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〃Yes;〃 he said。 〃They do。 They certainly do。〃
〃And it occurred to me that it would be easy enough to follow his backtrail and find out。 A man his size; and a Negro to boot; can't be that hard to trace。〃
〃You'd think so; but you'd be wrong;〃 he said。 〃In Coffey's case; anyhow。 I know。〃
〃You tried?〃
〃I did; and came up all but empty。 There were a couple of railroad fellows who thought they saw him in the Knoxville yards two days before the Detterick girls were killed。 No surprise there; he was just across the river from the Great Southern tracks when they collared him; and that's probably how he came down here from Tennessee。 I got a letter from a man who said he'd hired a big bald black man to shift crates for him in the early spring of this year … this as in Kentucky。 I sent him a picture of Coffey and he said that was the man。 But other than that …〃 Hammersmith shrugged and shook his head。
〃Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?〃
〃Strikes me as a lot odd; Mr。 Edgebe。 It's like he dropped out of the sky。 And he's no help; he can't remember last week once this week es。〃
〃No; he can't;〃 I said。 〃How do you explain it?〃
〃We're in a Depression;〃 he said; 〃that's how I explain it。 People all over the roads。 The Okies want to pick peaches in California; the poor whites from up in the brakes want to build cars in Detroit; the black folks from Mississippi want to go up to New England and work in the shoe factories or the t