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She and Naomi had come to the tracks in a long roundabout way from the jail, where they’d been able to talk with Stefan Tate for roughly thirty minutes. When she asked him about his suspicions regarding the trains, he said he’d overheard a couple of stoners at the high school talking about drugs and the track. He decided to follow one of them.
“Lester Michaels, a senior, one of those kids who lived to get high. I saw him jump a freight train. He didn’t come back to school for two days. When I asked him about the absence, he said he’d been sick, but I talked with his mother. She’d been ready to file a missing-person report on him.”
“You ever see any other people riding on the trains?” Bree had asked.
“No,” Stefan admitted. “I sat down there a few nights, watching, but trains come through Starksville twenty-four/seven.”
“I’ve been lucky, then,” Bree said. “I’ve seen guys on boxcars twice since I’ve been here, and both times they gave somebody on the ground a three-finger salute. You know anything about that?”
Stefan thought a moment, then nodded. “I’ve seen a few kids at the school use something like that, I think.”
“Names?” Naomi asked.
“I don’t know,” Stefan said. “I think they were Patty’s students. Where is she? She hasn’t come to see me or answered my calls.”
Bree said nothing.
Naomi said, “I’m sure she’s just under a lot of stress.”
“Or bailing on me,” Stefan said in a fretful tone.
Bree and Naomi had tried to assure him otherwise. But after they’d left the jail, they’d gone by Patty Converse’s place. Her car was gone, but from what they’d been able to see through the window, her stuff was still inside. Naomi had tried Patty’s phone number several times, but got voice mail.
So they’d come back to the railroad tracks around four that afternoon.
A train rumbled at them out of the south. Bree and Naomi walked well back from the tracks in order to see the tops of the freight cars. But they were all bare of riders, even the caboose. Another train came a few minutes later out of the north. It too was riderless.
“I’m thinking this is a little bit like the needle in the haystack,” Naomi said. “I mean, we can’t watch all day.”
Bree thought about that, looked around, and then back toward the thicket of trees between the tracks and the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. The trees overlooking the tracks triggered a memory of Ali watching some show on the Outdoor Channel the other day.
“Is there a store here that carries hunting and fishing gear?” Bree asked.
“There’s an army-surplus place that does, I think.”
They were soon back in the car, driving west of town to P and J’s Surplus. They went in and were greeted with several Confederate flags on the wall.
Bree ignored them and found the only salesperson, a heavyset white girl in her midteens named Sandrine. She looked at Bree suspiciously and at Naomi with mild interest.
“I seen you in the papers and on TV,” Sandrine said to her. “You’re defending that kid killer, right?”
“I’m Mr. Tate’s attorney,” Naomi said.
“You’re following the case?” Bree asked.
She shrugged. “Papa says I shouldn’t pay attention to any of it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just niggers killing niggers, he says. No offense. I’m just quoting.”
Sandrine said this offhandedly. Bree swallowed her reaction by wondering how many people in and around Starksville thought about the case like that.
Naomi managed to stay composed as well, said, “We’re here looking for something to buy.”
“Yeah?” Sandrine said, perking up. “What’re you looking for?”
Bree told her, and the girl came waddling and smiling right out from behind her little counter. “We got it all at P and J’s! Got six of them in just the other day. How many you want?”
