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voice come through the screen. I recognized it from the call on Friday.
    “Who that?”
    “It’s Jack McEvoy. We talked on Friday. From the Times ?”
    The screen was dirty with years of grime and dust caked on it. I could not see into the apartment.
    “What you doin’ here, boy?”
    “I came to talk to you, ma’am. Over the weekend I did a lot of thinking about what you said on the phone.”
    “How in hell you fine me?”
    I could tell by the closeness of her voice that she was on the other side of the screen now. I could only see her shape through the grit.
    “Because I knew this is where Alonzo was arrested.”
    “Who dat wit’ you?”
    “This is Sonny Lester, who works at the newspaper with me. Mrs. Sessums, I’m here because I thought about what you said and I want to look into Alonzo’s case. If he’s innocent I want to help him get out.”
    Accent on if .
    “A course, he’s innocent. He didn’t do nothin’.”
    “Can we come in and talk about it?” I said quickly. “I want to see what I can do.”
    “You can come in but don’ be taking no pitchers. Uh-uh, no pitchers.”
    The screen door popped open a few inches and I grabbed the handle and pulled it wide. I immediately assessed the woman in the doorway as Alonzo Winslow’s grandmother. She looked to be about sixty years old, with dyed black cornrows showing gray at the roots. She was as skinny as a broom and wore a sweater over blue jeans even though it wasn’t sweater weather. Her calling herself his mother on the phone on Friday was a curiosity but not a big deal. I had a feeling I was about to find out that she had been both mother and grandmother to the boy.
    She pointed to a little sitting area where there was a couch and a coffee table. There were stacks of folded clothes on almost all surfaces and many had torn pieces of paper on the top with names written on them. I could hear a washer or dryer somewhere in the apartment and knew that she had a little business running out of her government-provided home. Maybe that was why she wanted no photographs.
    “Move some a that laun’ry and have a seat and tell me what you goin’ to do for my Zo,” she said.
    I moved a folded stack of clothes off the couch onto a side table and sat down. I noticed there wasn’t a single piece of clothing in any of the stacks that was red. The Rodia projects were controlled by a Crips street gang, and wearing red—the color of the rival Bloods—could draw harm to a person.
    Lester sat next to me. He put the camera bag on the floor between his feet. I noticed he had a camera in his hand. He unzipped the bag and put it away. Wanda Sessums stayed standing in front of us. She lifted a laundry basket onto the coffee table and started taking out and folding clothes.
    “Well, I want to look into Zo’s case,” I said. “If he’s innocent like you said, then I’ll be able to get him out.”
    I kept that if working. Kept selling the car. I made sure I didn’t promise anything I wasn’t going to deliver.
    “Jus’ like that you get him out, huh? When Mr. Meyer can’t even get him his day in court?”
    “Is Mr. Meyer his lawyer?”
    “That’s right. Public defender. He a Jew lawyer.”
    She said it without a trace of enmity or bias. It was said as almost a point of pride that her grandson had graduated to the level of having a Jewish lawyer.
    “Well, I’ll be talking to Mr. Meyer about all of this. Sometimes, Mrs. Sessums, the newspaper can do what nobody else can do. If I tell the world that Alonzo Winslow is innocent, then the world pays attention. With lawyers that’s not always the case, because they’re always saying their clients are innocent—whether they really think it or not. Like the boy who cried wolf. They say it so much that when they actually do have a client who’s innocent, nobody believes them.”
    She looked at me quizzically and I thought she either was confused or thought she was being conned. I tried to keep things moving so