Colonel Eklund looks up at the judge and nods with obvious respect for the office. Then, with a last look around the courtroom, he rises, steps out of the witness box, and walks to the center aisle. As he passes the defense table, he stops and looks my father full in the face. Then he straightens up, raises a wrinkled right hand, and snaps out a salute that would make a West Point officer proud. This act, a superior officer initiating a salute to a man of lower rank, is a courtesy reserved for winners of the Medal of Honor.

A flush of surprise and humility comes into my father’s cheeks. With a grating screech, he pushes his chair away from the table, comes slowly to his feet, and raises two rigid fingers to his brow with a faint echo of military precision. I feel my mother squeeze my right arm with her shaking hand.

As with the spitting incident, no one seems sure how to react. Shad stifles an objection as Colonel Eklund gives Dad an encouraging smile, then marches down the aisle. As he passes through the crowd, Walt Garrity stands and snaps out a salute. Colonel Eklund returns it, then marches on, to the big doors at the back of the room.

“I wish the jury had to vote right now,” Rusty whispers in my left ear. “Twelve to zero for acquittal, I guarantee.”

“Don’t be too sure,” I whisper back. “Pundits thought Bush père was untouchable after winning the Gulf War in ’91, and Clinton beat him.”

“A year later.”

Rusty is probably exaggerating the colonel’s impact, but one thing is sure: if anything can erase the memory of Major Powers spitting on Dad’s chest, Colonel Eklund’s salute comes closest.

For a moment I wonder if Quentin stage-managed that whole scene, but then I dismiss the idea. Neither my father nor Colonel Eklund would taint the memory of their service by trying to sway a jury in that way. Not even with the stakes as high as they are.

“Mr. Avery?” prompts Judge Elder. “You may call your next witness.”

“Your Honor, I’d like to recall Cora Revels, the victim’s sister, to the stand.”

Shad Johnson looks as surprised as I am by this move, but when I turn, I realize that our reaction is nothing compared to that of Viola’s sister.

Cora Revels looks terrified.

Chapter 50

Snake Knox was looking out over a field of kudzu in Rodney, Mississippi, when his burner phone rang for the first time that morning. He had no idea who the caller might be, and he was surprised when Toons Teufel identified himself in the exultant voice of a man happy to be delivering news.

“What the hell do you want?” Snake asked warily.

“We got back to surveilling your old Klan buddies, and just in time, too. Because one of them just flew the coop.”

“What are you talking about?”