“Dad?” Ricky said.

Mr. Chiles busied himself with the lawnmower for more time. He finally responded: “I’ll need your help, son. Grab the rake and the lawn bags.” He did not turn to look at Ricky, but instead, pushed on out to tend to his yard. Ricky hesitated only for a moment before doing what he was told.

They would not speak about the article again. Any thought of it would be pushed down inside them. And when they sat down to dinner that evening, Mr. Chiles would force conversation about the crisp texture of his wife’s green beans, just the way he liked them. He would drink wine with his meal—a rare thing, but useful on this night—and ignore his son quietly nudging his meatloaf around on his plate. He would ignore thinking about Maurice Washington, the young man and father of two, who would not be sharing a meal with his family this night, because he was being “questioned” by Loveless police.

Mr. Chiles had a sharp imagined sense of the interrogation room: the air damp and smelling of old piss and fresh urine from this one who kept choking on the words, “I ain’t do it! I swear!” But they would get it out of him. Beat the truth out of him if they had to.

The fresher night air that moved across state lines into the Chiles’ dining room was a comfortable breeze. “This is nice sleeping weather,” Mrs. Chiles said as she collected dinner plates. “Or a good night for a drive. We haven’t done that in a while, Richard,” she said with a smile to her husband.

Despite the wine, he found himself thinking of that young man. He was from Michigan, the article had said. Mr. Chiles wondered about his family, and poured himself another glass.

The Chiles family debated about which TV show to watch that evening. They were the first family on the block to own a color TV. Mr. Chiles liked Lawrence Welk, but his wife and son preferred Get Smart. He decided to be generous, something else that was uncharacteristic during family TV time. Anyway, he would have his say at 9:00 PM when Hogan’s Heroes came on. Before the credits would roll Maurice Washington would vomit blood from cracked ribs. Mr. Chiles stayed up to watch Mannix, even though his wife urged him to come to bed. Ricky had retreated to his room earlier.

“We’ve got church in the morning,” she told her husband.

He was a man who needed his solid six hours of sleep, or he would be grumpy all day. It was such a pill to get father and son out of bed for church on Sundays when they’d ignored her warnings about too much TV on Saturday nights. In quiet surrender, she left her husband in the shadows of lamplight with the flickers of TV colors washing over him. He remained in the darkened room unaware of the time, hearing but not hearing the Star Spangle Banner on the TV, signaling the end of broadcasting for the night. Transfixed, he stared at the TV screen that now only hissed with prickly snow. And in that same hour, Maurice Washington painfully and slowly scrawled his name on a confession prepared for him.

***

Despite his father’s willingness to pretend there was no reason for further concern, Ricky could not. He had not spoken to Sweed since that last time when he asked him to ditch his car. As for Sweed, that conversation still burned like bile in his throat.

When Ricky showed up at his place, the first thing Sweed told him at the door was “It’s done, man. I ain’t got my ride no more. You happy?”

“I need to talk to you. Can I come in?” Ricky said.

There was a short pause before Sweed turned to go back inside with the door left open. Ricky followed. When they were behind closed doors in Sweed’s room, Ricky started, “I think we should go back.”

“Back where?” Sweed asked.

“Back to the cabin,” Ricky told him.

Sweed walked over to sit on the side of his bed. “Man, you still high? Why?”

“The pictures, man, I think we left pictures behind.”

“What difference does it make? Ain’t you been following the news? They got some other dude. It’s over.”

Ricky was quiet.

“What’s the matter wit’chu?” Sweed said.

“But what—what if it’s not over? What if the police find out they got the wrong person?”

Sweed laughed. “That ain’t the way it work. Long as they got some black man on the hook for killing that white girl, they satisfied—and any black man will do.”

“But, that man, he didn’t do nothing.”

Sweed stood up to speak face-on to Ricky. “You wanna tell that to the cops?”

Ricky went silent again.

Sweed smirked at him. “You been given a gift. Thank your stars and move on.”

Ricky shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “What if they decide to search the cabin? What if they get a warrant, or something? They came to my house, man. My dad said they wanna talk to me.”