“Damn, Quinn,” Diane said. “How long have we been friends? You know I’d tell you if I knew anything at all. I never heard Chester Pratt being rough a day in his life. Have you? What kept me awake all night is how I might’ve messed this up. I should’ve kept checking up on her. Because that’s it, isn’t it? You think she got hooked in with some rough boys? Drugs and all that.”

“Her daughter says Gina got into it with two men outside the bar,” he said. “This was three nights ago. Have you heard anything about that?”

“Nope,” Diane said. “But you and I both know Gina, God love her, would jump into any car with anybody if she thought they were about to take her to party. Damn, Quinn. It’s hard to say all this stuff about her. Dragging Gina down doesn’t help anybody.”

“Knowing what you know sure helps me.”

Diane smoked the cigarette a little more and swallowed, looking to be gathering her composure before she said whatever she was about to say. The wind blew across plastic sheeting around the greenhouse and the rain started to fall a little harder.

“That TJ Byrd sure is a piece of work,” Diane said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You call me ma’am again and I’ll kick you off my property,” she said. “I was still in high school when your stuntman daddy was jumping over cars to impress all the women in town.”

“About TJ.”

“Gina tried and tried with that one,” she said. “The little boy, John Wesley, ain’t easy himself. But TJ has been giving Gina a lot of trouble for so many years. You know who her daddy was?”

“Jerry Jeff Valentine,” Quinn said. “He’s well remembered at the sheriff’s office.”

“And everything Jerry Jeff Valentine was into?”

“TJ believes my uncle found him passed out in that creek,” Quinn said. “And that he let him die.”

“Maybe,” Diane said. “Can’t say I blame Sheriff Beckett. That man had a mean streak on him a mile wide. And I swear, that girl is exactly like him. You can listen to whoever you like about Gina and drugs and men and trouble. But no one gave that woman more of a heartache than her own daughter. I know for a fact that girl once gave her a black eye.”

“What might’ve happened to Gina is a whole lot worse.”

“You mean that she was chopped into little pieces and tossed in a trash barrel?” Diane asked. “Yeah. Half the town knows that already. You need to make a little more progress, Sheriff. This whole county is watching you on this one.”

*   *   *