The Code of the Hills Read Free Page A

had cooperated with the police when they interrogated him as a witness.
    She studied Al Taney’s affidavit in preparation for the interview. His statement contained allegations capable of setting her hair on fire. He claimed that his brother regularly had relations with two of his young daughters, maybe all three; and that he also had a sexual relationship with the girlfriend he kept on the premises.
    Al Taney had told police that Kris was also involved in the production and distribution of controlled substances, but the police hadn’t found any evidence of illegal drug activity on the property when they took Kris Taney into custody. The report noted that Al’s face was battered and bruised; when the reporting officer asked about his injuries, he attributed them to his brother. Al had stated that Kris was dangerous and told the police they needed to step in before something terrible happened.
    Elsie checked the language of the criminal complaint that Madeleine had prepared and filed: it said the rapes occurred “at some time within the past five years.” She circled the language with a red pen. That would never stand up; they needed a date of offense. She’d have to pin Al Taney down when she talked to him, and amend the complaint before the preliminary hearing.
    She checked her watch, frowning; it was way past ten. Al Taney was supposed to ring the bell that sounded in the Prosecutor’s Office when he arrived at the courthouse, and there was no way she could have missed him. You could hear that bell in the next county. She reread the file, pulled out a clean legal pad and jotted down questions to ask him.
    Engrossed in her work, she lost track of time. After preparing several pages of interview questions and an outline of the reports, she remembered to check the clock. It was nearly noon. This guy wasn’t showing up.
    Well, she thought, if Mohammed won’t come to the mountain, and gathered up the file with her notepad. She had Al Taney’s address. She’d just pay him a visit.
    But first she had to get her damned car.

Chapter Two
    E LSIE’S GRAY 2001 Ford Escort waited for her right where she’d left it in the parking lot of Baldknobbers bar, several blocks from the courthouse. It sat under a weathered painting on the side of the bar, depicting a grinning hillbilly smoking a corncob pipe. It was a historically inaccurate image; the Baldknobbers, Elsie knew, had been a secret band of vigilantes living in the Ozark hills over a century ago who covered their heads with scary-­looking bags to hide their identities. They purportedly organized to fight lawlessness in the Ozarks, meeting on the bald knob of a hill to don their horned masks, turn their clothes inside out, and warn off pig thieves and other wrongdoers with the threat of a flogging with hickory sticks. Predictably, the men who claimed to combat lawlessness became the problem as the Baldknobbers’ acts of vigilante justice escalated to murder. Elsie sincerely hoped she wasn’t descended from them, but there was no telling.
    She shut herself inside the car in a hurry. The January wind blew cold, and she’d lacked the presence of mind that morning to bring a scarf or gloves. The Ford started right up; though Elsie often fantasized about driving something red and sleek and foreign, her car was as dependable as clockwork.
    Dependable though it was, the Ford was too old to feature GPS, and her phone sometimes proved unreliable for navigation, so she kept a city map torn from an old phone book in the glove box. She took it out and studied it for a minute, searching for the unfamiliar address. It was on the wrong side of the tracks, sure enough, but she didn’t feel too apprehensive about making a visit at this hour of the day. She had her county ID, and anyway, she wasn’t the timid type. She got her bearings and drove out of the parking lot headed north.
    Now that she was on the road, the gnawing