“Hell, you couldn’t even do it! You got up at Henry Sexton’s funeral and asked everyone in the community to break their silence and tell what they knew about the Double Eagles. But nobody has come forward. Have they?”

“They’re afraid, Penn. And rightly so. Afraid for their wives, their children, afraid for themselves. But they can be turned. I treated most of those people at one time or another. They’re human beings. They have consciences. And they have vulnerabilities, just like we do.”

His request has jarred something deep within me. “Why do you want me to do this? Seriously. It’s a fool’s errand.”

“I don’t believe that. It will be dangerous, though. I’ve heard you’re wearing a bulletproof vest when you go out, and that’s good. But you should take a bodyguard everywhere you go. Don’t relax your vigilance for even one second.”

I’m incredulous that he would assume my assent to this plan. “Dad . . . I’m not doing this. You haven’t given me a thing to work with.”

With a long sigh he looks down at the floor. Then he looks up and almost inaudibly whispers, “I’ll give you something. On the night Viola died, there was a pickup truck parked in the trees on her road. There was a Darlington Academy sticker on the back windshield.”

This stops me. Darlington Academy was one of the “Christian schools” founded in response to school integration during the 1969/1970 school year. Darlington’s financial backers had been members of either the White Citizens’ Council or the Ku Klux Klan. Maybe both.

“Whose truck was that?” I ask.

“Walt did some digging, and our best guess is an old Double Eagle named Will Devine.”

“I remember Devine. He was in the jail on the day Sonny Thornfield was killed.”

“That’s right.”

“Kaiser told me Will Devine agreed to turn state’s evidence after Sonny’s murder, but after the FBI jet went down, he backed out.”

“But that proves he’s conflicted! You should start with Devine.”

“Why did Walt dig that up? Does Kaiser know about the Darlington Academy truck?”

Dad shakes his head.

“Why the hell not?”

Another sigh. “I can’t tell you that, son.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“We’re wasting time, Penn.”

Anger flashes through me. “Why even tell me this? What the hell do you think I can do?”

“Put pressure on Devine. Squeeze him and see if you can make him pop. Walt tried, but Will wouldn’t talk to him. Slammed the door in his face.”

“I’ll bet he did.”

Dad’s hollow eyes implore me across the inches that divide us. “I’m not asking for myself, Penn. It’s for the family.”

“Sure it is. Like everything else you’ve done, right?”

“No. Not everything. Most of this happened because of something selfish I did long ago. I fell in love with another woman.”