I feel light-headed enough to pass out. If Quentin establishes that Dad and Viola shared complicity in a secret murder, that gives Dad more motive to have killed Viola, not less. On the other hand . . . it would also give Snake Knox and the Double Eagles an even more personal motive: revenge.

The silence after the Knox question lasts so long that I wonder whether my phone battery has gone dead, but then Quentin’s grandfatherly voice says, “Miss Cora? Frank Knox?”

Even the hiss from the earpiece sounds brittle with expectation. Nearly everyone in that courtroom has heard of Frank Knox.

“The name sounds familiar,” she says finally, “like from a long way back.”

“Objection,” Shad says. “Irrelevant.”

“Your Honor,” Quentin responds, “I am going to be delving very deeply into the history of the Double Eagle group during this trial. This is only the beginning.”

After a long delay, Joe Elder says, “I’m going to allow it, but this line of questioning had better lead somewhere quick.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Cora, Frank Knox was a former Ku Klux Klansman who founded a terrorist group called the Double Eagles. They were the leading FBI suspects in the rape of your sister in 1968.”

“Lord Jesus.”

“Did Viola ever mention that name to you?”

“I don’t recollect that. Like I said, that was a long time ago.”

“But you seem to remember everything else very clearly. I was hoping that name might not have escaped you. Do you remember a man dying in Dr. Cage’s office that year?”

My hands are quivering the way they used to before I went into court to cross-examine a critical witness.

“I don’t . . . know,” Cora says almost inaudibly.

“He was a factory worker, badly injured at the Triton Battery plant. He was taken to Dr. Cage’s office, where your sister was helping to stabilize him for transport to the emergency room. But he died in Dr. Cage’s surgery room. Viola was treating him when it happened.”

“You know, it seems like I do remember somethin’ ’bout that. Vee must have told me about it.”

“That man was Frank Knox, Cora. The founder of the Klan offshoot group that specialized in terrorizing and murdering African-Americans in this area. They burned buildings, beat black people, killed black people. They also raped black women.”

“Mm.”

“And you remember Viola telling you that she was haunted by a terrible crime? One that had happened before she left Natchez?”

The pause is almost painful. “Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Cora. No further questions at this time, Your Honor.”

Out of the empty hiss, I hear Rusty Duncan whisper, “Holy shit. Did you hear all that?”

Unmuting my phone, I whisper, “I heard it.”

“Did you know about any of it?”

“Some.”

“Am I wrong, or is Babe Ruth back and swinging for the fence?”