“You want some coffee?” Lillie said.

“No, ma’am,” he said. “Just figured me and you might have a heart-to-heart, you being the senior of the folks in this office. Quinn kind of came to the scene late. I don’t think he understands or respects the work of Sheriff Beckett.”

“Sheriff Beckett was on the take.”

“That hadn’t been proven.”

“What you got, Mr. Royce?”

The old man scratched his stubbled cheeks and smiled. His teeth were yellowed and crooked, one eyetooth capped in gold. “Just wanted to see how things was progressing from one lawman to another.”

He kind of grinned when he said that last bit, eyes taking in Lillie’s posture and hands on her wide hips. Lillie eyed him and nodded a bit. “You just want to know what we’re doing since this was your case at one time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You didn’t seem to be interested the other day.”

“Y’all kind of caught me with my pants down,” he said. “I was just waking up and not thinking. When y’all left, I started to kind of wonder why you and Hamp’s nephew would be kicking all this mess up. Are you some kind of special friends with the Tull girl?”

Lillie was five foot eight in bare feet but five foot ten in her boots that day. She stepped forward two paces and looked down at E. J. Royce’s bald head. “Do you have something to say?”

“Relax there, darling,” he said. “I don’t care which way y’all’s pendulum swings. What concerns me is y’all making a mess of what happened. I mean, when it all gets down to it, who gives a shit?”

“Who gives a shit that a young woman was murdered and another raped?”

“That ain’t it,” Royce said, his eyes glowing with an alcoholic heat. His cheeks so red, it looked as if he’d applied some rouge. “I just can’t figure out why y’all have interest in that nigger they strung up.”

“Excuse me?”

“We got the right man,” he said. “That nigger took them girls. Why on God’s Green do y’all want to make something of it? Justice was done.”

Lillie crossed her arms over her chest. “Sit down, Mr. Royce.”

“I’m just fine.”

“Sit the fuck down, Royce.”

Royce sat. He seemed amused by the whole thing, grinning and sort of laughing, thinking the world sure had turned into a funny place. He craned his head back and forth, studying Lillie’s personal mementos on the way. “Who’s that with all them medals on their neck?”

“That was the SEC championship,” Lillie said. “I shot a perfect score. I’m prone to steadiness when my mind comes to it.”

“Oh, hell,” Royce said. “You are a pistol. I can’t even imagine what old Sheriff Beckett would think about his wild-ass nephew running the show, ruining his name for some wandering nigger and having some smart-mouth dyke woman as his sidekick. What’s the world coming to?”

Lillie did not speak. She breathed slowly. The door cracked open a little and Kenny stuck his portly body inside, obviously listening from the hall. “Everything OK?” he said.

“Mr. Royce was just leaving.”

Royce laughed, showing rows of uneven teeth, and stood, putting that old trucker hat on his rooster hair. His entire being smelled of burned-up cigarettes, ashen and dead.

“You know why people like you don’t bother me?”

Royce grinned.

“’Cause all of y’all are dying off,” Lillie said. “Less and less of you every day. You lost. Thank Jesus.”

Royce turned to Lillie, clenched his jaw, and spit on the floor, before following Kenny out of her office. Kenny hung by the door, wide-eyed, before shutting it.

“This man gives you a bit of trouble, you toss his ass in the tank,” Lillie said. “And, for God’s sake, make sure he takes a shower. He smells like flaming dog shit.”

Glad you stopped by, Quinn,” Johnny Stagg said. “Sure is a fine morning. Cold. But fine just the same. Come on back with me. We can talk a bit.”

“I’d rather talk out here, Johnny,” Quinn said. “How about right in the restaurant? Just so people won’t start talking about me behind my back.”

Stagg stopped midstride, having just turned in to the hallway by the public toilets. He nodded, grinned, and said, “Sure, wherever you like, Sheriff. You had breakfast? I can have Willie James fry you up some eggs and bacon. I think we still got some hot biscuits.”

“I’m good.”

“What brings you here, Quinn?”

“Your man Ringold said you wanted to talk,” he said. “So let’s talk.”

“Come on back to my booth,” Stagg said, walking on ahead. “I keep this place special for friends and family.”

Quinn ignored the last remark, though he wanted to say that he was neither and didn’t want to be. He followed Stagg to the crescent-moon shape of red vinyl and sat down. Stagg had moved some of his famous head shots of celebrities out here. Apparently, one time he’d had the honor of serving Jim Henson a plate of pancakes. And there was Jim in a photo, looking alive and well, with his hand up the butt of Kermit the Frog.

“You want coffee?” Stagg said.

“No, sir,” Quinn said. “I need to get back on patrol. We had some accidents last night. Lots of reports to write.”

“Probably seems slow after what we all went through after the great shitstorm,” Stagg said. “Sure I can’t interest you in anything?”

Quinn shook his head. Stagg folded his bony hands in front of him, no one within earshot, the waitresses seating folks near the convenience store and western-wear mart. Nothing more authentic than a straw hat and a pair of boots made in China to ride high in your rig and play cowboy.

“I feel for your troubles, Quinn,” Stagg said. “I don’t think it’s fair.”

Quinn just stared at Johnny, breathing in deep through his nose, and kept calm, hands flat on the table.

“I don’t like the rumors I’m hearing and what people are saying,” Stagg said. “It pained the shit out of me to talk to you like I did last night. You’re a good lawman and we’re lucky to have you. But it’s my constituents who want answers. You can’t just blow a fellow lawman’s brains out and expect no one to say nothing. Life ain’t no John Wayne movie.”

“I’ve always been a Jimmy Stewart man myself.”

“Or Gary Cooper?” Stagg said, grinned big. “I see a lot of ole Gary Cooper.”

Quinn checked the time, surrounded by big sheets of plate glass looking out on the truck stop business, feeling as if they were floating there in an aquarium. Stagg glancing up and crooking his finger for a waitress and wanting to know if that lemon pie had cooled down yet. If it had, cut him up a nice old slice with a glass of Coca-Cola. “Sure is good,” Stagg said. “Mmm-mmm.”

“You publicly embarrass me last night and now you want to feed me pie,” Quinn said. “I’ll ask again, what do you want?”

“I heard you been asking around a bit about a murder back in ’77,” Stagg said, leaning back in the padded vinyl, licking his lips. “I have to say, I’m a little hurt you didn’t come to me, ask me about it. You know, I do have a pretty good memory for all things Tibbehah County.”

“OK,” Quinn said. “Tell me what I don’t know.”

“You spoken to Hank Stillwell yet?”

“No, sir,” Quinn said. “Not yet. But he’s the father of the victim. It’s high on the list.”

Stagg nodded. The waitress brought him a Coca-Cola but said that Willie James said the pie was still cooling and not to mess with it. Stagg shrugged and drank some Coke. “Y’all sure taking your time.”

“Didn’t know there was a rush,” Quinn said, thinking on the meeting with the ADA in Oxford. The smell of Stagg all over all them.