The screen door opens with a screech of protesting springs, and a big black head appears in the opening. The sleepy-eyed face says late fifties, with some rough years on the back end.

“Car like that, you ain’t no process server. Must be a lawyer. You work for my ex-old lady?”

“No. My name’s Penn Cage. If you’re Willie Pinder, I want to ask you about the Del Payton murder.”

At the words “Del Payton” the sleepy eyes wake up. “I’m Willie,” he says, looking closely at me.

“You got my name, right?”

“Trouble. That’s your name.”

“Will you talk to me?”

“Sure.” Pinder laughs. “I might be hearing your last words. Come on up.”

He holds the door open for me. Three steps lead up to the porch, the kind of weed-grown slat steps that snakes like to lie under in the heat. In one bound I am up and through the door, which slaps shut behind me with a bang like a pistol shot.

“Porch is far enough,” says Pinder. “Hotter inside anyway. AC’s busted. You want a beer?”

“Sure.” I try not to glance at my watch; it can’t be eleven a.m. yet.

Pinder goes inside and returns with two sweating cans of Schaeffer. He hands me one, then sits beside me in a green iron lawn chair, pops the top off his can, and drinks.

“So you’re retired now?” I say, opening my beer.

He laughs again. “That don’t quite seem to say it. I’m fucked now. How about that?”

I’m not sure how to proceed. I don’t want the man’s life story, but neither do I want to offend him. Thankfully, Pinder spares me.

“You the crazy man who popped off about Del Payton in the paper?”

“I mentioned the case.”

“Case? Ain’t no case on Del Payton.”

“What about a file, then? There must have been a police file.”

He takes another long swig of Schaeffer. “I was pretty busy back then. It was all I could do to hold the goddamn place together.”

“I’m sure. Still, I’d think you might have wanted to check some things the white chiefs had let slide for too long.”

Pinder sniffs and looks through the rusted screen. “I worked in that department eleven years, and I never saw no Payton file. Didn’t think there was one. But when the old chief gave me the combination to the station safe, and I opened it up, there it was. Sitting on the bottom of a stack of insurance policies. Just like that. First day on the job.”

“Did the police seriously investigate the case in sixty-eight?”

He smiles. “In 1968 the city slogan was ‘Natchez, Where the Old South Still Lives.’ It looked like they investigated. There was lots of confidential-informant reports, rumors tracked down, stuff like that.”

“Any suspects?”

“A couple.”

“Who?”