“Poor Jill,” she says, perfunctorily.

“This is terrible for her. Did you find out everything you needed to know?”

I don’t hear a lot of sympathy in Angela’s voice for Jill. Yet, who knows what slights Angela has endured in thirty years? Perhaps Paul’s arrogance has rubbed off on his wife. Though Angela made Paul sound positively wonderful yesterday, maybe she’s not as high on him as she sounded. The Taylors lose interest once you start slipping. Angela’s voice is on automatic pilot. Jealousy? Perhaps.

She has struggled and Jill never has. Jill was beautiful and married the richest man in town, Angela married a farmer who died broke. Paul’s long-running affair with Mae and his current troubles may seem like simple justice to her.

“I don’t think I learned anything. Dick hasn’t lost a step. He’s sharp and doesn’t give anything away free. Do you run into him much?”

Angela tells me that Dick is a workaholic and is usually out of town trying cases. Now that she is free, I wonder if he will hit on her. It

doesn’t sound like it. Unseen, I nod. Before we hang up, Angela tells me she is pushing back our breakfast half an hour. I realize that I was hoping she was going to invite me over tonight. I turn on the ten o’clock news and get another black newscaster out of Memphis. So much has changed, and yet nothing has.

On Highway 1 about a mile and a half from the center of downtown Bear Creek, I pull into the Cotton Boll Cafe parking lot. This place has surely seen better days. Yellow paint is peeling from the letters on the outside of the one-story wood structure, which has a definite tilt south. A gust of wind twenty miles an hour or better could give Cotton Boll patrons some anxious moments.