Tashi parked the rental and they both climbed out and looked around. At the mouth of the barn, they spotted a woman in her early thirties, blonde hair cut pixie short, dressed in blue jean cutoffs and a white tank top. She had on a pair of cheap sunglasses, which she pushed up on her head as she knelt down to talk to a little brown-skinned girl. The woman was lanky and sort of muscly, with a pointy nose, sunburned face, and freckled shoulders.

A battered blue pickup truck was parked nearby, where a short Latino man with a big black mustache and cowboy hat was piling boxes into its bed.

As she and Jessica walked up close, Tashi hit record just as the woman pushed up to her full height, removed her sunglasses, and smiled. “Hello,” she said. “How can I help y’all?”

“I’m Tashi Coleman and this is my friend Jessica,” she said. “We’re from New York and have a few questions for you.”

“New York?” Caddy said, looking the two of them over. “You won’t believe this. But that’s just what I was thinking.”

*   *   *

“Pap’s is the best catfish you’ll ever eat,” E. J. Royce said as Don the barber snipped black hairs from his ears. “I guaran-damn-tee you. I can’t believe you ain’t never been to Pap’s, Don. I mean, where do you take your wife after church?”

“You know us,” Don said, really having his work cut out for him. Royce had more hair in his ears than on top. He’d already worked the spacer all over the man’s old shrunken head for the last five minutes. “We’re pretty loyal to the El Dorado. I get the chimichanga most days. My wife likes the taco salad.”

“I haven’t eaten there since I seen a rat in the kitchen.”

Quinn looked up from where he sat on a vinyl sofa under a television playing Days of Our Lives. He could tell the old man was lying, having some fun with Don, who was a good and honest man and often didn’t see the dark side in people. And E. J. Royce, former deputy sheriff under his Uncle Hamp, had plenty of evil about him. The man exuded an odor not unlike sulfur.

“You didn’t see no goddamn rat at the El Dorado,” Luther Varner said, cross-legged and black-eyed. The wiry old Marine sat across the room, with a burning cigarette ash that looked to be about a foot long. “You’re as full of shit as Christmas turkey, Royce.”

Royce lifted his eyes from where he’d buried his chin in his caved-in chest. “You calling me a liar, Luther?” he said. “Goddamn thing popped out of the dang nacho chips and run under the buffet. Made me so sick I didn’t eat for nearly a week.”

“What color was it?” Luther asked.