A chill runs up my back at the memory of the Valhalla hunting camp. “Is that where Snake is?”

“No, I told you back at your house, he’s in a two-room shack behind a bigger place owned by somebody he knows. It’s a good hiding spot. There’s a couple of ways in and out on land. There’s also a road through some swamp bottom that will take him to the river. He’s got a speedboat tied up down there. His hole card, I imagine. I figure that’s how he got to Natchez without being caught by the FBI.”

“How the hell did you find Knox?”

Lincoln takes his time with this. “Old Mr. Snake’s been in contact with Sheriff Billy Byrd.”

“How on earth could you know that?”

“I’ve been talking to a black deputy who works for Byrd. Been paying him for information.”

“How long?”

“Ever since I got to town. I’ve even got a phone number for a burn phone Knox is using, and this morning I got the GPS coordinates on the Rodney place. I drove down right after the trial and checked it out. He’s there.”

“How did you keep from being seen?”

Another low chuckle fills the truck cab. “Ran a little con, of course. I borrowed a piece-of-shit truck with a lawnmower in back, threw in some cane fishing poles, then rode up here wearing some old yardman shit. Told the only two people I talked to I was looking for work up this way. Gave ’em the idea I needed to get out of Natchez in a hurry. They didn’t think anything about it.”

“I’ll be damned.”

“After tonight, you may be, if you’re not already.”

Thanks for that. “I need to ask you something. Did you put the videotape in Henry’s camera on the night your mother died? The tape Sheriff Byrd’s men found in the Dumpster?”

Fresh bitterness comes into Lincoln’s face, but then a faint smile shows in profile. “Cora loaded that tape in there, like she testified. But it was me who told her to do it. And I told her how to set it so the red light wouldn’t come on. The tally lamp, they call that, in case you’re interested.”

“I figured that was you.”

“Didn’t do me no good though, did it? Daddy Tom found the tape and nuked it in that MRI machine. Pretty smart, really.”

To this I say nothing.

After staring into the darkness for a while, I say, “You said there are three people where we’re going?”

“Last I checked.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“Snake. That blond kid. And a woman, about sixty-five. Looks like a bitchy old redneck.”

“Wilma Deen, probably. Glenn Morehouse was her brother. The kid is Snake’s son. Illegitimate.”