“The DA isn’t thinking about drug interactions. He’s not even thinking about assisted suicide anymore. Shad intends to charge you with murder.”
After a brief grimace, Dad takes a brown bottle from his inside coat pocket and places a tiny white pill under his tongue.
“Is that nitro? You’re having angina now?”
He nods distractedly. “I’m fine. Go on.”
“I wish I could spare you this, but I can’t. At first I assumed that Shad’s idea of murder was you giving Viola the morphine injection, which is technically murder but much less serious than what we’re facing now. This afternoon Shad told me that he’s planning to charge you with first-degree murder. He won’t give me details, but he claims to have strong evidence of motive on your part—a motive for premeditated murder.”
Dad looks incredulous. “What kind of motive?”
“Shad believes you wanted to silence Viola before she could reveal some information you want kept secret.”
“That’s preposterous.”
“That’s the contention of Viola’s son.”
“Johnson wouldn’t tell you what this information was?”
I shake my head. Part of me wants to ask the brutally blunt question about Viola and my father, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to do it. Confronting him about a possible affair with Viola feels like challenging Dwight Eisenhower about his wartime mistress.
“Dad,” I say instead, “I have something on Shad that would destroy his legal career, and he knows it. He wouldn’t risk moving against you unless he felt he had no other choice. Whatever Lincoln Turner told Shad, or showed him, Shad genuinely believes it was a motive for murder.”
My father ponders this revelation like a monk parsing contradictory passages in the Bible.
“Given what I just told you, is there anything you want to tell me now?”
He grunts and shifts position like a man with upper back pain. “No.”
Leaning forward, I speak with all the conviction I can muster. “There is nothing you could tell me today that would alter my opinion of you, or make me judge you. Nothing. You understand?”
He closes his eyes for a moment. “Are you so sure?”
“Yes. If you and Viola were closer than you should have been … I’ve got no problem with that.”
Nothing in his expression changes.
“If you and Viola had a euthanasia pact, I’ve got no problem with that, either. You ought to know that.” I look meaningfully to his left, where a portrait of me with Sarah and Annie sits framed. “Maybe something went wrong, or something unforeseen occurred. Whatever it was, you’re the only person who can shed light on that event. And if you don’t, you’re going to wind up on trial for murder.”
Dad’s face hardens. “If that’s true … then so be it.”
I groan with frustration. “Dad, the trusty old doctor-patient privilege defense isn’t going to fly in this case. You understand?”
“You’re mighty quick to make light of that. Penn, you once told me about a journalist who went to jail for three weeks to protect a source, and you couldn’t stop telling me how much you admired the man.”
“That’s different.”
“You’re right. This is far more serious. Do you realize how sacred the doctor-patient privilege is? I have patients secretly suffering from HIV, patients fighting suicidal depression, wives who’ve secretly had abortions, mothers who suspect their husbands of abusing their children, women who’ve been raped and never told the police, prominent drug addicts … the list is endless. If I were forced to reveal any of that in court, incalculable suffering would ensue. Yet you act like fighting to protect that secrecy is some quaint gesture. Do you expect me to raise a white flag at the first sign of danger? Surely you know me better than that. I’m seventy-three years old. If I choose this hill to make my stand, that’s my lookout.”
His righteous passion silences me, but only for a few moments. “I’m sorry if I sounded glib. But I’d understand your position a lot better if you only had yourself to worry about. What about Mom? Do you think she can stand waiting at home while you die slowly in Parchman Prison? Hell, in the shape you’re in, you might not even make it to Parchman. You could die in the county lockup awaiting trial. Think about the reality of that for Mom.”
“I am thinking of your mother,” Dad says in a tone somewhere between reverence and shame.
I shake my head. “I don’t believe it. You’re wracked with guilt about something. Fine. We’ve all done things we regret. But I don’t care what you might have done, and neither does Mom. Nothing on this earth could push us away from you.”