Something in my voice must have sounded more sinister than I intended, because Dad’s eyes are wide with shock. “You don’t mean kill him?”

“God, no. I just told you his death wasn’t necessarily a solution.”

Relief washes over his face.

“Everything depends on that gun.”

“What are you suggesting? That we steal it?”

“No. We buy it.”

Dad shakes his head. “Ray will never sell it.”

“Everybody has a price. And we know Presley needs money.”

“You just said it could be a meal ticket for his kids for years.”

“Presley knows me. By reputation, at least. I’m a nationally known prosecutor, a famous author. If I stand for anything, it’s integrity. Same as you. I’ll show Presley a carrot and a stick. He can sell me the gun, or he can watch me go to the D.A. and stake my reputation on convincing the authorities that you’re innocent. I have contacts from Houston to Washington. You and I are pillars of our communities. Ray Presley’s a convicted felon. At various times he’s probably been suspected of several murders. He’ll sell me the gun.”

A spark of hope has entered Dad’s eyes, but fear still masks it, dull and gray and alien to my image of him. “Buying evidence with intent to . . . to destroy it,” he says. “What kind of crime is that?”

“It’s a felony. Major-league.”

“You can’t do it, Penn.”

His hands are shaking. This thing has been eating at him every day for twenty-five years. Long before Presley’s blackmail began. God, how he must have sweated during the malpractice trial, worrying that Leo Marston would learn about Hillman’s murder from Presley, his paid lackey. I saw this situation a hundred times as a prosecutor. A man lives morally all his life, then in one weak moment commits an act that damns him in his own eyes and threatens his liberty, even his life. Seeing my father in this trap unnerves me. And yet, to get him out of it, I am contemplating committing a felony myself.

“You’re right,” I tell him. “We’ve got to take the high road.”

“Talk to Mackey?”

“Yes. But I want to feel him out first. I’ll call him tonight. Maybe stop by his house.”

“He won’t be home. There’s a party tonight, a fund-raiser for Wiley Warren.” Riley Warren—nickname “Wiley”—is the incumbent mayor. “Your mother and I were invited, but we weren’t going to go.”

“Mackey will be there?”

“He’s a big supporter of Warren’s. You’re invited, by the way.”

“By you?”

“No. By Don Perry, the surgeon hosting the party. He stopped me at the hospital after lunch and asked me to bring you along.”

“Why would he do that? Especially after the story in the paper?”

“Why do you think? It’s a fund-raising party, and he thinks you’re loaded.”