“Says it right there at the county line,” Lovemaiden said. That big shit-eating grin plastered on his boyish face. “Welcome to God’s Country, please don’t drive through it like it’s hell.”

“Ain’t that something,” Quinn said.

He shook Lovemaiden’s hand and followed him off the sloping highway lined with cedar trees and oaks and onto an unpaved road. Lovemaiden had a funny walk, loping like early man who’d yet to evolve, big hands and long arms swinging at his sides. Twenty meters off the highway and down a gravel road swallowed up by oak branches, Quinn spotted the blue Nissan hanging sideways into a drainage ditch.

“That it?”

Quinn checked out the license plate and nodded.

“I ran the record on that Byrd woman,” Lovemaiden said, spitting into the weeds. “She ain’t exactly president of the PTA.”

Quinn walked up to where the back wheel on the passenger side hung a good foot over the gravel. Lovemaiden pulled on some rubber gloves, opened the driver’s door, and hit the trunk release. It popped halfway open and Lovemaiden walked back to open it all the way. The trunk was filled with a flat spare, a cardboard box of assorted junk, and plenty of fast-food wrappers.

“I poked around a bit,” Lovemaiden said. “Didn’t see nothing of value.”

“Can you send some deputies to walk the woods?”

“Walk these woods?” Lovemaiden asked, grinning. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Quinn didn’t answer, leaving the question hanging.

“Already have,” Lovemaiden said. “Didn’t find nothing but an illegal dump over in that ravine. Folks treating this part of my county like a goddamn toilet. You can smell it from here.”

“You mind if I have this towed back to Tibbehah?”

Lovemaiden shrugged. “Don’t make no difference to me,” he said. “One less car in our impound lot. Figured she must’ve wrecked and called someone to pick her up.”

Quinn nodded. Hondo jumped up on his front paws and tried to get at something he was sniffing in the trunk, scratching at the bumper and whimpering. Quinn pushed him back as the dog barked and barked, looking from the trunk up to Quinn.

“Must be smellin’ them ole French fries,” Lovemaiden said as he reached into the right pocket of his uniform and pulled out a tin of Skoal. He thumped it a few times and opened the lid, pinching a generous piece and plugging it into his lower lip. Quinn was used to dippers. Most Army Rangers he knew chewed tobacco, although he’d always preferred cigars.

Lovemaiden turned his head and spit. “Hell of a thing you went through last year,” Lovemaiden said. “First word I got sounded like you were already dead.”

“Almost.”