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Department.
    “I don’t know about that,” Elmer Lee said. “I can’t remember who was sheriff back then, but I suppose it’s possible.”
    “Is there any way you could check your files to find out what happened?” Jack tensed slightly as he waited for an answer. Wanda Nell didn’t move or say anything. She didn’t want to aggravate Elmer Lee in any way.
    “You got me curious, too,” Elmer Lee said. “Y’all sit here for a few minutes, and I’m gonna go have a look at our old files. Most of them are here, so I should be able to find it pretty quick. Can you narrow it down any more than thirty-one years ago?”
    Jack frowned for a moment. “I think the person who told me said it was late in the spring, not long before school was out. He seemed pretty certain it was thirty-one years, though.”
    “That means April or May, then,” Elmer Lee said. “I’ll start there first.” He got up from his desk and walked to the door of the office. “Y’all wait, and I’ll be back.”
    When he had gone, Wanda Nell and Jack looked at each other. “He’s taking this better than I thought he would,” Wanda Nell said.
    “He’s a fair man,” Jack responded, “and he doesn’t like the thought of an unsolved murder any more than we do. I was pretty sure he’d come through.”
    “Let’s just hope he finds something,” Wanda Nell said.
    They fell silent, waiting. Wanda Nell glanced at the clock on the wall nearby, and she watched as three minutes, then five, then ten ticked by. She was getting restless, and she knew Jack was, too.
    “What’s taking him so long?” Wanda Nell asked.
    “There may be a lot of files to go through, especially since we don’t know exactly when.”
    “We know close enough,” Wanda Nell said. “Unless Elmer Lee can’t subtract too well.”
    “I heard that, Wanda Nell.” Elmer Lee went to his desk and sat down. In his hands was a file folder, but to Wanda Nell it looked very, very thin.
    “Is that it?” Jack asked, sounding disappointed.
    Elmer Lee glanced down at the folder in his hands. “What’s left of it, yeah.”

Four
    “What do you mean, what’s left of it?” Wanda Nell asked, her voice sharper than she meant it to be.
    “What do you think I mean, Wanda Nell?” Elmer Lee’s face darkened.
    “Sorry,” Wanda Nell muttered.
    Elmer Lee glared at her for a moment before he spoke again. He tapped the folder lying on his desk. “There’s only two sheets of paper in this file, and that ain’t right.”
    “So somebody took the rest of the file,” Jack said, the disappointment obvious in his voice.
    “Yeah.” Elmer Lee almost bit off the word. It was obvious to Wanda Nell that he was very angry, and she was glad that, for once, she was not the cause of his anger.
    “So what’s left in the file?” Jack asked, his tone mild.
    Elmer Lee opened it and scanned the two pages before saying anything. “Not much. Just some brief details about the victim. Young woman, about eighteen to twenty, blunt trauma to the back of the head. She was completely naked, no kind of I.D. on the body, and no clothes anywhere nearby. No mention whether they ever identified her.”
    “Does it say anything about who found the body?” Wanda Nell asked.
    Elmer Lee shook his head. “Not even that. Hell, it doesn’t even say who the investigating officer was. There’s a note on the second page that just says the case was basically closed because of lack of evidence.”
    “It does look like somebody hushed it up,” Wanda Nell said.
    “Yeah,” Elmer Lee agreed, “and I wonder who the hell it was. This reeks to high heaven, and I don’t like it. I don’t like it one damn bit.”
    “Then is it okay with you if we dig into it, try to find some leads?” Jack leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Elmer Lee.
    The sheriff stared off into space for a moment. Then he faced Jack. “I’m kinda of two minds about it. I hate like hell that something like this got covered up, because it ain’t