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said. “I don’t know what this is even about.”
    “What are the charges against you?” Trask asked him, trying to get something, anything out of his longtime friend.
    “Suspicion of murder. They say I’m a suspect in the killing of that guy in West Odessa last night in a bad drug deal. You probably saw it in the papers this morning. Garrison, I never so much as stole a piece of gum when I was a kid,” Nail said.
    “Why would they think you were involved?” Trask asked.
    “I was in the area to preach like always. I’m there most every night. The guy who was killed, I’ve talked to him several times about the Lord, but I never saw him last night, honest,” Tony said.
    “But you were in West Odessa that night?”
    “Yessir, to do my ministry, just like always,” Tony said.
    “Did you see anybody else there?” Trask asked. He listened carefully to see if there was any delay in Nail’s response or any sign he might be protecting someone or hiding something. He had no reason to suspect Tony for anything, but an initial Q&A was just part of being on the safe side.
    “Just the usuals,” Tony lied. “Nothing and no one out of the ordinary.”
     
     
    Garrison had known Tony since they were kids growing up in Midland in the Seventies. They lived in the same part of town. Tony’s father was a school principal and the Nails had a good life. Trask would grow up to be a lawyer and Tony would be a school custodian and not a professional like his father.
    “You’re a good man, Tony; everybody who knows you knows that,” Garrison said. “If you’re asking me to be your attorney, I’d like to help you, my friend.”
    “I don’t have the money to pay you, Garrison,” Tony said.
    “Don’t worry about the money right now,” Garrison said. “Sometimes we no-good lawyers know when something’s worth fighting for, money or no money. You’re worth fighting for, Tony. I’d like to find a way to help you get out of this. I know you, Tony. Heck, we’ve known each other our whole lives. You call and tell me you have been arrested for suspicion of murder, my first thought is that somebody somewhere in the system has screwed up big time.”
    The friendship between the two had been dormant for several years but the mutual admiration remained. Trask remembered there had been a falling off the straight and narrow by Tony just after high school, when his friend became mixed up in booze and drugs and hanging with the wrong crowd. Garrison had made the conscious choice to go the other way — and was already on his way thanks to a mother insistent that her son grow up and make something of himself. The resultant split led to where the two of them were today: Garrison on the back side of a two thousand dollar oaken desk. Tony sitting in the county jail desperately trying to understand.
    Garrison knew Tony had never really taken the opportunity to finish his education. As respected and honored as he was, Tony’s father had died without a will, and there was no money left to pay for Tony’s college. So Tony toiled in school hallways doing all he could to bring a little ray of sunshine to the students. Garrison had seen his friend in action during a visit to a career day a couple of years earlier and was impressed with how he cared about the young kids. It was the last time he had seen Tony until today.
    During those early years he spent cleaning school hallways and bathrooms, Tony told Garrison, he had stayed clean and out of jail.
    “I promised my father before he passed that I’d never end up in jail, and I’ve tried to make good on that,” Tony said as he and Garrison walked toward the front door.
    All that worried Garrison was that even though Tony had managed to keep mostly straight, there was one extended period several years earlier. It would be all a prosecutor would need to target and turn it around to his benefit.
    “I went on a bad run for awhile,” Trask remembered Tony telling him one night several