That night, I couldn’t sleep. One time I dozed off for a couple of hours and had a dream about Patty. She was lying in the ditch, but she was alive, trying to suck in breath through the dirt. A pool of mud was being created around her head from the blood pouring out of her. She stared at the moon as large clumps of soil were tossed on top of her.

I rose and went out for a walk. The night air felt like the heat from an oven: dry and searing. I went up to the gas station and grabbed a Diet Coke with ice. The attendant was asleep behind the counter, and I had to pretend to cough to get him to wake up.

“Sorry,” he said, wiping the sleep out of his eyes.

“Late-night party?”

“Nah, just barely got this job. Ain’t got used to workin’ nights yet. Can’t sleep durin’ the damn day.”

“You’ll get used to it. You’d be amazed what you can get used to, believe me.”

I left and wandered around the town. I came across a pasture that I remembered walking across to get to school with Gates. It had cows now and didn’t back then. I watched the few by the fence until one of them came up to me and stuck her nose through the fence. I rubbed her ear until she turned away and went back to munching on grass.

I finally managed to get another hour or two of sleep, and when I woke I had dark circles under my eyes. I showered and changed into a black pinstripe suit with a red pocket square that I had bought in Las Vegas. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the man who appeared in the newspapers, walking his client down a large hallway and out of a fancy courthouse, and I thought about something Gates had said when she saw me in one of the suits. She had lifted a hand and adjusted the lapel. “I think I liked you in cheap clothing.”

“Why?”

“These suits . . . they’re not really you. You’re a country lawyer now, Tatum.”

Going back into the bedroom, I tossed the suit onto the bed and changed into slacks and a blazer with a blue tie, and, sweet holy mother of crap, cowboy boots again.

The County Attorney’s Office was empty when I got there. I sat in the conference room and began going through the file. Then I went out onto the cement steps of the building and read the file as the sun came up. I shut my eyes and rehearsed every word of my opening and closing in my head several times. I opened my eyes just as Pritcher and his crew were walking into the building. He told them to go ahead without him and stood in front of me.