The Ranger - Ace Atkins [27]
“The only people who are brave enough to pay me a visit are the Jehovah’s Witnesses,” she said.
Quinn blotted a napkin at the busted skin on his knuckles.
“You should wrap that up,” she said.
“I will when we get back,” he said. “Do those men sound familiar?”
“We’ll look at some photo packs back in Jericho,” Lillie said.
“Wesley said he knew ’em but won’t tell me.”
“Wesley is often full of shit.”
“You think Stagg sent ’em?”
“What do you think?” Lillie started the cruiser, and they made their way through the old downtown, not all that different from Jericho, and along a small street to a Baptist church with a parking lot that was empty except for a Buick parked in a space reserved for the minister. After Lillie had left Quinn at his mother’s last night, she’d made some calls to people on the Calhoun County school board, finding two girls named Beccalynn younger than ten. She’d spoken to the first girl’s mother, finding the woman at home with three other children. The second call yielded the Bullard family, and a long pause when Lillie asked questions about young Beccalynn’s mother, whose real name, it turned out, was Jill. The man, a pastor, asked if they could meet in person.
“How long has it been since her family saw her?” Quinn asked.
“Three months,” Lillie said.
“How long has their granddaughter been living with them?” Quinn asked.
“More than a year.”
They found Reverend Bullard in his office with an open door, the church offices smelling of musty old Bibles and cleaning supplies, that familiar church scent. He had them sit in a little grouping of four chairs, where Quinn assumed he did counseling. Lots of brochures on alcoholism and domestic violence on a table between them. He offered them coffee and they took it, pretty weak, but they couldn’t complain, waiting for him to come to the point as he made polite conversation, talking about losing his sermon and having to retype the whole piece last night.
He was in his early forties, slight and graying. He had a soft, gentle voice and wore a basic blue suit and red tie. A piece of toilet paper had been stuck on a cut on his chin. “Did you find her?” he asked.
Lillie shook her head. “Your daughter, Jill, was in Tibbehah County last month. We want to talk to her in regards to an ongoing investigation.”
Quinn could tell Bullard assumed he was a deputy, too, and Lillie did nothing to try to set him straight.
“What’s she done now?”
Lillie shook her head. “Nothing. But a man she was seen with was killed. We just want to know more about him.”
“I figured she was dead,” the pastor said. “We’ve been expecting that call for four years. I pray for her every day, but she has to make decisions on her own.”
Lillie nodded. Quinn felt himself start to sweat.
“Beccalynn was Jill’s second child,” he said. “She aborted the first. We didn’t know until later. There has been nothing but drugs and men ever since. We only have one child now and that’s Beccalynn, and we pray that her mother never again enters her life.”
“Do you have any idea where she could have gone?” Lillie asked, her hands held tight in her lap. Quinn shuffled in his seat and put down the coffee, feeling hot in the small room with all its plaques and religious posters, a purple robe hanging on a hook by the door with two umbrellas and a baseball cap.
Bullard shook his head and looked at his hands.
There’d been a time when Caddy had gone down to Panama City with some friends and had disappeared for about eight days. Quinn’s mother about lost her mind, and Quinn had to get a special pass to