“You’re not looking into what happened?” Wilbanks said.

“We didn’t say that,” Quinn said. “But why would you want to know about something that happened nearly forty years ago? Our investigation is tied to a completely different case.”

“The DA would be grateful for y’all making some headway down in Jericho,” Wilbanks said. “The racial edge to this crime is something he’d like to see addressed. We know about the rape and murder that may have sparked this crime. But the law was ignored and this man’s rights were violated.”

“I don’t know whether to punch y’all,” Lillie said, “or stand up in salute.”

“How about both,” Quinn said.

Sonny Stevens raised his hand, trying to quiet his clients. “And why would your office entrust an important case to law enforcement officers they say they don’t fully trust?”

“We have to follow up with the shooting,” Childress said. “Just as sure as y’all will be following up with that lynching. Now that new witnesses have come forward.”

“Y’all really keep tabs on Jericho,” Lillie said. “Did you find that out before or after y’all went through my panties?”

Sonny Stevens held up a hand, telling everyone to settle the hell down. “Am I hearing some kind of quid pro quo situation on the table? Some folks charged in exchange for an end to this ridiculous investigation of my clients?”

Wilbanks swallowed, patted his sweating head, and looked to Quinn and Lillie and then back to Stevens. “No, sir. We’re simply stating the DA and his entire office would be grateful if some headway could be made in a pretty ugly chapter here in north Mississippi. The two items are unrelated.”

“Well, god damn,” Stevens said, shaking his head.

“What’s that, sir?” Wilbanks said.

“Politics do trump all,” Stevens said, stood, and buttoned the top button of his suit coat. Quinn stood more slowly, Lillie following them both, walking out the door. No handshakes, no words said, until they were out of the stale, sour-smelling building and in a parking lot, facing the back of the Oxford town square.

“Sneaky motherfuckers,” Stevens said. “They wouldn’t admit it with their feet to the fire and their cojones in a vise. But they want y’all to come up with results and make this local turd into the next attorney general.”

“I never owned a gun like that in my life,” Lillie said. “They seeded it to make sure.”

“Guess they thought y’all needed some extra incentive,” Stevens said. “But what in the world would make y’all not follow through on an investigation you’re already working on? And this case has been around almost forty years. Who the hell is in such a rush for something so goddamn old?”

•   •   •

Stagg heard them as he was finishing up a plate of fried catfish, coleslaw, and beans at the Rebel. The sound was something terrific, drowning out even the 18-wheelers rolling in off Highway 45. He watched from the red-padded back booth and saw a good thirty, forty of those shitbirds on two wheels zip between the gas pumps and the restaurants, finding a place to gather above the semi lot. Mr. Ringold excused himself to go out and get himself a better look. Stagg stood, dropped a couple bucks on the table as was his custom with the waitresses, and walked down the long row of stools at the dining counter, past the truckers hunched over their meat loaf and chicken-fried steak not giving one shit about the noise shaking the plate glass. Only a couple of his longtime waitresses gathered by the register, witnessing the entire Born Losers Motorcycle Club come back to town.

Stagg kept standing there with hands on hips, reaching over by the candy displays and finding a couple peppermints in a big white bucket, offered on the honor system to benefit a home for abused kids over in Grenada.

He walked out slow and easy, seeing the men getting off their bikes, taking in the bright and cold day. The sound of their growling pipes still ringing in his ears as he made his way to the pumps and over to the higher ground where they’d parked. Hot damn. Here we go.

One man separated himself from the others. He had a shaved head and wore a thick black leather jacket with leather pants with high leather boots. He had on dark sunglasses and his face was a mess of tattoos, ink on his chin and down his cheeks and over his throat. The closer he got, Stagg could make out that the ink on his chin was that of a devil’s goatee and the one on his neck was one of those dreamcatchers that he sold in the Rebel for four dollars and ninety-nine cents. Genuine Choctaw but made in China.

“You Johnny Stagg?” the man said. His voice was gravelly and thick, accusing as an old woman’s. Stagg figured the boy was in his late forties or early fifties, hard to tell without any hair and all those goddamn crazy tattoos.

Stagg just nodded.

“You sure don’t look like much.”

Stagg didn’t say anything.

“I hear you run this shithole.”

Stagg grinned, not being able to help himself, this boy was the genuine article of swagger and bullshit. He was pretty certain that even this boy’s momma didn’t love him.

“Y’all’s food any good?” the man said. “We’ve been riding all morning from Meridian.”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” Stagg said. “Try the lemon pie.”

“And the titties out back?” the man said. “We talking local talent or Grade A? I don’t want some toothless, pregnant skank grinding my pecker for a dollar.”

“The bar doesn’t open till four,” Stagg said. “You might have noticed that on the billboards if you boys could read. You sure do have a mess of them with you.”

“Johnny Stagg,” the man said. “Damn, it’s good to see you. I sure have heard a bunch of things.”

“Is that right?” Stagg asked, not giving a damn but drawing things out, seeing Ringold making his way out through the dozens and dozens of parked trucks and finding some land up above the Rebel.

“I heard you were sneaky as hell,” the man said. “Smart. Tricky. That if a man turned his back on you, you’d stick it hard and high inside him.”

Ringold was just a shadow on the ridge over the tattooed freak’s shoulder. Stagg just now caught the glimmer of a rifle scope from above. Money well spent.

“Might be true,” Stagg said. “Might be true now.”

“We didn’t come for trouble,” the man said. “We came to eat country chow and see some big ole titties. If they ain’t dancing now, you better go wake them up and say you got company. Shake ’em hard and long.”

“We don’t open the Trap till four.”

“The Booby Trap,” the man said. “That’s clever as hell. You think of that all by yourself, Mr. Stagg?”

“I sure did,” Stagg said. “And it’s made me a rich man.”

“But you didn’t get really rich until about twenty years ago,” the man said. “I was there. I remember. You just don’t remember me, do you?”

“What’s your name, son?”

“Animal.”

“Your momma name you that?”

“It’s what you’ll call me from now on,” the man said. “And, sir, we’ll be regulars here for a while. Just getting things ready.”

“I’ve been expecting y’all,” Stagg said. “As long as you tend to your manners, there won’t be no trouble. Buy your gas, buy a plate lunch. Y’all can go in like normal folks to the Booby Trap when we open. But, son, just don’t try and get tough with me. I got myself a real weak stomach and the indigestion.”

“You know that hell is coming,” Animal said. “Right?”

“I’ve gotten his letters from Brushy Mountain,” Stagg said.

“This is our county now,” he said. “Understood?”

“Is that so?” Stagg said. “Hmm.”

“Goddamn right.”

“OK,” Stagg said. “But I sure would be careful about gloating too much on your big ole fucking hog. There’s a high-velocity rifle aimed right at your head, boy. Have you ever seen what one of them things can do to a watermelon? When it explodes, it makes a hell of a goddamn mess.”

The man, Animal, kind of laughed. But when he turned to look over his shoulder, his face turned a few more funny colors. He didn’t say jack as he walked back to his men and their rows of shiny chrome Harleys.