“Judge,” says Livy, “this is patent hearsay, and no exception should be made.”

“Judge, Ike Ransom’s confession was a statement made against interest. A murder confession so obviously subjected him to criminal liability that great weight must be accorded to it.”

Franklin taps her pen on a notepad as she considers my argument. “Given the totality of the circumstances, I’m going to allow it.”

“His entire statement?” I press.

“Let’s see where it leads. I may stop him.”

Livy starts to argue, then thinks better of it. She returns to her table as I approach Stone.

“Please continue, Mr. Stone.”

He lifts his cane from the rail and leans heavily upon it. “Ike Ransom was a mess. Suicidal probably. He was living in squalor that would be difficult to believe by today’s standards. There was drug paraphernalia in plain view. What we called ‘heroin works’ back then. He was literally dying to tell someone his story.”

“What was his story?”

“He had recently separated from the army after a tour in Vietnam. He’d served as a military policemen there, as I recall. He’d tried to find work with the local police department but was turned down. Desperate for money, he’d turned to drug dealing.”

“He admitted this to you?”

“Yes. Two weeks before Del Payton was murdered, Ransom was stopped on a rural road by Patrolman Ray Presley. Presley discovered a large quantity of heroin in Ransom’s trunk. He offered to overlook this if Ransom agreed to kill a man for him.”

“Objection!” Blake Sims cries.

“On what grounds?” asks Judge Franklin.

But Livy has taken hold of Sims’s jacket and pulled him back down to his seat.

“There’s no objection,” she says.

Franklin gives them an admonitory look. “Continue, Mr. Stone.”

“Patrolman Presley also promised Ransom that if he carried out this murder, Presley would ensure that he was eventually hired by the police department. Presley had told the truth about Ike Ransom asking him to get the C-4. Ransom was afraid of dynamite, but he’d had experience with C-4 in Vietnam.”

“Did you report Ransom’s confession to Director Hoover?”

“I did.”

“What was his reaction?”

“I would describe it as glee.”

“Glee. Could you elaborate on that?”

“Mr. Hoover was being forced to aggressively pursue a civil rights agenda. This did not reconcile with his personal feelings. He particularly hated Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. My revelation that the murder of Del Payton—a crime which Robert Kennedy considered a civil rights murder—had in fact been carried out by a black man gave the director obvious enjoyment. He remarked that he would dearly enjoy telling Bobby Kennedy that Payton’s death had been nothing but another ‘shine killing.’ Those were his words.”

“Did Hoover in fact report this to Bobby Kennedy?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“What did he do?”