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together anymore.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. I hope everything is okay?” she said like a question.
    “She just … ” he said, then stopped. “I don’t know. We’re just not together.”
    “Well, maybe it’s for the best. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
    “Yes, ma’am. You were saying something about tickets?”
    “Oh, yes.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her glasses. “Lose my head if it weren’t screwed on. Let’s see. The tickets. For the fundraiser. How many should I put you down for?”
    “What fundraiser?”
    “For the McMahen girl. Walt and Flo’s daughter. You know, the one what went missing.”
    “F closed his eyes hundraiser?”
    “The concert. The Dorcheat Dirt Band? It’s been on the radio. To raise money for the reward.”
    “To find the girl?”
    “Yes, to find the girl.” June Richardson sighed, put her glasses back in her purse, saw the bottle of beer on the coffee table, and shook her head. “Should I come back by when you’re sober?”
    “I’m fine, Mrs. Richardson. It’s just been a long day.”
    “Well it’s been a long day for Staci McMahen’s family, too. A long three days.”
    “I’m sure it has. I’m sorry.”
    “I knew that Pribble boy was trouble, all that drug dealing with Clay Sawyer and the lot of them. You know, I told Flo that last year, but I’m not one to say ‘I told you so.’ Could be the Alison boy, I suppose. His grandma lives up there, you know.”
    “Pribble?”
    “That whole family is bad news. Isn’t your sister dating one of them?”
    “MeChell? To be honest with you, I don’t know. I haven’t, I mean …”
    “You just tell her to watch herself. It’s like the Bible says, ‘The devil comes like a thief in the night.’ We have to do what we can or we’ll have another Bobo Shinn and no one wants that.”
    “Bobo Shinn? That Magnolia woman, got kidnapped back in the ’80s?”
    “Summer of ’78. Never found her. And we’ll not have that happen this time. Those poor Shinns. We have to offer a big reward. And investigators. And advertisements on the TV. And that costs money. And that’s why we’re back to the fundraiser. Now, how many tickets can I put you down for?”
    Clint reached into his front pocket, felt the fifty cents he had left over from the Coke machine. Reached onto the coffee table for his wallet and opened it up. “How much are the tickets?”
    “They’re $20 each or two for $35. Tickets will not be available at the door,” she recited, “so you’d best buy now.”
    Clint looked at the edge of the ATM receipt he’d gotten when he tried to pull $50 out of his account and found out he had all of $38 in the bank. “I’m afraid I don’t have any cash on me.”
    “We’ll take a check. Just make it out to the VFW Women’s Auxiliary.”
    Clint bit his lip.
    She smiled. “You can just put ‘VFW Aux’ on it. No one can spell it.”
    “I’m not sure where my checkbook is.”
    “Clint Womack, if you’re just brushing me off so you can buy your tickets from your sister, you should just tell me now.”
    “My sister?”
    “Billy has the whole insurance office selling for him. He really wants that steak dinner Wiley’s offered up for whoever sells the most tickets.”
    “MeChell. Yeah. That’s it. I was supposed to buy them from her. I’m sorry.”
    June Richardson put the tickets and sales sheet back in her purse. “Well, you could have just told me that. I would ha in the middle?”, that. ve understood.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m just—”
    “Drunk?”
    “Tired.”
    She moved to the door. “By the way, Albert and I were listening to your cousin on the baseball game. That Justin is something special. I bet your whole family is proud of what he’s done with his life.”
    • • •
    “Webster Insurance, where we protect what you love. MeChell speaking.”
    “Hey, sis.”
    “Hey, Clint. Long time no hear.”
    “Yeah, sorry about that.”
    “You okay?”
    “Yeah.