“Checked on that very thing before you rolled up, Ranger,” Lillie said. “I sure as shit taught you well. Ole Mr. Bloodgood seems to have a spotty memory of where he owns all his houses. But property records seem to confirm it.”

“The girl’s daddy wasn’t sure if he owned a house on Grand Isle?”

“You know what they say about the rich.”

“That they’re different?”

“No,” Lillie said. “That they can be lying, conniving, backstabbing bastards.”

“Hadn’t heard that one,” Quinn said. “You ready to roll?”

“A team-up?” Lillie said. “A Ranger and U.S. Marshal?”

“Told you it’d be just like the old days,” Quinn said.

Lillie took the cigar from Quinn’s fingers and took a few puffs. She handed it back as he opened the tab of his second coffee. The wild, green beauty of the park opening up to him, and he wished he could return sometime with Maggie and the kids. Oaks trees starting to bud and small green flowers poking up from the grass.

“Let me talk with Charlie,” Lillie said. “Maybe he can babysit these assholes in case something changes. I don’t want to be on some coon-ass highway if TJ Byrd decides to blow up goddamn Mardi Gras.”

“That kid’s better than that,” Quinn said. “She just wants to make things right.”

“You keep telling me that,” Lillie said. “And maybe one day I’ll believe you.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

Dusty and Daddy crossed that little bridge from the mainland and rolled up on the stilt house later that morning. The skies so dark and gray along the Gulf it damn well looked like night. Dusty had to elbow Daddy awake, the old truck smelling of cigarettes and gas station chicken, turning down the radio playing old-timey accordion music with some French fella wailing and carrying on about some dead woman. Even though it was colder than a Minnesota well digger’s ass, he let down the window to get a feel of what was happening on that neat row of houses, not spitting distance from the beach and backed up with a canal full of docks and boat lifts. Sure was a wonder how some white folks lived.

“Wake up,” Dusty said, hammering the dashboard with the flat of his hand. “Come on, old man. This ain’t no fuckin’ lunch break.”

Daddy garbled out some nonsense and went right for a cigarette, eyes staring straight up at the odd house, built high off the ground like some kind of weird bird standing quiet and still along the street. Row after row of nothing but stilt houses running across that little island, looking cold and dark and shut up for the winter. He figured maybe he and Daddy might come back with Momma Lennie after they got paid by ole Johnny Stagg. Easiest money they’d ever earned.

“Where’s that girl?” Daddy said.

“In that house, I reckon.”