Luther stood up quickly. Royce craned his head toward the big man with the silver crew cut, shrinking a bit. But he relaxed as Varner turned toward Don and ambled over to take a seat in the barber chair. The two hairdressers both exchanged looks with eyebrows raised. Luther was an old man, but nobody in Tibbehah County wanted to mess with him. Back in Vietnam, he’d been a top-tier sniper with more kills than he ever cared to remember.

Quinn walked into the hot parking lot with Royce toward the man’s Chevy truck with mismatched wheels and tires, the gold paint rusted and dull. In the back of the truck, he had a Walker hound chained up to a cinder block.

“Little hot for the dog.”

“You ain’t one of them PETA folks, are you, Quinn?” he said. “I heard you done got married to some hippie woman.”

Quinn widened his stance, turning down the radio on his hip, so they might talk a little in private. The old man’s eyes were bloodshot and his breath smelled like a cheap-ass pocket whiskey.

“Came to ask you a few things about an old case.”

“Should’ve known,” he said. “That’s the only time you come out and see me. Me and your uncle were thick as thieves.”

“You may want to work on your choice of words.”

“Shit,” he said. “What is it you want? I done told you all I know about that nigger them bikers kilt.”

“I don’t like that word,” Quinn said. “And you won’t use it in my presence.”

“Has the whole goddamn world gone crazy?” Royce said. “Everyone wants to be politically correct these days. Christ Almighty.”

“I want to talk to you about Brandon Taylor,” Quinn said. “The boy you and my uncle found dead up in the Big Woods.”

“The damn kid who ate his gun?” Royce said. “Who the fuck wants to know about that?”

“Me,” Quinn said.

“It was a hundred years back.”

“Twenty.”

Royce opened his mouth and then thought better of it, opening the door to his truck and leaning against it. He spit on the ground and lifted his tired old eyes to Quinn. “That was a hell of a goddamn thing,” he said. “I walked them woods so long, I wore off the soles of my boots. Never thought we’d find that kid.”

“I need to know who y’all were looking at,” Quinn said.

“We weren’t looking at nobody,” Royce said. “Christ. If we was looking at someone, we woulda found out what the hell happened.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Excuse me?”