Keisha Harvin’s brothers arrived from Alabama in the small hours of Friday morning. Despite the time, John Kaiser arranged for them to see their sister in the St. Catherine’s ICU. I didn’t see the two brothers until later that morning, when I went to check on Keisha. Both were big men, but it was obvious which one had played defensive tackle for Auburn. Everything about Roosevelt Harvin was round: head like an oversized bowling ball, arms like anacondas, thighs like live oak trunks. The man’s hands defied description: they weren’t simply huge; he looked as if he could open the valve on a fire hydrant without a wrench. His brother, Aaron—who was maybe thirty—was big by conventional standards, but at least he fell within the normal frame of reference. He had a close-trimmed mustache and looked like a ladies’ man.

When I saw the two of them standing over their sister’s hospital bed, Roosevelt’s big tears falling on the sheet beside Keisha’s scarred face and taped-shut eyes, I had no idea what to say. After I quietly introduced myself, Aaron shook his head and said, “I’d cry, but I done cried all my water out.”

“Look what they done to her, Mr. Cage,” said Roosevelt, his hand on her upper arm. “Why they did that?”

My deepest fear was that Keisha’s attackers had chosen her because they could not get to me or my family. But I couldn’t bring myself to voice that here.

“They didn’t like the stories she was writing.”

“She was writing the truth, wasn’t she?”

“These assholes don’t like the truth. Pardon my language.”

Roosevelt nodded.

Aaron said, “They killed your fiancée a few months back, huh? Keisha’s boss?”

“That’s right.”

“I seen you got bodyguards around your family now. I met your little girl earlier this morning. I like her.”

“Thank you. Yes, the Double Eagle group has made several death threats against us.”

Both men stared at me for a while without speaking. Then Aaron said softly, “Keisha thought maybe after Ms. Masters got murdered, you, uh, maybe took things into your own hands. Killed that Knox fella. That dirty cop.”

I looked back at them but acknowledged nothing.

“Li’l K didn’t want to make a thing out of it,” Aaron went on. “That’s what we call her in the family, Li’l K. She said guy killed your fiancée, and if you’d wasted him, you was right to do it.”

I communicated as much as I could to them without speaking.

Roosevelt nodded, then squinted and said, “The man who owns the newspaper don’t pay no security for my baby sister?”