“I heard you had some trouble last night,” he begins, with a wink in his voice.

“Little bit.”

“You’re turning into a regular cowboy this year.”

“I’m not here to see you, Quentin. Where’s Dad?”

“Easy, Trigger. He’ll be out in a minute. I thought we ought to have a word first. What prompted this visit after all the distance?”

“The guy I shot gave me a message last night. A message for Dad. And for you.”

The green eyes register surprise. “A message from . . . ?”

“Snake Knox. And I did not tell the FBI that.”

Quentin rolls his tongue around his mouth, then swallows, as though drinking down this information. “What’s the message?”

“Word for word, he said, ‘Your daddy’s nigger lawyer’s gonna try to blame that old woman’s death on Snake.’”

“Colorful. Reminds me of my youth.”

“Then he gave me Snake’s message: ‘Wives and children have no immunity.’”

Quentin reflects on the words.

“What does that mean, Q?”

“It’s a threat, obviously. Against Peggy and Annie, I imagine.”

“That’s all? Nothing more?”

Now he looks blank. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. This was almost the last thing this guy said on earth. And I felt like there was more to it than a simple threat. He wanted to be sure I got the exact words.”

Quentin reaches out and squeezes my hand. “You were in the heat of action, boy. You’d just shot a man. Your neurons were firing at a thousand times their normal rate. Don’t read too much into it.”

I think about this for a while. “Is it true, what he said? Are you going to try to blame Viola’s death on Snake Knox?”

Quentin looks down at the floor and sighs. “Penn . . . I have been specifically instructed not to talk to you about my case strategy.”

“By Dad.”

A nod.

“Jesus Christ. Do you have evidence that Snake killed Viola?”

He looks up again, empathy and regret in his face. “I can’t talk about the case.”

“If you have such evidence, why not give it to the police or the FBI?”

“I can’t discuss it, Penn. But I will tell you this: There’s no way in hell that Snake or anybody else could have any idea of what my strategy is. Because I don’t know myself yet.”

This silences me for a few seconds. “Then why is Snake afraid that you might try to pin Viola on him? If Snake’s afraid of that, that must mean either he killed her, or he was there on the day of the murder and he’s afraid you can prove it.”

Quentin pushes out his lower lip. “All food for thought.”