'That why you quit the cops?' I said. 'So you could work here?'
'Yep.'
'So you could protect the people who come here?'
Sapp shrugged.
'Lot of gay guys never really learned how to fight,' he said.
'Most straight guys too,' I said.
Sapp nodded.
'Well, I know how,' Sapp said. 'And I figured I could maybe serve and protect…' He stopped and thought about how he wanted to say it. 'With a little more focus, down here, than I could working out of the Columbia County Sheriff's substation.'
I sipped some of my beer. He drank some coffee.
'What do you do?' Sapp said. 'I know you're carrying a piece.'
'Alert,' I said. 'Detective. Private. From Boston.'
'I figured you wasn't from down heah in the old Confederacy,' Sapp said.
'Lawzy me, no,' I said.
My instinct told me I could level with Sapp. My instinct has been wrong before, but I decided to trust it this time.
'I'm down here working for Walter Clive,' I said, 'trying to find out who's been shooting his horses.'
'Horses?'
'Yep, apparently at random, several of them. He's worried now about a two-year-old named Hugger Mugger, who's supposed to be on his way to the Triple Crown.'
'And after that a lifetime of stud fees,' Sapp said.
Without being asked, the bartender came over with coffee for Sapp and a beer for me. He put them down, picked up the empties, and went away.
'So why come talking to me?' Sapp said.
'You know the Clive family?'
'Un-huh. Everybody in Columbia County knows the Clives.'
'I'm interested in the son-in-law, Cord Wyatt.'
Sapp didn't say anything. He put sugar in his coffee, added some cream, and stirred slowly.
'I am told he is interested in young boys,' I said.
Sapp stirred his coffee some more. I suspected he was consulting with his instincts.
'So what if he was?' Sapp said.
'I'm told he acts out that interest.'
'And?'
'I think adults have no business scoring children, but that's not the point.'
'What is the point?'
'The family is strange,' I said. 'The crime is strange. Does that mean the crime comes from the family? I don't know. I'm trying to find out.'
Sapp drank some more coffee. He nodded.
'I see how you're thinking,' he said. 'I was a cop once.'
'Me too,' I said.
'Why'd you quit?'
'I got fired. Disobedience.'
'I'll bet you're pretty good at disobedience,' Sapp said.
'One of my best things,' I said.
I drank some more beer. Sapp drank some more coffee. The jukebox played a song I'd never heard before, sung by a woman I didn't know. The lyrics had something to do with a barroom in Texas. Two guys got up and slow- danced to it on the dance floor.
'I know Wyatt,' Sapp said.
'He come in here?'
'Not very much,' Sapp said. 'I do some counseling too, on, ah, gender identity issues.'
'Wyatt came to you?'
'Yeah.'
