He gave me a startled look, but I headed him off. “Just bear with me here. Where did you keep the trash cans?”

“Alley behind the house.”

“So somebody could have stolen the curtains without being seen.”

“Stolen them? What for?”

“Because the guy already knew he was going to kill her and bury her in that hole. The curtain-ripping fight was common knowledge. Violet told the story all over town. So on the off chance someone stumbled across the car, his wrapping her in the curtain would point a finger at you.”

I could sense the wheels laboring in Foley’s head. I pushed on. “Who’s Philemon Sullivan? Is that you?”

“My mother laid that on me, but I always hated the name so I called myself Foley.”

“Weren’t you picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct right around that time?”

“Who told you that?”

“I saw an item in the paper about a suspended sentence and a hundred-and-fifty-dollar fine. This was on July sixth, but there was no mention of the date the arrest was made. When did that happen?”

“I don’t want to talk about it now. It was a long time ago.”

“Thirty-four years to be exact. So what difference would it make if you tattled on yourself?”

He was silent for a moment and then conceded the point. “I was arrested late Friday afternoon and spent the night in jail. I got drunk at the Moon and I guess I was out of line. BW phoned the sheriff’s department and they came and arrested me. Once I was booked, I called Violet, but she wouldn’t come get me. Said it served me right and I could sit there and rot for all she cared. I was so hung over, I thought I’d die. They finally let me out the next morning.”

“On Saturday, the Fourth?”

He nodded again.

“Did anyone see you?”

“Sergeant Schaefer left the station the same time I did and he offered me a ride home. Tom Padgett would verify that as well because we picked him up along the way. His truck battery was dead and he was on his way home to pick up some jumper cables.”

“You told me you had ‘a job of work’ as you put it, early Saturday afternoon. Do you remember what it was?”

“Yes ma’am. Sergeant Schaefer asked if I’d help him put together a workbench he was building in his shed. I’m good at carpentry- maybe not finish work, but the kind of thing he needed. He already had the lumber and we knocked together a workbench for his power tools.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“August 4.”