“I remember one, very well. Agent Stone. He was about Del’s age, and he’d served in Korea too. Agent Stone really tried to help me. But he was the only one. He had a younger man with him who never said much. He didn’t care nothing about us. Like all the rest.”

“Do you remember his name?”

“No. Just a stuck-up Yankee. Agent Stone came by the house before he left town the last time. He apologized for not having gotten justice for Del. He was a good man, and I got the feeling he knew there was some dirty work at the crossroads on Del’s case.”

“Did he say anything specific?”

“No. He just seemed like he wanted to say more than he could.”

“Do you know a deputy named Ike Ransom? Some people used to call him Ike the Spike.”

A strange stillness comes over Althea. “They still call him that. Ike was a good boy who turned out bad. He got on that dope over in Vietnam and drank all the years after that. He hurt a lot of black people to impress his bosses. Why you asking about Ike Ransom?”

“It’s not important.” I stand. “I think that’s enough questions for now.”

Althea studies me for a few moments, then stands and presses her shorts flat against her thighs. “Come out to the garden and let me get you some tomatoes.”

“Oh, no. But thank you.”

“Nonsense. Your daddy loves my tomatoes. I been paying him in tomatoes for years.”

I follow her to the kitchen, where she picks up a Piggly Wiggly sack and goes out the back door.

The backyard is bordered by woods, and most of the yard is taken up by a vegetable garden laid out with architectural precision. The vines along the ground are bursting with squash and rattlesnake watermelons, and the tomato plants stand four feet tall. Toward the back rows I see butter beans, corn, collards, and pole beans. The only eyesore is a rusted, weed-grown husk of a car sitting up on blocks on the near side of the garden.

Althea pulls a red bandanna from her back pocket, ties it around her head, and walks between two rows of tomato plants. I check the junker for obvious wasp nests, then climb onto its trunk and watch Althea pick prize specimens for her sack.

“This is some garden,” I call after her.

“Daddy always had a garden. Drove Mama crazy. We had mason jars stacked to the ceiling at canning time.”

The low rumble of a truck passing on the road breaks the stillness, then fades. I wish Annie were here to see the garden.