“Are we really going to discuss the voir dire?” I ask. “Or do you have something else to tell me?”

A faint smile touches the old man’s lips. “Still quick as ever. We’ll get to the jury list. Housekeeping first. I’m officially listing you as part of your father’s defense team. Your father doesn’t want that, but your mother insists, and you know who wins that argument.”

Oh, yeah.

“Peggy wants to know you can check on your father at any hour of the day or night, and with Sheriff Byrd being a prick, the only way to accomplish that is for you to be one of your father’s lawyers.”

“I get it.” I try to keep my tone neutral, but I know Quentin’s powers of perception.

“Penn, you’re a great lawyer,” he says. “I’d give my left arm to have you sitting with me at the defense table. But your father wants you excluded. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is. There’s nothing personal about it.”

“It’s purely personal. And I don’t get it.”

“I know. But your father’s the client, and I’m following his wishes.”

I sigh heavily. “Is there anything else?”

“A couple of things, actually. First, this case isn’t going to be like any I ever tried before. I’m going to take a very unconventional approach to get your father acquitted. I might even get a little crazy.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure myself yet. But whatever I do, I won’t be able to explain my strategy to you. So I’m asking you to promise me now that whatever I decide, you won’t be pestering me every minute to explain my tactics.”

“I’m not going to be your main problem, brother. Mom is going to expect me to explain every step of the trial to her. And if you keep me in the dark, then you do the same to her. And you know that’s not going to fly.”

Quentin gives me a look of world-weary confidence. “You let me handle Peggy.”

“You’re welcome to it.”

“So we’re good?” Quentin asks, a note of challenge in his voice.

“Actually, no. But what the hell can I do about it?”

“Hell, boy, can you think of anybody you’d trust more than me to defend your father?”

In truth, I know some genius-level criminal attorneys much closer to the primes of their careers than the legless old man sitting in the wheelchair beside me. But in a murder case involving race in Mississippi . . . those lawyers would be like novice sailors adrift in a hurricane compared to Quentin Avery.

“No,” I concede after a resentful silence.

“Just keep the faith, Penn. No matter how crazy you think I might be. We have a deal?”