He gives me a brief summary of the video I just watched in Henry Sexton’s Explorer. The DA clearly interprets Viola’s dying words as evidence of my father’s guilt.

“That doesn’t sound like proof of anything. It sounds like the confused ranting of a person having a heart attack.”

“Penn, you might as well save it for—”

“Viola was a trained nurse,” I point out. “Why would my father inject her? If she died as the result of an injection of any drug, she almost certainly gave it to herself.”

“Save it for the courtroom. I don’t have any choice here.”

I realize I’m breathing hard. “There’s got to be more, Shad. Come on. Murder One?”

The DA shifts in his seat. “I’m not going to let you hold that photo over my head like a sword. Before this is over, you’ll want to use it, but you’d better think long and hard before you do.”

I hear steel in his voice. “Why is that?”

“Better the devil you know—that’s why. You bust me, there’s no telling who’ll wind up in this chair. The judge could appoint a special prosecutor. And depending on the judge, there’s no telling who you might get.”

This is a veiled reference to Arthel Minor, the judge who colluded with Shad in the past. “I hear you,” I tell him. “But there’s something missing from this equation. I haven’t heard anything that suggests a motive for murder.”

Shad waves this objection away with a flick of his hand. “Malice aforethought is enough to get the state to murder. And in this type of case, intent alone is sufficient to meet the standard for malice.”

“By ‘this type of case,’ you mean an assisted suicide situation?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Shad tries to look inscrutable, but I see something flickering behind his civil-servant-trapped-by-duty mask. As hard as he’s trying to conceal it, Shad cannot hide the fierce joy burning within him. Fate has handed him a chance to pay me back a hundredfold, and by God, he means to use it.

“Are you implying my father killed Viola Turner not to relieve her suffering, but for some other reason?”

The DA blinks once, slowly. “I haven’t said that.”

You just did. “Shad, what’s really going on here? What are you sitting on?”

Shadrach rubs his temples with both hands, like a man in real pain. “As far as your father having a motive to kill Viola Turner, I’ve got more than you want to hear. But you won’t hear it in here. Not today. There are some lines I can’t cross, no matter what you threaten me with.”