Objection! shouts a voice in my head. Hearsay! My heart is pounding so hard I feel loopy, but Quentin’s voice is not to be heard.

“Did Viola tell you what happened to her?” Shad presses.

This time when Quentin fails to object, I know Rusty is right: Quentin Avery, the legal legend, has lost it. He’s got to go. I only hope that Dad’s fate isn’t sealed before the end of Cora’s testimony.

“Not at first,” says Cora. “First a rumor went around town. I think them men was bragging about what they done. Anyway, I asked Vee about it, and she finally broke down and told me it was true. I know now they done it to her to get our brother, Jimmy, to come out of hiding, where they could take him and kill him. Jimmy was hiding down in Freewoods, but when he heard what happened to Viola, he come looking for them that done it.”

As Cora Revels’s voice breaks, I wonder why Shad has led her to reveal this long-buried event. Surely by doing so he risks the jury realizing how deep the hatred must have been between Viola and the Double Eagles, even to the day she died.

“So you believed Viola’s child was a result of this rape?” Shad continues.

Leading the witness! I want to scream, but Quentin says nothing.

“Yes, sir.”

“How long did you believe that?”

“Twenty-eight years.”

There’s a pause during which I suspect Shad is making a show of calculating Lincoln’s age by the elapsed time. “So, from 1968 until 1996 you believed that Lincoln had been fathered by Klan rapists?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you tell anyone else about your suspicion?”

“No.”

“Did you ever tell Viola’s second husband, the man whose legal name is Junius Jelks, about your suspicion?”

“Not before thirty-some-odd years passed. Viola wanted me to lie about how Lincoln was fathered. She didn’t want her new husband in Chicago, Mr. Jelks, thinking that boy was fathered by klukkers from Mississippi. She told him Lincoln’s father was her first husband, James Turner. A dead war hero.”

An audible murmur of many voices comes through the earpiece.

“Did you support her story?”

“I did. It troubled me, and I confessed it to the priest, but I stuck to that story for a long time. A mighty long time.”

“When did you stop?”

“In 1996, when our mother died. Vee had came down to help take care of Mama for the last month—being a nurse, you know—and Mr. Jelks came with her.”

“Where was Lincoln at this time?”

“Lincoln had just got out of law school the year before, so he was working in Chicago.”

“How old was he then?”

“Twenty-eight. He got a late start in law school.”

“All right, Miss Cora. Why did you stop telling the lie about Lincoln’s birth?”