“There’s about forty thousand bucks’ worth of truck. Looks a little out of place, don’t you think?”

“Let’s hit it and git it,” Nautilus said, opening his door.

Ellis looked at the property, then at the house. “You guys handle the inside stuff. I’m gonna go look for a place to take a leak, right?” He grinned and disappeared around the side of the house, heading for the barn and moving mouse-quiet for a man so large.

Nautilus and Sandhill were a dozen paces from the door when it banged open, Oakes framed in the doorway, wearing an angry look and holding a shotgun. He glowered at Nautilus.

“Git off my property, whoever you are.”

Nautilus held up his badge. “I’m Detective Harry Nautilus, Mr Oakes. My partner, Detective Carson Ryder, was at the prison-van situation - remember him? This is Detective Sandhill.”

“Oh my goodness,” the man said as he digested the information. “I’m sorry. I thought you was insurance salesmen.”

The weapon was quickly tucked behind the door.

“We’re flummoxed by the killings, Mr Oakes. We’d like to ask a few more questions. Just to see if anything’s jogged in your memory over the past few months.”

Oakes shrugged, tapped his forehead. “I cain’t think of anything. I been trying.”

“May we come in for a couple minutes, run some questions by? It won’t take long.”

“Hang on a sec. I got to tidy up a few things.”

He disappeared behind the door. It reopened three minutes later, Oakes gesturing them inside.

The tight space was cluttered with magazines, unwashed clothes, a dining-room table strewn with a disassembled alternator, the pieces interspersed with plates, dried food clotted to them, cigarette butts studding the food. Nautilus shot a look at the magazines: Handgun Digest, Modern Weapons, Southern Partisan. The only clean place was a computer desk in the corner, a large monitor behind a keyboard. Hanging above the desk was a Confederate battle flag.

“I ain’t as neat as I should be, but then if any of you fellas are single, you know we’re all pretty sloppy.”

Time to put the sand in the oyster, Nautilus thought. He smiled benignly.

“I’m single, Mr Oakes,” he lectured, a ghost of condescension in his voice. “I keep things neat by setting aside fifteen minutes daily for putting things in their proper place. Just amazing at what that fifteen minutes can do, if you put your mind to it.”

“Mebbe I’ll give that a try,” Oakes said, voice tighter. “Fifteen minutes, you say?”

Nautilus looked around Oakes’s home. Frowned.

“Here, maybe more like an hour.”

Oakes’s eyes flashed. He turned away and shunted aside a pile of clothes on the couch. “You can sit here, you want.”

Nautilus studied the ragged couch like it was infested with lice. “I think I’ll stand, thank you.”

“Do what you want,” Oakes grunted.

Sandhill leaned against the wall, arms crossed. “You know, Mr Oakes, that a man named Bobby Lee Crayline escaped from the van that day. You said just before you got to the scene you heard motorcycles moving away.”

“That’s what I told the cops.”

Sandhill stepped close, his broad body all Oakes could see. “Crayline was a member of the Aryan Conquest. It’s like a prison club for white guys only. You ever heard of that particular organization?”

The farmer scratched his temple with a yellowed nail. Shrugged at Sandhill.

“Can’t say as I have.”

“It’s figured that a person or persons unknown drove by the van on motorcycles,” Sandhill said, “blew off the driver’s head with a shotgun. The van crashed and the fuel tank ruptured. They would have worked fast to get Crayline out and on a bike, haul his ass away. Was that what you heard?”

“I was hauling hay bales with my tractor. It’s loud. I just barely heard them bikes over it. Then I seen the smoke and run over fast.”

“And you found?”

“The front window was busted on the van and the guy on the passenger side was crawling out of the fire. I pulled the guy away. That’s when the cop came up, the Ryder fella.”

Sandhill doodled in his notebook. “Tell me, Mr Oakes, was the—”

“Where’s that black guy?” Oakes said, suddenly aware that Nautilus was no longer in the room.

“In the john, maybe. Tell me, Mr Oakes, was the back door open on the van?”

But Oakes was heading around the corner to the kitchen, looking for Nautilus. “Hey, you there, come on out here. There ain’t nothin’ back there.”

“I was just taking a tour, Mr Oakes,” Nautilus said, standing in front of an ancient, shuddering refrigerator. “I haven’t been in many farmhouses. Just seeing how you people live.”

Nautilus emphasized the words you people.

“What people you talking about?” Oakes said.

Nautilus did wide-eyed innocence. “Just you people, you know? Agrarians.”

Oakes’s eyes went dark. “I’ll tell you how my people live, Mister Detective. We live out here in the clean and open air. Not all piled up together. We live righteous, God-fearing lives and—”

“The door on the van, Mr Oakes,” Sandhill interrupted. “Was it open?”

Oakes spun. “How’m I supposed to remember that? There was a crash and a fire and I was busy tryin’ to save a man’s life and—”

“Details, Mr Oakes,” Nautilus interrupted, stepping closer to Oakes. “Sometimes at a crime scene there are details that people remember after time has gone by.” He spoke as though trying to make a slow child understand a simple concept. “It’s like they suddenly see the scene with more clarity. Clarity means—”

“I goddamn know what the hell clarity means.”

“You were pulling a trailer full of hay bales?” Sandhill asked, his turn to take a step closer to the farmer.

“I just goddamn said so.”

“Where did you get the bales, Mr Oakes?” Sandhill asked. “And where were you taking them?”

“Get the bales?” Oakes slapped his forehead. “It’s a farm! Don’t you know nothing? I think it’s time for you two to—”

“Were you feeding animals? Taking the bales to a feeding station?”

But Oakes was looking from side to side, Nautilus no longer in sight.

“Where the hell has it gone now?” Oakes spat, angling his head to peer into the kitchen. Sandhill stepped aside, revealing Nautilus sitting at Oakes’s desk. Nautilus looked up, two dog-eared paperbacks in his hand.

“I’m right here, Mr Oakes. I was just admiring some of the books you enjoy. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The Confessions of Nat Turner. Are you aware scholars have found both to be of spurious origin? Spurious means—”

Oakes snatched the books from Nautilus’s hand.

“I’ll read whatever I goddamn want. It’s a free country - least it used to be. And I think it’s time for you to get your snooping black ass out of here.”

Nautilus shot Sandhill a get-ready nod and the pair shuffled to the door. Oakes stood in the center of his living room with his arms crossed, framed by yellow newspaper clippings, rotted food, broken machinery and a deceased flag. Nautilus paused and turned.

“I checked your past, Mr Oakes. You and four buddies harassed two black women you thought were lesbians, punched one of them. A couple years later you burned a six-foot cross in the front yard of—”

Oakes jutted his chin. “I stand up for my own.”

Sandhill opened the door. Nautilus winked at him; time to shuck the oyster. He walked to the threshold. Paused as if something had just become clear in his head. He turned to the farmer.

“I know that you were part of the escape plan, Mr Oakes. The bales on your trailer were a shell. The shooter wasn’t on a motorcycle, but on the road, maybe holding up his hand like he needed help. The van stopped, the shooter went to work. Bobby Lee Crayline and the shooter slipped into the space in the bales, and you dropped more bales in place to close them off. You answered all the questions, then hopped on your tractor and pulled away.” A hint of a smile crossed his lips. “How’d I do?”