Henry’s heart thumped. “What’s that?”

“About Jimmy and Luther. I told you Frank picked them because they was black Muslims, running guns.”

“I knew that wasn’t true. I always knew Jimmy was the real target, because of his civil rights work.”

Morehouse wheezed into the phone. “If you think that, you’re just as dumb as I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“Jimmy Revels wasn’t the real target.”

Henry felt like he’d been punched in the gut. “Then who was? Luther Davis?”

“Hell, no.”

“Glenn … what the hell are you tryin’ to say?”

“The real target was Bobby Kennedy.”

Henry gulped. “What?”

“Senator Robert Francis Kennedy.”

“Glenn, that’s crazy. You must be drunk. That’s nuts.”

“You think so? You ever hear of the Ben Chester White case?”

“You know I have.”

“Well, this was like that.”

Henry’s mind raced over the White case, which involved the brutal murder of a sixty-seven-year-old black handyman just outside Natchez. In June 1966, some Klansmen had offered White two dollars and an orange soda pop to “help them find their lost dog.” Then they drove him out into the woods and shot him close to twenty times. Out of a hundred details of that crime, one lit up like fireworks behind Henry’s eyes: Ben Chester White was murdered to lure Martin Luther King to Natchez, so that he could be assassinated.

In a quavering voice, Henry said, “Say it plain, Glenn. I don’t want to make assumptions.”

“The whole damn operation got FUBAR, but it started with Frank, way back on the sandbar, the day he founded the Eagles. Then Brody Royal and Carlos Marcello got into it. Nobody hated Bobby Kennedy like Carlos …”

Henry took out a pen and started writing as fast as he could.

CHAPTER 15

EVERY DOCTOR EVENTUALLY commits murder.

All physicians make mistakes, both of commission and omission, and sooner or later one will be fatal. But some doctors kill more directly. When certain patients near death, these physicians walk the legally sanctioned road of withdrawing nourishment or mechanical support, allowing a “natural” death to occur. Others kill more purposefully, by actually providing the drugs for patients to make a permanent end to their suffering. But a few physicians—the brave or the mad—walk the last mile and administer the lethal drug themselves, usually for those too ill to do so. To some people, those few doctors are criminals; to others—to the gravely ill and their families—they can be angels of mercy. My father has probably done all of the above. And now, barring a miracle, he, unlike so many of his colleagues before him, will be charged with murder.