I called Lucien a liar and mocked his memory of the trial. It took the jury less than an hour to find the defendant guilty, I explained.

And with a recollection that surprised even me, I recounted Danny's pathetic performance on the witness stand: his lying to cover up his lies; his total lack of truthfulness. "He should've been indicted for perjury," I told the Board.

"And when he had finished testifying, instead of returning to his seat, he walked to the jury box, shook his finger in the faces of the jurors, and said, 'You convict me, and I'll get every damned one of you.' "

A Board member named Mr. Horace Adler jerked upright in his seat and blurted toward the Padgitts, "Is that true?"

"It's in the record," I said quickly before Lucien had the chance to lie again. He was slowly getting to his feet.

"Is that true, Mr. Wilbanks?" Adler insisted.

"He threatened the jury?" asked another board member.

"I have the transcript," I said. "I'll be happy to send it to you."

"Is that true?" Adler asked for the third time.

"There were three hundred people in the courtroom," I said, staring at Lucien and saying with my eyes, Don't do it. Don't lie about it.

"Shut up, Mr. Traynor," a Board member said.

"It's in the record," I said again.

"That's enough!" Jeter shouted.

Lucien was standing and trying to think of a response. Everyone was waiting. Finally, "I don't remember everything that was said," he began, and I snorted as loudly as possible. "Perhaps my client did say something to that effect, but it was an emotional moment, and in the heat of the battle, something like that might have been said. But taken in context—"

"Context my ass!" I yelled at Lucien and took a step toward him as if I might throw a punch. A guard stepped toward me and I stopped. "It's in black-and-white in the trial transcript!" I said angrily. Then I turned to the Board and said, "How can you folks sit there and let them lie like this? Don't you want to hear the truth?"

"Anything else, Mr. Traynor?" Jeter asked.

"Yes! I hope this Board will not make a mockery out of our system and let this man go free after eight years. He's lucky to be sitting here instead of on death row, where he belongs. And I hope that the next time you have a hearing on his parole, if there is a next time, you will invite some of the good folks from Ford County. Perhaps the Sheriff, perhaps the prosecutor. And could you notify members of the victim's family? They have the right to be here so you can see their faces when you turn this murderer loose."

I sat down and fumed. I glared at Lucien Wilbanks and decided that I would work diligently to hate him for the rest of either his life or mine, whichever ended first. Jeter announced a brief recess, and I assumed they needed time to regroup in a back room and count their money. Perhaps Mr. Padgitt could be summoned to provide some extra cash for a Board member or two. To irritate the Board attorney, I scribbled pages of notes for the report he'd prohibited me from writing.

We waited thirty minutes before they filed back in, everyone looking guilty of something. Jeter called for a vote. Two voted in favor of parole, two against, one abstained. "Parole is denied at this time," Jeter announced, and Mrs. Padgitt burst into tears. She hugged Danny before they took him away.

Lucien and the Padgitts walked by, very close to me as they left the room. I ignored them and just stared at the floor, exhausted, hungover, shocked at the denial.

"Next we have Charles D. Bowie," Jeter announced, and there was movement around the tables as the next hopeful was brought in. I caught something about a sex offender, but I was too drained to care. I eventually left the room and walked down the hallway, half-expecting to be confronted by the Padgitts, and that was fine too because I preferred to get it over with.

But they had scattered; there was no sign of them as I left the building and drove through the main gate and back to Clanton.

Chapter 34

The parole hearing was front page news in The Ford County Times. I loaded the report with every detail I could remember, and on page five let loose with a blistering editorial about the process. I sent a copy to each member of the Parole Board and to its attorney, and, because I was so worked up, every member of the state legislature, the Attorney General, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Governor received a complimentary copy. Most ignored it, but the attorney for the Parole Board did not.

He wrote me a lengthy letter in which he said he was deeply concerned about my "willful violation of Parole Board procedures." He was pondering a session with the Attorney General in which they would "evaluate the gravity of my actions" and possibly pursue action that would lead to "far-reaching consequences."

My lawyer, Harry Rex, had assured me the Parole Board's policy of secret meetings was patently unconstitutional, in clear violation of the First Amendment, and he would happily defend me in federal court. For a reduced hourly rate, of course.

I swapped heated letters with the Board's lawyer for a month before he seemed to lose interest in pursuing me.

Rafe, Harry Rex's chief ambulance chaser, had a sidekick named Buster, a large thick-chested cowboy with a gun in every pocket. I hired Buster for $100 a week to pretend he was my own personal legbreaker. For a few hours a day he would hang around the front of the office, or sit in my driveway or on one of my porches, any place where he might be seen so folks would know that Willie Traynor was important enough to have a bodyguard. If the Padgitts got close enough to take a shot, they would at least get something in return.

After years of steadily gaining weight and ignoring the warnings of her doctors, Miss Callie finally relented. After a particularly bad visit to her clinic, she announced to Esau that she was going on a diet—1,500 calories a day, except, mercifully, Thursday. A month passed and I couldn't discern any loss of weight. But the day after the Times story on the parole hearing, she suddenly looked as though she'd lost fifty pounds.

Instead of frying a chicken, she baked one. Instead of whipping mashed potatoes with butter and thick cream and covering them with gravy, she boiled them. It was still delicious, but my system had become accustomed to its weekly dose of heavy grease.

After the prayer, I handed her two letters from Sam. As always, she read them immediately while I jumped into the lunch. And as always, she smiled and laughed and then finally wiped a tear. "He's doing fine," she said, and he was.

With typical Ruffin tenacity, Sam had completed his first college degree, in economics, and was saving his money for law school. He was terribly homesick, and weary of the weather. To boil it all down, he missed his momma. And her cooking.

President Carter had pardoned the draft dodgers, and Sam was wrestling with the decision to stay in Canada, or come home. Many of his expatriate friends up there were vowing to stay and pursue Canadian citizenship, and he was heavily influenced by them. There was also a woman involved, though he had not told his parents.

Sometimes we began with the news, but often it was the obituaries or even the classifieds. Since she read every word, Miss Callie knew who was selling a new litter of beagles and who wanted to buy a good used riding mower. And since she read every word every week, she knew how long a certain small farm or a mobile home had been on the market. She knew prices and values. A car would pass on the street during lunch. She would ask, "Now, what model is that?"

"A 71 Plymouth Duster," I would answer.