you’re getting.”

I suck in my stomach, thinking of Paul Taylor running the Dallas Marathon.

“How would I do without you?”

“You probably don’t do it very often,” she says, still smarting over our loss of that jerk who was just in here.

“Little do you know, Julia,” I say.

“Little do you know.”

The only thing worthwhile I have accomplished by five o’clock Friday is to obtain a copy of Bledsoe’s file from the prosecutor. The bond hearing was a formality, since it wouldn’t have made any difference if the judge had made it fifty thousand as I requested instead of the $500,000 we ended up with. The arraignment, where the defendant enters his formal plea, has been set for Monday afternoon, and I pull into the Bear Creek Inn thinking of the expression on my client’s face as he was led out of the courtroom. I told him that I would come talk to him Monday. He had looked more resigned than sad. Despite the fact that the judge, sheriff, and prosecutor are all black, he must think that it is business as usual in Bear Creek. The white man is out of jail, the black man is in. No progress there. One other thing I have accomplished. Lattice’s check is good. A trip by Farmer’s Bank has removed that concern.

Now, it is time to get to work.

The Bear Cre k Inn (an “e” appears to have been missing from the sign outside for some time) is a nine-unit motel almost across the road from the cemetery where my parents are buried.

Though a willowy female clerk greets me warmly, I am relieved there is no hint of recognition by either of us. After my appearance at the bond hearing, already I feel as if I am being watched by half the town. She is a woman in her forties; her friendly smile cannot quite make me overlook her narrow, wedge shaped face and brown eyes that are too close together. Still, her expansive manner makes me instantly forget her almost startling homeliness. When I was a boy, this place was called Horton’s Motel. Alongside it was a restaurant by the same name, an early morning rendezvous for duck hunters. In answer to my question, Betty confides that the restaurant was destroyed by a fire set by the former owner in an unsuccessful attempt to collect the insurance.