“Viola had worked at Charity Hospital before Dr. Lucas hired her,” Dad goes on. “Young as she was, she’d done some of everything. Delivered babies, assisted with all kinds of surgery—you name it, she’d helped do it. More than I had, in some areas. Her Creole grandmother was a midwife in New Orleans, and Viola had spent several years with her as a girl. That’s where she picked up her French, and a lot of hard-earned medical knowledge besides. Most days, Viola and Esther could have run this clinic on their own.”

I start to ask another question, but Dad says, “I imagine the licensing requirements were stricter in Chicago than in Mississippi, though. I don’t think Viola had an easy time getting work when she got up there.”

“Did you stay in contact with her after she left Natchez?”

“No. She sent a couple of letters to the clinic, but I don’t think she put much truth in them. I saw her sister as a patient, and Cora told me things weren’t going too well for Viola ‘up north.’ Viola got married soon after she got there. Too soon, as it turned out. Women tend to do that during hard times. The pretty ones, anyway. She married some kind of con man. A hustler.”

A con man? “Do you know if he was the father of the son who’s down here? This Lincoln Turner?”

“I assume so. They have the same last name. But on the other hand, I don’t understand how he could be. Turner was the last name of the man Viola married down here, the one who was killed in Vietnam. It’s hard to believe she’d move to Chicago and marry a different man named Turner. But she didn’t talk to me about any of that, and I didn’t push it. He’s in jail now, by the way—the father.”

In jail? “That gives us something to think about.”

Dad arches his eyebrows.

“If Lincoln Turner was raised by a con man,” I say, “maybe he’s down here looking for money. This afternoon I called the Illinois State Bar Association and found out Lincoln is about to be disbarred.”

“Really? What for?”

“He apparently embezzled money from a client escrow account, and I got hints of a deeper scandal. Possible bribery of a judge. Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. I’ll find out more soon, but for now, what else can you tell me about Viola’s life in Chicago?”