“Are you wanting to see my file on Quinn’s father, Jason?” Betty Jo said. “That might take some time. Somewhere I have a box with nothing but pictures of him doing tricks here in Tibbehah or when he’d done stunts on one of those Burt Reynolds movies. He never forgot me, always telling those publicists to send me a press pack from Hooper or Smokey and the Bandit, too. Lord, now his father, Quinn’s grandfather, is a whole ’nother thing. You ladies know the picture Thunder Road with Robert Mitchum?”

“We’re good with just Quinn and Sheriff Beckett.”

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Betty Jo said, placing two fingers to her cheek, “but y’all are wasting your time looking into Sheriff Colson. Some people believe by spreading around their own stink they can taint everyone as bad as themselves. That was E. J. Royce. And that’s the kind of people he worked with. Now, I’m just an old newspaper lady in some country town. You young ladies haven’t asked me for one thing besides looking at some musty clips. But if I were you, I’d be looking back to E. J. Royce, asking why he was telling such god-awful lies and how he ended up tying his own noose.”

“Sheriff said he caught someone robbing him.”

“Is that what he said?” Betty Jo said. “Sure is interesting. Did either of you gals notice the description of that robber looked just like one of those fellas who broke into the jail and killed that prisoner?”

“We asked him about it,” Jessica said, popping her head up. “But Sheriff Colson wouldn’t answer our questions.”

“Y’all do know being a reporter is a hell of a lot more than what people tell you,” she said, letting out a steady stream of smoke from her mouth. “It’s making good sense of the puzzle pieces you’re given. Nobody’s gonna figure it out for you.”

Tashi nodded, stood up, swung her purse on her shoulder, and told Miss Mize and Jessica she would be right back. The morning light was white hot over the Square, a group of old men sitting in the gazebo drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups, a city worker pruning the big oaks buckling the walkway, and a man selling frozen catfish and sweet potatoes from the back of a beaten old truck.

She almost missed the two men sitting in a newer truck, maroon with a tinted windshield, the windows down as they eyed Tashi making her way across the Square.

She was used to men staring at her. She was a younger woman and in shape, and men weren’t exactly subtle. But these guys looked like they wanted her to know she was being watched. They had short beards, sunglasses, and dark baseball caps with some type of gold symbol on them.