LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Who?”

      “Buck Ferris.”

      Denny’s eyes narrow. “No way.”

      “Yep. He was my scoutmaster. I didn’t even know what depression was, but I was messed up. When Buck saw that my dad wasn’t doing his job, he stepped in and picked up the slack. He taught me how to play guitar, how to use tools. That guy was an artist with a chisel. And what a teacher. Hell, I built a guitar when I was seventeen.”

      “Seriously?”

      “Yeah. I’ve still got it.”

      “That’s so cool. Is that what you’ve been doing for me? What Dr. Buck did for you?”

      The image of Buck being dragged from the river flashes through my mind once more. “Maybe,” I concede. “A little bit.”

      He nods. “Well … I like it.”

      What a day. “Denny, listen. The time may come when your father will be filled with regret and come looking for you. Or he’ll call you to come see him, maybe even live with him. When that day comes, you might be tempted to leave your mom.”

      The boy is staring at me now, hanging on every word.

      “I’m not saying you don’t talk to him. Do what you need to do. But don’t live your life waiting for that day, okay? Don’t dream of life with him because you feel like your mother doesn’t understand you. She’s doing the work your dad should have done, on top of her own. You hear me?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “Yes, sir.” He looks into his lap. “So what’s your next step?”

      “Talk to Buck’s widow. She lives out on the Little Trace.”

      “Oh, yeah. The break-in.”

      “I’ll look forward to seeing your video. It’ll be a huge help.”

      “I’m going to go edit it right now. Watch your email inbox.”

      I give him a firm handshake, and his slim hand squeezes tight. Then he scrambles out of the Flex and unloads his drone.

      “Hey,” I call through the passenger window. “You got a lawnmower?”

      “Uhh, yeah.”

      “Use it. I don’t want to hear your mother had to cut that grass herself or pay somebody else to do it. You hear me?”

      He rolls his eyes. “Maybe you’re taking this dad thing a little far?”

      “You want to be part of this case? Cut the damn grass.”

      “Okay.” He turns and walks into his house.

      Before I can back out of the driveway, Denny’s mother leans out her door and gives me a weary wave. She looks tired, this woman I slept with thirty years ago because I needed comfort. She generously gave me that comfort, as she did many others. Even from this distance, I see the passage of every year on her face. Three husbands, at least one abortion in high school, a series of crappy jobs, and one precocious son. What does she think when she looks out here? I wonder as I back into the road. Who the hell are we? And why do we do the things we do?

      A quarter mile from Denny’s house, I dictate a text to Byron Ellis, the Tenisaw County coroner: You ready to talk about Buck? I’m hoping the friendship I’ve made with Byron while covering the recent spate of shootings in the African American community will prompt him to feed me some inside information. I’ve sensed deep frustration in the coroner, much of it based on his awareness that the white men who manipulate Bienville’s elected officials have no interest in solving the problems that cause the violence, but only in jailing the perpetrators and minimizing publicity.

      My iPhone pings, and Byron’s reply flashes up on the Flex’s nav screen: Not yet. Don’t call. Give me an hour, maybe less. This is heavy.

      My hands tighten on the wheel. Byron must already be feeling pressure to steer the narrative away from murder. While the implications of this go through my mind, I take out my burner phone. Texting Jet is a risk, but after what Paul said to me under the tent, I don’t think I can wait until three. With one hand I type: Paul asked me if u sleeping w Josh Germany. WTF??? Why he suspicious all of a sudden?

      I’ve got a twenty-five-minute drive to my next stop. This trip will eat a lot of my day, but Quinn Ferris treated me like a son for two years; the least I can do is fulfill that role when she needs one. I only hope Jet will get back to me before I reach Quinn’s house. If Paul is truly suspicious, he might know much more than he revealed to me. What if he’s following her? Should Jet even try to get to my house this afternoon? Filled with unexpected anxiety, I drive with the burner phone in my left hand, dividing my attention between the road and its LCD screen. “Come on, come on,” I murmur, a desperate mantra.

      Nothing.

       CHAPTER 13

      PAUL MATHESON SAT at the long rosewood conference table on the second floor of Claude Buckman’s bank, the Bienville Southern, waiting for more Poker Club members to arrive. This was an informal gathering, one called by Paul himself after the groundbreaking ceremony. Though he wasn’t an official member, it was understood that he would one day take his father’s seat, and the other members were curious about what had prompted him to ask for a meeting.

      Claude Buckman sat at the head of the table, Blake Donnelly at his right hand. Senator Sumner sat on Buckman’s left. Next on that side came Wyatt Cash and Arthur Pine. Across the table from Cash sat Paul’s father, and to Max’s right sat Dr. Warren Lacey. Paul figured Beau Holland and Tommy Russo were the only other members likely to attend. The remaining three were older men—older even than Buckman, who was eighty-three—and rarely attended meetings. There’d been some small talk, but Paul had not taken part. Being seated at the far end of the long table made casual conversation stilted.

      The conference room was a temple to antebellum Bienville. The grass-cloth walls were lined with nineteenth-century photographs depicting the booming cotton economy of the pre-war years. Horse-drawn wagons hauling white gold wrapped in burlap from outlying Tenisaw County to the river. Steamboats docked at Lower’ville, so loaded with cotton bales that they looked as though they’d capsize in a mild storm. A big black locomotive shuttling onto the rail ferry that once linked the cotton fields of Louisiana to the market on the Mississippi side of the river. A few photos depicted the war years. Yankee officers stood on verandas owned by ancestors of the men around the table, sipping drinks and watching ladies cavort at badminton on the lawns. For some officers from Philadelphia and New York, the occupation of Bienville had been a welcome reunion with old friends from Harvard, Yale, and Penn. It was connections like those, Paul knew, that had helped Bienville to survive the war mostly intact, rather than winding up a charred ruin, like Jackson and Atlanta.

      “Here they are,” announced Blake Donnelly, waving at Beau Holland and Tommy Russo, who’d just walked through the door behind Paul. “About time, fellas.”

      Russo and Holland took seats beside Dr. Lacey, and before Buckman could bring the meeting to order, Beau Holland said, “What’s this all about? We’ve got the Azure Dragon guys in town, and I’ve got meetings all day.”

      “Are everyone’s cell phones powered down?” Buckman asked in his perpetually hoarse voice. He sounded like a man who had smoked all his life and took pride in telling his doctors to go to hell.

      There was a shuffle as a few members switched off their phones.

      “Paul has a question for us,” Buckman told them.

      All eyes settled on Paul Matheson. He wasn’t sure

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