“I wish it were for me. I’ve come up with at least three different theories over the past three days. There are so many possibilities. It might even be that Lincoln Turner killed Viola, Dad knows that, and he’s covering up for him.”

“Lincoln Turner, who accused your old man of murder in the first place? You’re saying he killed his own mother?”

“Maybe. Possibly by accident, either in a botched mercy killing, or a layman’s effort to revive her with adrenaline.”

“But . . . if that’s the case, why the hell would your father cover for that asshole?”

“Because Dad thinks Lincoln is his son.”

This silences Dennis for half a minute.

“Jesus,” he says finally. “This is Tennessee Williams shit, here.”

I’m surprised Walker Dennis knows enough about Tennessee Williams even to make that remark. “More like Faulkner, I’d say. Absalom, Absalom!”

“Same difference. You know what I think?”

“What?”

“All this crap with Royal and Regan and the Double Eagles is a good thing. For your father, I mean. It’s obvious that there’s a whole lot more going on than the murder of one old nurse. And Viola was related to that civil rights kid, Revels. If you can just get your dad safely into custody—in Mississippi, not Louisiana—he’ll go to trial for killing Viola. Right?”

“Aren’t you forgetting the dead Louisiana state trooper?”

Dennis waves his hand dismissively. “Just forget that for a minute. I’m no lawyer, but I’ve watched my share of murder trials. If your father goes to trial for killing Nurse Viola, all you need is one thing—reasonable doubt. Am I right?”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Are you going to defend him yourself?”

“Hell, no. Quentin Avery’s his lawyer.”

“Even better. Avery could talk twelve dogs off a meat truck.”

“We’re light-years from a courtroom, Walker.”

“Maybe we are, and maybe we ain’t.” The sheriff looks back at me, his eyes glinting beneath his Stetson. “All this trouble goes back to the Knox family: Frank and the Double Eagles in the old days, and Forrest and his drug operation now. I say we go back to our first plan. Hit the Knoxes as hard as we can. Bust every meth cooker and mule in this parish. Turn up the heat on the Knox organization, big-time. Before you know it, we’ll have a couple of Double Eagles in the frying pan. And once they start singing, I’ll have Forrest by the balls. And Quentin Avery will have all he needs to stuff your dad’s jury full of reasonable doubt. When Quentin’s done preachin’, those jurors won’t be sure whether they’re right-handed or left.”

“None of that matters,” I say in a flat voice, “if the state police kill Dad as a fugitive.”

Dennis shrugs. “They haven’t got him yet, have they?”

“We don’t know that.”

“Sure we do. If they’d caught him and Garrity, my radio would be chattering like my wife’s church group. No, my money says that old Texas Ranger has the trail smarts to keep your daddy loose for a while yet.”

I don’t hold out much hope that any Double Eagles would give up enough information to save my father from police execution. But as the security lights of various businesses flash past in the darkness, a new strategy begins to take shape in my mind.

“How soon could you organize a parishwide sweep of the meth dealers?” I ask.

Dennis looks at his watch. “I can have my people ready to go six hours from now. Just before dawn.”

“Are you serious?”

“I did ninety percent of the groundwork today. I told you that yesterday, and now we’re here.”

The prospect of hitting the Knoxes hard in such a short time frame is tempting. “What about Agent Kaiser? Would you tell him about it?”

The sheriff rolls his shoulders, then sets them as though to take a blow—or deliver one. “After I saw Kaiser tuck his tail between his legs when Captain Ozan showed up at Mercy Hospital? No way in hell. This is you and me, Penn. I’m tired of standing by while the Knoxes shit all over my parish. My cousin’s two years gone, and I know in my bones it was Forrest Knox’s outfit that killed him. I’m through sitting on my hands.”

“Henry didn’t believe any Double Eagle would break his oath of silence under police pressure. Kaiser, either.”

Walker snorts with contempt. “Forgive me speaking ill of the dead, but Henry Sexton didn’t know shit about law enforcement. And Kaiser’s a big-picture guy. It’s time to keep it simple. I’m a cop, you’re a prosecutor. Meth trafficking carries a mandatory fifteen- to thirty-year sentence in this state. Somebody on the Knox payroll will give us a Double Eagle or two to keep their asses out of Angola. And once we have an Eagle in my jail, it’s Katy-bar-the-door. Those old bastards are in their seventies now. You think they want to die on Angola Farm with a bunch of black lifers? Hell, no. Think about Glenn Morehouse facing cancer. He cracked, didn’t he?”

“That’s different.”

“You think so?” A bitter laugh escapes the sheriff’s lips. “Given a choice between dying of cancer in a nice hospital and rotting in Angola with a bunch of pissed-off soul brothers who know I used to be in the Ku Klux Klan? I’ll take the cancer every time, bubba. At least you get morphine to cope.”

The sheriff just might be right about this. Some accused criminals live in mortal terror of incarceration—dirty cops, for example—but given the racial demographics of American prisons, I imagine former Ku Klux Klansmen rank right up there with child molesters when it comes to those who have real reason to fear going to jail.

“All right,” I say softly. “I’m with you.”

Walker glances at me, excitement in his face. “Seriously?”

“Let’s do it.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Since Dennis is going out on a limb for my father, I feel I owe him the truth. “Battle tactics. Forrest Knox is driving the manhunt for Dad and Walt. If we hit the Knox organization as hard as we can tomorrow, and keep hitting them, Forrest will have to devote a lot of energy to defending himself. And every minute he puts into fighting you and me is one less he has to track down my father.”

“Damn straight,” Walker says. “When in doubt, run it up the middle. Don’t even give Forrest time to think about your daddy. I just wish we could get Agent Kaiser out of the way somehow, so he can’t interfere.”

As soon as Walker says this, a memory of Brody Royal describing the murder of Pooky Wilson at the Bone Tree comes to me. “I might just be able to do that. Though not in the next six hours.”

“Anything will help. Hey, look.” Sheriff Dennis points across the westbound lanes at the jarringly modern silhouette of the 1970s courthouse. “We made it. And no state cops in sight.”

As Walker gives me a thumbs-up, I turn in my seat to make sure Walker’s brother-in-law is still behind us, and that Caitlin is still his passenger. Thankfully, I can see both their heads silhouetted by the headlights of the vehicle behind them.

“Hey,” Walker says sharply. “Earlier today you said you wanted to ride with me on the busts. Do you still want to do that? Or should you lie low and let me take the heat?”

I don’t even have to think about this question. “I’ve got my mother and daughter well hidden. What’s the point in letting you have all the fun?”

The sheriff smacks his steering wheel and smiles. “All right, then. In six hours we hit those sons of bitches. And I’ll lay odds that in twenty-four hours we’ll have at least one Double Eagle in my jail, begging to tell us everything he knows.”

Dennis pulls around to the left side of the courthouse, the site of his motor pool.

“I’d better call Chief Logan now,” I say, the weight of dread and guilt in my voice. “He needs to know he probably lost a man tonight.”

The smile melts off Walker Dennis’s face. “You tell him we’re going to get to the bottom of that tomorrow, too. Tell Logan I promised him that.”