As deliberately as I can, I explain about Henry Sexton and the hard drive mounted on the camera left in Viola’s sickroom. “The mini-DV tape was missing,” I conclude, “but the hard drive was still there. Viola must have rolled over the remote control in her death throes. And that’s what got recorded. Shad Johnson has no idea I’ve seen the recording, of course.”

Dad is staring at me with an inscrutable expression. “What did you see?”

“Viola dying. But it sure didn’t look like any morphine overdose.”

“Why do you say that?”

I pause before answering. “If you have to ask me that, you weren’t in the room.”

Dad’s gaze seems locked on some obscure title in the bookshelves to my left. A defense mechanism. “Penn, please just tell me.”

“It looked like some sort of heart attack to me, or maybe a drug reaction. Possibly a stroke. She was short of breath, gasping, sweating. She was trying to reach a telephone that had fallen onto the floor. Whatever the underlying problem was, she called out your name twice. And the district attorney thinks that’s tantamount to an accusation of guilt. A dying accusation, in fact—which carries more weight, legally speaking.”

Dad appears not only lost in thought, but strangely untroubled by my words. Part of me wants to shake him until he faces up to the looming danger, but another wants to spare him all the stress I can (as my mother begged me to do) and minimize the chance of another heart attack.

“Shad’s full of shit, of course,” I say.

Dad cuts his eyes at me. “Why do you say that?”

“Because if you’d helped Viola to die, she would have died painlessly. And you would have held her hand to the very end.”

He looks back at me without blinking. “Are you sure you know me so well?”

“Yes. Dad, a lot has happened since we spoke this morning. That video isn’t your only problem. The sheriff’s department has a syringe with your fingerprints on it, and also two prescription vials of morphine sulfate, with you listed as the prescribing physician. Worse, Viola’s sister has stated that you and Viola had a euthanasia pact, and I gather she’s willing to testify to that. Cora Revels will establish that you’ve been treating Viola for the past few weeks. I don’t know what other physical evidence they have, but they’ll get toxicology back from the medical examiner in Jackson before long. If they rush it, we’re liable to know what killed her in two or three days.”

“That should make interesting reading.”

“You don’t already know what it will say?”