“Do you know what strikes me most about your testimony, Doctor? That so little of it can be substantiated. Oh, it’s a known fact that Snake Knox was a member of the Double Eagle group. But there’s no proof whatever that he or anyone else threatened to kill Viola Turner. No one has come forward with any audiotape, and the police found nothing like that at the crime scene.”

When I glance back at Lincoln, I find him staring a hole through me. He knows that such a tape exists—or did—yet he says nothing. Would he sell me that tape for a million dollars now? Or would he rather watch his father twist in the wind? Or has he taken the choice out of his own hands by destroying it, as he threatened to do?

“The things you attribute to Will Devine cannot be substantiated,” Shad goes on, “for the man himself is dead.”

“Murdered before our eyes,” Dad responds. “After coming forward voluntarily to testify against his former comrades in arms. Don’t you find that a little suspicious?”

Shad’s temper shows in his taut smile. “Dr. Cage, I can’t account for the private feuds of former Ku Klux Klansmen. If Mr. Devine corroborated any of your statements on the record before he died, I’d certainly welcome seeing the evidence. But my understanding is that Mr. Devine refused to tell the FBI anything about what he was going to say on the stand.”

Dad shrugs. “I believe Mr. Devine meant to unburden his soul before he died. I can relate to that sentiment.”

“Can you really? As for all you claim that Viola Turner said on the night she died, we have only your word for it—you, the man accused of killing her. And that brings us to the only evidence we may actually be able to use to test you. The erased videotapes.”

Again Dad shows no reaction.

“Dr. Cage, you admitted that you erased one tape after Mrs. Turner’s death because it contained information you couldn’t bear to have made public.”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t bear it. I said I would prefer my wife and children not have to deal with it.”

“Hair-splitting, Doctor. But what I wonder is, what else did that tape contain? Did it show you killing Viola Turner?”

“No.”

“You’re under oath, sir.”

“It couldn’t have shown that. Because I didn’t kill Viola.”

I shake my head, knowing that Shad’s sole objective is to elicit statements from my father that the tapes will prove were lies.

“Did it show you injecting her with morphine?”

“No.”

“Do you appear on that tape at all?”

“No. Viola finished making that tape before I ever arrived at the house that night. She talked about me on it, but that’s all.”

God, I hope he’s telling the truth. Surely he knows he must—