This stumps the reporter. He reaches out and gives one of the National’s tuning pegs a twist, then answers in a thoughtful voice. “What if the Eagles framed your father? They knew Dr. Cage was treating her, they saw a chance to blame him for their hit, and they seized their chance.”

“Then why isn’t Dad screaming from the rooftops that he’s innocent?”

Henry’s sad eyes move from the tuning pegs to my face. “They must have something on him. Something from the past that your father doesn’t want exposed.”

“Something he’d go to prison over? No way.”

Henry doesn’t look convinced. “Are you sure? Such things certainly exist, depending on a man’s concern over how people see him.”

“What could be that bad, Henry?”

The reporter clucks his tongue. “Let me tell you something my source said today. First, he inadvertently let slip that Viola had witnessed the torture of her brother and Luther Davis. When I asked why on earth the Eagles would have let her live after that, guess what he told me.”

“No idea.”

“‘If it hadn’t been for Ray Presley and Dr. Tom Cage, she wouldn’t have lived.’”

A chill of presentiment races along my back and shoulders, and I can see Henry knows I know the significance of Presley’s name.

“Ray was the dirtiest cop who ever set foot in Natchez,” he says, “and maybe even New Orleans. I know from your book that Presley was up to his neck in the Del Payton murder. And from other sources, I’ve gathered that Presley had a long-standing relationship with your father, which has always puzzled me. I can’t imagine what that was based on.”

My thoughts and memories swirl without coherence. Ray Presley was one of the worst human beings I’ve ever known, and I’ve met some deeply disturbed men in my career. Presley not only disgraced his badge and murdered men for money; he also raped my high school sweetheart, something I didn’t discover until almost twenty years after the fact.

“Henry … I can’t give you details, but when I was a kid, a woman in our family was in real danger. This was in another state, and the police refused to help. In fact, they were part of the problem. In desperation, Dad turned to Ray Presley. Ray took care of the problem, but as you might guess, he went outside the law to do it. And he held that over my father’s head until his own death.”

Henry thinks for a moment. “I see. Well … if your dad got Ray to help him in that case, then I guess he could have turned to Presley when Viola was in trouble. There’s no way Ray would have intervened to save Viola on his own hook.”

“Would my dad really have gone that far to save Viola?”

“She was his nurse for five years.”