The Lost Ones (19 page)

“That’s the way I see it.”

Dinah ate for a while and looked around the room at all the framed pictures of Jesus and Elvis. A heavyset couple waddled toward the door, both with toothpicks hanging out the corner of their mouths. They wore matching Mississippi State sweatshirts.

A waitress wandered over and refilled their cups from a fresh pitcher of sweet tea. An elderly woman worked an old-fashioned cash register up front, where they sold candy to support Boy Scouts and packs of gum.

Dinah smiled at him. Quinn smiled back.

“You have a problem with this?” she asked.

“What’s that?” Quinn asked.

“Sharing a catfish plate?” Dinah said. “Might start rumors.”

“What’s wrong with me having dinner with a federal agent? I’d call that cooperation among law enforcement. I’d do the same if you were a fat old man.”

“Really.”

“Well, that may be stretching it.”

“You know, I did some checking up on you,” Dinah said. She pushed her plate away and took a sip of tea. Her eyes were a light gray that went nice with the red hair and freckles. There was something kid-like about Dinah Brand that he liked, the hard shell from their first meeting dropped.

“Why’s that?’

“You’ve been a busy man,” she said. “How many tours?”

“Enough.”

“And you were wounded? What do you have? Four Purple Hearts?”

“They give those things away when you twist your damn ankle.”

“That’s not true.”

Quinn shrugged and kept eating the catfish. He watched the cook come back from the kitchen and dump out dozens more fresh from the fryer. He doused another fish with Tabasco.

“And then you come home last year and run into some really fine people.”

“There were some issues needed to be addressed,” Quinn said, stripping away meat from bone. “That’s all done.”

“About your uncle? He was into this?”

“I’m not one to judge,” Quinn said. “There was a bad situation in this town, and I wanted to help. That’s pretty much it. I don’t think my uncle knew how deep of a shit pile he’d stepped in.”

“But some people got killed?”

“Did you know they have a dessert bar?” Quinn asked. “Do you like banana pudding?”

“A lot of those meth peddlers are in business now with the cartels,” Dinah said. “I worked a case over in Shelby County, Alabama, last year. Five Mexicans were executed on a farm there. I think you all are about to have the same problem.”

Quinn watched her and stopped eating for a moment.

“That’s how it starts,” Dinah said. “These organizations will have cells in small towns and counties. Your county is ideal, because it’s got access to the highway, and it’s far enough from a major city to escape attention.”

“I pay attention.”

“You’re not the typical backwoods lawman.”

“Appreciate that.”

“And much younger than expected,” she said. “How old are you anyway?”

Quinn told her.

“You’ve been kicking in doors since you were eighteen?”

“I hit the ground running when I joined up,” Quinn said. “This is my retirement.”

“So why’d you come back? You could have left being a Ranger and gotten an Army desk job and drawn a hell of a retirement before you were forty. You wouldn’t have to work for the rest of your life.”

“I grew up here,” Quinn said. “My uncle left me a nice bit of land. My mom, sister, and her boy live in town. He’s three.”

“Is your dad living?”

“I guess,” Quinn said. “Like I said, I haven’t heard from him in years.”

“What was it like growing up the son of a stuntman? Guess it was hard for him to tell you to be careful.”

“This isn’t fair,” Quinn said. He motioned for the waitress and ordered some coffee.

“What’s that?” Dinah Brand asked, smiling, having some fun with him. He felt her foot kicking at his boot.

“You got a file on me, and I don’t know much about you,” he said.

Dinah leaned in over the table. Quinn met her halfway and grinned.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“You got to head back to Oxford tonight?”

“I’m an adult.”

“You want to come back to my place for coffee?” Quinn said. “Let me interrogate you?”

“You good at it?”

“Talking?”

“Interrogating.”

Dinah eyes moved over him, and her mouth pursed into a wicked smile. The waitress came back and started to fill his glass. Quinn lifted his hand and said he’d changed his mind.

“I got a great dog, too,” Quinn said. “His name is Hondo. I want y’all to meet.”

“Like John Wayne.”

“He walks just like him.”

“Coffee?” she said.

“Brew it myself,” Quinn said.

He felt her foot rest against his as he reached for the check.

24

IT GOT PRETTY HEATED ON THE COUCH BEFORE DINAH BRAND USED THE
flat of her hand to push Quinn away and pull down her sweater. They’d been on the couch a good long while, and the nice, slow kisses had turned into something a lot more rushed, with some heavy breathing and wandering hands. He’d put a Tammy Wynette record on his uncle’s old stereo, and he figured that “I Don’t Wanna Play House” had been the one that had pushed her over the edge, lying long and prone on the couch, taking Quinn’s face in her hands and letting out a long sigh as she reclined. Quinn had tried to hold her hand and pull her back to his bedroom, but that’s when Dinah Brand, Special Agent, returned, and she shook her head with that palm on his heart as she said, “Easy. Easy. This is way too fast, Sheriff.”

Tammy Wynette sounded so sweet, singing from the salon with the lights off and a nice fire going in the old stone fireplace. Hondo didn’t even lift his head as the drama had been going on. The fire kicked up sparks, popping and hissing.

“I got a spare room,” Quinn said. “You could stay over. It’s too late to drive back.”

“I’m a big girl.”

“I get that,” Quinn said.

“How about a drink?” Quinn asked.

“I said I need to drive home.”

“Coffee?”

“OK. Coffee would be nice.”

Quinn used an old speckled percolator on his gas stove, spooning in some of the grounds his buddy at Fort Lewis had sent. Good dark-roast stuff from Seattle. Quinn took good whiskey, bacon, and coffee as required items.

“I meant to tell you we connected a few folks in Memphis to a cell in Houston.”

“Yeah?”

“They work the carnival circuit,” Dinah said. “How about that? We think that’s probably how they’re running drugs and guns.”

“No kidding.”

“Same group set up a Ferris wheel for your harvest festival.”

“I was there,” Quinn said. “I brought my nephew.”

“That’s probably where they did some business with Ramón.”

Quinn nodded.

“We know they’d put the word out to some gun dealers,” Dinah said. “We got them making some straw purchases in Grenada and some more in Southaven. But I don’t think they got all they were after. I showed you a picture of a couple of them. You remember a woman named Laura? Zuniga?”

Quinn shook his head. He leaned against the edge of his kitchen counter.

When the kissing and hands had started, they’d both laid their guns on the kitchen table, and Dinah Brand reached for hers before taking a seat. Quinn moved his gun to the kitchen counter with a smile, the water starting to boil. Hondo padded into the kitchen and looked up at him before Quinn let him out the back door and he rushed out barking at some deer. The screen door closed behind him with a thwack.

“You don’t keep much but the basics here,” Dinah said.

“I got what I need.”

“What do you need?”

“Coffee, whiskey, and books.”

“And guns?”

“I got that safe after I got this farm,” Quinn said. “My uncle had a lot of collectibles. He had them lying all around the house. I found some under his bed and in boxes. This place was a real mess when he died.”

“And the town, too.”

“Some people turned him,” Quinn said. “They preyed on his weakness. He wasn’t right in the head.”

“Johnny Stagg?”

“You’ve read up.”

“He seems as slippery as they get.”

“I’m working on it,” Quinn said. “Milk and sugar?”

Dinah nodded, and he poured her coffee into a thick ceramic mug. He placed a sugar bowl and glass bottle of Brown Family Dairy milk, along with a spoon, before her. Hondo was scratching at the back door, and Quinn let him back inside. It had grown chilly outside, and a gust of wind kicked into the kitchen. There was no moon tonight, and the farmland was still and quiet.

“I really do have a spare room.”

“You could get me in a lot of trouble,” Dinah said. “You do know that?”

“You can sleep in my room,” Quinn said. “Bed is better. I’ll take the couch. I got a nice fire going. It’s no trouble.”

“What time is it?”

“One.”

Dinah nodded. She poured a little milk into the coffee and stirred in some sugar. Hondo rested at her feet and looked up with his mismatched eyes at Quinn. Her face had been chafed from all the kissing. He hadn’t meant to, but her sensitive skin was marked up pretty good.

“How long have you been in Mississippi?” Quinn asked.

“This is my first year.”

“And before that, you were in Alabama?”

“I’ve pretty much been in the Southeast from the start.”

“You always like this line of work?”

“Sure,” she said. “My father was in the FBI. I admired what he did. Hey, is that your family?”

Quinn looked up at the wall at a shot of the Beckett family. Quinn’s grandfather was one of five barefoot kids standing with his great-grandfather and great-grandmother in front of the farmhouse. The photo was sort of a
Southern Gothic
without the pitchfork, more a family milling about for a traveling WPA photographer in the 1930s.

“This is the same house?”

“Our family built this place in 1895.”

“And you must love that history.”

“We’ve been in this county since right before the Civil War.”

Dinah nodded and drank her coffee. She dropped one hand and rubbed the scruff of Hondo’s neck. He liked it so much, his back leg twitched and scratched involuntarily.

“I do the same thing if you scratch me,” Quinn said.

Dinah smiled. She took another sip of coffee.

“You have an extra toothbrush?”

“Yep.”

“And some pajamas?”

“I can round something up.”

Quinn walked ahead and showed her the simple room where he kept the iron bed, a footlocker, dresser, and nightstand. The only thing hanging on the walls was a flag flown at Camp Spann in Afghanistan. Colonel George Reynolds had presented him with it on what would be his last tour with the 3rd Batt. All of his other mementos—beret, weapons, medals—were locked up tight in the trunk. He hadn’t opened it since he’d been home.

Quinn cut on a small lamp on the nightstand and pulled back the cover.

Dinah was there as he turned, and she grabbed his hand, and kissed him on the cheek. She used the flat of her hand, this time to push him down on the edge of the bed, and she walked to the door and closed it with a light click.

“Don’t talk about this.”

“No, ma’am.”

“To anyone.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Especially to the deputy who doesn’t like me.”

“Lillie.”

“Especially Lillie.”

“You bet.”

Dinah laid her weapon on the nightstand, stripped out of her clothes, and clicked off the table lamp.

25

ANNA LEE STOPPED BY THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE THE NEXT MORNING TO TELL
Quinn that his sister had gone batshit crazy.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“She’s at Jason’s daycare right now and won’t leave.”

“Least she’s spending time with her son.”

“She called the woman who runs the place a Nazi Bitch.”

“Mrs. Shelton?”

“What it all boils down to is that Caddy thinks Jason is being treated differently.”

Quinn nodded, put down the morning reports, and stood up. Anna Lee looked as if she wanted to say more, Quinn knowing what she wanted to say, thinking:
What the hell is the big deal?

“Treated differently because he’s a Methodist?”

“Son of a bitch, Quinn,” Anna Lee said. “You know what I’m saying. ’Cause he’s half black.”

“Holy shit,” Quinn said. “Which half?”

Anna Lee shook her head and frowned. “You can make fun of this all you want, but your sister is making quite a scene down there. She’s blocked the other parents from leaving the parking lot till she gets an apology.”

“Just what did Mrs. Shelton do again?”

“Quinn?” Anna Lee said.

“Yep.”

“It’s Caddy.”

“Ten-four.”

Quinn had brought Hondo to work with him that morning, and the cattle dog rode shotgun high up in the old truck, the doors creaking and shocks squeaking. The passenger window had stopped working, and a tractor had thrown up a rock last week, spiderwebbing part of his windshield.

Quinn put in a call to Boom, checking on that new truck. Boom didn’t answer. He tried his mother and got voice mail. He really didn’t want to handle this but figured putting a deputy on it would be cowardly.

True to what Anna Lee had said, Caddy’s Honda had blocked the entrance to the ABC Learning Center. Caddy was standing toe-to-toe with Mrs. Shelton, finger waving in her face, a lot of yelling. A dozen cars were backed up behind her. Mrs. Shelton nodded with Caddy, looking nervous and apologetic.

Quinn thought about hitting the flashers and trying out the siren.

Instead, he told Hondo to stay and approached the women, Quinn just catching the end of Caddy’s speech about Mrs. Shelton never wanting Jason in her school and the way she was always looking at him like he had some kind of disease.

“Morning,” Quinn said. “You think we might move this inside and let these people head on?’