“We never said Quinn shot Brandon,” Tashi said. “It was just an anomaly, a question. We know for a fact Sheriff Beckett continued to dismiss charges against your brother. Jessica and I found dozens of arrests for Quinn when he was in high school. A few of them with Boom Kimbrough. Most of them were pretty minor. But a couple were pretty serious. Your brother was arrested for assault and then the charge just went away.”

“Sure,” Caddy said. “But if you took the time to find out how it went down, you’ll understand that preacher had it coming.”

“He assaulted a minister?”

“You had to be there,” Caddy said. “It was just a youth pastor with a smart mouth. Are we done here? I don’t have anything to add. And I don’t give a damn to be on your little hipster radio show. But I do want you to leave my brother the fuck alone. He’s done nothing but try his best to clean up this messed-up county. Did you know he walked away from the U.S. Army to make a difference in his own backyard? He figured Tibbehah wasn’t a hell of a lot different from the shit he was seeing over in Afghanistan. Corrupt chieftains, drug dealers, crimes against children and women. Who really gives a shit if he used to raise hell as a kid? Let’s move on to the next episode.”

“Did you know Quinn got charged with poaching on the Hawkins land in ’97?”

“So what?” Caddy said.

“It’s a pretty big deal,” Tashi said. “Your brother has denied it, but we’ve found the reports. He’s lying to us.”

“Or maybe he just forgot,” Caddy said. “I’m sure you know Quinn hunted a lot of land without permission. Is that why you came to see me? You wanted to tell me about some bullshit that happened twenty years ago?”

“There’s more.”

“Of course there is.” Caddy dried her hands on some paper towels and was about to push past Tashi to the door when Tashi asked her about Ansley Cuthbert. The name came out of nowhere and stopped her cold.

“What about her?” Caddy asked.

“She was a friend of Brandon Taylor,” Tashi said. “Right? Maybe his best friend. She disappeared a few months after Brandon.”

Caddy closed her eyes and shook her head, not knowing if she was about to scream or start laughing. “You think Ansley Cuthbert is dead?”

“We can’t find any family,” Tashi said. “We’ve tried our best to track them down. We think maybe they moved to Houston a few years ago? She had a stepmother who’s still alive but no one at her last known address. It doesn’t look like anyone has seen Ansley since high school. We found a missing persons report. And we know she dropped out before graduation—’’