The preternaturally deep voice seemed to go with the rest of him. He was thick shouldered, with thick wrists and forearms and calloused hands. His face—deep black with large pores and a flat nose that looked broken—sat on a ringed, fleshy neck like some heavy object. But it was his eyes that set him apart. They were a bitter orange-yellow, the left pupil discolored by a white star. I stepped up on the porch, answering, “To talk about Lydia Cantwell.”

His stare was red rimmed and implacable. “You the police?”

“Henry Cantwell’s lawyer. I’m calling on people who knew Mrs. Cantwell.”

“I heard she was dead.” The words were devoid of feeling, as if it were a chance news item: a moon shot, the death of a stranger. “Workin’ for folks, that don’t mean you know them. I only worked there a month. Didn’t know that lady at all.”

And don’t give a damn, his expression said. “Mind if I sit, Mr. Lee?”

He looked me over with stony dispassion and then nodded perfunctorily toward the metal chair next to his. Sitting, I could see only a sliver of his house through the screen door: a worn chair, a television, bare floors, bare walls—a transient’s room. “Been in Birmingham long?” I asked.

He put down the beer and folded his hands, answering in a resentful grunt. “Maybe six weeks.”

“You from around here?”

“I’m from nowhere. Been in the Army thirty years, bein’ a drill sergeant. Just got out.”

I placed his accent then: the low, emphatic chant of a noncom after years of order giving. “How’d you happen to pick Birmingham?”

“I was born in north Alabama,” he shrugged. “Served at Fort McClellan. It’s a place I knew, so I came here.”

“How did you find the Cantwells?”

The porch was close and hot. A drop of perspiration ran down Lee’s forehead to the bridge of his nose. “How’s this gonna help you,” he finally said, “botherin’ me with these questions?”

“I don’t know yet.” I loosened my tie. “You have another beer?”

Lee’s strange eyes widened in something like astonishment. “I’m fresh out. I didn’t know you was plannin’ on resting here.”

“I thought maybe we could talk.”