“Eeyuh. And Cale knew a lot of their dirty little secrets. He and Cindi were crapping their shorts to get out of town. They feared posse hardliners might use muscle to keep them from leaving. Or worse.”

“That’s why she had the locks changed. She was afraid of the posse, not Cale.”

“Bogan also gave it up on Owen Poteat. We were right. He paid Poteat to lie about seeing Cindi and Cale at the Charlotte airport.”

“How did Bogan recruit him?”

“Before he got canned, Poteat sold Bogan a sprinkler system for his greenhouse. One day he was checking out a problem and they got to talking. Poteat needed money. Bogan needed the cops thinking his kid was alive and well and living somewhere with his girlfriend. Bogan undoubtedly gave some innocent-sounding reason for wanting to place the two of them at the airport. Poteat bit.”

Reflections from the magnolias moved in shifting patterns across the dark lenses covering Slidell’s eyes. I suspected his emotions were paralleling mine.

“It’s hard to believe a man could murder two young people, one his own flesh and blood, over an outmoded definition of what a sport should be. But I guess with him, it wasn’t a sport. It was a religion carried to the point of fanaticism.”

“There was a time we lobotomized freaks like him.”

“Those were the days.”

Slidell missed my sarcasm. “Well, that’s last season’s pennant race. Here’s a good one. Bogan’s almost sixty, and the asshole’s never left the Carolinas.”

“I guess stock car racing was all the universe he needed. That and his plants.”

Slidell shook his head.

“I keep seeing Bogan’s den in my mind,” I said. “The place was a shrine to NASCAR. Model cars, auto parts, clothing, signed posters, a zillion framed pictures. Yet not a single snapshot of Cale.”

“Freak,” Slidell repeated.

“Here’s the craziest part. The dumb wang claims to love NASCAR history but knows little of it. Women have been pushing the accelerator since before Bogan was born.”

“Yeah?”

“Sara Christian drove in the inaugural Strictly Stock race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. You know what year that was?”

Slidell shook his head.

“1949. qualified at number thirteen, finished fourteenth in a field of thirty-three.”

“Get out.”

“Janet Guthrie participated in both the Indianapolis 500 and NASCAR. In the late seventies she drove in thirty-three cup-level races. At the 1977 Talladega 500, she outqualified the likes of Richard Petty, Johnny Rutherford, David Pearson, Bill Elliott, Neil Bonnett, Buddy Baker, and Ricky Rudd. And not one of them said anything derogatory or resentful, at least not publicly.”

“She win?”

“Turn one, first lap, another car’s driveshaft went through Guthrie’s windshield. After it was replaced, the engine blew.”

“Ouch.”