Sheriff Potts, and none of his family members or deputies, had shopped in the store again since Odell’s death. One of the white vendors who had been close to Odell, told me that he’d run into the sheriff at the barbershop and had asked about the “investigation.” He’d been informed that there were still no leads, but the case was still open. I had accepted the fact that nobody would ever be arrested. And I was sure that everybody else felt the same way. People eventually stopped talking about the murders.

Three months after Estelle’s birth, I started a relationship with a man I’d met at a funeral Buddy and Sadie had dragged me to. Fred McGinnis was just as handsome and dapper as Odell. He had a great job supervising colored workers at Branson’s turpentine factory, and he was from a fine Christian family. His first wife had died of a heart attack two years ago and left him with two little boys and a little girl, all under the age of five. They took to me like ducks to water and I adored them. Fred brought them to visit me frequently at the new house I’d moved into. It was in the same neighborhood where I had lived with Odell, but several blocks away so I never had to go near the “scene of the crime.” After all the years I’d been praying for children, now I had four. I could never thank the Lord enough.

Fred didn’t drink alcohol, so he had never visited a bootlegger’s house, or a jook joint. I hadn’t drunk any myself since Odell’s death. Even though I had always drunk in moderation before I met him, and Yvonne and Milton, I believed my excessive drinking with them had had a lot to do with the foolish things I’d said to Yvonne and Milton. And I was convinced that alcohol had had something to do with me being so naïve about Odell. I was glad I’d given it up.

I had been seeing Fred for several weeks before he confessed that he was in love with me. I told him I cared about him, but “love” was too strong a word for me to be using again so soon. But I did love him . . .