I have to struggle to hold my face immobile. Even with the video recording, I don’t see how he gets to first-degree murder. “What are you talking about?”

“Since we spoke this morning, new evidence has surfaced.”

“What kind of evidence are we talking about?”

“You know anybody else sitting in this chair would refuse to answer that question.”

“No other DA’s future would be hanging by a thread that I hold.”

Shad’s eyes blaze with frustrated anger. “I can’t give you the state’s case, damn it! Nobody knows that better than you. And based on the evidence I’ve seen so far, anybody sitting in this chair would proceed against your father. They’d be negligent not to.”

“What’s your evidence, Shad?” I ask patiently. “I need to know what my father’s facing.”

He angrily expels a rush of air. “The sheriff’s department took your father’s fingerprints off two empty ampoules of morphine and a large syringe found at the scene.”

I slowly digest this. Viola didn’t appear to have died from a morphine overdose on Henry’s recording. “They traced his fingerprints in less than a day?”

“Four years ago, your father registered for a concealed-carry permit. The Highway Patrol fingerprints all applicants for that. When the sheriff’s department fed the prints from the syringe into AFIS, Dr. Cage’s name popped right out.”

“All that proves is that my father held that syringe at some point prior to it being collected at the scene. It doesn’t even put him in the house.”

“Viola’s sister put him in the house. Cora Revels.”

“She says she left Dad alone with Viola?”

“That’s right. She went to a neighbor’s house and fell asleep on the couch.”

My mind flies back to Henry’s video. “Are you certain that Viola died of a morphine overdose?”

Shad gives a small shrug. “You know we can’t be sure of that until the toxicology comes back. That could take weeks.”

“Ask the state crime lab to rush it. They’ll do that for you on a murder case.”

“Are you telling me how to run this case?”

“I’m not convinced this is a case. I think you’re jumping the gun.”

Shad looks genuinely upset. “Penn, you’ve sat where I’m sitting. No child in the world wants to believe his parent committed a terrible crime. But I have a duty here. If I shirk it, I’ll be buried by public opinion as surely as if you published that photo in the Examiner.”

“I honestly don’t see how you get to first-degree murder. But I didn’t go to Harvard like you. Help me out here.”