“I can understand that,” I say.

“Though I’m just getting started, it seems to me that my client could easily have been set up. Weren’t there other suspects besides him?”

Bonner puts his hand behind his head.

“My policy is that once I’ve turned over a file to the prosecutor, I don’t say anything about it until trial.”

“So you don’t have any doubts,” I ask, “that my client was hired by Paul Taylor to murder Willie Ting Instead of responding right away, Bonner rocks gently in his chair.

Finally, he says, politely, “I think I just answered that question.” He stands up, dismissing me.

“Our prosecutor is upstairs.

I’m sure he’ll answer any questions for you.”

I scramble to my feet.

“If you received some information that Paul Taylor had hired someone else to kill Willie Ting I say, “you’d investigate it before this case goes to trial?”

The sheriff shrugs.

“Of course.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I say as if I already have something in mind.

I don’t. But it is never too early to begin the job of softening up the prosecutor.

If law enforcement begins to have doubts about a case, you can be sure they will be passed along to the prosecutor. My advantage in this case is that I know Paul’s track record.

I ask if he can arrange for me not to have to call ahead to the prison for an appointment each time I want to see Bledsoe. He says he can do that, but to call ahead if I can.

I smile and shake hands again with Bonner and head upstairs, not knowing how to ask if the prosecutor is also black. I should have asked Class or his wife these questions. All I know is that the judge, Rufus Johnson, is a black man.

The whites still left over here must be going nuts over this case. If Paul Taylor can be charged with murder, they have to feel nobody is safe.