Free Hunting Season by Nevada Barr Page A

donut crumbs and hide his upper lip: both attested to Scots-Irish ancestry. He'd accused Anna of giving scheduling preference to Barth because he was black. It had been proved that during the time of Thigpen's complaints, Anna had been following the schedule left in place by the previous district ranger and the lawsuit was dropped. Since then Thigpen had waged a war of petty insubordination. Today was no exception. Anna noted with the grim satisfaction one feels when an expected nastiness comes to pass that showing behind the open neck of Thigpen's uniform shirt was a bright purple undershirt. Thigpen had been on the Trace for close to thirty years. He knew he was out of uniform, knew the chief ranger would notice, knew he'd mention it to Anna, a sign her district was lax in discipline.
    Even before the advent of the purple underclothes, Anna suspected she'd lost some of John Brown Brown's good will. He had been instrumental in getting her the job on the Trace. Since he'd brought her on board there'd been two murders in one year. Two murders on the 450-odd-mile-long Trace was rare. Two in the sleepy Natchez-to-Jackson district was unheard of. Not since the bad old days when it was a wilderness footpath beset by robber bands had there been this much violence. From the sidelong glances the chief cast in her direction, Anna had the feeling he somehow held her responsible.
    Randy caught Anna staring at the offending purple. He hadn't quite the audacity—or the courage—to smile, but she did not miss the slight tightening of his one visible lip and the glint in his pale blue eyes.
    She took comfort in the fact that, unlike his compatriot, he'd not lost weight. At six feet tall he weighed in at close to three hundred pounds, most of it carried in a great gut. Surely he'd have a massive heart attack one day soon.
    To give the devil his due, Randy was on his best behavior this afternoon. For once he'd abandoned his sneering, lounging demeanor. He sat upright in the wooden office chair, his heavy elbows planted on his desk amid the clutter of unrecorded speeding tickets and unfinished reports.
    He followed the conversation with apparent interest, and when the chores were being divvied up, he actually volunteered. Clintus took on the task of tracking down the "Herm" who'd left a message on Doyce's answering machine. Failing to get that assignment, Randy asked to be the one to find and question the friends—if there were any—of the victim.
    "Since the wife and I moved to Natchez in June we've tied in with the community," he said sanctimoniously. "I think the folks there trust me. The men'll talk to me." Even in this new and surprising persona of the good and helpful ranger, he couldn't resist shading the emphasis and sliding a look to Anna to suggest the locals wouldn't be so forthcoming with her.
    "Works for me," she said, wondering what Thigpen was up to. Maybe it was just the thrill of being in on a major murder case. The previous spring circumstances and Thigpen's own goldbricking had allowed her to keep him on the fringes of the investigation of the murdered girl. Evidently he was determined not to be left out of the excitement this time around.
    For hard leads they were pretty much down to Herm and the elusive poker party.
    The autopsy might turn up something, as might the lab reports on the victim's underpants and the bedspread where the corpse had been deposited. Anna didn't envy the technician, given the coverlet. The patchwork quilt that had unwittingly become Doyce Barnette's penultimate resting place hadn't actually belonged to Grandma Polly herself, but the thing was probably sixty years old. Too frail to wash, it had been gathering whatever effluvia drifted by from half a century of visitors and park rangers. Searching for trace evidence was bound to become a microscopic archaeological dig.
    Brown's sourness, Thigpen's cooperation; society as she knew it was out of balance. That or her attitude was still jaundiced from