The watercress woman spoke again.

“Is this a bad time?”

“No, come on in,” Carlos replied.

She walked across the room and folded herself into a seat, then stood again, her slender arm outstretched.

“I’m Jiminy Davis,” she announced.

“Carlos Casteverde,” he replied as he shook her hand. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m from Fayeville, Mississippi,” Jiminy said. “Or at least my family is. And something happened there.”

Carlos nodded, waiting for her to elaborate. He didn’t know exactly where Fayeville was, but the nearest town in Mississippi was a six-hour drive away. The girl had traveled to see him. As busy as he was, he decided to hear her out.

“Something awful. Forty years ago. Like what you’ve seen and fixed already,” she continued.

Carlos had seen and fixed more than he wanted to think about. No one of these buried mysteries was like any of the others, and the last one never prepared him for the next. Practice made him better at uncovering and pursuing, but it never dulled the shock and fury.

“No one seems to know who did it exactly, or if they do, they’re not telling. And everyone seems content to just let it lie. But it’s not right. And things are all messed up there. I didn’t realize it at first, but they are.” Jiminy paused.

She stared at the floor for a long moment, then lifted her head to look at Carlos again.

“Things there just aren’t the way they’re supposed to be,” she said.

Carlos watched her closely, trying to remember the last time he’d successfully grown watercress. It was the kind of thing best stumbled upon in nature, floating thick in a cold, shallow stream.

“I’ll need to learn a lot more,” he replied as his crossword answer came to him, permeating the membrane of his forgetfulness at last.

Osmosis. Of course.

An hour later, Jiminy had shown Carlos the notes she’d made on everything to date, along with the photocopied clippings from the Ledger and her grandfather’s diary. She’d explained the circumstances of Edward’s and Jiminy’s deaths, and relayed the stories from the county pool and Grady’s Grill and the stretch of highway near Falling Rock Curve. Carlos had looked at and listened to it all, and now Jiminy was waiting to see how well she’d done.

As she waited, she stared at his cheekbones, following their slant down toward a mouth that was set in a thinking frown. She noted for the second time that Carlos looked like somebody famous who was trying to go unrecognized, though she couldn’t place her finger on exactly who. It was something about his eyebrows and cheeks, something Native American to the shape of his features. She felt she’d seen him in a western, or a cop show.

He certainly wasn’t dressed to be noticed. Jiminy wondered if he changed out of his jeans and flannel shirt on the days he went to court. There wasn’t anything scruffy about him—he was all clean lines and smooth shaves—but he wasn’t scrubbed. And if she hadn’t researched him and learned that he was forty-four years old, she wouldn’t have been able to tell his age. She’d have guessed anywhere from thirty to fifty. Older than her, but perhaps not significantly.

If Carlos didn’t help her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do. She was determined to prove some things, but she didn’t have the expertise and resources to pursue the unsolved Waters case on her own. She’d begun the fieldwork, but she needed Carlos in order to make something of it. And in making something of it, she hoped to make something of herself.

Carlos tapped the eraser of his pencil against his temple. He opened up a large, flat, tan book. He glanced up at Jiminy’s entreating gaze.

“I can be in Fayeville next Tuesday,” he said.

Chapter 9

She was determined to meet with him, even though he works out of Texarkana,” Willa told Jean between huffs as she sliced her remote control racket through the air.

Willa was improving rapidly at virtual tennis, a game to which Jean had only recently introduced her. After their last trip to Trudi’s Tresses, Jean had insisted Willa come into the house when she dropped her off. She’d pulled Willa eagerly up her walk, in the exact way that she’d been pulling her into dances and kitchens, parties and quiet confidences, for nearly seventy years. The gesture made them feel young.

Willa had only offered enough resistance to Jean’s tugging to make it more insistent. When they reached the living room, Jean had pointed to a small white box in front of her TV screen.

“Ta da!” she exclaimed.

“What is it?” Willa asked.

“Our new tennis court!” Jean exclaimed excitedly. “Stand there. Are you limber?”

This wasn’t the first time Jean had asked her this. She’d tried to get Willa into yoga several years ago without any luck.

“You know I’m not,” Willa replied.

“Just stay there,” Jean instructed, handing Willa an oddly shaped remote control. “You’ll see how it works.”

Before them, the TV screen had changed to an image of a tennis court with two figures squared off against each other across the net.

“I’m the one with the dark hair,” Jean informed Willa, indicating the brunette on the screen. “And you’re the blonde. I’m serving, so just watch the screen, and when the ball comes to you, pretend your remote is a tennis racket and hit it back to me.”

“What do you mean hit it back to you? There’s nothing to hit back,” Willa replied.

“Just watch,” Jean ordered.

She made sure Willa was watching both her and the TV, then pressed the button that would release the on-screen ball and, holding the remote firmly in her hand, sliced her arm through the air in a serving motion. On the screen, her player served perfectly to Willa’s character, who stayed completely still as the ball passed her by.

“Hit it!” Jean cried.

“Hit what?” Willa demanded, confused.

“On the screen, don’t look away from the screen!”

“I got distracted by your little dance.”

“Okay, just look at the real me for a second,” Jean said and sighed. “See, I’m treating the remote like my racket. This is the way I serve, this is my forehand, this is my backhand.”

Willa watched Jean demonstrate each of these, pantomiming tennis, playing against the air.

“Now everything I just did, I’m going to repeat, but this time don’t look at me. Look at the TV instead.”

Willa watched the screen and saw the dark-haired tennis player in the short skirt make a serving stroke, a forehand, and a backhand.

“Oh,” Willa said, a note of dawning comprehension in her voice.

“You got it?”

“Hang on.”

Keeping her eyes glued to the blond on the screen, Willa made a few forehand strokes. The blond tennis player did, too.

“Oh!” Willa cried, with significantly more delight.

Before long, they were enjoying long rallies. They weren’t the quickest of athletes, but they were steady and dedicated, and they’d begun playing once a week. It was the first time they’d regularly raised their heartbeats in over a decade.

“So this Carlos fella knew Emmet Till?” Jean asked, panting.

“No, no,” Willa batted this away. “The Emmet Till Act. It’s a government thing. He works with it somehow, and he opens up old unsolved cases, and investigates them. Jiminy read all about him.”

This wasn’t as foreign to Jean as her reactions would imply. She’d reviewed some of Jiminy’s Google searches by using the “History” tab on her computer and had followed a few of the links. Still, Jean hadn’t fully engaged with what she’d discovered. She hadn’t wanted to get pulled back in.

She was getting pulled back in now, though. It appeared that all of them might be.