“I’m no fan of torture,” Walt went on, as though discussing his preference in fishing lures. “Ain’t productive, as a rule. But I’ve seen it produce results. Tom and I were medics during the Korean War. We saw a lot of pain. You know what I’m talking about. You saw what the Japanese did on the islands.”

Sonny made a sour face. “I’m not scared of you, you Texas shitkicker.”

Walt sighed and glanced back at Tom. Then he patted one of the Roadtrek’s seats. “Sonny, I’ve got a toolbox under here. And Tom’s got his black bag with him. I feel pretty confident that between us, we can make whatever you and Snake Knox did to them colored boys back in sixty-eight look like a Girl Scout picnic.”

Sonny glowered at them in silence.

Walt chuckled patiently. “Yeah, a dull pocketknife dragged over one tooth for ten minutes will turn a bad outlaw into jelly. An old Ranger showed me that trick. When the blade cuts down into the dentin, the pain kicks in something fierce. Most men start talking right then. But if you go all the way down to the nerve … hell, you can’t shut ’em up after that, not even if you try. You gotta knock ’em out with a two-by-four just to stop the screamin’.”

“I’ve got some local anesthetic,” Tom said, playing the good cop as instructed. “Once you tell us what we need to know, I’ll make the pain stop.”

Sonny’s eyes tracked from Tom to Walt, then back again. “All this goddamn gummin’,” he muttered. “You haven’t said what it is you want.”

“Who killed Viola?” Tom asked.

Thornfield looked blank. “You did. Didn’t you?”

Walt straightened up and kicked him in the gut. Sonny doubled over, gasping for air. After half a minute, he croaked, “That’s what everybody says, ain’t it?”

“You were there that night,” Tom said. “At her sister’s house. I saw the pickup truck with the Darlington Academy sticker on the back windshield, parked a quarter mile up the road. Not long before dawn.” Darlington had been founded by the White Citizens’ Council in 1969, the year of forced integration in Natchez. “Nobody in that part of town ever went to Darlington Academy.”

Sonny was obviously working something out in his head. “Unless you got a picture, nobody’s gonna believe you about that.”

Walt lifted the seat that concealed his toolbox, then brought out a green metal case and set it in the narrow walkway between the RV’s toilet and cooktop counter. Thornfield’s eyes locked on to the box. Walt opened it and brought out a small propane torch and a friction striker. With two quick compressions of his forefinger, he lit the torch, which filled the van with a chilling hiss as he adjusted the flame to a blue needle with a white-hot core.