Here, as in too much of life, you get what you pay for and no more.

We talk at length about the events of the day of the murder, which occurred on a Tuesday, September 21, but it is painfully obvious that Class has no memories of that afternoon that can help him. Though I don’t know if it will cut any ice with Butterfield at this point, I urge him to consider taking a polygraph, but he is disturbingly adamant on the subject.

“Like I already said, I don’t trust ‘em,” he says, his voice more stubborn than I’ve ever heard it.

“In a case like yours,” I explain, “the defendant they really want is the one who arranged the murder.”

Class pushes his hands inside his pockets.

“I’m not gonna take no test.”

My heart sinks a little at his intransigence. The last time a defendant of mine refused to take a polygraph test it turned out he was lying. It sounds as if Class has already talked to a lawyer long before he ever contacted me. I ask him if he consulted anyone else, but he claims he has not.

He insists that he never had a conversation with anyone over the telephone from the plant office about having received some money.

“If I’d a killed ole Willie, I’d have to be dumb to call someone from there,” Class argues, staring hard at the concrete floor.

“Not necessarily,” I respond.

“You would have had to think that nobody was around.” Actually, I agree with him. Criminals do amazingly stupid things all the time, and that’s why some of you get caught, I think, my frustration growing.

“Why would the bookkeeper make up a story like that?”