Natchez Burning (16 page)

“Are you all right, Mr. Sexton?” asked the DA’s assistant.

Henry wiped his forehead, and his hand came away covered in sweat. He hadn’t realized how anxious he was.
What the hell?
he thought with amazement.
I’m copying evidence in a criminal case without permission.
Technically the hard drive belonged to him, of course, but still. Shad Johnson wouldn’t hesitate to jail him over something like that. “Do you have any water?”

“Through that door, down the hall.”

Henry found a water dispenser down the hall and drank two Dixie cups dry. Even the brief image of Viola Turner in obvious distress had shaken him to the core. Johnson’s revelation that he suspected Tom Cage of assisted suicide—or even murder—was too momentous for Henry to focus on now. He felt like an idiot for spending more than four hours with Viola Turner and failing to inspire enough faith for her to confide in him. After a third cup of water, he gathered himself, went back to the anteroom, and sat down.

“Wasn’t there a woman receptionist the last time I was here?” he asked distractedly.

“She got pregnant,” the young man said with apparent disdain.

Henry checked his watch twenty times before the DA’s door opened again, his mind on his upcoming interview across the river. Glenn Morehouse knew enough about the Double Eagles to break a dozen murder cases wide open, and Henry wasn’t about to postpone talking to him. If Shad Johnson didn’t come out of his office within five minutes, Henry was going to leave. He could retrieve his computer later. More than thirty minutes had passed since he’d started the video player for the DA. That made sense; the Superstream could hold thirty minutes of video at maximum resolution. What had Shad Johnson witnessed in that span of time? An assisted suicide? Or a brutal murder?

Thirty seconds before Henry’s self-imposed deadline, Johnson’s office door opened. With a sober look, the DA beckoned him back inside. Henry tried to read Johnson’s eyes, but he couldn’t tell much.

As soon as Shad closed the door behind Henry, he said, “That hard drive is evidence, Mr. Sexton. It’ll have to go into the evidence room at the sheriff’s department.”

“What’s on it?”

Shad sat down behind his desk. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

“That’s my newspaper’s property, sir.”

“It’s evidence in a criminal case. End of discussion.”

“What about freedom of the press?”

Johnson gave him a thin smile. “In this situation, that and four dollars will buy you a cup of coffee. You can file a protest or hire a constitutional specialist, but that disk drive is going to the evidence room.”

Henry considered arguing further for appearance’s sake, but he didn’t have the time or the energy for a show. As long as he got out of the office with his PowerBook, he would have his own copy of the video file.

“Mr. Sexton,” Johnson said, “you’re a serious journalist, and I know you care about people. I’m going to ask you not to tell anyone about the existence of this tape. I feel pretty sure you won’t do it immediately in any case, because you write for a weekly paper and you don’t want Caitlin Masters at the
Examiner
getting the jump on you.”

Henry colored but said nothing.

“This case is very delicate,” Johnson continued. “I’m going to proceed with the utmost caution and deliberation. Do you understand?”

“You mean it involves the mayor’s father, and you don’t want your ass hanging out on a limb until you know you’re right.”

Shad raised his right hand and pointed at Henry. “Don’t fuck with me, Henry. I’m not a man you want for an enemy.”

Henry believed this, but he’d irritated more frightening people than Shadrach Johnson in his time. “Does the drive show an assisted suicide? Or a murder?”

Johnson turned the question back on him. “Do you know why anyone would want to murder Mrs. Turner?”

Henry swallowed hard, but he held his silence.

“Take your computer and go, Mr. Sexton. I may ask you to appear before a grand jury in the near future.”

There it was. All Henry had to do was pack his Mac into his briefcase and leave. Yet he stood rooted to the carpet, like a Cub Scout itching to confess a lie.

“What’s the matter?” Johnson asked.

“There’s something you should know,” Henry said awkwardly.

“What?”

“Members of the Double Eagle group threatened to kill Viola Turner if she ever returned to Natchez.”

Shad thought about this for a few moments. “When was this threat made?”

“Before she moved to Chicago.”

The DA looked confused. “You mean forty years ago?”

“That’s right. Mrs. Turner told me this during our second interview.”

“You’re talking about the Ku Klux Klan?”

“
Not
the Ku Klux Klan,” Henry said, making his annoyance plain. “The Double Eagles. They killed a lot of people, and they probably kidnapped and killed Mrs. Turner’s brother.”

Shad snorted. “Are you suggesting that some seventy-year-old men went over and killed Viola Turner at five o’clock this morning?”

“I’m just telling you what I know.”

“What was the basis of this threat?”

“I believe the Double Eagles knew—or at least believed—that Viola Turner possessed information that could have convicted them for her brother’s murder.” Henry stopped, then added, “There’s also some evidence that the Double Eagles gang-raped Viola Turner back in 1968.”

“Did Mrs. Turner tell you that?”

“No. But I think she was just being modest. The rumor was pretty widely believed back in sixty-eight.”

“You’re talking about hearsay, Mr. Sexton. Even if such a rape occurred in 1968, the statute of limitations would have run out on that crime in 1975. No one could be prosecuted for it today.”

“There’s no statute of limitations on murder,” Henry said doggedly.

Johnson sighed. “I reviewed those case files, what little there was. Nobody ever found Jimmy Revels’s body. Luther Davis’s, either. You spend too much time living in the past, Henry.”

The reporter felt his shoulders sag. “A lot of people say that.”

“You can’t even see the obvious. If those Double Eagles were still active, they’d have killed
you,
not some nurse already circling the drain.” The DA shook his head like a man weary of dealing with a fool. “You’re free to go. I need to make some phone calls.”

Henry packed his computer into his briefcase and left the office.

AFTER ROSE CLEARED
my calendar of all noncritical appointments, I began researching legal precedents in cases similar to the circumstances Shad had described regarding Viola Turner’s death. One call to a law school friend in New Orleans confirmed what Shad had told me earlier: Anna Pou, a highly respected EENT physician, might well be charged with murder for organizing the euthanization of eleven patients who couldn’t be evacuated during the worst hours of the Katrina flood. While the circumstances of that case and my father’s are clearly different, what chilled my blood was my friend’s assertion that the prosecution was politically motivated.

Enter Shad Johnson
.

The fact that Dad has refused to give me any information about last night’s events is disturbing, yet it makes sense if he played some part in a physician-assisted suicide. In most similar situations, when someone makes a stink about the circumstances of death, common sense eventually prevails and no charges are filed. Based on the percentages, I should be able to assume that Viola’s son will soon realize that his mother’s wishes should trump all else. And yet … the longer I sit at my desk, the more intuition whispers that something out of the ordinary is happening. On impulse, I call the Illinois State Bar Association and inquire about Lincoln Turner. The woman I speak to informs me that four months ago, Turner’s law license was suspended pending a disbarment proceeding. She won’t elaborate on the phone, but a Nexis online search quickly tells me that he’s been accused of embezzling funds from a client escrow account. This is the sterling character accusing my father of murder.

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.

“This is fine, Henry. Let’s see it.”

He touches his Mac’s trackpad, and a three-by-five video window appears on the screen. A hospital bed stands in the corner of what appears to be a dim room in a private residence. First I hear a wail that sets my teeth on edge. Then I make out a skeletal figure thrashing in the covers as though trying to free itself from a knotted sheet. A gasping sound is clearly audible, punctuated by a repeated word that sounds like “Help.” The figure half falls off the bed, then reaches for something on the floor. At first I’m not sure what—then I see an empty phone cradle on the bedside table. Suddenly the scene makes sense. The desperate patient has knocked the phone onto the floor and hasn’t enough mobility to reach it.

“Help!” comes the strangled cry again. “Cora … help me.” A few wisps of white hair cling to the patient’s skull. In a moment of horror I realize that this emaciated figure must be what remained of the beautiful nurse I remember from my childhood. Viola’s right hand opens and closes like a claw, but she cannot twist herself out of the bed. “Lord, he’s killing me!” she cries. “Tom
… Tom! Why? Where are you?
”

My father’s name prickles every hair on my body. Henry’s barely breathing beside me. Somehow the old woman struggles back into a supine position in the bed, one hand pulling at her bare throat as though trying to rip away some invisible ligature. Sweat glistens on her face and forehead, and her breath comes far too fast. She’s going to hyperventilate, if she doesn’t stroke out first. Viola seems to have no idea that the camera is recording anything. But then again, maybe she does.

“Cora!” she screeches, but before she can continue, her gasping stops and her eyes bulge in their sockets. “Hail Mary … full of grace,” she coughs in a strangled voice. “Hail Mary full of—”

In mid-prayer Viola Turner’s mouth locks open, and she sits motionless for so long that I think she must be dead. Then in a final spasm she lurches to her left, throwing herself far enough that her upper torso falls out of the bed. She comes to rest with her lower body still tangled in the bedclothes, her right hand touching the floor near the telephone. I hear no more sounds of respiration. Not even a death rattle.

“She’s dead,” I say softly.

“I think so,” Henry agrees.

“Who else has seen this?”

“Me and the DA. Maybe the sheriff by now.”

“Jesus, Henry.”

“I know.”

Sexton’s video isn’t the most horrifying visual evidence I’ve ever seen—not by a long shot. During my years as an assistant DA in Houston, I heard and saw tapes made by narcissistic rapists, torture-killers, and other assorted freaks. But this video would go a long way toward convincing a jury that Viola Turner didn’t die by her own choice. Worse, many people might reasonably interpret her last words as a direct accusation against my father. I think the recording is equivocal on that point, but you never know how a jury will read something. If my father were vigorously defending himself on the stand (and had a good explanation for what the recording shows), a jury might believe him. But if he sat silently at the defense table, hiding behind the Fifth Amendment, they might well convict him.

“Is there anything but this on the rest of the recording?”

“Just twenty-eight minutes of her lying there.”

“You watched it all?”

“I fast-forwarded through it, but I’m pretty sure.”

My right hand is gripping the door handle so hard that my forearm cramps, but I can’t pull myself away from the computer screen. For the first time I notice the appointments in Viola’s sickroom. On the bedside table stands a white statuette of the Virgin Mary, and hanging on the wall behind the hospital bed are three framed photos: Abraham Lincoln; Martin Luther King Jr.; John and Robert Kennedy standing on the White House Colonnade, looking pensive. The bedside lamp is a faux gas lantern, and it stands on a lace doily—an impractical item to use near a sickbed. I also see a clock-radio, which clearly reads 5:38
A.M.