Molly’s wet auburn hair was matted and hung forward with the rest of her slumping body only held vertical by the seatbelt. The hair covered her face. For that I was glad.

The driver’s side door was open, the ME beginning to examine the body. Water was still draining onto the ground.

The strong odor of the river emanated from the car, the smell of fish and tannin and mildew.

I walked around to the back of the car and studied the bumper.

It was bent slightly, but there was no way to know when it had happened.

There were a few dents and some white paint from another vehicle on the back right quarter panel. The paint could have been on the car for six months or six hours. There was no way to know for sure. But I knew.

This was the work of Matt Skipper.

The Quarters, the name given to the black section of town by a certain segment of the white population, was roughly two hundred acres on the south side of Pottersville, only part of which was inside the city limits. A single row of small red-brick duplexes provided by the government for low-income housing was the only part of black Pottersville actually located within Pottersville.

The low-income housing, known as the black projects, was a mirror image of the government housing on the east side of town, known as the white projects. The only difference in the two projects was color. It was more like a negative than a mirror—the negative of a hateful and ugly picture of racism, tribalism, and xenophobia.

I drove past the row of identical duplexes and found myself again surprised by how widely the yards varied. In front of most of the dwellings, the yards were barren, a mixture of dirt, weeds, and trash. Others, however, had neatly trimmed lawns and a shrub or two. Most of the houses did not have vehicles in front of them. Of those that did, many were tireless heaps up on blocks and covered with plastic tarps. Two of the units had late-model Cadillacs that gleamed even under the late-evening sun.

On the corner, around a small fire, three men and a woman—all holding tall beer cans or bottles in paper bags in their hands.

Across the road and down two yards, at least twenty children were playing various games under the watchful eye of an elderly gray-haired lady rocking on her front porch, occasionally leaning forward and spitting snuff into the front yard.