After nearly three hours of driving, I ended up in a small burg in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains, a place that seemed to match in every respect the dyspeptic description Lydia had provided me earlier. According to the Internet, Justin had a total population of 723 with an average family income of $22,354, which placed it somewhere down there on the socioeconomic pole. The average home value was $65,000, a mixture of freestanding buildings and trailers, the latter apparently the domicile of choice. They could rename this town shithole and be accused of putting on airs. I had the address of Lydia’s family in my pocket but decided to do a little noodling with some of the locals before I dropped in on her ma and pa, who I did not anticipate would be all that forthcoming or revelatory about their troubled daughter’s childhood. In my experience, all parents regard their parenting skills as above reproach and their children-gone-astray as misunderstood angels, even when that child has matured into a child-molesting serial killer.
