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“Winston’s. It only a mile from my house. It’s where folks like me get our food.”
“What do you do there?” asked DuBose.
“Unload the trucks. Stock the shelves. Hard work but it pays good.”
“So you weren’t there that day?” asked Jack.
“No,” she said in a small voice. “I, uh, I had somethin’ else I had to do.”
“What was that?”
Her mouth twisted and she said defiantly, “My business.”
“The commonwealth is making it their business, Pearl,” pointed out DuBose. “If you tell us where you were, we can assert that as a defense.”
“I ain’t tellin’ nobody where I was,” Pearl said fiercely.
Jack and DuBose exchanged a worried glance.
DuBose said, “Okay, as I mentioned, the commonwealth also found fifty dollars in an envelope in your lean-to. You really have no idea where that came from?”
“No! All our money’s in a coffee can on the top shelf of the pantry.”
DuBose rose. “All right. Do you need anything?”
“Yeah, I need to get back to my kids,” Pearl said tearfully.
Jack said, “We went to your house. Your mother and Miss Jessup are there.”
“My grandma’s there? What ’bout Ashby?”
“I don’t know.”
“She gonna lose her job. That old man don’t care ’bout nothin’ ’cept hisself.”
DuBose said, “Do you want us to be your lawyers?”
“I guess so, yeah,” she said distractedly.
“Then we need you to be truthful with us. Everything you tell us is confidential.”
Pearl wavered for a moment, but then shook her head.
Jack said, “Your arraignment is tomorrow. We’ll be back to prep you for it.”
As they walked over to the men’s jail DuBose said, “If she doesn’t tell us where she was, we have no real way to defend her.” She looked at the entrance to the men’s jail. “Now, let’s go see what Jerome has been withholding.”
Jerome was sitting on his bed when they walked in.
They told him about Pearl being arrested and why.
A furious Jerome slammed his fist into the skinny mattress. “That be crazy. I didn’t kill nobody and she didn’t do none ’a them things. It all a pack ’a lies!”
“Only she wasn’t at work the day the Randolphs were killed, Jerome,” said Jack.
His anger instantly transformed to puzzlement. “Then where was she?”
“She wouldn’t tell us. You don’t know?” asked Jack.
