“We have plenty on Quinn Colson,” Tashi said. “I think with the interviews we have and some of these stories, we can juxtapose what happened to him in 1990 with what later happened to Brandon Taylor. I just love the idea of the Big Woods as a dark, mythological place, almost something out of a fable. Two boys walk in but only one walks out. That kind of thing.”

They’d first come to Betty Jo Mize to find out what they could about Ansley Cuthbert, trying to figure out her connection to Brandon. They’d already learned from Brandon’s sister and mother that he and Ansley had been close that last year, Ansley most likely taking over from Maggie Powers, something about a returned necklace. Ansley, the new girl in town that his mother thought was a little fast for the boy. The only clippings they could find showed Ansley with Brandon at some kind of high school journalism awards at Ole Miss. Hubie Phillips was being honored, too. The kids and Phillips looked so young. That world so long ago. Tashi was still a toddler in Michigan when all this was going on.

“Why are y’all so interested in Quinn Colson?” Betty Jo Mize said, reappearing in the back room, taking a seat at a long wooden desk stacked high with newspaper ledgers going back a hundred years. She let out a long stream of smoke that floated up into a ceiling fan.

“We’re very thorough,” Jessica said, speaking from a far back corner, her blue head craned over a big file of more clips. “We want to know more about the town and how it related to Brandon. The story is more than just Brandon.”

“I heard y’all thought Quinn Colson might have something to do with the Taylor boy killing himself,” Betty Jo said. Her eyes squinting in the smoke, a noncommittal look on her face. “Right?”

“We’re checking out our sources,” Jessica said, sounding a little annoyed.

“How long is this radio show of yours?”

“It’s a podcast,” Tashi said. “Probably eight to ten episodes.”

“And how long is each episode?”

“About an hour,” Tashi said. “But we’re not confined by time. It can run short or long.”

“And both of you work for this media group up there in New York City,” Betty Jo said. “Do y’all get paid for all your work down here? Like a regular newspaper?”

“We do,” Tashi said. “But if we don’t make sense of what happened to Brandon Taylor, we’re going to have to leave soon. It’s a good story on its own, but, at this point, we need some kind of twist, some sense of the unexpected, that no one ever found out.”