Quinn puffed on the cigar and ashed the tip in a COLSON FOR SHERIFF coffee mug. “What else we got going today?” Quinn said.

“Goddamn Chester got drunk again and busted the window at the florist shop,” Lillie said. “He’s into some kind of feud with Miss Doris over that alley where he takes a piss now and then. And we got some kind of family squabble out in Providence with Missy Hayes. She says her uncle tossed all her shit out of a house where she was staying. The uncle says she was a renter who didn’t pay and that she’d been warned. Kin or not.”

“Who’s her uncle?”

“Levi Sims.”

Quinn nodded, puffed on the cigar some more. “Between those two, I wouldn’t know who to believe.”

“That whole family is fucked in the head,” Lillie said.

“Make sure to put that in the report,” Quinn said.

“You bet.”

“I’ll talk to Boom,” Quinn said. “Might be good if we ride together in Sugar Ditch, talk to some folks we know.”

“Are you saying people in the Ditch are mistrustful of white folks?” Lillie said, taking the cigar from Quinn’s mouth and taking a puff. “And you need Boom just to get them to loosen up and talk a bit?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Damn,” Lillie said. “You’re turning into a pretty good investigator, Sheriff.”

Appreciate you stopping by, Sheriff,” W. D. “Sonny” Stevens said. “But I’m afraid I got some right shitty news for you.”

“Terrific,” Quinn said.

They stood out on Stevens’s balcony on the second floor of his law office. The repair work and construction around the Square now a common racket during the week. Twenty or so contractor trucks were parked in and around the Square, filling in the holes and gaps that the tornado left. Lots of hammering and saws, big chunks of Sheetrock lifted off trucks and fitted on the studs. Blue tarps fluttered from a few rooftops still waiting for repairs. New permits being pulled every day.

“DA wants you in Oxford Friday for a sit-down,” Stevens said.

“OK.”

“This is a step up from the informal, friendly stuff,” Stevens said.

“Fine by me.”

“Getting ugly.”

“That’s expected,” Quinn said. “Let ’em get to it. If they want to ruin the election, now’s the time.”

“They also have a search warrant to check Lillie’s house,” he said. “I learned this from a trusted friend in Oxford. So tell her to act surprised when they show up.”

“Don’t worry,” Quinn said. “Lillie will give them an earful.”

“How’d it go last time?” Stevens said. “With that investigator in New Albany?”

“He was slicker than shit.”

“Friendly?”

“Too friendly,” Quinn said. “He didn’t stop grinning the whole time. What could they possibly have, Mr. Stevens?”

“DA’s trying to tie you both to all that money,” Stevens said. “That’s it, right? You and Lillie ambush those two convicts making an exchange and, when the Jericho police showed, y’all shot them, too. So, I’d guess the DA either found a witness or they’re trying to show an uptick in your personal finances.”

“Hell,” Quinn said. “You know how much I make a year?”

“Shameful,” Stevens said, shaking his head. “Just shameful.”

Quinn leaned over the wooden banister and looked out at the Square. The old movie house built in the thirties, which for a short time became a church, was now coming back as a movie house. Some woman from Oxford had moved into town to start a coffee shop and tanning parlor, and there were two restaurants—a Greek and a Chinese restaurant—moving into spaces that had been vacant since Quinn had been a kid. What was a tragedy was now deemed an economic miracle.

“I never intended to go for second term anyway,” Quinn said. “I came back to bury my uncle and then left the Regiment to finish some things. I’ve done my part.”

“But you don’t care for being forced out?”

“No, sir,” Quinn said. “You know that scene in Butch and Sundance when Sundance can’t stomach being called a cheater? He makes the man across from him ask him to stay at the poker table.”

“Other fella was Sam Elliott,” Stevens said. “Before he grew the mustache.”

“That’s pretty much how I feel.”

“I don’t like it, either,” Stevens said. “And don’t care for the way it smells.”

“Like bullshit and diesel?”

“Got Johnny Stagg all over it.”

“Yep.”

“You need to inform Miss Virgil that she’ll be served with a search warrant sometime later today,” Stevens said. “We’ll all head over to Oxford tomorrow and see what the DA is about to throw down. Maybe he has a deal on the table.”

“No deals.”

“You’d like to be asked to stay awhile.”

They watched all the activity on the Square for a bit. Neither of them spoke until Quinn turned to the older man. “Mr. Stevens?”

“Yes, sir.”

“This may be off topic,” Quinn said, “but do you recall a couple young girls attacked in 1977? One girl was shot and killed. The other raped and left for dead.”

“Diane Tull,” he said. “And Hank Stillwell’s daughter.”

“Do you know what happened after?” Quinn said. “A man was snatched up and lynched.”

Stevens swallowed. His fine gray hair blowing wild and scattering over his head. He leaned into a space by Quinn at the banister and spit down on the sidewalk below. Quinn could smell the bourbon on his breath, but he seemed clear-eyed and sharp. “That was one of the most disgusting acts I think ever happened in this town.”

“So who were they?” Quinn said. “The ones who could pull it off and no one would question it?”

Stevens shook his head, reaching up and patting down his scattering hair. They both stood there, young man and old man, leaning over the railing and watching the rebuilding of the new and improved Jericho. The American flag flying next to the gazebo and an old cannon by the foot of the veterans’ monument. More hammering and sawing and commotion carried on below, signaling movement, improvement, and change.

“That’s been quite a while.”

“Doesn’t make things any better.”

“I might know someone who can help y’all out,” he said. “Let me ask around.”

•   •   •

“Someone wants me to shut my goddamn mouth,” Diane Tull said. “They wanted it so badly, they wrote it on the side of my pickup truck.”

“That don’t seem right,” Hank Stillwell said. “Maybe someone’s just joshin’ you.”

“And they slashed my tires and came up to my home, peeping in the windows,” Diane said. “No, sir. They’re not joshing me. They mean business, and, at this point, I’m a little confused by your motivation here. Do you want to find out who killed your daughter or just stir all this shit back up?”

Diane had called the old man to meet her on the Natchez Trace at noon. That way, she could get loose from the store without anyone asking a bunch of questions. And the more Hank Stillwell’s muscle car was parked outside her house or at the feed store, the more people would start thinking they were having an affair. Just what she needed, folks think she was hopping in bed with a man twenty years her senior. Hank Stillwell. Jesus, she sure hoped not.

“I just want to help,” Stillwell said. “I figured you’d want the same.”

“Who’s doing this pushing?” she said. “Who doesn’t want this to come out?”

“That’s a hell of a long list,” Stillwell said. They stood under a covered viewing area where you could look out at Indian mounds rising up from the flat, grassy ground. This was the place, according to the official park map, where the Choctaws came to bury their dead with pieces of pottery, weapons, and tools. There were two different viewing points and a building with public restrooms.