“Well, that’s about it,” Sam said. “Old Adam, he’s a pretty clever bird. What he done was, he told Miss McDaniel that her father would be killed if she didn’t play along; that’s all. After what happened to Tom McDaniel already, who could blame her for believing him? She just got scared. Like anyone else would of. Anyone here.”

Shipman turned to Ella. “Is that right?” he said.

She nodded. “He promised me there wouldn’t be any trouble. I mean, nothing would happen, he said, except that the boy would be expelled from school. I’m sorry.” She looked at Joey. “Sorry; I didn’t . . .”

“Go on back to the car,” Sam said. “I’ll be along directly.”

Ella glanced once at Adam, then ran.

“Don’t make sense,” Shipman was saying, to no one in particular.

Sam shook his head. “You’re right, it don’t, when you get down to it. But you got to understand, Mr. Shipman, that your boy here was desperate. I mean, he was teetering on the verge of losing every single thing he built up. And the truth of it is, you was desperate, too—because you hooked up with him. The both of you were—”

“Verne!”

“—in bad trouble, Mr. Shipman. I ain’t saying you knew anything about this little play: maybe you did, but I don’t think so. I think it takes a real special kind of brain for something this dirty. . . .” Sam faced Adam. “It don’t matter, though,” he said, “really. Even if I hadn’t got Miss McDaniel to tell the truth. Because the people never was with you, boy. And they’d of turned against you in time, just like they always do when somebody tries to sell them something they don’t want. Remember? It would of turned out just the same whether I stuck my nose in it or not. Except there’d be an innocent boy dead and some stupid people with blood on their hands. . . .”

The crowd was silent.

It was frozen.

Adam Cramer looked at them standing there, like unfinished statues in the sunlight, and screamed, “Lies!” suddenly, without meaning to. “Lies! I swear to Christ this man is lying to you!”

No one answered.

“Are you all crazy?” He rushed over to Sam Griffin and took the fat man’s shirt in his fist. “Tell them the truth,” he said. “Come on, you son of a bitch! Tell them about your Jew wife, maybe they’d like to hear about that!”

Sam Griffin remained motionless.