“You’d tell me if he was setting up house for you guys in Brazil or something, right?”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She flips her free hand as she might at any absurdity. “We’re not leaving our home because some ambitious DA has got it into his head to put Tom in jail. I can’t pretend I understand all this. I just have to have faith that what Tom’s doing is necessary.”

“Mom, don’t you think the time for blind faith has passed? Dad’s not only risking his own life. Good people are getting hurt. Henry Sexton may die. You and Annie are scared to death. I think we’re safe here for the time being, but I honestly don’t know. And Dad’s leaving us hanging out here without one word of explanation!”

She wipes her cheeks, then takes both my hands in hers. “I’ve been married to your father for fifty-three years,” she says in a voice edged with iron. “Tom has always done right by this family, and I’m not going to start second-guessing him now.”

Has he? I ask silently. Has he always done right by us? But I won’t force my mother to the edge of her faith, where a black maw of disillusionment must surely await. Not at this hour. I may have the strength to choose the truth over my father, but after fifty-three years, perhaps my mother must choose her husband over the truth. At least tonight.

“Where should I sleep?” she asks.

“There’s a twin bed in the room that connects to the master suite upstairs, where Annie is. You take that.”

“Where will you be?”

“Down here. I’ve got a lot to think about before tomorrow.”

My mother slips off the stool, gives me a long hug, then pads into the hall. Soon I hear the stairs creaking.

Alone in the kitchen, I open a Corona Extra and sit at the counter, wondering what in God’s name my father thinks he’s playing at. If Billy Byrd or Forrest Knox finds out that he’s jumped bail, he might not live until John Kaiser and the FBI reach Natchez tomorrow. Even if he does, I can’t be sure Kaiser will agree to protect him. By making himself a fugitive, Dad has placed himself outside the pale of the law.

Forcing this insanity from my mind, I remind myself that all I can do in the short run is prove that someone else killed Viola Turner. Putting pressure on Brody Royal and the Double Eagles seems the best way to do that, since they almost certainly planned and executed that crime. And if Walker Dennis can get a warrant to tap Royal’s telephones, then all I need to do is find a way to “shake the tree” of Brody Royal.