At 11 a.m., Ginger glided to a stop on the street in front of Willie’s house and parked Imogen’s pickup truck behind a patrol car. There were dozens of cars there already. Everyone had congregated behind the house. As she strolled up, she could hear country music blaring from a boombox, and a happy babble of voices. There were easily a hundred people there. As she walked up to a table laden with plates of corn on the cob and biscuits and bowls of fruit, she was surprised to see Cletus and his younger brothers and sisters there, sitting cross-legged on the grass hunched over their paper plates. Their faces were smeared with barbecue sauce and there were piles of gnawed bones on the plates. He looked up at her and flashed her a big grin. The sheriff invited me, he said. That was real nice of him. I guess he’s not all bad.