I should have insisted on meeting Paul in his office. Though I never knew Jill as well as I would have liked, she was a caring, decent girl from a good background who just happened to be born with beautiful olive skin and the loveliest brown eyes in the entire Delta. I cannot help but wonder what her rival Mae Terry looks like after all these years in a wheelchair. Though she has never met her, Jill asks about Sarah as if I were their next door neighbor who had just returned from a trip with his child to Disneyland.

Sean, their son, is not in evidence, making me wonder if he has been hustled out of town to stay with Jill’s parents until his father’s life calms down a bit. What do you say to your child when you’ve been charged with murder? Sorry for making your life a nightmare, but mine is hell, too, so what about a little sympathy? Not if he’s twelve. I can’t help feeling a little sorry for Jill and Sean, but not sorry enough to resist sticking it to Paul if there is any way I can do it.

As she, chatting all the while, leads me through a formal dining room with a table that could seat twenty, it is apparent she has done her homework about me in the last twenty-four hours. Whatever her husband truly thinks of me, I am to be courted. She opens the door into a den, and I see Dick Dickerson, who stands up as I enter the room. I haven’t seen him in thirty years, but he is recognizable because of his uncanny resemblance to “ole Bullet Head,” Gerald Ford, but unlike the former president with his reputation for ungainliness, Dick can do more than walk and chew gum at the same time. With the grace of a tiger, Dick meets me in the middle of the room and catches my hand before I can spread my fingers.

“Good to see you, Gideon. You’re doing some good legal work these days,” he says, crunching my knuckles.

“Your mother and daddy would be proud.”

“Thank you, Dick,” I say, flattered despite myself.

“Coming from you, that’s a real compliment.