Of course, Dad will never open this door again. At this moment, he is sitting in a jail cell, waiting to be transferred to a state prison in the Mississippi Delta that I’m told is close to hell on earth.

And he’s chosen to go there.

The visiting cubicle of the Adams County jail is no luxury accommodation, and I’ve occupied it as both visitor and prisoner. But never did I imagine that I would enter it to speak to a man who put himself here on purpose. Dad is supposedly being escorted to this depressing box, but I’ve been waiting ten minutes already.

I’d hoped to make my way here without crossing Sheriff Billy Byrd’s path, but word quickly spread of my arrival at the ACSO, and he made sure he was standing at the duty desk when I logged myself in. Byrd tried as hard as he could to bait me, but I refused to be goaded, and I left his gloating face behind me with the laughter of his deputies.

“Don’t pay ’em no mind, Mayor,” said the big black deputy who escorted me to the visiting room. “They don’t know nothin’ ’bout nothin’.”

“Thank you, Deputy . . . ?”

“McQuarters. Larry McQuarters. I been looking out for your daddy for Mr. Quentin.”

“I appreciate it, Larry. My whole family does.”

“I’ll have Doc in there soon as I can.”

The door beyond the metal screen opens, and my father edges into the cubicle with Larry McQuarters behind him. His hands are cuffed, his wrists bright red, but after he sits, his knees creaking in protest, Larry bends and unlocks the cuffs.

“You be good now, Doc. Sheriff Byrd be on my ass if he finds out I took these off.”

“Don’t worry, Larry,” Dad says with gratitude. “Thank you.”

The crappy fluorescent lights in this place don’t do the complexion any favors, and Dad’s prison pallor, which was masked by good clothes and light in the courtroom, is painfully obvious here. He looks through the metal screen without any obvious emotion I can read, except perhaps a dread of being asked things he would prefer not to speak about. If I’m going to get him to tell me about the night Viola died, I need to establish some kind of rapport with him.

“I’ve just come from the hospital.”

“How’s your mother doing?”

“Drew’s still evaluating her. He thinks she’s had a stroke.”

Dad must have heard this already, but he bows his head and murmurs something I can’t make out. Then he says, “Ask Drew to let me know as soon as he knows for sure.”

“You know he will. But I’ll remind him.”

“Thank you.”