“Her momma didn’t hear nothing ’cause she’s about deaf without her hearing aids in. Her daddy Toby’s a trucker and he was on the road in Kansas when Debby died. So unless he’s got himself elephant ears, he didn’t hear a damn thing either.”

“Whose gun was used?”

“Toby’s ten-gauge.”

“Did you tell Sheriff Tyree about your doubts?”

“Till I was blue in the damn face. He just kept saying, ‘Where’s the evidence, son?’ Her prints and her daddy’s prints were the only ones on the gun. She was all alone. Nobody had no reason to kill her so they decided she must’ve done it herself. Real damn smart.”

“Can you think of any reason why someone would want to kill Debby?”

“She never hurt nobody. Sweetest thing under the sun. And she’s all I had.”

“Before she died, was she upset or nervous about anything?”

He shrugged. “No, not that I could tell.”

“When’s the last time you talked to her?”

“Around eleven that night. She sounded fine.”

“Would it surprise you if I told you that Danny Riker was really upset that she was dead?”

Willie wiped his eyes with some tissues, balled them up, and threw them in the wastebasket. “I guess not.”

“You guess not?”

“Danny and her even dated before we got together. But Danny dated every girl in the high school so there wasn’t nothing there really.”

“Danny’s here in the hospital too.”

“What! What happened?”

“Some guys busted him up, bad. Any ideas there?”

“No. Danny and me weren’t that close anymore.”

“But you two were friends.”

“Best friends.” He paused. “He came to see me here.”

“When was that?”

“Yesterday afternoon. We had a good talk. High school football and all.”

“You two were teammates.”

Willie grinned and Stone could suddenly see the young man under the coal dust. “Man, we were the team. He threw thirty-seven touchdown passes his senior year and twenty-eight of them were to me. We both could’ve played for Virginia Tech. But I got a damn DUI and they rescinded my scholarship and Danny hurt his knee. Glory days all right.” His grin disappeared and the young man was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.

“So Danny didn’t say anything that might explain why he got attacked?”

“No, nothing like that. He said he was real sorry about Debby. And he told me to keep off the pills. Said he was thinking about heading out again and he wanted me to come with him. We’d go west and start over.”

“Were you interested?”

“Maybe. Ain’t nothing keeping me here now.”

“I understand things changed between you two when the Rikers came into all that money?”