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“He’s dead, Mister Boyd. Can’t answer. I need to ask you a few questions.”

“Tory is dead? How? Was he in an accident with his truck?” Boyd was all red in the face and getting worked up.

“We’re not sure how Tory died yet, sir, but Sheriff Frost is investigating it as a suspicious death.”

Boyd frowned. He was a big man, well-suited for the construction trade. Short sandy hair and a matching moustache. “How do you mean suspicious—like somebody killed him?”

“Yep. Like that,” said Ted. “Did Tory talk much about his wife at work?”

“His wife? Not to me, but I spend most of my time in the office. You could talk to Ray Dangerfield. He and Tory worked together on most of my jobs.”

“Is Ray around today?” asked Ted.

“No. He’s working on a house—renovating a bathroom—on the other side of town.”

“Would you have him call the sheriff’s office? We need to talk to him if he knew Tory well.”

“Sure. Let me have your number. My condolences to Tory’s wife.”

“I’ll pass that along,” said Ted.

Sheriff’s Office. Coyote Creek.

Harlan and I brought Josie Masters and Grant Andrews back to the station for questioning and booked them both on suspicion of murder. I planned to leave them in their cells until the drugs wore off and they sobered up. Then they might be able to come up with an alibi or a reasonable explanation of some kind, but Idoubted it. I probably had the killers. They were certainly stupid enough to fry eggs with a two-day-old corpse in the next room.

After we had a coffee, Harlan started the bookings with Josie first. He took her out of the run and left Grant Andrews hollering and cursing in his cell.

I watched him work through the booking process and he was competent. Knew exactly what he was doing.

“Put her back and book Andrews. Great job.”

Harlan grinned. “I’ve got this down.”

“Yeah, you do.” I gave him a fist bump.

Ted returned from Shelby and had nothing much but the name of a guy who worked construction with Tory Masters. “I told Mister Boyd to have the guy—Ray Dangerfield—call the office.”

“If he doesn’t call, I’ll pay him a visit and talk to him. A phone conversation might be good enough.”

Harlan put Andrews back into his cell and went for more coffee in the break room. I called Ted into my office and closed the door.

“Sit, Ted.”

“Shit. Am I getting fired already?”

“Nope. I want your advice on our little covert op at the corner.”

Ted sat down and blew out a breath. “I tried not to know too much about that after we had our little talk at the roadhouse a while ago.”

“For the best.”

“Yeah, best for me,” said Ted.

“Look, I need a tag in that garage. Got any suggestions?”

“Umm…after our first discussion, I thought about it and wasn’t sure how I felt. Clay was pretty good to me…giving me a spot to work at the back and letting me get my tow calls through his garage.”

“Yeah, I can see how you’d have a certain amount of loyalty towards him. I’m not asking you to put the tag in. More like… I’d take my truck in for service and do it then. You wouldn’t be there.”