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sued or shot.
    On page two there was a map of the crime scene and a large photo of Rhoda’s home, one taken the morning after the crime, complete with cop cars and yellow police ribbon everywhere. The photo also included the bikes and toys of Michael and Teresa scattered around the front yard. In many ways, the photo was more ominous than one of the corpse itself, which I didn’t have but tried to get. The photo stated plainly that children lived there, and that children were involved in a crime so brutal that most Ford Countians were still trying to believe it really happened.
    How much did the children see? That was the burning question.
    I didn’t answer it in the Times, but I got as close as possible. I described the house and its interior layout. Using an unnamed source, I estimated that the children’s beds were about thirty feet from their mother’s. The children fled the house before Rhoda, they were in shock by the time they got next door, they were seen by a doctor in Clanton and were undergoing therapy of some nature back home in Missouri. They saw a lot.
    Would they testify at a trial? Baggy said there was no way; they were simply too young. But I pulled the question out of the air and posed it anyway, to give the readers something else to argue and fret over. After exploring the possibility of parading the children into a courtroom, I concluded that “experts” agreed that such a scenario was unlikely. Baggy enjoyed being considered an expert.
    Rhoda’s obituary was as long as I could possibly make it, which, given the tradition of the Times, was not unusual.
    We went to press about 10 P.M. on Tuesday night; the paper was in the racks around the Clanton square by 7 A.M. on Wednesday. The circulation had dropped to fewer than twelve hundred at the time of the bankruptcy, but after a month of my fearless leadership we had close to twenty-five hundred subscribers—five thousand was a realistic goal.
    For the Rhoda Kassellaw murder we printed eight thousand copies and put them everywhere—by thedoors of the cafés around the square, in the halls of the courthouse, on the desks of every county employee, in the lobbies of the banks. We mailed three thousand free copies to potential subscribers, as part of a sudden, onetime special promotion effort.
    According to Wiley, it was the first murder in eight years. It was a Padgitt! It was a wonderfully sensational story and I saw it as my golden moment. Sure I went for the shock, for the sensational, for the bloodstains. Sure it was yellow journalism, but what did I care?
    I had no idea the response would be so quick and unpleasant.
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    A t 9 A.M., Thursday morning, the main courtroom on the second floor of the Ford County Courthouse was full. It was the domain of the Honorable Reed Loopus, an aging Circuit Court Judge from Tyler County, who passed through Clanton eight times a year to dispense justice. He was a legendary old warrior who ruled with an iron fist and, according to Baggy—who spent most of his working life hanging around the courthouse either picking up gossip or creating it—was a thoroughly honest Judge who had somehow managed to avoid the tentacles of the Padgitt money. Perhaps because he was from another county, Judge Loopus believed criminals should serve long sentences, preferably at hard labor, though he could no longer order such.
    The Monday after the murder, the Padgitt lawyers had scrambled around trying to get Danny out of jail.Judge Loopus was preoccupied with a trial in another county—his district covered six of them—and he refused to be pushed into a quick bail hearing. Instead, he set the matter for 9 A.M. Thursday, thus allowing the town several days to ponder and speculate.
    Because I was a member of the press, indeed the owner of the local paper, I felt it was my duty to arrive early and get a good seat. Yes, I was a bit smug. The other spectators were there out of curiosity. I, however, had very important work to do. Baggy