Quinn shuffled through several dozen black-and-white eight-by-ten photos of old flabby men in a variety of compromising positions with young women, most looking like very young teenagers. The photos were clear, taken by Brandon Taylor with a long lens, but Quinn didn’t recognize a single face.

“Any IDs in Stagg’s hidey-hole?”

“Nope,” Holliday said. “We’re working on it. Couple of those old fat fellas look like they’re about to have a coronary. You see that one shot? That good ole boy resting his whiskey glass on top of the girl’s head? Now, that is damn arrogance in motion.”

“Just check the register of your local Jaycees.”

“That’s hard, Quinn.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“I believe this state deserves better.”

“Ever read Faulkner?” Quinn said. “It’s been like this for a long while. Mississippi was founded as a place to plunder. What kind of territory attracts folks like that?”

Holliday nodded, ashing his cigar off the white railing. Quinn closed the file and turned away.

“Take it,” Holliday said. “That’s your copy.”

“Not much I can do with it.”

“Yeah?” Holliday said, walking toward the other side of the building facing the Van Buren.

It was twilight, and the marquee to the Lyric Theatre cut on, flashing white lights, the sign reading HAPPY HALLOWEEN BASH. A couple of kids appeared in the bow window of an old storefront, now a taco shop, standing as still as mannequins to fool passersby.

“Remember what Faulkner said about Mississippi,” he said. “‘I don’t hate it. I don’t hate it.’”

“I don’t hate it, either,” Quinn said. “Or else I wouldn’t have come back.”

“Faulkner’s brother Jack was an Army man and a longtime federal agent,” Holliday said. “He was brought in from the El Paso office to Chicago by Melvin Purvis to help catch John Dillinger. He was there when they shot him down at the Biograph. Several agents shot Dillinger, but none of them wanted to know who killed him.”

“I always heard nobody wanted to take the credit.”

“I think they were just glad the son of a bitch was finally dead.”

*   *   *

Maggie turned up the volume on the stereo while she cooked, flipping over the chicken in the black skillet, listening to Ray Stevens singing “Everything Is Beautiful” and thinking about her dad. She’d been dreaming a lot about him lately, about driving with him in The Blue Mule on his runs over to New Orleans or up to Memphis, that one time he brought her up to Jericho when Brandon died. Maggie Powers, not yet sixteen, standing there with folks she barely knew or hadn’t met, staring at that slate-colored casket, closed and covered with flowers. Jesus loves the little children of the world . . . Ray Stevens somehow making it all better.