I naively assumed that only the attorneys would be aware of the side drama of the videotapes, but Shad Johnson has taken advantage of the delay to address the reporters gathered at the foot of the courthouse steps. The first thing I hear when the sound comes up is Shad opining that the “St. Catherine’s Hospital Dumpster tape” might break the case wide open.

“That won’t endear Shadrach to Judge Elder,” I mutter.

“He doesn’t care,” Quentin says. “He’s decided that the potential upside of this is worth any sanction Joe might impose on him.”

Shad looks positively ebullient on camera, and if he knew for sure that Quentin is about to call my father to the stand, he might pop open some Dom Perignon on the courthouse lawn.

By the time the BATF gives the all clear and everyone reaches their assigned places in the courtroom, the spectators in the gallery have somehow intuited that Dad means to take the stand. After all, didn’t Quentin Avery promise that he would?

Dad certainly looks ready for his turn in the spotlight. He’s wearing a charcoal suit, and thanks to my mother’s relentless insistence, his white hair and beard have been carefully trimmed. He looks about as distinguished as it’s possible to look after three months in jail, yet the signs of his failing health can’t be missed.

His skin is as pale as that of an Arctic researcher after long months of night, and a fine sprinkling of dandruff already powders the shoulders of his jacket, as though he’s just come in from a snowfall. Hollow cheeks make his weight loss obvious, while crooked fingers and pitted, spooned nails reveal the extent of his psoriatic arthritis. If he were wearing shorts, the edema in his legs would betray the severity of his heart failure, but thankfully his legs are covered. Even his wise eyes appear dull today, their luster gone, and when he finally enters the witness box to be sworn in, the powerful baritone that always reassured his patients is barely a whisper.

The circuit clerk holds an old Bible beneath his hand, then says without the slightest drama, “Do you, Thomas Jefferson Cage, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under penalty of law, so help you God?”

“I so swear.”

A religious oath is rarely used in American courts nowadays, but this is Mississippi. We have the highest per-capita number of churches and the lowest literacy rate (as Caitlin never tired of reminding me), and such traditions die hard. My father long ago abandoned the simplistic religious beliefs of his childhood, and after forty years of practicing medicine has found no real comfort in any of the world’s faiths. Yet today he gave the prudent answer when the Bible was held beneath his hand.

Was that, I wonder uncomfortably, his first lie?