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Joey let him go and gestured to the guy with the gun. “Shane, this here is Detective Simon Xavier. An old acquaintance of mine. And his partner, Detective Hammond.”
Xavier holstered the gun and nodded, and the young blond guy behind him nodded, too, looking friendly. “So, Mr. Shane, you felt you had the right to come down here and bespoil my crime scene because ...” He raised his eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
“I thought he might need assistance,” Shane lied.
“And the untoward angle of his neck did not tell you that he was beyond any earthly assistance you might render?”
“I’m not a doctor, sir,” Shane said.
“Neither are you a miracle worker, son,” Xavier said. “Should you find any other bodies in my jurisdiction, you will refrain from attempting to raise them from the dead.”
“Yes, sir,” Shane said.
Joey looked down at the body, no recognition in his eyes.
Good, Shane thought.
“Know him?” Joey said to Xavier.
Xavier reached into the dead man’s pockets, pulled out a wallet, and flipped it open. He stood up slowly and straightened. “Thought so. Jimmy Thibault.”
Joey grew very still.
Not good, Shane thought.
“Aka Two Wheels Thibault,” Xavier said genially.
Hammond peered at the corpse. “Yep, that’s a Thibault. They breed like rats out there in the swamp. Two Wheels’s got more cousins than a dog’s got fleas.”
Xavier smiled at Joey, showing some teeth. “Oh, Joey knows the Thibaults, don’t you, Joey?”
Joey’s face closed. “Nah.”
Bad lie, Shane thought. “Why would Joey know him? This kid doesn’t look like anybody who’d come into the diner.”
Joey nodded. “Yeah, this kid never came into the diner. I never saw him before.”
Xavier looked at Shane, thoughtful now. “The diner. You wouldn’t be that boy who used to work in the diner, now, would you?”
Shane nodded.
Xavier cocked his head, interested. “Now, where you been all these years, son?”
“Here and there,” Shane said.
“Who you work for now?”
“Joey. He called me to help his friend Agnes.”
“And you came riding into town all dressed in black?”
“Seemed the right thing to do. She’s pretty vulnerable out here alone.”
Xavier’s eyes were flat on Shane. “And you’re gonna keep her from being all alone, are you?”
“Yes.” Until I find out what’s going on here and get Joey the hell out of it.
Xavier stared at him for a moment more without comment and then bent back to the body, going through the pockets in silence.
