I remembered high school all too clearly. There was something that had baffled me from the start, and now seemed as good a time as any to ask Hollis about it. “There’s something I don’t understand. Dell Teague didn’t mind dating a girl with such a bad reputation? He’s from the best family in town, right? Or at least the one with the most money. And yet . . . he’s dating a girl who has an alcoholic mother and an absent father, a poor girl, a wild girl.” I waited, with my eyebrow cocked, for Hollis to comment.

Hollis ruminated for a minute or two. “They didn’t run with the same crowd, until Helen started working for Sybil. She’d have Teenie come over there, after school, and do her homework. They were drawn to each other from that time, is all I know to tell you. When Teenie got into trouble after that, it was when Dell’s parents decided to interfere between them, or when Helen was on a tear. If Teenie couldn’t go out with Dell, she’d raise hell.”

That was interesting. It didn’t lead anywhere, but it was interesting.

I folded my own wrappers neatly and put them on the same tray with Tolliver’s.

“Before Helen had to get a restraining order against Jay, was their relationship violent? Did the cops have to go there every weekend? Or did something specific spark that episode?”

Hollis looked thoughtful. “If it came to that, it was before my time on the force. You’d have to ask one of the older guys about that. One of ’em runs the hotel where you’re staying at, Vernon McCluskey? He’d know about that.”

We weren’t exactly popular with Vernon McCluskey, if he was the skinny older guy in overalls that was usually behind the motel counter, the one who’d hinted broadly that we weren’t welcome anymore.

Tolliver got up to dump the trash from the tray into the garbage bin. One of the uniformed workers, a woman about twenty-five, watched him from her spot at one of the cash registers, an avid look in her eyes. She was short and dumpy and the McDonald’s uniform didn’t suit her. I’ll give her this, she had outstandingly beautiful skin, something Tolliver’s a real sucker for, maybe because of his own scarred face. I don’t think it would occur to Tolliver to list “good skin” if someone asked him to make a list of things he found attractive, but I’d noticed that everyone he hit on had a clear complexion.