“But all this is speculation. Lincoln Turner was raised where he was, and he grew into the man who testified before you. A man who admitted that he lied on the stand in an effort to steal his own mother’s life savings. But far more disturbing is that, even when given an opportunity to come clean before you, he chose to hide his deepest lie. Despite telling you a heartbreaking story about a prodigal son racing from Chicago to Natchez to reach his dying mother in time to forgive her—and failing because of the alleged crime of the defendant—Mr. Turner was actually in Natchez four days prior to his mother’s death. Yet he deliberately chose not to speak to her at all. What reason Lincoln Turner might have for lying about his presence here, I leave to you good ladies and gentlemen, and to the law enforcement authorities of this county.”

Up come Quentin’s hands with their long and graceful fingers, and he begins enumerating points upon them. When he speaks this way, every assertion he makes takes on a tone of unassailability.

“Did someone murder Viola Turner? Yes, indeed. Cruelly and without mercy, as we all saw on the grisly recording accidentally captured on the camera belonging to the late Henry Sexton. Do we know who inflicted that terrible suffering and death on Viola Turner? We do not. Can we guess who might have done it? I submit to you that we all have a pretty good idea.

“Ironically, though, our ideas may be different. Some of you may think Lincoln himself did it. From the testimony in this trial, it’s manifestly clear that he possessed the motive, the means, and the opportunity to kill his mother. We know he was in Cora Revels’s house on the morning of her death. He claimed to have arrived at the house after she died, but he made similar claims about his arrival in Natchez, did he not? Who is to say when he really got there? Cora Revels?”

Quentin shakes his head with sadness and contempt. “What did I tell you my daddy used to tell me? ‘Half the truth is a whole lie.’ Well, forget half the truth. Cora Revels and Lincoln Turner convicted themselves as liars out of their own mouths. What weight should a reasonable person give to the words of proven deceivers? I know what my mama used to say: ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.’

“We also know that, like his aunt Cora, Lincoln wanted his mother’s money—money that Viola had decided to spend in the quest to find justice for her martyred brother, Jimmy Revels.