Quentin could argue another exception to the hearsay rule, but he doesn’t. As he and Dad continue, I’m surprised Shad doesn’t object more often. Perhaps he knows that if he does, Quentin will argue that everything Viola said to Dad that night could be considered some sort of exception, as there are so many and Quentin undoubtedly knows them all. But more likely, Shad well knows that he induced his witnesses to break the hearsay rules almost continuously, making discretion the better part of valor now.

“Despite the Double Eagle threat,” Dad says, “the recent one, Viola told Snake Knox and Sonny Thornfield that she would not stop talking to Mr. Sexton, and that they would have to kill her to shut her up.”

Quentin’s voice conveys surprise and more than a little skepticism. “Did Mrs. Turner call the police about this incident?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because she wanted those men to kill her.”

Chapter 63

It takes Judge Elder half a minute to silence the gallery after Dad’s assertion that Viola had wanted the Double Eagles to kill her.

“I beg your pardon, Doctor?” Quentin says. “Are you suggesting that Viola Turner wanted to be murdered?”

“Yes, sir. She discussed it with me.”

“Why would she want to be murdered?”

“So that the men who had destroyed her family would finally be punished.”

“I think we’re going to need you to explain that, Doctor.”

Dad folds his hands together and speaks directly to the jury. For the first time, his voice begins to rise in volume, taking on some of its old power and persuasiveness.

“As has been testified already, Viola was gang-raped in 1968 by five members of the Double Eagle group. They were Frank Knox, Frank’s teenage son Forrest, Frank’s brother Snake, Sonny Thornfield, and Glenn Morehouse. Those men brutalized Viola for hours in her home. The trauma of this experience scarred her forever. Viola was never the same afterwards. She ended our relationship because of that crime, although she must have been pregnant by then. It’s a miracle that the child survived at all, considering what they did to her.”

Quentin appears to be as shocked as the audience by these statements. “And you’re telling us that, for this reason, Viola was willing to be murdered? To punish the men who had raped her?”

“It’s not that simple. Viola had suffered much more than rape at their hands. At the time Viola was assaulted, her brother, Jimmy, and another civil rights activist named Luther Davis were in hiding. The Double Eagles raped Viola in an effort to lure them into the open. And their plan worked. Jimmy and Luther did leave their refuge—a place called Freewoods—shortly after the rape, and then they disappeared. Of course, Viola also broke off her relationship with me shortly after the rape.”

“How long had your affair been going on?”