The Ranger - Ace Atkins [39]
A body lay facedown at the edge of the dead pond, a girl, with bare legs and no shoes, the wind catching up under her skirt and showing off her panties. The boys more embarrassed than scared. One of them got close and toed at the girl’s shoulder, her head covered in a bloody pillowcase, showing right clear where the bullet had gone.
Her skin as white and puckered as the belly of a fish.
“Why’d they put that sack on her head?”
“’Cause they didn’t want her to see what was coming. What do you think?”
13
“How many times had she been shot?” Quinn asked.
“Just once,” Lillie said.
“Was she beat up?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Lillie said. “Luke Stevens hasn’t looked at the body yet.”
“How long she been there?”
“Maybe a week,” she said. “Hard to tell. Some animals got to her.”
Quinn was in the back field of the farmhouse, the burn pile still smoldering. He’d thrown in some dry branches and fallen logs to get it all going again before he’d heard Lillie’s Jeep. And now she stood over him as he sat on his haunches poking at the fire, getting some warmth in the early night. The sleet had stopped, but it had grown colder, the wind kicking up the flames and carrying off the smoke and sparks into the dark. Two big pecan trees near the house looked like old sentries.
“Not much we can do now,” he said. “You call the preacher?”
“Wesley drove up there,” she said. “He delivered the news personally.”
“That’s pretty stand-up.”
“That’s his job.” Lillie shrugged. “Wesley said they had to put the preacher’s wife on suicide watch.”
“Had to be expecting this.”
Quinn found a cut log and sat down, Lillie sitting beside him, placing her hands under her arms, leaning forward toward the fire. Quinn poked at its edge with a stick, stamped out some loose sparks that had caught on the dry grass. “You want a drink?” he asked. “Boom actually left a half bottle.”
“I’m on duty,” she said.
“So what?”
“Wouldn’t sit too well with the public.”
“It’s good stuff.”
“You drink on recon?”
Lillie felt warm next to him, her knee and leg bumping into his, reaching her hands out and warming them and then placing them back under her arms. Quinn straightened his knees, the soles of his old boots toward the heat. They didn’t talk for a long while, Lillie walking up to the Cherokee, checking in with the dispatch, and then coming back to sit beside Quinn.
Lillie seemed smaller and younger with her curly hair pinned up and no makeup. She wore jeans and a county sheriff’s jacket zipped to the neck, a holstered gun, mace, and a set of handcuffs at her slender waist.
“I feel sorry for her folks,” she said. “I don’t care what path that girl took. Delivering that kind of news is the very worst part of this job.”
“Any good parts?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“Anything we can do tonight?”
“Both witnesses to that fire are dead.”
“Plenty of folks left who might know something.”
“I got some names,” she said. “I’m going to kick over some logs tonight.”
“You mind if I come along?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll be your muscle.”
“I don’t need muscle.”
“What makes you so damn tough?” Quinn asked, smiling.
“It’s not what you think.”
“What do I think?”
“I hear people talk about me,” she said. “People been talking about me forever. A girl tries to play with the boys, and they think there’s something wrong with her.”
She knocked his knees with her leg and smiled back, looking down at her hands.
“You aren’t the same, Quinn. Not like when I knew you.”
Quinn watched as she put a hand to her lean face as it moved from shadow into the firelight.
“You sure used to be angry,” she said.
“I’m not angry.”
“See what I mean?”
Lena wandered down to Hell Creek at dusk, getting down on her knees and praying for a while, feeling the big weight behind her before she even heard his voice.