The wind bent the treetops and shook the leaves in fits and starts. The chill in the air was a crisp gift that broke the yellow heat of the sun. Randle stood propped up against his cruiser, watching his cousin’s expression with Kenny peeking around his shoulder. The pair of closeout kings studied the photo from the tobacco shop.
“The little deputy stumbled ass backwards into a lead,” Randle said.
“There,” Kenny said, pointing at himself in the picture. “That’s the way the bill of my cap oughta look all the time. I just can’t get it to keep that shape.”
Step handed the picture back to Randle. “What’s she doing with it?”
Randle shrugged. “Nothing. She handed it off to me because she says Otis has got her working on something else.”
“What?”
“Shit if I know.”
“You tell her about me?” Kenny asked.
Randle rolled his eyes. “I told you I wasn’t gonna do that. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It won’t hurt nothing to tell her you got a friend she should look into. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Cousin, your partner is half dead in the head.”
“Tell me about her,” Step said.
“Dani? There ain’t much to tell…”
“Hold on now, Step,” Kenny said. “I put in a claim way before you.”
“Goddamn!” Step roared. “You are creeping up on a fist, Kenny! I swear to fucking God! You are needling away at my nerves!”
Kenny and Randle stood stunned as the echo from Step’s outburst tickled the treetops.
“You got any idea what this Dani deputy lady and some old fella woulda been doing in Rock Hollow yesterday?” Step asked, making an effort to not sound like he was mad at the world.
“Rock Hollow? Is that where you and dead-in-the-head here seen her with binoculars?”
“It is,” Kenny said. “She was wearing a pretty yellow dress.”
“What about Laura Farrow, that name familiar to you?” Step asked.
Randle considered the question and then said, “Not in the least…” He stopped when a thought came to him. “Now, I knew a Bubba Farrow some years back, and he was from Rock Hollow. He had him a wife. Her name could have been Laura, now that I think about it.”
“Bubba Farrow?” Step looked past his cousin as he mulled the name over in his head.
“Shit, Step, you might know of him yourself. He belonged to the gun club we joined when we were kids. Meaty fella. Big ol’ sideburns. Looked like a mix between Elvis and Fred—”
“Flintstone,” Step said as the visual of the man came to him. “I remember…” His face drained of color. “They had a girl.”
“I don’t recall that,” Randle said.
“I do. I remember because…She went missing.”
“Missing?” Kenny asked.
Randle shook his head. “I don’t recall nothing about that.”
“She did. I used to track that shit. Missing girls. Because…” He didn’t finish explaining. They all knew he’d tracked missing girls for a number of years because his own daughter had been declared missing for a brief time before it’d been determined she’d drowned in the river.
“I’m kind of turned around on what all this has to do with Dani tracking you two boys down.” Randle placed his hands on his gun belt and rose up on his toes.
“Not a thing,” Step said. “Your little deputy gal there appears to have fallen ass backwards into something else altogether.” He reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out Dani’s card, and handed it to Kenny.
A wide grin spread across Kenny’s face. “I get to keep it?”
“You get to do more than that. Use it.”
“Use it?” Kenny raised an eyebrow. “How would I go about doing something like that?”
Step slapped Kenny on the back of the head. “Call her up. Make a date.”
“Really?”
“What are you doing, Cousin?”
“This Dani has come up on my radar one too many times. I aim to find out why.”
Kenny hooted. “Ima romance the shit out of this deputy gal. Flowers, wine, chocolates, condoms with that special lotion for the lady knob. She’s gonna fall all kinds of in love with me.”
“Yeah, well you might want to hold off on the condoms,” Step said.
“I prefer to be prepared.”
“Well, since Ima be on this date with you, you should be prepared to keep your pecker in your pants.”
“With me? I can’t romance a gal with you around, Step. You’re better looking than me.”
“I got no interest in romancing your deputy, Kenny.” Step handed Randle a wad of cash. “I may call on you to get your hands dirty, Cousin. You up for that?”
Randle looked wide-eyed at the money in his hands. “Shit, you ply me with more of this green stuff, and I’ll get my hands as dirty as you want.”
“Why the hell you gotta go on my date?” Kenny asked as Step headed for his truck.
Without breaking his stride, the skinny closeout king said, “Because I aim to get some answers. One way or another, Ima find out what the hell is going on.”