I realize that Dick is talking about himself.

Despite his reputation, he has never had much political pull. He invites me over to his office across the street, but I tell him that I will have to call him later in the week. I have to drive back tonight to Blackwell County to get ready for a two-day child custody trial that I thought was going to be settled but has blown up over the weekend, and before I head back I promised Bledsoe I would come see him. With his practice primarily civil litigation, Dick understands settlements coming apart at the last moment, and says for me to call him when I get that behind me. As he crosses the square to go back to his office, I realize that he is still convinced that we are allies in this case, which is fine with me. After today’s hearing, I suppose in some ways we are.

At the detention center Class is not at all depressed with the judge’s decision to set the trial the last week in May.

“I jus’ want to get it over with,” he says, emphatically.

“I’m sick of this place.”

As bad as the old jail may have been, I doubt if it had this much security. Here, separated as we are, Bledsoe can’t even shake hands with

me, much less hug his wife. It is hard not to like this guy. As he tells me how much he has begun to miss Lattice, I think of a statistic I’ve read and wonder if it can possibly be true: a million black males locked up all over the United States. It is a mind-boggling number. Is this the only way blacks and whites can live together in this country?

I wonder how many of them are innocent.

Other than Willie’s blood on his knife, there is no physical evidence linking Class to the murder. If he had the money, I would hire a forensic expert to tell the jury why there were no hair, flesh, or clothing fibers found under Willie’s fingernails.

The only bloody footprints leading away from the spot where he died were Doris Ting’s, apparently made when she discovered the body. I’d also like to get an investigator to do a thorough background check on each of the individuals who worked at the plant. One of them could easily have something in his or her past that could be useful to us.