“Yeah, that’s right.” A preoccupied look crossed Willie Frank’s face. “I swear to God, Odell’s devotion to his daddy proves he’s got a heart. I don’t know of a man or woman who would give up so much time to be a caregiver to a man married to a able-bodied woman like Ellamae. She used to be a nurse, and ought to be taking care of Lonnie on her own. Odell’s been burdened with that responsibility since before I met him. We got to be wrong about him.”

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Milton mumbled. He shot me a knowing look and I nodded.

When Willie Frank left, me and Milton stayed on the couch, perched like crows on a fence. I got up a couple of times and peeped out the front window, hoping Joyce would come over. If she did, I would ask her what all Odell had said about the call. She was so dense, she never would have guessed that I was fishing for information.

Milton got so jittery, he drunk two glasses of home brew and had to use the toilet twice in less than fifteen minutes. When he sat back down on the couch, he couldn’t sit still. I couldn’t either, for that matter. We was still on the couch fidgeting when Willie Frank came rushing back through the front door thirty minutes later. The frantic look on his face told me that he was going to tell us something we wouldn’t like.

“What took you so long? And what did the sheriff say?” Milton asked with his hands outstretched. Me and him stood up at the same time.

Willie Frank raised his hands. “He wasn’t in his office. I had to go to his house. Now y’all stay cool and calm until I finish,” he advised. After a few deep breaths he went on, talking with his tongue snapping over each word. “I didn’t want Sheriff Potts to start asking me no nosy questions about why I wanted to know about that call. I had to chitchat about a bunch of other mundane things before I got to the point. Anyway, after discussing his health issues, his dogs, his hardheaded wife and kids, that widow woman with them four kids in Lexington he’s been fooling around with for ten years, I eased in the question of that phone call he received. Sheriff Potts swore that he didn’t mention nothing about where he got the call to nobody else. Not even his deputies. He said his wife answered the phone first and handed it to him. While I was standing there, he called her in the room and asked her if she’d told anybody about the call. She said she hadn’t. I declare, that means only one thing—”