So why won’t Dad defend himself? He’s almost never kept secrets from me, not even in dire circumstances, yet this time something is forcing him out of character. And he’s not the only one. Shad Johnson and I share too much history for me to buy into his stated desire to be helpful to my family.

Sure enough, when Shad calls back, I detect a suppressed excitement not present during our first two conversations. It’s that excitement that drives me out of my office and onto State Street, making for the DA’s office at a fast walk.

The first time someone calls out to me, it barely registers. But when the speaker raises his voice and calls my first name, I turn to see Henry Sexton of the Concordia Beacon hailing me from the window of his Explorer. My first instinct is to wave to the reporter and walk on, but the urgency in his voice persuades me to go over to his window. When he tells me he has information concerning my father and Viola Turner, my heart does a double thump before recovering its normal beat. As I climb into the passenger seat, I realize that Henry is truly upset. In fact, he looks like he’s been crying.

“Are you okay?” I ask. “What’s happened?”

“I only have a few minutes,” he says anxiously. “But there’s something you need to see.”

“What’s going on, Henry?”

In a breathless voice, the reporter tells me a disjointed story that starts my pulse speeding, but it’s clear that Henry wants to help me, or at least my father. The one fact I’ve gleaned is that I need to see whatever’s on his computer before I speak to Shad Johnson.

“I’d better pull around the corner before I play the file for you,” Henry says. “Shad could look out his window and see us sitting here.”

“Do it.”

The reporter slides his Mac onto my lap, looks furtively up at the sheriff’s office, then drives up State Street and turns on Commerce.

I’ve always considered Henry Sexton to be a modern-day Don Quixote, and for that reason I trust him. I’ve been accused of having the same complex, but I’m nowhere near Henry’s league. The articles he writes about unsolved civil rights murders occasionally attract the odd death threat or flying bottle by way of criticism. The man himself is tall and lanky, with the perpetually sad eyes of a faithful hound. With his wire-rimmed glasses and a goatee, he looks like a cross between a college professor and a biologist you’d expect to find checking the acidity of catfish ponds.

“How about here?” Henry asks, pulling up before the old Jewish temple on Commerce Street. My town house is just around the corner, on Washington, but Shad is expecting me in his office at any moment.