“I can always tell when people are lying. It’s something I learned working cons with Junius Jelks. Don’t ever try lying to a grifter. They always know. That ability helped me a lot in court.”

“But, Mr. Turner, you’ve already told us that your mother had been successfully lying to you throughout your life, and you didn’t know it. Now you say you always know when someone is lying? How do you account for that?”

Lincoln’s eyelids slide halfway down over his eyes as he ponders this. After about twenty seconds, he blinks and looks around like a man awaking from a trance. “I’ll tell you. When a woman who never lies tells her first lie . . . nobody questions it. Nobody catches on, because they can’t even imagine that person trying to deceive them. It’s the Big Lie. But inside a family, see? And that’s why I never caught on. My mama never lied. So the one thing she did lie about, I never picked up on—even though she had lied about it every day of my life.”

Shad nods soberly. “Now, to clarify, Lincoln, this conversation with your mother about the Ku Klux Klan rape took place how long ago?”

“Seven months ago. About four months before she died.”

“And your mother had already been diagnosed with lung cancer?”

“That’s right.”

“How did you react to all she’d said?”

“I started pulling away from her. Pushing her away, I guess.”

“Even though she was terminally ill?”

“Yes. I’m not proud of it, but I couldn’t get over the fact that she’d been lying to me since I was a child. My whole life had been a lie.”

“What was your next clue to your true paternity?”

“As Mama got sicker, I had to start taking over some of her affairs. That’s when I discovered a box hidden in her apartment, filled with old records, souvenirs, and memorabilia. James Turner’s war medal was in there, the real James Turner. There were a couple of letters, too, and some photocopies of checks from the 1970s.”

“Were the letters signed?”

“No.”

“What name was on the checks?”

“Thomas Cage, M.D.”

At least a dozen people behind me mutter “Mm-mm-mm” under their breath.

“Let the record show that these checks were stipulated into evidence on Monday,” Shad says. “Now, were there any other clues in the box?”

“There was a Polaroid snapshot of Mama with a man.”

“What man?”

“That man right there. Dr. Tom Cage.”

“What did it show?”

“They were standing in a room with a sheet wrapped around them.”

“Were they clothed beneath the sheet?”

“They didn’t appear to be, no.”

“Judge, we’d like to enter this photograph into evidence and let the jury examine it.”