My brother was fascinated by love and sex. Whenever we spoke on the phone, he pressed me about women. If I mentioned a recent date, I was in love. He had endless arcane theories on love and sex, always revolving around a damaged psyche. Mine, of course, never his.

“Drop it, Jeremy. I have no interest in the woman.”

“You’ve already targeted her,” he said. “Part of your childhood damage manifests in a shy roguish charm you use to warm yourself with temporary lovers, Carson. You gain them through various sensory buttons and words, then get to hide within them.”

“I don’t need to hear your old—”

Jeremy put a soft innocence in his eyes and stared shyly at the floor. “I don’t know for certain, ma’am,” he said earnestly. “But maybe I can stop by your house later, just to check on things. Would that be all right with you?”

My breath halted in my throat. It was my voice coming from my brother. It wasn’t like hearing a recording, but freakish, like eavesdropping on me from inside myself. My brother re-assumed his face and smiled wickedly.

“Then, Carson, once inside Miz Cherry you’ll feel a momentary sense of safety and control. Maybe even—”

“We’re talking about you,” I rasped, my mouth dry. “Why did you want me here?”

“We’re brothers,” he said innocently. “We should spend time together. Thus my gift of a vacation.”

“You know what I think, Jeremy?”

“Usually. But go ahead.”

“I think maybe you heard details of the first murder, the snack king, on your little radio. Heard enough to figure out it was a horror-show scene. You got spooked about law-enforcement types running about, doing things like studying newcomers. Figured you’d feel better if I was around to keep an eye on things for you.”

“You’re so suspicious, Carson,” he crooned, flicking lint from his collar. “It can be an irritant at times.”

13

I returned to my cabin and slept. Just past daybreak, I took Mix-up for a walk, arching over the ridgeline bordering the cabin and winding a circular route to the side of Jeremy’s home. It seemed still and content, no more than a quiet refuge in the woods. I heard another vehicle entering the hollow. When I saw it was Cherry, I sprinted after her, catching up as she angled down the slender lane to the cabin.

“You started sleeping in the woods with the dog, Ryder?” she asked as we stumbled to the road from the undergrowth. “You gone feral?”

“We were hiking. Anything happen yesterday after I left?”

“Beale asked the FBI in. There’s a team finishing a case in West Virginia. They’re coming here in a day or two. An important guy like you must have worked with the Feds, right?”

“I’ve been run under their bus a time or two. I’ve also worked with feebs with the smarts to collaborate instead of control. You never know what you’re going to get.”

“The Special Agent in Charge will be a fellow named Bob Dray. I’ve heard good things about him, a pro who listens to local input. I spoke to Agent Dray today; Bob, he said to call him. He’s from North Carolina, knows mountain folk. I think we’ll get along fine.”

“You got lucky. Anything else going on?”

“Today I’m interviewing more friends of Tandee Powers. I’m heading to see a woman named Berlea Coggins. I know her a bit. Thing is, she lives with her invalid daddy, and I need someone to distract him.”

“He eavesdrops?”

“He stares at my ass and clicks his false teeth.”

That alone sounded worth the trip. “Let me put on a clean shirt,” I said.

The Coggins’s small house smelled of medical balms and lavender candles. Television, couch, end tables, recliner, coffee table, all lined the wall with geometric precision. There were no bookshelves, but doilies aplenty, plus wooden wall plaques laden with homilies: Worry Ends Where Faith in God Begins, Faith Makes Things Possible, Not Easy, If You’re Smoking in Here, You Better Be on Fire, and so forth. A painting of Christ hung above the couch, the frame plastic, with a small nameplate at the bottom saying Jesus of Nazareth.

Miz Berlea Coggins was a skinny and plain-faced woman in her late thirties, a prominent mole adjoining her nose and a mouth that appeared to have come direct from sucking a lemon.

Miz Coggins’s father, Mooney Coggins, peered from around a corner, a wizened man in an electric wheelchair, oxygen tank in back, plastic tube running to his nostrils. I saw him grabbing glances at Cherry’s hindquarters as if branding it in his memory - for which I could find no fault - but his teeth remained civil.

When Cherry asked about Tandee Powers, the old man gave me a twisted leer. He began opening and closing his hand, holding it high to make sure I noticed. Thinking dementia, I turned back to Cherry and Miz Coggins, the latter’s mouth tight as she answered Cherry’s question.

“I dunno I should say such a thing about poor Tandee. Ain’t nothing can be done about things now, let her rest in peace.”

“Miss Coggins, you know me. It’s not my place to hurt someone’s reputation, but to find out who killed Miz Powers.”

Berlea Coggins went to an old spinet piano, a bible resting on top. She touched the book as if drawing solace, then turned, her eyes down.

“It was a dozen years back or so. Tandee led the church home-school committee, and I was secretary. There was a meeting with a sister congregation down in Franklin, Tennessee. The church sent Tandee and me, bought us a room at the Red Roof Inn.”

Her hands began to fidget, like she was knitting with invisible yarn. “Tandee and me had supper with the other church folks, but the big home-school meeting came the next day, so we went to our room for bed. When we was getting undressed Tandee started talking about… about men and what they liked to do.”

“Sex?”

“Just jokey gossip. We put on our nightgowns and Tandee kept talking about how a man she used to know would sneak on up behind her and try and, uh, slide his hands over her … her …” Miz Coggins turned crimson.

“Her bosom?” Cherry said.

“Yes. And then she … Tandee … showed what happened.”

“She touched you?” Cherry asked.

“It didn’t seem so awful, both us being ladies and all. I was laughing cuz it was funny how men try and get their way with ladies.”

“What happened next?” Cherry asked.

“Tandee dropped to her knees and yanked up my night gown. She tried to kiss me on my … my womanness. I pushed her away and told her if she didn’t leave me be, I was going to run down the hall screaming.”

“What happened?”

“We never spoke of it again. We hardly ever spoke to one another, neither.”

I stepped away to give Cherry some woman-to-woman time with Miz Coggins. I walked past the old man, nodding politely. The clasping hand had returned to his side. He thumbed a button and the wheelchair whirred back against the wall.

“Hey, boy,” his voice hissed to my back. “C’mere.”

I turned. Cherry was still engaged with Miz Coggins. I went to the wizened old gent. One blue-white claw of a hand waved me closer and I leaned down until we were face to face.

“That Cherry woman’s sure got a high round ass on her, ain’t she? You tapping that keg, boy? Goddamn, I would. I’d slurp it up like a three-scoop sundae.”

“Excuse me, sir. I have to go make some notes.”

I had three steps between us when the old guy cackled out a whisper. “I knew that lady y’all are talking about, Miz Powers. I knew her inside and out, you get my drift.”

I turned, walked back. “Sounds like you knew her pretty well, sir.”

His eyes lit with humor. “Tandee Powers had one a these on her.” He did the strange hand motion again, opening and closing it rapidly. “That’s how Tandee’s pussy was,” he grinned. “It just kept goin’ and goin’, like that battery bunny on them commercials. Man or woman, didn’t make no difference. Just keep that pussy working. Weren’t many people know that about Tandee Powers, but I did.”