“We don’t know where the adrenaline that killed Viola Turner came from. Nurse Melba Price testified that Dr. Cage had adrenaline in his office, and also in his black bag. But that could be said of many doctors in Natchez. The State did not find any adrenaline ampoule at the crime scene, or anywhere else.

“Might the adrenaline have come from Chicago? Possibly. Or could Lincoln Turner have broken into Tom Cage’s office sometime during those days he was secretly here, and used that very dose to kill his mother? I tend to doubt this, because Lincoln would have left the incriminating vial for us to find. So . . . there’s no certainty in the end. Not for us. Perhaps months or years hence, some guilty soul will cry out for release, and the truth will come to light at last. Whose soul might that be? We don’t know.”

Quentin pauses long enough for people to get nervous, then changes tack once more. “Did anyone but Lincoln and Cora have a motive to kill Viola Turner? We all know the answer to that. Viola was hated by one of the most racist and violent organizations ever formed in the United States. She was threatened by them forty years ago, before she left Natchez, and she was threatened only a week or so before she was murdered. Members of that group raped Viola in 1968 and most likely murdered her brother as well. Viola had seen them torture Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis on the night she was rescued from captivity by Tom Cage’s emissary, Ray Presley.

“For these reasons, those vicious men warned Viola that if she ever returned to Natchez, they would silence her forever. Well, Viola stayed away as long as she could. But like a lot of black folks who left Mississippi decades ago, she wanted to return home to die. But on her own terms, ladies and gentlemen. This poor woman had led a life of biblical suffering, and she wanted to have her final agony ended by a man she knew had loved her all her life. And what did she find? Dr. Cage offered her exactly what she sought—comfort in the face of pain and death. But the demons of Viola’s past had not been idle in her absence. Not by a long shot. And they lived in fear of being exposed.

“When Viola began talking to a crusading reporter, they came to her bedside and told her once again that she would die if she tried to tell the truth. But did she remain silent? No. She made the tape you saw this morning, and she changed her will to fund Henry Sexton’s investigations into her brother’s murder. Even from her sickbed, Viola Turner was a formidable adversary.