A chill goes through me. ”What was his name?“

”Doesn’t matter.“ Quentin looks back at the river. ”The point is, I spent three days and nights going over that case. I had two associates helping me. And we couldn’t find one chink in the wall of evidence that had convicted that boy. There wasn’t a glimmer of hope. I gave the family back their files and flew home.“ He spits over the brick wall of the balcony, then turns to me. ”I don’t believe in the death penalty, Penn, not in this mortal world. It’s applied unfairly, and innocent men are executed. But I will say this: according to the law of the land, that boy in Huntsville got exactly what he deserved. And you have nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve reviewed a lot of death penalty cases, and that was the best work I’ve ever seen.“

”Why are you telling me this?“

”Because that’s the reason the two of us are standing here now, working together. We’re about to go through some shit, you and I. And I want you to know I know you’ve got what it takes to do it. Now, if you want to do your friend any good, you’re going to have to start looking at the facts as coldly as you would if you were dealing with some dead-eyed killer in Texas.“

”It’s hard for me to look at Drew like that.“

”That’s because he’s white.“

I feel my back stiffen. ”That’s not true. I sent five white men to death row. I killed a white supremacist myself.“

Quentin shakes his head like a patient tutor. ”I said he’s white, not white trash. When you look at Drew Elliott, you see yourself. When you look at Kate Townsend, you see your sister, or your daughter, or your mother. How do you think I got so many black men off of death row? When I looked at them, I saw myself. Or what could have been me, with just a tiny push at the wrong time.“

”I see what you mean. So, you’re telling me not to try to find Cyrus?“

”Damned straight. As long as Cyrus White stays a mystery, he’s our acquittal on the hoof. The last thing we want is that depraved hoodlum on the witness stand telling a jury how Kate was scoring dope for Drew’s wife. You get me?“

”Yes. Only…“

”What?“

”I tried a lot of murder cases, Quentin. If you don’t really know what happened at a crime scene, you can get your ass handed to you in court.“

”Stop thinking like a prosecutor. We’re the defense, boy! We don’tcare what really happened at the crime scene. We don’t even want to know. All we care about is reasonable doubt. That’s your mantra from now on. I want you saying it in your sleep: reasonable doubt. Say it, man! It’s like, ’Show me the money!‘ “ Quentin grins. ”Come on…reasonable doubt.“

I’d like to humor him, but at bottom I just don’t believe in his strategy.

He puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. ”It’s human nature to want to know the truth, Penn. But what if the truth is that your best friend flew into a jealous rage, raped that girl in the ass, and strangled her to death?“

Quentin’s frank tone tells me that he fully believes in this possibility. I know what he’s trying to do, but I simply can’t abandon my faith in my friend. If I do that, I abandon my faith in myself. ”I don’t think that’s what happened.“

”But you don’t know. And at least until this trial is over, that’s the way I want it. Because if you find out that is what happened, you won’t be any earthly good to me or Drew Elliott. And I need your help. Just remember, you’re the foot soldier here, not the general.“

”I got it.“

”Make sure you do.“

Cemetery Road runs through the old black section of town, past the Little Theater and up along the two-hundred-foot bluff that stretches along the Mississippi River north of town. The road is narrow, bordered on the right by a low stone wall and on the left by a tangle of kudzu that festoons the bluff from top to bottom. As I pass the second wrought-iron gate in the cemetery wall, I realize that my plan to photograph the mourners at Kate’s interment is impractical. The turnout for burials is usually much smaller than that for funeral services, but the faded green tent over Kate’s open grave is surrounded by more than a hundred people.

I drive past the third gate in the wall, pass a row of shacks on my left, then turn right into the fourth gate, which lets me drive up the back side of Jewish Hill, the highest point in the cemetery. Jewish Hill holds the remains of Natchez’s second-generation Jewish settlers, and it has the best view of the Mississippi River anywhere in the nation. I take my camera and walk past the stones of the Rothstein and Schwarz families, then stop behind a wall in the Cohen plot. From here I can see the whole sweep of the ninety-acre cemetery.

This ground was consecrated in 1822, but some of the coffins were moved here from an even older graveyard, where Natchez settlers were buried in the early 1700s. Kate Townsend’s grave has been dug in an area near the bluff called the Zurhellen Addition. It lies between the steep rise of Jewish Hill and the long row of majestic oak trees that borders the next section of graves to the south. About forty yards in front of Kate’s grave, near the stone wall at the edge of the cemetery, stands the most famous monument in this city of the dead: the Turning Angel. Erected in 1932 to commemorate five girls who died in a fire, this marble statue has become an object of both legend and ritual in Natchez. The life-size angel stands on its pedestal in an attitude of purposeful repose, writing names into the Book of Life. The angel possesses a face of Madonna-like serenity, but its musculature and powerful wings make it appear almost masculine. When you drive down Cemetery Road, the angel appears to be looking directly at you. Yet once you pass the monument and look back over your shoulder, the angel is still looking at you. Thus the appellation: the Turning Angel. For me, the effect is much more dramatic at night, and it’s probably caused by a trick of light as the beams of headlights create ever-changing shadows on the monument. In daylight-from up close-you can clearly see the angel standing with its back to the bluff and the river. Yet so famous is this legend that every Natchez teenager at some point in his life drives or is driven down the dark stretch of road to watch the angel turn. Thus has legend spawned a rite of passage for all the children in the town.

The faded green tent at the center of the funeral crowd reads, ”McDonough’s Funeral Home,“ and it’s been the centerpiece of almost every white funeral in town for as long as I can remember. The crowd is pressing so close to the tent that I have no hope of photographing anyone. My only hope is to walk down and join the throng.

A concrete staircase leads down Jewish Hill to the flat rectangle of the Zurhellen Addition. As I walk down it, I hear the chime of an acoustic guitar. Then a young male voice floats over the tops of the mourners’ heads, cracking with grief but also communicating defiance. It’s singing about unpredictability and fate and the brevity of youth.

I guess Kate Townsend was a Green Day fan.

Very slowly, I weave my way through the crowd, nodding to those mourners who meet my eye. I know most of the people here, but some I don’t. As I near the tent, the crowd becomes too thick for me to negotiate further. Thanks to my height, though, I can survey the gathering from here.

Jenny Townsend is sitting beneath the burial tent with her ex-husband, the Englishman. Reverend Herrick is performing the graveside service, a much more traditional one than he gave in the school gymnasium. There are other people beneath the tent, but they don’t interest me. The people gathered around the tent do. I see most of the St. Stephen’s school board, with Holden Smith at their head. Jan Chancellor is wearing a silk pants suit. Steve Sayers stands in the front row to my right, one eye swollen and purple. Not far down the line from him stands Mia Burke with her mother, a paralegal for the city’s largest law firm. To my surprise, Mia is wearing a black dress and makeup; with her dark hair pulled up in a bun, she looks twenty-five. She catches my eye and vouchsafes a demure smile. Coach Wade Anders is standing with his back to me, but I recognize his head and shoulders, even in a suit. I have to do a double-take to confirm that one of the women on the far side of the tent is Ellen Elliot, but I’m right. I guess Ellen felt she needed to show the town that she mourns Kate as much as anyone, despite whatever her soon-to-be-ex-husband might have done to her.