“After these rumors have been swirling around Jericho about me,” Quinn said, “I figured it’s best for me to show my face. Confront anyone who wants to whisper behind my back.”

“Those girls from New York still convinced you’re the spawn of Satan?”

“They believe I have something to hide.”

“Lord help us,” Lillie said. “If they’re letting it all ride on the word of E. J. Royce, then what the fuck has the world come to? If those women stick around long enough, they’ll figure it all out. Right now, everything must seem like a conspiracy. You hunting on private property—you and Hamp. You marrying Maggie. That damn, poor Taylor kid found with a fucking hole in his head. Now those old bones buried by the creek. Sometimes bad shit happens. You can’t force a fucking answer to every goddamn thing.”

“That’s pretty much what I told them,” Quinn said. “And they haven’t come around since.”

“They still bugging Maggie?”

Quinn nodded, moving through the hundreds of folks who’d gathered for the free barbecue, coleslaw, baked beans, white bread, and iced tea. It had also been moonshine and whiskey when Stagg ran things. Quinn couldn’t help notice the gathering wasn’t what it had been when he’d first come back to Tibbehah and been elected sheriff. Stagg was a Grade A turd, the crookedest man ever to hold an office in north Mississippi, but the son of a bitch sure knew how to throw a party. Now Skinner ran the show like a church picnic, as if it’d been all his idea.

“Just be glad you’re not with Caddy,” Quinn said.

“Where’s Caddy?”

“She agreed to attend a fund-raiser with Bentley Vandeven down in Jackson.”

“Jackson?” Lillie said. “Christ Almighty. Your sister sure must want that new building out at The River pretty damn bad to be fucking that frat boy.”

“Come on, Lil,” Quinn said.

“Come on?” Lillie said. “The kid’s got the personality of a damn dildo.”

Across the grayed heads and baying laughter, Quinn spotted men in black ball caps, wearing black Watchmen T-shirts, and strolling about the Good Ole Boy as if on security detail. Quinn saw the short, stubby guy from the Neshoba County Fair with his arms crossed by the chicken spit. He tried to give Quinn a hard stare, but it was hard to look tough once you’d been grabbed by your nose and brought to your knees. Lillie saw the men before Quinn even mentioned it.

“Who the fuck are these assholes?” she asked.

“They travel with Vardaman.”

“Like fan boys?”

“Pretty much.”

Lillie lifted her chin over by the fire, Skinner shaking hands and posing for cell phone pictures with Vardaman. “If they make trouble, I bet a few of ’em have jumped bail,” she said. “I know that look. Goddamn chicken fuckers.”