With his trademark click and whir, Quentin backs up and rotates his chair to face me. “I shouldn’t have to tell a big-shot prosecutor this, but juries don’t like being excluded. They don’t like lawyers trying to keep witnesses from saying what they want to say. They don’t like judges and lawyers whispering where they can’t hear, and they hate it when you go back into chambers. As you told me yesterday, we’re dealing with an interracial affair, a mixed-race child, a possible mercy killing, even murder of a patient by a doctor. Those are tantalizing issues. And the jury isn’t going to take kindly to a slick lawyer saying, ‘I’m sorry, you can’t see this bit here, as juicy as it may be. Yes, there’s a tape of the victim’s death, but by exploiting a technicality I’m going to stop you from watching it.’ That’s not the way I’m going to run this case, my brother. And that’s not the way your daddy wants it run.”

“He wants the whole truth out there. That’s the deal?”

“That’s the deal.”

“That’s quite a change of heart after lying for thirty-eight years, wouldn’t you say?”

Quentin dismisses my implication with a wave of his hand. “The jury wants the truth, Penn. And I’ve finally got a client who’s willing to stand by everything he ever did.”

“So to hell with the rules of evidence?” I glance at Doris, who obviously shares my confusion. “Let’s join hands and listen to Dad’s life story from the age of one, then let the jury decide his fate?”

“If that’s the way Shad wants to go, so be it.”

“What?”

“I trust the jury, Penn. Even at my age. You’re still a prosecutor at heart. I don’t think the jury’s so quick to cast stones.”

“But they are, Quentin. It’s human nature. With some jurors, the higher up you are, the more pleasure they take in pulling you down. With others, the more they worshipped you, the more furious they are when they find you’re not who they thought you were.”

“That’s a sad way to look at the world, brother. You should have a little more faith in your fellow man.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve been through too many murder trials for that.”

Quentin shrugs in his wheelchair. “If you think your father’s ready to trade me for you, go up to the men’s room by the holding cell upstairs. That’s where he is. Give it your best shot. I’ll abide by his decision.”