SIXTEEN

      The Payton house is a typical rural home, built with cheap materials on concrete blocks, but better maintained than most. Lovingly tended flower beds border the front, concealing the dark crawl space beneath the structure. The cars in the driveway are probably worth more than the house, but at least the nearest neighbor is fifty yards up the road.

      Georgia Payton sits beneath a large pin oak, rocking slowly in a white cotton dress. She lifts a hand as I pull into the driveway, but she does not get up.

      I walk over to say hello before going to the front door. “Hot one, isn’t it?”

      She cackles at me. “I lived three-quarters of my life without no air conditioning. The Lord’s breeze be good enough for me.”

      “Mr. Cage?”

      Althea Payton is beckoning to me from the door. She wears navy shorts and a red blouse tied at the waist. She looks like she’s been gardening.

      “Come in out of that heat!” she calls. “Georgia’s fine out there.”

      I smile at the old woman, then cross the drive and follow Althea into the house.

      “Georgia’s like an old loggerhead turtle sunning itself on a rock,” she says. “I asked her to stay outside while we talk. She can be a little hard to handle. Have a seat.”

      I sit on a flame-print love seat, and Althea takes a cloth-covered easy chair to my right. The living room holds old but clean furniture, all of it arranged around a new television set. Dozens of framed family photos hang on the wall behind the TV. I look away when I realize I’m staring at a wedding photo of Del and Althea. They look young and happy, destined for anything but what happened to them in the spring of 1968.

      “On the phone,” she says hesitantly, “you said it was about my husband.”

      “Yes, ma’am.” My next words are an irrevocable step. “I’ve decided to look into Del’s death after all. I’ve already taken some steps in that direction.”

      She seems not to have understood. Then her eyes well up and her voice spills out in a reverent tone. “Sweet Lord Jesus, I can’t believe it.”

      “I don’t want us to get ahead of ourselves. There may not be anything to find out.”

      She nods, her hands clasped over her chest. “I realize that. I just … it’s been so many years. Do you have any idea what you need to charge me?”

      “Yes. I’m going to need a retainer of one dollar. And I’ll bill you for my time at the rate of one dollar per day.”

      She shakes her head in confusion. “You can’t be serious.”

      “I’m deadly serious. Althea. Don’t give it another thought.”

      She wipes tears from her eyes, and I look away. The wall to her left holds the sacred trinity of photographs I’ve seen in the homes of many black families: Martin Luther King, JFK, and Abraham Lincoln. Sometimes you see Bobby, or FDR. But the Paytons have only the big three. A plastic clock hangs above the photographs, its face painted with a rather bloated likeness of Dr. King. The words I HAVE A DREAM appear in quotes beneath him.

      “Georgia bought that clock from some traveling salesman in May of 1968,” Althea says. “It stopped running before that Christmas, but she never let me get rid of it.”

      “Maybe it’s a collectors’ item.”

      “I don’t care. Those clocks probably put a million dollars in some sharpie’s pocket.” She grips her knees with her palms and fixes her eyes on me. “Could I ask you one thing?”

      “Why did I change my mind?”

      “Yes.”

      “I have a personal stake in the case now. I want to be honest with you about that.”

      “Are you going to write a book about Del? Is that it?”

      “No. But if anybody asks you what I was doing here, that’s what you tell them. And I mean anybody, police included. Okay?”

      “Whatever you say. But what is your personal interest, if not a book?”

      “I’d prefer to keep that to myself, Althea.”

      She looks puzzled, then relieved. “I’m glad you’ve got a stake in it. You having a child like you do. It would be too hard if I thought you were taking this risk only for me.”

      “I’m not. Rest assured of that.”

      “Thank you.” She leans back in her chair and looks at me with apprehension. “What can you tell me? Have you learned anything yet?”

      “We won’t be getting any help from the district attorney. The police either, if my guess is right. I’ve managed to obtain some documentary information dating back to 1968 that could be helpful, but that’s between us and God.”

      “Can you tell me what it is?”

      “No. I won’t expose you to potential criminal charges.”

      She nods soberly. “Just tell me this. Do you think there’s any hope? Of finding out the truth, I mean.”

      I fight the urge to be optimistic. A lawyer has to make that mistake only once to learn what it costs. You give people hope; then the pendulum swings the wrong way and they’re left shattered, as much by false hope as by misfortune.

      “I wouldn’t take the case if there wasn’t hope. But I want to proceed cautiously. I promise to contact you if and when I learn anything of value. I understand that you’ve waited a long time for justice.”

      Althea’s hands are clenched in her lap, the knuckles white.

      “If you feel up to it, I’d like you to tell me what you can about what Del was doing at the battery plant before he died. For civil rights, I mean.”

      She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, as though striving to remember with perfect accuracy. “Del wasn’t any big civil rights worker. He was a workingman. He just saw things he thought were wrong and did what he could to change them. When he was a young man, he was carefree. You never saw a smile so full and happy. When he went to Korea, something changed in him. He still had that smile, but it didn’t fill up his eyes the way it used to. He was different inside. He got shot over there, and I think he saw some pretty bad things. When he got back, he told me life was too short to spend it standing at the back of the line.”

      “When did he go to work at Triton Battery?”

      “A couple of years after the war. He put in his time and saved his money back then. Said he didn’t want to marry me till he could afford to take care of me like I deserved.” Althea’s voice cracks a little, but she smiles. “I sure got tired of waiting. Del bought this house in 1959, for cash money. Not many black men could do that back then.”

      “You got married in fifty-nine?”

      She nods. “It was right around then that Del met Medgar.”

      “Medgar Evers?”

      “Yes. Medgar heard how good Del was doing at the plant, and wanted to meet him. Medgar was building up the NAACP back then, pushing voter registration. Del loved Medgar. Loved his quiet way. Said he’d known men like Medgar in the army. Quiet men who worked hard and wouldn’t back down for anything.