A picture of a pretty blue-eyed girl flashed on the screen, looking for all the world like that troublemaking Nellie from Little House on the Prairie. Stagg remembering that time Nellie pushed that ole Laura Ingalls right into the dirt, the little punk arguing about playing Uncle John or Ring Around the Rosie. Or that time Nellie sucked on a peppermint stick at her daddy’s general store and called those Ingalls girls country trash that didn’t have a penny. Nellie was a damn hoot. This little old girl looked cut from the same cloth. Evil-eyed and mischievous.

Stagg grinned, thinking about just what in the damn hell TJ Byrd had gotten herself into. Murder. Kidnapping. Extortion. She was turning out right smart. For country trash.

The news showed video of TJ Byrd standing on the roadside somewhere with that girl from Arkansas. From that sly little grin on that blonde-headed girl’s face, she was in on the whole dang charade. TJ Byrd stood with a gun in boots and an old flannel shirt saying that if Chester Pratt came forward and confessed his sins they’d let that girl go free and clear.

Stagg flipped around from station to station until he heard an interview with a fat fella named Vincent Bloodgood, Chastity’s father. Stagg guessing Chastity was the Nellie lookalike, the images flashing on the screen of the girl at the beach, on some lake, and even up on the billboards with her fat daddy. a deal ain’t no deal less it’s bloodgood.

BLOODGOOD: I’ll do whatever it takes to get my daughter back.

Is that a fact?

BLOODGOOD: My girl doesn’t want to be a part of this mess. These gosh-dang kids need to be punished for all they’ve done.

That can be arranged.

BLOODGOOD: If you’ve seen Chastity. Or heard from her. Or know anything about her, call the hotline we set up. I’m offering a fifty-thousand-dollar reward for any information.

Wonder what that fat boy would pay to get Nellie on back to Fayetteville?

Stagg picked up the phone and called the kitchen for Midnight Man. They’d spent most of the afternoon going over orders for T-shirts and bumper stickers on both sides of the TJ Byrd debate to sell at the Rebel. On one side, free byrd or tibbehah county tough with home of the infamous tj byrd and ladarius mccade on the back. On the other, tears for gina byrd and justice for gina. Right now, sales were about neck and neck on both sides of the issue. Stagg figured kidnapping some blonde-headed, blue-eyed Chevy princess might just kill any support of free byrd sentimentality. TJ Byrd done cornholed herself with that one.

Midnight Man soon walked in, dressed in his XXL black trousers, white T-shirt, and a big white apron splattered with smoke and black grease.

“Yes, sir.”

“What’d you do with that sausage?”