“I’m glad you called,” Quinn said.

“You ain’t gonna arrest me or nothing?”

“There are warrants,” Quinn said. “For you, TJ Byrd, and Ladarius McCade.”

“They didn’t kill Miss Byrd,” Holly said. “You got to believe me, Sheriff. I always liked you. You were always real sharp and stand-up when you came to high school to talk to us about the dangers of drugs and staying away from Fannie Hathcock’s place out on the highway. Hadn’t been for you, I might’ve ended up working the pole like my cousin.”

“That warms my heart, Holly.”

Quinn was a trim, muscular man, now nearly forty, with a face full of sharp angles and dark hair cut high and tight like a man still in the service. That night, and as always, he had on a crisp khaki shirt with a silver star, starched and creased dark jeans, and a shined pair of Lucchese boots. Some folks said he reminded them a little of a young James Garner. He liked that, as he’d admired the man who’d marched with Dr. King and played both Major William Darby and the lead in Support Your Local Sheriff.

“I can’t go to jail,” she said. “I didn’t do nothing. I was just trying to help TJ. If we hadn’t gotten out of town, she would’ve ended up in a trash barrel just like her momma.”

Quinn knew the investigation wasn’t his yet, still officially belonging to Sheriff Bruce Lovemaiden, but there was little doubt that whatever happened to Gina occurred in Tibbehah County. The Byrd family, like the Colsons, had been in Tibbehah since well before the Civil War. Gina Byrd’s grandfather was an associate of Quinn’s grandfather, running moonshine and evading treasury agents back in the day. She’d been classmates with Quinn and would’ve graduated with him had she not shacked up with Jerry Jeff Valentine, a man ten years her senior, a part-time house painter and full-time accomplice of the biggest fence in north Mississippi.

“How about you start from the beginning?” Quinn said.

Holly looked behind the counter, all the eggs and bacon and hash browns sizzling on the grill. The air was thick with grease and burnt coffee.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Quinn asked.

“That trucker I hitched a ride with gave me some beef jerky.”

Quinn handed her a laminated menu slick with oily fingerprints.

“Anything I want?” Holly asked.

Quinn nodded. Holly Harkins sure was a goofy-looking kid, with her mousy brown hair and sad brown eyes. She was tall and gangly with a freckled pug nose, sitting there bland and awkward in a sequined T-shirt of Minnie Mouse reading from the Holy Bible.