Summary

In Chapter 28, Rusty arranges it so Penn can hear Cora’s testimony through his cell phone. Cora tells the jury how Viola was raped in 1968 by members of the Ku Klux Klan before she left Natchez for Chicago. Cora thought Viola got pregnant from the rape. She reports, however, that Viola had told her husband, Junius Jelks, that Lincoln was the son of James Turner, her first husband, who died in the Vietnam War. Cora said it was not until their mother died in 1996, that she learned that Tom was Lincoln’s father. In 2001 when Junius saw a newspaper article about Turner’s death he realized that Turner had died too early to be Lincoln’s father. At that time Viola told him about the rape. Cora also testifies that Tom had been sending Viola money since she had left Natchez.

Shad then...