Mrs. Taylor poured him a cup of coffee and handed him the mug, advertising COBB LUMBER MILL, and he accepted the hot mug with both hands. She nodded her head toward the living room and a grouping of two blue chairs and a tweedy-looking sofa. Quinn had his notebook and pen out, making sure he nailed down all the specific dates and information for a new case file on Brandon’s death. He wanted to limit the embarrassment to the sheriff’s department as much as he could. That’s all he needed, a couple women down from New York City wanting to think no one in the county knew how to type up a report.

“You want to talk about Brandon?” she asked. “Don’t you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “With it being twenty years now, some folks have renewed interest. You know I was only two years older than your son. And there isn’t much left from back then at the sheriff’s office.”

Mrs. Taylor’s eyes wandered away, nodding at nothing in particular. “Not a lot of folks I’ll discuss Brandon with,” she said. “But I remember how you helped out in those early days. You worked with your uncle in the woods, walking those same trails from when you got lost as a boy. I believed Brandon would come out of those Big Woods same as you. You were the town hero after surviving all that time. Gave me some hope.”

Quinn nodded, feeling his face flush.

“How’s Maggie?” she asked.

“Just fine.”

“I love that little girl,” Rhonda said. “She never lost touch with me or Shaina. I don’t think a month’s gone by she hadn’t called or sent me a letter. Birthdays, Christmas. So many of them. She never forgot our Brandon.”

“Her son,” Quinn said. “Our son is named for him.”

“Oh, I know,” she said. “I met him when he was just a baby. She brought him up here to see us with that man she’d married. I know I shouldn’t say this, but I didn’t care for that man at all. He had a wild look in his eye, always wanting Maggie to shut up and let him talk, walking around and looking at his watch, something on his mind.”

“Say what you want,” Quinn said. “The man was a liar and a thief. He was mean as hell to Maggie and Brandon and tried to kill me before blowing up my favorite truck.”

“Sometimes the Lord works like that,” Rhonda said. “Any man who’d blow up another man’s truck oughta be in prison.”