“Come eat,” Irise said. “Then we’ll call Derry. May Garth’s with her now. Did you know that? May Garth’s working on voter registration with her.”

“Let’s call Derry first,” Charles William said. We went into the kitchen and Charles William called the number and handed the phone to me and I told the story to Derry. “I thought I could trust them,” I added. “Now they’re going to railroad her into jail. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to start. I don’t think Edmund will talk to me. He’s mad because he isn’t getting paid.”

“Jim’s here,” Derry said. “Let me call him to the phone. He’ll know what to do. Do what he tells you to.” She called him to the phone and in a minute I heard his sweet clear voice. A voice from another world, a scary world that enchanted me and made me feel I wasn’t good or brave or smart enough. A world that seemed to ask things of me I could not give. The coin of the realm between Charles William and me was imagination. In that light I thought I was dazzling. At the sound of Derry’s voice or Jim’s I felt the way I did with my daddy. Charles William was the brier patch. This man was a river.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Tell me what happened?”

“A woman who worked for me in Alexandria may have killed someone. I got her this lawyer and he said she wouldn’t have to go to jail and then I left and came home to Dunleith and now he wants her to plead guilty and go to jail. I promised her she wouldn’t go to jail, Jim. There were four witnesses. They all say she didn’t do it. They all say Delmonica fell on the knife, so why should she plead guilty? Her name’s Klane and she’s six feet tall. A jury might convict her of anything. She looks so fierce. I think she’s a Watusi.”

“Slow down. Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened.” I began to tell the story as simply as I could. Irise handed me a cup of coffee. Charles William handed me the cream. They stood by listening. From the back of the house Mahler’s Ninth Symphony filled the halls. Sunlight poured in through the old leaded-glass windows. Pots of red geraniums were everywhere, copper pans, blue china dishes. As I talked I began to imagine Jim Phillips and me living here. We would make love all day and do good deeds for people and then sit around listening to classical music.

“Could you meet me in Alexandria?” he asked.

“I guess so. When?”

“When is the hearing?”

“Wednesday.”

“Then we need to go tomorrow. So I can talk to her before the hearing. Could you meet me there tomorrow afternoon?”