I looked through them. There was nothing urgent.

“Have a seat,” I said. “Mind if I ask you a few more questions?”

“No suh. Don’t mind a’tall.”

“I’m tryin’ to find out who supplies drugs on the compound.”

“Probably the biggest supplier that is a inmate is Jasper Evans.”

“Really?”

“Yes suh.”

“The inmate who directs the choir and never misses chapel is the biggest supplier on the compound?”

He nods. “’Fraid so. He sing like an angel but sling dope like the devil.”

17

When I reached the First United Methodist Church of Pottersville, Molly Thomas was waiting on me.

The red-brick and white-trim church looked as much like an old schoolhouse as anything else.

Molly sat in her car, an older dark brown Ford Taurus, with her window rolled down. Her auburn hair was moist, and sweat trickled down the sides of her cheeks. Her green eyes, aided by colored contact lenses, looked like the Gulf after a summer rain.

Glancing around nervously, she got out of the car.

I got out too, but without the nervous glances. Later, I realized I should have been glancing.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m scared out of my mind. I don’t know what to do. I need your help.”

“We can use the pastor’s office. He’s at lunch right now,” I said, walking toward the office at the rear of the church.

Pastor Clydesdale’s office was way too small for his library, books spilling out of the three large bookshelves, piled on the floor, stacked on his desk and filing cabinet. The floor was covered with a dark green shag carpet from deep in the 1970s. A small window air conditioner, which was not in a window at all but in an oversized hole in the wall, pushed the sweet smell of pipe smoke around the room.

I sat in the pastor’s seat, an old wooden swivel desk chair with casters on its legs.

Molly sat on an old couch that was covered with a thin rust-colored bedspread and sloped down at the rear, making her appear six inches shorter than she really was.

“I’m taking an awful risk in talking to you,” she said. “I think I can trust you, but I’m not sure.”

“If you have any reservations, I would encourage you to speak with someone you know better and can trust more.”

“I don’t know anyone. I am all alone down here. Out of options.”

Her auburn hair and green eyes were striking, though it was obvious neither were completely natural.

“Down here? I thought you were from South Florida.”

“No, I’m from Michigan. We were in Miami about to leave for a two-week cruise when Tony was arrested.”