“Look here,” he said impatiently. “I got out of the army with my children growed up, my wife gone off, nowhere to go, and nothin’ to do. I got some retirement and I figure this city’s as good a place as any to find work, maybe stay outdoors. So I get some temporary quarters and go around where the big houses are at to ask if they need a yardman. I figure I do that awhile, then get some nursery to hire me. I do Mrs. Cantwell’s yard a couple of days a week and one or two other folks’.” His voice turned thick and sarcastic. “Now, that satisfy you, or you figure I killed the lady?”

“That wasn’t what I was asking.”

Lee stroked his chin between thumb and forefinger. “Well, I figured you was fixin’ to ask me that. I know how much white folks always worry about black men rapin’ their women.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I’d wait awhile and just sort of spring it on you.”

He grunted, unamused, and turned toward the street. A bat thumped and a tall boy streaked after a fly ball, leaped twisting to hang in the air, and caught it. Lee watched him. “Mister,” he said slowly, “the only people I ever killed was in Korea and Vietnam—and they was yellow, not white.”

“Have any idea why someone would kill Mrs. Cantwell?”

“No way.”

“Anyone ever visit while you were there?”

He sipped his beer. “You mean men?”

“If there were any.”

“I wasn’t the doorman. Just did the yard. It’s the maid you want.”

“I’ve done that. That’s why I’m here.”

He drank more beer, too casually. I imagined his calculations: what had Etta told me, how much did I expect him to know. He finished swallowing. “Only thing I noticed was a green Cadillac parked there two, three times. Don’t know whose it was.”

“What kind?”

“New model,” he said grudgingly. “Dark green. One of the big ones.”

“Would Mrs. Parsons know whose it was?”

“Prob’ly.” It was said with contempt. “She was hangin’ ’round Mrs. Cantwell all the time.”

I leaned back. “Did Mrs. Parsons ever talk about Mrs. Cantwell’s father or the Grangeville case?”

“Didn’t talk to me about anything,” he said harshly. “What the Grangeville case?”

“An old trial. They electrocuted two black men for raping a white girl. I figured you’d heard of it.”

Lee took a contemplative sip. “How long ago that happen?”

“Forty years or so.”

“That makes me about eight years old, don’t it? I wasn’t readin’ then and killin’ black folks wasn’t news.”