“Jim Bateman! You used to be my doctor. I grew up around the corner, right over there. Your lab lady used to make me milk shakes sometimes, with that barium drink mixer.”

“Oh,” Tom said, vaguely recalling a chubby boy who used to hammer at the rear door until someone let him in. “Jim. Of course I remember you.”

“I’m right, huh? You were thinking about your old office here. Weren’t you?”

“I was,” Tom said softly.

“It’s just a regular house now,” Bateman lamented. “Don’t seem right to me. When you were here, this place was full of people. The whole block always felt so alive. Now it’s just a sleepy old house.”

“It is a little disorienting.”

Bateman looked at the paint peeling off the old clinic. “You know who I think about sometimes?”

“Who?”

“That black nurse you had. Miss Viola. She was so nice. All these years, and I’ve never forgotten her.”

Tom nodded in amazement.

“Whatever happened to her?”

“She moved to Chicago.”

“That right?”

He nodded dully.

“Well, you lost a good one there. You ever hear from her after that?”

Tom swallowed and tried to keep his composure. “She died, Jim.”

“Aw … don’t tell me that. When was this?”

“This morning.” For the first time the full weight of Viola’s death crashed down upon Tom. Not until this moment had he realized all that had passed from the world with her.

“What?” asked Bateman, clearly confused. “In Chicago you mean?”

“No.” Tom looked up at last, into the man’s dazed eyes. “Right here in Natchez. She was very ill. She came home to die.”

Bateman shook his head in wonder. “I’ll be dogged. That just … it makes me hurt inside. Kind of like when Hoss died on Bonanza. You know?”

“I know.”

“No wonder you’re out here.” Bateman patted him on the shoulder. “I’m sorry I bothered you, Doc. I’ll let you be. I talk too damn much. My wife tells me all the time.”

“No, I’m glad you stopped. It’s good to know Viola’s remembered. You take care.”

Bateman waved and slowly walked north up Monroe Street, looking from side to side like a man seeing where he lives for the first time.

Tom reached down and put the BMW in drive, then let his crooked fingers fall as he pulled away from the curb, steering with his left hand. For the first time in many years, he began to cry.

CHAPTER 6

HENRY SEXTON WAS sitting at his desk at the Concordia Beacon in Ferriday, Louisiana, when the receptionist transferred a call to him and yelled from the front desk that it was important.

“Who is it?” he shouted at the open door of the newsroom.

“The Natchez district attorney!” Lou Ann Whittington shouted back.