“Good day, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, introducing himself to the silent observers. “I am Special Agent Earl Solomon.” He showed them his badge and ID card from his flip book, then replaced it inside his jacket breast pocket. He noticed many of them looking past him at the white lawmen across the street. “The Bureau dispatched me here to Gibbston to assist in the investigation of the homicides by lynching.”

The pastor emerged from the church doors, stopping on the top step, behind the faithful. He had shed his robe, dressed in an open-necked white cotton shirt and dark slacks, mopping at his brow. A blaze of silver in his black hair distinguished him with the effect of a candle in the darkness.

Solomon nodded to him respectfully, but felt an unusual suspicion in the preacher’s manner. Perhaps the pastor was simply unused to another black man compelling the attention of his assembled faithful.

Solomon continued, “You should know that the federal government is interested in hearing your concerns and bringing an end to this violence. Your rights are to be protected. I am here looking for any information whatsoever any one of you might have pertaining to any of the recent murders.”

Their faces. Looking back and forth from the local sheriff behind him to Solomon. He stood before them like an emissary from another planet.

A burly man in his fifties plucked at the placket of his shirt for ventilation. “You a company man,” he said.

Solomon dipped his head to one side, allowing that. “Yes, I am. The company is the FBI and I am its agent.”

“And we are to trust you?”

“I think you have to start somewhere.”

Another man pulled off his wire-rimmed eyeglasses, polishing the lenses on his necktie. “I heard ’bout you. The first agents. Read a story in Jet magazine. They trying to integrate the FBI.”

“Yessir, that’s correct,” said Solomon.

“He’s just a child,” said a trim older woman in a stiff blue dress.

“A child with a badge,” said another man.

The older woman said, “Now that a white man’s been strung up, they send you.”

“I go where I’m assigned,” said Solomon. “What matters is, I’m here now.”

“Get us to snitch,” said the older woman. “Make some arrests for the white lynching and vanish out of here.”

Solomon took care to nod respectfully to her when he said, “No, ma’am.”

Solomon looked to the pastor. No outward indication in his manner, but he knew he needed this man of God’s help. The pastor wrinkled up his nose a bit, like sweat from the noonday sun was getting to his upper lip.

“Brothers and sisters,” he said, “I believe that this man, Agent…?”

“Agent Solomon.”