Some Outlaw bastard had a big handful of Jason’s hair and was trying to run his ass straight into a long line of Born Losers’ bikes, but Jason rolled away from him, sweeping his legs out and then getting on top of the ugly man, punching him right in the ugly face, busting the man’s lip and nose and reaching for his long greasy hair to slam his head on the pavement.

Somebody reached for him, Jason realizing it was two more Outlaws, one of them with a long metal chain that he fitted around Jason’s neck and pulled, dragging him away from the bleeding man. Somewhere, someone fired a pistol. Someone yelled.

Jason could not breathe, thinking, God damn, this is how it all ends. You jump out of a helicopter, free-fall from a skyscraper, and plan to jump a car over a river, only to get your ass taken out by some redneck mad you ate his barbecue.

Jason was on his knees, trying for air and not succeeding a bit with the chain on his throat, when he heard a thwack and plunk and the pressure was gone, Jason rolling to his back, choking in long swallows of air. Big Doug appeared over him with the pipe, dripping with blood, and offered him a big meaty paw to get back to his feet and get on with it.

There was another shot, another cracking pistol. The women screamed, and the barbecue joint owner was in the middle of them all, blasting off his shotgun, but not a damn thing stopped until they all heard those sirens coming off Highway 78, the men backing away, the kicking and punching slowing down, until they were still, Outlaw and Born Loser alike crawling back on their choppers, giving one another the bird and tailing on out of the parking lot. Jason’s heart was jumping so bad in his chest, after not feeling that kind of worry for a good long while, that he nearly missed the fella laid out cold in the parking lot, a halo of blood spreading around the body and head.

One of the big-bottomed waitresses was screaming like hell, holding the Outlaw’s head in her lap, waiting for the law and medical help, and for the chaos to ride on down the road.

It wasn’t a mile away that the fists of the bikers raised in the sky, high off handlebars, bikes crisscrossing and bikers high-fiving, on the back highways to Jericho.

You notice anything strange about that report in your hand, Sheriff?” Lillie said.

“The paper feels strange,” Quinn said, looking up from the stack of files on the desk. “Onionskin. Pretty damn thin.”

“And the report itself?”

“Real thin.”

Lillie nodded. She sat down with Quinn in the SO conference room, not much to the room but a long row of file cabinets, a couple grease boards, and the coffee machine. There were old plaques on the wall for honors given to his late uncle by the state and a brand-new calendar from the Jericho National Bank. It was one of those big old-fashioned ones of bird dogs hunting through the brush, men in quilted coats raising guns to flying quail. The whole thing old-time wishful thinking, as the quail had died off decades ago, either from an influx of the coyotes or the invention of the bush hog, taking out their natural habitat.

Lillie set down a sack from the Sonic. “Saw you working when I left,” Lillie said. “I got you a cheeseburger and fries. Everything on it.”

“Reason I made you my chief deputy.”

“Not because I had the most law enforcement experience?”

“I figured we needed to boost your self-confidence,” Quinn said, reaching into the sack and getting the burger and fries, “since that’s in such short supply with you.”

Quinn already had a big cup of black coffee going on the desk. He didn’t bother keeping track of how many cups he drank in a day. If Mary Alice wouldn’t complain, he’d have a La Gloria Cubana going, too. Which he did, on occasion, when a window and fan were handy.

“After I came back from Memphis, your uncle wanted to go on and purge these files,” Lillie said. “He always said he wanted to have a bonfire party on your land and clear the decks.”

“He say why?”

“Officially?” Lillie asked. “He said the cases were closed and we needed the space.”

“Unofficially?”

“He was a servant of the people and said there were a great many things in his file cabinet that would embarrass some fine folks and good families.”

“Bless their hearts.”

“Funny how you and Sheriff Beckett were related,” Lillie said, stealing a French fry from the carton. “You could give a rat’s ass about what people think. Or fine families and such.”

“I don’t care what they think,” Quinn said. “But I do like to know how they might vote.”

“Something happen?”

He told her about being at Mr. Jim’s barbershop and Jay Bartlett being such a horse’s ass.

“Jay Bartlett is a horse’s ass,” Lillie said. “A sorry little prick. He hadn’t said two words to me in the last five years. He’s been listening to rumors about me, too. He thinks that maybe I’m helping spread immorality and liberal ideas throughout Tibbehah County.”

“Isn’t that how you get your kicks?” Quinn said.

“Wouldn’t you love to know,” Lillie said. She placed her big combat boots on the edge of the desk and leaned back a bit. She had on her slick green sheriff’s office jacket, hair in a ponytail and threaded through a ball cap with the insignia of Tibbehah County on it. “Now,” she said, letting the front legs down on the chair and shifting her eyes down her stack of papers, “what’s wrong with what you got?”

“I got nothing,” Quinn said.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning there is the incident report with an interview with Diane Tull and a half-dozen people who saw them at the carnival that night,” he said. “There were a couple half-assed and illiterate reports to follow about talking to people who lived out on Jericho Road near the old Fisher property and heard shots but didn’t see a goddamn thing.”

“Right.”

“And an autopsy report.”

“And what else?”

“Nothing.”

“No follow-up reports, nothing filed with the state, no interview with local informants? You know your uncle always had a set of CIs on the payroll?”

“OK,” Quinn said. “So it was half-assed and poorly done. Nobody ever said this sheriff’s department was progressive. My uncle once tried to keep law and order. But he never thought of himself as an investigator.”

“Stuff was taken out,” she said. “That’s not all that happened. Even if it was half-assed, there’d be twice as much here, just as routine.”

Lillie took off her cap and placed it on the table, got up, and set her SO coat on the rack. She sat back down with Quinn and ate another few fries, thinking on things, and then took his last bite of cheeseburger. She thought some more as she ate. “Funny thing is how little people have talked about all this. What exactly did Diane Tull tell you?”

“Pretty much what she told my uncle in 1977.”

“And nothing more?”

“What else could she say?” Quinn said. “How about you spell it out to me, Lillie Virgil?”

“OK, Sheriff.” Lillie nodded, mind made up, and walked over to a long row of dented and scratched file cabinets. Using a key from her pocket, she opened one in the center, two drawers down, and pulled out an old manila folder, shut and bound with an old piece of string. “Call me when you get done reading this.”

She slid the file far across the table to Quinn and he immediately wiped his hands on a napkin and opened it up. Stapled reports, autopsy files, several black-and-white photos that brought to mind many images of the hills of Afghanistan and burned-out homes in Iraq. He could recall the horrid smell of charred bodies. “Jesus.”