“I’m sure you’re right,” Henry says, but he sounds less than sure.

“My daughter’s going to be wondering where I am. Tell me about the Revels case. No offense, but I came to find out about Viola Turner. I came to help my father.”

“I know. And though I don’t quite understand how yet, I believe that whatever saves your father is going to be what destroys Brody Royal.”

This idea has an appealing symmetry, but I have yet to be convinced. “Jimmy Revels and Luther Davis. Go.”

“Jimmy and Luther were last seen in Natchez, Mississippi, on March twenty-seventh, 1968. After that, they dropped off the planet. Two months earlier, they’d gotten into a brawl with three Double Eagles at a whites-only drive-in that resulted in a highway chase and a fight on the road. Shots were fired, but no one sought treatment at any area hospital. I suspect your father may have patched them up, but I can’t prove that. The FBI never classified these cases as murders, because they had no bodies. But everyone knew they’d been killed by the Double Eagles. I always assumed Jimmy was the main target, because he was a civil rights activist. He’d worked hard to register black voters, he played a role in the Natchez boycott, he led marches, and he played music at civil rights rallies.”

“Why did people assume the Double Eagles killed them, rather than the Klan? Because of the brawl?”

“Mostly. After the brawl, Jimmy and Luther went into hiding at a place called Freewoods, a kind of outlaw sanctuary. Nobody knew where they were. When the Eagles couldn’t locate those boys after six weeks, they decided to rape Viola.”

“To draw Jimmy out of hiding.”

“Exactly. The rumor started spreading on March twenty-seventh. I wasn’t sure it was more than a rumor until today. My Eagle source confirmed it.”

“So how were you wrong about the Revels case?”

Henry’s basset hound expression returns. “I was wrong about the most critical part—the motive behind it. Jimmy Revels wasn’t the real target.”

“Who was?”

Henry takes a long pull of coffee. “Hold on to your ass, bubba. The target was Robert Kennedy.”

I set down my cup and stare at him in shock. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Are you familiar with the Ben Chester White case?”

“I think so. Three Klansmen murdered a harmless old black man in the Homochitto National Forest.”

“Do you remember their motive?”

My mind races back through endless case summaries. “The Klansmen asked the old man to help them find a lost dog. But …” The answer hits me like an unexpected blow. “They wanted to lure Martin Luther King to Natchez. To assassinate him.”

Henry’s cheeks have flushed red, and not from the whiskey. “They weren’t the only guys to have that idea.”

“But Robert Kennedy? Why would the Eagles want him dead?”