The old man started to laugh again and the laughing only led to another coughing fit. “Dang,” he said. “Mary said y’all were some hot-shit reporters from up North. Don’t tell me the media is as goddamn stupid as they are corrupt. Y’all want to know what happened to the Taylor boy, you might start looking at our current sheriff. Those two liked to hunt the same ground, following the same buck. And maybe the same girl. Didn’t he just marry a woman named Maggie Powers? Wadn’t she sweet on that Taylor boy? Damn, girls.”

Tashi hadn’t written a word, watching the old man talk and smoke, holding court on his tattered easy chair. She couldn’t see anything in him but hate and determination, the cigarette burning down to a nub in his fingers.

“Oh, hell,” he said. “I said too much. Where’s my fucking manners?”

“Go on.”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “I ain’t saying another goddamn word. Unless ole blue dog over there wants to suck some of the hard candy I got in my pocket.”

Jessica looked at the old man and extended her middle finger as she walked from the room. The old door hanging off its hinges when it flew open. Two dogs wandered into the house.

“We’re done,” Tashi said.

“Sure do appreciate the whiskey,” he said, licking his lips again. “Y’all come on back anytime. You hear?”

*   *   *

Quinn and Reggie dug around the hole for about twenty minutes until they first spotted the edge of the blue tarp. Reggie flicked at the edge of the tattered material with the blade and said, “Oh, hell.”

Quinn kept digging more around the hole until he found a portion of the tarp that was frayed and worn. He got to his haunches and started working with his hand, reaching into what felt like a pocket of nothing until he found the first thick bone.

“What is it?” Reggie said, looking like he wanted to get the hell out of that hole. A short ladder leaned against the freshly dug earth. “You found something, Sheriff? Didn’t you? Oh, goddamn.”

“Reggie, call up Ophelia Bundren at the funeral home,” he said. “Tell her to get down here right this second. Pick her up, if you have to. Let’s go ahead and tape this hole off. Tell Chucky we’re good.”

“We got a body?”

“We got something,” Quinn said, standing up and wiping his hands across the thighs of his jeans. “I don’t want us messing around here anymore until we get some pictures and work on the removal.”

Reggie moved over to the ladder, putting one hand on a rung and turning back. “You and Ophelia Bundren straight now?” he asked. “I heard the woman threw a steak knife at you a couple years ago when y’all were dating.”