In sloppy, loose letters, the message read SHUT YORE GD MOUTH.

God damn it, Diane thought, shotgun resting up on her shoulder. If she could’ve just gotten a little closer, she might have taken a nice hunk out of his ass.

Shut your GD mouth.

Now, that was fucking original.

•   •   •

“You’re soaked,” Quinn said.

“So I am,” Diane Tull said.

Quinn kept his eyes front and center on her forehead; her man’s tank top was wet to the point of being translucent.

“Let’s head inside, ma’am.”

“I thought we covered the ma’am thing,” Diane said, giving a nervous laugh. Hair in a ponytail, black, with that one silver streak hanging down loose. “I can’t take that shit tonight, Sheriff. You say that again and I’ll punch you.”

Diane was still holding a shotgun and she seemed agitated and quite nervous. The wind and rain had grown worse, blowing across the headlights of Quinn’s still-running truck. His dispatch radio squawked inside the cab.

“Do you mind, Miss Tull?” Quinn said. He opened his right hand and Diane handed over her shotgun. An old J. C. Higgins, the house brand of Sears & Roebuck. His uncle and his dad had similar guns. He studied the gun, mostly in an effort to keep his eyes averted from her chest.

They walked back into her driveway and she showed him what he had done to her truck. Quinn shined a flashlight across the driver’s door.

“Well,” Quinn said, “he can’t spell worth shit. Who spells your like that?”

“Some dumb shit.”

“And your tires?” Quinn said, shaking his head. “That’s just plain mean.”

“Seeing that bastard’s face in my kitchen window was enough to give me a start.”

“I bet,” Quinn said, following Diane out of the rain, around her old white bungalow, and up some steps and into her kitchen. She had a candle going, on account of the power being out, and she lit two more and found a little battery-powered lantern to set on the kitchen counter.

“You get a decent look?” he asked.

“Hell no,” Diane said. “He was a white man with a scraggly beard and long hair. He had on jeans and a red flannel shirt. That could be half the fucking rednecks in north Mississippi. Fifty people on a Saturday at Walmart in Tupelo.”

“How tall?”

“A little shorter than you.”

“Less than six feet?”

“Just under.”

“Build?”

“Skinny.”

“Age?”

“I can’t say for sure,” Diane said. “Not old. Not young.”

“Thirties?”

She nodded. “Sure,” she said, “I figure.”

“Eye color?”

She shook her head.

“Hair color?”

“Could’ve been lighter, but it seemed brown,” she said. “He was wearing a ponytail and his hair was wet. Oh, hell.”

Quinn nodded. The kitchen was very small and intimate, Diane Tull standing on one side of the counter in front of the stove, Quinn sitting on the other side, writing into his notebook. He noted the time of her call, her address, her Social Security number, and the basics of what had happened before she had discovered the man had vandalized her truck.

“And he just ran?”

“I shot at him,” she said. “Twice. Damn, I was too far away.”

Quinn nodded. “What direction?”

“Toward the Square,” she said. “He got two streets down and got on a motorcycle. I saw him ride away, up over the hill, to the Square.”

“I know it was raining and dark, but did you see anything about the bike?”

“No,” she said. “I heard it more than saw it. It had those special mufflers folks have, really loud, you could’ve heard the damn thing ten miles away.”

“Any chance you got him with the shotgun?”

Diane’s face looked drawn, hands trembling around a glass of water, as she shook her head. “I wish.”

“I’m going to call dispatch with what we know,” Quinn said. “Then I’m going to look around your house some more. We have a deputy headed this way. He’ll sit on your house all night.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said. “I don’t think that bastard’s coming back.”

“Maybe not,” Quinn said. “But I’d feel better with Kenny sitting on things.”

“Kenny?” she said. “Really?”

“He’s tougher than he seems.”

“God, I hope so.”

Diane put down the glass of water and wrapped her arms around herself. She shivered a bit and used a dishtowel to dry her face. She was more than twenty years older than Quinn but didn’t look her age, still attractive, with her high cheekbones and black hair with its long streak of silver. Diane Tull wore Levi’s and work shirts, and had been a good friend to his mother and Caddy, helping Caddy, even though Caddy wouldn’t admit it, after Jamey’s death and on through the mess of the storm. Quinn couldn’t even recall all the free stuff she’d donated to The River.

“Who else knows you and I spoke?” Quinn said. “Caddy and who else?”

“That’s it,” she said.

She looked away, thinking on something. Quinn tilted her head, watched her face, and stayed quiet.

“Well, there’s another. But he’d never say a word. He’s too sensitive about things.”

“Who?”

“I’d rather not say,” Diane said.

Quinn removed the spent shells from the shotgun. He asked if she had more and she nodded and said she had boxes and boxes in her bedroom.

“If he’s the only other person,” Quinn said, “stands to reason . . .”

Diane swallowed and nodded a bit. “Hank Stillwell.”

“He upset you’re bringing all this up?” Quinn said. “Has to be sensitive to him.”

“No,” Diane said, shaking her head, wiping the rain off her arms and across her chest and over her wet tank top, “not at all.”

“How can you be sure?”

“He’s the one who come to me and asked me to stoke it,” Diane Tull said. “He said you’re the only man who can find out who murdered his daughter.”

“This may not be the time,” Quinn said, “but there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

“The man who got burned up?”

Quinn nodded.

“It’s been a hell of a night, Sheriff,” she said. “I got to get those tires changed before I get to work in a few hours and then figure out how to get those cusswords off my truck. I’d rather not churn all that up right now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “Kenny and I can help you with those tires. I’ll call a friend.”

“Appreciate that, Sheriff,” she said. “You’re a good man.”

“Your vote in this spring’s election would be much appreciated,” Quinn said, tipping at his baseball cap.

My brother isn’t too fond of your friends,” Jean Beckett said, sitting on the back of Jason’s baby blue Shovelhead Harley, looking pretty as can be, running her mouth over a soft serve vanilla cone.

“They’re not my friends,” Jason said. “Big Doug is a friend. But the others are just some boys I met. They’re good fellas, a little hot-tempered, but good fellas.”

“My brother said y’all got into a rumble with another gang up in Olive Branch,” she said. “One man got hurt real bad at some barbecue pit. He’s still in the hospital in Memphis.”

“Your brother is the sheriff,” Jason said, licking a little bit off his chocolate cone. “I guess he hears things.”

The yellow-and-red glow from the Dairy Queen shone down on the parking lot and out into the rolling Big Black River, not far off Highway 45, out on Cotton Road.

“He’s just looking out for me,” Jean said. “I think he’s more concerned that you’ve left your roots and gone Hollywood.”