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"In the beginning she did Then she started bein' short from time to time. I ain't heartless, but there's just so much time I can keep someone. I need to make income. I got my upkeep."

"Wasn't Fanny Casteel earning anything as a singer?" Camden asked.

"Oh, goodness no." She started to laugh. "She could no more sing than I could."

"So then you evicted her?"

"I did not."

"Well, then," Camden asked, turning slowly toward Fanny and then back to Peggy Sue Martin, "what did she do to get the money she needed for the rent?"

Peggy Sue Martin shifted herself in her seat and pulled down on her imitation fur wrap a bit.

"Well, I don't condone what goes on in my houses.

It ain't my business as long as the tenants don't break anything and pay their rent on time."

"Yes?"

"Well, some women entertain men from time to time."

"And get paid for it?" Camden said.

"Yes. I don't encourage it," she said quickly, looking at the judge, but he continued to sit there like a cigar store Indian.

"Mrs. Martin, aren't we talking about prostitution?"

"Yes," she said softly.

"Mrs. Martin, could you please speak up," the judge said.

"Yes," she repeated much louder.

"And you know for a fact that Fanny Casteel occasionally earned her rent this way?"

"I do," Peggy Sue Martin said.

I recalled the trip I had made to that rundown house with its peeling paint and sagging blinds in Nashville. How naive I had been not to know what sort of things went on there. I should have realized when I saw that pretty blond girl in shorts and a halter top, a cigarette dangling from her lips, that such things were going on.

Fanny had been only sixteen and all alone with barely enough change to buy herself something to eat. I was so worried about _Milan and Tony and the way they would react should Fanny ever show up at Farthy that I didn't see the terrible state she was in. I took her out to eat and promised to send her money, but I didn't realize what had been happening to her up to then.

Well, now it was all coming out, spread over a table like the secret contents of a private drawer displayed for all to view, and it was her own fault. I warned her, I thought, hardening myself against her once again. She shouldn't have taken Drake.

"No further questions, Your Honor," Camden said. I looked at Fanny. She wore a hateful

expression, staring daggers at me. I turned away.

"Mr. Burton?" the judge said.

Wendell Burton spoke with Fanny for a moment and then turned to the judge. "No questions for this witness, Y'Honor."

"I'd say round one is over," Camden Lakewood said, taking his seat beside me, "and it's almost a knockout."

"This court is now in recess," the judge declared, and slammed the gavel three times.

SEVENTEEN Evil at the Bottom of the Hill

THE MOST SENSITIVE INFORMATION LOGAN'S impregnating Fanny--was still to come, and it was Camden Lakewood's feeling that when he called Fanny to the stand, he shouldn't bring it up, once again hoping that she and her attorney had decided it was not to their advantage to offer this information to the court.