“Maggie Colson is done,” Tashi said, driving with Jessica out County Road 150, map in hand because the GPS stopped working south of the Big Black River. “We might as well mark her off the source list. When I asked her about knowing her husband when they were teenagers, she literally slammed the door in my face.”

“Ouch,” Jessica said. “We never accused the sheriff of any wrongdoing, we’re only asking a few sensible questions. I mean, Jesus. This is one fucked-up county. Everyone is one degree of separation. Like a goddamn Greek tragedy.”

“I told her we weren’t blaming him,” Tashi said, the windows down in the rental, her drinking the last bit of a Diet Coke. “But she saw us as taking sides, E. J. Royce over her husband. E. J. Royce is super-gross. He looked at me like he was imagining me naked, smiling with those crooked yellow teeth, licking his lips. But what if he’s right? He was there. We can’t just ignore it.”

“Did you tell her we came to town with no theories or ideas of what happened?” Jessica asked, blue hair scattering across her face. “As far as we knew, Brandon really did shoot himself and all this work would go nowhere. At least we know he wasn’t conflicted about being gay. Maggie was quite clear on that detail.”

“How do you think the sheriff’s gonna like hearing about his wife losing her virginity?”

“He seems like a grown-up,” Jessica said, looking down at the map spread against her thigh. “The story isn’t tacky or sordid. Sounded nice really, driving out to Choctaw Lake, taking her cotton panties off in the back of a pickup under the stars.”

“‘Shameless’ playing on the radio,” Tashi said.

“That’s right,” Jessica said. “It’s going to be a bitch getting the rights to that song. But we have to have it, don’t we? Garth Brooks is super-nineties.”

Tashi nodded but was already taken in by the strange structure up on a grassy hill and through a thicket of trees. The old Tibbehah School stood just as the woman back at the clerk’s office had told them. Tashi slowed the car onto a gravel road sprouted with weeds. They drove as far as they could until the weeds got higher than the hood, small trees poking up through the gravel.

“You have to be fucking kidding me,” Jessica said.

“This can’t be right.”

“This is where they said,” Jessica said, opening her door and reaching into the backseat for her backpack and laptop. “I mean, why the hell not? They said all of the old boxes and file cabinets were taken out here in 2001. With any luck, we might find something.”

“Not exactly climate-controlled.”