Patterson’s last steps and answering newsmen’s questions and talking and talking. I hadn’t been home since the hospital, and I waited with Hugh Britton outside the ropes they’d set off to keep the gawkers back. John Patterson was there, talking to investigators who’d come down from Montgomery, and we were left with little to do in that early gray light but stand back and drink coffee and shake our heads and wait for John to tell us what to do next. Some Phenix City deputies waded through knee-deep kudzu at the far end of the alley, poking sticks into the green leaves and kicking around with their feet. Another man in a black suit finished up looking through Mr. Patterson’s car and then called out to a deputy, who opened up the rope and motioned for a wrecker to come on in and take the Olds away.

Cameras clicked and clicked, with an undeniable headline of DEATH CAR, the pocked glass on the driver’s window evident as the wrecker turned onto Fifth and into the weak light.

“Where they taking it?” Britton asked.

“Only one way to find out.”

I walked down the middle of the street – there was almost no traffic – and watched as the car turned slow down Fourteenth and then took a hard turn back behind the courthouse to the county jail.

By that time, Britton had caught up with me. He was a wiry, little gray-headed man, and he was out of breath standing by my side as I pointed behind the courthouse.

We walked around the edge of the big brick courthouse and looked down into the little cove surrounded by razor wire. There, the wrecker had stopped, and trusties in denim uniforms worked to unlatch the car as it was slowly lowered onto its fat whitewalls.

After the wrecker drove out of the gates, three of those trusties approached the Rocket 88 with big galvanized buckets and brushes. Britton pointed toward the edge of the jail, and we saw Bert Fuller pointing and yelling words to the men we couldn’t hear.