Mississippi Blood

by Greg Iles

  “There can be no doubt that, had Lincoln been raised in the loving home of Tom Cage, with all the advantages of our mayor, his life would have turned out much differently. That is a tragedy. But we all know now that this was not the fault of Tom Cage. For no man can offer to raise a son that he does not know exists.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Dr. Cage took the stand this morning and told you the unvarnished truth, as I promised you that he would. He didn’t shy away from the truth to make himself look better than he is. He told you hard truths. He said things that could put his very freedom in jeopardy, apart from this proceeding. But he did that because he is a truthful man. The few lies Tom Cage told in his life, he told to prevent pain, and they have haunted him ever since. Today he tried to make them right.

  “This trial has proved two things about Dr. Cage. First, as he told you himself—with his wife here to hear it, God help her—that he loved Viola Turner. And second, had he known that he had a son by Viola, he would have done everything in his power to help that boy get raised right. As it was, he sent Viola money for thirty-seven years. What more would he have done had he known the truth? We can only guess.

  “But all this is speculation. Lincoln Turner was raised where he was, and he grew into the man who testified before you. A man who admitted that he lied on the stand in an effort to steal his own mother’s life savings. But far more disturbing is that, even when given an opportunity to come clean before you, he chose to hide his deepest lie. Despite telling you a heartbreaking story about a prodigal son racing from Chicago to Natchez to reach his dying mother in time to forgive her—and failing because of the alleged crime of the defendant—Mr. Turner was actually in Natchez four days prior to his mother’s death. Yet he deliberately chose not to speak to her at all. What reason Lincoln Turner might have for lying about his presence here, I leave to you good ladies and gentlemen, and to the law enforcement authorities of this county.”

  Up come Quentin’s hands with their long and graceful fingers, and he begins enumerating points upon them. When he speaks this way, every assertion he makes takes on a tone of unassailability.

  “Did someone murder Viola Turner? Yes, indeed. Cruelly and without mercy, as we all saw on the grisly recording accidentally captured on the camera belonging to the late Henry Sexton. Do we know who inflicted that terrible suffering and death on Viola Turner? We do not. Can we guess who might have done it? I submit to you that we all have a pretty good idea.

  “Ironically, though, our ideas may be different. Some of you may think Lincoln himself did it. From the testimony in this trial, it’s manifestly clear that he possessed the motive, the means, and the opportunity to kill his mother. We know he was in Cora Revels’s house on the morning of her death. He claimed to have arrived at the house after she died, but he made similar claims about his arrival in Natchez, did he not? Who is to say when he really got there? Cora Revels?”

  Quentin shakes his head with sadness and contempt. “What did I tell you my daddy used to tell me? ‘Half the truth is a whole lie.’ Well, forget half the truth. Cora Revels and Lincoln Turner convicted themselves as liars out of their own mouths. What weight should a reasonable person give to the words of proven deceivers? I know what my mama used to say: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’

  “We also know that, like his aunt Cora, Lincoln wanted his mother’s money—money that Viola had decided to spend in the quest to find justice for her martyred brother, Jimmy Revels.

  “We don’t know where the adrenaline that killed Viola Turner came from. Nurse Melba Price testified that Dr. Cage had adrenaline in his office, and also in his black bag. But that could be said of many doctors in Natchez. The State did not find any adrenaline ampoule at the crime scene, or anywhere else.

  “Might the adrenaline have come from Chicago? Possibly. Or could Lincoln Turner have broken into Tom Cage’s office sometime during those days he was secretly here, and used that very dose to kill his mother? I tend to doubt this, because Lincoln would have left the incriminating vial for us to find. So . . . there’s no certainty in the end. Not for us. Perhaps months or years hence, some guilty soul will cry out for release, and the truth will come to light at last. Whose soul might that be? We don’t know.”

  Quentin pauses long enough for people to get nervous, then changes tack once more. “Did anyone but Lincoln and Cora have a motive to kill Viola Turner? We all know the answer to that. Viola was hated by one of the most racist and violent organizations ever formed in the United States. She was threatened by them forty years ago, before she left Natchez, and she was threatened only a week or so before she was murdered. Members of that group raped Viola in 1968 and most likely murdered her brother as well. Viola had seen them torture Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis on the night she was rescued from captivity by Tom Cage’s emissary, Ray Presley.

  “For these reasons, those vicious men warned Viola that if she ever returned to Natchez, they would silence her forever. Well, Viola stayed away as long as she could. But like a lot of black folks who left Mississippi decades ago, she wanted to return home to die. But on her own terms, ladies and gentlemen. This poor woman had led a life of biblical suffering, and she wanted to have her final agony ended by a man she knew had loved her all her life. And what did she find? Dr. Cage offered her exactly what she sought—comfort in the face of pain and death. But the demons of Viola’s past had not been idle in her absence. Not by a long shot. And they lived in fear of being exposed.

  “When Viola began talking to a crusading reporter, they came to her bedside and told her once again that she would die if she tried to tell the truth. But did she remain silent? No. She made the tape you saw this morning, and she changed her will to fund Henry Sexton’s investigations into her brother’s murder. Even from her sickbed, Viola Turner was a formidable adversary.

  “Who among you believes that the monsters who killed Henry Sexton, Caitlin Masters, Sleepy Johnston, and others—who murdered one of their own, Will Devine, before your very eyes yesterday—would hesitate to snuff out the life of Viola Turner?”

  Quentin suddenly goes quiet, like a wind falling deceptively as it gathers before a storm.

  “Finally,” he says softly, “I ask you to consider the district attorney, the man who brought us all to this room and asked us to listen to the deceivers he paraded before us. It was Shadrach Johnson who reached back fifty years into the past to try to slander Dr. Cage over his military service to his country. I only thank God that Dr. Cage’s commanding officer survived to tell you of his courage under fire on the night the Chinese broke through the American lines back in 1950. And that Captain Walt Garrity could tell you the truth of how he and Tom Cage were forced to make the toughest choice a medic ever could make in the face of certain torture and death for the hopelessly wounded boys under their care.

  “And that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is what I want to leave you with. This man, this simple small-town doctor, has spent his life in the gray areas that most of us pretend don’t exist. As a young man, he was thrown into the crucible of war and asked to do the impossible. He acquitted himself with honor. For the past forty years, he has worked every day to heal the sick and afflicted of our community. He has never sought fortune or fame; on the contrary, he has done countless acts of kindness and mercy without anyone ever learning of them.

  “There’s an old saying: ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.’ By that standard, Tom Cage is a fool. A prudent physician would have run a mile when Viola Turner asked him to help her die with dignity. Because the law doesn’t do much to help terminally ill people in this country. It doesn’t do much to help the doctors asked to care for them, either. The law is mighty quick to condemn a doctor trying to help someone in pain, and mighty slow to help those poor patients find peace. A smart doctor’s first thought upon hearing what Viola wanted would have been the potential lawsuit and the possibility of losing his license. But not Tom Cage. Tom did the same thing he did in Korea. He
shoved his fear deep down inside, waded in, and did the best he could in the time he had with the resources at hand.”

  Quentin raises both hands, palms upturned. “But I’m talking like Dr. Cage helped Viola Turner to die! The fact is, he didn’t. This man who had the guts to help young soldiers die rather than face torture could not bring himself to kill a woman he had loved, and who had borne him a child. Not even out of mercy. But he did bring himself to come here today, take the stand, and tell you the truth, no matter what it might cost him. And as for the assertions of the district attorney, who claims that Tom Cage is playing some sort of con game on us all . . . I ask Mr. Johnson what I asked him at the conclusion of my opening remarks.”

  With the slow but inexorable motion of a gun traversing in its mount, Quentin turns to Shadrach Johnson and says: “Have you no shame, brother?”

  The ringing silence that follows this question is like the vacuum after an artillery round blasts open the earth. Several jurors sit openmouthed as they stare at Shad, awaiting his response, and even Judge Elder appears struck dumb by the force of Quentin’s question. A low hum begins to grow in the audience behind me, and within seconds it becomes the wild buzz of a junior-high-school auditorium before the teachers take charge.

  Judge Elder’s bass voice booms out to the back wall and reverberates through the room. “Be silent, or I will clear this court!”

  Turning back toward the crowd, I see the first few rows of spectators blinking in disbelief at the volume the judge summoned without the benefit of his microphone. When I face forward again, I see Quentin rolling to his place behind the defense table, his face looking peaceful in repose.

  Can he really be that cool? I wonder.

  “Mr. Johnson,” Judge Elder says softly into the ensuing vacuum, “you may conclude your closing argument.”

  As Shad stands behind the prosecution table, Rusty’s elbow digs into the ribs on my left side.

  “Shad’s got more balls than I do,” he whispers. “You couldn’t pay me to get up after what Quentin just did to him. He looks like Dan Quayle after Lloyd Bentsen gutted him on national television.”

  I nod slightly, but as Shad walks to the lectern, I see something in his eyes that sends a wave of sickness through my belly. He still believes Dad is guilty.

  “What is it, Penn?” Mom whispers in my right ear. “You just turned pale.”

  For a moment I try to suppress my anxiety, but at this point there’s nothing to be gained by shielding my mother. One way or another, the verdict will come soon.

  “Shad truly believes Dad killed her,” I murmur. “He believes it in his bones.”

  In the span of three seconds, I feel my mother’s hand go cold.

  Chapter 70

  Shadrach Johnson faces the jury with the self-possession of a gifted young choir member asked to sing a solo for a strange congregation. With solemn gravity, he says, “Mr. Avery just asked me if I have no shame. That’s a hell of a thing to say, ladies and gentlemen. And while I don’t believe that he deserves an answer, I believe you do. Let me tell you why I brought this case to trial.

  “To help make things clear, I’m going to take a page out of my learned opponent’s book. From the very beginning of this ordeal, when I first learned about the relations between Tom Cage and Viola Turner, I was reminded of the biblical parables I’d heard in my youth. And I’ll be frank with you: when the pastor told those stories, I often didn’t fully grasp their meaning.”

  Several jurors nod in empathy at this.

  “But,” Shad goes on, “even when I was confused, I sensed that an important truth was buried in there somewhere. So today I’m going to tell you a parable.” Shad steps away from the lectern and begins walking slowly and apparently without destination, with one hand folded into the other at the height of his first jacket button. “I want you to think back to ancient times, to biblical times, to a land known as the Caucasian Empire. That empire was a kingdom of white people. But within it lived many black folks, people who had begun life as slaves but who had shed their chains and lived and worked among the Caucasians, trying to earn a meager living.

  “In that hot and ancient land, a young black man and woman were walking down a road. They were brother and sister. And on that road they met five ignorant, cruel soldiers of the empire. Why do I say soldiers? Because what were the members of the Double Eagle group other than the soldiers of an invisible empire? So . . . the soldiers challenged the brother and sister, saying, ‘You have broken our law and refused to remain in your place.’ When the brother argued, the soldiers beat and killed him. Then they raped his sister, to punish her, and because they had always coveted her. Then they told the girl, ‘Leave this land and never return. If you do, you shall suffer the same fate as your brother.’

  “That poor girl hobbled down the road, wounded and bleeding. After a while, she came to the house of a learned physician. She knocked on the door and asked for help. The physician took her in, tended her wounds, and asked what had befallen her. When she told him, the physician said, ‘I can tend your wounds and nurse you back to health, but we cannot tell the sheriff what happened on the road, because the emperor will not punish his own soldiers for hurting you.’

  “The girl stayed in that house and began to heal. But late one night, as he tended her wounds, the learned physician seduced the girl and lay with her in secret. She fell in love with him and believed all he told her. Then one day, a knock came at the door. When the girl answered, she found one of the soldiers who had raped her on the road, bleeding from wounds. ‘Call the physician,’ he begged. ‘I am dying.’ The girl let the soldier inside, but there, remembering her pain, she picked up a hammer and smashed the soldier’s skull. When the learned physician came down the stairs, he cried, ‘What have you done?’ The girl said, ‘I have killed the man who raped me, and who murdered my brother. Nothing more.’ ‘Go back to your room and say nothing of it,’ said the physician. ‘I will make it so that no one asks questions.’

  “As the physician predicted, all was well for a few days. But then the girl discovered she had got with child. Confronted by this evidence of their sin, the physician said, ‘You cannot stay in this house. I have a wife and children. They cannot discover what has passed between us.’ Handing her a few coins, he pushed her out into the road and locked his door. Stripped of her job, her virtue, and carrying his child, she fled the land of her birth. She eventually settled in a far country, where her life grew worse each year.

  “And so, ladies and gentlemen, I ask you a simple question. Who did the more terrible deed? The ignorant soldiers on the road, who simply took what they wanted and went on their way? Or the learned physician who knew better? The man who took what he wanted, not with a club or a spear, but with honeyed lies and empty promises?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Shad lowers his head, walks toward the bench, then turns toward the spectators, continuing to pace as he speaks.

  “Half a century passed, and the beautiful girl became old, frail, and sick. She was dying. Fearing the pain of her illness more than the old threats of the soldiers, she returned to the empire where she was born, to the house of the learned physician. ‘I know you hoped never to see me again,’ she said, ‘but I have one boon to ask of you. Please help me pass to the other world without further pain. Surely you owe this to me.’ ‘Yea, I will do this thing,’ said the physician, ‘for I treated you badly in your youth.’ The physician made preparations to fulfill her request. But as he did, the woman said, ‘Wait—one more favor I must ask before I die. All these years I have been haunted by the sin of murder we committed upon the soldier. I must confess this to the community. But most important, you must acknowledge the child you begat upon me, for his life has been hard and filled with sorrow.’

  “Exactly what happened after that, we cannot know. But in the morning, the old woman was found dead from a dose of poison, and the learned physician refused to speak of what had passed between them. It was left to the people of t
he city to decide what had transpired during the night.”

  Shad looks at the jury and speaks with quiet conviction. “Ladies and gentlemen, who, upon hearing this tale, would not bring the learned physician before the bar of justice to answer for what happened during that night? That is why I brought this case to trial. For these past few days, the physician’s lawyer has told you what a kind and wonderful man he is. He has not challenged the physical evidence of what transpired during that fateful night. He has rested his defense upon the physician’s character. This physician, he says, has filled all the long years between abandoning his lover and watching her die with good works, and these works should outweigh all else. But take away those things—which I believe were done in penance—and remember the parable as I told it to you. It may be that because of Dr. Cage’s kind face and comforting bedside manner, you cannot imagine the man behind that face committing sinful, selfish acts. But we are all sinners, ladies and gentlemen. We all act to protect ourselves and our families.

  “Pondering the parable I’ve told today, I realized that perhaps the learned physician himself did not realize how much closer in spirit he was to the ignorant soldiers than to the woman he seduced and cast into the street. It is not for me to judge him, though. That burden—that duty—lies with you. When you go back into that jury room, think not of Tom Cage and his years of small kindnesses, but rather of the young black girl who met the brutal soldiers on the road, and who came to the learned physician for help. Consider what she received from his hands, both then and on that final night forty years later, when she died. The facts of what happened in that house have not been challenged. The law is clear. And the judgment of the learned physician’s character . . . I leave to you.