JESSE RADEMACHER

Jesse Rademacher stood outside Tammy Jo Carter's trailer at 4:15 a.m., holding a boom box over his head like Cusack. He was playing "The Dance" by Garth Brooks, plaid shirt open to the chest in weather colder than a well-digger's ass.

Tammy Jo wasn't home. She was across town stealing a nacho cart from the bingo hall. Jesse had picked a hell of a night to demonstrate how much he could carry.

He serenaded that dark trailer for fifty minutes. Neighbors called at twenty. Deputy Stotts arrived at forty and sat in the cruiser till the song finished. It's a good song. She wasn't about to ruin the only part of this mess that was going right.

"She's not in there, Jesse."

"I know it."

"Then who's the song for?"

He thought on that. "The trailer's heard some things."

Well, shit. You can put a man in a warm car. There ain't a form for the rest of it.

He rode in with the boom box on his lap. In the Polaroid his necklace has a tiny gold nacho pendant. Tammy Jo had it made for him at the county fair in August, before everything went to hell with the cart. Little bitty nacho. He still wore the damn thing right over his heart.