“That’s right.”
“Was that …?”
“The only copy?” I finish helpfully.
“Yes.”
I shrug.
His face darkens. “Now, see? Goddamn it, this is just what I expected. A veiled threat.”
“Shad, you ought to know me by now. If I make a threat, there won’t be any veil. Why don’t you just tell me why you summoned me? I thought maybe you were going to introduce me to Lincoln Turner.”
The DA barks a laugh. “You don’t want that, believe me. That guy’s angry enough to punch you out. Your father, for sure.”
“If the man’s so upset, why did he only get to town a half hour after his mother died?”
“Always the lawyer,” Shad says drily. “I don’t know much about Lincoln Turner yet, and I don’t much care to. Right now I just want to make sure things are clear between you and me. Because I’m going to have to move forward in this matter, Penn. I’ve got no choice.”
I expected this, but not quite so soon. “What exactly do you mean by ‘move forward’?”
Shad steeples his fingers and leans back in his chair. “When we spoke this morning, I thought we were dealing with a case of assisted suicide. Maybe just plain suicide, okay? I just wanted it to go away. And I believed there was some chance that it would.”
“But now?”
“This thing isn’t going away, Penn. No way.”
“What’s changed?”
“We’re looking at murder now.” The DA’s voice is like a wire drawn taut. “First-degree murder.”
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.”
Shad clearly wants me out of his office, but so long as he thinks I have the photo, he’ll handle me with kid gloves. “Lincoln Turner believes his mother was murdered. The physical evidence supports his assertion. And whether your fiancée chooses to print it in the paper or not, his assertion is likely to become a public accusation very soon. If the past is any guide, the rumor will be all over town long before tomorrow’s paper hits the streets.”