“Chief Hammer?” West loudly said. “Hello?”

“Virginia . . . You there?” Hammer’s voice scattered more.

West pressed a hand over her other ear, trying to hear.

“. . . That’s bullshit . . .” a male voice suddenly broke in.

West started walking, trying to get into a better cell.

“Virginia . . . ?” Hammer’s voice barely crackled through.

“. . . can do it anytime . . . usual rules apply . . .” The male voice was back.

He had a southern drawl and was obviously a redneck. West felt instant hostility.

“. . .time to . . . kill . . . Got to . . . or score . . .” The redneck spoke in distorted blurts.

“. . . an ugly dog not worth . . . lead to shoot it . . .” A second redneck suddenly answered the first redneck. “How much . . . ?”

“Depends on . . . Maybe a couple hundred . . .”

“. . . Just between us . . .”

“. . . If . . . body . . . finds . . .”

“. . . not invited . . .”

“What?” Hammer’s voice surfaced and was gone.

“. . . Use a . . cold nose . . . Not your piece . . . shit . . . ! Blue . . .”

“Chief Hammer . . .” West started to say more, then caught herself, realizing the rednecks might be able to hear them, too.

“. . . coons . . .” The first redneck came back. “. . . not one born too smart for . . . Dismal Swamp . . .”

“. . . Got that right, Bubba . . . We covered . . . a blanket . . .”

“Okay, Smudge . . . buddy . . . early morning?”

West was silently shocked as she listened to two men plan a homicide that clearly was racially motivated, a hate crime, a score to settle that involved robbery. It sounded as if the murder would go down early in the morning. She wondered if a cold nose was slang for a snub-nosed revolver and if blue referred to a gun that was blue steel versus stainless steel or nickel-plated. Clearly, the psychos planned to wrap the body in a blanket and dump it in the Dismal Swamp.

Static.

“. . . Loraine . . .” Bubba’s fractured voice was back. “. . . At old pumps . . . cut engine . . . headlights off so don’t wake . . .”

Static, and the cell cleared.

“Chief Hammer?” West said. “Chief Hammer? Are you still there?”

“Bubba . . .” the second stranger crackled again. “Somebody’s on . . .”

Static, scratch, blare, blip.

“Goddamn it,” West muttered when her phone went dead.

Bubba’s real name was Butner Fluck IV. Unlike so many fearless men devoted to pickup trucks, guns, topless bars and the Southern Cross, he had not been born into the tribe of Bubbas, but rather had grown up the son of a theologian in the Northside neighborhood of Ginter Park, where old mansions were in disrepair and Civil War cannonballs on porches were popular. Butner came from a long line of Butners who always went by the nickname “But,” and it was lost on his erudite father, Dr. But Fluck III, that calling his son But in this day and age set the child up for problems.