“Ugh.” Sam looked a little sick, and I knew he was thinking of the dark-stained hammer.

Quiana’s slanting dark eyes were squinted almost shut with distress, disgust, some unpleasant emotion. She left the room with Sara to change her after handing Robbie to Tara.

I said, “The poor Wechslers found him in the morning in the bed, all bloody, and they sent for the police. There was one policeman in Bon Temps then, and he came right away. Back then, that meant within an hour.”

“You won’t believe who the policeman was, Sam,” Tara said. “It was a man named Fuller Compton, one of Bill’s descendants.”

I didn’t want to start talking about Bill, who was an ex of mine. I hastened on with the sad story. “The Wechslers told Fuller Compton that the Summerlins had killed their son. What could Fuller do but go next door? Of course, the Summerlins denied it, said their son Albert had been sleeping and hadn’t left the house. Fuller didn’t see anything bloody, and Carter Summerlin told the policeman that his brother had been in the bed the whole night.”

“No CSI then,” JB said wisely.

“That’s just sad,” Quiana said, returning with Sara, who was waving her arms in a sleepy way.

“So nothing happened? No one was arrested?” Sam asked.

“Well, I think Fuller arrested a vagrant and held him for a while in the jail, but there wasn’t any evidence against him, and Fuller finally let him go. The Summerlins sent Carter out of town the next week to stay with relatives. He was so young. They must have wanted to protect him from the backlash. Albert Summerlin was regarded with lots of suspicion by the whole town, but there wasn’t any evidence against him. And afterward, Albert never showed signs of a hot temper. He kept on going to church. People began speaking to Daisy and Hiram and Albert again. Albert never got into another fight.” I shook my head. “People were sure the Wechslers would move, but they said they weren’t gonna. They were going to stay and be a reminder to the Summerlins every day of their lives.”