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“Whenever,” Bristal says, shrugging. “What else did you get out of Hendrix?”

“I know what Denise was wearing,” I tell her. “A gray-and-white-pinstripe blouse with little blue roses on it. And we know that she hung out with Dover, so that’s something to follow up on. We need to check social media again, and not just Facebook this time.”

“’Kay,” Bristal says, tapping out a note on her phone. “What else?”

“What else? God . . .” I want to fall forward, collapse, and cry, even if just to clear my sinuses. “I need—and I mean I need—to get that tornado episode put together. We haven’t even talked to Linda Chance about the dog pound yet. And I’m thinking about shutting down the comments section altogether. We don’t need a new civil war breaking out like it did on my actual Civil War episode. I’m glad we’re not being graded on the content of comments, because people can be downright nasty, and you were right—I shouldn’t have looked. Besides that, if this whole thing about Denise Halverson really blows up, we could be in a bad place. Nobody wants to be the first person to say something, but Swinton did mention shield law so—”

“I’m never asking you ‘what else’ again. Like, ever,” Bristal says. “You just depressed the shit out of me.”

“Sorry,” I say.

“Refresh me on shield law,” she says. “That’s the thing that means you can’t just say that David Swinton dished to you about the Halverson girl, right?”

“I can, but I don’t have to,” I clarify.

“That’s cool,” Bristal says. “So I don’t have to tell anybody that Dale Childress and Cousin Larry were totally going to rob Randall Boggs but things were too corpse-y for them to try?”

“Something like that, sure,” I say, going with her loose interpretation.

“Which reminds me,” she continues. “I want to go out to Far Cry Road.”

“What for?”

“Boggs’s trailer is gone,” she says. “But I went door to door, and it’s a rough patch of a place. My grandma and grandpa used to live out there, Dover and Mom’s parents. They moved into town when Mom and Dad set up in Ash Park, to help with me and the rest of the pack; Jamison girls are kind of like Pez dispensers when it comes to babies,” she says, looking dubiously down at her own midsection, as if daring it to grow.

“But from what I could see after doing the interviews for the murder episode, nothing much has changed out there. I think having a long sit in Boggs’s old driveway might help really set the mood for the episode.”

“Okay,” I say, surprised she’s that into it.

“Also, there’s totally a bigfoot out there.”

“So that’s why,” I say. “You want to do a bigfoot episode.”

“Hey, man,” she says, both hands going up in the air. “All I’m saying is that some weird shit goes on out in the sticks. Do you even know how Far Cry Road got its name?”

“Yes, because it’s a far cry from town,” I tell her.

“Okay, yes, that,” she admits. “But also, the weird noises.”

“Weird noises?” I repeat.

“Yep,” she says, clearly satisfied with herself. “I used to hear them sometimes, when I’d stay with Grandma and Grandpa before they moved. It’ll keep you up at night, I promise.”

“What’s it sound like?” I ask, interested in spite of myself.

Bristal only shakes her head. “I’m not even going to try to do it,” she says. “You’ve got to hear it for yourself.”

“I’m in,” I tell her. “Think we can hang out with your parents for a little bit first, see if they’ve got anything to share about Denise?”

“We can try,” she says, nodding. “When?”

“What have you got going on tomorrow?”

“Nothing. Neither do you. I checked your calendar,” she says, tapping my laptop.

“Snoop away,” I tell her haughtily. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“I know,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I was expecting some German dungeon porn at least. But I think your dirtiest deeds are probably not folding your underwear.”