“Oh, yes, sir, she checked out around nine o’clock last night,” the clerk said, not realizing what she’d let slip. She, Darren noted. He’d still been at the bar with Greg at the time. He wasn’t sure what he’d heard last night, but in any case, Sandler Gaines had lied to him, and he wanted to know why.

“How long has Mr. Gaines been staying at the Cardinal?” he asked.

This she answered excitedly, forgetting herself and the sense of propriety she’d held so dear only moments ago. “Oh, he arrived with the Jeffersonian.”

“The what?”

“The steamboat,” she said. She pointed to a display of brochures for various local attractions, everything from the Jefferson Historical Museum to the Jefferson General Store to garden walks and ghost tours and plantation restaurants to a Gone with the Wind museum to several ongoing Civil War reenactments. From the display, the desk clerk plucked a green-and-white brochure and handed it to Darren. There was a picture of a boat that resembled a wedding cake but with a large paddle wheel and two black smokestacks attached to the back. COME SEE JEFFERSON’S NEWEST ATTRACTION, the caption read. The brochure had pictures of slot machines and blackjack tables on the boat and an image of a well-dressed and well-tanned couple standing on the deck of the Jeffersonian, their two glasses of champagne kissing as the sun set behind them on Big Cypress Bayou, the main artery from the town into the wilds of Caddo Lake.

Darren didn’t understand what he was looking at or what Gaines was selling. “Gambling’s illegal in Texas,” he said.

“Oh, that’s just for show,” the clerk said. Her name tag said SHAWNA, Darren saw now. She had wide brown eyes and nails both bitten and polished. “It’s just a boat right now, a prototype, Mr. Gaines said when he had a crew bring it in. Can’t even ride on the thing yet. But you can go see it. It’s just a few yards behind the courthouse, parked right under the railway bridge. It’ll cost you ten dollars, though,” Shawna said. “And was everything okay with your room?”