmy and Luther did leave their refuge—a place called Freewoods—shortly after the rape, and then they disappeared. Of course, Viola also broke off her relationship with me shortly after the rape.”

  “How long had your affair been going on?”

  “About seven weeks, in the physical sense. Emotionally, for much longer.”

  “How did she end the relationship?”

  “Painfully.” Dad closes his eyes briefly, like a man calling on deep reserves of fortitude. “Completely by chance, one of the men who had raped Viola was brought into our clinic for treatment. He had been seriously injured on the job.”

  I feel my pulse start to pick up again.

  “Who was that?” Quentin asks.

  “Frank Knox. He was hurt while working at the Triton Battery plant. I was the contract physician for that company. Knox should have been taken to the hosp
ital, but his coworkers brought him to me. In those days we did a lot more aggressive trauma treatment in the office.”

  “What happened when Knox was brought in?”

  “Viola initially refused to treat him. But she had always assisted me with trauma cases, so I insisted that she prep him. When I arrived in the surgery, however, I found Knox on the floor. His skin was blue and he was gasping for air.”

  Every person in the courtroom is on the edge of his seat.

  “What was Viola doing?” Quentin asks.

  “Standing by the table, watching him die.”

  “She wasn’t trying to treat him?”

  “No.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I knelt and checked Knox’s airway, then tried to find the source of his difficulty. He’d suffered terrible trauma. A pallet of car batteries had fallen on him, rupturing his chest wall. But I sensed that wasn’t the source of his acute problem. I tried to get Viola to help me, but she refused. I actually got up and slapped her, but it did no good. When I asked why she wouldn’t help, she told me that Frank Knox and several other men had raped her two days prior.”

  “Was that the first you’d heard of this rape?”

  Dad’s face remains stonelike, except for a brief movement of his lips. “Yes.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “I asked why Knox was on the floor and in such bad shape. Viola told me she had injected air into a major vein. I could see the syringe she had used lying on the floor. A very large syringe.”

  “Air. In a vein. What would be the result of such an act?”

  “A bubble of air in a blood vessel won’t actually hurt you—not generally. But after questioning Viola, I learned that she’d injected Knox a total of three times. Probably two hundred cc’s of air, maybe more. An air embolus of that size would kill the patient when it reached his heart. Knox probably couldn’t have been saved even if he’d been in an urban trauma center.”

  “Nevertheless, did you do what you could to try to save him?”

  Dad looks directly at the jury. “No.”