Quinn remembered digging into the sand in Iraq, just outside an abandoned hospital. The Rangers were on a search and rescue for some captured soldiers and found a freshly dug pit. They used their entrenching tools and then their hands to dig into it, getting only about three feet down when the smell hit them. Battle-hard kids in his platoon had to walk away every so often to vomit, then come back and keep digging till they had pulled all the bodies out of the ground.

“It’s probably nothing,” Quinn said, reaching for the big shovel and heading for the hole. “Right? Would’ve been hard to keep something like this quiet.”

*   *   *

“Did you bring what I asked for?” E. J. Royce asked, licking his old cracked lips.

Tashi didn’t like it—in fact, she knew it broke some ethical rules—but the old man had insisted they bring a bottle of Fighting Cock whiskey and two packs of Lucky Strike cigarettes; Camels, if they didn’t have his brand. Jessica pulled out the whiskey from the paper sack and handed it to the man, Royce craning his head to see if she had forgotten his smokes. She grabbed the two packs of Luckies and handed them over. He sliced the cellophane with a thumbnail and shuffled out a cigarette, plucking one in his mouth and lighting it with a Bic. He settled into a ratty old La-Z-Boy, kicking back, popping out the footrest, and saying, “Damn, now. Sure is nice to have a couple fine little ladies present.”

“We were surprised to hear from you,” Tashi said, taking a seat on the cleanest place in the room, which happened to be an overturned milk crate. Jessica just stood, holding the microphone while they spoke, a rangy old dog rubbing his butt against her leg. “What changed your mind?”

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess I figured you all were getting sold a bill of goods in Jericho. Hearing a lot of fucking dog shit in town about Hamp Beckett. I don’t know if you girlies know it or not, but I was his top damn deputy. Fucking Deputy Goddamn Dawg from 1973, when he come into office, until 1993, when I done retired the first time. Shit. Where are my fucking manners? Y’all want to open up this bottle with me, sit down, and tell a few lies?”

“We’re not into lies, Mr. Royce,” Jessica said, her blue hair pinned back close to her head, dressed in jeans and borrowing Tashi’s Doc Martens for the day. “We would like to know any facts you can offer.”

“You said you retired in ’93?” Tashi said. The wind popped the Visqueen sheeting outside his bare windows, the floor littered with fast-food sacks and empty packs of cigarettes. Old coffee cans overflowed with spent butts and the shells of sunflower seeds.