Lucas filled him in on Garvin Poole, and added, “I think the cartel wants its money back.”
“If that’s Miz Poole in there, she must’ve told them everything she knew.”
“Maybe. I’ve got more bad news—Gar Poole has a sister who lives not too far from here, near a place called Beech Grove. She and her husband run a salvage yard... I got the details in my briefcase.”
“We better get some people over there.”
“It’s not too far,” Lucas said. “I want to walk through here when you’ve finished processing it, but I’m going to run down there now. That’ll be faster than calling in somebody who doesn’t know what’s going on.”
Dean had drifted up during the conversation and said, “I’m coming with you. I’ve got nothing to do here and I got lights and a siren.”
“Let’s go,” Lucas said. He got his briefcase from the car and pulled out the paper on Poole’s sister, Natalie Parker, and read the relevant bits to Dean.
“Hey, I know them. Hardworking, but not entirely on the rightside of the law,” Dean said. “They’ve been known to chop a car, now and then. How do you want to do this?”
—
LUCAS GOThis iPad from his truck and called up a satellite image of the Parker salvage yard. The yard covered several acres, with three buildings facing the road. The structure farthest down the road, Dean said, was the Parker residence. There were two buildings at the front of the yard—a small office building and a much larger Quonset hut. Dean thought the Quonset hut was a workshop, though he’d never been inside. “I’ve seen welding torches when I’ve gone by.”
Lucas touched the iPad screen: “We’ll park here by this creek, go in on foot.”
“You think the drug guys could be there?”
“Don’t know. The Pooles haven’t been dead all that long—probably killed this morning, or maybe late last night, just on the basis of my nose. Whoever killed them probably isn’t far away. I wouldn’t want to guess wrong about them being at the Parkers’ place.”
Dean’s eyes drifted back to the Poole house: “Got it.”
6
LUCAS AND DEANmade it to the Parker salvage yard in twenty-five minutes, Dean leading with lights but no siren. Off the interstate, they threaded through a maze of rural blacktopped roads, almost like city alleys with trees tight on both sides, with Dean finally coasting to the shoulder. Lucas parked behind him; he could see lights a few hundred yards away, filtering through the roadside brush.
They got out into the night, eased their car doors shut, locked them. Lucas had a miniature LED flashlight in one hand and his non-regulation.45 in the other. They scuffled two hundred yards down the middle of the beat-up blacktop road; there was no traffic at all. The darkness was thick around them; they couldn’t see their own feet but Lucas didn’t want to use the flash. They could smellwater weeds from a roadside creek, and cut grass and oil from the yard; mosquitoes whined past their ears as they walked.
At the salvage yard, they walked down the drive into a little more light, checked the office, which appeared to be empty. There were lights in the Quonset, and Lucas said, “Stay behind me, but don’t shoot me in the back.”
“That’d be embarrassing as hell,” Dean whispered. He was nervous, his heavy revolver pointed straight up. “’Course, youarea Yankee, I probably wouldn’t actually get fired.”
“Shhh...”
They walked around the office and back to the Quonset. An overhead pole light cast an orange sodium vapor glow, giving the leaves from a nearby cottonwood a weird flickering black glow.
As they approached the Quonset, Lucas held a finger up to Dean’s face, stopping him, and he stepped sideways to a small square window and looked in. A woman and two men were working around what look like a new Corvette, under bright lights, pulling apart the front end.
He watched for a moment, as the three were apparently arguing about how to dismantle the front fender. Lucas cricked a finger at Dean, who stepped up and looked in for a second or two, then stepped back, whispering to himself. He caught Lucas’s jacket sleeve and tugged him away.
“Back to the car,” he whispered. Lucas followed him around the office building again and then Dean started jogging back toward their cars. When they got there, Dean pointed at the passenger side, got in the patrol car, and Lucas got in beside him. Dean was on hisradio; he’d memorized the tag on the Corvette and asked that it be checked. His dispatcher came back a moment later and said, “It’s on the list, Manny. Belongs to a dentist, got taken out of his parking lot between three and four o’clock this afternoon. The engine alone is worth five grand. You got it?”
“Yeah, and there’s a lot more going on, too. We could use some help down here. Call the sheriff’s office and tell them to meet us at the Confederate Cemetery.”
Off the radio, Dean said to Lucas, “The drug guys haven’t found them yet—if that’s what’s going on. But they’re chopping that Corvette. That could give us some weight when it comes to getting Natalie to talk about her brother.”
“When you’re right, you’re right,” Lucas said.
—
THEY DID U-TURNSon the road and Dean led the way to the edge of the town, where he pulled to the shoulder. Lucas turned in behind him and they both got out.
Dean said, “I’m starting to like this detecting shit. Tell the truth, I’m surprised that the drug guys haven’t found them. They’re supposed to be, like, you know, all-seeing.”
