“Of course it’s true,” Shaina said, standing up for a moment, telling her daughter to be careful about belly flopping on the hard ground. “I swear to you, that child don’t have a lick of sense. She cut up her foot the other day at the swimming pool, refuses to wear them flip-flops I gave her.”

Tashi looked down at her notebook, the microphone placed on a small wicker chair between them, catching the sound of the passing cars on the highway, the gurgle of the hose, and the laughter of the child. “How’s Charlene doing with all this?”

“Charlene’s never done well with any of it,” Shaina said. “Momma and me ain’t spoke to her in two years. Last time my sister came home, with her second husband, she was carrying on about some big job she was about to get down in Orlando. She swore to us she was about to be one of Cinderella’s stepsisters in that Electric Light Parade they have. Charlene and me had been real big about Disney since they paid for all of us to come down after they found Brandon. There we were, three months after them finding his body and being treated like damn princesses. I was too young to know I couldn’t have fun. Charlene and Momma crying the whole way through the fireworks. Me thinking maybe wishes do come true and Brandon’d be at home when we got back to Jericho. Silly stuff like that.”

“Do you think your mother has changed her mind about talking to me?”

“Momma?” Shaina said, rolling her eyes. “Oh, hell no. She’s still mad for me reaching out to y’all. I don’t think she’s scared or nothing. I just think she can’t handle living all this again. ’Bout killed her. Definitely killed Daddy. Man was never the same after Brandon died. Got meaner than hell. Drank like a fish. Quit praying. Goin’ to church. Believing in any damn thing.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Like I told y’all,” Shaina said. “I’m not looking for a killer or any conspiracy theories. I just think Brandon deserves some answers. I can’t find the state’s autopsy. Only the one done here in town at Bundren’s that I passed on to y’all. And I can’t find no police report. I can’t get a damn straight answer from the state people about Brandon’s rifle. Did they test it? Did they give it back? Where’d it go? Why’d everything go and disappear? How could you possibly know Brandon walked into those woods to chase a big buck and then just decided to go and kill himself? Lost? That boy could never get lost. Not where he was headed, following the old crooked creek where him and Daddy used to go fishing.”

“How’d your father die?”