“So who saw the lynching?”

“He named a lot of folks and I wrote them all down,” Lillie said. “But there was only one name that jumped out at me.”

“Yep.”

“Funny, how you can know a person.”

“Or not know a person,” Quinn said. “There’s a lot about my daddy I don’t know or care to know. I’m just surprised something like this happened in Tibbehah. I figured any bad shit would’ve happened on the West Coast. Why would he be so almighty stupid to fall in with some shitbirds like this? He’d already made a name for himself.”

Lillie and Quinn sat together in the truck, the scanner breaking up the silence with the voice of a new woman they had on nights. She was talking back and forth with Kenny, who was doing a wellness check on an old couple living in Dogtown.

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about Jason Colson,” Lillie said, “but not a single one about him being mean or having a temper.”

“I don’t think this was a usual situation,” Quinn said. “In times of stress, people come unglued. They don’t act themselves. This was right after a fourteen-year-old girl is murdered. Another is raped.”

“I asked why they targeted this man,” Lillie said. “I kept on wondering was it just because he was there? You know, the first black man they could find? But Stillwell said no. He said someone down in Sugar Ditch had named him. Said the son of a bitch was crazy as hell and had sold off the gold cross that had belonged to Lori. Stillwell said that over and over. ‘He had the cross.’”

“That’s pretty damning.”

“Turns out, this man had found her stuff, her purse, and some other personal items in the trash,” Lillie said. “Man was a drifter. He lived out of trash cans and dumpsters.”

Quinn drank some coffee, warming his hands on the cup. An 18-wheeler passed the Sonic, driving at a high rate of speed. If he hadn’t been busy, he might have chased the guy, told him this was a just a small town, but it was his town and did he mind taking it easy when he came to Jericho.

“So what was he doing at the Rebel?” Quinn asked. “With the stripper and Stagg?”

“I’m getting to that,” Lillie said. “Hold on.”

Quinn sipped on the black coffee, recalling a tin cup of instant being knocked out of his hand in a dry creek bed in the AFG. A sniper up in the rocky hills taking aim, thinking Quinn’s team was coming for him and the twenty insurgents hidden in a cave. No one knowing where to find the sonsabitches until they started shooting. The bullet had gone through the cup and off his breastplate. And then there had been a lot of smoke bombs, flash bangs, and nearly twenty-four hours of zigzagging up that craggy face until they got to the mouth of that cave and brought those boys out, one by one, each replacing the next, until there was nothing left but that cold wind.

“Johnny Stagg took his Road Runner,” Lillie said, “he didn’t just out-and-out steal it. But took the paper in exchange for a thousand dollars due in a month.”

“You got to hand it to Stagg,” Quinn said, “he is one prismatic son of a bitch.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the stripper was an incentive?”

“Nope,” Lillie said. “She was just giving him a ride home.”

“God bless her.”

“But when I found Stillwell, mind you, he was crashed out on the rug in his living room,” Lillie said. “I had to put the toe of my boot up under his chin a few times before he came to. He was a mess. He looked up at me and acted like I had caught him doing something. And so what do you do? I acted like I sure had caught him. He got to his knees—that’s when he threw up the first time. Good Lord, if vomiting was an Olympic sport . . .”

“What’d he say?”

Another semi blew past the Sonic, not noticing the light bars on top of Quinn’s truck or any of the thirty-five-miles-an-hour signs posted. “Should we chase them down?” Lillie said. “Once you got kids, these fuckers really start to piss you off.”

“What’d he say?”

Lillie tilted her head, placed her hands on her thighs, and shook her head. “This wasn’t the first or only money he’d been taking from Stagg.”

Quinn waited. He reached for a dead cigar in his ashtray. Lillie reached out and touched his hands. “Wait until I leave,” she said, “OK?”

Quinn nodded.

“Stagg paid him two thousand dollars to talk to Diane Tull,” Lillie said. “Stagg told him to get her good and stoked and to go to the police about Lori. That piece of shit knew it wouldn’t take two steps before we’d get on to the lynching. That’s a man full of a lot of worry. He must have something real bad going with these Born Loser folks.”

“Did you ask Stillwell about it?”

“Yeah,” Lillie said. “And he was about to answer when his head dropped in the toilet. I had to drag him to the sofa, and even took off his boots. He could use a new pair of socks, every toe sticking out of a hole.”

•   •   •

Most mornings, before driving back to the farm, Quinn would check up on the progress of his mother’s house in town. The contractor got paid by the hour and, every time Quinn checked, the man was there right at 0600. He’d had a lot of work to do beyond just putting the roof back together. There was some bad structural damage to the brick walls, and a lot of plumbing, wiring, and flooring had to be restored. Today, the front door was unlocked and open, the contractor not there, as he’d finished two days before.

The house where Quinn had grown up was oddly empty and strange. They’d moved most of his mother’s furniture, appliances, and Elvis memorabilia into a storage unit. A good two-thirds of the house was pretty much the same, but the new section didn’t have the old blue carpet or the popcorn ceiling. The smell was different, of fresh-cut wood and glue, and the windows were different. Instead of the old wood frames, there was modern, energy-efficient vinyl.

Quinn missed the old windows. He was walking over to inspect the glass and casing when he saw a car pull into the drive. Jean Colson got out of the car, opened the hatch, and lifted out a box. Quinn met her in the driveway and helped her carry a few more boxes into the house.

“Looks like they haven’t finished the paint,” Quinn said, “just the primer.”

“I was coming to town anyway,” Jean said. “Figured I’d just bring back some pots, pans, and few cups and plates.”

“There’s no rush to leave the farm,” Quinn said. “That house is yours as much as mine. Hell, you grew up there.”

“I appreciate that,” Jean said. “But that old house hasn’t but one bathroom. I prefer having my own, thank you very much.”

Quinn shrugged as Jean walked through the rooms and stared up at the ceiling, the place where that ragged hole had been after the tornado and, for months after, a blue tarp. She walked back to her big empty bedroom and into the kitchen, where some new stainless steel appliances had been installed, the insurance paying out for all the storm damage.

“What do you think?” Quinn said.

“Looks good,” she said. “I still wouldn’t mind closing off that porch, maybe adding in screen.”

“There’s always time for additions,” Quinn said. “But you got a roof over your head, a new kitchen, and some new windows.”

“The windows don’t match.”

Quinn nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Are you doing all right?” she asked.

“I’ve been on duty all night, Momma,” Quinn said. “I just came by to make sure things were locked up.”

“I got a key yesterday,” she said, eyeing him. “There’s not much to steal.”

“Boom and I can help you when you’re ready,” Quinn said, “but I kind of got used to your cooking.”

Jean smiled. “You don’t need me,” she said. “You got Ophelia to do all that.”

“You ever eaten her food?”

“Bad?” Jean said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “I wouldn’t advise it.”

Jean felt along the walls where the Sheetrock had been taped and mudded. Her heels clacked loudly in the open living room as she glanced around at all the space she’d have to fill again. She’d never mentioned it, but Quinn knew she was proud of the home for holding together during the storm. She and his father had bought the one-level ranch in 1982 and it was pretty much all he remembered. From time to time, Jason would still find some of Quinn’s buried G.I. Joes in the backyard, his and Caddy’s old play fort still up in some pine trees in the backyard.