“Viola didn’t show up for work. And she never missed work.”

“Did you report your suspicion that she had been kidnapped to the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I was the police physician. I knew that several local police officers were members of the Ku Klux Klan.”

“I see. What did you do?

“I hired a patient of mine, a former policeman named Ray Presley, to find Viola.”

An excited murmur runs through the crowd. The name Ray Presley is well known to many in the room.

“And did he? Find her, I mean?”

“Yes. Ray found Viola in a machine shop. She was being held prisoner by members of the Double Eagle group. Her brother and Luther Davis were also being held there.”

“Did Presley ever tell you which Double Eagles were there?”

“No. But Viola named them on the videotape that I erased.”

“Did she also describe the murder of Frank Knox on that tape?”

“She did. That’s one of the reasons I erased it.”

Several spectators croon with satisfaction as the pieces of the puzzle begin falling into place.

“Who did she name on the tape?” Quentin asks.

“The same men who had raped her before, plus some others. But dozens of men witnessed or took part in that crime. It was a nightmare. Frank Knox, Forrest Knox, Sonny Thornfield, and Morehouse are dead, but Snake Knox was attending these proceedings when Will Devine was murdered in this witness box.”

“Objection,” Shad snaps. “Assuming facts not in evidence.”

“Sustained.”

Joe Elder can sustain all he wants, but the jury’s memory of Will Devine six feet from where Dad is sitting must make the malevolence of Snake Knox almost tangible in this room.

“What did Ray Presley do when he found Viola?” Quentin asks.

“He broke into the machine shop and freed her at gunpoint. She was being sexually abused at the time, by that much larger group of men.”

Hisses of revulsion fill the courtroom, and I see Judge Elder’s arm moving toward his gavel.

“What about Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis?”

“Ray left them behind.”

The spectators can hardly contain themselves now. Dad’s testimony about such events in their hometown beats any movie they will ever see.

“He abandoned those boys to the mercy of known killers?” Quentin asks. “Why?”

“Ray didn’t believe he would get out alive if he tried to take them, too. Or if he did, he wouldn’t escape retribution later. Presley worked on both sides of the law, and he had complex loyalties.”

“But he was loyal enough to you to rescue Viola from the Double Eagles?”

“He owed me a favor. More than one, actually.”

“How did Viola react to the fact that her brother had been left behind?”