“I heard many good things about you,” he said. “Someone I know said you were a tough woman but loyal. And could be trusted. They thought very highly of you.”

She nodded, thinking that this man had a nice, rugged face, like it had been carved from stone. He was older, maybe in his fifties, but looked like he kept in shape, strong and rough in the right way. Fannie had a hell of a hard time finding men who weren’t soft. She walked up on him, close enough that he could smell her gardenia perfume, letting her red coat open up a little and letting him see what was working under her blue wrap dress. When this was all over, perhaps . . .

“The man I know was named Mingo,” the dark man said. “Do you know him?”

Fannie felt a coldness spread across her back and down her legs. She felt her mouth twitch a little as she pulled on the cigarillo again, nodding.

“He disappeared two years ago,” he said. “He worked for you?”

“Yes,” she said. “He was a good worker. A good kid.”

The man’s eyes were dark and serious as he stared at her for a good long while. “Sometime after all this, I’d like to talk to you about him,” he said.

“Of course,” she said. “You knew Mingo on the Rez?”

The man didn’t move at all, another car flying past, lighting up his face. Fannie’s left hand in her coat, finger on the trigger of the gun, as she licked her lips and smiled.

“Yes,” he said. “Mingo was my son.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

It was getting past six, Quinn supposed to be rolling off duty and meeting Maggie in town to go trick-or-treating with Brandon and Jason, laughing and talking, enjoying a night off with family. They planned to meet over at Caddy’s house, Maggie’s grandmother’s old place, and then make a round down Stovall Street. They’d zigzag their way up to the Square, where some churches had organized a “trunk or treat” for the kids from out in the country and those who wished to keep the devil out of Halloween. Every year some pastor had convinced the kids not to go as ghosts and goblins but instead seek out their favorite biblical character. Jericho Square would be filled with Moseses and Jacobs, Ruths and Naomis, the prophet Elijah, and John the Baptist, before he lost his head.

“My momma wouldn’t let us have Halloween at all,” Reggie said, sitting in Quinn’s office right before the day and night shifts traded off. “She said it was Satan’s hour, time to tempt kids with all his wickedness.”

“Y’all didn’t do anything?”