Excerpt from The Killing Hills by Chris Offutt, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He joined her with coffee and they sat with their legs dangling off the edge of the bridge. As usual, he waited for her to speak, aware that it wouldn't be long.

"That creek looked further away when we were kids," she said.

"We probably added another two feet of creek bed with the rocks we threw."

"I was just thinking about that."

"I know."

"So you can read my mind?" she said.

"Nothing else to do but sit out here and remember."

"You like the past that much?"

"Not lately," he said.

"What is this, some PTSD thing?"

"Right now it's a bad hangover."

"You think you've got PTSD?" she said.

"Probably. Dad did. Papaw, too." He blew on his coffee and took a sip. "Don't worry, I don't exhibit any sign of PTSD."

"Like what?"

"Like denial for starts."

She glanced at him, a sidelong shot of eyeball, trying to be circumspect but knowing he didn't miss a thing, not one damn thing, even hungover. His preternatural alertness made life hard for everyone, especially himself. She decided not to bring up his pregnant wife.

"You thinking about Peggy?" he said.

"How the hell do you know that?"

"It's logical is all. But she ain't why you're here, is it?"

"No, it's not. Since you're so good at knowing things, you tell me why I'm visiting you."

"That's easy, Sis. You came up here in uniform, driving the county vehicle, then waited around. You want something."

"Damn it."

Mick nodded, amused. He loved his sister, particularly her foul language. She'd been the first girl in the county to play Little League baseball, the first woman deputy, now she was the sheriff.

"I've got a dead body," she said.

"Bury it."

"They want me out."

"Who wants you out of what?"

"All the big shots in town," she said. "The mayor wants the Rocksalt police to take over so he can get credit at election time. The County Judge said he didn't like anybody in our family going back fifty years. He wants the State Police to investigate. It's jurisdictional bullshit. Pisses me off. The real reason is they don't like a woman being sheriff."

"So what. They don't have authority over you."

"No, but they answer to Murvil Knox, a big coal operator. He's slippery as chopped watermelon. Funds both sides in every election so he's owed no matter who wins. I had the awfullest meeting with them first thing this morning. About like three roosters in fancy clothes. I hate how men act around each other."

"To hell with them."

They stared at the creek. A breeze rustled the poplar, its leaves the size of hands turning their palms to the wind.

"This kind of murder," she said. "It never happened here before."

"What do you mean, Sis?"

"There never was a body in Eldridge County that most folks didn't already know who did it. Usually a neighbor, a family, or drugs. Maybe two drunks who argued over a dog. This is different. Everybody liked her. She lived clean, didn't have enemies, and didn't get mixed up with bad people."

"Odds are a man did it."

"I agree. You're a homicide investigator. You know the hills better than I do. People will talk to you."

"You asking for help?"

"Hell, no," she said.

He nodded, grinning.

"What have you got?" he said.

"A forty-three-year-old widow up on Choctaw Ridge. Off the fire road past Clack Mountain. Veronica Johnson, went by Nonnie. She was a Turner before she got married. Her husband died. Nonnie and her boy moved in with her sister-in-law. They both married Johnsons who died young."

"Go talk to them. Find out what the son knows."

"Done did. He's a wreck. Somebody took his mom up in the woods and threw her over the hill like trash."

"When did it happen?"

"Three days ago," she said.

Excerpted from The Killing Hills © 2021 by Chris Offutt, reprinted by permission of Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic. All rights reserved.