From the minute me and Joyce had entered their living room, I went out of my way to avoid them as much as I could. But every time I looked up, one of them devils was gazing at me. Especially Yvonne. While me and Dr. Patterson was conversating, she’d looked at me with a curious expression on her face, which made me suspect she was trying to eavesdrop. I didn’t think I was saying nothing she would be interested in, so I wasn’t worried. Other than the price of produce, some fishing information, and a few news items, that was all me and Dr. Patterson talked about. But toward the end of our conversation, he’d brung up Yvonne and Milton’s arrest. Without giving my response much thought, I’d said that Sheriff Potts had came only eight minutes after that anonymous person called him. I didn’t think about what I’d said until after I’d said it. It wasn’t no big deal, though. If Dr. Patterson repeated my words to somebody else and they asked me about it, it wouldn’t be hard for me to come up with a answer. I could say that Sheriff Potts, or one of his deputies, mentioned it when they was shopping in the store recently. That idea didn’t stay with me long because it suddenly dawned on me that none of them had been in the store since before the arrest. Shoot. If I did say one of them told me, and somebody asked them about it, I’d be up shit creek. All I could do now was hope that Dr. Patterson had forgot what I told him.

I put that damn subject out of my mind until me and Joyce got home and went to bed. And she was the one that brung it up. “Odell, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.” I was laying on my back. She was on her side, facing me.

“Okay. Ask me ‘something.’ ”

“How did you know that the person who tried to get Yvonne and Milton in trouble called Sheriff Potts at home?”

I froze. “Huh?” It was a few moments before I could go on. “Um . . . I can’t remember off the top of my head who told me. Why?”

“I was just curious. Friday night when I mentioned it, Milton gave me a strange look.”

I froze even more. If the house suddenly caught on fire, I wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to get out. “Did he ask you about it?”

“Yes, he did. He just wanted to know how I knew that. But he didn’t make a big deal out of it,” Joyce replied with a yawn.

“What did you tell him?”