Johnny Stagg watched the morning news out of Tupelo in his back office at the Rebel while Midnight Man swept the floors and bundled up the trash. Stagg remembered a time when old Buddy and Kay Bain would knock out classic country hits on the Mornin’ show. Now it wasn’t nothing but mayhem and murder, maybe a little bit about the weather and prep sports. Stagg turned his chair around to the bank of little TV monitors where he could watch the comings and goings at the truck stop. With a flick of the controller, he could see every face at every pump, every customer eating grits and eggs at the diner, and even the faces and quick hands at the two main registers. Used to be a time when he had his eye on the honey pot out back of the Rebel, a place called the Booby Trap. But the new Johnny Stagg, the reformed Johnny Stagg who’d had a come-to-Jesus moment at the federal lockup in Montgomery, was way past that. His life was now about feeding, fueling, and family fun.

“That man Bishop come looking for you,” Midnight Man said. The big black man’s voice somewhere between a whisper and a croak.

“What’d he say?”

“Said Chester Pratt was in trouble,” Midnight Man said. “His punch was that lady got kilt over in Parsham.”

“You kidding me?”

“No, sir,” Midnight Man said, lifting out the plastic bag from the trash can and cinching it closed. “That’s what he said.”

“Well,” Stagg said. “Don’t that beat all.”

Stagg turned from the security cameras back to the main TV and clicked around a little until he found the local news again. He had to sit through some fat Yankee boy telling him that more cold and rain were expected for the week and then some news about a teacher in Aberdeen whipping out his peter in gym class, a tractor trailer jackknifing over in New Albany, and the State basketball team barely beating those Gamecocks from South Carolina. After some local hijinks from Nolan Brothers auto, this one about an old Southern gentleman talking to a man in a gorilla suit, the station cut back over to a live shot of a woman reporter outside the Bundren Funeral Home in Jericho. The woman said the body hadn’t been IDed but the Parsham sheriff said foul play was suspected.

“Where’d you hear this woman was friendly with Chester?”

“Everybody,” Midnight Man said. “Heard she was a Byrd.”

“Which one?”

“Don’t know.”

“You hear Chester killed her?”

“No, sir,” Midnight Man said. “Folks just say that was his woman.”

“Damn,” Stagg said. “I guess he’s going to be looking for sympathies and forgiveness for a while?”