“There was no report,” Jessica said.

“What’d you say, doll?”

“I said there was no report,” she said. “Everything has been lost.”

Royce started to laugh, and then the laugh developed into a coughing fit. He stubbed out the cigarette and poured himself a third shot, closing one eye and studying Tashi’s nearly full glass.

“Lost, huh. That sounds like Quinn Colson’s doin’.”

“What does?” Tashi said.

“How about you come on over here a little closer and I’ll tell you all about it.”

“I’m quite comfortable here.”

“You’d be a lot more comfortable in my lap,” he said. “You or the blue heeler over there. Don’t you girls worry. I don’t bite. I’m no more harmful than your ole grandpa. If you don’t like whiskey, I got some butterscotch hard candy in my pant pocket. Come on, now, don’t y’all be shy.”

“Why’d you mention Quinn Colson?”

“How long you girls been in town?”

“A few weeks.”

“And I guess y’all been fooled by that young man,” he said. “’Cause he’s tall and handsome and pretends to stand on the right side of the fence. A goddamn war hero, is probably what he told you. Trying to get your panties hotter than a damn skillet.”

Tashi shook her head. “He never said a word about his military record.”

Royce snorted. “That kid was a damn wild card from the word go. Not a bit different from his no-’count daddy, who lied to anyone who’d hear him out about how he did all Burt Reynolds’s stunts and was fucking thick as thieves with Clint Eastwood. One time he showed me this hat he got, said it belonged to James Arness and the man gave it to him before he died. I’m a trained lawman. I never believed that shit for a second.”

“What’s any of this have to do with Brandon Taylor?”

The old man drew on a cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger and smiled, letting out a big cloud of smoke. “Well now, then,” he said. “We’re getting down to the meat in the bone. I’d say it has to do with about all of it. Hamp Beckett was as fine a man who ever walked this earth. But he had one goddamn blind spot. And that was his sister’s boy. He’d sell out me, anyone else he knew, trying to look out for Quinn. That kid should be in goddamn jail, you ask me.”

“For what?”